The Death of Antinous || bxb ✔︎

QUIS CUSTODIET IPSOS CUSTODES

Sometimes fate is determined by the outcome of a battle and other times by the bite of a single mosquito.

Antinous walked to the bottom of the Palatine and rode through the city at dusk, past the empty forum and the House of the Vestals where the sacred virgins slept. Most merchants and shopkeepers were locking their shutters, except for the scythemakers, who sharpened their wares until the day's last light. The sound of iron against steel screamed in his ears and sent a shiver down his spine. He clutched the reins tighter and the horse clamped down on the bit. He wondered which was stronger, the metal that sharpens the blade or the blade itself.

Night fell and he travelled on the Via Tiburtina to Hadrian's Villa, galloping beneath the constellations. The Great Bear hung low in the northern sky with the Little Bear nipping at its tail. According to Roman myth, jealous Juno turned the beautiful Callisto into a bear believing Jupiter had fathered her son, Arcas. While in bear form Callisto encountered Arcas. He would have killed her had Jupiter not intervened and turned Arcas into a bear too and placed both mother and son in the heavens.

He tore his eyes away from the sky and fixed them on the road ahead. The stars had a way of conspiring against him. 

The groom met him by the stable and haughtily examined the horse's hooves and coat.

"Did you give him water?"

"In the Subura."

"Might as well let him drink from a latrine," he grumbled.

Antinous admired his love for these animals but the poor old fellow loved them to a fault. No one was good enough to ride the horses he so meticulously cared for and if he had his way, no one ever would.  

When he looked up at the Emperor's domus he spotted a candle flickering in the window. Hadrian was waiting for him.

The Praetorian Guard stepped aside like an opening jaw and let him pass. They found it amusing when their Caesar fought with his lover. "Uh oh. Trouble in paradise," they snickered. The large one called him a catamite behind his back, usually accompanied by a lewd thrusting motion with his hips and kissing sounds. This time he used his sword as a phallus and waggled it at Antinous as he passed. Reprimanding these men only made their taunts worse so he ignored them.

He crept up the marble staircase, his leather sandals making only the slightest squeak on each step.

Hadrian was bent over his desk almost exactly where Antinous had left him. It was as if time stood still when he was not with his beloved.

Only, he was no longer reviewing his maps.

Antinous unfastened the belt on his tunic and placed his bracelets in their ivory box, waiting for the impending lecture about riding alone at night.

"Aren't you going to ask me where I've been all this time?"

"No." He wasn't writing, he was drawing.

Whenever he was quiet like this, Antinous knew no good could come of it. He anticipated the worst.

Hadrian turned around in his chair and beckoned him.

"You have every right to be angry with me. I treated you like a child." 

He was not going to talk Antinous out of his anger with his golden tongue and quick wit, was he? Or perhaps this surrender precipitated another maneuver that Antinous could not foresee.

The Emperor handed him the piece of parchment he was drawing on. In addition to being a poet and a philosopher who loved to speak in riddles, Hadrian was also an artist. It was the plans for a sculpture of a man in the Dionysian pose wearing a flowing chiton and holding a long staff. On his head was a wreath of leaves with ivy berries, and a diadem.