"Greetings, Antinous and Lysias of Claudiopolis," Hadrian called back. "It's a pleasure you should be with us today to enjoy our Hunt. My friend Arrian speaks well of your families and your service to the Empire. I myself commend you on your victories in the sports events of your town," he called as he took a bite from his apple. "Your accomplishments were well noted, I assure you. We hope you settle-in happily here at the quarters provided for your comfort.
Prepare yourselves too to join us at the sixth hour at the start line of the Hunt when the sun reaches full height. Our Hunt promises to be challenging, so use your most effective accessories. Ask my friend the Master of the Hunt, Tribune Julianus, for any details you need. He is your commander today. And don't forget, we will enjoy a feast and symposium at sunset to celebrate the victors of today's chase."
Caesar clapped his hands once and called loudly, "Geta!"
I saw a tall, lean, pale-skinned man of foreign extraction with a close-cut black beard and slicked long black tresses plaited in a barbarian's style step forward to respond smartly.
"Here, Caesar!"
To my eye the fellow was in his late twenties. He had faded tattoo circles across each cheek. He was dressed in an eclectic mix of short Greek tunic, barbarian leggings, Roman open-weave boots, and a looped mantle which was slung across his frame pinioned with an antique fibula. Nothing suggested he was of the slave class because of his attire's evident quality and jeweled rings of visible costliness. Nevertheless he responded to Caesar's call with the immediate response of a servant.
"Geta, direct these visitors to their stables and sleeping quarters," Hadrian commanded. "Ensure they receive every service needed for grooming, feeding, and watering their mounts. Also assign staff to provide them refreshments."
"It shall be done, Caesar," Geta replied as he waved us to follow him down a side track of the tent complex.
This was the first Antinous and I ever saw of Geta. We soon came to know him well. And it was our first impression of the emperor himself.
"Your victim today, men," Tribune Salvius Julianus informed us with an injection of respect as adults, or at least mature meirakia youths, "will be a young boar."
The various groups of youths and their staff murmured appreciatively if apprehensively. Julianus was Hadrian's Master of the Hunt who was also an advisor in the Law of Rome.
"The beast was trapped two weeks ago in the scrubland of the Troas near the site of legendary Troy," the Master of the Hunt continued. "Perhaps it holds the soul of the warriors Ajax or Hector? It is a junior from a herd of adults whose feistier members were caged for shipment to the arenas at Rome where wild game is in high demand. So your target is smaller than a full size beast.
You should be told the creature has had its tusks filed to a dull edge to protect you against accident or misadventure. Caesar doesn't want to send one of you men home to your family hearths with body damage.
Being a boar, you are to prosecute the Hunt with whatever mount and weapons you see fit for the challenge," Julianus continued. "No hounds are permitted; you will be obliged to rely on your own detection and hunting skills. The victim will be loosed into a netted funnel to ensure its eventual capture. But Caesar hopes members of the Hunt will corral and destroy the creature long prior to its entrapment. It's up to you, men."
Antinous murmured quietly to me. "It's lucky, Lys, we brought our own ponies for this event, mounts who already know our weight, purchase, and signals, plus who trust us. I expected the Hunt victim to be a deer or something more elegant than a boar. Boars are eccentric targets. It'll need deft footwork and daring. This won't be easy without mastiffs, either."
I had to nod in agreement.
"If we work together as a team, Lys, as in the Pontines, maybe we'll manage it," Antinous whispered back.
Instead of the usual workaday back-cloths for bareback riding, we had brought our family's new-fangled four-horned saddles. The saddles' four corner pummels and seat are secured by a belly strap under the horse. This permits a better seat leverage than a back blanket, so a rider can more effectively brace himself to hurl a range of missiles. But only barely.
For weapons we assessed between lightweight short-javelins, throwing axes, bows-and-arrows, or even slingshot stones, none of which are to be disparaged. Both of us were well experienced in attacking with lightweight counter-weighted short-stave javelins projecting five-inch iron pierces for horseback hunting. Neither of our ponies, Blaze nor Tiny, nor we ourselves possessed the body-weight and expertly-braced riding seat necessary for wielding the long, heavy pilum spear used by cavalrymen. The pilum demands a large charger with a rider of a beefier body build than a meirakion carries.
Despite our physical strengths which, since childhood competitive wrestling, sprint racing in armor, javelin casting, stone discus tossing, and the other athletics of the palaestra had built, we still had a little distance to go before our body weight could anchor the heftier battle weapons.
Nevertheless each of we six youngsters were already eligible for entry into military life, as our own fathers had done at the same age. We knew how a commission in the military was the speediest path to public advancement if we survived battle action, scrapes and wounds, foul camp water, disease, or other military perils.
Fortunately, Antinous and I had each brought five plumb-balanced dart javelins in their riding quivers, as well as our family's antique stiff-leather hunting cuirasses, battered helmets, and chipped shin greaves to wear with our hip-length rider's tunics.
The six youngsters appeared a rag-tag mob compared to the richly outfitted officers of the Guard in their service uniforms, or the barbarian costumes in dragon-scale chain-mail of the Scythian archers whose fidgety ponies paced nervously about. We learned how Scythian archers are the precision marksmen of Rome's forces, with the most expert hired by Hadrian's Praetorian Prefect, Turbo, for the special protection of Caesar.
This was the day we first learned of the rule how an Imperial Hunt is one of the few occasions when people around Caesar are entitled to be armed. Except for his Guard, weapons are generally forbidden in Caesar's presence for security reasons.
Meanwhile Hadrian was dressed simply in hunting leathers, helmet, and side-weapons, mounted on a four-pummel saddle strapped atop a high, golden chestnut Nisaean stallion. This exotic stallion was unlike any animal we had ever previously seen. Its gilded pelt shone in the thin midday sun, and it hoofed the ground with spirited life. He was named Persepolis after his origin in the wilds of Parthia. To our eyes, Persepolis was the perfection of horse flesh.
When the sun reached mid-sky Julianus raised his whip of office to signal to his beaters to sound the display. A cornu intoned darkly, drums rattled, and without further ado a cage was flied-open ahead of us.
A squat, hairy, nimble, black ball of furious darting energy was released onto the open plain. The Hunt was on! A dozen horses and their riders of varying sizes, uniforms, and ages leapt forward as one after the beast. The wild boar, all bustle and speed, hurtled forward into the scrub without a moment's hesitation.
Despite the slight incline of the ground and the low rocky scrub, the beast slipped speedily out of sight behind rocks and foliage. The hunting pack had no idea if it was galloping non-stop towards the net funnel far away, or whether it was stalled somewhere beneath our very hooves out of sight. It was obviously canny enough to know when to move out of range, and when to stay still to hide.
Without hounds to smell it out or bark at sight, the creature was the master of the chase, denying we pursuers easy scouting.