Hadrian scanned the boys as they dusted themselves down.
'Well, my two young friends from the provinces, you performed magnificently on the stage of this theatre today, didn't you?' Hadrian said with a grin. 'I suppose I must be gratified you kept your wits about you? I might have met a fate similar to the old fellow's fruit peels or cheese rinds?'
'It was our duty, sir,' Antinous responded in polite modestly to this whimsy, 'if a bit rough on our new clothes.'
Commodus was visibly put on edge by this exchange. Hadrian continued.
'I think such observant bodyguards deserve to be kept closer about us,' the emperor jollied, 'especially through the performance we are about to witness. I am told the choristers are to sing and dance the ancient drama of Alcestis today? I invite both of you eagle-eyed lads to stay by my side through the play to watch against further assailants, and to help me translate its Attic intricacies into my Latin understanding. As students of history you are probably more familiar with Euripides than I, so you can explain his finer points to me.'
Commodus emitted an audible hiss through pursed lips.
He turned smartly on his heel, and strode off brusquely from the stage. He realized Caesar's invitation to Antinous and Lysias had displaced he and I from our privileged places behind the President's throne. He may have interpreted the gesture as implying he should stretch on the dusty tiles at the feet of the first row in his unblemished formal toga. In fairness to his patrician status, this is an unlikely expectation of a Roman senator.
No one, including Caesar, tried to stop him departing. Even I resisted leaping to my usual conciliatory gestures, though two of the younger Romans in nearby rows accompanied Commodus in a theatrically dramatic flounce. The senator dispensed with the usual departure etiquette or permission from Caesar.
A Praetorian tribune nearby tensed ready for orders from Hadrian to act on this slur. But no order came. Instead, their departure merely raised a faint smile from Hadrian.
Suddenly drums were beating, cymbals clashing, and pipes and horns shrilled as a priest of Dionysus entered centre stage to proclaim the start of the performance. Seventeen thousand pairs of feet noisily shuffled in their seats while Antinous and Lysias accompanied Caesar to his President's chair and stood behind his shoulder like dutiful sons or honored emissaries. Their close proximity meant Caesar could mutter queries back over his shoulder to one or the other so they could respond in whispers. I too stood close by to overhear as much as was possible.
'Remind me again, Antinous, what are we hearing here today?' Hadrian asked.
'We are to hear ancient Alcestis sung, I'm told. It is a tragedy which won its Dionysia trophy for the playwright Euripides in the days during the Great War between Athens and Sparta long ago,' I heard the lad reply. He seemed to know his Greek dramas.
'And what is Alcestis all about, remind me of that too,' the emperor enquired.
'As I recall, sir,' Antinous began, 'Euripides was from a family of priests of Apollo similar to my own kinsmen. So the drama is based on the legend of Apollo when he was the lover of the mortal, King Admetus of Thessaly. Apollo rewards the king for his affection by granting him the great boon of freedom from death if he can find someone willing to die in his fated place. After searching widely, the king finds no one is willing to be a substitute for his death. Then his beautiful wife, Queen Alcestis, volunteers to do so.'
'Ah, yes, the drama of the substituted death. Queen Alcestis,' Hadrian recollected. 'And then?'
'Alcestis loves Admetus so much she believes it is her duty to die in place of her husband to permit him Apollo's gift of extended life. That's the basic story, but Euripides cleverly uses the legend to explore sensitive issues between men and women, and between freeborn and slave.
Euripides also discusses the nature of marriage, of marital love, and the generosity of women in the face of their menfolk's privileges and obsessions,' Antinous continued. 'It even asks about the nature of Love itself.'
'That sounds more Roman than Greek,' Hadrian opined. 'As a Hellene you lads probably don't realize how the people of Rome allow more freedom to their womenfolk than you Greeks do. Yet Euripides was already saying these things several hundred years ago! Amazing!'
'From memory, the play opens at the very moment the queen is due to die,' Antinous offered.
'It comes back to me now,' Hadrian muttered as Apollo, an actor wearing a silvered mask portraying the god's eternal youth and handsome features, entered the stage. His silvery costume, draped by his bow and quiver of deadly arrows, stepped solemnly into view in time to music of funereal double-pipes and a deep drum. These throbbed mournfully offstage. He traversed the stage in a unique tripping dance which specially signifies Apollo.
'Where did you learn so much about these things, Antinous, at your age? And from a distant province too!' I overheard Hadrian murmur. 'Aren't horsemanship and weapons enough for young fellows to master?'
Antinous lent forward to whisper his reply over Caesar's shoulder, which I could barely overhear.
'Sir, Lysias and I as acolytes of Apollo and Artemis were taught about the life and affairs of the Healer. Our tutor in literature, a kinsman priest of the cult, taught the young of my clan all manner of matters about the god, his rites, his many lovers of both sexes, his children, including his son Asclepius, the god physician,' Antinous responded. 'He is the sun of our lives and we praise him despite his irascible, mercurial nature.'
Silvery Apollo paused majestically at centre stage as the music subsided to allow the god to chant the opening words of ancient Alcestis. Euripides' first lines are well known to audiences across the Greek East.
The pipes and drum's throb trailed away as an expectant hush settled upon the amphitheatre.
All eyes focused on the silver mask of Apollo.
'House of Admetus!' the actor's call throatily resounded across the towering steps of spectators. As he continued this initial plea, thousands of additional voices surged to life to accompany him.
'Here I have suffered bread as common workers must endure.. yes I, a god, Apollo!' the actor declaimed.
His voice was immediately swamped beneath the engulfing roar of thousands of throats as they too enjoined Apollo's complaint of his servile status at his lover King Admetus' palace. On conclusion of the booming line the mass erupted into uninhibited self-applause. It was an uproar which registered the crowd's collective satisfaction with its own recitation of such a revered line in the presence of Caesar.
I, visibly a Dacian barbarian who had never witnessed Alcestis previously, was impressed by this unexpected enthusiasm of the Greeks. Nevertheless I was obliged to lean closer to hear Caesar's asides to his young attendants..
'You say Euripides talks of the role of women?' Hadrian threw over his shoulder as uproar resounded around the amphitheater. 'But what do you two lads know of women, eh? Have you enjoyed a woman yet, you two, or are you abstaining until your betrothal? I am led to believe some Greeks actually do so, though not many I'd wager?'
Antinous and Lysias hesitated, being taken aback by such a forward question about such personal matters.
'I confess I possess only limited experience with women,' Antinous responded, wondering if Hadrian remembered their conversation at the symposium garden at Nicomedia. 'But I am contractually betrothed to a cousin of my family who is still a child at this time,' he added. 'Perhaps we will marry when time matures or the omens are favorable.'
By now Apollo was regaling the audience with a mimed outline of the play's plot, accompanied by gentle pipes and a drone. He reported the news of how Queen Alcestis was presently undergoing her death throes to fulfill her promise to Admetus. Another actor wearing the black mask, wings, sword, and costume of Death mounted the stage, stepping across its flagstones in a magical, unearthly glide. He provoked the audience to collectively groan in fearfulness.