Then a week later a team of the Companions including Antinous, Lysias, and myself were summoned by Caesar to join him in hunting a feral lion, a giant man-eater, which had been terrorizing villages and farmers on the desert road beyond Siwa Oasis. It had killed several farm workers and quite a few animals. It had shut down travel on the road.
The beast was old and dying, but Hadrian wished to show the fickle citizens of Alexandria how his sheer presence provided security in the Roman way against nature's wildness. Because of its age the brute was to be killed, not captured for arena games.
Well, to cut a long story short, Caesar himself courageously spearheaded the attack at its lair, but his first strike seemed to miss its mark.
I assure you, Hadrian rarely misses a kill. Very, very rarely indeed, gentlemen. To my eye, Hadrian intentionally missed the strike so that the second in line, our brave young ephebe, could make his play.
An enraged old lion is not an easy target, and to miss a strike can be fatal. The lion had sufficient energy to anticipate its next attacker, Antinous. It brought down the lad's charger. The horse fell on top of its rider to hurt and imperil Antious pinioned underneath. If Hadrian hadn't circled swiftly for a third strike, which was his intended strategy I suspect, I think neither Antinous nor his horse would have survived.
The lion was destroyed by Caesar's decisive javelin strike. But for some moments our hearts were in our mouths," Julianus recollected.
"How does this meet your comment about reciprocal gesture?" Clarus asked.
"Well, having earlier informed the Bithynian how their relationship must expire, and having so obviously saved the boy and his horse from the lion, Antinous was then caught in his obligation conundrum. To be saved from death by Great Caesar is no small matter. Such a debt is enormous.
Despite the sporty bonhomie of the hunt, Hadrian is no ordinary man, even to his chosen Favorite. And Caesar made sure Antinous knew it that night around the desert campfires shared by the hunt team. I perceived a degree of reluctance in Hadrian's manner about the dissolution of the relationship, as though he was of two minds about it.
I suspect this situation put thoughts in the young man's mind, if I'm not mistaken, thoughts which may have led to his demise," the quaestor concluded
"Is that all? This seems an unlikely motive for a drowning, my lord, if you forgive my skepticism," Clarus offered with his usual lack of subtlety.
"There's more, of course. But your scribe must cease recording for the moment," Julianus intimated. Clarus was about to object to this request when Suetonius waved to Strabon to lay down his stylus. Clarus desisted.
"What more, Senator?" the biographer enquired.
"The matter of the cough. Caesar's cough. It does not dispel. It grows. There are some who are concerned about Caesar's health," Julianus confided. "This is neither sedition nor treason; it's a justifiable concern about Hadrian the man, our friend, not Caesar the Princeps. His intimates worry a great deal about this, Antinous most of all I suspect."
"So what can a dismissed eromenos do about this? He is no physician, dream-reader, exorcist, or magician," Suetonius queried.
"No, but his interest in magicians, spells, and the more arcane healing arts seem high in his mind these days. I've been witness to many conversations about the skills of those mad Egyptian theurgists who claim to perform healing magic," the quaestor commented. "Mind you, Antinous and his Bithynian race seem to be disposed to such things by their passion for their deity Apollo, Healer of Heaven, and his son Asclepius, god of healing. It's in their bloodstream."
"So you believe Antinous has given himself up to some sort of sorcery?" Clarus asked.
"No, senator, not sorcery, but some way to help restore his erastes' health and longevity. Precisely what or how, I'm not sure," Julianus resolved, "it's pure supposition. I wish he had talked about it."
"Perhaps you talk too loosely, Salvius Julianus?" Clarus interjected, but Julianus was on a roll.
"Then, gentlemen, there is the matter of Caesar's bedroom tastes. But I won't pursue that line of enquiry too far. That knowledge dies with the boy," the quaestor offered evasively.
"Enough!" Clarus demanded. "This is sedition! Their bedroom activities are their own affair. You are too forthright in your speculations, Senator Quaestor! I do not believe our Caesar has engaged in treachery with his Favorite."
"Then it seems we indeed agree, gentlemen?" the legalist countered. "My point is that I too believe none of these things. Instead, I look at the humanity of the relationship and see an attraction between the man and the emperor which sketches a different scenario entirely."
"How has this influenced Antinous's death? That's why we're here today, senator," Suetonius reminded his colleague. Julianus leant forward closer to his inquisitors.
"I have enjoyed many conversations and much wine with the charming youth around campfires when on Caesar's hunts, and he's no fool I assure you. So to my eye there have been several intersecting lines of thought affecting Antinous's actions. Firstly, he has spent five years centered in a political climate where direct imperial action is seen to change the world around him. He sees how considered action can achieve intended results.
Secondly, he is driven to enact our philosopher Epictetus's dictum of it's up to him! No one will do our life's work for us. We have to do it ourselves. These notions have shaped his worldview."
"Meaning?" Clarus asked.
"I believe Antinous has taken it upon himself to take direct action in history, and to fulfill his goals on his own initiative, not via his erastes' endowment," the quaestor proposed conclusively. "I sense Antinous may have constructed his own death to achieve some eternal benefit for his companion, his Princeps. His motive is his likely to be his affection for our Princeps."
Suetonius, Clarus, Strabon, and Surisca looked to each other momentarily.
"What could that benefit be?" both Suetonius and Clarus asked together.
"Perhaps I can introduce you to someone who may know," Julianus offered.
"Pray do," Suetonius instructed in increasing wonder.
Julianus put aside his nibbled dates and goblet of wine, rose from his couch, and strode to one of the curtained portals of the marquee to the garden terrace. He carefully drew aside the beaded drape veiling an inner vestibule beyond. Basked in the soft glow of the interior chamber, a slender female figure stood demurely waiting.
"Thais of Cyrene, freedwoman of the household of Antinous of Bithynia, please join me and the gentlemen here," Julianus requested.
CHAPTER 26
"Who am I, you ask, kind sirs? I am Thais of Cyrene, a freedwoman whose manumission is registered at Rome. I am no longer a slave," the pert young woman with the brightly intelligent eyes announced in crisp Palatine Latin.
"My master Antinous declared my freedom by vindicta two years ago in a public court at Rome. It was notarized under the auspices of the quaestor, Salvius Julianus. So for the past two years I have been a freedwoman in the clientela of Antinous of Bithynia."
Her shining white eyes were saddened by tears. "I travel with the Imperial Household under his and Caesar's protection."
"Tell us of your fealty prior to manumission," the Special Inspector requested.
"Good sir, I am the only daughter of Lais of Canopus, born at Cyrene in Cyrenaica in the thirteenth year of Caesar Trajan. My mother and I were both registered in the quinquennial census at Cyrenaica as the property of the Proconsul Legate of the senatorial province of Cyrenaica-Crete. I was born as property of the Legate's household at Cyrene. I am twenty years of age and my mother is deceased."