“Leisure!” Trajan laughed. “I have precious little of that. Well, we’ve talked enough of the great problems of the world. Let’s see if we can actually get something done this morning. What sort of petitions are on the agenda?” He gestured to the secretary, who brought him a list of the citizens who were awaiting an audience, along with a description of their requests.
“What’s this one?” Trajan peered more closely at the list. “Lucius Pinarius: the name sounds vaguely familiar. Have I ever met this fellow?”
“I don’t think so,” said Hadrian. “I looked at the list earlier, and I also noticed the name. The Pinarii are an ancient patrician family, cousins of the Divine Julius and the Divine Augustus, but this bearer of the name is a man of no particular importance – not even a senator – though he does appear to possess considerable wealth.”
Trajan grunted. “According to these notes, his request is linked to an issue we were just discussing. This Lucius Pinarius desires to redeem a foster child from slavery; he claims the child is his offspring and he wants to have the boy legally recognized as such, so that the boy’s name and citizenship are restored. That’s not the same as manumission, is it? Legally, it would be saying that the boy was born a citizen and so was never a slave, despite the fact that he was raised as one.”
“There are plenty of precedents for such cases,” noted Hadrian, “but legal technicalities invariably arise that must be decided on a case-by-case basis. For example, should the foster child’s current master be paid for the child’s upbringing, or should the master relinquish the child to its lawful parent without payment?”
Trajan nodded thoughtfully. “How old is the boy?”
The secretary consulted his notes. “Fifteen, Caesar.”
Trajan raised an eyebrow. “Ah! Well, let’s have look. Show them in.”
Dressed in his best toga, Lucius Pinarius entered the room and stood before the emperor. His demeanour was humble but confident, and he glanced about the room in a way that suggested he was not unfamiliar with the surroundings. The wide-eyed boy who accompanied him, on the other hand, was obviously dazzled by the magnificence of the room.
Trajan and Hadrian exchanged brief but knowing glances. Both had an appreciative eye for male beauty, and the boy was extremely good-looking. With his dark blonde hair and flashing green eyes, he did not much resemble his reputed father.
Trajan took the secretary’s notes on the case and read them, then passed the notes to Hadrian. He looked at Lucius Pinarius.
“It would appear, citizen, that your claim of paternity for this boy is flimsy at best. You won’t reveal the identity of the mother, for one thing. Why not?”
“My relationship with the boy’s mother was irregular, Caesar.”
“In other words, a cause for scandal.”
“Had it not been kept secret, it would have caused a scandal, yes,” said Lucius. “That is why I wish her identity to remain a secret, even though she is no longer alive. But I swear by the gods that she was a freeborn woman, and thus so was our child.”
“You’re certain the boy was your offspring, and not that of another man?”
“I am, Caesar.”
Hadrian looked up from the notes. “If this account is correct, the boy was abandoned shortly after birth in the vicinity of Alba. He was harvested by a scavenger and sold as a slave, then passed though several hands before he was acquired by his current master. You’ve clearly documented all the steps you took to track him down, yet how can you be certain this individual is in fact the boy you seek?”
“By an unusual physical characteristic.”
Hadrian glanced again at the notes. “Ah, yes, I see: his webbed toes.” He looked at the boy and smiled. “His face is perfect, yet the gods have given him a hidden flaw. It’s like a poem by Theocritus.”
Trajan laughed and shook his head. “Little Greek! Was there ever a pretty boy who did not suggest to you a poem by someone or other? But what of the boy’s current owner? Show him in.”
The man who entered was dressed not in a toga but in a brightly coloured tunic. That he was not a Roman citizen became evident when he spoke with a cosmopolitan Greek accent. “My name is Acacius, Caesar. I live in Neapolis. This boy is my property.”
Trajan looked at the man’s feet. “Your sandals are covered with dust.”
“Marble dust, Caesar. I’m a sculptor. I acquired this boy because his previous owner noticed that he had a skill for shaping things with his hands, and offered to sell him to me. I’ve had him for five years. His talent is considerable. No, more than considerable: he has a gift from the gods. Thanks to the education I’ve given him, he’s become a very skilled artisan, and I think he might eventually become a true artist, maybe even a great one. The slave represents a substantial investment of my time and money, Caesar, and if he’s as gifted as I think, I stand to make a great deal of money from his skills in the future. I don’t want to give him up.”
Trajan rubbed his chin. “I see. You may all withdraw from the room while Caesar deliberates.”
“But, Caesar,” said Lucius, “I feel I’ve hardly had a chance to plead my case-”
“The facts are all in the notes, are they not? You may withdraw.”
After the litigants were gone, Trajan ordered a slave to bring wine. “To settle this matter, I think we will need the inspiration of Bacchus,” he said, then threw back his head and emptied his cup. “Well, cousin, what do you think? Is Lucius Pinarius a devoted father who’s performed a labour worthy of Hercules in tracking down his long-lost son? Or he is simply a lusty old goat trying to get his hands on another man’s slave?”
“My thoughts exactly,” said Hadrian.
“Oh, the two of you!” said Plotina. “Must you always view the world through the lens of your own proclivities? Not every fifty-year-old man wants to sleep with pretty boys.”
Trajan sipped from his second cup of wine, and smirked. “Plotina, dear, the man has never even been married. Do you seriously think he has no interest in boys?” He suddenly laughed out loud, so long and hard that he had to wipe a tear from his eye. “I’m remembering something one of my servants once said. This was back when my father was governor of Syria and I was serving under him as a tribune. I was retiring to my quarters one evening after a particularly stressful day, and the man asked me if he could bring me anything. I said, ‘Well, I wouldn’t mind if you could bring me a couple of fifteen-year-old Syrian boys.’ And the servant relied, with a completely straight face, ‘Certainly, Master; but if I can’t find two fifteen-year-olds, shall I bring you one thirty-year-old?’ What a wit that fellow had!”
Even Plotina laughed. She had long ago accepted her husband’s proclivities and tended to be amused by them. She was glad that he had a sense of humour and could laugh at himself. Young Hadrian, on the other hand, took such matters very seriously. He was wont to declaim about the philosophical and mystical properties of desire, while Trajan simply wanted to have a good time.
“So,” said Trajan, “what do we know about this Lucius Pinarius?”
Hadrian was reading the notes. “According to this, the fellow once fought a lion before Domitian. Can you imagine that? There’s no note about what happened to the lion, but Pinarius obviously survived.”
“A lot of people got on the wrong side of Domitian,” said Plotina. “Even senators ended up in the arena as a punishment. That it happened to Pinarius is no mark against him. That he survived may indicate the favour of the gods.”
“His father was closely tied to Nero,” noted Hadrian. “The elder Pinarius performed auguries in furtherance of some of Nero’s more disreputable schemes.”
“Nero had many sycophants, some more willing and culpable than others,” said Plotina. “A son shouldn’t be held accountable for his father’s mistakes.”