What was Hadrian talking about? Marcus craned his neck to peer up at the statue. The gilding reflected the sunlight so brightly that he was blinded. He looked down at Hadrian and made a quizzical gesture.
Hadrian smiled broadly. He cupped his hands to his mouth and shouted. “The nose… looks… perfect!”
A month later, Lucius Pinarius hosted a small dinner party in honour of his son.
The Column would soon be officially dedicated, and in the various celebrations the emperor and his chief architect would be the focus of all attention. Before that happened, Lucius wanted to acknowledge his son’s accomplishments and tremendous hard work. The dinner party was to be a major event for the Pinarius household, which seldom saw guests outside the small circle of Lucius’s friends, most of whom were advanced in years and fellow followers of Apollonius of Tyana – not a group much given to traditional feasting, since they ate no meat and drank no wine.
No meat had been cooked or served in Lucius’s house for many years, and he could not bring himself to include any sort of flesh, fowl, or fish on the menu; his cook assured him that no one would even notice the omission among the highly spiced delicacies and sumptuous sweets that would be offered. But for a dinner party that included a member of the imperial household – Hadrian had accepted an invitation – there would have to be wine. Lucius never drank wine, but Marcus occasionally did, and Lucius had no objection to serving it to his guests. If they should be disappointed by the absence of meat, he was determined that they would have no cause to be disappointed with the wine; he had stocked a variety of what a reputable merchant assured him were the very finest vintages, both Greek and Italian.
For such an occasion, his son informed him, there must be a scurra among the guests; no memorable social occasion could take place among the elite of the city without a scurra to amuse them. Apparently there existed an entire class of such persons in the city, men who literally made their way by their wit. A scurra cadged dinner invitations to the homes of the wealthy and in return shared gossip, told jokes, injected double entendres into the conversation, flattered the host, and gently mocked the guests.
“And where on earth will I find such a person?” Lucius had asked his son, quite certain there were no scurras among the staid acolytes of the Teacher.
“Apollodorus says he’ll bring someone, a fellow named Favonius,” said Marcus. Apollodorus had also invited the director of the imperial archives, a man in his forties named Gaius Suetonius, who had learned that the elder Pinarius had known Nero and his long-vanished circle and was eager to meet him.
After many days of preparation, the appointed hour arrived. The guests appeared in quick succession and were shown to their dining couches. The house was filled with the steady hum of conversation and laughter.
The scurra showed his worth early on. Favonius had frizzled red hair, plump cheeks, and a peculiar nose that skewed to one side; from his protruding belly, it appeared that he loved food and seldom missed a meal. When it became evident that no meat would be served, Favonius pretended to pout. “I see we’re to be served a gladiators’ diet tonight: no meat, just barley and beans! Ah, well, thank the gods that gladiators are allowed to drink wine.” Both Lucius and Marcus were taken aback by the man’s rudeness, but everyone else laughed, and not another word was said all night about the lack of meat or fish; the scurra’s blatant complaint forestalled any further grumbling. Instead, the guests vied with one another to praise the cook’s skill and ingenuity.
Hadrian and Suetonius engaged Lucius in conversation. The archivist was curious to learn anything about Nero, while Hadrian wanted to know every detail of his host’s friendship with Apollonius of Tyana, Epictetus, and Dio of Prusa.
Marcus noticed that Apollodorus stayed largely out of the conversation. It seemed to him that there was some tension between the architect and Hadrian, who had always been on friendly terms.
Hadrian excused himself to go to the latrina. As soon as he was out of sight, the scurra grunted. “I do believe that fellow has lost his provincial accent entirely.”
“I was just thinking the same thing,” said Lucius. “When he first came to Roma, I seem to recall that his accent was quite pronounced.”
“You recall correctly,” said Favonius. “People still talk about the occasion, early in Trajan’s reign, when Hadrian read one of the emperor’s speeches aloud to the Senate, and the senators laughed out loud. Hadrian blushed so brightly you couldn’t even see his acne scars.”
“Hadrian’s worked very hard to get rid of his accent, and I think he’s succeeded,” said Suetonius, whose own diction was elegant to the point of pedantry.
Apollodorus, who was from Damascus and whose Latin had its own provincial accent, shook his head. “He now sounds so much like a city-born Roman that Trajan has stopped calling him the Little Greek. He calls him the Little Roman.”
Favonius tittered. “Oh, dear, I am going to have to steal that one from you.”
“It’s not a joke,” insisted Apollodorus, “it’s the truth!”
When Hadrian returned, the entire company fell silent. Hadrian took the opportunity to steer the conversation back to Dio of Prusa, whose latest writings had been much concerned with the subject of marriage. Happily restored to his native city, Dio also seemed to be quite happily married, and expressed his contentment by extolling the virtues of marital union above all other forms of love.
The topic cheered no one. Lucius Pinarius had known love, but never marriage. Apollodorus’s wife had been very ill lately, and thoughts of her only made him gloomy. Hadrian had been married for several years to Trajan’s grand-niece Sabina, but their marriage was childless and thought by many to be in name only. As for Marcus, his irregular origins, a subject never openly discussed by those who knew him but apparently known to all, had made it difficult for him to find a match suited to his family’s ancient name and patrician status; not yet married, and with no immediate prospects, he had given up thoughts of creating a family and devoted himself entirely to his work.
The scurra, seeing the gloominess caused by the subject, managed to crack a few crude jokes about marriage, but these seemed forced and stale. It was Suetonius who rescued the conversation. As a sidelight to his work as an archivist, he was a dedicated antiquarian and amateur historian, and kept a notebook dedicated especially to anecdotes about imperial marriages. He amused them at length with stories about the duel of wits between Livia and Augustus, Caligula’s so-called marriages to his sisters, Claudius’s misery with Messalina and his agony with Agrippina, and Nero’s marriage to the beautiful but ill-fated Poppaea, followed by his betrothal to her double, the equally ill-fated Sporus.
“You must have known Sporus,” said Suetonius, looking at their host.
Lucius made no answer for a long moment. “Yes, I did,” he finally said.
“Was the eunuch as beautiful as they say?” asked Hadrian.
“Yes, she was,” said Lucius, lowering his eyes. The others waited for him to elaborate, but instead he said, “Shall we retire to the garden? Carry your cups with you. I shall be serving a special wine from Samothrace with a jasmine flavour that emerges only under moonlight – so the merchant assured me.”
As they stepped into the garden, Hadrian came to a sudden halt. He stared at the statue of Melancomas. Marcus had noticed that visitors were often a bit startled by the image of the naked boxer, probably because it stood at ground level and was so extraordinarily realistic that a casual observer might mistake it for a living man. But Hadrian’s reaction went beyond mere surprise: his face was lit with wonder and delight. He reached out to touch the smooth marble of the statue’s face. A moment later, he stepped back and touched his own cheek, running his fingertips over the rough, mottled blemishes.