Empire

AD 136

On the sixth day before the Nones of Maius, Marcus Pinarius and his son, Lucius, stood among the crowd of courtiers who filled the porticoes surrounding the ancient Auguratorium on the Palatine Hill. Before the altar, the emperor himself performed the augury to mark the passage to manhood of Marcus Verus, who stood in the middle of the gravel-strewn courtyard, wearing his first toga.

At fifteen, however mature his intellect, Verus still had no beard, and his delicate features were closer to those of a boy than a man. Hadrian’s beard and hair had more grey than ever, and his face had an unhealthy pallor; it seemed to Marcus that the emperor looked considerably older than sixty. It was rumoured that Hadrian was suffering a serious illness. He had begun construction on his own mausoleum.

Marcus was involved in the building of the new mausoleum. “All the other imperial tombs are already full,” Hadrian had told him, “and I have no intention of spending eternity crammed next to Trajan inside the Column.” The structure was to be a vast circular building not unlike the mausoleum of Augustus in design, but much larger, located on the banks of the Tiber across from the Field of Mars. It seemed to Marcus that Hadrian could not be content unless he had some vast building project under way. Now that that the Temple of Venus and Roma was at last completed, along with the Pantheon with its magnificent dome and the sprawling imperial villa at Tibur, what was left to build except his mausoleum?

At the dedication ceremonies for all those grand projects, Marcus had been among a select group of architects and artists who had received the emperor’s highest accolades, but those honours could not compare to the one that was to be bestowed on the Pinarii this day. No sooner had Hadrian taken the auspices for Marcus Verus, declaring them to be highly favourable, than he called out the name of Lucius Pinarius and asked him to step forward.

Lucius looked down at his father – at fifteen, he was already slightly taller than Marcus – with an expression of sudden terror. The boy’s combination of athleticism and shyness had made him an ideal companion for Verus; their differences complemented each other. But this was no time to be timid. Marcus cast a look at the boy that he hoped was at once stern and supportive, then gave him a tiny shove to start him on his way.

Lucius stepped forward, hesitantly at first, but then with greater confidence. Instead of standing in place, Verus stepped forward to greet his friend. Hadrian made no objection to this lapse of decorum; he had grown quite fond of Lucius in recent months, and it had been his idea to make the donning of the manly toga a dual ceremony including both young men.

However awkward he might feel wearing it, Lucius looked splendid in his toga, Marcus thought. To him, the boy disproved the popular notion that humanity was in decline, dwindling in intellect and physical prowess with each generation. It seemed to Marcus that his son combined all that was best from the bloodlines of his parents, and Marcus could see no reason why Lucius should not surpass his ancestors in every way. Before the most important people in Roma, the emperor himself took the auspices, declared them favourable, and announced that Lucius Pinarius, son of Marcus Pinarius, had attained all the privileges and duties of a citizen of the greatest city on earth.

Among those who converged on the young men to congratulate them was the man whom Hadrian had recently adopted and named as his successor. Lucius Ceionius was in his middle thirties, too old to attract the sexual attentions of the emperor but nonetheless a wildly handsome man with a statuesque physique. As Hadrian had once remarked to Marcus Pinarius, “In the whole empire, there is no handsomer man than Lucius Ceionius.”

“Surely that’s not the reason you picked him to be your successor,” Marcus had responded, in jest.

“Don’t be so certain of that,” Hadrian said. “If beauty is a sign of divine favour, then Ceionius has it in abundance. Sometimes, when I look at him, I think I’ve adopted a god, not a son.”

It struck Marcus that Ceionius, on this day, did not look particularly well; he had the same unhealthy pallor as Hadrian, and while Marcus looked on, the man suffered a fit of coughing so violent that he had to leave the courtyard. Hadrian watched him depart with a worried look. Someone leaned towards Marcus and spoke in his ear:

O handsome youth, the blissful vision of a

No sooner glimpsed than snatched away.

“Favonius!” said Marcus. “Leave it to you to twist the words of Virgil into an ill omen.”

“Virgil? I had no idea,” said the scurra. “I was quoting the emperor, actually. I overheard him utter those lines earlier today, when poor Ceionius first appeared.”

“Is he seriously ill?”

“Caesar seems to think so. I’m told he cast a horoscope for Ceionius and the results were most alarming. Poor Hadrian! Just when he had the future all neatly planned out, with the empire cordoned off, and his temples finished, and his mausoleum under way, and the next emperor selected – poof! Fate deals an unforeseen reversal. Congratulations, by the way, on your son’s ascent to manhood, and in such esteemed company. The future of the Pinarii looks very bright.”

“Thank you.” Marcus was irritated by the man’s flippancy but managed a gracious nod.

“Almost as bright, if I may say so, as that curious bauble at your breast. How the gold catches the sunlight!”

Marcus reached up to touch the fascinum, which on this day he was wearing outside his toga, for all to see, since this was the last occasion on which he would ever wear it.

“You’ll excuse me now,” he said. “I need to go to my son.”

Hadrian was already conducting the two young men to a private chamber just off the Auguratorium. For the ceremony that was to follow, Marcus had requested that no witnesses be present except the emperor and young Verus.

The small, quiet room was sparsely decorated. Dominating one wall was a bust of Antinous set in a niche. This, too, had been Marcus’s request, that the only image present should that of the Divine Youth.

While the emperor and Verus stood to one side, Marcus approached his son. Now that the public ceremony was over, Lucius looked quite relaxed. He smiled as Marcus lifted the chain over his neck and held the fascinum aloft.

“My son, you’ve seen this amulet many times, hanging from my neck. Before me, my father wore it, and before him, his father. The fascinum has been in our family for many generations, even before the founding of the city. It has protected us, guided us, given us strength in times of trouble. You are a man now, with all the uncertainties of life ahead of you. On this day, I wish to pass the fascinum to you, so that you may never face those uncertainties alone. As it has guided me, so let it now guide you. And just as it was given to me in the presence of the emperor – the Divine Trajan – so I wish to give it to you, here before Caesar.”

Marcus placed the chain over his son’s head. It was strange to see the gold talisman glimmering upon another breast, and for a moment Marcus felt a pang of regret. Had his father felt the same regret when he gave up the fascinum? If so, he had never spoken of it, and neither would Marcus.

For a hour or so, before the banquet was to begin, the young men were left to themselves.

“I don’t know about you,” said Verus, “but I’m taking off this toga and changing into something less cumbersome.”

“You shall just have to put it on again for the banquet,” said Lucius. “Besides, I have nothing to change into.”

“You can wear one of my tunics, though it may be a bit short for you. No matter, we’re men now, and allowed to show our legs. Let’s go to my rooms.”

A statue of Minerva met them as they entered Verus’s apartments. Around a corner, a bust of Socrates had pride of place upon a pedestal. On the ceilings and walls there were no paintings of warfare or scenes of seduction, or of maidens dancing or gladiators fighting; indeed, there were no paintings at all. The walls had been coloured a placid sky blue, a color that was conducive to study and philosophical discussion, according to Verus.

As they discarded their togas and put on tunics, Verus’s attention was drawn to the fascinum at his friend’s breast. He asked to touch it.

“Can it really be as old as your father says?”

“So the Divine Claudius believed.”

Verus nodded gravely. “Few men were more knowledgeable about the distant past than the Divine Claudius. How remarkable, that this object must have been in existence in the days of King Numa, and even before, in the age when demigods like Hercules walked the earth. What a wondrous thing, that you have this link to your ancestors. One of them must have worn it when Hannibal and his elephants crossed the Alps, and another when the Divine Julius was slain by assassins. Where will you keep it when you’re not wearing it?”

“You’ve seen the shrine in the vestibule of our house. Among the niches that display the wax masks of the ancestors, there’s one niche where we keep a small capsa that contains all the letters my grandfather received from Apollonius of Tyana, and the manacle that Apollonius cast off, and a small bust of Antinous made by my father. That’s where the fascinum is kept.”

Verus nodded. He had asked and been allowed to read the letters from Apollonius, but had been rather disappointed by them. A great teacher Apollonius must have been; a great writer he was not. The letters were nothing more than brief messages of encouragement, enthusiastic but without any philosophical content, and frequently ungrammatical. The manacle had impressed Verus even less; it looked like any rusty piece of iron, and he secretly wondered if it was genuine. As for Antinous, Verus did not share Hadrian’s fascination for beautiful young males, and, though he was too circumspect to say so, he had little enthusiasm for the cult of the Divine Youth.

But the fascinum was another matter. To Verus it seemed a truly wondrous object, a repository of all the mysteries of the past, all the more intriguing because time had worn away its features yet was powerless to diminish its golden lustre.

Lucius had shown him the fascinum. It seemed to Verus that he should show his friend something equally marvellous. “Follow me,” he said.

They made their way to a part of the imperial palace that Lucius had never seen before. It soon became evident that they had entered a forbidden area; in a whisper, Verus told him to be silent, and whenever anyone passed, Verus pulled him out of sight.

They came to a locked door. To Lucius’s amazement, Verus produced a small metal device and proceeded to pick the lock.

They proceeded down a long hallway and came to another locked door, which Verus picked with equal ease.

Once inside, Verus quietly closed the door behind them. They were in a stone vault. Narrow slits set high in the walls admitted bright beams of sunlight. Even before his eyes adjusted to the dimness that swallowed most of the room, Lucius saw that it was lined to the height of his waist with wooden cabinets, and atop the cabinets were objects that shone with bright points of coloured light.

“This is the jewel room,” Verus whispered.

Surrounding them was a vast collection of gemstones. Most were stored inside the cabinets, but some of the more spectacular examples were displayed on stands or hung on the wall or simply lay atop the cabinets, left there by Hadrian or Sabina or whatever courtier was allowed to handle such precious objects. Some were cut into cameos. Some were faceted and set as jewels into necklaces or bracelets of silver and gold. Some were in their natural state. There were rubies and sapphires, emeralds and lapis lazuli, amethyst and jasper, carnelian and agate, tiger’s-eye and amber.

“Hadrian didn’t acquire all these in his travels, did he?” whispered Lucius.

“Oh, no. These have been collected by generations of emperors. Nero ended up in such dire straits that he sold off most of the gems he inherited, but Vespasian and his successors managed to recover many of them. Do you see that carnelian necklace? Queen Cleopatra was wearing it the day she died. Augustus was furious that she killed herself, and took it off her with his own hands, as a trophy.”

“I never imagined such a collection existed.” Lucius was astounded by the treasure. He had seen the emperor’s sprawling villa go up at Tibur. He had stood beside his father at the dedications of the Temple of Venus and Roma and of the Pantheon, the largest and grandest buildings ever constructed. That the wealth of Hadrian was immense he had always known, but now, gazing at the splendours that surrounded him, he realized that the emperor’s fortune surpassed all reckoning.

“Very few people have ever seen this room,” said Verus. “Even fewer have seen this.” He opened a cabinet and pulled out a stone that he held between two fingers, thrusting it into the nearest beam of sunlight.

To Lucius, it seemed that the stone must have come from a world of dreams. It was octahedral and as large as a walnut. The stone was transparent yet captured the light and cast it back again in a dazzling array of colours. Lucius had never seen anything like it.

“It’s called a diamond,” said Verus. “This is by far the largest and most perfect specimen ever found. It’s not only beautiful but indestructible. Fire will not burn it. No blade can cut it.”

“Where did it come from?”

“We think Domitian acquired it. He had such a penchant for secrecy that no one knows its history, but it must have come from India, which is the source of all true diamonds. Nerva presented it to Trajan as a sign of his favour. Trajan presented it to Hadrian as a reward for leading the First Legion Minerva. It’s the rarest jewel in all the collection, which means in all the world.”

“It’s amazing,” said Lucius.

“I myself have little interest in gemstones,” said Verus, “or in any of the other trappings of wealth. Material objects possess no intrinsic value, only that which men assign to them. And yet, when I gaze upon a thing as beautiful and perfect as this, I think it must in some way be a manifestation ofthat which Apollonius called the Divine Singularity.”

“I could stare at it for hours,” said Lucius. “Thank you for showing it to me.”

Verus smiled. “And yet, the most precious thing in this room is not this diamond, but that object you wear upon your breast.”

“Do you really think so?” Lucius looked down at the fascinum, which seemed to him a fragile, crudely fashioned thing compared to the adamantine perfection of the diamond. He could scarcely believe that Verus was serious, but it was not like his friend to joke about such a thing.

“I truly think so. I speak not just as Marcus Verus, your friend, but as Verissimus, who loves Truth above all else.”