The Jetsam by Lara Biyuts (best romantic novels in english .TXT) 📖

court of the Emperor of Rome for a long while, and most probably, he was a gem of the harem of boys of the Emperor. From his childhood he knew everything of carnal love. Being together with his lover, he experienced much -- with a man like Hadrian one had to experience much -- the boy was the Emperor’s beautiful toy, with who Hadrian could do whatever he wanted. And the boy had a power over his lord’s body. The length of his hair in his portraits as a child, tells about the power. Usually, the boys in ancient Greece and Rome did not have their hair cut at such a tender age, but the hair of Antinous-child was short or rather too short for a Greek boy. To cut their long locks Greek boys asked a permission of their patrons. Undoubtedly, they made their request at minutes of intimacy, and if their request was timeless, they got their own way at the cost of a thousand of caresses. Antinous got his own way, and this proves the supposition that he had a power over his lord. What did surround the boy at the court? Strangers, schoolmates, teachers; frequent conjugations with the ageing lover; royal sex relationship. But he enjoyed royally too. He had learnt of his own price early or rather he had learnt that he was above price. He knew the luxury, well-being, carnal enjoyments. He knew and he had to accept and imbibe the whole cynicism of the life, with the life at the court, like life at any royal court, being cynicism-saturated. He was reared and fostered for giving carnal pleasures, and he learnt to take the pleasures. And then he made his choice. He got reserved in the realm of his pleasures; if it were not so, then he would aspire to reach a prominency at the politics of the Emperor, but the boy did nothing of the kind. In her book, Madame Yourcenar noted this his trait, and it’s absolutely right, in my opinion, but her unexpected, inconsequent conclusion concerning the supposition that such a healthy, self-sufficient young thing could suffer so much that he killed himself is absolutely fallacious. He was not reared for suicide; he was nursed for pleasure. Hadrian would not let the boy commit suicide. The death of the boy was an awful unexpectedness to Hadrian (“He fell into the Nile”). The boy was the thing next his heart, and if the boy was a beautiful, well-groomed animal and if we dislike this fact, then this, like any other imperfectness of his behaviour, which we did not expect, must be as dear to us as an irregularity imperfectness of beloved features. Hadrian made him a person of the kind. A god must be a person of the kind. A pagan god. My god. From pleasures of his age he was passing to pleasures of the next age. And then he was killed.

Antinous’ posthumous image as a mystic-minded person, as a person inclined to suicide, living for the benefit of the Emperor or for executing the will of the gods, belongs to Hadrian, his patron, ageing lover and first admirer, the man who deified him. “He fell into the Nile” -- that was all the man could inscribe, that was all a grief-stricken man could inscribe -- either grief-stricken or scared of enticing suspicion. “He fell into the Nile” with these words, Hadrian gave himself away completely, is how I rationalize the death, considering the next interpretation, one of murder. An ill unbalanced man, sophisticated but mighty, powerful enough to order the murder of Antinous; such a person was Hadrian. Except for the account that Hadrian “wept for him like a woman”, I do not sense a sneer or anything mocking in these words, they read as real tragedy.

On the other hand, these words could be left for us at Hadrian’s behest; even though his bemoaning took place, it might mean a tardy repentance of the murder. But Hadrian’s words appear like those of a grief-stricken man; he seems unable to write anything more. Either unable or did not dare? Was Hadrian a murderer or a man who knew who was the murderer -- in the light of the love story, this possibility is blasphemous, yet not outrageous. Indeed, there would be nothing obscure in the supposition that Hadrian could kill Antinous, if it were not for the Emperor’s sequent behaviour. In the boy’s lifetime, Hadrian worshipped him -- worshipping if not the boy himself then the boy’s images, for the images were always divinely beautiful: “What Ganymede was more fair?” The boy could serve him as a lovely living toy, whom Hadrian dressed in silks, gold, flowers and jewellery -- or undressed as he pleased. But the boy’s image, as though automatically becoming sacred and cultivated as early as in his own lifetime in virtue of Hadrian’s views and tastes of a Greek admirer. And then, after the boy’s death Hadrian’s behaviour looked defiant. He not only displayed his grief bidding defiance to Rome, but he deified his beloved. This does not appear to be a cover up. His persistent honoring of the boy ruined Hadrian’s reputation to his contemporaries, and he was not afraid of doing so for posterity. Nothing could stop him; he was not afraid of anything, even ridicule itself. As we know, even the one, who is afraid of nothing, is afraid of ridicule, but Hadrian acted as though he did not notice it. It looked like obsession, as if he were going mad, and his madness was beautiful. Defiant to everyone who was against him, he was not afraid to look ridiculous-such homage takes away my suspicion.

Hadrian could have grieved briefly and then carried on. But he did not stop: “His grief has echoed down the ages,” which testifies in his favour and relieves him of such accusations. However it could also be proposed that such dedication confirms the accusation, and suggested that Hadrian killed the boy in order to deify Antinous. His affection for the boy, and his unstable behaviour make this idea plausible. What if the boy could not bear Hadrian’s affections any longer? What if the boy had no other way to free himself from the clutches of his ill, ageing lover but suicide? “His beauty and Hadrian’s excessive sensuality” could be the very motive for suicide. The explanation of suicide out of despair is another version, which I am willing to admit as feasible, though with far less probability.

Madame Yourcenar notes the boy’s aversion to death and his willingness for such pleasures, which I regard as speculative, and yet she draws a fallacious conclusion on his suicide. Some ascribe decadent feelings to him, the healthy beautiful young thing. Was Antinous decadent? There were decadent men in his time; Hadrian was decadent in a way. But the boy was not one of them -- “a healthy nature [Antinous’] was pushed into intercourse with a diseased one” -- he would enjoy decadence living near Hadrian, but it never became him, because of his premature demise. Madame Yourcenar adduces one episode, which could have serve as an inducement to murder the boy. It was the ceremony of the consecration of the temple of Venus in Rome when Hadrian put his purple robe on Antinous’ shoulders in public. This gesture seems plausible, and at such a time this gesture could have doomed Antinous. Perhaps his love was assassinated, the Emperor remembered this act and blamed himself: “Could the whole apotheosis and the cult around it be solely guilty remorse?” The boy’s devotees always ascribed sublime or decadent feelings to him in order to elevate his personality in the eyes of all others, to raise him under the opinion of their contemporaries, to make him not only a pagan deity but also a darling and idol of intellectual society. A comprehensible and perfectly natural wish, but it steers us away from the truth of Antinous’ personality. The boy was neither an intellectual nor a devotee of spirituality. He was a mere boy. He had everything he wanted, and he never experienced what his devotees describe. Yes, his portraits show him in deep thought, which we can see in the agonizingly beautiful curve of his eyebrows, and we can see the shades of care in his face. As I’ve suggested already, this thought was towards his new duties and the ensuing pleasures he had ahead of him: the new role of a prince and successor, for it was a difficult role, and this new care was imprinted on the face of the maturing boy.

“He foresaw the decline of his star, he suffered the loss of his adolescent beauty”. “He was more than ever insecure and anxious about his own future”! “He gave a way to the new star” (to the more mature man who was 12 yours older than Antinous, and who was adopted only in 136!) Pure nonsense! “His days of an ephebe were numbered therefore his days at the court were numbered too”. Yes, his days of an ephebe were numbered, but his days in Hadrian’s heart were not numbered, and the boy knew of that. His child, his consort, Antinous had become Hadrian’s own child by the autumn of 130. The boy had no reason to kill himself. All the consequences of the death and the subsequent apotheosis testify in favour of my words and refute the conclusion of Royston Lambert. Lambert’s reasoning stems from some very scanty sources, left by the ancient historians and writers decades and centuries after the death of Antinous. All the mentions of Antinous and his death are either malevolent or founded on rumour and indirect mentions are mostly benevolent. There were probably other mentions, benevolent, verbose, direct -- sure, and there were the real memoirs of Hadrian, but nothing of these have survived. Nearly all of what related to a benevolent response to Antinous and his royal patron has been destroyed. With gross confidence Lambert speaks about the future dismissal and Hadrian’s displeasure of the inevitable advance of age and changes in Antinous’ physique and look. There is no evidence to the murder, but there is no evidence that Antinous had a dismissal ahead of him, either, and that Hadrian disliked the changes in his physique is not enough. One never bemoans an ex-favourite in the way Hadrian did so. I can’t understand the logic behind Lambert’s theory.

A point I have yet to address concerning the death on the Nile is: how could a strong young swimmer be drowned in a river? He could do it himself, having fastened a load to his body. There is no suggestion that this was the case (“He fell into the Nile.”) But that was not necessary in the Nile with its treacherous currents. If it were a suicide, the proficient swimmer would have had to dip in waters and to swim excessively in the hope that the tireless eddies and currents of the stream would devour him sooner or later. But how could he be sure that his body would be found? Why did the young strong swimmer commit suicide in a river? What for? To be deified after his death. There is no evidence that the boy was superstitious enough or obsessed by the idea of the deification. Besides, one does not sacrifice stealthily. Especially when it is a sacrifice for the life of the Emperor, for the event is too significant. What’s more: could the boy have been illiterate and unable to write? Why did he not leave a short or verbose note explaining his actions? How could he feel sure that his body would be found and his sacrifice would be appreciated? He who lived the life of a prince, could he not have called upon menservants -- his favourites -- to go to the place of his future sacrifice? The menservants could witness his heroic action. He did not do this, for he was killed.

Madame Yourcenar describes