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
