occasions,” he went on. “Truly, the statue does him justice. What a dazzling throwback he was; what a splendid anachronism!”
“Why do you say that?” said Lucius.
“Because nowadays, the ideal of male beauty has become so very confused. I blame the Persians and their influence. Just as they gave the world astrology, which has found its way into every corner of our culture, so they introduced to us an ideal of male beauty very different from that handed down to us by our ancestors.
“Melancomas embodies the old ideal. As long as there are young men like him, we are reminded of that perfection which the old Greeks quite literally put on a pedestal, capturing it in stone for the world, and for their descendants, to witness and aspire to. They believed that nothing in the world was more beautiful than the physical splendour of the masculine form, which found its most sublime embodiment in the young athlete: a runner’s legs and backside, arms fit to throw a discus, a lean and well-proportioned torso, a face that radiates calm intelligence and the potential for wisdom. Such a youth is a model for other youths to aspire to; he is a worthy protege to whom older men are drawn because he offers such great hope for the future.
“The ideal offered by the Persian is quite different. They find women more beautiful than men, and as a result they think the most beautiful young men are those who look most like girls. They find beauty in pliable eunuchs and boys with slender limbs and soft bottoms. More and more you see this taste for feminine beauty embraced by the Greeks and Romans. As a result, fewer and fewer young men aspire to the old ideal; instead of hardening their muscles with exercise, they pluck their eyebrows and put on cosmetics. So a specimen like Melancomas – a youth whose splendour can be compared to the most famous of the old statues – stands out all the more. He is the exception that proves the rule: our standard of male beauty now, sadly, is the Persian standard.”
“And to think, Titus actually had the fellow,” said Martial, gazing at the statue over the brim of his cup and pursing his lips. “No wonder my dear patron was so heartbroken when the young man died. Frankly, I’d settle for a boy one-tenth as pretty as Melancomas – if the boy would simply show up!”
“Have you been stood up again, Martial?” Lucius smiled. This was the poet’s perennial complaint.
“Yes, again! And this boy was so promising. Lygdus, his name was. He picked the place, he picked the time… and never appeared. I was abandoned, but not seduced – left to consort with my left hand yet again.”
The others laughed. No matter how abstruse or rarefied the arguments put forward by the philosophers, Martial could be always counted on to bring the conversation back down to earth.
“But can a boy be too beautiful?” asked Dio. “Can beauty pose a danger to its possessor, especially the Persian style of beauty?”
“What sort of danger?” said Martial.
“I’m thinking of writing a discourse on the question, using as my subject the eunuch whom Nero married. Sporus, he was called. His story fascinates me. You knew Sporus, didn’t you, Epaphroditus?”
“Yes,” said Epaphroditus quietly. “So did Lucius. Epictetus also knew her.” The three of them exchanged thoughtful glances.
“Good. Perhaps the three of you can give me further details to advance my argument. Everybody knows Nero castrated the youth and took him for a wife precisely because of the boy’s resemblance to the beautiful Poppaea. Nero dressed Sporus in Poppaea’s clothing, made hairdressers style his hair in the fashion of the day, and surrounded the boy with female attendants, just as if he were a woman. Otho was drawn to Sporus for the same reason, his resemblance to Poppaea. And then came Vitellius, who drove the poor eunuch to suicide out of a desire to exploit the boy’s beauty for his own depraved amusement. What a strange and finally tragic path the boy’s life took, all because of his resemblance to a beautiful woman. Had the boy been plain, or had he been beautiful in the manner of Melancomas, one imagines his life would have been very different.”
Lucius looked at Epictetus to see his reaction. The Stoic’s face was turned away from the others, as if something at the far corner of the garden had drawn his interest. When Epictetus turned back, his face showed no emotion.
Martial laughed. “Sporus was pretty but had an ugly end. Vitellius was ugly, and had an uglier end! Perhaps you should write a discourse comparing those two, Dio.”
Dio shook his head. “As a rule, I avoid discussing the lives of our emperors, even those who came to a bad end. My object is to deliver morals, not debate politics.”
“But haven’t you heard?” said Martial. “Our enlightened new emperor has declared free speech for all. No subject or person is off-limits, not even Titus himself. Allow me to quote my patron: ‘It is impossible for me to be insulted or abused in any way, since I do nothing that deserves censure, and falsehoods are beneath my notice. As for emperors dead and gone, they can avenge themselves if anyone should slander them, if in fact they are demigods and possess divine power.’”
“Did you write that speech for him?” asked Lucius.
“I most certainly did not,” said Martial. “Titus is quite capable of writing his own speeches. And what he says, he means. There’ll be no more payments to those who turn in others for seditious talk, as happened under his father. We all know Vespasian had an army of paid informers, and there are whole rooms in the imperial library filled with dossiers about perfectly innocuous citizens. I suspect there’s a file on every one of us here. But Titus has pledged to burn those documents, and to put the informers out of work. He’ll even punish the most notorious of them, who maliciously spread lies about innocent men.”
Lucius sighed. “The subject shifts to politics – at last!”
“I thought politics bored you,” said Martial.
“Yes, but only one thing bores me more: talk about pretty boys.” The others laughed. “No, hear me out,” said Lucius. “Every one of us here is a bachelor, true, but we are not all boy-lovers. I think I must suffer from the emperor Claudius’s complaint. My father, who knew him quite well, told me for a fact that cousin Claudius was aroused only by girls or women; he had no interest in boys or men. The beauty of Melancomas would have been lost on him. A discussion of male beauty, no matter how grandiose, would have bored him to tears.”
Martial laughed “As it b-b-bores you, Lucius? I think your cousin Claudius simply never met the right b-b- boy!”
“Our reigning emperor certainly doesn’t suffer from Claudius’s complaint,” observed Dio. “Titus buried his first wife, divorced the second, and, despite his reputed dalliance with the beautiful queen of the Jews – and with brawny Melancomas here – he seems to like eunuchs best of all. Is it true, Martial, that Titus keeps a whole stable of pretty eunuchs in the palace?”
“It’s true. Each is prettier than the other.”
“A fact which provides yet more evidence for my thesis regarding the triumph of Persian standards,” said Dio. “You’d think the emperor would seek another Melancomas. Instead, he surrounds himself with castrated boys.”
Lucius laughed and threw up his hands. “Do you see what’s happened? The conversation veered briefly to politics, then circled directly back to sex.”
“The subject is eunuchs, who have no sex,” said Martial.
“Enough!” declared their host. “To please Lucius Pinarius, we will talk about something else. Surely there must be some other topic worthy of discussion, in a world so enormous.”
“We could talk about the world itself,” suggested Lucius. “Did you know that the general Agricola has discovered that Britannia is an island? It’s true. The land mass to the uttermost north doesn’t go on forever, as people thought. It ends in a stormy, frigid sea.”
Dio laughed. “That information might be of some interest, if anyone had a reason to go to Britannia. I’d much prefer to travel south. Epictetus, you’ve hardly said a word. Didn’t you just come back from Campania?”
“Yes. I took a brief trip down to Herculaneum and Pompeii, and then across the bay to Baiae. I may have found a rather lucrative position in the home of a very wealthy garum maker. His villa is built right next to the manufactory, which stinks of fermenting fish, but the house has a spectacular view of the bay, and the brat I’ll be teaching is not a complete barbarian.”
“But how could you bear to leave the city?” asked Martial.
“Granted, Campania isn’t Roma,” said Epictetus, “but anyone who’s anyone in Roma has a second home on the bay, so interesting people are always coming and going. The social scene is the same as in Roma, but along with dinner parties they have boating excursions and banquets on the beach. Some people live there year-round, like your friend Pliny.”
“You dropped in on him, as I suggested?” said Martial. “Good old Pliny, a bit of a bore but always good for a
