Solar Wind. Book one

“Why should I be afraid of him?” the boy, who knew nothing about adult relationships, thought with surprise. Then, of course, he found out what the matter was, but back then he didn't know anything about it. “I'm a Roman citizen, and he's just a freedman.”

In little Marcus, his mother has already brought up a sense of pride in belonging to the great Roman people. How could it be otherwise?

Rome was a huge, majestic city-state, extending to the West and East, North and South, covering the entire Mediterranean Sea. This vast civilization lived by the strict, logical laws established by the Roman mind. The Romans believed that inside man lives a genius who guides and protects everyone. The genius of Rome had guarded the city all these years, almost a thousand years.

How many bitter, tragic moments were there when the fate of the Roman people hung in the balance. Sabinians, Carthage, Gauls, Parthians, Germans. But Rome survived, it rose, developed, brought peace and culture to other nations and therefore a proud formula “Civis Romanus sum!”19 meant much more than belonging to a powerful state. It meant living in a civilized world.

Marcus saw Antinous several more times, and then learned that the young man had drowned in the Nile, while Hadrian traveled near the town of Canopus. The emperor's grief was inconsolable. The city of Antinople arose in Egypt, and in the sky rose a bright star and the emperor's confidants assured that the noble soul of Antinous had ascended to the sky.

He drowned, but was resurrected as the Egyptian god Osiris. And so, in the same Egypt, and then in Greece, there were cults of Antinous; he became a deity, perishing and reborn.

Meanwhile, Sabina started talking about Marcus's coming to grow up.

He should get the toga of the young man, because he was already fourteen years old. This was an important step in Marcus's public position. The toga symbolized not only the transition from one state to another—from boy to man—but also a sharp turn in the material situation. Marcus became an heir, could get and use property as an adult. Of course, Sabina said, Marcus would have to make an exception, because such a toga young men usually put on at the age of sixteen. But little Marcus had also become a priest-Salii at seven, and he was generally very developed.

The Empress cheered up, laughing loudly, looking at the corner in which Marcus was sitting at the table. Such mood swings, from sullen gloom to hysteria, and from her unrestrained to fun, became quite frequent for her. Domitia, as she could adjust to her Augustus friend, smiled too, though Sabina's hints were not always clear.

What was she talking about? The fact that Marcus received the priestly rank undeservedly or about something else? Maybe she expected from the family of Annius not just gratitude, hot expressions of gratitude, but veneration of her as a patron saint, almost a goddess.

“We, my dear Domitia, will look after his bride,” Sabine continued, having fun. “Certainly, from a good family, I have one in mind.”

“And who?” Domitia Lucilla asked with inner anxiety.

“You need to be related to the Ceionius. They have a daughter, Fabia, a little younger than Marcus. The family is famous, from the old Etruscan nobility. From it came a few consuls and legats, by the way, they are very favored by the emperor.”

“Why to the Ceionius?”

Sabine's cheerful face instantly became sullen.

“I suspect that he had a connection with one of the women of the house of the Ceionius. Oh, gods, that's disgusting, disgusting! They have the eldest son of Lucius Ceionius Commodus, he was appointed a pretor, and now is in one of our armies on the Rhine. Now, I've been told its supposedly Hadrian's son. What dirt!”

“I heard too,” Domitia confessed, “but I can't believe it, dear Sabina. It's a rumor. The emperor has many detractors, ready to spread gossip on any occasion.”

“You're too lenient toward him, sweetheart!” Sabine gushed. “So, about Fabia. We will strengthen the alliance between your two families, unite the wealth, which will be good support for Marcus in the future. I'll tell you a secret, I have great views of your boy—he'll make a great ruler of Rome. I have to think about strengthening the dynasty all the time, if others don't think about it at all.”

She hinted at Hadrian with a scornful, barely noticeable grimace on her face, then continued. “Since we have no children, the emperor will have to adopt someone who is close enough to our family, as was the case with Trajan and Hadrian himself.”

The Domitia flinched face. Although in her heart she cherished hopes that her son would take a worthy position in society, corresponding to the rank and merits of the Annius family, but the emperor? Oh, Jupiter! That's something she had never considered. Sabina, pleased with the effect, added.

“I, and this is another of the secrets, spied the horoscope compiled by Adrian on Marcus. The stars agree that he will become the ruler of Rome. Maybe not tomorrow or a year, but it will happen. You know how Hadrian believes horoscopes…”

“The whole of Rome has heard about it.”

“I'm sure he's already chosen Marcus. All that's left is to find him a wife.”

“But he is still so young, he does not know life…” muttered Domitia, whose mother's heart did not want to let go of her son too soon.

“Stop, Domitia! We've all been through this. What time did you get married?”

“At sixteen.”

“And I was fifteen. You know that marriages are not made out of love, but out of expediency. We all sacrifice ourselves to marriage, but then…”

Sabina led her eyes in the direction of the slaves and made a sign with her hand. They stopped waving, slowly moved to the far edge of the huge hall. Sabina and her friend got off the bed.

“Marcus,” Sabine said to the boy, “we go to the thermae. Don't you want to come with us? It's so hot today!”

Marcus broke away from reading, hesitantly looking at his mother. She made a permitting gesture with her hand, and they all went to the entrance to the imperial baths. In a large room lined with black-and-white floor slabs, columns of Corinthian pink marble towered around the perimeter, and in the niches the sculptures of Venus and Cupid, who took frivolous poses, took refuge. In the center was a pool in which the blue water splashed.

“Hadrian banned the joint washing of women and men,” Sabine remarked, smiling playfully. “But we're all here. Aren’t we?”

She threw off the tunic, exposing the taut, slender body of the nulliparous woman and began to slowly descend the steps into the water. She felt Marcus studying her, and therefore she was in no hurry. Domitia also followed her example, however, not too much embarrassed—they used to bathe with their son at home.

“Come on, Marcus. Come join us!” Sabina called, turning to him in the water so that he could see her all, from the breasts to the tips of feet. “Don't stand like a statue!”

Marcus undressed and, turning to give clothes to the slave, noticed two African slaves standing nearby. Those with their hands folded on their stomachs, looked indifferently in front of them, like two living idols motionlessly frozen on the order of the lady.

Dog philosophy

The villa of his parents, where Marcus lived, was located on Caelius near Regin's house. It was one of the seven hills of the city, which had long been favored by the Roman nobility. The area became fashionable among patricians because of the picturesque and sparsely populated area. There was no crowding nor the crowds of the big city, here they did not hear the noise and cries of the crowd, nor the disgusting smells of Roman streets.

From the height of the hill, Marcus had more than once seen the splendor of the world capital, seeing the giant Flavius Amphitheatre, the beginning of the forum resting on the Capitol, the new thermae of Trajan. The view of Rome, mighty, beautiful, irresistibly stretching upwards, as a living organism grows—conquering the peaks and forever crashing into his memory. He would remember many times his Caelius, mighty oaks crowding on the slopes, air full of the bloom of spring and youth, warm sun overhead.

Marcus’s great-grandfather Regin told him that one of the famous Roman generals, the winner of Hannibal Scipio Africanus with his cohorts, stayed on Caelian Hill. Here he marched triumphant, proud of his victories in the glory of Rome, dragged after the carts with gold and prisoners of the captured lands. Great-grandfather tried to instill in Marcus a deep pride for Rome, and what best makes one proud than the victory of ancestors?

Oh, this hill of Caelian Marcus would always remember.

Much connected him to this hill. Here, in his parents' villa, he grew up under the care of his mother. Father, Annius Verus, after whom Marcus took his name, died early, and he remembered him vaguely. Actually, there were only two fragments of memories remaining; the father in iron armor and purple cloak beside his mother, holding her hand, and the second…

Father walks in the garden near the villa. He's in a white toga. It is early morning and sunlight, like a waterfall flowing from a clear blue sky, completely fills the garden. From the humid ground slowly rises the milky mist, absorbing brown trunks, green branches, leaves and gradually concealing the father. His white toga merges with white smoke, as if the figure of Marcus Annius Verus is removed deep into the garden. Marcus seems to see that he sees a colorful picture, which is filled with milk. It is as if the spirits of the garden seek to hide his father to spite him. The fog is stronger and higher. He sees his father’s waist, his chest, and his head, but then he completely disappears behind a dense shroud …

However, Marcus felt implicit gratitude to his parents for his masculinity, for the fact that he loved his mother, did not offend her. Perhaps that is why she did not marry, although the women of her circle, remaining widows, did not remain faithful to the dead for long. And some divorced their living husbands, remarrying three or four times. Such actions in Rome were not condemned, but rather were usual.

Here on the Caelian Hill, as his great-grandfather did not recognize the benefits of public school, Marcus's homeschooling began.

Music was taught to him by the Greek Citharode20 Andron, with whom Marcus also learned geometry. Musician-geometer, what could have been weirder? But amazing people often met a curious boy. Or maybe he saw the unusual in the fact that the others considered the matter ordinary?

And Marcus studied painting from another strange man, also a Greek, Diognetus.

“Keep your hand softer, don't strain the brush!” Marcus was taught. “Art is like nature, vague strokes replace clear lines, empty space filled with inner air. This is where the mystery is born. Look at the sculptures covered with toga, tables or cloaks. Behind the soft folds is human flesh, the living soul, though wrapped in marble. This secret of revival is incomprehensible and eternal, but we Greeks still prefer the naked body, with the beauty of which nothing can be compared.”

“Didn't the poet Lucian condemn the call?” Marcus, who studied Lucian's grammar satire, asked.

“Nudity does not hide anything, and this is its appeal,” Diognetus concluded.

Marcus looked at the Greek mentor, absorbed, listened, watched. Diognetus taught him a lot. He was not like the grammar teachers of Alexander of Cotiaeum or Titus Prokul. They forced their pupils to read literature, memorize passages from Latin and Greek authors, to make speeches published by them, and then to disassemble. For example, Marcus had to come up with the text of Cato's speech to the Senate. Or an obituary for the Spartan king Leonid, who died in battle with the Persians.

Grammar exercises awakened the imagination, seemed to Marcus interesting, but Diognetus ridiculed them.

This tall, with a large forehead, sinewy artist, in general turned out to be a great skeptic. Marcus suspected that in Greece Diognetus attended a school of cynics21 and therefore wore a long uncombed beard, a simple squalid cloak. Laughing, he said of himself that he lived like a dog and that he was free from possessing useless things. “I am a true dog,” he grinned.

From him, Marcus learned that only strong personalities, heroes who were not afraid of anything but the gods could trust people. That's why the less you trust, the stronger you become. That's the paradox. Especially it is impossible to rely on magicians, on all sorts of fortune-tellers and broadcasters, who are the real charlatans, because they have appropriated the right of predictions belonging only to the Parks.22 “Their spells are a pittance,” Diognetus said of them harshly and mockingly, “they should be driven away like dirty and smelly dogs, plagued sick.”

Learning about Marcus's long-standing addiction to quail breeding, the free artist-philosopher ruthlessly ridiculed this boyish fascination. The harmless birds made him laugh contemptuously. “Philosophers,” he said morally, “don't breed birds, they eat them.”

Yes, Diognetus taught him a lot besides painting. Because of him, Marcus began to eat only bread and sleep on the floor, on hard skins, because his teacher went through it, and so were real Hellenics brought up.

Perhaps the fascination with cynics had gone too far. Like all boys his age, Marcus was too trusting and malleable to someone else's influence. He turned into soft clay in the hands of a Greek sculptor. It would be nice if these hands were worthy, noble, but not the hands of a cynic philosopher.

No, the strict and attentive Domitia Lucilla did not want her child to become a dog. Into a senator, consul, worthy son of Rome—yes. But into a dog—absolutely not! Diognetus's influence on Marcus seemed too aggressive, premature, and ultimately unnecessary.

She turned to Regin, who recognized her arguments quite fairly, and the artist-philosopher was dismissed from training. However, Marcus took the news quite calmly. By that time, he had already gained a youthful fascination with poverty, when the real world, nature looks like the antipode of patrician life and its inherent luxury, when it seems that rational simplicity is a certain meaning, and material poverty does not mean spiritual poverty.

However, the philosophy of the dog Diognetus was not in vain. Somewhere in the back of his mind this philosophy firmly sat, languished, raising difficult questions. She, this philosophy, could be an antidote to the life surrounding him. Just as King Bosporus Mithridates took poison in small doses not to be poisoned, Diognetus's views could relieve the feeling of the hardships and injustices of being.

But not now—the mother decided. Someday in the future, perhaps he would remember the words of the rebel.

Tiburtine Temptations

Bored, Hadrian sometimes sent for Marcus. When this happened, the young man would be brought to a villa near the Tempe Valley in Tibur. Of course, he would always travel with Domitia Lucilla. Masculinity was already awakening in the young man: the first hairs had begun to appear on his face, so far, a barely noticeable fluff, but quite visible on the cheeks. The voice began to grow rougher, and youthful alto sonority gave way to adult male bass. Hands and feet began to pour force, to strengthen, to develop. He cast curious glances in the direction of young girls—slaves and freedwomen, which did not hide from the watchful eye of Hadrian, but caught the secretive interest of Marcus to boy-slaves, and there were many of them in Tibur.

“You are not so simple my Verissimus,” Hadrian said, looking intently at Marcus, “What do you feel when you look at them?”

“What am I looking at?” Marcus didn't understand.

“On the young flesh, on the girls, on the boys. Don't you want to be the owner of these bodies? Take them, to own them? I see your passions raging, but you're secretive, Marcus Annius Verus. Don't hold back, let yourself go. Let go!”

Hadrian pronounced the last words in almost a whisper, leaning toward Marcus's ear, and Marcus smelled the incense that rubbed the emperor’s body, the scent of Paestum roses. Something tickled his ear. Oh, yes, it was Hadrian's beard! Marcus wanted to withdraw, but dared not, because no one knows what can infuriate the ruler of Rome. What if he decided that he smelled bad from his mouth and Marcus was squeamish? Or something like that? Hadrian's mind was unpredictable.

But Hadrian pulled himself away, and Marcus peered into his serious face, blazing with a secret fire in his eyes. These were the eyes of a man tired of life, tired from a lot of seeing, a lot of surviving, a man exhausted by nosebleeds, eyes talking about the inner heat that had not yet been extinguished.

The emperor sat down on a chair, stroking a graying beard, thick, curled into small rings.

Domitia Lucilla told Marcus about that beard. Allegedly, Caesar's face in his youth was spoiled by ugly scars and warts, and to hide his ugliness he grew his facial hair, although before him no ruler of Rome was bearded. He himself declared himself a supporter of Hellenism, an ancient Greek culture, and all the great Greeks, as it was known, were famous for their facial hair. With the exception of Alexander, the Great, perhaps. But Homer, but Thucydides, but Aristotle?

“What am I talking about? About passions.” Hadrian continues. “Let it be known to you, but I have a passion too. One, for life…”

The emperor fell silent, waiting for Marcus's clarifying question, and he did not make himself wait.

“What passion, Caesar?”

“Curiosity, my friend, I am curious, and this is my disease. Because of her, I lost my Antinous.” He blinked his eyes quickly, as if trying to drive away the tears that came running. “I was in Egypt and believed the fortune-telling that the soul of Antinous, so beloved by me, would not leave his body before me. She would ascend to the sky a wonderful star for only a moment, and then would return to earth and breathe life back into it. And my boy, my Antinous, believed it, too.”

Hadrian fell silent as if he found it difficult to speak, as if he were being suffocated by the sobs he had once forcibly restrained in order not to show weakness, and now the moment had finally come. But the emperor did not sob, after a certain pause he continued with a shuddering voice.

“In the evening, Antinous entered the waves of the Nile, and we stood on the shore, raising our heads to the sky. And we saw him, my Antinous. There, in the distant depths of heaven, a new star shone. There was a sign of the gods, the revelation of Jupiter!”

Hadrian looked up to the ceiling lined with colored mosaics depicting the assembly of the all-powerful deities of Rome. There was Jupiter, Juno, Mars, Hercules, and other, less powerful and significant deities. They strolled along the celestial ceiling, treading on the clouds with their heels, as if on the ground.

“What happened next?”

“He didn't come back,” the emperor said dryly, stretching his legs, showing beautiful sandals with golden laces, manicured feet.

Despite his dramatic story, he looked relaxed, lazy, but his eyes continued to blaze with secret fire, sometimes hiding behind centuries, which, like curtains in the theater, covered the turbulent life behind the scenes.

“What does your mother, the venerable Domitia Lucilla, do?” he asked.

“She walks around the portico and then goes to the library.”

“I have all the books in the world.” Hadrian doesn't miss the opportunity to smugly brag. “She'll have something to read. However, she can take my slave. I have good readers. They say you're about to turn fourteen soon?”

“That's right, Caesar!”

“It's time to put on the toga of an adult male. I think it's time! I watched your horoscope and the stars told me it was time. We're going to celebrate this in the next Liberalia spree.”23

The thought of the toga virilis24 hadn’t occurred to Marcus. Usually boys wore it at sixteen, or even later. But the emperor already distinguished him from the rest, so why not become an adult earlier? His mother and great-grandfather would be proud of him.

“I'll talk to Domitia about it,” Hadrian continued. “I hope you don't mind. Now, let's go and visit the thermals. They are my pride. There you will see incredible sea monsters in marble columns and bas-reliefs with newts and nereids.”

He rose, making an inviting hand, and they went to the baths, following the wide slab paths, in the shade of graceful porticos, accompanied by sharp cries of peacocks, which walked importantly on the grass.

In the evening, after a hearty lunch, Marcus retired to his room, the air of which had before refreshed with saffron and cinnamon, and lay down on the bed.

Thoughts, impressions overwhelmed him, because he had never been so close to the emperor. And now he spent his hours with him, listening to amazing stories about Greece, Egypt, Antiochus. Caesar was a great connoisseur of the arts and customs of these countries. Someday, Marcus would be able to sit on a speed galley and go on a journey to see the whole world civilized by the Romans.

It would be his own wanderings and his own impressions. And he too would talk about them, and listeners would also listen to him with burning eyes.

“Are you still awake, Marcus?”

On the doorstep of the room there was the slender figure of his mother. They often did so; Domitia Lucilla came to him before going to bed, sat down by her son's legs, asked about what he cared about, shared herself. These trust filled conversations became a habit for them and may seem strange only to the perverted mind.

Now they were eager to discuss the news related to Marcus's receipt of the toga virilis. For them it was an unexpected mercy of Caesar, although Domitia suspected that it was not without the favorable influence of Sabina. Despite the fact that the couple would quarrel, and for several years the couple did not live under the same roof, Adrian still listened to his wife.

“The emperor likes you very much,” Domitia Lucilla said. “It gives our family the right to hope for future graces. Oh, gods, we must not lose our luck!”

“I swear to Jupiter, I will try, Mother!” Marcus promised embarrassingly, recalling Hadrian's burning eyes.

The obligation given to him by his mother imposed on him a special vow of obedience, but it had clear boundaries. What if Hadrian wanted to see him as Antinous, not a Greek young man, but a Roman? However, Antinous was not as noble as Marcus, and the connection of patrician with the freedman was never forbidden. But Marcus's was different business.

Won't he dishonor the family, disgrace her with his close relationship with Caesar?

He did not convey his anxieties and doubts to his mother. Why bother her? Why put before her and great-grandfather Regin the difficult choice? Although for Regin, probably, there was no dilemma in such a delicate and important issue. Marcus felt that his great-grandfather was ready for anything because of the power, even to sacrifice his grandson or, at least, part of his body.

Moonlight already made its way into the narrow window holes when Domitia Lucilla left her son. She carried away an oil lamp and her wandering light, moving along the corridor further and further, plunging the room into darkness. Only the aroma of Paestum roses still hung in the air—in Hadrian's Palace it was added everywhere, even in oil lamps.

Warm, not yet cooled air penetrated into the room, blowing Marcus, promising him sweet dreams. But he was not sleeping, he was thinking about his talk was his mother. Nearby on the table there was a tray of fruit, he stretched, took the dates, ate.

Suddenly, he felt that apart from the night breeze in the room someone else stood there, someone alive. Were there thieves? But the villa was guarded by the Pretorians. The emperor? Marcus helplessly squeezed into the bed, feeling like he was being thrown into the heat.

In the barely discernible moonlight, he saw a white figure approaching him—large, shapeless, like a huge snowball rolling down a mountain. Once in Rome snow fell, which was a rarity, and Marcus and his friends lowered from the Caelian Hill such ice balls. The snowball was getting closer and almost rolling to the bed, it suddenly split, turning into two, clearly distinguishable people.

No, it was not the emperor!

“Who are you?” he asked barely audibly.