George Gardiner: A Forbidden History.The Hadrian enigma

It was the first day of the three holy days of the Festival of Isis in the Egyptian month of Akhet. This is the festival celebrated across the Empire in our month of October known as The Isia.

Suetonius was eagerly anticipating a late afternoon's schedule of relaxation as the heady vapors enthralled his senses. His intoxication became evident when he could not finish the sentence he was uttering. Instead, he was stricken smilingly mute, ready and craving for all manner of sensory pleasure. The vapors may have induced heavily leaden limbs and tongue, yet they accompanied this relaxation with enhanced physical yearning. The fumes infuse a rare swooning delight which is good, he determined, very good indeed.

For a man at an age where a firm erection is problematic and seminal secretions modest, this unique resin offers assistance to a Roman to perform the necessary arts of virility. It helps make a man's member stand up properly, and a rigid member gives a Roman confidence in his purpose as a living creature.

At least that is what we Romans say.

Recollections of a once vibrant youthful passion were stirred in Suetonius's memory, though they tended to remain a distant echo. The vapor obliged him to express himself in pointing and gesticulation to negotiate the necessary transactions of pleasure. Suetonius tried to recall his own advice — always bargain your prices prior to ingesting intoxicants, not afterwards.

The day had started well for him. After the morning's sacrifice to the gods at an altar beside his river-ferry accommodation moored close to the west bank of the Nile, his party of six ageing notables carefully divined the entrails of a white dove. The omens for the day were acceptable, if peculiar, the augur explained.

Aristobulus, an astrologer companion of the party and a senior advisor in matters astrological to Hadrian himself, queried the reading of the entrails. He based his doubts on star signs he had calculated. Being the first day of The Isia, it was no ordinary day. Yet he sensed an uncertainty in the stars which caused him professional concern. He frowned a great deal, as expert men of science are prone. Yet the astrological confluence was vague.

Suetonius sensed this was typical of so many claims made by seers and soothsayers who enjoy a bit each way as insurance against the risks of their predictions.

Regardless, he and the more phlegmatic members of the group decided to take advantage of this first day of the Festival. The day sorrowfully mourns the death of the god Osiris. Three days later the Festival celebrates his spiritual rebirth or resurrection into Isis's arms. For a thousand years gloom and doom had been followed by joy and uplift, much to the cheer of the populace and the profit of the various priests or priestesses.

With a retinue of litter bearers to beat their path, Suetonius's gentlemen-of-quality joined the throng of mourners in the dusty streets of Hermopolis. Crowds swirled all round. Chanters and musicians lamented loudly in the lanes and temple forecourts. The air was alive with wailing voices, the scintillance of cymbals, and the shimmering rattle of systra. Dancers garbed in mourner's white beat their breasts and cried in grief to Mother Isis as they mimed their ritual search for her husband Osiris's dismembered body. Their hair was strewn with ashes, fabrics were rent, ritual objects were waved.

This year was an Isia of particularly serious supplication to the goddess because of the dismal rise of the Nile's flooding. Since July the river's waters had not swollen to the necessary levels to fully deluge the surrounding flatlands. This was a second year it had risen poorly. A bad harvest was assured for those farmers on higher ground. All were dependent on the flood's black silts to nourish the soil and its crops.

Naturally, the Imperial plantations close to the river were well nurtured. Yet the native Egyptians at the outlying fields wondered what offence had been committed to deserve the punishment of famine by the gods.

Egypt depends on the Nile for its agricultural survival. The two annual harvests would be affected. Deficiency induces famine. Social disturbances may erupt.

Even the city of Rome, far across the Middle Sea, depends on the Nile to nurture the crops. These provide the grain to feed the city's unemployed, impoverished, trouble-making plebs. The governing classes may afford to eat well, but Africa's grain is the underlying buttress of Imperial influence in the decrepit alleys and smelly lanes of the Subura at Rome's center teeming with its denizens. And Hadrian, the Senate, the Legions, and Prefect Turbo too know this well.

The charmless, dun-colored cluster of flat-roofed hovels of Hermopolis clustered around the weathered temples at the western bank of the Nile lies two hundred leagues upstream of the Middle Egypt capital of Memphis. This ancient city is the locale of the stupendous Pyramids and its implacable Sphinx.

Caesar Hadrian's ragtag flotilla of boats, barques, and barges of varying types and sizes had meandered the Nile for weeks past taking in all the famous sights. The flotilla was accompanied on land by hundreds of his staff, his guests, a Legion cohort, and his Guard corps.

The emperor's spectacular river barque, The Dionysus, accommodated his wife Vibia Sabina and her personal household, while the remainder of the travelers sailed in hired river craft in the great flotilla's wake. Many of his Household traveled with the mule-train of supplies which followed the cortege on land for a whole mile. Soldiers marched the journey in full pack and weaponry. They were usually accompanied on horseback by Hadrian, Antinous, a dozen Companions of the Hunt, and other officers of Caesar's glittering cavalcade.

At places where the Household intends to linger for a few days an expansive portable city of tents, marquees, and pavilions is erected to provide luxury accommodations for his retinue and its camp followers. This mobile palace travels ahead and is erected at carefully chosen landscaped sites.

The hundred marquees are policed by Caesar's personal Horse Guard, the civic Praetorian Guard, and much of a military Legion within a low stockade. The center of the complex being a many-chambered palace in itself, it is graced with silken drapes, fluttering banners, extravagant rugs and furs, travel furnishings from across the Empire, all set on shiny removable marble tiles. Food and water are bullock-driven ahead, with the entire entourage self-sufficient in food, wine, slaves, and potable water. The river provides bathing water.

Suetonius and his five learned scholars had spent the late-October morning playing tourist at the ancient temple precincts of Hermopolis. After several hours of touring, the six decided to refresh themselves at the Baths of Tiberius at the Forum in the city. They bathed, steamed, and took an olive-oil massage while twittering a gossipy conversation suited to senior courtiers.

After having been strigiled clean and well kneaded by his body servant, Suetonius took the precaution of ensuring he was sweetly perfumed and garbed in a fresh summer-weight toga. He was now ready to sample the stock at The House of the Blue Lotuses.

After the morning's hectic jostle with crowds, he was eager to find solace for the call of his groin while enjoying some pleasurable female conversation. After well-mannered farewells to his companions he retired to the House accompanied by a personal slave, five litter-carriers, and a hired much-scarred former-gladiator named Macro to clear his path and protect his person.

Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus is a Roman knight of Umbria at the north of Italy, and a former private secretary to Imperator Caesar Hadrian. He has now reached an age where carefully husbanded wealth plus fame as an historical archivist provides the necessary comforts and interests of life.