Across the Leagues
Lysicles
Wherefore, any thinking fellow ought ask, do I even bother to address
this in your name? Especially now, when Mordanticus has told me,
quite regretfully, that you are no longer in Bithynia? What silliness
it is; what willful folly. And yet, to assemble so religiously the
letters that must invariably constitute the word that is the invariable
idea of you, my friend, is both a comfort and a joy; it soothes
me to think on you as often as I can. As the air rushes in to stretch
the bones of my ribcage, so too does a spirited and simultaneous
hope expand my heart so near to bursting that my lungs must struggle
in the assertion of their right to fill with air. All competes for
what limited space my pitiful body affords.
“My dear Antinous,” said Mordanticus glumly. “My
friend and my confidant. Sit down.” I did as he commanded.
He looked at me and smiled – although it was a face so obviously
intended to prepare me for sad news. “Your Lysicles,”
he said, “and his family have left Claudiopolis.” I
was devastated, for even at that moment I held in my hand the story
of an evening at the riverbank with Anaxamenos – and now had
nowhere to send it. “When?” I asked. “It was some
time ago,” he replied. “At the very least, two years.
Perhaps more. They did not move very far: a little south and then
east. They live now in Antioch.”
I sat silently with that news for a long time. At last Mordanticus
spoke: “There is a magistrate in Claudiopolis – a good
and decent fellow – whose name is Epolonius. It is he who
responded to my inquiry, and gave me the news of their departure.
He told me that he has been forwarding your letters on, but cannot
verify if they have been received.”
Epolonius! Can you imagine, Lysicles? Can you believe it? The very
man who set our ever-growing distance in motion now works to build
with these feathers of language an increasingly untrustworthy bridge
for us. Shall I love or despise him for it? There lives in my heart
a particular bitterness for that man; for his demonstration of me
to Gryllus. My mind began to rove in search of solutions. “We
must alter the destination,” I resolved. “Why continue
to route them through Claudiopolis, which now is nothing more than
a cumbersome detour? Shouldn’t we send them directly to Antioch,
addressed to Lysicles, Son of Niraemius? Won’t they know of
him there?”
Mordanticus considered that. Finally, he responded: “It is
dangerous to address a message to a person who has but shallow roots
in a city, and who lives without office or title. When he resided
in Claudiopolis, it was easy to assume that many there would know
of him, and would see that the letters reached him. But Antioch
is a far more populous city, and, even after two years, I suspect
his household is still relatively unknown. It would be a risk, Antinous.”
“It is a risk I am prepared to take,” I finally said.
I could have added that I loathed the thought of Epolonius touching
with his sullied fingers my every word to you. But I refrained,
as it was clear that Mordanticus thought quite well of him and I
wished not to offend this very conscientious man whom I needed now
more desperately than ever. There was, at the very least, some comfort
in the fact I had received a small crumb of news, despite the fact
that it was decidedly dismal. I pictured you in a caravan, my friend,
trundling over the vastness of our beloved land and arriving, with
your family, at your new home. I resolved that I would one day seek
you in Antioch.
Meanwhile, Mordanticus took my letter from me and placed it into
a large pile beside the one it had usually rested on. There were
many more papers in this new one than I had always seen in the old.
“That,” he smiled at me, “is the difference between
Claudiopolis and Antioch. Let us at the very least rejoice that
Lysicles did not move to Egypt! For then, Antinous, you would be
going to a different office – in fact, a different building!
– altogether, and we should never see each other ever again.”
I told him that such was not the case, as he was a friend. He looked
at me for a long time then, as if assessing me. “Something
between us has altered,” he said, “since that evening
in which I took you to my home.” He was right, of course.
How could it have not? “I am confused, Mordanticus,”
I confessed. “I have struggled often with the memory of that
night. Some days it is nearly forgotten; a distant and nebulous
dream. Yet others, it weighs heavily upon my soul. I still do not
know how to understand myself, or you, in light of what happened
with your wife. What is most disturbing to me is that you were there;
that you watched it; that you invited upon yourself and Glaucia
the dishonour of another man’s possession of her. How shall
this be reconciled?”
Mordanticus smiled. “Did you possess her, Antinous, or did
she possess you?” Indeed, it was a very good question. “I
have no doubt,” he continued, “that you would never
in all your dreams have thought to do what you did to her had you
not been prompted. You are far too noble a spirit for that. Together,
Glaucia and I made much preparations for it. We plied you with wine;
with succulent foods. We eased your mind and fattened into a torpor
the hard and lean defenders who have long and loyally stood guard
around your propriety. And we did so, Antinous, not to dishonour
you, nor cause you grief, nor condemn you to wander aimlessly upon
an endless shore of lapping, sleepless nights.”
“Then why did you do it?” I asked him. He answered simply,
“It excited me. I have long fantasized about seeing my wife
in the thrall of another man. I wanted to observe her from a distance:
to look on her in that very same manner in which we look on a mural
at the baths. I wished for her to become as like a living mosaic
– animated and breathy. And as for her partner, I wished him
to be someone I was fond of. Someone of intelligence and charm,
of social worth, of presence – not some random fool too easily
and willingly bought. And yet, for all these reasons, he needed
as well to be someone I could trust for his discretion. You thus
represented to me a very attractive target, not the least because
of your beauty. I am not embarrassed, my friend, to report to you
that it was for me a most glorious evening: I felt as though I alone
had been granted the ultimate privilege to spy upon a pair of young
and mythological beings as they privately performed their sacred
rite.”
Tell me, Lysicles: How can I not, at the very least, admire this
Mordanticus for his honesty?
Tonight, as I sit and reflect on the news of your departure from
Claudiopolis, I wonder why your father should have decided, after
expending such effort to rebuild his house in the aftermath of the
earthquake, to so suddenly abandon it for a strange city? What was
it about Antioch that so attracted him? I simply cannot fathom it,
and yet must trust that he did so for the betterment of his family
and a formidable faith in his future. Let us pray that this letter,
across the endless leagues of danger, delay and uncertainty, finally
finds you, Lysicles; and that you receive it as you always received
me – with patience, love, and soundless forgiveness. A.
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