A Caravan of Monologue
Lysicles
I am at once breathless and overjoyed to report that Palmetta is
pregnant. Anaxamenos, the excited father-to-be, confirmed for me
that it is so; that having tried several months for it, they finally
succeeded. The baby is due in the new year (which is, amazingly,
only three months hence – I am astonished to think that it
has been almost a year since they were married!)
It occurs to me that I have not spoken much of them in my last several
letters, but I attribute this deficiency to the fact of their relative
happiness. If, as seems increasingly to be their function, these
semi-regular monologues are meant to expunge from my soul the accumulated
anxieties of a somersaulting life, it seems pointless to merely
report, again and again, “Anaxamenos and Palmetta are happy,
as usual.” For such is a given. Such is assumed. Is it not?
The unfortunate result of this assumption, however, is that Anaxamenos
and Palmetta must only become worthy of report should they suddenly
encounter some unthinkable hardship. This recognition depresses
me somewhat. And yet, to write solely of happy things would somehow
render these letters inauthentic, for they would inevitably become
liars in the attempt to conceal my more customary state of being.
Which is not, of course, to say that I am perpetually despondent.
(Gods! I am a confusing knot of thought today!)
What am I trying to say? It is this: Palmetta is pregnant. Such
news is but one more happiness to be heaped upon their mountain
of bliss, and, though I am delighted for them, I am also envious
of their contentment, for I increasingly see my own life’s
trajectory in stark relief against theirs. Which is not to mean
that I am unhappy. The word, rather, is fretful. For it is obvious
that the gods have ordained for me a life of much tumult, a fact
that has been demonstrated as much by my past as the promise of
what lies ahead. And as this endless tumult unfolds, I look with
longing at the life of my friend Anaxamenos and wonder if I shall
ever find, as has he, a peaceful and contented existence.
I must wonder as well if Anaxamenos gazes at me and wishes for a
life of comparable adventure. Probably not. He has never struck
me as the type who would prosper with such an existence. Yet does
he think me better suited for it? Is he blind to the anxieties I
feel? To the resistance I experience whenever the demands from above
intensify? Is he secretly relieved that it is I and not him who
has been selected to bear the increasingly oppressive attentions
of Hadrian? But why should he wish upon me such hardships? And why
should I even think to call them hardships? Is that not callous
of me, surrounded as I am by a sea of slaves who know, far more
than I, a painfully more extreme definition of hardship?
Behold, Lysicles, what is emerging as my supreme failure to be for
Hadrian what he wishes of me. My incessant fears and unyielding
insecurities, constantly wailing from deep within the darkest recesses
of my mind, up to a heaven that seems unable or unwilling to hear
them. Outwardly to the world, to the Palatine, to Hadrian, to Macedo
and Statianus, to Phlegon and Decentius, to Anaxamenos and Vitalis,
I appear serene and confident; knowledgeable and restrained. Yet
inwardly I tremble. Privately I wonder at and obsess over my worthiness.
And then, in the height of my despair, up shall rise my cock at
the sight of a brawny man, and in my arousal I shall seek him out,
or seek out instead the company of Decentius, or frig myself by
the fantasy of his substitute. Is this the behaviour of a hero?
Is this the nobility that Hadrian sees in me? What an inconstant
and cluttered fraud I am! What a fool! What a knave!
Yet to think such things is to become exhausted. Believe me: I am
not always so desperately apprehensive. Indeed, there are other
times, when the clouds swirl away and the sun comes out to shine
upon my nose, that I can look upon myself as one who is indeed fortunate
and incomparably blessed. One who dares to stand near to the gods
and walk proudly through the aura of Rome’s highest power.
Dare I reveal, my friend, that to pleasure myself then, whilst in
the throes of such a corporeal sense of efficacy, is among the most
exhilarating feelings I have known? Aye. For these pages to Lysicles
demand the utmost honesty. And so, to be honest, the concentric
circles into which I find myself admitted have, on more than a few
occasions, become for me a kind of unwieldy aphrodisiac –
one that is as terrifying as it is sensual. It is in these rare
moments of heightened orgasmic release that I am sometimes able
to catch a fleeting glimpse of the reason for Hadrian’s reticence;
his fear of using the ultimate title and its attendant powers to
capture and control the essence of what is Antinous. For to do so
would no doubt destroy Antinous, and thus is the Man called Hadrian
forever struggling dreadfully to protect what the Emperor would
quickly and clumsily demolish.
Enough. My brain is ambling across a vast and sandy terrain of thought,
and, what’s more, is doing so without map, sustenance or even
a destination. Let me return, then, to the concrete and the historical;
to the events and the calendars of my life; to the civilization
of men in which I live.
When I am not visiting with Anaxamenos and Vitalis in the stables
(or, I should add, with Vitalis in bed!), then I am probably with
either Decentius (in bed), or in the library, where I visit with
the perpetually calm Salonius. My reading has been broad and vast,
and to mention the names of Flaccus, Italicus and Quintilianus only
begins to list the recent minds I have more recently touched. With
regard to that last, I have come to realize just how deficient is
my own training should I ever wish to publicly practice my rhetoric
at such a lofty level as did he.
Decentius continues to stand guard at the Bureau of Imperial Correspondence
in the Office for the Territories of Asia Minor, although its new
incumbent is an altogether surly man whom Decentius does not like.
The thought has occurred that I could perhaps seek to establish
with this man some kind of friendly relation, and thus enlist his
help in a renewed quest to locate you. But the notion of parting
with my stack of letters and sending them off into the unknown is
frightening. Taken together, as a collection, these epistles of
Antinous have suddenly become to me extremely valuable, for over
the course of the summer they have undergone a strange metamorphosis,
becoming less about the Lysicles for whom they are written and more
about the Antinous who writes them. Is that selfish of me? Perhaps
it would be, had I some reasonable assurance that you were in a
position to receive them. But lacking such assurance, and burned,
as I am, by the history of their stewardship, I am resolved to keep
them for myself, and deliver them all, one glorious day, in person.
What else shall I report? Owing, no doubt, to the influence of Commodus,
Carisius is increasingly finding himself admitted into the social
company of Sabina and her women, including the occasionally obnoxious
Julia Balbilla. I am very grateful that it is he and not I who must
endure it, although I suspect it is hardly for him the chore it
would be for me. I am glad, in a way, that Carisius seems to have
found a set that welcomes him and provides for him a certain degree
of distinction. If nothing else, it appears to have reduced his
once implacable envy of me in my relations to Hadrian. And who am
I to disdain him for that?
One more thing, and it relates to the mention of Quintilianus above:
there is some increasingly excited talk – fuelled as much
by curiosity as by the reputation of its subject – concerning
a famous orator who is due in Rome within but days. His name is
Favorinus, and he is said to be a hermaphrodite. I would be a liar
if I reported that I was not intrigued by the anticipation of hearing
him speak, for I am enthralled by the mystery of whether his brilliance
as a speaker is either in spite of, or the result of, his peculiar
sexuality. It shall be interesting to see, and moreso to reflect
upon.
By Jove, our sex is everywhere, Lysicles! For I have just, in my
preparation to close, re-read this meaningless letter. And all throughout
this text is the spectre and the jester of that awful organ. With
it, we make babies; we elaborate the discourse of our power; we
gift our loves; we rape our enemies; and lo, we drive an extraordinary
caravan of monologue across the arid desert of our lives. Priapus,
I hereby declare, is surely the most bewildering of all the gods!
A.
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