Solar Wind. Book one
“Why do you need a nomenclator, Mom?” Marcus was surprised. “Today it is cool, and it is unlikely that you will push the curtains of the palanquin to see those who come to meet.”
“You know your mother is naturally curious.”
Rome loved holidays, solemn processions, triumphs. There were many of them, for different tastes and frets, and almost all of them were connected with the Gods. Every step of the citizens of Rome from birth to death, accompanied by them, guarded, helped the genius living inside each person.
In March, only one holiday was celebrated by all—The Liberalia. It was important because the young men on this day removed the toga praetexta and dressed in toga virilis, as if replacing children's life with adulthood. However, it was seen as a simple matter, as if with a change of clothes, it was easy to change not the status, but the internal perception of the world. Marcus, brought up in conversations with Greek teachers, whose attitude was deeper and wider than the Romans, seemed strange.
His fellow tribesmen against the background of the Greeks looked more pragmatic, purposeful and material, which had its advantages in the conquest of other peoples. But these down-to-earth people were not known for the exuberant flight of poetic fantasy, which owned the people who gave such great poets as Homer. The Romans were infinitely far from the thoughtful reasoning of Aristotle and Plato, who created the philosophy of their civilization.
Liberalia were not only associated with the ritual of transition of young men into adulthood. For many, Lieber sounded almost like the word freedom,37 though Lieber and Libera were just a married couple—a symbol of fertility and its strength. Therefore, the Romans loved this holiday, which allowed them to make funny obscenities and be slightly dissolved, for a short time avoiding the rigors and rituals of ordinary life. And, moreover, the importance of Liber was that he helped a man free himself from the seed during love games, and his wife Libera did the same for women.38
Walking through the city with a large heavy Antiochus, Marcus looked at these cheerful crowds of people, slightly drunk, screaming, stretched on the face masks of wood bark and leaves, waving small phalluses made of flowers. Almost all of them without exception sang comic scraping songs and Marcus, unwittingly picked up by this whirlpool of fun, also sang along.
He sometimes liked to wander around Rome on such holidays, wrapping up, if it was winter or early spring, in a warm cloak, throwing a hood over his head. He liked to breathe the air of a free city and feel like a citizen of a universe named Rome. He liked to observe, because a leisurely, thoughtful contemplation was taught by Diognetus, but he had also been instructed that contemplation should be meaningful, leading to the right thoughts.
These drunk people in painted masks. Why did he look at them, what he wants to see, see under masks? Wouldn't it be better to give up thinking and get into a full-flowing human river, bubbling on narrow city streets and spilling wide, on the outskirts, like a spring Tiber during floods?
Wouldn't it be better to boldly approach a young freed woman with an indiscreet offer? Or embarrass the venerable matron with a cheeky look? And then brag about your courage in front of the Victorinus or Fuscianus? Because Baebius Longus and another friend of the plebeians Calenus, already boasted wins over women. Not over slaves, with which you can do anything, but over the free Romans.
A 14-year-old boy entering adulthood. Isn't that why he should celebrate such an important event? Adulthood was not only to change one set of clothes for another, to switch from a white toga with a red stripe to a fully white one. Adulthood was the ability to do things that were previously forbidden, it was to deny all prohibitions.
He thought like this, and suddenly his thoughts were embarrassing. The heady feeling of freedom, the permission of anything to the soul, gave courage to the depths of the heart, led to recklessness. He and Antiochus went further to the Aventine hill, where there was a temple of the goddess of fertility Ceres. That's where the sanctuary of Liber and Libera was.
Narrow streets, high bulk of brick insulae, from the entrance to which carries the smells of cooking food, urine and sewage. The walls of the houses were painted with all sorts of words, for the most part obscene, to which everyone was accustomed here. “Semporius yesterday inserted Sext's widow,” “Nicanor beats Checher's wife,” “Flor is a real stallion; he is not enough for five women,” “Girls, I traded you for men's ass.”
This was not the first time Marcus has read such coarse inscriptions coming from the depths of people's self-awareness. Of course, the simplicity of street humor was not in any comparison with the exquisite jokes of lawyers, philosophers or rhetoricians. She was closer to the Atellan farce and the mime, to the actors who played them, for example, to the well-known Marullus. Nevertheless, Marcus was never confused by the frank images inspired by Eros, crammed defiantly with huge phalluses.
He noticed that at the entrance to the houses on small chairs sat caretakers from retired military, in the past options39 or decurions.40 They collected rent for the owners, kept order. Usually these former fighters played with weighty sticks in their hands and looked unkindly at passers-by. But today they were disassembled by fun, and they did not look like sullen supervisors.
Noticing Marcus, one of these caretakers rose from his chair, and scornfully ignored the massive, clumsy Antiochus, who had warily stepped from behind the young patrician, saying, smiling:
“Dominus, does a woman want to.”
“Do prostitutes work during the day?” Marcus wondered, having heard about the experience of adult buddies.
“They always work, young dominus,” replied the caretaker, continuing to smile unpleasantly.
“Or maybe so I celebrate my new age?” returned to Marcus bold thoughts, which arose when he looked at the girls and women singing in the streets, at their pink cheeks and cheerful eyes, at their alluring bodies.
“We're going to the Libera sanctuary,” Antiochus interjected. In the cool air his voice sounded cracked, revealing a Greek accent. “The dominus doesn't have time now.”
“I think it will be up to the young master himself,” the caretaker said brazenly.
As he spoke, a mature, kind woman with fiery red-painted hair, a typical lupa,41 peeked out of the entrance of the insulae. Prostitutes were often painted in such defiantly bright colors, walked red or blue-headed.
“You have a place in the Lupanar,” Antiochus observed, “you violate the law of Augustus, which prohibits the accepting of customers at home.”
“What are you, the lictor? Something unnoticed by your fasces,”42 echidna throws a woman, quickly looking around Marcus. “Augustus has long been a god, and the gods do not always descend to such little things. Oh, what a lovely boy! Come on, come on with me!” she invited Marcus.
But words were not limited. She grabbed it, and Marcus unwittingly noticed her old skin, dirty nails on her hands, felt the unpleasant smell of an unwashed body. He became disgusted, the desire to go did not arise, but the legs themselves obediently led after the woman on shabby wooden stairs, on the floors, at the ends of which there are large vats for sewage. Residents poured their excrement there every morning. This smell was disgusting, sickening, but Marcus, as if fascinated by something, went after the old prostitute. Behind puffed heavy Antiochus.
The woman, meanwhile, having received a client, and even such a sweet, clean boy, went a quick step and spoke loudly, she was in a good mood. It turned out that she was from Bithynia, from where was born Hadrian’s favorite Antinous. No, she didn't know Antinous, and in the town of Claudiopolis, where he was born, she was not, but she heard about him. Hadrian had raised many monuments to this unfortunate young man. Died in the color of years! What a grief for his mother!
She herself, and her name was Demetra, three boys and all attached—traded in the shops of their fathers. She tried for them, she collected a small capital, forced them to go to school. True, their teacher was strict, he beat them with a whip mercilessly for every fault. But they grew up obedient and attentive to her, to their mother, to the glory of the gods!
They didn't get to the top floor, where the prices for the rent weren't as big as the bottom. Demetra rented a room for two thousand sesterces a year. The situation in it, although not shone luxury, but seemed quite tolerable. Apparently, its owner enjoyed success with men, especially in his younger years.
In the corner was a large bed, which could fit a few adults, perhaps three or four. That's what Marcus thought. A couple of trunks set against the wall. The table on which there were two clay jugs, and a chair stood near the window. From there was a coolness—on the upper floors there was no glazing, there were only wooden shutters, out of shape from the damp and barely covered. They hardly let the daylight pass, and therefore the room was gloomy.
In such darkness it was difficult to see the drawings on the walls covered with ochre, but Marcus still considered the erotic scenes that Demetra ordered the artists tailored to her craft. On them men with huge phalluses, exceeding the size of their hands, copulating with women in various poses.
“Now, now, sweetheart!” Demetra said, deftly removing Marcus's warm heavy cloak, then the tunic. She, accustomed to all the whims of men, did not pay attention to the slave standing there. Who knows, maybe he was there to make sure that no one harmed his master? Or maybe the young master would want them to have her together, at the same time? She, of course, was ready for anything, but it would cost more.
However, Antiochus, as if understanding her thoughts, turned away and left the room.
“Oh, how white, tender your skin is!” Demetra examined his body, bringing her face closer to him, almost too close, drawing her fingertips on his back, shoulders, chest. Marcus tickled, and he felt a slight excitement. There was no heat in the room, and the roasting pan in the corner was out and it was cool.
“Now we'll see what you have here!” Demetra said with a laugh, lowering her hand below.
And now the dream repeated itself. In front of him on her knees there was a woman, he copulates with her and he was not disgusted by the smell of this body, nor the kind of flabby, saggy skin of the prostitute. Perhaps now she would turn her head, and he would see the face of Empress Sabina. Or his mother’s. No, it shouldn't happen again! The woman turned her head, and he saw Demetra. Of course! It was Demetra, there could be no other.
He was covered with intense excitement, he convulsively jerked, beating on her body and almost lost his head, falling against her back. “Thank the gods, it's a prostitute!”—swept through his head, which was so clear, empty and lonely that it seemed as if he was hovering above the ground in the blue over the mountain ranges of the Alps or over the vast expanses of the Tyrrhenian Sea.
No, it didn't happen! No Demetra, no body, no horrible, shameful coitus. It never happened. “It's a dream,” he decided. “I swear to Venus, I am a virgin and will remain for him until the wedding! Until the gods find me a wife.”
The woman, meanwhile, was already dressed, and now she quickly and deftly helped to dress Marcus. She took his money and looked affectionately into his eyes.
“Come to me again, my boy. I'm Demetra from the fifth district of Hill Caelian. Remember that?”
The Jewish War
Emperor Hadrian spent the whole spring and summer in the East, mostly in Athens.
Galatia and Cilicia, Egypt and Judea. He didn't like Asia very much. Screaming, self-serving, impudent peoples, people in whom it was difficult to find the inherent Hellenic susceptibility to the sublime and graceful, irritated Caesar.
Being in the Arabian sands or mountains of Cappadocia, in the sun-dried city of Alexandria, among the olive groves of Phoenicia, he often turned his gaze towards Greece, where the clouds flowing through the blue sky. There, above the top of Olympus, where the majestic gods lived, these clouds were showered with warm rain, mitigating the harshness of the celestials. There was ready to be shed and his heart, the heart of the Emperor of Rome, if he was on the ancient land of Hellas.
But circumstances prevented the reunion of Hadrian's soul with the divine and unique Greek aura. All the fault was Judea, unruly and persistent in their delusions, which from the point of view of Rome were seen as barbaric and demanding eradication.
It all started two, maybe three years ago. In his quest to impose Greek culture on the Jews, Hadrian may have gone too far. He passed a law banning castration, unwittingly affecting Jews who were no longer allowed to circumcise. Unfortunately, this was one of the most important rites of their religion.
Then he, Hadrian, decided to rename Jerusalem, the holiest city for every Jew, to Aelia Capitolina, because it seemed that its importance after the defeat of the Titus rebellion in these lands significantly decreased. The city, as it seemed to Hadrian, had already lost the original importance of the religious center of all Judea and on the Temple Mount he intended to build the sanctuary of Jupiter Capitol.
The members of Hadrian's council also did not object to such measures, neither the prefect of Rome Regin, nor the prefect of the Pretoria Turbo, nor the immediate entourage of the emperor, which included the famous lawyers Publius Celsus, Salvius Julianus, Neracius Priscus. Even his secretary, Avidius Heliodorus, a native of Syria, who was of close origin to the peoples of Asia and he found no arguments against. Maybe he lied since the Syrians have always acted as antagonists of the Jews.
Therefore, having received approval from all sides, on the wave of fame and success of his brilliant reign, Hadrian did not think about the consequences.
But how can one predict what comes to the minds of fanatics of faith? After all, the divine Titus almost sixty years ago seemed to have destroyed the sprouts of resistance forever. However, the deafly hidden and dangerous discontent lurking in the bowels of the people of Judea had to sooner or later break out, like lava from Vesuvius.
The Jews were just waiting for their messiah, predicted in the Old Testament, and such a messiah appeared. Hadrian was informed that his name was Varkoheba,43 which meant “Son of the Star,” and Varkoheba called himself the prince of Israel. However, the governor of Tineius Rufus reported that the messiah has another nickname—Ben-Koziwa, the son of lies. But there was little trust in Rufus.
Prefect of the Pretoria Turbo, to which the service of the frumentarii44 was subordinate, the collectors of human secrets, reported that the viceroy did not behave quite well, and the cup of patience of the Jews was overflowed with Rufus’ harassment of a newlywed. It was as if he had corrupted a few women.
This Rufus had yet to be dealt with.
Now, after four years of bloody war, in which the Romans lost many experienced warriors, several legions, Hadrian sat in front of the city of Betar on a white horse in armor, a purple cloak—a symbol of imperial power, fluttered behind his back. He didn't usually have a helmet, because he never covered his head, neither in winter nor in summer. He was surrounded by a small retinue.
The Augustus sun burned brightly in the sky, warming the air, gray stones, distant mountains. There was a severe heat, which happened in these places in early Augustus, and Hadrian felt her suffocating, squeezing his lungs. He was afraid that his nose would start to bleed.
Covering his eyes with his palm from the blinding light, he looked at the last stronghold of the Jewish resistance, the fortress of Betar. In front of him was an impressive sight worthy of the artist's brush; in the middle of small hills, scorched by the southern sun, gray-yellow stones, faded green trees, lay a Jewish fortress, which survived a long siege, but was eventually captured thanks to the unexpected help of the Samaritans. When the Roman legions, exhausted by the long and barren siege, were about to retreat, the Samaritans came to the rescue and helped to find out the secret passage into the fortress.
Hadrian carefully considered the high gloomy walls, partially punctured by battering rams and destroyed by powerful catapults, a long ditch stretching along them, filled with the corpses of legionnaires. They lay in the sun-shining armor, and the red cloaks covered many, as if preparing for a funeral fire. Black smoke of fires, engaged in several places, rose into the sky above the fortress.
Roman troops entered Betar only a few hours ago on the ninth day of the Ava45 on the Jewish calendar. Loud wails of murdered male-defenders were heard from the city and their bodies, similar to dead birds falling from the ruined nests, were strewn from the city. There were laments of women who were dragged by the victors. Behind the walls of the city rattled deaf blows, as if someone was banging on a huge drum.
Terrified residents appeared from the broken gates, with men, women, children, exhausted and dirty, with difficulty moving their legs. They were led by guards, separated by each cohort. Soon the Jews would be turned into slaves, into a living commodity. Rich prey!
It had been hard lately. The state needed almost five hundred thousand slaves annually, but the conquests ended, and the pirates captured at sea could not cover all the needs. The last emperor to satisfy the needs of the state was Trajan, who captured a large extraction in Dacia. And now, he, Hadrian, would help Rome.
Among other things, he would also teach the Jews a lesson, an order had already been given to wipe out almost a thousand settlements in Judea, about fifty fortresses. Many would be executed and crucified. He would pour blood on this scorched, stingy earth, paint its sky in red in accordance with his preferences, as an artist who creates an epic canvas. Blood and earth, what could be more epic? His work would be no worse than The Aeneid Virgil—just as majestic and memorable.
Meanwhile, the crowd of captive Jews was approaching. They were being pushed viciously, driven by guards, which was causing screams and noise. Jews were being taken to the markets of Terebinth, in Gaza City, some of them would be sent to Egypt. There were so many of them, captured today and captured earlier, that the prices of slaves had already fallen and equaled the cost of horses.
“Where is the new Jewish ruler, this despicable dog?” Hadrian asked his confidants. “I want to see him.”
“Caesar, my men are looking for Varcoheba!” the viceroy, Tineius Rufus, sitting on a horse just behind the emperor, cast his voice. He was in gilded lats, which gleamed in the sun, discharged like a peacock. The conversation allowed him to move forward a little bit, so as not to force Caesar to turn around.
“I wish this robber to be punished!” Hadrian said firmly, turning his eyes to Rufus. “You've served me well, Quint! It remains for you to be commended for your devotion.”
A benevolent smile touched his lips; however, it quickly melted in the graying beard and Tineius Rufus was lost in guesses how he would be thanked by the emperor. Would he give new lands? Money? Or would he let him go next to him during a triumph in the capital??
He felt the excitement, a certain rise, because, after all, they had achieved victory in this grueling and bloody battle, in a long war. He had to retreat a lot and surrender to the Jews one fortress after another, but now in the end, Rome won! Of course, it was not a very good impression that overshadows the upcoming triumph. The Jews accused him, Tineius Rufus, in their troubles, as if he had ploughed their holy Temple Mount in Jerusalem and was going to put there a temple to Jupiter Capitol together with a huge statue of Emperor Hadrian. However, he, Tineius Rufus only followed the instructions of the princeps. Have discipline and diligence ever been blamed?
Still the Jews spoke of his voluptuousness, compared with the lascivious Assyrian Holofernes molested by the beautiful Judith. No, he, Tineius Rufus, was no more lustful than all the other men in power.
But Caesar's smile… Rufus didn't think it was kind.
Two horsemen left the gates of the ruined fortress at that time and rushed to the emperor at full speed. The commander of the legions, Julius Severus, and the legate, Titus Matenianus, who recently received triumphant clothes for the victory.
As the Governor of Rufus seemed to be ineffective in the military field, Hadrian had to bring to the war Julius Severus as the most experienced of the generals. He was summoned from Britain, and thanks to his tactics, first managed to oust the rebels from major cities, and then disperse them through the mountains and caves.
“Great Caesar, we brought the head of Varkoheba,” exclaimed Julius Severus, and raised the blood-stained bag with a theatrical gesture, in getting it from the saddle. Then he uncovered it. On the ground rolled the severed head of a black-haired bearded man, whose eyes were gouged out, his mouth tightly compressed.
Hadrian bent down in the saddle, looking at all that was left of the defeated enemy.
“So you are, prince of Israel,” he said calmly enough, as if he did not want to express much interest. On the other hand, why should he show it? Hadrian saw many defeated enemies, crucified on crosses, with severed heads, with fractured limbs, because under Emperor Trajan had to fight everywhere.
“Where is the body of the rebel himself?” someone asked behind the Princep’s back.
It was relatively not old, he was not yet thirty-five, the Senate envoy Lucius Ceionius Commodus. The Senate reported that it would not mind if Hadrian, in honor of the victory over Judea, declared his triumph and celebrated the event in Rome.
Hadrian was looking at Ceionius.
He had long known his family from Tibur, where villa Ceionius was relatively close to the residence of the princeps. He also knew Commodus's mother Plavtia, who was a hot thing. She had gone through three husbands. The first, the father of Ceionius, Hadrian knew quite well, and he respected him. Thanks to his father a few years ago, his son was given the post of pretor, a post insignificant, but responsible in terms of the beginning of his career. Then, after the death of his father, the young Lucius began to entrust more important affairs.
This had already been facilitated by Plavtia, a seductive woman who tried to charm him, Hadrian. He was then young, strong, charming, entering the court of Trajan and with his mother Ceionius they could have a love affair, all contributed to this. But the Emperor's wife Plotina already picked him as Vibia Sabina's bride, and he could not embark on the waves of love joys with the married matron. Although, evil tongues claimed that Ceionius Commodus was his son.
Hadrian looked again at the young man who, under certain circumstances, could have been his son. Curly hair, high height, amiable smile, pleasant speech of an educated man who knows Hellenic and Roman literature. Everything about him was like Hadrian. This Ceionius was also a connoisseur of cooking, it was he who invented Tetrapharmakon—a dish so loved by the emperor.
But a low forehead, a cheerful emptiness in the eyes and primitive reasoning. No, this Ceionius Commodus was superficial, did not have the depth of reason and the breadth of views inherent in him, Hadrian.
“Yes, where is his body, Severus?” the emperor supported Lucius Ceionius. “Of course, there is enough head, but still, I would like to look at it completely.”
“Great Caesar, we found a body in one of the caves, not far from here. The rebel tried to hide with his companions, but he was discovered by us. Some of them we killed, the rest captured. They say that among the prisoners was a Jewish interpreter of the laws of Judaism, a priest. His name is Akiva. Spies say that he is one of the instigators of the uprising against Rome.”
“Akiva?” Hadrian asked.
“Yes,” the legate Matenianus confirmed. “The spies told us that this Akiva had been proclaimed the messiah king of Varkoheba. He also set out on the road in Judea and preached enmity to Rome, called for rebellion, collected money.”