Empire (80 page)

While the guests said their farewells to his father, Marcus proceeded to the vestibule, where Apollodorus was having a hushed conversation with his daughter. Marcus had met Apollodora when he first began working for her father. She had been a mere child then. He had not seen her since.

As Hilarion opened the door for Apollodorus and his daughter to make their exit, Apollodora looked back at Marcus for a moment. He was
startled to see what a beauty she had grown into, with her lustrous dark hair, shimmering skin, and enormous eyes.

Later, when he went to bed, Marcus fell asleep thinking about her.

Lucius Pinarius claimed that wine disturbed sleep, and that this was yet another reason to avoid it; perhaps it was the wine that caused Marcus’s strange dreams that night.

His pleasant thoughts about Apollodorus’s daughter vanished as he fell asleep. He was back in Dacia. A village was in flames. As if he were a bird, he followed a boy with unkempt hair and ragged clothes who ran through the narrow streets. Laughing and making obscene noises, Roman soldiers pursued him. The boy tripped over a dead body, threaded his way through jumbled ruins, leaped over raging flames. Suddenly he reached a dead end. He was trapped. He screamed, but there were plenty of other people screaming in the village; he was just one more.

Suddenly, Marcus became the boy. The soldiers converged on him. He was tiny, and they were huge, looming above him in darkness so that he could not see their faces. A giant hand reached for him. . . .

Marcus had experienced this dream before, or dreams much like it. Always, this was the point at which he would awaken, shivering and covered with sweat. But this time he seemed to fall even deeper into the dream. The leering soldiers vanished, as did the ruins of the village. All was suffused with a golden light. Hovering before him was a beautiful, naked youth. He reminded Marcus of the statue of Melancomas, but this being was so radiantly beautiful that he seemed more than human. Was he a god? The youth regarded him with an expression of such tenderness and compassion that Marcus was suddenly close to tears.

The youth reached toward him. He whispered, “Do not fear. I will save you.”

Then Marcus woke.

His room was lit by the first faint glow of dawn. He reached for the coverlet he had thrown off during his nightmare and pulled it to his chin. The warmth comforted him, but it was the lingering impression of the dream that filled him with an exquisite sense of well-being. He had never
experienced such a feeling before, a certainty that somewhere in the universe there existed a power that was perfect and loving, that would shield him from all evil in the world.

Who was the divine youth of his dream? There had been nothing to identify him as one of the familiar gods of Olympus. Was he Apollonius of Tyana, who often visited Marcus’s father in dreams? Marcus didn’t think so; surely Apollonius would have shown himself as Marcus had always heard him described, an old man with a white beard. Was he a manifestation of the Divine Singularity, of which Marcus’s father spoke? Perhaps. But it seemed to Marcus that the youth in his dream was a completely new being, never before seen by anyone in this world. He had shown himself to Marcus and to Marcus alone.

As the afterglow of the dream began to fade, Marcus tried to remember the face of the youth—he even tried to draw him, reaching for the stylus and wax tablet he kept at his bedside, but he found it impossible to recapture the features. The face Marcus drew was only a rough approximation that gave no hint of his unearthly perfection.

Perhaps the youth was nothing more than a creation of Marcus’s imagination. And yet, the dream had seemed more real than waking life. Marcus was convinced that this being came from a place outside himself, a world that was unimaginably vast and beautiful and full of wonder.

Trajan was dead.

Four years of campaigning in the East had yielded a series of conquests, including the capture of Ctesiphon and the subjugation of much of the Parthian empire. Armenia was made a Roman province, expanding Roma’s empire to the shores of the Hyrcanian Sea, as were Mesopotamia and Assyria, which included the fabled city of Babylon and the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, giving Roma direct access to the Persian Gulf and control of all imports from India and Serica, including silk. Trajan sent a letter to the Senate in which he declared that his mission was accomplished; he regretted only that he was too old to follow the example of Alexander and march all the way to India. In fact, throughout the campaigns, he often
displayed the vigor of a man half his age, marching on foot and fording swift rivers alongside his soldiers, who worshipped him like a god.

Then, even as scattered rebellions broke out in the newly conquered territories, Trajan fell ill. His condition became so grave that Plotina, who was with him, persuaded him to set sail for Roma. He did not get far. Off the coast of Cilicia, he suffered a paralyzing stroke, then was afflicted with a dropsy that caused parts of his body to swell to enormous size. Further travel was impossible, and the imperial fleet made harbor at the small port city of Selinus. Trajan died there at the age of sixty-four, ending a twenty-year reign that had added unprecedented wealth and territory to the empire.

Hadrian, serving as governor of Syria, was declared emperor.

He had arrived in Roma some days ago, but as yet he had been seen by only a handful of people. This was to be the day of his public debut as emperor, with a triumphal procession to celebrate the stupendous conquests in the East. The triumph would not be for Hadrian but in posthumous honor of the Divine Trajan.

In preparation for the triumph, Marcus and Apollodorus had been very busy. The entire route of the procession had to be decorated with pennants and wreaths, as did various temples and altars all over the city. Viewing stands had to be erected near the Column, where the procession would reach its climax. Stage sets had to be designed for the plays that would be produced in the days ahead. Decorations had to be made for a great many banquets, large and small. Apollodorus had been summoned for a private audience the first day Hadrian arrived and had been in daily contact with him ever since. Marcus, working under Apollodorus, had not yet seen the new emperor.

The hour was early. The city had not yet begun to stir, but Apollodorus and Marcus and their workers had already been up for hours, laboring by torchlight to ready the triumphal route. The procession was only a few hours away.

They stood near the Column, surveying the brightly colored streamers that had been affixed to the viewing stands. In the utterly still air the streamers hung as limp as shrouds, but with the slightest breeze they would snap to life, their undulations adding excitement and color to the acclamations of the crowd.

Marcus threw back his head, opened his mouth wide, and yawned.

“Did you get any sleep at all last night?” said Apollodorus.

“Last night? It’s not dawn yet. This is still yesterday.”

Apollodorus laughed. “You’re babbling, Pygmalion. Did you go to bed early, as I told you to?”

“Yes, but . . .” Marcus was about to say,
My wife went to bed with me, which meant I got no sleep at all,
but since his wife was Apollodorus’s daughter, he restrained himself. Apollodorus nevertheless read his thought—the two had worked together for so long that each usually knew what the other was thinking—and smiled indulgently. The relationship between Apollodora and Marcus had grown gradually, with a long courtship that had given both of their fathers a chance to get used to the idea. Apollodorus was aware of Marcus’s irregular origins, but marriage into such an ancient patrician family was a great honor for the daughter of a Damascene Greek; for Lucius Pinarius, the match had seemed far below his son’s station, but Marcus clearly loved the girl, and when Lucius asked himself, “What would Apollonius of Tyana do?”—always his test for making a difficult decision—he enthusiastically approved the union.

The marriage was a happy one. So far, there had been no children—but not for lack of trying, as Marcus made clear with another yawn and a dreamy smile.

“I never thought I’d see this day,” declared Apollodorus, gazing at the cleaners who were sweeping the empty square soon to be thronged with people.

“The day we’d celebrate a triumph over the Parthians?” said Marcus.

“No, the day Hadrian would ride through the streets of Roma as Caesar. He still seems a boy to me. I suppose I thought Trajan would live forever.”

“So did Trajan, apparently,” said Marcus. “Even toward the end, when he was paralyzed and puffed up like an Arabian adder, they say he refused to make a will. Some say he wanted to die without naming a successor, in imitation of Alexander the Great. How
did
Hadrian become emperor?”

“It was all Plotina’s doing,” said Apollodorus. “Not that Hadrian wasn’t the obvious choice. But it was Plotina who assured his legitimacy. She told everyone that her husband had adopted Hadrian with his very last breath, and she rallied her loyal courtiers to support Hadrian at every turn. Some
say Plotina must be in love with Hadrian, and the two were carrying on an affair behind Trajan’s back.”

“Is that likely?”

Apollodorus laughed. “Knowing Hadrian, what do you think? I suspect Plotina’s affection for him is more of the maternal variety, don’t you? Oh, I’m sure she’s infatuated with him, and has been for a very long time, in the way an older woman may be smitten by a younger man. But that doesn’t mean their relationship is carnal.”

“I suppose Hadrian will be heading off to war as soon as this triumph is over,” said Marcus.

“Why do you say that?”

“I’ve heard that a great many of the newly conquered cities are in revolt. Insurgencies threaten to undo all those lightning-quick conquests made by Trajan. Hadrian will have to go back and reconquer everything to keep it from being lost.”

“Or maybe not,” said Apollodorus. “I was talking to him yesterday—you understand this is absolutely confidential, son-in-law?” When he was serious, Apollodorus tended to address Marcus as son-in-law, rather than as Pygmalion. “Hadrian says the new provinces in the East are untenable. He says Trajan overreached. Not only are the conquered territories in revolt, but the Jews are making trouble again—they’ve staged bloody riots in Alexandria and Cyrene and there’s open warfare on the island of Cyprus. Tens of thousands have died. According to Hadrian, suppressing the Jews is far more important than holding on to Ctesiphon. So, instead of pouring soldiers and treasure into a perpetual war to hold the new Eastern provinces, he wants to cede the more troublesome areas to potentates beholden to Roma, creating a string of client states along a more defensible Eastern frontier.”

“It sounds like he must have given the situation a great deal of thought, even before he became emperor.”

“I suspect he did. You know Hadrian, never at a loss for an opinion, whatever the subject.”

Marcus frowned. “So here we are, about to celebrate a triumph for the very conquests Hadrian is about to give up.”

Apollodorus laughed. “Ironic, isn’t it? But you and I have done our job.
We’ve decorated the city just as splendidly as if Hadrian intended to hold those provinces for a thousand years.”

The first rays of the sun struck the top of the Column. The statue of Trajan seemed to burst into golden flames.

“Time to go home and change into our best togas,” said Apollodorus.

Marcus nodded and yawned. He closed his eyes.

“Don’t you dare fall asleep when you get home, Pygmalion, or you’ll miss the triumph. And don’t do the other thing, either—unless you and Apollodora intend to make a baby this time!” Apollodorus laughed heartily and slapped Marcus on the back, startling him into wakefulness even as he was about to fall asleep on his feet. “Will your father be coming?”

Marcus felt a twinge of anxiety at the mention of his father and was abruptly wide awake. “No, he won’t be able to come. He hasn’t been well lately.”

In fact, Lucius Pinarius, who was now seventy, had been bedridden for a month, troubled by light-headedness and a weakness in his legs. Hilarion, who had also grown quite frail in recent years, was always at his old master’s side, often reading aloud to him the letters Lucius had received from Apollonius of Tyana, who continued to visit Lucius regularly in his dreams. By his bedside, as a reminder that death was nothing to fear, Lucius kept the iron manacle that had been cast off by Apollonius. Just as Apollonius had been able to cast off his shackles, so Lucius anticipated the moment when his soul would cast off its earthly frame to rise up and merge with the Divine Singularity.