Hadrian laughed. “Excellent! You and Verissimus have a ready-made subject for debate: can a lover of philosophy also enjoy the hunt? You shall come, too, Pygmalion. I’ve selected a site for the tomb of Antinous, and there are a number of other sites I want to show you – for the baths, the library, the great pool…”

“It will be an honour, Caesar.” Marcus raised his eyes to the statue of Antinous, the god who had brought him so much good fortune.

On the sixth day before the Nones of Maius, Marcus Pinarius and his son, Lucius, stood among the crowd of courtiers who filled the porticoes surrounding the ancient Auguratorium on the Palatine Hill. Before the altar, the emperor himself performed the augury to mark the passage to manhood of Marcus Verus, who stood in the middle of the gravel-strewn courtyard, wearing his first toga.

At fifteen, however mature his intellect, Verus still had no beard, and his delicate features were closer to those of a boy than a man. Hadrian’s beard and hair had more grey than ever, and his face had an unhealthy pallor; it seemed to Marcus that the emperor looked considerably older than sixty. It was rumoured that Hadrian was suffering a serious illness. He had begun construction on his own mausoleum.

Marcus was involved in the building of the new mausoleum. “All the other imperial tombs are already full,” Hadrian had told him, “and I have no intention of spending eternity crammed next to Trajan inside the Column.” The structure was to be a vast circular building not unlike the mausoleum of Augustus in design, but much larger, located on the banks of the Tiber across from the Field of Mars. It seemed to Marcus that Hadrian could not be content unless he had some vast building project under way. Now that that the Temple of Venus and Roma was at last completed, along with the Pantheon with its magnificent dome and the sprawling imperial villa at Tibur, what was left to build except his mausoleum?

At the dedication ceremonies for all those grand projects, Marcus had been among a select group of architects and artists who had received the emperor’s highest accolades, but those honours could not compare to the one that was to be bestowed on the Pinarii this day. No sooner had Hadrian taken the auspices for Marcus Verus, declaring them to be highly favourable, than he called out the name of Lucius Pinarius and asked him to step forward.

Lucius looked down at his father – at fifteen, he was already slightly taller than Marcus – with an expression of sudden terror. The boy’s combination of athleticism and shyness had made him an ideal companion for Verus; their differences complemented each other. But this was no time to be timid. Marcus cast a look at the boy that he hoped was at once stern and supportive, then gave him a tiny shove to start him on his way.

Lucius stepped forward, hesitantly at first, but then with greater confidence. Instead of standing in place, Verus stepped forward to greet his friend. Hadrian made no objection to this lapse of decorum; he had grown quite fond of Lucius in recent months, and it had been his idea to make the donning of the manly toga a dual ceremony including both young men.

However awkward he might feel wearing it, Lucius looked splendid in his toga, Marcus thought. To him, the boy disproved the popular notion that humanity was in decline, dwindling in intellect and physical prowess with each generation. It seemed to Marcus that his son combined all that was best from the bloodlines of his parents, and Marcus could see no reason why Lucius should not surpass his ancestors in every way. Before the most important people in Roma, the emperor himself took the auspices, declared them favourable, and announced that Lucius Pinarius, son of Marcus Pinarius, had attained all the privileges and duties of a citizen of the greatest city on earth.

Among those who converged on the young men to congratulate them was the man whom Hadrian had recently adopted and named as his successor. Lucius Ceionius was in his middle thirties, too old to attract the sexual attentions of the emperor but nonetheless a wildly handsome man with a statuesque physique. As Hadrian had once remarked to Marcus Pinarius, “In the whole empire, there is no handsomer man than Lucius Ceionius.”

“Surely that’s not the reason you picked him to be your successor,” Marcus had responded, in jest.

“Don’t be so certain of that,” Hadrian said. “If beauty is a sign of divine favour, then Ceionius has it in abundance. Sometimes, when I look at him, I think I’ve adopted a god, not a son.”

It struck Marcus that Ceionius, on this day, did not look particularly well; he had the same unhealthy pallor as Hadrian, and while Marcus looked on, the man suffered a fit of coughing so violent that he had to leave the courtyard. Hadrian watched him depart with a worried look. Someone leaned towards Marcus and spoke in his ear:

O handsome youth, the blissful vision of a

No sooner glimpsed than snatched away.

“Favonius!” said Marcus. “Leave it to you to twist the words of Virgil into an ill omen.”

“Virgil? I had no idea,” said the scurra. “I was quoting the emperor, actually. I overheard him utter those lines earlier today, when poor Ceionius first appeared.”

“Is he seriously ill?”

“Caesar seems to think so. I’m told he cast a horoscope for Ceionius and the results were most alarming. Poor Hadrian! Just when he had the future all neatly planned out, with the empire cordoned off, and his temples finished, and his mausoleum under way, and the next emperor selected – poof! Fate deals an unforeseen reversal. Congratulations, by the way, on your son’s ascent to manhood, and in such esteemed company. The future of the Pinarii looks very bright.”

“Thank you.” Marcus was irritated by the man’s flippancy but managed a gracious nod.

“Almost as bright, if I may say so, as that curious bauble at your breast. How the gold catches the sunlight!”

Marcus reached up to touch the fascinum, which on this day he was wearing outside his toga, for all to see, since this was the last occasion on which he would ever wear it.

“You’ll excuse me now,” he said. “I need to go to my son.”

Hadrian was already conducting the two young men to a private chamber just off the Auguratorium. For the ceremony that was to follow, Marcus had requested that no witnesses be present except the emperor and young Verus.

The small, quiet room was sparsely decorated. Dominating one wall was a bust of Antinous set in a niche. This, too, had been Marcus’s request, that the only image present should that of the Divine Youth.

While the emperor and Verus stood to one side, Marcus approached his son. Now that the public ceremony was over, Lucius looked quite relaxed. He smiled as Marcus lifted the chain over his neck and held the fascinum aloft.

“My son, you’ve seen this amulet many times, hanging from my neck. Before me, my father wore it, and before him, his father. The fascinum has been in our family for many generations, even before the founding of the city. It has protected us, guided us, given us strength in times of trouble. You are a man now, with all the uncertainties of life ahead of you. On this day, I wish to pass the fascinum to you, so that you may never face those uncertainties alone. As it has guided me, so let it now guide you. And just as it was given to me in the presence of the emperor – the Divine Trajan – so I wish to give it to you, here before Caesar.”

Marcus placed the chain over his son’s head. It was strange to see the gold talisman glimmering upon another breast, and for a moment Marcus felt a pang of regret. Had his father felt the same regret when he gave up the fascinum? If so, he had never spoken of it, and neither would Marcus.

For a hour or so, before the banquet was to begin, the young men were left to themselves.