He awoke to the sound of bells.

In Rome, man announced the morning, not the gods. While the sun slumbered behind the hillside, Antinous stood up in the dark and lit a candle.

He had never had a room of his own and took careful inventory of all the items that surrounded him. A raised bed stuffed with reeds, a wooden table and chair with a loosened leg, a stylus and wax tablet, ink and papyrus. There was something else that had not been there when he went to sleep the night before: a basket with the emperor's seal on the latch. His fingers grazed the woven straw as he opened it.

Inside were a dozen ripe figs.

He held one under his nose. It smelled of the rich soil of Bithynia and reminded him of the sand, the sea, the trees, and Hadrian. Best save this treat for later he thought prudently and placed it back in the basket.

He pulled a tunic over his head and slipped on his sandals. He then reached for his stylus and tablet. The stone floors of the paedagogium were freshly scrubbed. Slaves were quiet as mice when they cleaned their quarters at night. They came and went unseen and unheard, though their presence could be found in the gleaming square stones of every mosaic, each tall white colonnade, the vases of fresh cut flowers, and brightly restored frescoes. The fountain in the courtyard was now free from fallen leaves, the water clear as glass.

A group of boys walked by with their hands behind their backs in a straight line past the fountain. They stepped in unison with a ceremonial air. One turned his head reproachfully. Antinous joined the end of the line and followed them to class.

The boys, he soon learned, had arranged themselves in a hierarchy. Two competed for leadership, the brothers Remus and Romulus, named after the twins from the Roman myth of the city's founding. All Antinous knew about this myth was that the brothers were suckled by a she-wolf and that one had murdered the other.

He had entered a world of strangers, with strange faces, clothes, customs and manners but discovered that he was not a stranger. They were anticipating his arrival. When they realized he spoke little Latin they addressed him effortlessly in Greek.

Remus somehow knew that a basket had been delivered to his sleeping quarters. "What was in the basket?" he asked with resigned interest, twirling his stylus between his fingers. He wore a shiny copper bracelet the slid up and down his arm.

"The sweetest smelling figs from my homeland."

"What a treat. Do you know who sent them?" Romulus probed. He had the same high forehead and determined chin as his brother but with smaller eyes set widely apart that seemed to watch him from every angle.

"I don't know for certain but the emperor's seal was on the latch."

The boys flashed him twin smiles and switched back to Latin.

He was expected to study grammar, rhetoric, mathematics and philosophy, his best subject, though those who chose to study the latter as a vocation were sent to Athens. Philosophy was distinctly Greek. Romans emphasized rhetoric, which would prepare students for the daily realities of civil service. They viewed knowledge as a means to an end, not an end in and of itself. They therefore thought philosophy frivolous. Music too. Antinous didn't dare mention that he played the lyre.

His first lecture was in grammar, his worst subject in Nikomedia. He barely succeeded in understanding Greek grammar and was dreading what horrors Latin had in store for him.

The teacher had not yet arrived. The other boys stood in the corner playing dice. Antinous would have joined them had they not been playing for two sestertii. These were the sons of senators and aristocrats with limitless funds at their disposal. Antinous was given state allowance, one sestertius a day, just enough to keep him fed and clothed.

He folded his arms on the stone windowsill and looked across the courtyard to the open-air gymnasium where the older boys were wrestling and competing in footraces.

That was where he belonged! Outside! Playing! 

The wrestling match was settled after a glorious hip throw with one boy pinned decidedly beneath another. He turned his attention to the footrace. It was neck-and-neck, any runner could have won by a nose, when suddenly a golden head appeared at the other end of the gymnasium, behind the stone pines, and somehow overtook the other four to win by a dozen paces. The boy collapsed and took a breath before springing to his feet again with the lightness of a cat.

The teacher entered the room. Antinous rushed to take his seat cross-legged on the woven mat.

Tulius was old with cloudy irises that could have been almost any color, and bald as a eunuch. They were examining tenses. That much he could glean from the hasty instructions. The teacher had a passion for the subject but none for the art of teaching. Curiosity was unwelcome and questions unthinkable. He demanded nothing short of the seamless transition of knowledge from his mind to theirs.

"Conjugate the verb 'to lead' in the subjunctive present tense using the passive voice."

This was worse than Antinous imagined.

The boys quickly scribbled their answers on their tablets but when Antinous picked up his stylus and looked down, his tablet was gone.

The pedagogue pointed at one boy who stood and read his answer. "I would have been led."

The teacher's disappointment could more accurately be read as disgust. "Futuo," he muttered under his breath. He called upon Remus to either agree or disagree.

"No, that is the pluperfect tense," he said primly, "the subjunctive present tense is: I may be led or I would be led."

The teacher glided among the rows of students, toga sweeping their small knees, to see who, like Remus, had gotten the answer correct.

"Parthenos Antinous, son of Erythros, where is your tablet?"

He looked around frantically. "It was right here!" he exclaimed loudly in Greek. "I swear it!"

Everyone gasped.

The Latin grammarian slammed a wooden rod down upon the ground like Zeus with his staff.

Nervous and embarrassed he attempted the phrase in Latin, but that was only the beginning of his troubles. He had no explanation for where his tablet had gone.

"I had it with me when I came to class. He looked to Remus and Romulus and the other boys. "They all saw me carrying it!"

The boys turned their back to him. "I didn't see him carrying it," said Romulus.

"Neither did I," added Remus.

The other boys all nodded in agreement.

The instructor asked him to stand and extend his hand. Antinous did so and shut his eyes. The wooden rod came down sharp and fast, biting the flesh of his palm like a snake.

Antinous winced but refused to cry.

Outside in the courtyard he once again saw the golden-haired boy. He was walking from the temple to the banquet hall with an easy carefree gait, swinging his limbs, unbothered by the sun on the nape of his neck where his curls gathered like laurel. Though patrician, his skin didn't turn pink in the sun. He was the color of combed honey from his head to his toes. Up close, one could see the swell of his thigh beneath his tunic, the curve of his calves and the perfect arch of his foot as though carved by the gods for swiftness.

His athleticism was prized among this group. They admired him. He overheard his name being spoken. Leonides. Three boys, his closest friends, called him simply, Leo. Those outside of this intimate circle didn't dare. How did one so young inspire such loyalty and deference? Unlike Remus and Romulus, his friends followed him because they loved him not because they were afraid.

Antinous touched the wound on his hand. He washed it in the fountain before it festered. Blood bloomed in the water and quickly dissipated.

That night he paced his sleeping quarters, contemplating ways to defeat Remus and Romulus and win the hearts of his classmates. What would Alexander do? He thought back to the battle of Issus. Alexander fought alongside his men and though he was king lived among them in the same barracks under the same conditions, eating no more and no less...

The solution was obvious. Antinous was surprised it hadn't occurred to him sooner.

🌿

The next morning he waited until all of the boys were seated for their grammar lesson before he entered. With the large basket, he walked around the room and handed each boy a fig, leaving the smallest fig for himself.

Satisfied, he sat at the back of the class. None had eaten their gift but they, like he, probably wanted to save the treat for later.

His tablet was still missing, but he made do with a scrap of papyrus. If he didn't find it soon, he would have to go to the trade quarter and buy another with his meager state allowance. He had hoped to save up and buy a ticket to the Flavian to watch the gladiators.

When class ended Remus approached him wordlessly with the fig in hand. He was there to thank him and make amends, Antinous thought. His plan had worked just as it had for Alexander!

Remus placed the fig back in the basket. His brother Romulus did the same. He didn't understand what they meant by this until the other boys followed their lead. The rejection of his offering was a rejection of him and it stung worse than the rod.

One by one the other boys placed their figs back in the basket. Antinous waited with humiliation until every last one of them had their turn to reject him and pledge their loyalty to Remus and Romulus. Because, if they dared defy the bothers, they might be the ones humiliated next.

He ambled out of the classroom with the basket over his shoulder. It weighed twice as much as when he'd entered. He sat in the courtyard alone beneath a stone pine contemplating his misstep, when he noticed a splinter of wood sticking out of the soil.

It was there, covered in dirt, that he finally found his tablet. It had been broken in two.

"Did they break it?" someone spoke softly in Greek.

He looked up. Staring down at him was the unmistakable golden head of Leonides bathed in light. He'd never stood so close to him before. His presence was at once warm and startling.

"Oh no!" Antinous stammered, "It was me, I did it, by accident," he lied. He couldn't admit to this boy who was friends with everyone that he had none.

Leonides kneeled beside him. He picked up the pieces and examined them, as fixated on the cracked wood as he was in the gymnasium running toward the finish line.

"I saw you running yesterday." He tossed the dark curls from his brow. "I run too." This was not a complete lie. He did not race in Nikomedia but he did run around the hillside and such.

When he did not answer, Antinous added, "I also wrestle."

Still no answer.

"Perhaps I could join you and your companions in the gymnasium tomorrow?"

"You're too little."

Leonides slid his tongue over his upper lip in concentration as he examined how the wooden pieces locked together and might be repaired.

Indignant, Antinous replied, "I'm tall for my age."

"You know what I mean."

"You think me weak."

"I didn't say that."

"You didn't have to."

He licked his thumb and smoothed it over the cracked wax.

"Alright then, join us tomorrow at dawn, before your lessons. Marcus picks the teams. I'll tell him you're coming. We draw lots to start."

Antinous had been rash when boasting about being a runner and a wrestler but it was too late to take it back now. He accepted the invitation and reached for his broken tablet.

Leonides pulled his own tablet out of his satchel. "Here, take mine."

The wax surface had been wiped clean but if he looked hard enough he could still make out the faded strokes of the older boy's writing.

"What will you use?"

He placed the broken pieces in his satchel. "I'll make do."

Helpless in the face of such generosity, Antinous reached for his basket. "Here! Have these figs!"

Leonides did not ask where they came from. He plucked one from the basket and ate it in just two bites. Then he had another, and another after that. Watching his lips smack with satisfaction was more pleasurable than eating the fruit himself. He could have watched him eat the whole basket when suddenly one of his friends called out. "Leo! Leo!"

The swift-footed boy took one last fig and ran off with hardly a second glance. His friend threw an arm around his shoulder. Leonides gamely returned the gesture and hugged his friend's waist.

Antinous watched them disappear through the portico. He held the tablet to his chest and whispered, "Leo."

A/N: Antinous survived #FigGate but Remus and Romulus aren't done with him yet... Auribus Teneo Lupum, to hold a wolf by the ears, is an ancient proverb that means one is in a dangerous situation.

Welcome, Leo.

In case it isn't obvious, this is going to be a slow burn. The. Slowest. Burn.

Some other notes:

Students in ancient Rome used a tablet made of wood with a layer of wax as a reusable writing tool. The stylus, like a pen, is what they would use to write/engrave into the wax. The surface could be erased by warming up the wax.

The Flavian is what we now call the Colosseum.

A sestertius or sestertii is a silver coin, valued at about a quarter of a denarius.