Daphne Boy

Palmyra

The Eleventh Tale of the Daphne Boy

by George Gauthier

Author's Note: This is a tale of an eternally youthful young man and those he encounters around the Mediterranean world during the crisis of the IIIrd century that nearly destroyed the Roman Empire.

This is the eleventh in a series of tales about an undying youth named Alexander or Alexandros in this story. The other stories in this series so far are 'Antebellum', set in the American South just before the Civil War, 'Daphne Boy', set in Roman Syria, 'El Dorado', about the conquistadors, 'The Erythraean Sea', set in Arabia just before the rise of Islam, 'Stupor Mundi', about the Sixth Crusade, 'Ferghana', a tale of the Silk Road in Central Asia, 'Zulu' set mostly in Southern Africa during the Anglo-Zulu War, 'Sol Invictus' set in the Roman Empire during the reign of the dissolute androgynous and sexually insatiable gay emperor Elagabalus 'Reniassance' set in Italy around 1500, and 'Gupta' set during the Golden Age in India in the Vth century AD.

It contains graphic descriptions of the male human body, of consensual and non-consenual sexual activity between adult males, and considerable non-sexual violence including combat. If any of this would offend a reader, read no further. This is not intended for persons younger than an age where they may freely and legally select their reading matter in whatever jurisdiction applies. It is offered for entertainment. If it manages to both intrigue and to provoke prurient interest, it will have succeeded in its aim.

It is as historically accurate in its setting as I could make it, with only minor poetic license for the sake of the story. This tale, after all, is fiction. It is not a historical monograph. Only Aurelian and Zenobia were actual historical persons. The rest of the characters are not intended to resemble any person living or dead. My apologies to the reader for consistently misstating Alexander's height in all but the last previous story. In the first nine tales, I gave inconsistent measurements in inches and centimeters. I meant to write that he was one inch short of five and a half feet. That makes his height five foot five not five six. The metric measurement is still 165 centimeters as stated in all the stories.

Readers who like these stories might want to try my 'Jungle Boy' series of tales in a modern setting, posted in the Gay/Authoritarian section of the archive. See also my series 'Naked Prey' in the historical section, my 'Mer Boy' series in Gay/Beginnings, and the 'Track and Field' series in Gay/College. For links to my stories, look on the list of Prolific Authors on the Archive.

Comments and feedback welcome.

Chapter 1. Ostia Antica 272 AD

It was my fault, a momentary lapse in situational awareness. Lost in thought, I didn't sense the trap closing in on me. Suddenly a voice spoke out from down the alley.

"Hold it right there, pretty boy. We'd like a few words with ye. And don't be put off by appearances. We just want to talk."

"Yeah, that's right. We're friendly sorts of fellows." another gruff voiced added.

Five men stepped out from the shadows, three in front and two behind me, blocking the narrow street. Despite their glib assurances, I was much too experienced to be taken in by their patently false assurances. This was a gang of footpads. They held their hands down to their sides, but that did little to conceal the clubs or knives in their grip. Through simple inattention while daydreaming I had forfeited the single best strategy there is for dealing with trouble: don't be there when it happens.

I was in Ostia, the port of Rome situated at the mouth of the Tiber. (Ostia simply means "mouth".) The port had a bad reputation. Once you moved away from the docks proper and the businesses and warehouses that lined the quayside you could run into all sorts of unsavory characters. I was alone at that moment, having left my assistant at the quayside, He was traveling upstream by barge with my latest cargo of silks from the East, maintaining custody of the cargo for me.

"Why don't you just hand over your purse, youngster? Then you can be on your way." a big man offered, not unkindly. We won't kill you if you don't resist. We are professional thieves after all, not assassins; it's not personal. Make it easy on yourself and hand over your money. There's a good lad."

Another robber interjected:

"There you go again, Sixtus, you and your boys. Letting a pretty face turn your head. You know what a bad idea it is for professional thieves to leave witnesses. Oh, I will grant you, the mark is just your type, young and small and slender and much prettier than a boy has any right to be, but we don't want him carrying tales to the watch."

"As long as I am boss and you are Number Two, you will do as I say. You're not so smart you know, using my name like that in front of a mark. You see lad. I am your only chance. Don't fight us. Just hand over your money."

I considered fighting them, but I was unarmed and boxed in. It is true that I can be quite formidable using just my natural weapons of hands and feet and the techniques of unarmed combat I have mastered over the years. At that point I had over four centuries of experience and had developed an eclectic technique suited to my build and capabilities. Still I confronted five footpads. One thing I have learned over many lifetimes is that even the best of fighters can be overcome by numbers, weapons, position, and sheer luck. So I tried negotiation, the second best strategy for dealing with trouble. I threw them my purse. It was just money, after all.

"Six silvers and a gold. That's all!" growled Lucius after emptying the contents into the palm of his hand. "Hardly worth our while shared out among five. Or are you holding out on us? Strip off that tunic and hand it over."

I pulled the garment over my head and tossed it to Lucius leaving me wearing only my sandals. He checked it for hidden pockets.

"Hmmn, this tunic is of high quality cloth. Might as well keep it for what we can get for it. Let's have those sturdy sandals too, while we are at it."

I kicked off my sandals, standing there entirely exposed, naked, stripped of my valuables and clothing, sweating both from the heat of early summer and nervous anticipation. At the man's signal I turned around displaying my bum and showing I had nowhere to hide anything, whether coin or weapon.

Two of the robbers whistled and Sixtus looked at me hungrily. As well they might. My physique has always sparked interest in men who lust after pretty boys.

"Hey Sixtus, on second thought. Let's not kill him. Maybe we can sell him into slavery at a boy brothel. A stunning lad like him would fetch top price from old Kleisthenes say. Just look at him!"

"We are not slavers, Number Two," Sixtus reminded him. That did not keep them for staring at me, evaluating my potential worth.

What they saw trapped in the alley with them was a comely youth, apparently of no more than seventeen or eighteen summers, small and slender and unlikely to offer serious resistance. I carry only 122 pounds (56 kg) on my small frame and stand a mere five foot five and a whisker (165 cm). With my androgynous if wiry physique and fine-boned features I fell far short of normal male standards in height, muscular development, and secondary sexual characteristics like beard and body hair. I am small and pretty and uniformly bronzed from habitual public nudity looking entirely too obviously like someone's catamite or pleasure boy. Hence I often wasn't taken seriously as a male, often with dire consequences.

With fine-boned almost elfin features: a straight nose, high cheekbones, and large green eyes, topped by a blond thatch, I often turned heads. My trim hairless physique was just what Roman boy lovers liked. I did not have the classic muscular physique of the Olympic athlete. Instead I was boyishly slender -- almost skinny, with narrow shoulders atop a well toned but otherwise unimpressive musculature. I sported a well corrugated chest and stomach with defined abdominals, prominent ribs and sharp hip bones. The tracery of veins on my forearms, calves, and belly showed I carried very little body fat. I like to think my manhood is more than adequate but I wouldn't be scaring the horses. It takes both my small hands to cover an erection, but only one when it was soft.

Despite my seeming youth and pretty boy looks, at that time I was already over four centuries old. I cannot explain the reasons for my eternal youthfulness, why I still looked (and look) like a boy in his late teens. I have never understood why I had stopped growing and aging before reaching my eighteenth birthday. No, I never sold my soul to a devil. It just happened that way. It must be something genetic. Recent science suggests it has something to do with self-repairing telomeres in the nuclei of the cells that maintains the body in homeostasis.

In Ostia, it looked like once again my physical beauty had put me in danger. All my long life I have been both blessed and cursed by a lovely form and face that inspire admiration and lust in the heart of any male who appreciates a beautiful boy. My past held all manner of physical and sexual abuse including gang rapes by bullies, soldiers, sailors, or bandits -- those less often as I mastered the arts of unarmed and armed combat and acquired wealth to buy protection.

I have had much experience of rape and sexual servitude over the centuries. Any number of times I fell into the clutches of men of wealth and power, kept naked for years at a time, put on display like a trophy, their captive or sex slave. Some enjoyed publicly fucking me and passing me around like a party favor to friends, confederates, or clients. Others were brutes who used me in appalling ways to gratify their bestial and perverted lusts. There were those who liked to inflict pain with whips and switches and canes. Other preferred verbal and physical humiliation and degradation. Even the gentler ones treated me as a mere boy toy, existing only for their pleasure.

Enslaved at fourteen by a Roman tribune as a spoil of war, I became my captor's catamite and body slave until sold on to a merchant in Massalia, modern Marseille. After a few years as a nude messenger and pleasure boy, he put me to work as a scribe till I was set free by his will after he died from a fall off a horse, I traveled to the East and made my first fortune in Alexandria, working as a free boy in a male brothel while investing in mercantile ventures on the side. That is where I took up the Roman habit of having all my body hair, little as it was, plucked with tweezers. After several decades of plucking it stopped sprouting. Now I was completely hairless and would stay that way forever, my skin nearly as smooth and soft as a baby's. As I had stopped aging before my beard came in, my cheeks and chin have remained smooth without the attention of a razor.

In the early first century AD I spent a few years in ancient Antioch as a Daphne Boy, enslaved as a temple prostitute for an unjust debt. As male acolytes of the nymph Daphne, we boys were kept perpetually nude and offered to boy lovers for coin. We were very popular because we were scrupulous about personal hygiene, trim and fit, and hand picked for our beauty of face and form. Although we could not chose our clients, the life was pleasant enough, with bright airy accommodations, tasty wholesome food, and fair treatment. The priests were shrewd enough to keep us boys genuinely cheerful and reasonably content with our lot. Oh, occasionally they had to punish a boy for the kind of mischief that exuberant teenage lads will get up to, but the penalties were always mild, certainly nothing to really injure the lad. Most boys knew they could look forward to domestic service in the household of a rich man after they were too old to be pleasing to the clientele.

The priests of Daphne even let us keep the tips we got from clients. During our two days off a month, we could go shopping for minor luxuries. Even then we were effectively promoting the temple, circulating in the streets and markets entirely nude, the small blue deltas tattooed on our left shoulders and right haunches proclaiming both our affiliation and our availability to anyone with a bit of coin and an eye for a pretty youth. I made friends among the other Daphne boys and even some of my clients, though I was glad enough when circumstances freed me before my unchanging youthfulness could be noticed. In some ways I still have fond memories of my time as a Daphne Boy, slave though I then was.

Other periods of slavery before and since were not so pleasant. I had spent a year in the Colosseum as a gladiator, forced to fight for my life before the crowd. I became quite the favorite, fighting naked and armed with two knives. They called me the Killer Catamite because I was regularly given to my fellow gladiators as well as to rich spectators who paid gold for the chance to fuck me fresh from my latest combat, chained for their safety, still covered with my sweat, the dust of the arena, and the blood of my foe. Another time, centuries later, I was enslaved as a pearl diver in the Persian Gulf, forced to pleasure both the guards and my fellow divers.

It is not that I object to male sex or to taking the passive role. I am by nature a bottom boy, a sexual submissive. I just like it be be my idea. In confronting the footpads, I was afraid that whatever the leader Sixtus wanted or got from me, even a free shag, Number Two would likely cut my throat afterwards rather than risk dragging me back to the slave markets in Rome. I cringed, pretending more fear than I felt, playing to their preconceptions of how a trapped pleasure boy, outnumbered and physically outmatched by any one of them, might behave.

"Please don't hurt me, sirs. I can't fight you all nor really any of you, big men that you are and me as small as I am, unarmed and naked." I said, putting a tremulous quaver in my voice to throw them off. "I know my place. I am just a kept boy anyway, a rich man's catamite, a sex toy he passes around to his friends. Life in a brothel wouldn't be so very different, even as a sex slave. Here, let me show you how good I can make you feel with my mouth and my bum."

I bent forward slightly as if to kneel before their leader but grabbed his left thumb in a painful lock and twisted hard, forcing him to step forward with his weight on his near knee. I gave it a vicious side kick that bent the knee backward the way nature never intended and broke the joint. I left him howling, writhing on the ground, partially blocking the alley. That gave me enough of a head start. I took off running.

I did not expect to outdistance the remaining robbers on the ground where their long strides would quickly overtake a short fellow like me. Instead I ran straight at a wall, leaped and pushed my lead foot against the rough surface getting enough of a push off to reach the edge of the roof. I swung myself up and out of reach of my enemies. I did feel the touch of one hand grabbing for me, but naked and sweaty as I was, he had no way to hold on. Afterwards I ran along the roofs, jumping alleyways, clambering over trellises and arcades, dropping onto awnings, my agility and light weight making it easy to leave them behind in the maze of alleys. Unable to keep up, they had to let me go. I continued along my aerial highway till I got to the river again and dropped down to the streets till I reached the outskirts of the town.

My escape across the rooftops was an implementation of the third best strategy for dealing with trouble. If you cannot avoid it in the first place, or talk or buy your way out of it in the second place, then next best way to deal with trouble is to run away from it, to get the hell out of there. The fourth strategy is to fight, but for me that is a last resort. Others might rank these strategies differently, but I am constitutionally slow to anger and non-belligerent. Oh I can fight if I have to. I dare say that in Ostia in those days, with four centuries of weapons training, daily practice, and varied combat experience I was one of the single deadliest humans on the planet. However, given my true age and life experience, I had long since outgrown the adolescent need to prove my courage to anyone, especially myself. So I took off.

As to how I managed that escape, I should explain that one of my favorite pastimes in those days (and to this day) was an acrobatic game similar to the modern sport of parkour, a game based on techniques of escape and evasion. (The name is a variant spelling of the French word 'parcours' for obstacle course.) In effect I treated a whole city as an obstacle course and a training ground as part of my survival training. The idea was to move from point to point as quickly and efficiently as one could, using the abilities of the human body to run, climb, jump, fall, swing, slide, and tumble. All without ropes, hooks, or grapnels.

That spring in Rome I had spent much time criss-crossing the city, scaling walls, running across rooftops, jumping across alleys, scrambling up the facades of buildings, mostly for the pure fun of it. I reveled in the chance to test my nimbleness and strength not against others but against the limits of my own body as I overcame obstacles like walls, fences, buildings, towers, trees, and ditches. I also walked the streets, becoming reasonably familiar with the changes since my earlier residence in Rome a half-century earlier.

After my escape from the would-be robbers, Rome still lay about twenty miles (30 km) upstream from the outskirts of Ostia. I no longer had coin to hire a cart, but I was up for a long run. With my slow-twitch musculature I am a natural long distance runner and always enjoyed the chance for a good long run to maintain my stamina. Since I was already naked, I made the best of necessity. Soon I was loping along the road that followed the Tiber upstream to Rome. After a while I drew parallel with the barge with my goods but waved off the chance for a ride. The barge's pace was one knot or so against the current. It would take all day and half the night to get there. I can run twenty miles in less than two hours. Besides, I like displaying my trim athletic physique in public in the nude. I am a bit of an exhibitionist, if the truth were known.

No one looked askance at a naked lad who was obviously not running from pursuit but for the sheer enjoyment of it. We now know that such exuberance comes from natural opiates in the brain that produces a runner's high. To passersby, I was no different from any other naked athlete in training or perhaps a slave boy on an errand carrying an urgent message. I drew the usual looks of admiration and lust from those of both genders, sometimes returning their interest with a smile or a wave, shameless show off that I am.

I did run into difficulty passing the city gates. Two of the guards took a fancy to me and insisted on searching me for contraband, or so they claimed. They forced me into the guardhouse.

"By the gods, Martellus, what contraband can a naked boy like me smuggle into the city" I asked with some asperity.

"Tut, tut, little one. We are just doing our duty. I shall have to probe you, I am afraid." he explained unconvincingly. "Just bend over and grab the door frame. There's a good lad."

He told me to brace myself in the doorway of the guardhouse where anyone passing through the gate might see him fucking me. Several passersby stopped to watch. Martellus was a large man, who nearly engulfed my small physique, covering me like a stallion does a filly, grappling my sweaty torso to him, pinching my nipples and slapping my butt. His erection soon found the small hole between my legs as he probed my depths. He thrust deep, pulling my hips back to his. The strong grip of his big hands left finger shaped bruises on my hips. For days afterwards, when I went to the gymnasium or on my runs through the city everyone could see the bruises that marked me as his bum boy.

His friend Janus did not even bother with the pretense of a search for contraband. He liked to put a a boy's mouth to use, so he made me fall to my knees while he stood before me, lording it over me, taking advantage of his size and authority. He clubbed my face with his massive member, showing me which counted for more, the cock of a real man or the delicate features of a boy too pretty for his own good. He made me reach for it, to kiss it and to smooch the purple helmet licking around the flange. His was one of the largest cocks I had seen up to that time. I managed to deep throat him anyway thanks to centuries of experience as a cock sucker.

He told me how exciting it was for him to dominate a boy, to humiliate him, to violate his delicate features with his man cock shoved between the boy's sweet lips. He told me how natural I looked down there between his legs, so small and submissive, my face barely able to reach his groin, my pouty lips tight around his cock, my head bobbing up and down, tongue and mouth sucking and slurping and licking. He was glad my golden locks were just long enough for a good grab so he could control the pace of the face fuck. After he shot his spunk down my throat, his friend Martellus loosed another load, this time letting his splooge hit my face and chest, marking me like a dog marks his territory.

They both mocked me for complaining about the rape, pointing out that I myself had eventually become aroused to the point of ejaculation. As far as they were concerned I must have been asking for it. The very way I showed up at the gate all naked and sweaty, flushed from the long run, stopping at their guard post, bending over to rest, my hands on my knees, with my round rump thrust to the rear, an invitation if there ever was one. As they saw me, I was clearly too young and short and slightly built -- not to mention too tuckered out -- to put up any real resistance as they laid hands on me and pulled me aside. Actually I could have outfought them, even then. There were only two of them, they hadn't drawn their weapons, and I could surprise them, but the authorities take a dim view of anyone who attacks city guards. So I did not resist as they wrestled me about, spanked me to the delight of passers-by to whom they showed my reddened rump, and had their way with me. As far as they were concerned I was just another street boy or maybe a slave boy on an errand for a master who obviously kept me around so that he might enjoy my charms. What harm could there be if they got in on the fun?

When they finally finished with me, I carried the smell of their semen on my body, an odor that did not go unnoticed in the crowded city streets. There I was a small slender nude youth, reeking of male sex with bruises in the outline of a man's hands printed on my ass, a bit of cum running out of my hole and drying down my thighs. I tried acting nonchalantly, ignoring the smiles, whistles, and catcalls that I drew, but was not entirely successful in maintaining my aplomb, especially when men reached their hands out to stroke my ass or to cup my genitals. I was an object of amusement. No one had sympathy for me as a victim of rape. The more muscular and masculine males especially seemed to delight in my public shame as I navigated the gantlet of the streets.

Why is it that macho men are so gratified when a pretty boy gets into a jam. Why do they assume it is always our fault, like we deserved whatever misfortune came our way. They seem to think we deserved to be dumped on to preserve the cosmic balance, upset as it was by our unearned good looks. More than once I have been gang raped by big men eager to prove their masculinity by holding a boy down while their fellows fucked both his orifices. Teaching me a lesson, they called it. A lesson in what -- being a real man? Could I change my size and pretty face? Could I be anything other than what nature made me, a sexual submissive, a bottom boy, a pretty youth with two hungry holes. How did that give them the right to take me for their pleasure. Did I not have a right to choose? In the ancient world in general and especially in Rome the answer to that question was no. The young, the small and the powerless did not get to choose. They were chosen and taken.

Of course, as I have mentioned before in these narratives, despite my looks, I was not really young, just youthful. Since no one knew otherwise, I looked like and was treated as a callow youth, a mere stripling, a lad who might be claimed and tamed by stronger males.

After a very trying day, I finally passed through the gates and reached my comfortable lodgings in rented house on the Caelian Hill, one of the fabled Seven Hills and the one which lay east of the Palatine Hill with its imperial residences. I did not bother climbing the outer wall and dropping down from the roof into the peristyle garden behind the atrium. Instead I simply knocked on my door for admission and called for hot water to scrub the sweat and cum off me instead of repairing to the public bath house. I was in no mood to socialize.

Chapter 2. Urban Life

After my arrival in Rome, I had taken a comfortable town house on the Caelian Hill. It had the usual arrangement of an atrium in front and a peristyle garden behind (a garden surrounded by an arcade with columns) but also a large open garden in back where I could practice sword fighting and archery. I daresay that after centuries of practice, training in the techniques of many lands, and combat experience against soldiers, pirates, bandits, and footpads, there were few fighters who could hold their own with me, one on one.

I had set myself up in the trade for luxury goods trade with the East, though that was currently disrupted by the recent seizure of much of the East by the Palmyrene Queen Zenobia. From her capital in the caravan city of Palmyra she controlled Syria and the rest of the Levant, Egypt, and half of Asia Minor. The Roman emperor Aurelian was fighting in the West against the breakaway Gallic Empire which stretched from Britain, through Gaul to the southern tip of the Iberian Peninsula. Three empires contested for supremacy where earlier there had been only one. Germanic Barbarians like the Heruli and the Vandals took advantage of the disorder and rampaged through northern Italy, the Aegean and western Anatolia. The breakup had started after the defeat and capture of Emperor Valerian in 260 by the Persian Sassanian Empire. Soldier emperors like Aurelian were moving heaven and earth to make it whole again. The new wall around Rome which would stretch for twelve and a half miles (19 km) when it was finished was one result of his efforts.

Despite the difficulties with trade and disorder, money was not a problem. I lived pleasantly though unostentatiously making new friends, keeping fit, attending the theater, and reading omnivorously. I tried to avoid the gladitorial games in which I had participated myself fifty years earlier earning a reputation as the Killer Catamite, but I could not always decline invitations from those I was in business with. For all their excitement and displays of skill, the games were and are a permanent blot on Roman civilization. Even the criminals sacrificed to beasts should have been quickly dispatched with merciful knife to the heart.

On the plus side of Roman civilization surely must be placed its management of urban infrastructure. Their system of paved roads, raised sidewalks, aqueducts, fountains, public baths, latrines, and sewers allowed a million people to live crowded together and largely escape the water borne diseases that plagued the cities of earlier civilizations (and later ones too, until the industrial age).

The baths or thermae were as much a social institution as infrastructure. They were often housed in magnificent structures erected by the emperors. I favored the Baths of Caracalla myself, going there almost every day. You must understand that the public baths were important institutions in the civic life of Roman towns. They were centers for public bathing, socializing, and exercise. They offered varied services included libraries, light refreshments, and libations, as well as more personal services like massage, plucking of body hair, and even the attentions of pliant boys or whores. Roman males usually went daily and spent several hours there, accompanied by one or more slaves.

After paying the fee they would strip naked and put on sandals to protect their feet from the heated floors. The baths included a palaestra, or outdoor gymnasium where men and boys would engage in ball games and exercises such as wrestling, lifting weights, or throwing the discus and especially a big pool for swimming. I loved to swim. It was a great excuse to show off my trim body. I often encountered my friend Max or Maxentius there. We competed to attract the attentions of the handsome young males who frequented the baths.

"Don't be such a showoff, Alexandros." Maxentius said scolding me gently for my fancy dive into the swimming pool at the baths.

He was right that my diving was intended to attract the attention of men who like pretty youths. I was at loose ends at the moment, not really looking for a lover, but in the mood for a casual relationship. That was the reason that I was shamelessly calling attention to my trim body. I hoped to catch the eye of men who preferred youths of my sort: short and slender, smooth and hairless, pretty as a girl with delicate almost elfin features.

Climbing out of the pool, I deliberately paused as I lifted myself out of the water, my butt and cleavage on display, letting older males get a good look at my pert rump as the water sluiced off it. My slow walk toward the diving stone gave patrons behind me a chance to ogle my perfectly formed buttocks as they dimpled fetchingly with my deliberate stride across the floor. Those in front had a good look at my well corrugated chest and belly and the nicely formed package at the smooth and bare fork of my legs. A moment later, as I waited for another diver, I stretched my arms upward in the shape of a diamond, just touching the tips of my fingers, flattening my belly, and tightening my glutei to accent their cleavage. Afterwards, I relaxed a moment then wind-milled my arms before bending over as if loosening up but really to display the curves of my shapely bum to best advantage. That earned me a sharp slap on my butt from Maxentius.

"Give the rest of us boys a chance to catch a patron's eye, will you Alex." he added, rolling his eyes at my blatant tactics. "With everyone oggling your ass, what chance do I have?"

"Don't worry, Max, a boy as pretty as you does not go unnoticed at the baths. You are rather scrumptious yourself." I added looking him up and down appreciatively.

Indeed Maxentius was a classic Mediterranean beauty with a slight build much like my own: taut, tanned, and toned, but he was olive skinned with dark curly hair and large brown eyes while I am blond and green-eyed. At fifteen he was quite a catch for anyone who fancied a pretty lad, though still too young for me. Not that I did not find him attractive, but I do not take advantage of impressionable or needy youths at such a tender age. Give him a year or two and I would welcome him to my bed. In any event, standing together we made a striking pair, one blond, the other dark, both young and pretty and ever so sexy, both of us smooth and hairless. Everything about us said that we were available.

"You are lucky Alex that with your wealth you can afford to choose only lovers who please you. The best that poor lads like me can hope for is to attract the interest of a rich patron."

For all his grumbling, Maxentius was not really all that poor. As a free boy and an apprentice jeweler he had a decent situation working for an indulgent master jeweler who only occasionally sought his charms. On his time off, Maxentius frequented the baths, not only for hygiene or exercise in the palestra, but also to bartar his sexual favors for extra cash. Romans baths were well known as a place of assignation with good looking youths. Later on I did spot Max and a young man in his mid twenties retreating into a alcove where they might get better acquainted.

The baths and the adjoining palestra was where I trained in the nude in sports like the javelin, the long jump, and the pankration, a form of unarmed combat, which combines wrestling and boxing. Though my small size was a disadvantage, I had developed an eclectic style based on techniques learned in several lands. Much as I enjoyed exercise, I did tend to concentrate on sports that might aid my survival. In particular I liked foot races, the longer the better. More than once I had simply taken to my heels and outrun my enemies. Part of my genetic gift is greater stamina than most.

For my daily training run, I left my house and loped along the road that led east out of the city gate till I reached country lanes which were easier on bare feet than paving stones. I soon learned to avoid houses which kept vicious dogs. A small nude youth is really no match for a large angry dog much less a pair of them. There are ways to cope but they are risky. You really need a club to handle a dog. More than once I had to take refuge in a tree and suffer the mockery of the locals. On one occasion, I had to give myself over to the landowner and his two sons before they would let me continue on my way.

The father was a well built man of about forty; his sons were good looking lads in their late teens. All three were red-heads in robust good health and had the strength and calluses that hard labor on a farm builds in a man. I could have fought them to a standstill had not their dogs been circling and growling, ready to tear into me. So I had to submit.

"You might as well climb down from that tree, boy. You're just getting that tender skin of yours all scratched up. Don't make us come up there after you, boy." The last part came with a tone of menace.

"What are you going to do with me?" I asked, the nervousness in my voice unfeigned.

"Why, what else would we do with unbred stock on a farm, but breed you. If you are going to run around starkers, a pretty filly like you, shaking your booty, getting everyone worked up at the sight of you, well you take the consequences. In your case that means getting mounted like a filly."

"But I am a male."

"All right, a handsome young colt, but we will still cover you, colt or filly. So get down from there."

I started down from the tree, apprehensive of their intentions. Grinning widely, the father grabbed me by the hair and threw me belly down over a low branch of an olive tree. He slapped my ass hard and told me to stay in place. Before I quite realized it, he had seized my wrists and tied them together behind my back. I heard him shuck off his tunic and felt him lay his hairy body over me, rubbing against my back and ass, covering me like a stallion. He straightened up and used his knees to spread my legs. Then his big hands seized my buns and squeezed and kneaded the taut flesh while his thumbs pulled my anal ring open for his inspection. I could not help but whimper at what I knew came next.

"Ah, the soft whimper of defeat. That means he won't be giving us any trouble. Isn't that right, little one?" he asked, patting my head in approval. "Pretty little thing, isn't he, son? All bent over and submissive, rump in the air. Look at that long blond hair and green eyes, and those delicate features. Not to mention a nice trim figure, good chest, round rump, and taut buns. Good horseflesh, the best I've ever seen on a boy."

"Oh, he is a pretty one, all right, Pa. Prettier than any of the girls around here and not afraid to bare everything, running around buck nekkid, with no more thought to clothing than the livestock in the fields. He is just begging to be treated like the frisky little filly that he is. Not that we could get any work out of him, say hitching him up, small as he is and with such soft hands. He is a pampered city boy, an idler who likely never did an honest day's work in his life."

"I am sure you are right, son. His has no doubt been a life of ease and leisure. Nothing to do but look pretty for his master. He must be some rich man's catamite. That's true, isn't it, Blondie? You were out on a run for the exercise -- to keep your body taut and trim for your master and his friends. I'll bet you get passed around a lot. Well today it is our turn to have our fun with you."

"Yes, Pa. He is our pleasure boy for today!"

The older male pushed his truncheon of a cock into my hole, spreading it even wider than the city guard. I moaned and tried to loosen the ring of muscle down there. That eased the pain only slightly but did let the man slip farther into me. He grabbed my shoulders and pulled my whole body back onto his cock, sinking all the way into me. That brought a heartfelt sigh of satisfaction from him. After that he started a rhythmic pumping action.

"Tighter than a virgin." said the older male. "Our lucky day. You never just know what Fido might flush out of the fields. Why don't you try his mouth, Marcus, and I will work this end. Get those pouty lips of his around your cock."

I soon had his son's cock down my throat as he face fucked me. The young male used me ears to control the pace. His father punctuated his thrusts with a series of slaps to my ass. He felt under me and found my rigid cock and frigged it for a while.

"Har! Just as I thought. The little slut is hard. He is begging for it. Oh, I know, Blondie, a boy like you can't rightly help himself. He needs cock bad, lots of cock, every single day. Your day isn't complete unless you are impaled on the cock of a real man. That is why your little cock is hard now."

I wanted to protest that my erection was just an involuntary reaction. Certainly not an indication of consent to rape, but I knew my words would fall on deaf ears, even if my mouth were not already full of boy cock.

"Look at him, tanned evenly all over, smooth and hairless, even at the fork of his legs. He is somebody's pleasure boy for sure. Smooth and hairless because it makes him feel even more naked, with everything hanging out. How exciting to hold his small body as he squirms and twists beneath me. Nothing like a clean youth for giving manly pleasure. That is something I learned in the army, boys."

"Yes, Pa, as you have told us oftentimes before." he said rolling his eyes.

"Me next!" the younger son called out. The dogs barked to show their support.

They let me go after two hours of nonstop action. At least they didn't have the dogs mount me. That has happened to me more than once, and it was always incredibly painful and degrading. Nothing is more humiliating than being fucked by an animal. I don't know which is worse, dogs because they knot you and stay inside you for so long or ponies because they are so impossibly large they threaten to tear you up. Relieved that it was just humans this day, I trotted off slowly after they released me, their semen dripping out of my abused boy hole. I took the shortest route home and scrubbed their odors from my body. Once again my physical beauty had roused the lusts of men to rape and degrade me.

I took it philosophically. This had happened before and would happen again. It is not something I would seek revenge for. I was basically unharmed, and in a sense I had been asking for it, deliberately exhibiting myself as I habitually did, purposely running around starkers to invite admiration and lust. I wasn't entirely innocent by any means, never no mind that it was usual for athletes to train and compete in the nude. While public nudity was quite common in Rome, I was happy for any excuse to parade around without clothing, whether all morning at the baths, running in the countryside, at symposia, or simply walking over to the public latrine nearby.

Mind you I don't take rape lightly when it happens to other people, especially helpless females. I could also understand if a straight boy wanted revenge for such a rape, but I was anything but straight or a virgin. Though these three males had violated me, I foreswore revenge. I would not hire a gang of bully boys to work them over while holding off their dogs with clubs. Nor would I ruin them financially, not three hardworking farmers whose dull lives I had enlivened there for a brief period, however unwillingly.

In life, you have to take the good with the bad. So it is with the blessing of my good looks. If I had to choose I would not be otherwise than I am. I am content with my slight build and my delicate --even elfin looks. I know all that makes me overly pretty and unmanly, but it suits me. I am, after all, a bottom boy, a sexual submissive. Strutting my stuff to assert my masculinity would be rather beside the point. I mean, if ever a boy was born to be fucked, it is me. It is just that I prefer to have a choice in who who gets to play with my body.

One evening a few days after my conversation with Maxentius I saw him with his new patron at a symposium held at the home of Lucian Gygax a rich builder of my acquaintance. Originally from Burdigalium in Gaul, Lucian and I shared an interest in the works of the architect and engineer Vitruvius. I waved to Max and to the red-haired young man who was squiring the boy around. Gaius Karandes, his name was. Max flashed me one of his winning smiles. We did get together a little later in the evening to chat.

The evenings of the well-off classes in Greco-Roman civilization were often devoted to symposia or drinking parties. The symposium was a forum for males to talk, to debate, to brag, to introduce youths into aristocratic society, or simply to party. Symposia might be held to celebrate victories in athletic and poetic contests. Alone or in pairs, the men would recline on couches arrayed against the three walls of the room facing the door. A youth like Max would attend as the companion and eromenos (lover) of an adult male with whom he was involved. Unaccompanied boys could participate too but sat instead of reclined on a couch.

My status was a bit of an anomaly. Although a personal friend of the host, I was not his eromenos, attending in my own right rather than as an older man's lover. I was known to be nineteen (or so I claimed) though due to my small stature and slight build and lack of body hair I looked as young as any eromenos there. I attended as a free boy, sitting rather than reclining. I was nude like the other boys rather than dressed like the men. My nudity itself was unremarkable among an elite who frequented the baths. Almost all of the guests had seen me and each other there naked.

The wine, which was served with food, was usually well mixed with water, drawn from a large jar called a krater into pitchers and served by nude servant boys, their skins plucked hairless and lightly oiled to make them shine. A symposiarch presided over the occasion and decided how far to dilute the wine. Sometimes we gathered for serious discussions but at other times merely for sensual indulgence. We did not drink simply to get drunk, drinking in moderation in keeping with Greek ideals of restraint and propriety. Indeed the food helped absorb the alcohol too, so matters seldom got out of hand. Of course some of the wine was spilled on the floor as libations to the gods.

"You know Alexandros," Lucian once ventured to say, "as a student of Vitruvius I cannot overlook the unusual proportions of your physique. With most slightly built youths, the legs are disproportionately short, accounting for the deficit in height. Your body is smaller in proportion, retaining the classic ratios which artists have discovered please the eye and excite concupiscence. The effect is quite stunning."

"Well then, shall I hold a pose like the discuss thrower?" I asked, hopping off the couch and taking up the same posture as the classic statue. One of the other guests offered his assessment.

"Pretty as your rump looks in that pose, you are really too slender for a discus thrower, young Alex. You look more like one of the sons of Laocoon struggling in the grip of the serpent."

"Pay no attention to Sosthenes there." Gygax said dismissively." The man would like nothing better than to put you into bondage for his perverse games."

I shuddered theatrically. Actually I don't mind light bondage and humiliation in sex play, but for all that I am a bottom boy I am no masochist. I do not like pain. It does not turn me on. Even less do I like to inflict pain on another or simply to watch it happen.

I accepted invitations to join men who sat on a couch by themeselves. This allowed me to widen my circle of acquaintance, though that cut both ways. Yes, I could show that I was convivial, intelligent, articulate, and had a good sense of humor. My role as a bottom boy did make it harder to convince older merchants that the nude youth they had seen disporting himself at a symposium would make a reliable business partner.

I was popular at symposia not only for my looks and willingness to please but because I was a lively conversationalist. I could hold my own with philosophers and literary men, surprised that one so young was so well read in the Greek and Latin classics. I could also speak knowledgeably of far-off lands and peoples, of military matters and of the strategic perils of the empire.

As I talked or drank or sang with first Lucian and then his other guests, their hands would explore my small body, touching me familiarly and even intimately. In that context, it would have seemed churlish to object to the implicit compliment they were making me. It is not vanity for me to acknowledge that I had and have a lovely form that inspires admiration and lust in the hearts of any male who appreciates a beautiful youth.

Nude as I was and pressed together on a narrow couch, it was only natural for them to take what might otherwise have been viewed as considerable liberties: stroking my rump, slipping the blade of a hand into my cleavage, running their hands over my ribs, tweaking my tiny red nipples even fondling my manhood and stealing sweet kisses. All this was foreplay before pulling me up onto all fours or throwing my legs over their shoulders and fucking me. On some particularly wild evenings, I found myself in the center of a constantly changing constellation of randy males, pressing and probing my own delectable little body. Sometimes I was so exhausted, my host let me sleep on the couch till morning.

Yes, I was promiscuous, especially in those days in ancient Rome. I rather enjoyed the occasional orgy. What of it? After all, I had served for years in a boy brothel more than once. Nothing new then in such attentions and sexual activity. For someone with my looks and sex drive, it was only a natural extension of my sex life, at least when I was living without a lover.

Chapter 3. Rome and Palymyra

I somehow came under suspicion from the imperial espionage service for my continuing commercial ties to the East. That was strictly for business reasons. Zenobia's Palmyrene Empire sat astride the Mediterranean terminus of the Great Silk Road across Asia. Aurelian's spymaster Philo had me hauled in for questioning. He suspected my ships might be a channel for Zenobia's spies in Rome to keep her apprised of the emperor's plans, as if I would know what they were.

I was at the baths when a man I knew casually offered me wine. I drank it not realizing it was drugged. When I came to, I found I had been arrested and strung up naked in the imperial dungeons, my wrists locked into shackles overhead, my ankles spread wide and shackled to rings set into the floor, my toes barely touching the stones because of my slight stature. Perhaps they hadn't meant it, but with so much of my weight supported by my wrists it was hard to breathe normally.

Philo introduced himself and occupied himself in exploring my helpless body. He reached up to stroke my slender arms from bound wrists down to my hairless armpits, then slid his hands into my midline to my pectorals pinching and tugging my tiny red nipples in their small aureoles. He slid his hands down my flanks to my hips, weighing my manhood, poking the blade of his hand into my cleavage, his actions designed to emphasize my nudity and vulnerability. The man then took my ball sac in his fist and squeezed, elicting a hiss from me as my body shook in reaction. Turning his attention to my cock, he pulled back the foreskin and ran his thumb around the glans and squeezed the slit open with his fingers, nodding appreciatively and possessively, letting me know that in this dungeon he owned and controlled every part of me -- including my manhood. He looked me in the eye and spoke in an cold even tone.

"No doubt you have many questions, young one. Do not bother to ask. You are here only to answer questions, our questions. Be assured you will answer us, one way or another. Oh, and you should feel complimented on the stratagem we used to capture you, pretty one. Your extraordinary skill with a sword or in unarmed combat is well known, and I wished to spare the emperor any loss of his soldiers. Quite surprising too, such martial skills in a young merchant, a small hairless lad who looks more like a joy boy than a threat to the empire."

"We know that you are a spy for the separatists and the usurper in the East. Admit that, and we can proceed in a civilized manner. Tell us what you know freely, agree to work for us as a double agent, and we will grant you a full pardon. Otherwise, I am afraid I shall have to ask Nofax here to assist us in our inquiries." He indicated the torturer, a huge man behind him whose face was covered by a leather mask.

Philo was tall and deliberately loomed over my short lithe form, all the better to intimidate me. It was working too. Taking me by the chin and turning my face up to his he kissed me, in a parody of male love, thrusting his tongue into my mouth and probing before continuing in a tone of patently insincere regret, trying to soften me up for the interrogation.

"Nofax is quite skilled with hot irons and steel skewers. Can you see yourself remaining silent as your flesh is pierced by sharp metal rods. He is especially likely to target the two soft orbs contained within the smooth hairless sac lying in the palm of my hand. Alas, that would quite ruin them for their procreative purpose. In some cases, even if the subject survives, we have to castrate him to prevent the spread of gangrene. What technique do you recommend with this lad, Nofax?"

"Well, sir, I'd pierce both balls front to back with skewers then twirl them. The pain is almost unbearable. It makes the subject pass out time and again. If he still needs persuasion, I would force a third skewer crossways through both orbs, nailing both together. Bad as that is by itself, it is even worse if I hold a hot iron to the skewers. I can cook a boy's balls from the inside out while they are hanging in his sac. Now for something milder to start with. I suggest fire-hardened splinters forced through his nipples. You should see how artistically the blood trickles down a boy's ribs."

Prolonged torture was always my greatest fear. Torture by those who would not accept the truth until my body was wrecked. True, I have considerable recuperative powers thanks to my remarkable vitality. Scars always disappear with time, but I could hardly expect to recover from such all out torture.

I shuddered though I hoped that their talk was an attempt to intimidate me at this point with the prospect rather than the actuality of torture. I suspected they had no real evidence and were proceeding on mere suspicion that I might be a spy. After all I was innocent, but sometimes unscrupulous operatives in spy establishments make false accusations to demonstrate their worth to their masters. I wondered if that is what had happened in my case.

"Not just yet, thank you, Nofax. Nothing irreversible just yet." Philo continued. "You see, my young friend? Nofax would enjoy applying his skills to your delicious body, but it would be a shame to damage such a lovely youth as yourself, to see those angelic features screwed up in pain, to make your soft voice hoarse from screams and howls. You are really the most beautiful boy I have ever laid eyes upon. So small, and slight of build, yet with a wiry musculature. Completely hairless too, not just plucked."

"You look to be in splendid health. Your skin is smooth, and deeply tanned, especially for a young man of Germanic or perhaps Slavic extraction. You must spend much time out of doors in the sun entirely naked to be so bronzed. We don't see too many pretty boys around here with sun gold hair and eyes the green of growing things. Those high cheekbones give you an elven appearance too."

Philo took me in his strong arms pressing me to him and kissed me roughly, stroking my bound limbs, grabbing my taut buttocks, squeezing them and fingering my hole. He sniffed my body, still perfumed from my bath with rose petals. He complimented me again on my utterly smooth and hairless body. I could feel his rigid member through his robes.

"I suppose I shall have to give into temptation at some point and rape you myself before Nofax absolutely ruins you. That is one duty I shall carry out most willingly. Remember all you have to do is to talk. Give us the names of your confederates. Agree to work for us and you will be spared."

"Rape me if you must, but know that I am innocent. I am no one's spy. I am just a young merchant trying to make an honest living. I have nothing to confess though I am sure you can wring a false confession out of me along with the names of innocent men with whom I do legitimate business. Damn you for your suspicions."

At that point, Philo waved Nofax forward with his wooden splinters which he forced through my nipples. Trickles of blood started to run down my ribs. The man started punching my torso front and back, setting a slow pace, pausing only to let Philo ask his questions which were punctuated by slaps to my face. Over the next hour Nofax gave me a beating though he avoided the kidneys. I hung there limp, exhausted, battered, bruised, and very frightened. That is when the torturer fixed a ball crusher to my right testicle. As he squeezed down I called out in despair.

"No, this is wrong! I am not a spy. Don't destroy me. I want to live!"

The pain suddenly broke off as Philo waved his man away. "Yes, just as I hoped. This boy is no one's spy, sire. No youth would give up his manhood when he can hope for a full pardon upon confession."

Out of the gloom stepped the emperor. I had seen Aurelian after his triumph over the Germans but never so close up. The man was impressive in every way. His gaze was piercing, his keen intelligence obvious. He was in his late fifties with the lean build of a soldier. Handsome in a manly way, he wore his hair short and his beard cropped close to his chin. A reformer, Aurelian reorganized the imperial government, the currency, the management of the food reserves, restored many public buildings, set fixed prices for the most important goods, and prosecuted misconduct by the public officers. He had put down a rebellion in Rome by the master of the imperial mint who who had for years misappropriated silver and debased the currency, issuing coins with an inferior metallic content.

"Sorry about all this unpleasantness, young merchant, but we had to test you. The fate of the Empire is in the balance. I am satisfied that you are not working for Palmyra. Instead I want you to work for me. Indeed, I must insist on it."

At his gesture, the torturer freed me from my bonds and poured a bucket of water over me to cleanse my body and to cool me off. I sat down shakily on a stone bench to hear the emperor out. I was still trembling from my close call, one that caused nightmares for quite some time after that. Nothing can crush the spirit of a young male more than emasculation, a fate I had very narrowly escaped. All my centuries of life experience and all my study of philosophies and creeds would have offered little comfort to me then. I was and am a very sexual being. I hate to think what kind of person I would have become if, somehow I had survived, to live as eunuch. It would certainly have soured my outlook on the human race, maybe even turned me into the uncaring and amoral monster I have always feared I might become. If anything, my life as been one long spiritual struggle to resist the temptation to rank myself above mayfly humanity because of the accident of my immortality.

Philo gave me first water then a goblet of fortified wine to drink. I swallowed it gratefully. Once the emperor saw that I had collected myself and was able to focus on what he had to say, Aurelian explained that he was going to invade the East but needed up to date information on the political support Zenobia had in Asia Minor and Syria. As a silk merchant I could travel to the East without arousing suspicion and send reports back with my corrrespondence. Philo added that he could not vouch for the imperial agents put in place by Aurelian's predecessors. Zenobia had had years to discover or suborn them.

"A good point, Philo. What is to keep me from turning my coat once I reach the East... er, sire."

"I appreciate your candor, young Alexandros, especially in the circumstances. I will try to explain."

Aurelian pointed out that his struggle to reunite the empire was not just the fulfillment of the ambitions of one man. In a very real sense, his mission was the restoration of peace to an empire that sprawled over three continents with 50 or 60 million inhabitants. Maybe the empire was originally built out of the usual greed, aggression, and the lust for power that affect all powerful states, but the empire had changed into a world state that had promised, and for more than a century had delivered, a Pax Romana. Rome's world peace was no longer a tyranny over oppressed peoples. Rome had turned foreign peoples into Roman citizens, spreading its customs and technology around the Mediterranean and beyond. Rome carried the banner of civilization itself.

Aurelian maintained that the world was better off with Rome as a single state with an army whose mission was strategic defense of its territory rather than expansion. On most of its borders it faced barbarians, not civilized states. The Roman Empire guarded a civilization worth protecting. If that world state fell apart, it would be replaced by perhaps dozens of warring states with their own armies and ambitious rulers, engaging in endless rounds of warfare, devastation, maybe bringing on the fall of civilization to the barbarians. That was what Aurelian was fighting for, civilization itself.

"Isn't that something worth taking a risk for, Alexandros."

How could I disagree with that. Indeed I have always hated the depredations of barbarians, pirates, brigands, and especially the greatest of butchers, military conquerors most of whom brought nothing but misery and death in their wake. So I was moved to ally myself with this ruler, though himself a general who had risen to the purple on the strength of the support of his legions.

"And what is to keep Zenobia's spymaster from thinking I am a Roman spy and putting me to the question?"

"Nothing really," the emperor replied candidly with a wry smile. "That is just a chance you will have to take."

So, willy nilly, I became a spy for Aurelian. This was one of the few times in all my centuries that I became a (minor) participant in world shaping events. In this case the restoration and reunification of the Roman Empire. Aurelian would earn his title Resitutor Orbis, Restorer of the World, for defeating the breakaway empires and crushing the barbarian invaders. His efforts and those of his successors like Diocletian and Constatine would give the Empire two more centuries of life in the West and a millenium more in the East.

After recovering from my interrogation I journeyed to the East. I went by land, taking the Appian Way to Brundisium on the heel of the Italian boot. After crossing over to Greece I took the Via Egnatia from Dyrrachium on the Adriatic eastward through Thessalonika. The road from there skirts the northern shores of the Aegean and the Propontis (the modern Sea of Marmara, named for the marble quarried from its islands). It was on that stretch that I helped fight off bandits, mostly deserters, emboldened by the power vacuum in those parts. My bow accounted for at least four of them. The road finally lead me to Byzantium which was in the control of forces sympathetic to Zenobia. Afterwards I crossed through the part of Asia Minor still under imperial control to the city of Tyana in south central Asia Minor.

Everywhere I sounded out public opinion, both that of the wealthy classes I did business with and the artisans, street vendors and peasants in the village markets. Everywhere the feeling was the same. After the disaster that befell Roman arms when Valerian was captured, someone had to fill the power vacuum. Rome's legions were too busy fighting for the various claimants and usurpers who had contended for power since the end of the Severid line of emperors in 235. Gangs of bandits and deserters were everywhere. In desperation the peoples of the East or at least the notables who ruled them turned to Zenobia who had managed to push back the Persians with no help from the imperial establishment. Thereafter, when she set up her own empire, the populace acceded to her sovereignty. At least she brought peace and the resumption of trade.

Eventually I arrived in Palmyra, the city then known to its inhabitants as Tadmur or the Bride of the Desert. Today it is just a ruin in eastern Syria, but then it was a prosperous trading city situated in a green oasis about 120 kilometers southwest of the Euphrates River, about halfway across the Syrian Desert. I called on my fellow silk merchants, men I had been doing business with over the last two years. I bought fabrics and arranged for their shipment.

I threw myself into the social life of the town, a terminus of the Great Silk Road, full of interesting people hailing from the great oasis towns of Central Asia like Balkh and Samarqand, Kokand, and Kashgar. I met men from India and Taprobane and even two from far off Serica (China) though that latter duo were completely closed mouth about the actual origins of the precious silk they sold. (It would be five centuries before silkworm eggs were smuggled to Byzantium.) In those climes, my own looks were rather unusual so I had no problem indulging myself with good looking young men. Everything seemed to be going fine.

I actually thought I was getting quite good at this spy business, going about unsuspected and undetected, careful never to pump my sources too obviously or for too much information from any one unwitting informant. Unfortunately one of the couriers in Philo's employ turned me in to save himself from unrelated charges of smuggling. That is why one evening while I was enjoying myself at a boy brothel, soldiers invaded my room and dragged me off to a dungeon. I found myself, once again, strung up naked, facing a torturer, or rather two rather frightening looking ones. The taller one felt me up proprietarily, smelling the attar of roses on my skin from my bathwater. He also poked a finger into my hole, provoking a discharge of the cum that my bed partner had deposited there just before my arrest. Holding his finger under my nose, he bade my to lick it clean. Just a minor humiliation to show who was boss.

I steeled myself for another awful time under the control of men with few scruples and little sympathy for human frailties. My beauty would only spur such men to destroy it. Men who take up such work are invariably sadists. One man made a show of heating up irons and pincers. Another stropped a set of knives laid out on a table before him, chuckling as he held the finely honed blades up to the light. He carried one over to me and bounced my balls on the flat of the blade, smiling as he drew a soft whimper of fear from me. Then he batted my shriveled cock back and forth. Finally he brought the blade up to my nipples and pricked them with the point, starting twin trails of blood trickling down my chest and belly. I do not know why such men find that sight attractive.

"You will tell us everything we wish to know, little one. Speak candidly and spare yourself much pain." the taller man said.

"Yes, I will talk." I agreed promptly. "You don't have to torture me. I realize that no man can hold out indefinitely. I might as well tell the truth right off. Little as that is worth."

"Oh, why so little? Do you think so little of your efforts as a spy?"

"Not at all, I reported what I saw and heard, the talk in the streets and the sentiments of leading citizens. My job was political espionage, not military or strategic. I engaged in no conspiracies, nor did I ferret out military secrets."

"Surely you listened to the pillow talk of the soldiers and leading citizens who took you to their beds. I understand you are quite talented at pleasuring men."

"All I got from them was political generalities, nothing like troop strength and dispositions or plans for campaigns. I am not a military spy. By the gods, I am just a young silk merchant caught up in intrigues not of my making. They forced me to work for Imperial Intelligence."

"What do you think mistress," suddenly asked the older man, turning to one side.

A tall woman stepped out the shadows, or should I say a lady. Queen Zenobia was not a great beauty but she was a handsome woman in her early thirties and one with great dignity and presence. For once I was embarrassed to be naked, not for my sake but for hers.

"I hear the ring of truth in his voice. Leave off harsh measures for now Mansur. I would talk with this young spy. Your name is Alexandros, I understand, and you are a merchant in silks. Why are you here in Palmyra?"

"Aurelian sent me to gauge the amount of support you have in the cities across the East. He believes that your support is broad but shallow."

"Is that true?"

"Yes, Majesty. I am afraid that it is. Your regime was welcomed in the power vacuum after Valerian, but the peoples of the East would submit to Aurelian if that meant peace without reprisals. I have told him so in my reports these last months."

"Yes, I think you are correct, my young friend. That is why Byzantium and Tyana and other cities recently submitted without a fight."

"Majesty, understand, I have not suborned your subjects, merely reported what they already thought and believed."

"Are you telling me you are not really a spy?"

"Not at all, Majesty. It is just that I had little choice in the matter. Just months ago I was strung up like this, naked in Aurelian's dungeon, undergoing torture. They thought I might be one of your agents and worked me over pretty well. They finally believed me when I stuck to my story though threatened with the loss of my manhood. Instead, the emperor made me his agent. I have carried out my mission as I have told you."

"Why did you not then come over to my side. I would have welcomed you as a double agent."

"True Majesty, but I could not for several reasons. First, I have little guile and less stomach for lies and betrayal. I had pledged my loyalty to one side, so I was committed. Second. I was sure Aurelian would win. You have accomplished much here in the East, but your empire is a temporary state of affairs. Aurelian is not just a man, he is Rome. Already he has crippled the Gallic Empire and crushed the Germanic invaders. You are next. You would do well to make the best deal you can with the emperor while he is feeling generous. You do have something to bargain with. A quick surrender would free up his legions to finish off the breakaway empire in the West."

"I am glad for your honesty. There is much wisdom in your words, young one. How unlooked for in a pretty boy who seems more like one who might work in that boy brothel my soldiers dragged you from than a customer. You truly are an extraordinarily beautiful youth for a male. It would be such a shame to destroy such loveliness. Time will do that soon enough."

To the torturers she said "Release the boy. Let him be treated as my guest."

Chapter 5. Aurelian and Zenobia

I spent the next few weeks in Zenobia's palace, as a guest and advisor. Arelian was on the march east. Zenobia intended to include me in a diplomatic party she might send to sue for peace, if her army could not stop the Roman advance first.

I had comfortable though modest lodgings in the palace and access to and its fine library and the gardens. I spent a good deal of time at the local gymnasium and baths. Around the palace I wore only a linen kilt in the Egyptian style, slung low on my hips, which bared my torso almost to the fork of my legs. Zenobia indulged me in my exhibitionism, encouraging me to read and sun myself in the garden lying nude on the grass, occasionally to the annoyance of the tame peacocks who strutted around the grounds.

"What would people say if they knew you were talking in the garden with a nude youth, a shameless bum boy, my Queen?"

"Everyone knows that a queen is never alone with you or anyone. I always have at least my ladies and guards about me, as you can see, when I am not surrounded by officials and messengers and servants when holding court. I dare say you rather enjoy displaying yourself, stretched out languidly like that, rather like a cat. I could hardly fault you for it. You must be the most beautiful male I have ever laid eyes on. Trust me, I have seen many lads in your current state of undress. It is my duty to present laurel crowns to victors in our local athletic games, one of the few women allowed to attend them, since the athletes compete naked. But then I am the monarch. I have seen many a nude youth reveling in the beauty of his young manhood, but never one so physically perfect as you, my friend."

I blushed at her candor, but also mentioned something of the downside of being a small and pretty young male -- the jealousy it inspired not to mention gang rapes.

"Well your virtue is safe here as, how shall I say it, my latest palace pet? Like my peacocks?" she asked with a raised eyebrow and mischievous smile on her face.

"Nay, majesty," I said springing to my feet. "As decorative as you acknowledge me, I prefer to think of myself as a kinetic sculpture to grace your garden." I added with a graceful bow and wave of my arms as I struck first one pose then another.

She smiled at my wit.

"Indeed a sculpture very much in the classical Greek style of a nude youth in an athletic pose that highlights his musculature and sex appeal. You might be Ganymede on a visit from Olympus. He was a blond boy too, slight of build, pretty enough to turn Zeus's head. I know you are nearly twenty, but, short and slender as you are and hairless even at the fork of your legs, you might pass for a lad of fourteen or fifteen, just the age the Trojan prince was when he caught Zeus' eye. I know you have caught the eye of my general Tigranes. You are responsible for the smile on his face these days. I trust he has not been indiscreet with his pillow talk."

I blushed though my physical relationship with her general was no secret. I went to him openly, for dinner or for an assignation. My spying days were definitely over. I appreciated the way Zenobia trusted me not to betray confidences, and I did not. Especially for a ruler of an empire, she really was a very nice person. I came to like her as much as was possible for one with my exclusively male orientation.

Not that she did not appreciate my boyish looks, totally on display, but there never was nor could be anything romantic between us. Even her enemies did not claim that the Queen of the East was anything but a chaste widow. Centuries earlier Roman propaganda had painted Kleopatra of Egypt as a wanton, a sexual predator who had corrupted Mark Antony with her wiles. Zenobia was every inch the queen and the lady.

Eventually when Aurelian's army reached Antioch, Zenobia lead her army out to meet it. Though Zenobia had considerable gifts as a military leader, she was no match for a professional soldier like Aurelian in the two pitched battles they fought. First at Immae he drove her army back, tricking her heavy cavalry into exhausting and dispersing itself. At Emessa he crushed her army with his infantry. The Romans invested the town and seized the city center. I was found in the palace by a centurion named Titus Vorenus, a giant of man who commanded a troop of auxiliary cavalry sent into the city.

Aurelian received the city fathers in Zenobia's throne room. I had caught the eye of his spy master Philo, but we had little time to speak before we were ushered into the imperial presence. The Palmyrenes made their plea for peace. They begged the emperor to spare their city the sack and leave its citizens in peace without condemning them to the slave markets. Aurelian's advisers asked pointed questions about the location of the Palmyrene treasury and the disposition of their remaining military forces, getting satisfactory answers.

Titus Vorenus was visibly dissatisfied with a negotiated surrender. He had wanted to put Palmyra to the sack. He said so in heated terms. I spoke up in opposition, pointing out that a quick political settlement in East would free the emperor to settle accounts in the West. Also, Palmyra was worth more in the long run to the empire as a prosperous trade hub and a source of taxes than as a one-time source of loot, much of which would wind up in the hands of soldiers like Titus rather than in the imperial fisc. Let the Romans secure this rich trading city with a garrison that would help protect the trade with the East.

"What of it, centurion," Aurelian asked deadpan. "Isn't the boy right? Sacking the city. Isn't that putting what is best for your own purse ahead of what is best for your emperor and the empire as a whole?"

"After all my years of service, how can anyone suppose that my loyalty is less than that of some bum boy of dubious antecedents, a turncoat, doubtless in the pay of Zenobia."

"Actually this bum boy, as you call him is a young merchant working for Philo and the imperial spy service. His reports were excellent, in particular for suggesting the policy of forebearance toward cities in revolt. They opened their gates to us peacefully which is why our march across four provinces was an uncontested triumph. We did not have to fight a battle or take losses till we reached Antioch, in Syria itself, the heartland of Zenobia's power. I think I am a good judge of men, centurion, and I trust this young man's honesty."

"Then why was he here ensconced as a guest in the palace rather than in the dungeon. Clearly he has thrown in with Zenobia."

"I deny that in the strongest terms." I said hotly.

I went on to explain that I had in fact been found out by Zenobia's counterspies and dragged to the dungeon for interrogation but had managed to win Zenobia's confidence. My own counsel had been for a negotiated peace to restore the empire and put an end to the war. Members of the Palmyrene, delegation, including the wounded General Tigranes, confirmed my story. Titus denounced me as a traitor and offered to lop my head off for the good of the state. I answered sharply until Aurelian raised his hand to bring us to a halt.

"Enough, you two. I will consider the city's fate overnight. In the meantime, Titus and Alexandros, I grant you leave to settle your differences on the field of honor out there in the gardens. Let it be to the death."

Titus was sure that he would have little trouble killing me in single combat. A huge man anyway, he wielded a cavalry spatha, a sword longer than the gladius carried by Roman infantry. He was rather taken aback when I chose twin daggers as my weapons of choice. Fifty years earlier I had been undefeated in the Colosseum fighting as a dimachaerus, a gladiator who fights armed only with two long knives but without armor, helmet, or other gear. Indeed I fought totally nude. I was celebrated in those days as the Killer Catamite. I kicked off my sandals and shed my kilt till I was totally naked. I know that would make my opponent overconfident. What did he, an experienced soldier have to fear from a naked bum boy?

Suddenly recognition dawned in Aurelian's face. "The Killer Catamite!" he blurted out. He explained that, as a boy of six or seven, he had seen the then famous gladiator in the arena. "You are his very image, young Alexandros!"

That bothered my opponent for only a moment. He was not worried about a chance resemblance to some gladiator who had fought in the Colosseum long before he himself was born.

"Killer Catamite, eh? Well, I am the Catamite Killer, bum boy. I am going to shove my sword so far up your hole you will be able to taste my steel!"

"Don't be so sure, big man" I murmured under my breath.

That drew a nod from Aurelian. He knew from Philo how deadly I can be with any kind of blade. I think he wanted to send a message to the other soldiers in his army who ached for the chance to sack the city. Better that a non-Roman like me did the deed and taught the lesson. I did not mind being so used, not in a good cause. In this way I could keep faith both with the emperor and the queen.

We faced off and went at it. Titus' greater strength and reach were his main advantages. If he could batter aside my lighter blades or break them, he just might win. However, the man had not counted on an opponent as agile as I, quick and nimble as a squirrel, and with centuries of training, practice, and combat experience, including my time in the arena. By contrast, Titus was slowed by the weight of his armor. I also used the terrain of the garden itself to good advantage, jumping over pools, back flipping to put low walls between us, swinging around columns, and darting around statuary. In short order he was confused and short of breath.

I fought defensively at first, letting him wear himself out as I repeatedly blocked his cuts with knives doubled in an X or spun aside to let his blade slip past me. I did not actually toy with him. That is always a mistake, a sign of overconfidence if not downright arrogance, but I made the fight last long enough to show that my victory was no accident, not the result of some slip up on his part. That would have defeated the purpose of Aurelian's object lesson. I made it clear to everyone watching that I was in command of the situation, thanks to my agility and speed and blade work.

As in my days in the arena I won the crowd over by a display of athleticism and raw animal appeal. Onlookers were enthralled by the way the muscle bundles stood out under my skin, by the twitching of the long muscles of my legs as I stepped forward or retreated, the dimpling of my buttocks as I lunged or skipped back from his cuts, and the curve of my torso as I twisted and ducked. My sweaty body glistened in the afternoon sunlight, suggesting how I must look during vigorous sex play. Everyone got a good look at the rump that Titus wanted to impale with his spatha. I am sure some of them were on my side because that outcome struck them as being just a terrible waste of boy flesh. They would much rather impale that sexy boy themselves on their own fleshy swords.

Our fighting techniques were as different as our physiques. I was all in and out, cut and run, spin and slash. He was all for stamping about, planting his feet, swinging mightily, laying about with powerful strokes that would have cleaved me in two had they connected. Titus was a big bluff man, rather plain looking, in his thirties, protected by his lorica hamata (chain mail shirt) and helmet. I was everything he was not: a short slightly built lad, much too pretty for a boy, totally nude, hairless even at the fork of my legs, seemingly overmatched by a man with more than twice my body mass. A boy facing a man.

Our fight went on for some minutes, which is actually a very long time in single combat (except in the movies). After some sparring back and forth, I saw my chance, slipped past his guard, got in close and stabbed the blade in my right hand up into his heart, punching through the chain mail covering his chest. (Chain mail is better protection against slashing blades than thrusting points.) I followed that up with a slash from the blade in my left hand across his throat. He fell dead at my feet. I stepped back covered in sweat and dust and his blood. It brought back unpleasant memories of the arena. At least this man's death was honest self-defense, not sanctioned murder to titillate a bloodthirsty crowd. Nor would rich men pay this day to fuck me while I was chained up in a cell.

In the end, though many Palmyrenes surrendered, the Romans were forced to kill the die hards in the city who refused to yield. Aurelian commended me for my efforts both as a spy and for counseling conciliatory tactics to him and peace to Zenobia. I stayed on in Palmyra and the East for the next year or so exploring business opportunities that the reunification of the Empire opened up. I don't mind admitting that I made quite a financial killing, enjoying imperial favor and getting in on the ground floor, if I may mix my metaphors.

Aurelian captured Zenobia before she could flee across the Euphrates to the Sassanians. He interviewed her several times. In the end, he was as much impressed as I had been by the woman's character. He treated her well considering what had been at stake. Yes, he did make her walk in golden chains in the parade for his military triumph in Rome, but that was mandatory for public consumption. Instead of keeping her a prisoner, he freed her, settled an income on her and gave her an elegant villa not far from Hadrian's villa in Tibur (modern Tivoli). In time she married a Roman senator and became a prominent socialite, Roman matron, and philosopher. For some years afterwards I was in her circle of acquaintance. She never involved herself in politics or intrigues, happy that fate and Aurelian had given her a second chance at a good life. Zenobia will ever remain in my memory as one of the most extraordinary women I ever met.

I never saw Aurelian again. He was busy in the West putting an end to the Gallic Empire the following year. I did not return to Rome till after Aurelian died 275, even before his wall around Rome was finished. He was murdered by his own high officials who had been tricked by a corrupt officer into thinking the emperor was planning to purge them. Rome thus lost one of its greatest emperors, the man without whom the empire would have fallen to pieces well before its time. Indeed his efforts and those of his successors allowed Christianity to spread widely through the civilized world, to become the state religion of the empire, and to create the milieu in which Islam later arose. Our modern world would look very different today if Aurelian and his fellow soldier emperors had not preserved the unified empire for another two centuries.

By the time I returned to Rome, Gaius Karandes, the patron of my young friend from the baths, Maxentius, was long gone from the scene. I understand he had been posted to far off Britannia. I saw my chance and took up with the delightful young apprentice jeweler. Curly headed Max became my lover for the next eight years. We spent many happy days and nights together. Though he often stayed over at my home he continued to report for work at the master jeweler's. He would be no one's kept boy, not Max. I always respect young men like Max determined to make their way in the world without relying just on their good looks. In time, I sponsored him for his own establishment in which business he was very successful thanks to his talent and hard work. I was sorry, years later, when I finally had to leave Rome and Max before my unchanging youth could be remarked upon. Though Max was not one of the great loves of my life, he was as fine person as you would ever want to meet. I felt privileged that he had shared my home and my life, bringing into them his sense of humor, his intelligence, and his joie de vivre. Did I mention that he was also terribly cute and terrific in bed? He lives on in happy memory.

Epilogue

Aurelian's wall around Rome is remarkably well preserved in long stretches, especially some of the massive gates. It a tourist attraction well worth seeing if you are in Rome. Don't miss the Museum of the Wall, the Museo delle Mura, installed in the San Sebastiano Gates, one of the largest and best conserved gates in the Aurelian wall. Still, as I have already indicated, Aurelian's influence on history is his most lasting monument, relatively little appreciated as it is.

Palymra itself is a tourist attraction next to a modern town called Tadmor. As much as I admire the stark ruins on the high ground, what I like best there is the beauty of the green oasis that abuts it in the midst of a vast desert. To travelers in caravans, such oases must have seemed to be literally gifts of the gods. Which reminds me of the great line from the movie 'Lawrence of Arabia' when Prince Faisal reproves Lawrence for his romantic love of the desert. "No Arab loves the desert. We love water and green things." Indeed.

The sport of parkour occupies much of my time during warm weather. My lover Jeffrey and I go out a couple of days a week to run and jump and scramble over obstacles and climb structures. I am almost sorry that the old elevated freight railroad on the West Side, the High Line, is opening as a public park and tourist attraction. It used to be one of our private playgrounds, one only we and a few others could access by swarming up the supporting pillars or jumping from a window ledge. Now they have gone ahead and put in stairways and elevators. At least that will increase the audience for our displays of agility, strength, athleticism, and raw animal appeal, as we scamper about in summer dressed only in skimpy form fitting tan-thru shorts which cover just about enough to keep us from getting arrested.

The last time I was in Paris, I was (and not for the first time) sorely tempted to climb the Eiffel Tower -- and I don't mean via the stairs which take you up to the second platform. From the Champ de Mars, I looked up longingly at the striking lattice structure. An architecture student, Jeffery told me that the tower is an outstanding for its economy of design. The iron of the tower actually has less mass than a cylinder of air of the same dimensions (height 324 meters, radius 88 meters). Jeffrey saw the longing in my face and warned me.

"Don't even think about it, Alex!"

What dissuaded me was not the danger nor the difficulty of the climb but the spotlight of publicity it would shine on me. I have to be able the change identities every twenty years or so, so I cannot afford world wide notoriety. Also, it would be selfish act. The authorities would have to shut the tower down during my daredevil climb, denying ordinary tourists perhaps their one chance in a lifetime to take the elevator to the top. Finally, I might get stuck with a bill for the costs of mobilizing the "forces of order", as the French say, for crowd control, operating costs for helicopters, etc. I knew I would be arrested and fingerprinted, and I cannot afford to leave such official records.

As you might expect, my own experiences under interrogation in various dungeons have left me with definite views of recent American failures to live up to this country's own ideals. I was keenly disappointed because America is not just another country. In the last analysis, it is still the best hope for peace, democracy, and human rights in our troubled world. Yes, there are other fine countries on this globe, especially in Europe, but their security ultimately depends on American power and justice.

I have lived in New York for a decade and was a witness to the events of 9/11. I saw first hand what happens when a religious ideology makes men blind to their own humanity and that of others. Such crimes have to be countered and investigated, but not by abandoning what makes America worth preserving in the first place.

I do not oppose torture because I am squeamish, far from it. As these narratives have shown I can be ruthless when I have to be, and not only in self-defense. I have taken life pre-emptively when my path happened to cross that of an insufferable villain who preyed on others but was protected by title, wealth, or connections. These things mean nothing to me, except tactically as obstacles to be overcome. Over the centuries I have disposed of any number of villains including three serial killers, though they were never called by that modern term. Witches and fiends were the labels during the middle ages.

In all three cases, I used poison to mimic a natural death. I am very good at giving heart attacks. I use a poison ring with a retractable point that delivers a deadly venom into the blood stream from a simple scratch. In a bustling city street, it is easy enough to get close enough to your target to inflict that scratch and get away fading into the crowd. . No I never had the satisfaction of standing over them and gloating. I leave gloating to movie villains. I just wanted to get the job done.

In 1888, with the help of my son David and his mother Lydia, I actually went hunting for Jack the Ripper. Lydia was the bait, protected by a mail hauberk under her dress. David guarded her close by, following on foot in the shadows -- not that Lydia wasn't deadly in her own right. I took to the rooftops of Whitechapel the better to observe those in the streets and alleys below. I could block any effort by our quarry to escape by clambering down a building facade or sliding down a rope wrapped about my waist. Unfortunately, by the time we took up the hunt, the Ripper had ended his killing spree. Had some other hunters found him out and quietly disposed of him? Had he died of natural causes or committed suicide? We will never know.

I consider such episodes a partial payment to the universe or whatever gods may exist for my unexplained immortality. Sometimes I act of out simple self-defense. Just in the last few years, when confronted by muggers or gay bashers I have taken matters in my own hands and left these miscreants dead, crippled, or merely humbled in the streets, according on their deserts, without seeking the help of the authorities.

Understand, I live in a good neighborhood on the Upper West Side. I am not a vigilante. I do not patrol the streets or the subway looking for trouble as Charles Bronson did in "Death Wish" or as costumed crime fighters do in the comic books. That said, my small size, slight build, and pretty boy good looks are all too often taken as signs of an easy mark by the bad guys. Their mistake.

Only recently could I write of these things, choosing, from caution, to cast them as fiction, a series of fanciful tales of an immortal youth written under a pseudonym. My secret is safe for no one in these days of modern science will believe it. In this tale, all of the names are real. The events described really did happen just as I have written.