Hadrian Enigma — A Forbidden History is fiction based upon an incident recorded by historians of the ancient world. It is a novel elaborating on the suspicious death of Antinous, the favorite of Caesar Hadrian, emperor of Rome, reported at the River Nile in Egypt in 13 °CE.

This novel's events, cultural ambience, and characters reflect recorded history. Several characters and circumstances are entirely fictional.

In the 13th Year of Imperator Caesar Divi Traiani filius Traianus Hadrianus Augustus. (Hadrian, ruled 117-138CE)

Stop now. Cease immediately. You are at risk. If you intend reading this history, take great care. Caesar will not be pleased. Hadrian may exile you to some bleak rocky outcrop dashed by stormy seas if he learns of it. Or worse. Reconsider while yet you may.

However, if juicy morsels of gossip have reached your ears and you cannot help yourself, then be it on your own head. You now share in my own plight.

This saga came to its climax three months ago. Its culmination struck Caesar's traveling Household at the dawn of one of those bleached-out, white hot, stupefying days so common in Egypt. In the molten miasma of liquid heat that morning three months ago his Court's communal bloodstream froze to ice, as they say.

An unexplained death at Court is a sobering matter. The death of a young, vital, handsome favorite augurs even greater concern. What is to be made of it, we wondered?

Three months later my anxiety escalates. My head is now forfeit. Hadrian does not forgive my revelations before his Court. They were truly embarrassing. His reputation for machismo as a Roman Imperator was exposed to view for what it really is. Yes, Caesar's loving tenderness was revealed. Tenderness is a sentiment an Imperator deems it unwise to disclose.