"The Museum," I said, "was founded in the reign of Ptolemy I, surnamed Soter, 'the Savior,' two hundred thirty-five years ago." I had bribed a tour guide to teach me his spiel, and I now delivered it to Julia as we mounted the steps to the main hall. "It was planned and directed by the first Librarian, Demetrios of Phaleron. The Library, of worldwide fame, is actually an adjunct of the Museum. Since the time of Demetrios, an unbroken chain of Librarians has overseen the institution and its collections. The successors of Demetrios have been Zenodotus of Ephesus, Callimachus of Cyrene, Appolonius of Rhodes, Eratosthenes of Cyrene, Aristophanes of Byzantium, Appolonius the Eidograph, Aristarchus of Samothrace-"
"I can read, Decius," Julia said, cutting me off in mid-genealogy.
"But I still have a hundred years of Librarians to impart," I protested. It had been a considerable feat of memorization on short notice, but we noble youth of Rome had that sort of rote learning flogged into us from an early age.
"I read everything I could find on the Museum and the Library during my journey. You can learn a great deal between bouts of seasickness."
At the top of the stair one passed between a pair of gigantic obelisks. Beyond them was a courtyard paved with polished purple marble, dominated by beautiful statues of Athena, Apollo and Hermes. The greatest buildings of the Museum complex faced on this courtyard: the Library, the magnificent dining hall of the scholars and the Temple itself, a modest but exquisite structure sacred to the Muses. Beyond these were a good many more buildings: the living quarters, lecture halls, observatories, colonnades and so forth.
Julia did much exclaiming over the architectural marvels. In truth, Rome had nothing to touch it. Only the Capitol had anything like the splendor of the great edifices of Alexandria, although our Circus Maximus was a good deal larger than their Hippodrome. But the Hippodrome was made of marble, where the Circus was still mostly of wood.
"This is sublime!" she said excitedly.
"Exactly the word I would have chosen," I assured her. "What would you like to see first?"
"The lecture halls and the refectory," she said. "I want to see the scholars as they go about their philosophical labors."
Someone must have sent word ahead of us, because Amphytrion appeared at that moment. "I will be most happy to escort our distinguished guests. The Museum is at your disposal."
The last thing I wanted was to have some dusty old Greek coming between me and Julia, but she clapped and exclaimed what a privilege this was. Thus robbed of a graceful way to sidestep his unwanted intrusion, I followed the two into the great building. In the entrance peristyle he gestured toward the rows of names carved into the walls.
"Here you see the names of all the Librarians, and of the famous scholars and philosophers who have ornamented the Museum since its founding. And here are the portrait busts of the greatest of them." Beyond the peristyle was a graceful colonnade surrounding a pool in which stood a sculptural group depicting Orpheus calming the wild beasts with his song.
"The colonnade of the Peripatetic philosophers," Amphytrion explained. "They prefer to converse and expound while walking, and this colonnade is provided for their convenience. The Orpheus was sculpted by the same hand that created the famous Gigantomachia at the altar of Zeus in Pergamum."
This I was prepared to admire to the fullest. It was an example of that flowering of late Greek sculpture that I have always preferred to the effete stuff of Periclean Athens, with its wilting Apollos and excessively chaste Aphrodites. Orpheus, caught in mid-note, was the very embodiment of music as he strummed his lyre. The beasts, obviously stopped at the moment they were about to spring, were carved with wondrous detail. The lion's fanged mouth was just relaxing from a terrifying snarl, the wolf lapsing into doglike friendliness, the bear standing on his hind legs looking puzzled. In real life no one is ever attacked simultaneously by such a varied menagerie, but this was myth, and it was perfect.
But Julia wanted to see the philosophers at their labors, so we went in search of some. The problem was that, when they aren't talking, philosophers aren't doing much at all. Mostly they stand around, or sit around, or in the case of the Peripatetics, walk around, pondering matters and looking wise.
We found Asklepiodes in a lecture hall, speaking to a large audience of physicians about his discoveries concerning the superiority of stitching lacerations rather than searing them with a hot iron. One of the attendees ventured to question whether this was properly the concern of physicians, and Asklepiodes parried him neatly.
"Before even the divine Hippocrates, there was the god of healing, Asklepios. And do we not read in the Iliad that his own son, Machaon, with his own hands tended the wounds of the Greek heroes, even withdrawing an arrowhead in one instance?" I applauded this point vigorously, and there were learned murmurs that this was a valid point.
From the lecture halls we passed into a large courtyard filled with enigmatic objects of stone: tall spindles, slanted ramps, circles with gradations marked off in inscribed lines. A few of the smaller instruments I recognized as similar to the gromon that engineers use to lay out building sites or camps for the legions.
"Welcome to my observatory," said a man I recognized as Sosigenes, the astronomer. He grinned engagingly as Julia went through her now-customary gush of enthusiasm.
"I shall be most happy to explain something of my studies, my lady," he said, "but I confess that there are few things more useless than an astronomer in the daytime." And this he proceeded to do. Sosigenes had a redeeming sense of humor that was notably absent in most of the philosophers there. I found myself actually listening attentively as he explained the purpose of his instruments, and the importance of recording the movements of the stars and planets in calculating positions in navigation, and in determining the real date as opposed to the slippery dates of conventional calendars. The reliable calendar we now use was the invention of Sosigenes, although Caesar took the credit by making it the legal calendar through his authority as Pontifex Maximus. I resolved to return to the observatory some night when he could explain more effectively the mysteries of the stars.
In another courtyard we found the redoubtable Iphicrates of Chios, bossing a crew of carpenters and metal workers as they assembled a complicated model of stone, wood and cable. At our arrival he turned frowning, but smiled and bowed when he saw that Rome had come calling.
"And what do you work on now, Iphicrates?" Amphytrion asked.
"His Majesty has asked me to solve the long-standing problem of silting in the great canal that links the Mediterranean with the Red Sea," he proclaimed proudly.
"A daunting prospect," I said. "But its solution would do much to facilitate traffic between the West and India."
"It's good to see that someone from outside these walls has a grasp of geography," he said.
"It's one of the things we Romans find important," I answered. "What is your solution?"
"The basis of the problem is that the canal is at sea level, and therefore a noticeable current flows through it from west to east, just as water enters the Mediterranean from the Ocean through the Gates of Heracles, and from east to west through the Hellespont." In explaining the mysteries of his art, his voice lost its accustomed belligerence and he actually communicated a bit of his own excitement at solving these thorny natural problems.
"I have designed a series of waterproof gates and dry docks at each end of the waterway. By means of these, the dry docks can be flooded to raise or lower shipping to the proper level, and it can sail, row or be towed the intervening distance without a constant current. The amount of silt admitted will be minimal, and the waterway will need to be dredged no more often than every fourth or fifth year."
"Most ingenious," I acknowledged. "Worthy of the successor to Archimedes."
"I thank you," he said with poor grace. "But the revered Archimedes did not fare so well at the hands of the Romans." Greeks are always carrying some sort of grudge.
"Yes, well, it was an unfortunate incident, but it was his own fault. You see, when Roman soldiers have just broken into your city after a lengthy siege, and are rampaging about, looting the city and massacring anyone who shows resistance, why, the last thing you want to do is speak insolently to them. If he had just kept his mouth shut and abased himself, he would have been spared. As it was, Marcellus felt awfully bad about it and he gave the old boy a very nice tomb."
"Just so," Iphicrates said through gritted teeth.
"But, learned Iphicrates," Julia said hastily, "what other marvelous works occupy your mind? In your books you have said that you always have a number of projects under study at any time."
"If you will come this way," he said, ushering us into a spacious room adjoining the courtyard where the workmen assembled his water gate. The room was full of cupboards and tables, and the tables were littered with models in varying stages of assembly. Most of the machines, as he explained them, had something to do with raising weights or water. I pointed at one that displayed a long, counterweighted arm tipped with a sling.
"A catapult?" I inquired.
"No, I never design engines of war. That is an improved crane for lifting great stones. A number of your Roman engineers have shown interest in it. It will prove most helpful in your great bridge and aqueduct projects."
While he spoke to Julia and the Librarian, I wandered about the room, admiring his amazingly lucid drawings and diagrams, every one of them applying geometry and mathematics to the accomplishment of some specific task. This was a sort of philosophy that I could appreciate, even if I found the man himself odious. The open cupboards were filled with more papyri and scrolls. On one table was an oversized scroll of dark, oiled olive wood, its handles stained vermilion. Even a glance told me that it was not made of Egyptian papyrus, but of the skin-paper of Pergamum. I picked up the massive scroll and began to unroll it, but Iphicrates made a massive, throat-clearing sound.
"Excuse me, Senator," he said, hastily taking it from my hands. "This is the unfinished work of a colleague, lent to me on the understanding that no one else should see it until he has finished it and made it public." As he locked the thing in an ornate cupboard, I wondered what sort of colleague would trust Iphicrates of Chios with anything.
"That scroll reminds me," Julia said, adroitly smoothing things over. "I have yet to see the famous Library. And who better to show it to me than the Librarian himself?" We bade farewell to the difficult mathematician and received his churlish goodbyes in return.
I had already toured the Library, and once you have seen one tremendous warehouse of books, you have seen them all. Besides, it was a noisy place, with hundreds of scholars reading at the top of their lungs. Romans read at a polite, dignified murmur, but not Greeks or, worse, Asiatics. I left Julia and Amphytrion to the dubious pleasures of the Library while I idled about in the great outer courtyard, admiring the splendid statues. I had been there no more than a few minutes when my slave Hermes appeared bearing the most welcome of sights: a bulging wineskin and a pair of cups. I had left him with our litter with strict orders to stay where he was. Naturally, he had ignored me. He was an unregenerate young criminal, but he made up for it by anticipating my needs with mystical precision.
"Didn't think you'd be able to take too much culture at once," he said, pouring me a cup. "I went out to a wineshop and picked us up some first-rate Lesbian."
I took the cup gratefully. "Remind me to flog you sometime for disobedience." I raised the cup in toast to the statue of Sappho that stood just inside the portico of the Temple. She had this place of honor because the old Greeks had named her "the tenth Muse." I took a long drink and addressed the statue.
"Now I know what your inspiration was, old girl." The many tourists made scandalized noises to see someone drinking in such a place. That was all right. A Roman Senator can do whatever he likes, and we're used to snooty foreigners calling us barbarians. Hermes poured himself a cup.
"I trust you have some valuable information for me," I said. "There are limits to the insolence I will tolerate."
"I got this straight from the queen's personal maids," he assured me. "She's pregnant again." This was one of the ways that Hermes served me.
"Another royal brat!" I said. "This is going to complicate things, especially if it turns out to be a boy. Another princess won't matter much, with three already underfoot."
"They say Pothinus, the Number One Eunuch, is not pleased." Hermes was privy to more privileged information than the whole diplomatic corps.
"No reason why he should be. It just complicates his life, too. Not to mention that eunuchs as a rule don't take much satisfaction in human fertility. How far along is she?"
"Three months. Berenice is furious, Cleopatra seems to be happy about it and Arsinoe's too young to care. As far as I know, young Ptolemy hasn't been told yet."
"What about the king?" I asked.
"I don't move in such exalted circles. You're the great Roman official."
"Much good does that do me. I'm a glorified tour guide these days."
"At least you're in agreeable company. Would you rather be in Rome, dodging Clodius and being poisoned by his sister and worrying about what Caesar has planned for you? Enjoy the vacation, is what I say."
"Hermes," I said, "here we stand in the midst of the greatest assemblage of philosophers in the world. I don't need your worldly advice."
He snorted. "I've seen plenty of these philosophers since we've been here. You know why they all have slaves to wipe their bottoms for them? Because they're too crackbrained to do it for themselves."
"You shouldn't speak that way of your betters." I tossed him the empty cup. "Take this back to the litter. That skin had better not be noticeably flatter when we leave here."
Still at loose ends, I went into the Temple itself. I had never visited the Temple, and so I was completely unprepared for its breathtaking beauty. It was circular, thus giving equal place to each of the nine Muses, whose statues stood around its periphery.
In Rome we had our fine Temple of Hercules and the Nine Muses, but there the pride of place is given to Hercules, a Roman favorite. The images of the Muses are not of the highest quality.
These were worthy of Praxiteles. They were carved from the finest white marble, adorned with only the subtlest tints, unlike so many garishly painted statues. This gave them a spectral, almost transparent presence, like spirits seen in a dream. Before each burned a vessel of frankincense, wreathing them in smoke and contributing to their divine appearance. Only their eyes, delicately inlaid with shell and lapis lazuli, shone forth with more than mortal intensity.
I realized then how little I knew of the Muses. I daresay I could have named two or three of them: Terpsichore, because everyone likes dance, and Polyhymnia, because we all sing praises of the gods, and Erato, because she is the Muse of love poems and her name is similar to Eros. But the others were hazy to me.
The proportions of the Temple were perfect. It was not numbingly huge like so many of the Alexandrian buildings, but rather of human scale. The statues of the Muses were only slightly larger than life-size, just enough to emphasize that these were not mere mortals. The polished marble of which it was built was of many colors, but all of it pale, accentuating the aetherial nature of the place.
Outside of Rome, I have encountered only a few temples, shrines or sanctuaries that seemed to me genuinely holy. Alexandria's Temple of the Muses was one of them. Being there was like falling under the spell of the sublime goddesses.
"You like our Temple, Senator?" I turned to see a small, bearded man dressed in a simple white, Dorian chiton and a hair-fillet of plain white cloth.
"It is sublime," I said in a low voice. To speak loudly in this place would be a desecration. "I want to sacrifice to them."
He smiled gently. "Here we do not sacrifice. On their festivals, we offer the goddesses wheat kneaded with honey, and we pour libations of milk and honey and water, that is all. We burn incense to their honor. They are not deities who love the blood of sacrifice. Here we work to their glory."
"Are you a priest?" I asked.
He bowed his head slightly. "I am Agathon, Archpriest of the Muses. Are you familiar with our goddesses?"
"Just slightly. They aren't well known in Rome."
"Then allow me to introduce you." He led me to the first, who stood to the right of the doorway. As we walked, he spoke, or rather intoned, the names, qualities and attributes of each. The Muses differed little in face, figure or garments, so they were known by their attributes.
"Clio, the Muse of history. Her attributes are the trumpet of heroes and the clepsydra.
"Euterpe, Muse of the flute, and bearer of the flute.
"Thalia, the Muse of comedy, who bears the mask of comedy.
"Melpomene, the Muse of tragedy. Her attributes are the tragic mask and the club of Heracles.
"Terpsichore, bearer of the cithara, Muse of lyric poetry and the dance.
"Erato, the Muse of love poetry, who alone of the Muses has neither attribute nor attitude.
"Polyhymnia, Muse of heroic hymn, but also of mime, whose finger touches her lips in the attitude of meditation.
"Urania, the Muse of astronomy, whose attributes are the celestial globe and the compass.
"Greatest among them all, Calliope, Muse of epic poetry and eloquence, who bears the stylus and tablets."
All the Muses were portrayed standing except for Clio and Urania, who were seated. I never gave them the study they merited, for my times were mostly times of civil war and violence, unsuited to cultivation of the gentler arts. But from that day to this I have never forgotten their names and attributes, and whenever my steps took me near their temple by the Circus Flaminius, I never omitted to toss a bit of incense into their braziers.
I thanked the priest with deepest appreciation. The experience had been unexpected and was one I somehow knew I would cherish all my days. When I left the Temple it somehow seemed odd to me that everything outside was exactly as I had left it. A few minutes later Julia and Amphytrion emerged from the Library, and she looked at me strangely.
"Are you drunk?" she asked. "It seems awfully early."
"Just one cup, I swear it," I said.
"Then why do you look so strange?"
"The gentleman looks like one who has been given a vision from the gods," Amphytrion said seriously. "Has this happened?"
"No," I said hastily. "At least, I don't think so. Julia, let's go back to the Palace."
"I wanted to see more," she said, "but perhaps we'd better."
We thanked Amphytrion and returned to our litter. I tried to cover my odd mood with small talk, and soon Julia was chattering away about the stupendous collection of books in the Library, which was sufficient to make the whole city smell of papyrus. I promised to show her the Paneum the next day. I had been there before, and expected no unusual experiences as a result.
"Oh, by the way," Julia said, "Amphytrion has invited us to a banquet to be given tomorrow evening in the Museum. It is an annual affair, in honor of the founding of the Museum."
"Oh, no!" I groaned. "Couldn't you beg off? The last thing I want to do is go to a learned banquet and endure a lot of elevated talk from men who don't know how to have a good time."
"Berenice is going," she said firmly, "and she'll want me and Fausta to attend. You may do as you like."
I knew what that tone meant. "Of course I'll go, my dear. Where is Fausta, by the way?"
"She went to see all those bulls sacrificed. She likes that sort of thing."
"She would. Hermes has been asking around about that temple. It seems the bulls are to be castrated and their testicles will be made into a cloak to drape over the god's shoulders, like they do for the image of Diana at Ephesus."
She made a face. "The stories that boy picks up. I don't know why you tolerate him."
"He's amusing, which is more than you can say for most slaves, and he steals very little considering his opportunities."
When we were back in the Palace, I looked up Creticus, who was conferring with the others in the embassy over some newly arrived papers. When Rufus saw me, he picked up one of the papers and waved it at me.
"These just came in this morning by a fast cutter, Decius. The elections have been held in Rome. Caius Julius Caesar's to be Consul next year."
"Well, there was never much doubt," I said. "Now perhaps his creditors will have some hope of getting repaid. Who's the other?"
"Bibulus," Creticus said disgustedly. "They might as well have elected an oyster."
"It'll be a one-man Consulship, then," I said. "Oh, well, at least Julia will be happy."
We looked over the election results, looking for friends and enemies. As usual, there were plenty of both. Creticus jabbed a finger at a name on the list of new Tribunes.
"Vatinius," he said. "He's Caesar's man. That means Caesar's laws are likely to make it through the Popular Assemblies."
"What are the proconsular provinces to be?" I asked. Creticus mumbled his way down a page; then his mouth fell open.
"For both of them it's to be the supervision of rural roads, cattle-paths and pastures in Italy!" We all rocked with laughter.
"That's a deadly insult!" I said. "It's war between Caesar and the Senate."
Creticus waved the thought away. "No, Caius Julius will find a way out of it. He'll get the Popular Assemblies to vote him a rich province. The Tribunes can override the Senate easily enough these days. Remember, he gave up his right to a triumph to return to Rome and stand for Consul. That counts for a lot with the commons. They think he's been cheated and they'll be on his side."
The astonishing rise of Caius Julius in Roman politics was the wonder of the age. Rather late in life, he had emerged from obscurity to reveal himself as an accomplished politician, a gifted governor and, recently in Spain, a more than adequate military leader. For one who had been noted only for debauchery and debt, his career was doubly amazing. His tenure in Spain had been profitable enough for him to clear the most crushing of his debts. As Consul he couldn't be harassed by his remaining creditors, and if he could secure a rich province, he would be among the most redoubtable men in Rome. He was a man whom all thought they knew but whom no man had ever fathomed.
"Maybe you can go home soon, Decius," Rufus said. "You're betrothed to Caesar's niece, so he'll keep Clodius reined in while he's Consul."
"I'm not afraid of Clodius," I said, not quite truthfully.
"The sight of you two fighting in the Forum is embarrassing to the family," Creticus said. "Fear is immaterial. You'll go home when the family calls you back."
"Oh, well, so much for that," I said. "By the way, I've just learned that the queen is pregnant." I told them what I had learned from Hermes.
"A gentleman should not listen to slave gossip," Creticus snorted.
"Slave gossip has kept me not only informed but, on more than one occasion, alive," I retorted. "I think this is reliable."
We talked over the likely implications. Predictably, all bemoaned the likelihood of another son, which would complicate Roman-Egyptian relations. The gathering broke up on that sour note.
The next day I escorted Julia to the Paneum. This was one of Alexandria's more eccentric sights, an artificial hill with a spiral path ascending it and the Paneum itself at the top. It was not a true temple. That is to say, there was no priesthood, and no sacrifices were offered there. Rather, it was a shrine to the much-beloved god.
The climb up the spiral path was a long one, but it was beautifully landscaped, with the path paralleled by a strip of well-planted ground adorned with tall poplars, studded with odd little grottoes and alive with statues of Pan's woodland followers. Fauns capered, satyrs chased nymphs, dryads disported themselves all the way up the hill.
At the top was a shrine without walls, consisting of a roof supported by slender pillars, for who would confine a sylvan god like Pan within walls? Beneath the roof was a bronze statue of the god, half again as tall as a man, horned and cloven-hoofed, goat-legged, dancing ecstatically with his syrinx in one hand.
"How beautiful!" Julia said as we passed between the pillars. And then: "Goodness!" She was staring at the god's far-famed attribute; a rampantly erect penis which, on a man, would have somewhat exceeded his forearm in size.
"Surprised?" I said. "Every herm in every garden is similarly equipped."
"But not so heroically," Julia said, her eyes wide. "I pity the nymphs."
"Now, Fausta would have said that she envied them." That lady had decided to spend the day among the self-flagellating priestesses of Baal-Ahriman. She had an altogether livelier breadth of interest than Julia.
"Fausta places an excessive value on physical things," Julia said. "Hence her interest in your odious friend Milo."
"Milo is intelligent, eloquent, forceful, ambitious and is destined for great things in Roman politics," I pointed out.
"Others have the same qualifications. He is also violent, unscrupulous and balks at nothing to advance himself. Also common qualities, I grant you. What makes him unique, and desirable as far as Fausta is concerned, is that he has the face and body of a god."
"Is that his fault? And Cornelian standards are rather high in that area. In all of Rome, who is a match for Fausta but Milo?"
She snorted a delicate, patrician snort. "Why should she bother? It's not as if they are going to be seen in public. Roman husbands won't even sit with their wives at the Circus. They do make a striking couple, though. She is so fair and delicate, he is so dark and brawny. And his bearing is as arrogant as hers, even though his birth is so much lower."
I smiled to myself. Even Julia admired Milo, although she would never admit it directly. Virtually every woman in Rome did. Serving-girls scrawled his name on the walls as if he were some reigning gladiator or charioteer. "Handsome Milo," they called him, declaring that they were soon to expire of passion for him, frequently going into indecent detail. Julia would never be so shameless, but she was not immune to his charm.
"Birth no longer means much in Rome," I said. "Power these days is in the Tribuneship and with the Popular Assemblies. A patrician like Clodius transfers to the plebs so that he can stand for Tribune, and even your uncle Caius Julius, who is as patrician as Romulus, has become a man of the people because that's where the power is."
"My uncle Caius wishes to restore the ancient dignity of the Senate, a task in which he says that Sulla failed. If he must go to the commons for the authority to do so, it is merely because that is how corrupt the times have become. He is willing to endure this indignity for the good of the state."
Her family loyalty was touching, but it was misplaced. The veriest political dunce knew that Caius Julius had no interest in restoring the dignity of the Senate. Restoring the monarchy was more like it, with Caesar as king. We had no idea then how close he would come to doing it, though.
"The view from here is extraordinary," she said, changing the subject. And indeed it was. The Paneum was not exactly a lofty eminence, but Alexandria was so flat that no great altitude was required to see all of it. I resumed my character of tour guide.
"The Palace complex you know by now," I said. "Over there"-I pointed to the southeastern section of the city-"is the Jewish Quarter. It is said that there are more Jews in Alexandria than in Jerusalem." I pointed to the western side of the city, dominated by the immense bulk of the Serapeum, a single temple that rivaled the entire city Museum complex in size. "That's the Rakhotis, the Egyptian quarter, so called because there was a native town of that name when Alexander founded the city here. The city is cut up into perfectly rectangular blocks, and these in turn form greater blocks, each named for one of the letters of the Greek alphabet."
"It's so odd," Julia said, "being in a city all made up of straight lines and right angles. I suppose it contributes to public order."
"I feel the same way," I said. "It's like being in a city planned by Plato."
"Plato favored circles," she informed me. "But I doubt that circles work very well in city planning. What's all that beyond the city wall to the west?"
"That's the Necropolis. They're very keen on tombs in Egypt. All burial grounds are on the west bank and necropolises are always to the west of the cities. I suppose it's because that's where the sun goes down. People have been dying for a number of centuries in Alexandria, so the Necropolis is almost as big as the city itself."
"And yet Alexandria has been here for a tiny span of time, by Egyptian standards. According to Herodotus, the list of Pharaohs goes back for nearly three thousand years. Even Rome is an infant by comparison. Do you think Rome will last as long?"
"Of course," I said. Ridiculous question.
But even the most pleasant day must give way to evening, and this one was committed to the banquet at the Museum. We returned to the Palace to bathe and change raiment. A welcome custom among the Romans in Alexandria was to dispense with the cumbersome toga when dining out, wearing instead the light, casual synthesis. The practice was so eminently practical that Caesar introduced it to Rome a few years later. Since by that time Caesar was arbiter of all that was correct, it caught on.
We were carried through the cool evening to the Museum, our body slaves walking behind us, carrying our dining needs. There was quite a crowd of slaves; as Fausta and Berenice were among us. I nudged my bearers to trot up alongside the litter shared by these two.
"How did the flogging go?" I called across to Fausta.
"It was enthralling!" she said. "There were at least a hundred of the priestesses dancing before the statue of Baal-Ahriman, and before the service was over, some of them passed out from shock and blood loss."
"That sounds like more fun than a Saturnalia riot," I said, ignoring Julia's elbow, which nearly cracked one of my ribs. "I wish we had entertainment like that in the Roman temples."
"It was a very proper religious ceremony," Berenice insisted. "The Holy Ataxas has revealed the sublime nature of the great god, and the value of religious ecstasy in his worship. During the holy trance, one enters mystic communion with the divinity. The Holy Ataxas has promised that, when his followers have achieved the perfection of devotion, the god will speak to us."
" Speak?" I said. "You mean, manifest himself in some mystical fashion, as gods have been wont to do?"
The princess shook her head. "No, he will speak, in his own voice, and all will be able to hear."
"Fascinating," I mumbled, astonished as always by the unplumbable depths of human gullibility. At last I yielded to Julia's elbow and sat back in the litter.
"It is not socially correct to ridicule someone else's religion!" she hissed when the others were out of earshot.
"I wasn't ridiculing," I protested. "I merely asked some questions. Besides, this is not a true religion. It's a foreign cult. And no educated person, whatever his nation, should lend credence to such fraudulent drivel."
"So what? She is a princess, and certain allowances are always made for royalty. It's not as if this were Rome and Ataxas were challenging Jupiter for supremacy."
In such deep theological discussion did we pass the time as our bearers sweated our way to the Museum. The litter lurched a bit as they carried us up the great stairway; then they deposited us in the anteroom of the dining hall. There we were greeted by the luminaries of the place. Which is to say that they groveled to Berenice and graciously acknowledged us as part of her entourage.
We passed into the refectory, which had been laid out for a banquet suitable for scholars, which is to say simple, austere and elegant. But the presence of royalty improved matters. The wine was first-rate, as was the food, although ostentatious sauces and bizarre presentation were out. For entertainment, a lengthy passage from Homer was recited by Theagenes, the greatest tragic actor of the Alexandrian theater. We all sat through this with becoming dignity. The excellent wine helped.
In fact, the general air of quiet and self-possession made me a bit suspicious. Something seemed to be missing. Then I noticed that Iphicrates of Chios wasn't there. I turned to Amphytrion.
"Where's old Iphicrates? He's missing a good feed and he might liven things up a bit."
The Librarian looked slightly pained. "He was in his study this afternoon. Perhaps I should send to see that all is well with him." He summoned a slave and sent him off to check on Iphicrates. The old man couldn't come right out and say that he was overjoyed with Iphicrates's absence.
I knew that the after-dinner chat would consist entirely of learned discussion, and this I wished to avoid at all costs. If I couldn't get away, the best I could hope for was argument and vituperation. This I knew Iphicrates could supply in abundance. As the dishes were cleared away, a white-bearded old gentleman stood.
"Your Highness, honored guests, I am Theophrastus of Rhodes, chairman of the Department of Philosophy. I have been asked to lead the discussion for this evening. With your permission, I have chosen as subject the concept first articulated by the Skeptic philosopher Pyrrho of Elis: acatalepsia. That is to say, the impossibility of knowing things in their own nature."
This was even worse than I had feared. The slave reappeared and whispered something urgently to Amphytrion, at which a look of great consternation crossed the Librarian's face. He stood hurriedly.
"I am afraid I must interrupt the evening's festivities," he said. "It seems there has been some sort of-of accident. Something has happened to Iphicrates and I must go see what is wrong."
I turned and snapped my fingers. "My sandals." Hermes slipped them on my feet.
"Sir," Amphytrion said, "it is not necessary for you to-"
"Nonsense," I said. "If there is trouble, I wish to be of any assistance I may." I was desperate to get out of there.
"Very well, then. Esteemed Theophrastus, please continue."
We left the dining hall with the old boy's voice droning away behind us. The Museum was strangely dark and quiet at night, with its small slave staff gone off to their quarters, except for a boy whose sole task was to keep the lamps filled and trimmed.
"What seems to have happened?" I asked the slave who had been sent to find Iphicrates.
"You'd better see for yourself, sir," he said, sweating nervously. Slaves often get that way when something bad has happened. They know that they are most likely to be blamed. We crossed the courtyard where I had seen the workmen assembling Iphicrates's model canal mechanism the day before. It looked unreal in the moonlight. The slave stopped outside the study where we had seen his drawings.
"He's in there."
We went in. Six lamps provided decent illumination, enough to see that Iphicrates lay on his back in the middle of the floor, dead as Hannibal. A great vertical gash divided his lofty brow almost in two, from the bridge of his nose to his hairline. The room was a shambles, with papers scattered everywhere and cabinets thrown open, their contents adding to the mess on the floor.
"Zeus!" Amphytrion cried, his philosophical demeanor slipping a bit. "What has happened here?"
"For one thing," I said, "there has been no accident. Our friend Iphicrates has been most thoroughly murdered."
"Murdered! But why?"
"Well, he was rather an abrasive sort," I pointed out.
"Philosophers argue a great deal," Amphytrion said stiffly, "but they do not settle their arguments with violence."
I turned to the slave, who still stood without the door. "Go and bring the physician Asklepiodes."
"I think it is somewhat too late even for his skills," Amphytrion said.
"I don't require his healing skills, but his knack for reading wounds. We have worked together on a number of such cases in Rome." I went to look at the cabinets. The locked one had been pried open and its contents scattered.
"I see. But I must immediately report this incident to his Majesty. I imagine that he will wish to appoint his own investigating officer."
"Ptolemy? He'll be in no condition to hear any reports or appoint any officers until late tomorrow morning at the very earliest." I looked at the lamps. One had burned low, its wick smoking. The others flamed brightly.
"Nonetheless, I shall send word," Amphytrion said.
From without we could hear the voices of a number of people approaching. I went to the door and saw the whole mob from the banquet crossing the courtyard.
"Asklepiodes, come in here," I said. "The rest, please stay outside for the moment."
The little Greek came in, beaming all over his bearded face. He loved this sort of thing. He walked to the corpse and knelt beside it, placing his hands beneath his jaw and moving the head this way and that.
"Even the best lamplight is inadequate for really good analysis of this sort," he pronounced. "Decius Caecilius, would you place four of the lamps around his head, no more than three or four inches away?" He got up and began rooting about in the mess. I did as he requested and within a minute he found what he was looking for. He returned with what looked like a shallow, very highly polished bowl of silver. He turned to the little group of scholars who peered in through the door.
"Iphicrates was doing research on the use by Archimedes of parabolic reflectors. A concave mirror has the power to concentrate the light it reflects." He turned the open end of the bowl toward Iphicrates, and sure enough, it cast a beam of concentrated light upon the ghastly wound. From outside came murmurs of admiration at this philosophic cleverness.
While Asklepiodes made his inspection, I went to the doorway.
"Your colleague Iphicrates has been foully murdered," I announced. "I ask all of you to think whether you have seen any strange persons in this area just before the banquet." I said this primarily to keep them occupied so that they wouldn't interfere with my investigation. I wouldn't have trusted this lot to notice if their robes were on fire. Sosigenes was the only one I would have thought a reliable observer. Except for the late Iphicrates, who was unavailable for comment.
Fausta came close and peered in. "A murder! How thrilling!"
"If you really marry Milo," I said, "murders will get to be old stuff to you, too." I turned back to Amphytrion. "Is there any sort of inventory of Iphicrates's things? It would help greatly to know what is missing, since the murderer or murderers clearly were looking for something."
He shook his head. "Iphicrates was a secretive man. Nobody but he knew what he possessed."
"No students? Personal slaves?"
"He did all his work alone save for such workmen as he requested. He had a valet, a slave owned by the Museum and assigned to him. Few of us feel the need for a staff of slaves."
"I would like to question the valet," I said.
"Senator," he said, his patience wearing thin, "I must remind you that this is an affair to be investigated by the crown of Egypt."
"Oh, I'll clear things with Ptolemy," I said confidently. "Now, if you will be so good, I think it would be best if you were to assign a secretary to make an inventory of every object in this room: papers, drawings, valuables, everything right down to the furniture. If items known to have belonged to Iphicrates prove to be missing, it could be helpful in determining the identity of the murderer."
"I suppose it would do no harm," he grumped. "The king's appointed investigator might find it useful as well. Is this some new school of philosophy of which I was previously unaware?"
"It's my own school. You might call it 'applied logic.'"
"How very: Roman. I shall assign competent personnel."
"Good. And be sure that they list the subjects of all the drawings and papers."
"I shall be sure to do so," he fumed. "And now, Senator, if you do not mind, we have funeral arrangements to make on behalf of our departed colleague."
"Asklepiodes?" I said.
"I have seen enough." He rose from beside the corpse and we went aside to a corner of the room.
"How long has he been dead?" I asked first.
"No more than two hours. He probably died about the time the banquet was starting."
"And the weapon?"
"Most peculiar. Iphicrates was killed with an axe."
"An axe!" I said. This was exceptional. No common dagger for this murderer. A few barbarian peoples favored the axe as a weapon, mostly in the East. "Was it a woodman's axe, or a soldier's dolabra?"
"Neither. Those have straight or gently convex edges. This weapon has a rather narrow and very deeply curved edge, almost a crescent."
"What sort of axe is that?" I wondered.
"Come with me," he said. I followed him from the room, mystified. As far as I knew, he had left his extensive collection of weapons back in Rome. There was a great deal of subdued muttering from the crowd outside as it drew aside for us. Someone fell in beside us.
"You've found congenial activity, I see." It was Julia.
"Yes. Extraordinary luck, don't you think? Where is Fausta?"
"She and Berenice went back to the Palace. A murder scene is not the proper place for royalty."
"I hope they don't start blabbing when they get there. I want to persuade Ptolemy to assign me to the investigation tomorrow."
"Decius, must I remind you that this is Egypt, not Rome?"
"Everybody wants to tell me that. It's not as if this were really an independent nation. Everybody knows that Rome calls all the tunes here."
"And you're with the diplomatic mission. You have no business interfering in an internal police matter."
"But I feel I owe Iphicrates something. If it hadn't been for him, I'd be listening to a discussion on acatalepsia right now."
"You're just bored," she insisted.
"Utterly." An inspiration seized me. "I'll tell you what: How would you like to help me in this?"
She paused. "Help you?" she said suspiciously.
"Of course. I'll need an assistant. A Roman assistant. And it wouldn't hurt to have one who can talk to the highborn ladies of Alexandria and the court."
"I'll consider it," she said coolly. I knew I had her. She was usually eager to take part in my disreputable snooping, but back in Rome it was not a respectable activity for a patrician lady. Here she could do as she liked, within reason.
"Good," I said. "You might start by getting Berenice to persuade Papa to assign me to the case."
"I knew you had some low motive. Where are we going?" We were in a wing of the Museum I hadn't yet seen, a gallery of statues and paintings, fitfully illuminated by lamps.
"Asklepiodes has something to show us," I said.
"The axe has been little used as a weapon in modern times," he said. "Although in antiquity it was not considered to be an unfit weapon even for noblemen. In Book Thirteen of the Iliad, the Trojan hero Peisandros drew an axe from behind his shield to engage Menelaos, not that it did him much good."
"I remember that part," I said. "Menelaos stabbed him through the top of his nose and both his eyeballs fell bleeding to the dust beside his feet."
"That would be the part you remember," Julia said.
"I love those passages. Asklepiodes, why the art gallery?"
"In art, the axe is usually depicted as a characteristic weapon of the Amazons."
"Surely," I said, "you aren't suggesting that Iphicrates was done in by an Amazon?"
"I rather think not. But look here." He had stopped before a large, splendid black-figure vase standing on a pedestal that identified it as the work of the famous vase-painter Timon. It depicted a battle between Greeks and Amazons, and Asklepiodes pointed to one of those martial ladies, mounted, dressed in tunic and Phrygian bonnet, raising on high a long-handled axe to smite a Greek who was dressed solely in a large, crested helmet and armed with spear and shield.
Julia fetched a lamp from a wall sconce and brought it close so that we could study the weapon. Although the handle was long, the head was quite compact, rather narrow and widening slightly to a half-circular cutting edge. The opposite side of the head bore a sharp, stubby spike.
"It's something like the sacrificial axe the flamine's assistant uses to stun the larger sacrificial animals," Julia noted.
"Ours aren't quite that deeply curved on the edge," I said.
"In parts of the Orient," Asklepiodes said, "axes of this very form are still in use for religious purposes."
"Have you seen any here in Alexandria?" I asked him.
He shook his head. "No. But there is certainly at least one such axe in the city."
We took our leave of him and returned to our litter, where we found the bearers sound asleep, a defect I quickly remedied. We crawled into the litter and lay back on the cushions.
"Why would anyone murder a scholar like Iphicrates?" Julia wondered sleepily.
"That's what I intend to find out," I told her. "I hope it isn't anything as common as a jealous husband."
"Your superiors won't like you taking a hand in this, you know. It could complicate their work."
"I don't care," I said. "I want to find out who did this and see that he's punished."
"Why?" she demanded. "Oh, I know that you're bored, but you could cure that by escorting me on a boat trip down the Nile to the Elephantine Island, showing me the sights along the way. You have no real interest in Alexandria and you certainly didn't like Iphicrates. What is it?"
I always hated it when she was so penetrating and insightful. "It's nothing you need to bother yourself about," I insisted.
"Come on, tell me." She sounded amused. "If I'm to be your assistant, I want to know."
"Well," I said uneasily, "it's something about the place. Not the Museum or Library so much, but the Temple itself."
"And?" she prodded.
"And it's wrong to commit murder in a temple. Even the place where Iphicrates was killed is a part of the Temple complex."
Her eyebrows went up. "Even a foreign temple?"
"The Muses are legitimate goddesses," I maintained. "We worship them in Rome."
"I never thought you all that pious, Decius," she said.
"This Temple is different," I stubbornly insisted.
She lay back on the cushions. "I'll accept that. But I want you to show me this Temple." She said nothing more the rest of the way back to the Palace.
I had more than enough to occupy my mind.