“The
munera
are an integral part of our religion,” I told her. “Other people sometimes find the fights a bit strong for their tastes.”
“We showed a thousand pairs fighting over a period of twenty days,” Fausta said, “not to mention hundreds of lions and tigers and rhinoceroses, along with the more common bears and bulls. The Senate protested the extravagance, but who cares about them?” Spoken like a true daughter of Sulla. “Of course, women are supposed
to be forbidden to attend the
munera
, but we do anyway. I find them far more enjoyable than the chariot races.”
“Each has its advantages,” I said. “You can bet openly on the races, for instance, while it’s frowned on at the fights. Speaking of religious matters,” I said cleverly, “I would be most interested in hearing the princess tell how she found the holy man Ataxas and his god, Baal-Ahriman.” Fausta looked at me quizzically. This was the last subject she would have expected me to bring up.
“Ah, it was so marvelous! I was in my garden in my Alexandrian palace just before the last floods, when the image of Horus spoke to me.”
“Spoke to you?” I said, with a conscious effort to keep my eyebrows level.
“Yes, very clearly. He said, ‘Daughter, I proclaim the advent of a new god to rule over the Red Land and the Black. His prophet will appear in your court before the floods. Receive him as befits one sent by the immortal gods of Egypt.’”
“And that was all?” I asked. In most accounts, the gods are wordier.
“It was enough,” she said.
“And did the god’s mouth, or rather his beak, move as he spoke?” Perhaps I should explain that Horus is one of the less repellent of the Egyptian gods, having the noble head of a falcon.
“I did not notice. I prostrated myself at his feet the moment he began to speak. Even a princess must abase herself before a god.”
“Quite understandable,” I assured her.
“You can imagine my transports of joy when the Holy Ataxas arrived to proclaim the truth of Baal-Ahriman. He was quite modest and unassuming, you know. He was astonished when I told him that Horus had already announced his coming.”
“Indeed, indeed. And has he manifested greater than normal powers since his arrival?”
“Of course. He has healed many believers of afflictions such as deafness and palsy. He has bidden other statues to speak, and
they have, foretelling a brilliant future for Egypt. But he claims no special powers for himself. He says that he is the mere conduit for the glorious might of Baal-Ahriman.” When she spoke of Ataxas, her eyes seemed to disengage from each other, as if seeing something infinitely far away, or else seeing nothing at all.
“You say a ‘brilliant future.’ Is there any indication of the nature of this brilliance?”
“No, but I believe that is to be the matter of the divine words we shall soon hear from Baal-Ahriman himself.”
I had more questions, but at that moment the majordomo arrived, gasping for breath. Another eunuch.
“Princess, a hippo has left the pond and is attacking the Cretan dancers!”
“They probably think it’s Zeus in disguise again,” I said, “looking for another mortal woman to ravish. If he gets any volunteers, this might be worth seeing.”
“Oh, I suppose I must attend to it,” Berenice said. “Seti, summon the guards. Tell them to bring long spears. They can probably poke the beast back into the pond. It is not to be harmed. It is sacred to Taveret.”
“There goes the reason why the gods frown upon incest,” I said when she was gone.
“Rome is full of eccentrics, too,” Fausta said. “It just seems sillier in foreign royalty.”
“I suppose so. But if Horus wanted to proclaim the coming of a new god, why not to Ptolemy? Why choose his deranged daughter?”
“I take it you find her story difficult to accept?”
“Decidedly. Divine visitations are common enough in legend, but they always sound more plausible in the age of heroes. Mind you, my own grandfather was visited by the Dioscuri, but that was in a dream and I think he’d been drinking.”
“Why this sudden interest in religion, Decius? Surely being in Egypt hasn’t infected you with their odd passions?” A true
daughter of Sulla, Fausta believed in very little save greed and the lust for power.
“Religion is powerful and dangerous, Fausta. That’s why we Romans harnessed it to the service of the state centuries ago. That’s why we made the priesthoods a part of the civil service. It’s why we forbade consultation of the Sybilline Books except in extreme situations, and only then at the behest of the Senate.”
“Your point being?”
“The most dangerous sort of religion is the volatile, emotional sort peddled by charismatic holy men like Ataxas. They have a way of making their short-term prophecies come true by inciting their fanatical followers to
make
them come true. People are unbelievably credulous. You notice that he heals deafness and palsy, afflictions easy to simulate. I’ll wager he’s never restored an amputated hand or foot.”
“You wouldn’t be interested if it was just some fraud enriching himself at the expense of fools,” she asserted. “Do you detect a power play at work here?”
“I feel sure of it, although I am mystified as to its actual nature.”
“Why do you care anything about the affairs of Egypt?” she asked.
“Because virtually anything that happens here touches upon Roman interests. Whatever Ataxas is up to, it can’t be anything good. It would seem a pity to send in the legions to settle things here when a simple exposure of a plot might solve the problem.”
Fausta smiled. “Julia says that you are mad but very interesting. I’m beginning to see what she means.” No sooner had she pronounced this enigmatic statement than the lady herself showed up.
“This affair is getting utterly out of hand,” Julia said. “Decius, I think we should return to the embassy.”
“You talk as if the two of you were married already,” Fausta observed.
“Will you come with us?” Julia asked Fausta, not bothering to inquire whether I wished to leave.
“I think I’ll stay,” Fausta said. “I’ve always heard about the debauchery of the Egyptian court, and this is a chance for a close look. Go on, you two. Enough of the Roman embassy staff remains for the sake of decorum.” Actually, most of them had passed out or were well on their way, but I never doubted Fausta’s ability to take care of herself.
We boarded a barge for the short row back to the Palace wharf.
“I’ve just had an interesting conversation with the concubine of the Parthian ambassador,” Julia said.
“He didn’t bring his wife, I take it?” I said.
“No. Wives and children must be left behind in Parthia against the ambassador’s good behavior.”
“The poor man. And what did this consolationary female have to say?”
“By great good luck she is a highly educated Greek
hetaira.
The ambassador’s Greek is deficient, and she helps him with documents written in that language. Most of it is the usual tedious embassy business, but recently she read for him certain illustrated documents which he translated into Parthian. He sent the originals and translation to King Phraates in a locked chest under heavy guard.”
I felt the familiar angling, the one I always get when an important bit of the puzzle clicks into place. “And the nature of these documents?”
“They were plans for war machines. She could make nothing of the drawings, and most of the text was in technical language she wasn’t familiar with, but there was some sort of device for setting fire to ships, and others for breaching walls and hurling missiles. There was also a receipt for a large sum of money in payment for these plans. The money was paid to Iphicrates of Chios. She thought it a great coincidence that he was murdered so soon after.”
“Remind me never to entrust my secrets to a talkative Greek woman. Did she recall anything else?”
“This came out in the middle of a great gush of words concerning all the details of her life. I thought it would be unwise to press her about it. Easterners never listen to women, and she was dying for somebody to talk to.” This, as it turned out, was an unfortunate choice of words.
“T
HE MAN’S NAME IS EUNOS,” AMPHYTRION said. “He is from Rhodes and was personal valet to Iphicrates for two years.”
“Can he read?” I asked.
“Of course. All the Museum slaves assigned to personal service must meet certain standards of education. After all, if one must send a slave from a lecture hall to fetch a certain book, he must be able to recognize it.”
“Sensible,” I said. “Tell me, do you know whether the General Achillas or any other of the military nobles paid frequent visits to Iphicrates?”
He looked at me as if I had taken leave of my senses. “Meaning no disrespect to his Majesty’s noble servants, the military men are an ignorant lot of Macedonian mountain bumpkins. Why would they consort with a scholar like Iphicrates?”
“Was Iphicrates ever absent for extended periods?” I asked.
“Why, yes. He took monthly trips by boat upon the river,
taking measurements of the water’s rise and fall and observing the effects of flowing water upon the banks. He was deeply interested in the dynamics of water. You saw the canal lock he was designing.”
“Yes, I did. What was the duration of these trips?”
“I fail to see the pertinence of these questions, but he always took six days at the beginning of each month for these journeys.”
“Is that a common sort of arrangement here?” I asked.
“Within reasonable limits, our scholars have perfect freedom to pursue their studies as they see fit. They need not even give lectures if they do not wish to. Here in the Museum, our goal is pure knowledge.”
“Most commendable,” I murmured. I was beginning to have severe doubts concerning the purity of Iphicrates’s knowledge. There was a knock at the door and a middle-aged Greek entered, dressed in the livery tunic of the Museum. He bowed to Amphytrion and to me, then waited with that dignified self-possession common to slaves conscious of their own superiority in slave society.
“Eunos, the Senator wishes to question you concerning the late Iphicrates of Chios.”
“Eunos,” I began, “did you attend Iphicrates on the night of his murder?”
“Yes, Senator. I helped him prepare to go to the banquet that night, then he dismissed me. As I was walking down the gallery toward my quarters, he called me back and told me to bring some extra lamps. I did as he directed and set the lamps in his study. I was about to light them, but he dismissed me and I left.”
“Had you any indication why extra lamps were required when he was about to attend a banquet?”
“He had a visitor. I had not heard the man arrive.”
“Did you get a look at him?” I asked.
“When I came in with the lamps, the man was sitting in the bedroom to the rear. The light was dim. He seemed to be medium-sized, with dark hair and beard trimmed in the Greek fashion. He did not look my way. That was all I saw.”
“Do you remember anything else that might help to identify
this stranger? Anything else Iphicrates might have done that was unusual?”
“I am sorry, sir. No, there was nothing else.” I dismissed him and sat pondering for a while. It didn’t surprise me that the man had not come forth earlier. Any intelligent slave knows better than to volunteer information unless asked. Amphytrion had less excuse for not asking, but that was understandable, too. It would have been beneath his philosophical dignity to listen to a slave.
“I would like another look at Iphicrates’s quarters,” I told Amphytrion as I rose from my chair.
“Be my guest, Senator, but we must remove Iphicrates’s belongings soon. The distinguished scholar of music, Zenodotos of Pergamum, is to arrive soon and we shall need those rooms.”
I found Asklepiodes finishing up an anatomy lesson and persuaded him to accompany me. We found the study in good order, the completed inventory arranged neatly on the large table. I picked up one of the silver bowls.
“You said that Iphicrates was doing research into the properties of parabolic mirrors,” I said. “Just what are the properties of these things, besides concentrating light?”
“They also concentrate heat,” Asklepiodes said. “Come, I’ll demonstrate.” We went out into the courtyard and he squinted at the angle of the sun. With the reflector, he cast a disc of light against the side of the now-abandoned canal lock. Then he drew it back. As he did so, the disc shrank until it was an intensely bright spot the size of a copper
as.
“Put your hand there and you will see what I mean.”
Gingerly, I slid my hand along the wooden surface until the tiny disc of light rested in my palm. It felt distinctly warm, but not hot enough to be distressing.
“To what use did Archimedes put these devices?” I asked.
“It is said that he set fire to Roman ships with them.”
“Do you think that is possible? It doesn’t seem to make all that much heat.”
“These are miniatures. The ones Archimedes used would have
been larger than shields. And he used a great many, perhaps a hundred of them lined up atop the harbor walls of Syracuse. With that many concentrating their light, I believe they might well have succeeded in firing attacking ships. Ships are extremely combustible at the best of times.”
So for a while we experimented with the four silver bowls. With the light of all four concentrated on a single spot, we managed to coax some faint wisps of smoke from the wood. Back inside, I went over the inventory lists, trying to find anything that might offer a clue to just what the infuriating pedant had been up to.
“Items: a box of miscellaneous rope samples, each sample labeled,” I read. “What do you think that means?” So we rooted around until we found the box beneath the cable. It contained scores of pieces of rope, variously twisted and braided and of various materials, both animal and vegetable fibers being used. Each sample was about a foot long, and from each dangled a papyrus label adorned with shorthand lettering and strings of numerals.
Asklepiodes selected a handful. “These are made of human hair,” he said. “What might be the use of such ropes?”
I studied the labels, trying to piece together their meaning. “Human hair is said to make the best rope for torsion-style catapults. The women of Carthage sacrificed their tresses to build war engines during the siege. Scipio conquered a city of bald-headed women. Look here: These abbreviations give the race and nation of each donor. The man was obsessive about detail.”
“And the numbers?” For once, even Asklepiodes was at a loss.
I pondered them a while. “I think they measure the weight or tension at which the ropes finally broke. How he could determine such things I’ve no idea.” If my guesses about his shorthand were correct, the hair of black Africans rated the lowest in this regard, while the hair of blond German women was the strongest and most resilient. None of the vegetable fibers or cords of animal hide were as good as hair. Even silk, while strong, had deficiencies in the
torsion department because it was, if I translated correctly, “too stretchy.” Besides, it was far too expensive.
I told Asklepiodes what the slave had said. “At least now we have a description of the killer, however sketchy.”
“Medium-sized, dark hair and beard of Greek cut … that certainly narrows the field. Surely there can be no more than twenty or thirty thousand men of that description in Alexandria.”
“And among them is General Achillas,” I pointed out.
“A tenuous connection at best.”
“It’s enough for me,” I maintained. “A man of that description is in Iphicrates’s quarters on the evening of his murder. The next day, Achillas shows up without warning or reason and objects to my prying into the killing.”
“Persuasive, but far from conclusive,” Asklepiodes said.
“There’s more. A few days ago, in a spirit of idle curiosity, I wandered into the parade ground of the Macedonian barracks. I noticed some sort of war engine under construction and went for a closer look. That lout Memnon ran me off, very rudely. I’ll wager that, were we to go by the parade ground now, we would find that the engine has disappeared.”
“If, as you seem to suspect, Iphicrates was designing engines of war for Achillas, why would he murder the man?”
“That has me puzzled,” I admitted. “It could be because Achillas was approaching other kings with his designs. That could have violated some agreement the two had. I have learned that he accepted a large sum of money from Phraates of Parthia for certain designs.”
“And yet,” Asklepiodes said, “these activities of Achillas; are they illegal or understood to be some sort of provocation?”
“They could be so construed. Our foreign policy can be a complex matter. Once an allied king has accepted our help and protection, we assume leadership in military matters. That is our right as the greatest race of soldiers in the world. When we see such a king strengthening his defenses, we must assume that he is
strengthening them against us since, with our aid, he has no one else to fear.”
Asklepiodes made one of those throat-clearing sounds that denote skepticism. “It may be that, flying in the face of all reason, some kings are less confident in the security of Roman protection than are you.”
“Oh, I’ll admit that they sometimes suffer the odd massacre or city sacking before the legions can come to their aid, but overall, the system is reliable. Sometimes, as a gesture of confidence, we have them demolish a part of the capital city’s walls. That way, when they begin to rebuild them without informing us first, we know they are up to something. The agreement with Egypt is not that formal, but this sudden interest in improved armaments is most suspicious.”
“Are there no other enemies who might justify such preparations?”
“Now that old Mithridates is dead and Tigranes has had his teeth pulled, there is no one. Parthia is too far away.”
“An uprising by disaffected nobles, perhaps? I have heard rumors that some of the nomes are in arms and defying Alexandria.”
“That’s a job for infantry and cavalry,” I said. “I’ve toured much of the land down to the first cataract. There are no fortifications to speak of. That part of Egypt is protected by the desert from foreign invasion. The only walled towns are up here in the delta area, and all of them are under Ptolemy’s control.”
“It seems, then, that you have good reasons for your suspicions. Now, what do you propose to do about them? Your superiors are not the sort of men to take hasty action.”
“No, I have to gather more evidence. I have an utterly unjustified reputation as a troublemaker, and they’ll look with skepticism on anything I bring them that isn’t more concrete than what I already have.”
“And how do you propose to assemble this information?”
“I think a bit of travel is called for.”
I took my leave of Asklepiodes and went to the Library. The
immense place was full of the dusty smell of books and the droning sound of scholars reading. Despite the size and massiveness of the building, the interior was not dim, abundant light being admitted by its extraordinarily large clerestory and numerous skylights of clearest glass. All the interior marble was white, to make best use of the admitted light. There were many statues of the various gods of learning: Apollo, Athena, ibis-headed Thoth and others, as well as busts of the great philosophers. The walls were lined up to the clerestory with lozenge-shaped cells holding scrolls like so many wine jars, each cell labeled with its contents.
By asking attendants, I was guided to the Wing of the Pergamese Books and found Eumenes of Eleusis overseeing the copying of some of his precious scrolls.
“May I help you, Senator?” he inquired politely.
“I hope that you may. The book that disappeared from the study of the late Iphicrates; you said it was by Biton, and entitled
On Engines of war?
”
“That is so.”
“Might you have a copy?”
He nodded gravely. “Yes. We have copies made of every book that comes to the Library. This spares excessive handling of the more valuable originals.”
“Yet Iphicrates insisted upon the original?”
“He was most insistent. He said that he did not wish to cope with the inevitable copier’s errors.”
“I see. Might I have a look at a copy?”
“Certainly, Senator.” I followed him to a nook where scores of scrolls rested in their racks, labels dangling from their handles. He scanned the rack expertly and plucked a scroll from its resting place. It was a good deal smaller than the massive original I had seen in Iphicrates’s study.
“Is it in a single volume?” I asked.
“Yes, it isn’t a lengthy work. If you wish to peruse it, please unroll it carefully It probably hasn’t been looked into since it was made here nearly a century ago.”
“How does the Museum happen to have the original, since it was dedicated to Attalus I of Pergamum? I would think it would be among the Pergamese collection.” The rulers of Pergamum had founded a library in imitation of the Alexandrian, and in those days it still had a reputation second only to the original.