by Ben Pastor
Grain and silk, cavalrymen, crew, animals for the circus, my escort, and myself; then—on or about my person at all times—there is the precious letter I carry with me to Rome.
S I X T H C H A P T E R
21 Epiphi (16 July, Sunday)
The skipper of the Felicitas Annonae had been traveling the Rome-Alexandria round-trip route for fifteen years. From the time they left the harbor and freed themselves of the reddish currents pouring out of the Delta, he could tell that travel would be fine in the first leg of the journey, notwithstanding the contrary north-south winds.
“We’ll likely meet with stormy weather later on, but if push comes to shove, we’ll stop along the way or adjust our route.” He said the words under the great red-trimmed mainsail sporting a painted horn of plenty overflowing as if he had personal information on all the possibilities that lay ahead. Then again this was a man who’d made record runs from Rhegium to Alexandria in a week’s time, and even with the contrary Etesian winds had managed to complete the distance in the opposite direction in under two weeks. Aelius listened, fully intentioned to disembark in Sicily—where the scheduled stop was at Catania—and raid the bookshops there, ready to hitch a separate passage to Bruttium if it seemed that sea travel would be very much delayed.
Meanwhile the cavalry officers two brothers from Aquileia—had turned green at the first swells of the open sea, and disappeared below deck. As for the two hundred or so troopers, counting both Aelius’s and the others, they were visible in proportion to their level of comfort with sea travel, while the rest of the people on board—crew, animal handlers, merchants, and Aelius himself—were doing fine and going about their business.
In Aelius’s case, it was a matter of putting the forced idleness of travel to good scholarly use. Checking Harpocratio’s list of guests may have to wait until his return to Egypt, but there was more to do now. He began by perusing The Death and Resurrection of Antinous, the tract he had saved from the scrap heap at Oxyrhinchus across the street from the shrine to the Boy. The copy was old, perhaps dating back fifty years, and judging from the quaint syntax, a translation from provincial (likely Egyptian) Greek verses. Having found a shady spot on deck, out of the sailors’ way, he sat down to read and take notes in a scribbled shorthand, as the waves, chalk, and the slate tablet allowed.
It was a traditional narrative of metamorphosis, complete with heroic details, mythological parallels to other youthful victims of fate, and final apotheosis. What intrigued him was the rhetorical style, a bit precious, which he dated around the time of the deified Hadrian. Further proof that the tract was nearly contemporary to Antinous were the flattering and hopeful references to Hadrian’s successor-elect Aelius Verus, who had died a few months before the emperor himself. A paraphrase from Homer—“his eyes shrouded in haze, he did not see / the godly hand pushing him from behind”—was too provocative to ignore, but too ambiguous to draw conclusions from it. On his ever-ready tablet he jotted down, Does it mean Antinous was killed by Fate, or by someone acting out Fate’s will? The quotation referred to Patroclus, of course, an appropriate mythological counterpart for the Boy, if one considered the deified Hadrian as Achilles. A young man borrows his friend’s armor and dies in battle, his powerful friend avenges him. The hero goes on to live forever among the stars. Had Hadrian avenged his friend while still in Egypt? Aelius had found no mention of that in the archives of Hermopolis, none in Antinoopolis. Unless the murderous “godly hand” was Hadrian’s, as some historians maintained. He made a note to himself to pick up a copy of The Iliad as soon as he landed, and go through books XVI and XVII with a fine-tooth comb.
The Felicitas’s route was a much-traveled one, and every day there would likely be at least one encounter with a military or mercantile ship, though often it was only a sighting of one another from a distance. On the second day out they were overtaken by the Penthesilea, an upper-end, heavier-than-most vessel of the lousorion class, speeding northward from Caesarea to Cyrenae with a wake of dolphins. The sailors exchanged greetings and wishes, and—used to the swearing of the battlefield—Aelius never ceased to be amazed by the superstitious control over blasphemy that sea people observed from the moment they made sail to that of mooring securely in harbor.
At night, the immensity and brightness of the starry sky in the open sea rivaled the watches kept at the desert’s edge, or in the mountains of Armenia, so different from the overcast, fog-shrouded nights of his childhood that at first he couldn’t look up without feeling dizzy. He’d grown accustomed to them in time, but now the lack of reference points around, and the apparent continuity between sky and water brought back that feeling of astonishment and suspension, crossed by the occasional brittleness of a falling star. The constellations stood out from the utter darkness in their summery pattern, with Cancer following the Twins, and Serpentarius (that which was said by the almanacs to bring stormy weather) setting in the morning. Among all, the great star Sirius pulsated as if the dog at Orion’s heel were blinking or panting; but in Egypt, carrying Isis’s name, it made the flood overcome the cataracts and race unchecked through the land.
Sitting outside his cabin, Aelius closed his eyes to shut the reel of stars out. Traveling between Egypt and Italy, he belonged to neither, and his own sense of homelessness was more acute, as he considered how far he’d come in every sense from his early days. He began to understand why his father was so proud of the house he’d built near Mursa, two-storied, with its pinkish stucco finish, stables, pens, the markers of a settled life; and yet he saw the finite nature of that ambition. Anubina had asked him about his parents, and he’d said that as far as he knew they were well. But I’m not going back there, he was thinking while talking to her. Every book I read and every promotion I received, every trip I took, removed me from that brick-and-mortar sense of place, and if I long for a home, it isn’t my father’s.
A dog’s distant bark startled him, and Aelius had to gather his thoughts for a moment to remember where he was, and from what direction came the call, so muffled and seemingly far. Ah, yes. The master of the ship said that a pack of dogs destined for the arena was being transported to Italy. It was not distance, but the depth at which the dogs, along with more exotic creatures, were kept in the hold. The sound and the thought of precious and not so precious animals traveling to their death made him pensive, and Aelius waked in a melancholy frame of mind, while here and there on deck, sailors and troopers slept in the open air and the watchman called the hour from his invisible perch.
24 Epiphi (19 July, Wednesday)
On the fourth day out, they encountered the Lamprotate, sister ship to the Penthesilea, returning from Rome with a large load of wine to sell at Canopus. Like the Felicitas, it was crowned by a bright red topsail that first emerged from the horizon like a rooster’s comb, and then by and by its starburst sail design made it recognizable to the crew.
It usually broke the voyage by anchoring at its home port in Crete for two days to pick up spices, but—as the skipper (a Soknopaios, originally from Canopus) explained coming on board—it had been blown off course by a storm south of Syracuse, and now was trying to regain the time lost by making straight for Egypt. This was the only reason, he added, why he had to excuse himself and not accept an offer to dine with the officers of the Felicitas. “But I do have news and mail from Rome,” he volunteered, “and ask the esteemed master of the ship, Expositus, to carry along our mail to the City when he arrives there.”
A man of few words, Expositus said that of course he would. “What news from the City, then?”
An update on business, people known to the merchant marine, warehousing, and harbor details followed, hardly what Aelius would call news in the general sense. “Also,” the skipper of the Lamprotate continued, “all of us Egyptians of Rome unite our prayers to those of our brothers in the province, hoping for a fortunate level of flood and prosperity in months to come. The community sends greetings and wishes of happy new year.” He meant the Egyptian Ne
w Year’s, four weeks away, but superstitiously mentioned as already at hand.
Aelius, as the highest-ranking passenger, was allowed to participate in the meeting. He let the exchange among mariners go on before asking about Lucinus Soter, whose prominent position in the expatriate community of merchants must be well known to the speaker.
Soknopaios looked mildly surprised. “I was about to speak of Soter. Did you have business with him, Commander?”
“What do you mean, ‘did I’? I do have business with him.”
“I’m afraid you won’t. Soter is dead.”
“Dead? Since when?”
“He died two days before we sailed out, a most unfortunate accident. Burned to death in his house near the Baths of Titus. I heard that a lamp overturned in his studio, and given the hot season and the many textiles he had in storage, the whole thing went up in flames before the fire patrol could intervene. They barely managed to save the houses nearby. His secretary got badly scalded attempting to save some of the correspondence, and they’re not sure he’ll live.” Appropriate expressions of shock and condolence were exchanged among the mariners, then Soknopaios switched to other news, and Aelius was left with the odd feeling that coincidence—if nothing else—had just taken from him a potentially important source of information in Rome. He followed Soknopaios while he headed for the rowboat that would return him to his ship. “Captain, what does the Egyptian community say about Soter’s death?”
“There’s no arguing with fire at the height of summer, Commander. It is a loss to all of us, as he was a well-educated man and used his wealth to further our interests. In these hard economic times, several of the Isiac shrines in Rome depended on his patronage, and who knows how they’ll fare now. Whatever your business with him was, your only hope is to find the secretary still living. His name is Philo, and I believe he was brought to his brother’s house outside the Ostia Gate.”
Nimbly for a middle-aged man, Soknopaios was letting himself down by a rope into the rowboat when Aelius leaned over the gunwale, asking, “Did he have family? Will I be able to meet with them?”
“He lost his family during the Rebellion, Commander. The secretary is your best bet.”
As the skipper had predicted, the weather turned unpleasant on the fifth day out of Alexandria, beginning with a haze at the far northern horizon. There, already early in the morning, the sharp line between water and sky grew blurred and disappeared, creating the illusion of a foggy wall set to hide the end of the world. The rising sun could not penetrate it, and rather was refracted by it with a muted tinge of pale yellow, not unlike a sandstorm coming. Skipper and sailors went about their daily routine, with an eye on that pale barrier. Outside his cabin, Aelius read through the old archival documents from Ptolemaion, and took notes.
The sea stayed calm until midday, by which time warm buffs of wind began scudding from the north, smacking the mainsail; gradually the water turned turbid, spitting faster and faster white crests that crisscrossed like netting over the tumult. Reading was still possible, but Aelius had to forego note-taking as the motion of the ship grew erratic. Overhead, the rigging creaked at every gust, and soon from the sides and below arose the other assorted sounds that wooden hulls make under pressure. Pitching began in earnest in an hour’s time, so that trying to read made Aelius nauseous, and he had to give it up.
At least he had had the forethought of securing the few loose objects in his cabin, and was spared the scampering across deck in which his cavalry colleagues engaged, to catch cups and personal belongings tossed this way and that. Worrying about horses and the other animals, troopers and handlers kept below deck, but if the wind kept on, and a squall was headed this way, soon enough they might all be called back up to help with the canvas. The sun was still shining but more and more lost contours as the haze drew closer, or perhaps the ship ran into it, until the sky’s brilliance dimmed. Aelius had hammered nails on the deck to secure his writing box at the corners, and now did the same with his trunk. When he stumbled out of his cabin, high water sprays were running up the prow and the color of the sea, changed with the disappearance of the blue above, was an ugly gray. Neither the skipper nor the master of the ship seemed worried, but as one of the tottering cavalry officers glumly reminded Aelius, sailors are known to go to their watery graves without flinching.
“I don’t think it’s as bad as that,” Aelius said, though truly he had no idea how good or bad things were. “I’m going below deck in a moment to check on my horse. You’re welcome to come along.”
“No, no. If it comes to sinking, I’d rather see it coming than being trapped below.”
In fact, the storm was rough, and even though with able maneuvering the crew succeeded in skirting the worst of it, still the haze became rain. Soon it poured from above and the sea churned below, a fact all the more exasperating as the southern horizon, beyond the agitated veil of rain, looked yellow-skied and cloudless. Deep in the hold, the animals were terrified, and it’d be a miracle if the ostriches didn’t break a leg or die of fright; the stench of excrements and growling came from the lions’ cages, and the grazing animals, sedated as they were, were heaped in a shivering tangle. That creature terror, chained and imprisoned, revolted Aelius, whose horse—on its fourth sea voyage—looked no less frightened than the other cavalry mounts. Tied to their chains, the dogs had been howling but now cowered, and when Aelius tried to pet one of them, he was bitten in return.
All the while, despite his optimism, he kept an ear perked for a crash of water that might indicate the breaking of the hull, but the grain-laden, groaning Felicitas Annonae seemed to maintain both seaworthiness and a reasonably dry bottom. It pitched badly, but did not list, and if one forgot all about the danger and the eventual coming of night, one could nearly enjoy the wildness of motion. It was more than Aelius could say for himself or anyone else as the dark overtook them, and God knows how mast, canvas, sailors, and raging water interacted on the deck, where no one else was allowed. As he tersely jotted down later in his notebook, the powerless passing of those hours was “best forgotten.”
26 Epiphi (21 July, Friday)
Exiting the squall was as much a willful act on the part of the skipper as it was a matter of weather simply going past them. On the morning of the sixth day, the quality of rearing and sounding up and down the swelling waves changed perceptibly; the angle became less acute, rain ceased. Froth still jetted above the prow, but not as violently. When they came far enough from the edge of the storm for the waves to roll less frantically, Aelius drenched and alone with the sailors on deck—could see that a few ship’s lengths back the churning continued, with rain going in circles and haze blotting the incipient light of day.
By now Crete lay to the northeast, Expositus said, farther off than if they had stayed the course. “We’re heading for Africa the way we’re going, but we won’t for long.”
This stretch was where they usually crossed vessels plying the Gortyna-Cyrenae route. None were visible, as the storm must have scattered them as well. At sunup, the sailors pointed out floating timber on the port side. A broken keg went by, half-sinking, and an ominous iridescence in the water ahead indicated the wreck of an oil cargo ship. For two hours the Felicitas circled the area in hopes of finding survivors, to no avail. When a piece of sail bearing the name Thetis was seen go by under a veil of water, Expositus ordered a man to tie himself with a rope and dive to retrieve it. “I knew the skipper,” he said shortly, and that was all the mourning allowed on the ship.
Until the afternoon they dragged themselves out of danger, and it was toward a relentlessly slow westering sun that the Felicitas at last escaped the outer rims of the squall, wind-tossed but intact, its great sail gathered and soaked, and nothing but the tightly packed grain still in its original place. On the wide deck, water ran ankle-deep to the side of the ship that happened to be lower at any one time, but vigorous mopping and the dry weather they were going into would solve the problem before long. When the sun st
ruck the pool of sloshing water, handfuls of gold seemed to be back and forth heaped and raked along the planks.
“As God is my witness,” one of the cavalry officers walked by, talking to his brother, “I am taking a desk job when we get to port, and this is the last sailing I do.”
It was in that brisk salt water that Aelius washed his livid and stiff right hand, which the dog bite had punctured open on the palm and back, around the thumb. If he closed his eyes (and he hadn’t closed them much the night before, like everyone else), he could imagine himself on the river in Egypt, like the first time he’d come up the river, bound to fight the rebels. Or even this last time, when his only charge was to study the deified Hadrian, and he didn’t yet know that Anubina had married, and twice given birth.
At this hour, he thought, back in Egypt the flood must be rising unchecked over the brim of ditches and canals, washing over levies and into the black land, crumbling boundary mud walls. Ducks and gulls surely fought over garbage, basements filled up, rats drowned. The sleepy crocodiles must slide down into the pervasive brown water, invisible to their prey until it is too late. How bearable the sting of his broken flesh was, compared to what had happened in the Nile to Serenus, and to what, for all Aelius knew, might have happened to the blessed Antinous himself.
