SPQR IV: The Temple of the Muses

by John Maddox Roberts

  The barracks consisted of two rows of sprawling, three-story buildings facing each other across a parade ground. The buildings were predictably splendid, and the soldiers on parade went through their drill with commendable smartness, but their gear was old-fashioned to Roman eyes. Some wore the solid bronze cuirass now worn only by Roman officers, others the stiff shirt of layered linen, faced with bronze scales. The better-off Roman legionaries had gone over to the Gallic mail shirt generations before, and Marius had standardized it throughout the legions. Some of the Macedonians retained their long spears, although they had more than a century before discarded their old, stiff phalanx formation and had adopted an open order on the Roman model.

  At one end of the field a troop of cavalry practiced its maneuvers. The Macedonians had found cavalry to be useful in the broad eastern lands that made up so much of the old Persian Empire they had conquered. We Romans had only a tiny cavalry force and usually hired horsemen when we felt the need.

  At the other end of the field some engineers were erecting some sort of siege machine, a massive thing of ropes and timber. I had never seen such a device and ordered the bearers to take me nearer. Now, any foreigner would know better than to wander freely about a Roman camp or barracks, but I had become so accustomed to the unfailing toadying of the Egyptians that it did not occur to me that I might be intruding.

  At our approach, a man who had been bawling at the engineers whirled and stalked toward us, the sunlight flashing from his polished greaves and cuirass. He carried a plumed helmet under one arm.

  “What’s your business here?” he demanded. I knew the breed: a long-service professional with slits for eyes and a lipless mouth. He looked like every centurion I ever detested. The arrow and spear gouges on his armor matched the scars on his face and arms, as if he had asked the armorer for a matching ensemble.

  “I am Decius Caecilius Metellus the Younger, of the Roman diplomatic mission,” I said, as haughtily as I could manage. “Your machine piqued my interest and I came for a closer look.”

  “That so?” he said. “Bugger off.”

  This was not going well. “See here,” I protested, “I don’t believe you appreciate the uniquely intimate relations between the Palace and the Roman mission.”

  “Bring old Flute-Face down here and we’ll talk about it,” the officer said. “Meantime, get away from my barracks and stay away!”

  “You shall hear more of this,” I promised. That is something one always says after being thoroughly intimidated. “Bear me to the Palace,” I ordered grandly.

  As we trotted thither, I fantasized punishments for the obdurate officer. He was perfectly within his rights to expel a foreign civilian, but that did not excuse him, in my estimation. After all, I was a Roman official, of a sort, and Egypt was a Roman possession, of a sort. But the man’s insolence was quite driven from my mind by the news that greeted me when I reached the embassy.

  I found Creticus in the atrium of the embassy and he beckoned me to him.

  “Ah, Decius, this is convenient. We have some visitors from Rome. I was going to go greet them myself, but now you’re here, so you can do it.”

  “You were going to greet them?” I said. “Who’s that important?”

  “A slave just brought this from the royal harbor.” He held up a small scroll. “It seems that two ladies of important family have come to Alexandria for the salubrious climate.”

  “The climate?” I said, arching an eyebrow.

  “This is a letter from Lucullus. He informs me that the climate in Rome is unhealthy, something involving political infighting and blood in the streets. He is sending his ward, the Lady Fausta Cornelia, and her traveling companion, another highborn lady, and asks me to extend all aid and courtesy.”

  “Fausta!” I said. “Sulla’s daughter?”

  He glared impatiently “What other lady has ever borne that name?”

  “I was just making sounds of astonishment,” I assured him. “I’ve met the lady. She is betrothed to my friend Titus Milo.”

  “All the better. Round up some slaves, they’ll have a lot of baggage. And arrange for quarters. I’ll speak to the court eunuchs about a reception for them.” Romans would never make this sort of fuss for visiting ladies, no matter how highborn, but the Egyptian court, dominated by eunuchs and princesses, was different.

  “Who is the other lady?” A horrible thought struck me. “It isn’t Clodia, is it? She and Fausta are rather close.”

  He smiled. “No, you won’t be displeased to see this one. Now go. They’re fretting at the dock.”

  I barked loudly and a gaggle of slaves appeared from nowhere. I ordered litters to be brought and they appeared as if by magic. It was really the most extraordinary place. I climbed into one and we trooped off to the royal harbor. This was a tiny enclosure within the Great Harbor where the royal yachts and barges were kept. It was bounded by a stone breakwater, and the opening in this was further protected by the island bearing the jewellike Island Palace, rendering it proof against the most violent storms.

  Among the royal barges the little Roman merchantman looked humble, indeed, but the ladies who stood at the rail radiated arrogance the way the sun radiates light. These were not only Roman ladies, but patricians to boot, with that special assurance of superiority that comes only of centuries of inbreeding.

  The slaves set down the litters and clambered from mine as they abased themselves before the ladies descending the gangplank. The German-blond hair of Fausta Cornelia was unmistakable. She possessed the golden beauty of the Cornelians to an extent matched only by her twin brother, Faustus. The other lady was smaller and darker, but just as radiant. A good deal more so, to my eyes.

  “Julia,!” I cried, gaping. It was, indeed, Julia Minor, younger daughter of Lucius Caesar. Not long before this, a meeting of our families had been held and we had been formally betrothed. That we had desired this betrothal was, of course, immaterial as far as the families were concerned, but was regarded as a rather fortunate happenstance. At that time the Metelli were in a frenzy of fence-mending with the contending power blocs. Creticus had married off his daughter to the younger Marcus Crassus. Caius Julius Caesar was the rising star of the Popular Assemblies, and a connection with that ancient but obscure family was desired. Caius Julius’s own daughter was already promised to Pompey, but his brother Lucius had an unmarried younger daughter. Hence, we were betrothed.

  “Welcome to Alexandria!” I cried. I took Fausta’s hand briefly; then Julia presented her cheek to be kissed. I obliged.

  “You’ve put on weight, Decius,” she said.

  “What a flatterer you are,” I said. “These Egyptians feel they’ve failed their gods if they allow a Roman to walk a step more than necessary, and who am I to interfere in their devotion to piety?” I turned to Fausta. “Lady Fausta, your beauty adorns this royal city like a crown. I trust you had a pleasant voyage?”

  “We’ve been heaving our guts out since we left Ostia,” she said.

  “I assure you, the accommodations here will more than make up for the rigors of a winter voyage.” The slaves had been unloading their baggage during all this. By the time it was all ashore, the ship rode a foot higher in the water. The ladies were attended by their personal maids, of course, and a few other slaves. They would be lost among the multitude at the embassy.

  “Is Alexandria as fabulous as I’ve always heard?” Julia asked, excited despite her rather drawn and haggard appearance.

  “Beyond your wildest imaginings,” I vowed. “It shall be my greatest pleasure to show it all to you.”

  Fausta smiled obliquely. “Even those low dives where you’ve no doubt been disporting yourself?”

  “No need,” I said. “The very basest of amusements are to be had at the Palace.” At that even the notorious Fausta looked a bit nonplussed.

  “Well, I want to see the more elevated sights,” Julia said, crawling wearily into her litter and inadvertently treating me to a flash of the whites
t thigh I had ever seen. “I want to see the Museum and converse with the scholars and attend lectures by all the famous, learned men.” Julia had that tiresome love of culture and education that infected Roman ladies.

  “I shall be only too happy to introduce you,” I said. “I am intimate with the faculty.” Actually, I had been there only once, to visit an old friend. Who wants to consort with a pack of tiresome old pedants when some of the finest racehorses in the world are exercising in the Hippodrome?

  “Really?” she said, eyebrows going up. “Then you must introduce me to Eumenes of Caria, the logician, and Sosigenes, the astronomer, and Iphicrates of Chios, the mathematician. And I must tour the Library!”

  “Libraries,” I corrected. “There are two of them, you know.” I sought to change the subject and turned to Fausta. “And how is my good friend Milo?”

  “Busy as ever,” she said. “Fighting all the time with Clodius. He’s secured a quaestorship, you know.”

  “I heard,” I said, laughing. “Somehow I can’t picture Milo working away in the Grain Office or the treasury.” Milo was the most successful gangster Rome had ever seen.

  “Don’t bother. He works out of his headquarters as always. I think he’s hired somebody to carry out his duties as quaestor. He sends you his warmest regards, by the way. He says you’ll never amount to anything if you spend all your time lazing away in foreign lands instead of working in Rome.”

  “Well, dear Titus has always extolled the benefits of hard work and diligence. I, on the other hand, have always felt these to be virtues proper to slaves and freedmen. Look at how hard these litter-bearers work. Does it do them any good?”

  “I knew you would say something like that,” Julia said, sitting up and craning her neck to take in the magnificence through which we were carried.

  “The men destined for greatness are all fighting it out in Rome right now,” Fausta said.

  “And every one of them will die on a battlefield, or from poison or the dagger of the assassin,” I maintained stoutly. “I, on the other hand, intend to expire of old age with the rank of Senior Senator.”

  “I suppose every man must have his own ambition,” she sniffed.

  “Oh, look!” Julia said. “Is that the Paneum?” The weird, artificial hill with its spiral path and its circular temple was just visible in the distance.

  “That it is,” I said. “It has the most outrageous statue in it. But here’s the embassy.”

  “Is this all part of the Palace?” Julia asked as I helped her from the litter. I was forced to kick a slave aside in order to perform even this simple, agreeable task.

  “It is. In fact, for all matters involving practical power, the Roman embassy is the court. Come along, I’ll see you to your quarters.”

  But I was not to be permitted even this. No sooner had we reached the atrium than a mass of courtiers entered, complete with riotous musicians, oiled Nubians leading leashed cheetahs, a tame lion, a pack of baboons dressed in livery, chiton-clad adolescent girls bearing baskets of rose petals which they scattered promiscuously, and, in the midst of them all, a young woman to whom all deferred.

  “I hear that we have visitors,” the young woman said. “If I had heard sooner, I would have come to the royal harbor to welcome you!”

  I bowed as deeply as Roman dignity permitted. “You honor us with your presence, Princess Berenice. May I present the lady Fausta Cornelia, daughter of the late, illustrious Dictator Lucius Cornelius Sulla, and the lady Julia Minor, daughter of the reverend Senator Lucius Julius Caesar.” She embraced both ladies while the courtiers cooed and twittered.

  The Roman ladies displayed creditable aplomb, accepting these royal embraces with coolness and dignity. Aplomb was called for, as Berenice was one of the Ptolemies who favored Egyptian fashions. On her upper body she wore only a cape of gauze, which was quite transparent. What she wore below that would have got a dancing-girl drubbed out of Rome for indecency. Her jewelry, on the other hand, would have rivaled a legionary’s armor for weight and bulk.

  “We are at a disadvantage, Highness,” Fausta protested. “We are not prepared to receive royalty.”

  “Oh, think nothing of that,” Berenice said. “I never get interesting women to entertain, just tiresome men with their politics and their foolish intrigues.” She waved a hand that took in the whole Roman embassy, me included.

  “And the foreign queens and princesses who come here are all ignorant and illiterate, no more than well-dressed peasants. But two genuine patrician ladies all to myself! Come along, you aren’t staying here. You’re going to stay in my palace.” Yes, there was yet another palace within the Palace, this one belonging to Berenice. And so she shepherded them out like two new additions to her menagerie. I wondered if she would try to leash them as well.

  Creticus came in just as the mob disappeared. “What was that all about?” he asked.

  “Berenice has spirited away our ladies,” I said. “They may never see Rome again.”

  “Well,” he said practically, “that takes care of that problem. New toys for the princess instead of a headache for us. They’ll need to be squired about the city by a Roman male of high lineage, though. Wouldn’t be proper otherwise. That’s your job.”

  “I shall be diligent,” I promised.

  Berenice was thoughtful enough to give her two new acquisitions an evening to recover from their ordeal at the hands of Neptune; then she threw a lavish reception for them, inviting all the luminaries of the Museum as well as the most fashionable people of Alexandria. As you might expect, this made for a fairly grotesque mixture. Since the Museum was owned and financed wholly by the Palace, Berenice’s invitation had the authority of a summons. Thus every last star-gazing, number-torturing, book-annotating scholar in Alexandria was there, along with actors, charioteers, foreign ambassadors, cult leaders and half the nobility of Egypt, who were as decadent a pack of lunatics as one could wish for.

  As they assembled, I spotted the one face I knew well. This belonged to Asklepiodes, physician to the gladiators of the school of Statilius Taurus in Rome. We had a long history together. He was a small man with clean-shaven cheeks and a jawline beard of the Greek sort, wearing the robes and hair-fillet of his profession. He was delivering a course of anatomical lectures that year. I took him aside.

  “Quick, Asklepiodes, who are some of these people? Julia expects me to know them all!”

  He grinned. “Ah! So at last I get to meet the beauteous Julia? Is she so deficient in perception that she thinks you a scholar?”

  “She thinks I’m improving. Who are they?”

  He looked around. “To begin with the most distinguished, there”—he nodded toward a tall, sharp-featured man—“is the illustrious Amphytrion, the Librarian. He is in charge of all things concerning the Library and Museum.”

  “That’s a start,” I said. “Who else?”

  He nodded toward a burly, wild-haired man who stared around him like a wrestler challenging all comers. “That’s Iphicrates of Chios, the mathematician, foremost champion of the school of Archimedes.”

  “Oh, good. She wants to meet him.”

  “Then perhaps her feminine charms will succeed where so many others have failed. He is a most irascible man. Let me see …” He picked out another dusty old Greek. “There is Doson the Skeptic, and Sosigenes, the astronomer, and …” and so on. I committed as many names as I could to memory, enough to fake knowledgeability. As soon as I had a chance, I went over to Julia and introduced Asklepiodes. She was polite but cool. Like many well-taught persons, she was only marginally interested in medicine, which is concerned with the real world.

  “Would you care to meet some of the great scholars?” I asked her.

  “Lead on,” she said, with that maddeningly superior smile of hers. I escorted her to the ferocious-looking mathematician.

  “Julia, this is the famed Iphicrates of Chios, foremost exemplar of the Archimedean School.”

  His face turned to oil and
he took her hand and kissed it. “Utterly charmed, my lady.” Then he turned and glared at me, an expression lent force by the Jupiter-like prominence of his forehead. “Don’t think I know you.”

  “Perhaps it’s slipped your mind, what with all that deep thinking. I attended your talk on the siege of Syracuse.” I pulled this right out of the air, knowing that Archimedes had designed the defensive siege machinery of that city, but it seemed that I had struck my mark.

  “Oh.” He looked confused. “Perhaps you’re right. There were a great many auditors at that lecture.”

  “And I’ve read your work, On the Practical Applications of Geometry,” Julia said, looking worshipful. “Such a stimulating and controversial book!”

  He grinned and nodded like one of the trained baboons. “Yes, yes. It shook up some people around here, I can tell you.” Insufferable twit, I thought. And here was Julia, mooning over him as if he were a champion charioteer or something of the sort. I pried her away from the great man and took her to meet the Librarian. Amphytrion was as gracious as Iphicrates was crude, and I had an easier time of it. Berenice swept her off to meet some perfumed fools, and I was left with the Librarian.

  “I noticed you speaking with Asklepiodes,” he remarked. “Do you know him from Rome?”

  “Yes, I’ve known him for years.”

  Amphytrion nodded. “An estimable man, but a bit eccentric.”

  “How is that?” I asked.

  “Well …” He looked around to see if any eavesdroppers lurked nearby. “He is rumored to practice surgery. Cutting with the knife is strictly forbidden by the Hippocratic oath.”

  “Apollo forbid it!” I said, scandalized.

  “And”—he lowered his voice even further—“it is rumored that he does his own stitching, something even the lowest surgeon leaves to his slaves!”

  “No!” I said. “Surely this is some scurrilous rumor spread by his enemies!”