SPQR IV: The Temple of the Muses

by John Maddox Roberts

  “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,” Amphy
trion 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. “Dedius 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?”