SPQR IV: The Temple of the Muses

by John Maddox Roberts

  In another courtyard a team of Cretan dancers, elaborately costumed, went through one of their famed productions concerning the scabrous doings of the Olympian deities, with startling realism. I climbed to a second-floor gallery for a better view. Below, on an elaborate stage, were being enacted the legends of Leda and the swan, Europa and the bull, Ganymede and the eagle, Danae and the shower of gold (an incredible piece of costuming), Pasiphae inside the artificial cow designed by Daedalus, and a few probably known only to Greeks. I managed to tear my eyes away from this edification long enough to notice that I wasn’t alone. A girl of about ten leaned on the railing and watched all this with solemn interest.

  She was a beautiful child, with skin like alabaster and the reddish hair that is common among Macedonians. Her garments and jewels were rich. Clearly, this was a daughter of a noble family, strayed from her keeper.

  “Aren’t you a little young for this sort of entertainment?” I asked. “Where is your nurse?” She turned and regarded me with enormous green eyes. They were the most beautiful eyes I ever saw in a human face.

  “My sister says that I must learn how the noble peoples of many lands comport themselves. I have been attending these receptions of hers for some time now.” Her speech was not the least bit childish.

  “I take it, then, that you are the Princess Cleopatra?” She nodded, then turned back to the spectacle below.

  “Do people really behave this way?” On the stage, something that looked like a dragon was mounting Andromeda, who was chained to a rock. I didn’t remember that part of the legend of Perseus.

  “You shouldn’t concern yourself with the doings of supernatural beings,” I advised her. “You’ll find that what goes on between men and women is quite confusing enough.” She turned from the dancers and looked me over with a calculation disturbing to see in one so young.

  “You’re a Roman, aren’t you?” she said in excellent Latin.

  “I am. Decius Caecilius Metellus the Younger, Senator, presently attached to the embassy, at your service.” I gave her the slight bow Roman officials are permitted.

  “I never heard the name Decius used as a praenomen. I thought it was a nomen.” She was inordinately well taught.

  “It was introduced into my family by my grandfather, who was sent a vision by the Dioscuri.”

  “I see. I have never been granted a vision. My sister sees them all the time.” I could well believe that.

  “Your Latin is excellent, Princess. Do you speak other languages?”

  “Besides Latin and Greek, I speak Aramaic, Persian and Phoenician. What is it like, being a Roman?” This was an odd question.

  “I am not sure I understand, Princess.”

  “You rule the world. The Roman officials I’ve seen comport themselves as arrogantly as the kings of most lands. Does it feel different, knowing that the world lies at your feet?” I had never been asked such a question by a ten-year-old.

  “We don’t really rule the world, Highness, just a very great part of it. As for our arrogance, we prize the qualities of dignitas and gravitas highly. We of the governing class are taught them from earliest youth. We don’t tolerate foolishness in public men.”

  “That is good. Most people tolerate any sort of behavior in one whose birth is high enough. I heard that you knocked Memnon down yesterday with a single blow.”

  “Word does get around. Actually, it took two to put him down.”

  “I am glad. I don’t like him.”

  “Oh,” I said.

  “Yes. He and Achillas are too presumptuous for their station. They treat my family with disrespect.”

  This was something to ponder. At that moment some of the guests stormed the stage and began ripping the costumes from the dancers amid excited laughter and shouted encouragement.

  “Princess, despite your sister’s advice, I think you should retire. You are far too young to be here alone, and some of these people have taken leave of whatever senses they had.”

  “But I am not alone,” she said, nodding slightly to the shadowed gallery behind her. Suddenly I was aware that someone stood there, still as a statue.

  “Who are you?” I asked. A youth of about sixteen stepped forward, his arms folded.

  “I am Apollodorus, Senator.”

  He was a fine-looking boy, with curly black hair and handsome features that bore the unmistakable stamp of Sicily. He wore a brief chiton belted with a short sword and had leather bands at his wrist and ankles. He had that relaxed, almost limp bearing that you only see in the most highly trained athletes, but this was no mere palaestra-trained pretty boy. He had the mark of the ludus all over him, although I had never seen them in one so young.

  “What school?” I asked.

  “The ludus of Ampliatus in Capua,” he said. That made sense.

  “A good choice. They teach boxing and wrestling there as well as swordsmanship. If I wanted a bodyguard for my daughter, that’s where I would send him.”

  The boy nodded. “I was sent there when I was ten. The king had me brought back five months ago, when he decided that the princess was to move to Alexandria.” He turned to Cleopatra. “The Senator is right, Highness. You had better go inside now.” His tone was easy, but I could hear adoration in every inflection.

  “Very well,” she said. “I really can’t understand why people act in such a fashion anyway.” Just wait, I thought.

  I bade her good evening and made my way down to the party once more. In later years Marcus Antonius was reviled for being so besotted with Cleopatra, forgetting Rome and everything else to serve her. They thought him weak and unmanly. But I knew Cleopatra when she was ten, and poor Antonius never had a chance.

  I was beginning to feel the need of something to go with the wine. On a broad marble table was coiled a gigantic sausage, made from the intestines of an elephant stuffed with the sweet flesh of waterfowl. It smelled delicious, but the appearance was horrifying. A slave offered me a skewer strung with the bloated bodies of huge locusts. These are a great delicacy in the desert, but scarcely to Roman taste. Luckily, I encountered a tray of pork ribs simmered in garum before starvation set in. I feasted on these and other agreeable items and felt ready to face the balance of the evening.

  The sound of clashing weapons drew me to a lawn where athletes were putting on an exhibition of swordsmanship. These were not true gladiators, for there were none in Egypt in those days. They were skillful and pleasant to watch, but none of them would have lasted a minute in an Italian amphitheater. I saw Fausta and Berenice watching them. To my relief, the cheetahs were gone.

  “This is a most extraordinary event, Highness,” I said to Berenice.

  “We do our best. Fausta was just telling me about the gladiator fights she and her brother put on at her father’s funeral games. Our priests and philosophers and such would never allow death-fights here, I’m afraid. They sound thrilling.”

  “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.”

  “S
poke 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.

  6

  “THE 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 monthl
y 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.”