SPQR IV: The Temple of the Muses

by John Maddox Roberts

  The other machines told me little more. They were all as ingeniously designed and lovingly built. I assumed that the more commonplace machines all incorporated some improvement of Iphicrates’s design. If only in their ease of transport and reassembly.

  “What do we do now?” Hermes asked as I stepped off the ramp.

  “We could have a look at those buildings,” I said, “but they’re probably just barracks and storerooms. Whatever is going on is happening in Alexandria. This is just a training facility and arsenal.” I thought for a while. “It might be fun to set fire to all this.”

  “Let’s do it!” I could hear the grin in his voice. “I could sneak a torch from one of those buildings, and there must be plenty of oil jars in the storehouses to keep all this metal greased. We could have everything alight before they know what’s going on!” Arson was an unthinkable crime in Rome, so it was one he might never get a chance to commit at home.

  “But then they’d sweep the area to find the culprits. They may not be much as soldiers, but they probably know how to make a search for fugitives.”

  “Maybe we’d better not, then.”

  “And I might need all this as evidence.”

  “Evidence of what?”

  It was a good question. Rome would look with great disfavor upon this development, but would the Senate take action? I rather doubted it. And what had it all to do with the murder of Iphicrates? With these questions unanswered, we made our stealthy way back to the lakeside.

  8

  ONE OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR A career in roman politics is an onerous but necessary apprenticeship in the civil service. Nobody likes it, but at least it teaches you how a state works. This is why kings so often rule badly. They know public life only from the top. They like the enjoyable parts: fighting and killing their enemies, lording it over everybody else, being above the law. But the rest of it bores them, and they leave it to men or sometimes eunuchs who may have ambitions of their own. Since the kings don’t know how the business of government operates, they don’t know that their flunkies are incompetent, or are robbing or even subverting them.

  Washed free of mud and soot and dressed decently once more, I presented myself at the Land Office, a sizable government building near the Palace. I knew that here I would find the exact boundaries and ownership of every square inch of land in Egypt. The Egyptians invented the art of surveying out of necessity, since their lands are inundated yearly and boundary markers are often swept away. Like most conquerors, the Ptolemies had adopted the most beneficial practices of the conquered people, and this office was staffed almost entirely by native Egyptians. In the first room I entered, a public slave hurried over, bowing.

  “How may I help you, sir?”

  “Where might I find maps and documents concerning the lands nearest Alexandria?”

  “Please come with me.” We walked past rooms where scribes sat cross-legged in the Egyptian fashion, papyrus resting on their tight-stretched kilts, brushes in their hands, inkpots resting on the floor next to them. Others labored over maps spread on long tables.

  “This is the Office of the Royal Nome, Senator, and this is Sethotep, Royal Overseer of the Northern Survey.”

  The man rose from his desk and came forward. He was a native and simply dressed, but by now I had learned to judge status by the quality of a man’s wig and the weave of his kilt. Sethotep was a high-ranking functionary, about equivalent to a Roman equite. We made the expected introductions and I launched upon the story I had made up.

  “I have embarked upon a work of geography concerning Egypt. There has been none in Latin in more than fifty years, and the earlier works are translations from Greek and consequently riddled with errors. I think we need an original book of our own.”

  “A commendable project,” said Sethotep.

  “I have already embarked upon my work concerning the city of Alexandria, and I want to begin my study of the nearby lands. I propose to start with Lake Mareotis and the lands surrounding it. Have you any maps of the lake? I would prefer survey maps, listing the estates of the district and their owners.”

  “Certainly, Senator,” said Sethotep. He stepped over to a rack like the ones in the Library and took out a large scroll. “Of course, ail land in Egypt is the property of his Majesty King Ptolemy, but, after ancient custom, the king grants dominion over broad estates to his loyal nobles.” That was just what I wanted to hear.

  He took the map to a long table and slipped it from its leather tube. To clear a space for it, he picked up some scraps of papyrus, glanced at them, then tossed them into a huge box at the end of the table. The box was half full. The Egyptian bureaucracy generated ten times the waste papyrus of its Roman equivalent. The stuff was cheap in Egypt and they didn’t even try to reuse it.

  “Where does all the waste papyrus go?” I asked him idly.

  “Every month the coffin-makers come to empty the bins,” he answered.

  “Coffin-makers? Really?” Another strangeness out of Egypt.

  “Oh, yes. Wood is very precious in Egypt. Only the wealthy can afford wooden mummy cases. The coffin-makers mix the papyrus with glue and mold it into mummy cases for the poorer and middling classes. As long as the tomb is sealed it will last as well as wood, or so they claim. Personally, I prefer to trust wood. My own tomb is almost finished, and I have provided coffins for myself and my wife made of the finest Lebanese cedar.” Romans are fond of funerals and mortuary preparations, but the subject is a veritable mania with Egyptians, who believe in an attractive afterlife. Give them a chance and they’ll chatter on about it for hours.

  “This is the lake,” he said, his map now spread and its corners weighted. The lake thus displayed was irregular in shape, as most lakes are. Lines drawn at intervals defined the estates that bordered it, but the lettering was the sort called Demotic, a simplified form of hieroglyphic that represents phonetic sounds like the Greek or Latin alphabets, but only Egyptian is thus written. Thus did the Egyptians assure their place in the Ptolemaic service. Only they could read their maps or surveys.

  “Are these the names of the landowners?” I asked him. “I shall be taking a tour of the lake, and I may wish to call upon some of them.”

  “Well, let me see. Going from the canal westward …”

  “Actually, I was planning to begin by going east. Who is the landlord of this estate?” I put my finger on the area where I had been that very morning.

  Sethotep considered the inscription for a moment. “That estate belongs to the Lord Kassandros. It has been held by direct inheritance from an ancestor who was a companion of Ptolemy Soter, first of the royal line.”

  This was bitterly disappointing. I had never heard of the man.

  “So it is to this Lord Kassandros that I must make representation if I wish to visit this estate?”

  “For some years now, Lord Kassandros has lived in retirement on his estate in the Arsinoene Nome, on the shores of the Faiyum.”

  “He has more than one estate, then?” I said.

  “Like many kings, the Ptolemies have held to the policy of giving the greater lords a number of estates scattered about the kingdom, rather than one large holding. It reduces jealousy among the great men and assures that each gets some of the best land as well as some of the middling and some of the barren land.”

  It also keeps them traveling among their estates and prevents them from having a large base of power, I thought.

  “Very wise. Then to whom should I speak?”

  He adjusted his wig, which had come somewhat askew. “That estate may be overseen by a steward, or it may be supervised by one of Lord Kassandros’s sons. The Lord Philip is the elder, but he is Steward of the Royal Quarries, and spends most of his time near the first cataract. The younger, the Lord General Achillas, is usually to be found here in Alexandria. You might apply at the Macedonian barracks or at Lord Achillas’s town house, but I am sure that his Majesty will be pleased to send a messenger on your behalf. To please Rome is alway
s our most ardent desire.”

  I could have kissed him. “I shall do as you advise at once, friend Sethotep. And now, I must be off.”

  “But there is still much to learn of the lake,” he said.

  “Another time. I have an appointment at the Palace that cannot wait.”

  He looked unhappy to see me go. I could sympathize. A bureaucrat often has few people to talk to, save the toilers in his own office. The visit had not been wasted. Now I felt I had something to report.

  Creticus looked up from his desk grumpily. Apparently I had missed a party the previous night.

  “That was a short hunting trip. Did you kill anything?”

  “No, but I spotted some promising quarry. Do you have a little time, and is it safe to discuss sensitive matters here?”

  “Found a plot to your liking? Oh, come on, then, let’s take a turn around the garden. I suspect that some of the embassy slaves aren’t as ignorant of Latin as they pretend.”

  In the olive orchard I told him of my findings and my suspicions. He nodded gravely, but that was just habit. It’s a skill every Roman politician learns. He might have been calculating odds on the next races, as far as I knew.

  “This sounds ominous,” he admitted when I was finished. “But why are you so happy to find out that it was Achillas’s land, other than having knocked out his lieutenant, a fact which secretly delights much of the court?”

  “Why, because this means it’s not Ptolemy,” I said.

  “And why does that make you happy?”

  “First of all, it means that Ptolemy can discipline his own fractious nobleman, and Rome need not take too open a hand in it, sparing Egyptian feelings. And second—well, I just like the old buffoon. He’s harmless and good company when he’s conscious, and I don’t think he’s hostile to Rome.”

  Creticus shook his head. “Decius, you have a fine nose for the devious and underhanded, but your grasp of the obvious leaves much to be desired.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “Several shiploads of timber, you said?”

  “At least.”

  “And that tremendous tower is entirely plated with iron?”

  “Do you think I exaggerate? It’s covered with the stuff—oh, I see.”

  “Exactly. How rich do you think Achillas is? There are no nobles in Egypt as rich as Crassus, and that much iron bought all at once would bankrupt a small kingdom.”

  I should have thought of it. When Sethotep told me that Achillas was a younger son, I should have realized that Achillas probably owned little more than his arms and his arrogance. There was great wealth behind those military contraptions.

  “But Ptolemy is a beggar!” I protested.

  “Makes you wonder where all that money we’ve given him went, doesn’t it?”

  My mind darted around. Somehow, even discounting my rueful affection for the old winebag, I couldn’t picture Ptolemy as the mastermind behind this absurd bid for power through superior machinery. Another thought came to me.

  “Perhaps Achillas is front man for a horde of those disaffected satraps and nomarchs we’ve been hearing about,” I hazarded.

  “That’s more like it. But I can’t see them pooling their wealth and keeping it secret at the same time. Support with words, yes, and promises of aid and alliance once war is joined, that I can imagine. But parting with substantial money? These little Macedonian and Egyptian lordlings are too jealous of one another for that. Each would think he was giving more than his share, that the others were cheating him. And, Decius, you must learn one thing about all large-scale foreign conspiracies against Rome. Heed me, now, because you’ll run into it many times if you live long enough.” This was the older generation of Metelli teaching the younger, so I listened respectfully. I also knew that it would be damned good advice, because the elders of my family knew domestic and world politics as few other people did.

  “If many men of small power are asked to combine against us, there are always some who know that their future lies in bringing word to us and aiding us against their fellows. Many a little chieftain has become a subject-king that way.” I was to recall these words in later years when I encountered Antipater and his ferocious, gifted son, Herod. “No one has come to us with news of this conspiracy, expressing a willingness to replace Ptolemy on the throne in Alexandria.”

  “Then what could it be?” I demanded. “Someone has decided that Roman might can be challenged with these ridiculous machines, and has expended vast wealth on the possibility.”

  “Well, that’s the sort of thing you’re supposed to be good at ferreting out. Get to it.” With that, he left me pondering among the olives. That was where Julia found me.

  “You look unusually grave this morning,” she said.

  “This is what I look like when I’m torn between elation and distress,” I said. Then I brought her up to date on my discoveries of the previous day and that morning.

  “Why didn’t you take me on your spying mission?” she said, which was just like her.

  “For one thing, you’ve limited experience of guerrilla warfare.”

  “You just wanted to go off adventuring by yourself,” she retorted.

  “It could have turned very dangerous. I don’t want you hurt over this matter. The Caesars would never forgive me.”

  “As if you cared about them.” Having established some form of verbal victory, she went on. “Have you seen the streets this morning?”

  “They seemed rather crowded. Is there some sort of religious holiday being celebrated?”

  “People are streaming in from the countryside. It seems that Ataxas has had another vision. Baal-Ahriman will speak very soon, ushering in a new age for Egypt and the world. People are dropping everything else to be there.”

  “If it’s this crowded near the Palace, what must the Rakhotis be like?”

  “I expect to find out. Berenice and a large party of her social set will be going to the temple this afternoon. She has invited Fausta and me to go with her. Would you like to go as well?”

  “I wouldn’t miss it for anything!” I said.

  Her eyes narrowed. “I’ll bet you think those priestesses will flog themselves again.”

  “No, far from it. The poor dears aren’t recovered from last time. It’s something else.”

  Even narrower. “What?”

  “I’ll have to muse it over for a while,” I said, unaware at first of my unintended wordplay.

  “Muse? Who is the Muse of snoops and investigators?”

  “A good question. Clio comes the closest, I suspect. She is the Muse of history, and I try to uncover the truth behind historic lies. Or perhaps there’s another Muse, a nameless one for men like me.”

  “Your genius is a strange one. Uncle Caius has often said so.” Always Uncle Caius.

  I rounded up Rufus and some of the livelier members of the embassy staff and told them of the upcoming sport. We had the huge official litter brought and loaded it up with enough food and wine for a minor banquet. We ended up with a party of six, each man bringing a personal slave to attend to his needs. Then we waited by the main Palace gate for Berenice’s party.

  “If the streets are so crowded,” Rufus said, “these land-going triremes are going to take hours just to get to the Rakhotis.” He should have known that would be taken care of.

  When Berenice’s party arrived, it was preceded by a flying wedge of a hundred Macedonian soldiers to help ease its passage. The men were dressed in the flashing bronze armor and towering scarlet plumes of the Palace guard. Behind them came Berenice’s massive palanquin containing her personal favorites, including Julia and Fausta, a horde of slaves, dwarfs and dancers, plus numerous hissing cheetahs and frolicking baboons.

  “I am so happy you have decided to join us!” Berenice yelled over the noise. “Just fall in behind my conveyance. The others will make room for you.”

  We did as directed, and the riders in the two other litters looked annoyed at being thus se
parated from their deity. I got a particularly ferocious glare from Achillas, who rode in the second litter. I was not surprised to see him there. Then, amid a shrilling of flutes and a pounding of drums, the twang of harps and the rattle of sistra, we were off.

  Even with the soldiery clearing the way, our progress through the streets of Alexandria was leisurely. Densely packed mobs can get out of the way only so fast. From the Palace we took the Street of Argeus south to the Canopic Way, where we turned west like a line of warships veering into harbor on a still day. The crowds cheered us and sang praises to Berenice even as the soldiers’ spears poked them out of our path. Flowers showered us, for everyone seemed to be wearing garlands. A good many were also draped with snakes, which I was grateful they did not throw at us.

  “It’s shaping up to be a lively day,” Rufus said, his head now sporting a rose wreath.

  “Things must be getting really raucous at the temple,” I said, holding out my cup, which Hermes promptly filled.

  “At this rate we may miss the statue speaking,” said one of the staff.

  “Have no fear,” I told him. “That god is not going to speak until the princess and all the most important dignitaries are present.”

  “If this god has such a regard for royalty,” Rufus said, “why does he operate through a greasy little Asiatic prophet?”

  “Alien gods are strange, are they not?” I agreed. “Our gods make their will known through omens sent to the augurs: an orderly and sensible system. Asian deities are altogether an emotional and irrational lot. They depend much on enthusiasm, oblique utterances and coincidence. Although sometimes those coincidences can turn out to be convenient for certain parties.”

  “Eh?” Rufus said. “You’re babbling again, Decius.”

  “I’ll make you a little wager,” I said. “Five hundred denarii says this god is about to predict a sudden shift in Egyptian-Roman relations.”