The Seven Hills

by John Maddox Roberts

  She was the richest as well as the most powerful woman in the world. But, she thought, it means nothing, because I owe it all to these Romans. They had saved her from political impotence as sister-wife to a reigning boy, and probable death at the hands of his corrupt ministers, once she had fulfilled her duty by delivering a royal heir. These Romans, by their arrogant intervention and surprising political sophistication, had eliminated those ministers by manipulating the Alexandrian mob. Their nation's reoccupation of Italy and invasion of Sicily had forced Hasdrubal to break off the Carthaginian assault on Alexandria, and now she sat on the throne of Egypt, her brother banished to an obscure wing of the palace.

  She knew better than to be grateful. The Romans did nothing out of disinterested goodwill. Everything they did was calculated to advance the cause of Rome. First came their almost obsessive need to conquer, humiliate and destroy Carthage, as Carthage had once all but obliterated Rome. And after that?

  This required careful thought. It was by no means certain that Rome could even win a single battle with Carthage, once Hamilcar mobilized his full might against them. Should Rome be defeated, or even suffer a setback, her position would prove far more secure than it now was. She would have leverage to use, positioning herself in a place of power as the most desirable ally for either nation. Should the present war be long and costly and end in an uneasy peace, she would be safe. Neither contender could afford to allow the other to have the matchless wealth of Egypt at its disposal.

  But should Carthage prove victorious? That, too, might be to her advantage. The Romans would be certain to make the war costly. Even in victory, Carthage would be exhausted and close to ruin. Reoccupation and restoration of its possessions in Sicily and Italy would distract and drain Carthage for many years to come, while she consolidated her position and made new alliances. Parthia was the growing power to the east, and Syria might well see the advantage of an alliance with Egypt. If Antiochus was too stubborn to reverse his policy, there were time-honored methods for putting a more suitable heir on the throne without resorting to war.

  But what if, against all expectation, Rome should win? They had the martial energy of her own Macedonian ancestors, those unbeatable warriors who in the reigns of only two kings had gone from control of an impoverished near-barbarian nation to lords of the old Persian Empire, masters of the world from Greece to India. If the Romans lacked any single leader with the tactical brilliance of Alexander, they seemed to have a great many commanders with widely differing methods, from the conventional, by-the-book generals who were reducing Sicily so methodically, to her own Marcus Scipio with his love of military machines and his preference for using foreign troops and sparing Roman legionaries for better things, to the dashing Titus Norbanus who now bid fair to become the glorious new Xenophon of his generation. The Senate would decide which general to send to take care of which situation, and this was a military advantage no other nation had ever. had.

  Rome, she thought, might well conquer the world, as Alexander had once almost conquered the world. Alexander's empire had not outlived the conqueror himself, immediately splitting into minor empires controlled by his generals, who swiftly fell to battling among themselves.

  Her own ancestor, Ptolemy, had seized Egypt as his share. Rome, she was certain, would not allow such a thing. Its outlandish republican government seemed chaotic, but it worked and it had staying power. Their unbelievable rise from beggar nation to northern empire was proof enough of that.

  So what to do in the event of Roman victory? Selene was of Greek-Macedonian descent, without a drop of native blood in her veins. But after more than two hundred years the Ptolemies had Nile water in their veins and their flesh was the soil of Egypt. They combined the qualities of the Two Lands with those of Greece. Domination by Rome would simply call for patience, and patience was an ancient Egyptian specialty.

  "Your Majesty," Scipio said, breaking into her thoughts, "I have to address a disturbing report I've received."

  "You are being uncommonly formal," she observed. "You don't normally address me by title except in public."

  "We Romans," Flaccus said with a mischievous smile, "consider capital punishment worthy of formality."

  "Capital punishment?" she said, mystified. "Who is being executed?"

  "My fellow senator here," Flaccus said, jerking a thumb toward Scipio.

  "What? You know I don't understand Roman humor. Please explain."

  "Nothing humorous about it," Marcus said: "I understand you are having statues of me erected in towns all up the Nile."

  "Naturally. You are a great man now, and Egyptians are accustomed to seeing their great men in the form of statues. They won't take them seriously otherwise."

  "I am flattered, but my fellow senators will take them as a sign of dangerous ambition and the fact will be used against me in the Forum."

  "Furthermore," Flaccus pointed out, "some of them have been placed in temples, particularly those devoted to the cult of Alexander. Marcus's enemies in the Senate will say that he aspires to become king of Egypt and receive not only royal but divine honors. Among us 'king' is a foul word, and only a triumphing general receives semi-divine honors, and that for only a day. To aspire to such things warrants a gruesome death by Roman law."

  "How silly," she said. "Why risk everything for power if you can't be king? And there is great precedent for living monarchs to be deified."

  "We have different customs, Your Majesty," Scipio said.

  "You hardly need to tell me that. Besides, I merely honor your services by ancient custom."

  "Nonetheless, the mere appearance of such ambition will be quite sufficient for the Senate to demand my head. As proof of friendship with Rome, you might be asked to deliver it personally."

  "In some ways you are a most unreasonable people. Oh, very well, I'll have the statues removed."

  "Not removed—destroyed," Marcus specified.

  "If the Egyptian people need a visible demonstration," Flaccus suggested, "why not erect tablets inscribed with words of your esteem for Rome and pledging the friendship of our two nations? If the populace truly require statues, make them statues to the genius of the Roman people."

  "Genius?" Selene said.

  "Every Roman male," Flaccus explained, "is born with a genius: a guardian spirit who protects him and advises him to right behavior. Girls are born with an equivalent spirit called sijuno. Places have genii as well: The genius loci is the spirit of that place. There is a collective genius for the people as a whole. This will be a way for you to render divine honors to your new allies without attracting the wrath of either the Senate or the gods."

  "I see. Be so good as to give my director of works instructions on how these statues should be designed. I will see that they are placed in every town in Egypt."

  "Very good of you, Your Majesty," Flaccus said. "The Senate and People of Rome will be pleased."

  Later the Romans took their leave and Selene sat brooding. The men had a way of undermining her most careful, foresightful plans and somehow turning them to their own advantage. Who would have imagined that they would detect the subtle implications of those statues? Most men, especially the military sort, never saw beyond their own aggrandizement. These seemingly blunt, practical men were uncannily attuned to the attitudes of their peers, and they considered no one, not even a queen of Egypt, to be higher than their own peerage.

  This called for further planning.

  In their quarters in what was now acknowledged as the Roman wing of the Palace, Marcus Scipio and Aulus Flaccus compared notes. They drank the Lesbian wine they had come to love, Flaccus taking three swallows for Scipio's one, in a large room filled with models of machines from the Archimedean school of the Museum.

  "I found out about the horns," Flaccus said.

  "What horns?" Marcus said, examining a bewildering contraption its designer insisted would lift whole cohorts of soldiers above the walls of an enemy city and set them down inside without having to
storm the battlements.

  "These," Flaccus said, lifting Marcus's elaborate helmet from the table. "They are ram's horns."

  "That much I figured out for myself."

  "You haven't done enough sightseeing around here."

  "I've been busy," Marcus said.

  "If you'd paid attention, you would have learned that the ram is sacred to the god Ammon. Long ago, Greek priests determined that Ammon is identical with Zeus, hence the many temples to Zeus-Ammon erected by the Ptolemies. Zeus, in these temples, is carved in the Greek fashion, but with ram's horns to identify him with the native god. I believe you've noticed that the portraits of Alexander on local coins also depict him wearing these horns."

  "That much I had noticed," Marcus said, nodding. "I wondered about that."

  "Well, wonder about this." Flaccus reached into his purse and withdrew something. It glittered in the lamplight as he flipped it through the air.

  Marcus caught it and sucked in his breath as he saw what rested in his palm. It was a magnificent golden coin, new-minted and as broad as three of his fingers held together. On its obverse side was a beautifully carved and struck masculine profile. Its features were unmistakably his own, and a curling ram's horn sprang from the rather abundant, curling hair above his ear. He raised his eyes to meet his friend's.

  "Are these in circulation?" he all but whispered.

  "I visited the royal mint this morning, luckily for you. They'd only struck a few, to show to the queen for her approval; I personally watched them melted except for this one. Then I got a sledgehammer and smashed the dies. I told the master coiner that I would see him crucified if so much as a single coin or die were held back. I even found the clay model the sculptor made for the die-cutters as a guide and destroyed that."

  "Thank you, old friend," Marcus said with great sincerity. Then: "What do you think the woman is up to? Is she deliberately trying to have me killed?"

  "I doubt it, though I wouldn't put it past her. She's not a nasty piece of work like her brother, or like Hamilcar and his sister, but royalty have their own set of priorities. Her first order of business is to secure her own reign. Next, she has to increase or at least sustain the power and prestige of Egypt. Rome is the rising power in the world, so she sees the advantages of an alliance with Rome. You represent Rome."

  "That doesn't explain giving me divine horns," Marcus pointed out.

  "I haven't told you all I found in the mint."

  "Do be so good," Marcus said, pouring himself a large goblet of Lesbian, all but sweating with relief at his near escape. Death was nothing, but execution by senatorial order, with its attendant disgrace to his family, was unthinkable.

  "In the sculptor's shop, where I found the prototype for the coin, there was another, unfinished model. This one showed you, horns and all, paired with Selene, portrayed as an old hag in the quaint local fashion."

  "What! She really has plans to make me king of Egypt?"

  Flaccus shook his head. "Nothing of the sort. She has only just become virtual queen in her own right. What monarch wishes to share power by elevating someone else to equal rank? But she knows her people will feel more secure if they see a strong man by her side. No, I think she wants you for her consort: by her side and in her bed, but definitely under her authority."

  "She already has a husband," Marcus said, "her brother."

  "Well, he's easily disposed of, isn't he?"

  Marcus shrugged. "He's nothing, I agree. But royalty only breed among themselves. I don't think she'd want a commoner like me to father her children."

  "She's royal but she's also a realist. As far as she's concerned, the scion of a very ancient family holding the highest honors of a republic is good enough. After all, your ancestors were consuls long before hers were kings. She's descended from Macedonian goatherds who tied their fortunes to the local chief and hit it lucky when one of those chiefs turned out to be Alexander the Great."

  "I hadn't thought of it that way," Marcus admitted.

  "To give her credit, I doubt that it ever occurred to her how mortally offended the Senate and the population would be by those statues and coins. She isn't accustomed to republican institutions."

  Marcus sat and pondered. "I suppose most men would find my predicament hard to comprehend. From being a minor officer and an unimportant senator I've risen to the position of the most important man in the richest nation of the world. I have the throne of Egypt almost within my grasp. Yet here I am, terrified at the implications."

  Flaccus smiled. "It does seem odd. It would be a glorious thing to conquer Egypt as a Roman general. But to accept the rulership as the gift of Egypt's queen would be treason. Worse yet, it would make you richer than the whole Senate combined, and that could not be tolerated. And here you are, in a foreign land, all alone except for me, connected to Rome only by a few letters now and then. It's a good thing your family is so powerful and influential. You'd probably have been condemned already."

  "That could change at any time," Marcus said. "If some of my relatives are killed in Sicily, or if some of our rivals should win great glory there, the balance in the Senate could change overnight. It's happened before."

  "Yes," Flaccus said, sitting at the table and pouring himself another, "our political life is always uncertain. At least it keeps things interesting. Personally, I find all this dynastic intrigue boring, compared with politics at home."

  A short while later a steward appeared and summoned them to Selene's private chambers.

  "What might this portend?" Marcus said, checking his appearance in the burnished silver mirror.

  "Maybe she's had a change of heart," Flaccus said. "She may have decided to execute us, since we don't share her taste in statuary."

  Flaccus meant it in jest, but they both knew that it could be true. Helmets beneath their arms, military cloaks swinging smartly behind them, they strode in lockstep to the queen's private quarters, where slaves opened the massive doors before them. They marched through, halted and saluted in unison before the queen, who sat at a small table.

  "Nicely done," she commended. "Now, get out of that silly armor and sit down. We have some serious talking to do."

  "If it's about those statues—" Marcus began as slaves rushed to free him from his dress cuirass.

  "Forget about the statues. I've—" She paused and wrinkled her nose. "You've been into the wine this evening."

  "We usually are, when we aren't on duty," Flaccus said, grinning. "And the best, too. Lesbian."

  Selene raised a hand and a beautiful young girl ran to her side. "Go to the wine steward and tell him to send us some Lesbian. The best, not the swill these two have been drinking."

  "You mean there's better?" Flaccus said as the girl dashed off.

  "What's happened?" Marcus demanded, sounding cold sober.

  "A ship from Tyre put in tonight. The winds have been contrary and it's the first to sail from there in almost two months. One of my agents has sent an intelligence report. It seems that your friend Titus Norbanus has reappeared, with his army intact."

  "Norbanus!" Marcus all but hissed. Their scouts had lost him when he took his army into the desert, confounding their expectations. Selene's ships stood ready to shadow his progress along the coast, but Norbanus had not obliged them. Flaccus had speculated that he would march down the coast of Arabia and seize the rich frankincense ports, but Selene's Red Sea skippers had reported no sign of him.

  "He showed up in southern Judea. He brought his army across that awful desert in fine form, just as you said he might," she conceded. "Now he's in Jerusalem, the capital of the southern kingdom, no doubt planning to capture the northern kingdom, Israel. It is the more populous and warlike of the two."

  "And Norbanus is throwing his support behind the weaker king," Marcus said.

  "You say that with a certain satisfaction," she observed.

  "It's the wise thing to do. It's the Roman thing. I can't find it in me to wish a Roman army ill, though it pains me to
give Titus Norbanus credit."

  "Now that he's reappeared," Flaccus said, "the Senate could call him back."

  "He won't report to the Senate until he's won a victory," Marcus said. "And if he's victorious, and sends home some fine loot, and has improved Rome's position in the East, the Senate won't dare call him in. My own family will vote him honors."

  "You've been right about him so far," Selene said.

  Marcus shook his head. "No. I was wrong about him for far too long. I thought he was nothing but a Forum politician who would be worthless at war. I don't dare underestimate him again."

  "If he gets things his way in Israel," Flaccus said, "what will he do next?"

  "That," said Selene, "will depend upon what Antiochus of Syria decides to do about him."

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Titus Norbanus watched his men as they practiced maneuvers with Jonathan's army. The Judeans had nothing like the professionalism of the Romans, but they were spirited and had the appearance of brave men, though only the test of battle would prove that. Best of all, they had never adopted the rigid Macedonian phalanx, so he would not have to break them of the habits inherent in that obsolete combat formation.

  The bulk of Jonathan's soldiers were peasants who fought as spearmen, providing both light and heavy infantry. The shepherds of the hill country fought unarmored, with small shields, javelins and curved knives. They were excellent scouts and skirmishers. Best of all, the country abounded in slingers and archers, arms in which the Romans were weak.