ziggurat.
The walls of Babylon had been pulled down. The Hanging Gardens were in ruins. But the great ziggurat remained, rising mountainlike from the midst of the dun-colored city. Each of the seven stepped-back tiers had once been a different color. Almost all of the decorative work had been stripped away (by Xerxes when he sacked the city, and by subsequent looters), and the brick walls had begun to crumble, but enough of the original facade remained to indicate how the ziggurat must once have appeared. The first and largest tier was brick red, but the next had been dazzling white (faced with imported limestone and bitumen, I later learned), the next decorated with iridescent blue tiles, the next a riot of patterns in yellow and green, and so on. In the days of Nebuchadnezzar, the effect must have been unearthly. Amid the ziggurat’s marred perfection I noticed tiny specks here and there on its surface. It was only when I saw that these specks moved—that they were, in fact, men—that I realized the true scale of the ziggurat. The thing was even larger than I had thought.
The sun was beginning to sink, casting its lowering rays across the dusty city and bathing the ziggurat in orange light. Etemenanki, the Babylonians called it, the Foundation of Heaven and Earth. Truly, it seemed to me that so huge and strange a thing could scarcely have been created by human hands.
Antipater had similar thoughts. Standing next to me, he broke into verse:
Travel-weary and light-headed though I was, I caught Antipater’s mistake. “You told me Nebuchadnezzar built the ziggurat, not Semiramis,” I said.
“Poetic license, Gordianus! Semiramis scans better, and the name is far more euphonious. Who could compose a poem around a name as cumbersome as ‘Nebuchadnezzar’?”
* * *
As darkness fell, Darius helped us find lodgings for the night. The little inn to which he guided us was near the river, he assured us, and though we could smell the river while we ate a frugal meal of flatbread and dates in the common room, our room upstairs had no view of it. Indeed, when I tried to open the shutters, they banged against an unsightly section of the city wall that stretched along the waterfront.
“Tomorrow you see Etemenanki,” insisted Darius, who had shared our meal and followed us to the room. “What time do I meet you?”
“Tomorrow, we rest,” said Antipater, collapsing on the narrow bed. “You don’t mind sleeping on that mat on the floor, do you, Gordianus?”
“Actually, I was thinking of taking a walk,” I said.
Antipater made no reply; he was already snoring. But Darius vigorously shook his head. “Not safe after dark,” he said. “You stay inside.”
I frowned. “You assured Antipater this was a good neighborhood, with no thieves or pickpockets.”
“I tell the truth—no worry about robbers.”
“What’s the danger, then?”
Darius’s expression was grave. “After dark,
“She? Who are you talking about? Speak clearly!”
“I say too much already. But don’t go out until daylight. I meet you then!” Without another word, he disappeared.
I dropped to the floor and reclined on the mat, thinking I would never get to sleep with Antipater snoring so loudly. The next thing I knew, sunlight was streaming in the open window.
* * *
By the time we went down to eat breakfast, the sun was already high. There was only one other guest in the common room. His costume was so outlandish, I almost laughed when I saw him. The only astrologers I had ever seen were on the stage, in comedies, and this man might have been one of them. He wore a high yellow hat that rose in tiers, not unlike those of the ziggurat, and a dark blue robe decorated with images of stars and constellations sewn in yellow. His shoes were encrusted with semiprecious stones and ended in spiral loops at the toes. His long black beard had been crimped and plaited and sprinkled with yellow powder so that it radiated from his jaw like solar rays.
Antipater invited the stranger to join us. He introduced himself as Mushezib, an astrologer visiting Babylon from his native city of Ecbatana. He had traveled widely and his Greek was excellent, probably better than mine.
“You’ve come to see the ziggurat,” speculated Antipater.
“Or what remains of it,” said Mushezib. “There’s also a very fine school for astrologers here, where I hope to find a position as a teacher. And you?”
“We’re simply here to see the city,” said Antipater. “But not today. I’m too tired and my whole body aches from riding yesterday.”
“But we can’t just stay in all day,” I said. “Perhaps there’s something of interest close by.”
“I’m told there’s a small temple of Ishtar just up the street,” said Mushezib. “It’s mostly hidden from sight behind a high wall. Apparently it’s in ruins; it was desecrated long ago by Xerxes and never reconsecrated or rebuilt. I don’t suppose there’s much to see—”
“But you can’t go there,” said the innkeeper, overhearing and joining the conversation. He, too, looked like a type who might have stepped out of a stage comedy. He was a big fellow with a round face and a ready smile. With his massive shoulders and burly arms, he looked quite capable of breaking up a fight and throwing the offenders
