what I had learned from Hermes.
'A gentleman should not listen to slave gossip,' Creticus snorted.
'Slave gossip has kept me not only informed but, on more than one occasion, alive,' I retorted. 'I think this is reliable.'
We talked over the likely implications. Predictably, all bemoaned the likelihood of another son, which would complicate Roman-Egyptian relations. The gathering broke up on that sour note.
The next day I escorted Julia to the Paneum. This was one of Alexandria's more eccentric sights, an artificial hill with a spiral path ascending it and the Paneum itself at the top. It was not a true temple. That is to say, there was no priesthood, and no sacrifices were offered there. Rather, it was a shrine to the much-beloved god.
The climb up the spiral path was a long one, but it was beautifully landscaped, with the path paralleled by a strip of well-planted ground adorned with tall poplars, studded with odd little grottoes and alive with statues of Pan's woodland followers. Fauns capered, satyrs chased nymphs, dryads disported themselves all the way up the hill.
At the top was a shrine without walls, consisting of a roof supported by slender pillars, for who would confine a sylvan god like Pan within walls? Beneath the roof was a bronze statue of the god, half again as tall as a man, horned and cloven-hoofed, goat-legged, dancing ecstatically with his syrinx in one hand.
'How beautiful!' Julia said as we passed between the pillars. And then: 'Goodness!' She was staring at the god's far-famed attribute; a rampantly erect penis which, on a man, would have somewhat exceeded his forearm in size.
'Surprised?' I said. 'Every herm in every garden is similarly equipped.'
'But not so heroically,' Julia said, her eyes wide. 'I pity the nymphs.'
'Now, Fausta would have said that she envied them.' That lady had decided to spend the day among the self-flagellating priestesses of Baal-Ahriman. She had an altogether livelier breadth of interest than Julia.
'Fausta places an excessive value on physical things,' Julia said. 'Hence her interest in your odious friend Milo.'
'Milo is intelligent, eloquent, forceful, ambitious and is destined for great things in Roman politics,' I pointed out.
'Others have the same qualifications. He is also violent, unscrupulous and balks at nothing to advance himself. Also common qualities, I grant you. What makes him unique, and desirable as far as Fausta is concerned, is that he has the face and body of a god.'
'Is that his fault? And Cornelian standards are rather high in that area. In all of Rome, who is a match for Fausta but Milo?'
She snorted a delicate, patrician snort. 'Why should she bother? It's not as if they are going to be seen in public. Roman husbands won't even sit with their wives at the Circus. They do make a striking couple, though. She is so fair and delicate, he is so dark and brawny. And his bearing is as arrogant as hers, even though his birth is so much lower.'
I smiled to myself. Even Julia admired Milo, although she would never admit it directly. Virtually every woman in Rome did. Serving-girls scrawled his name on the walls as if he were some reigning gladiator or charioteer. 'Handsome Milo,' they called him, declaring that they were soon to expire of passion for him, frequently going into indecent detail. Julia would never be so shameless, but she was not immune to his charm.
'Birth no longer means much in Rome,' I said. 'Power these days is in the Tribuneship and with the Popular Assemblies. A patrician like Clodius transfers to the plebs so that he can stand for Tribune, and even your uncle Caius Julius, who is as patrician as Romulus, has become a man of the people because that's where the power is.'
'My uncle Caius wishes to restore the ancient dignity of the Senate, a task in which he says that Sulla failed. If he must go to the commons for the authority to do so, it is merely because that is how corrupt the times have become. He is willing to endure this indignity for the good of the state.'
Her family loyalty was touching, but it was misplaced. The veriest political dunce knew that Caius Julius had no interest in restoring the dignity of the Senate. Restoring the monarchy was more like it, with Caesar as king. We had no idea then how close he would come to doing it, though.
'The view from here is extraordinary,' she said, changing the subject. And indeed it was. The Paneum was not exactly a lofty eminence, but Alexandria was so flat that no great altitude was required to see all of it. I resumed my character of tour guide.
'The Palace complex you know by now,' I said. 'Over there'-I pointed to the southeastern section of the city-'is the Jewish Quarter. It is said that there are more Jews in Alexandria than in Jerusalem.' I pointed to the western side of the city, dominated by the immense bulk of the Serapeum, a single temple that rivaled the entire city Museum complex in size. 'That's the Rakhotis, the Egyptian quarter, so called because there was a native town of that name when Alexander founded the city here. The city is cut up into perfectly rectangular blocks, and these in turn form greater blocks, each named for one of the letters of the Greek alphabet.'
'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.'
