Lucius looked around him with enjoyment. They were still going at a trot, a trot of mare and runners and bearers and donkey, a noisy trotting between shouting and laughing voices and cracking whips, while in the streets and squares the hucksters also shouted and laughed and swore, while the street-boys cheered and screamed for an obolus and the ibises, flapping their wings, darted away, to alight again elsewhere and act as scavengers to Alexandria.
“It is very different from Rome in every way,” thought Lucius. “It is the east.”
Yes, it was the east. It was Egypt, it was Alexandria. Never in the Forum at Rome, lively and busy though it was, never in the basilicas had Lucius beheld this ever trotting, ever hurrying tumult. It was as though everyone were pressed for time and hurrying feverishly. Processions of priests hurried; the Roman guards even, returning from the Palace after being relieved, marched with an accelerated step; and yet the numerous litters never struck against one another: they all glided at the trot of their bearers, to the right, to the left, beside one another; there was only a shouting, a din, a cursing, a cracking of whips loud enough to rouse the dead. Here was a quarrel, with violent gestures and shrill voices; there the noisy gaiety of squabbling vegetable-women and bawling vendors of watermelons; suddenly, in a rage, the women flung cabbages at the vendors’ heads and the vendors sent melons trundling between the women’s legs; the cabbages and melons rolled across the street and the crowd yelled with enjoyment, while distinguished but still trotting processions of notables in litters or on horseback made a way for themselves. The cabbages and melons rolled in front of the feet of Lucius’ bearers; and Caleb, rising in his stirrups with flapping burnous and uplifted arms, hardly holding the reins in his fingers while the mare reared on her hind-legs, poured forth a torrent of curses over the women and the hucksters … and then turned to Lucius with a pleased smile, as though all this tumult were the most ordinary morning affair in the streets of Alexandria. … Yes, that was the Egyptian character: bustle, tumult, uproar, yelling and cursing for the least thing; quarrelling for the least thing; and then everything just ordinary again, as though nothing had happened. All this in a motley whirl of colours: Rome was monotonously white and colourless beside it, Lucius thought. Here the colours glared more fiercely: the citrons, oranges and melons lay yellow and gold over the markets; and there were exotic fruits too, scarlet and vermilion. …
They came to the painters’ quarter. Troughs of used colouring-matter ran in gutters along the streets: there were rivulets of indigo, there were little waterfalls of ochre. The bearers splashed through purple and trotted on with purple-black feet. A golden whirl of dust in the morning sun powdered over these motley colours as with handfuls of the finest glittering sand. Tall buildings shot up their pillars in that glitter, seemed to shimmer, to move in that shimmer of light.
Caleb now pointed to the Acropolis, standing fortress-like, foursquare and heavy, protecting and dominating the city. Next came the Sun Gate. Outside the city-wall was a canal; along the canal ran an avenue of tall sycamores, bringing a sudden blissful calm and coolness and silver-green shadows. And now Caleb pointed to the famous lake, Lake Mareotis: it lay spread out like a sea, but was divided by isthmuses into smaller inland lakes; there were islands often bearing some temple to Aphrodite; and along the margins of the lake rose villa after villa, in royal pomp of marble-coloured villas, casting their reflections into the limpid water.
“That is where the rich hetairae live,” said Caleb, with a wink, “hetairae for people like your lordship: a prince like you can take your choice.”
Tall papyrus shot up on the lake’s edge. There were papyrus-eyots: the stalks rustled at the least breeze; and on the eyots lived the basket-makers: there were families of basket-makers; the children weaving baskets and hampers looked up and cried out for an obolus. White lotus and pink water-lilies blossomed and small gilt barges passed across the lake, with coloured awnings to them. Ibises and cranes fluttered out of the reeds.
“You must come here again in the evening, my lord,” Caleb advised, winking eagerly. “This is the place for one like your lordship to enjoy himself: at Rhacotis there are only the common women and the houses where the sailors go. But many princely nobles like to see everything at Alexandria.”
The procession trotted back through the Gate of the Sun, which made a wide breach in the city-walls, a vaulted arch above Corinthian pillars; and Caleb said:
“We are now coming to the Avenue of Pillars and to the Museum.”
Here again were the bustle, the tumult, the uproar, the shouting and cheering and cursing, the multitude, litters, horsemen, pedestrians. The Avenue of Pillars also was swarming, mainly with students, philosophers and loose women. The sun blazed down in the middle of the street; there were golden patches of light and blue-purple islands of shadow. And there was always the golden glitter of dust, as of the finest sand whirling through the air. Here were the hairdressers and barbers; here were the baths, here the tailors’-shops with their riot of colours and here the glittering jewellers’-shops and here, behind tables, stood the money-changers. There were stretches of green garden; and behind the gardens loomed the colonnades of the Museum. Close by were the Gymnasium and the Athletic School.
“Will your lordship visit the Museum?” asked Caleb, still parading his horsemanship on the Sabaean mare.
Thrasyllus thought that it would be interesting to visit
