Alexandria

the cold desire to kill.

Faculty matters were as boring as you think and went on twice as long as you imagine is possible. The Museion had no set teaching programme, which at least saved us endless wrangling between hidebound devotees of an Old Syllabus and thrusting exponents of some New; nor did they nitpick about removing the works of one old minor philosopher nobody had ever heard of in favour of another nonentity whose name would make the scholars groan. Philadelphion indulged in a ramble about how they ought to try to deter scholars’ parents from approaching them full of unwise hopes. ‘Better if they just send gifts!’ commented Nicanor, the lawyer, cynically. The Director bemoaned the low standard of students’ handwriting; he beefed that too many were so wealthy they were submitting theses that had been copied out for them by scribes - which increasingly meant that the scribes had really done the work. Philetus cared less that the students were cheating than that the scribes - mere slaves - were being permitted to acquire knowledge. Apollophanes boasted snidely that his scholars could not cheat because they had to declaim philosophy in front of him. ’If what they have to say is interesting enough to keep you awake!’ scoffed Nicanor, implying with legal subtlety that it was not just the students in the philosophy faculty who were tedious.

Timosthenes wanted to talk about hosting public lectures, but they all pooh-poohed that.

The budget was dispatched briskly. The astronomer, Zenon, with his watching brief over mathematics, presented the accounts to the meeting, without any explanations. He just handed them round, then gathered them straight back in. Nobody else understood the figures. I tried to snaffle a set, but Zenon whipped all the copies away fast. I wondered if there was a reason. Helena wrote Money??? on her notes. After a moment she drew a circle around it for added emphasis.

Acquisitions had to be deferred because Theon was dead. However, Timosthenes reported on book matters at the Serapeion, which we deduced was an overspill library; it sounded well run. He offered to cover Theon’s responsibilities at the Great Library on an ad hoc basis, but Philetus was too suspicious to let him. It was clear from Timosthenes’ understated way of speaking, and his grasp of his own report, that he would have been a good stand-in. Philetus therefore feared him as a threat to his own position; nor would he appoint anybody else. He preferred to leave everything in limbo. Apollophanes made some flattering comment that it was ‘wise not to over-react, wise not to be precipitous’ (these carefully balanced lumps of sycophancy helped Helena and me to identify Apollophanes as the Director’s toady). Everyone else at the meeting slumped despondently. It looked habitual.

They skipped discipline, so we never found out who Nibytas was or what he had done. Well, not that day.

There was absolutely no need to have the Head of Medicine appointment on the agenda every day, other than to allow Philetus to fidget pointlessly over a matter that had already been resolved. Philadelphion stifled a yawn and Timosthenes let himself close his eyes briefly in despair. A candidate had been chosen and appointed. He was on his way by sea. I asked where he was coming from: Rome. That seemed a radical move, until I heard he had trained in Alexandria: Aedemon, who worked for the well-to-do in Rome. Amazingly, Helena and I knew him, though we kept quiet. Association with us could damn the man before he stepped ashore.

When they reached the appointment of a new Librarian, everyone sat up. Waste of effort: Philetus only mumbled half-hearted regret over Theon. He made much of his own important role in composing a new shortlist for the post. He had no timescale. He had no finesse either. He enjoyed himself by saying, ‘Some of you will be considered!’ with a mischievous twinkle that made me feel ill. ‘Others may be surprised to find themselves omitted.’ He managed to suggest that those who slighted him need entertain no hopes.

Philetus sent out a clear invitation to engage in gruesome flattery and to give him expensive dinners. It stank. Still, Helena reminded me that in most of public life, in Rome too, that is how things work.

The discussion of the Librarian’s post took less time than an endless wrangle under Any Other Business about some students wanting to produce a version of Aristophanes’ play Lysistrata. The Board’s objections were not to its saucy language or its dangerous theme of ending war, nor even to its portrayal of women organising themselves and debating their own role in society. There was serious doubt about the wisdom of allowing the actors, all male, to dress in women’s clothes. No one mentioned that the play turned on withholding sex as a way for the female characters to influence their husbands. I overcame some of my boredom by looking around the board and wondering which of them even knew what sex was.

I might also have wondered whether any of these cultured beings was familiar with the play. But implying they might discuss a text they had not even read would of course be sacrilege.

The meeting broke up. It achieved nothing tangible. I had the impression that this daily torture never did.

Philetus sailed off to his room to be served mint tea. Apollophanes found an excuse to beg fawningly for a few words with his master. I was disappointed with this philosopher, who had seemed reasonable yesterday at the necropsy. That’s how it goes. Decent men demean themselves in the hunt for career advancement. Apollophanes must have known that Philetus had an inferior mind and reprehensible ethics. Yet he sucked up to the man openly, in the desperate hope of the Librarian’s job.

All of the attendees seemed demoralised. Some looked shifty too. For a great and historic institution to be so badly run and so low in spirits was doleful.

There was only one way for Helena and me to recover. We went to the zoo.

XVI

By arrangement we met Albia, who was being towed through the gardens by ]ulia and Favonia.

‘Aulus has gone to play as a student.’

‘Good for him!’ enthused his sister, heaving Favonia on to one hip in the hope that close proximity would help with controlling her.

‘He’s a tough boy,’ I reassured Albia. I put Julia into a sophisticated wrestling hold. She made a good effort at the extrication move, but as she was still not quite five, I managed to win by sheer strength. ‘Aulus won’t let a little spot of education ruin him.’

Helena flapped at me with her free wrist, bangles jingling. ‘He’s ferreting around on your behalf, I take it?’

‘Under cover with the scroll beetles. We can’t all take our ease, staring at elephants.’

The zoo did have elephants, a couple of them cute babies. There were aviaries and insect houses. They had Barbary lions, leopards, a hippopotamus, antelopes, giraffes, chimpanzees - ‘He’s got a horrible bottom!’ - and, most marvellous of all, an absolutely enormous, highly pampered crocodile. Albia was honestly entranced by everything. My infants pretended to be offhand throughout, though the marked improvement in their behaviour as they stared at the animals told its own story. Julia’s favourite was the smallest baby elephant, who tossed grass with a bad aim and trumpeted. Favonia lost her heart to the crocodile. ’I hope it doesn’t indicate her future choice in men,’ murmured Helena. ‘He must be thirty feet long! Favonia, if he munched you, it would just be like eating a sweetie for him.’

We were still stuck looking down into the crocodile pit, unable to tear our lovelorn Favonia away, when the Zoo Keeper came by. ‘His name is Sobek,’ he told my daughter gravely. ‘A god’s name.’

‘Will he eat me?’ Favonia demanded, then shouted the answer to her own question, ’No!’

Setting down the child, Helena murmured, ‘Only two, and already distrusting everything her mother tells her!’

Philadelphion went into an educational lecture. ‘We try to make him eat only fish and meat. People bring him cake, but that is bad for him. He is fifty years old and we want him to live healthily to a hundred.’

Noting his patience, Helena asked, ‘Do you have a family?’

‘Back home in my village. Two sons.’ So he had a Greek name, but was not Greek. Had he changed it for professional reasons? Uncle Fulvius had told me that the different nationalities lived peaceably together, most of the time, but at the Museion it was clear which culture ruled.

‘Your wife looks after them?’ It sounded like chit-chat, but Helena was probing. Philadelphion duly nodded.

Favonia and Julia both tried to climb the fence on the edge of the crocodile’s deep pit while we urgently instructed them to get down. ‘Will Sobek escape?’ squealed Julia. She must have noticed that inside the fence the zoo staff had a long access ramp to the deep pit, protected by metal gates.

‘No, no,’ Philadelphion assured us. As my two excitable girlies bounced about on the fence, he helped me lift them down. ‘There are two gates between Sobek and the outside. Only I and members of my staff have keys.’