the man; entangled in garments, he let Diogenes flee. I jumped over a display of ceramic bowls, tripped on wet vegetable leaves, dodged around the end of a long row of ornament stalls, forcing a path through the crowds as best I could. When I lost sight of Diogenes, I kept going forwards and I had him in clear sight when he made what seemed to me a big mistake: ducking his head and running at a lope, he left the market on the seaward side. He set off down the enormous causeway, the heptastadion. I was so close at that point, I even yelled his name. He looked back, his face anxious, then turned away and speeded up.
The heptastadion looked long enough in daylight; it must be almost half the distance of the city north to south. I was tired, and this chase was not of my making. I decided to return to the agora and alert the soldiers. Let them catch Diogenes. Legionaries could put a roadblock on the causeway and flush out the fugitive at their leisure.
What stopped me was a dark huddle of men outside the agora gate. The rough inhabitants of Rhakotis had answered some call; they were drifting in and suddenly I saw that the gathering was being orchestrated by the two cloaked figures who had chased Diogenes. They were gesturing in his direction as he headed out across the long mole. Poor as they were, I knew the descendants of the scroll pirates would be armed - and vicious. Uncle Fulvius said they were considered very dangerous. When the first few began to make a move, I turned back and on to the causeway.
With no real plan - was I warning him, helping him or hunting him down myself? - I too began running down the heptastadion after Diogenes.
It was a serious hike. The mole was a man-made granite structure, easily as long as its name said: seven stades. At least it was good underfoot. On it ran a decent road, well built to take the fuel convoys for the Pharos and the many daily tourists. Now, in the dark, it seemed almost deserted. Diogenes took it steadily. So did I. So too did the desperadoes behind us. To anybody watching from the shore, or from the packed vessels in the huge Western and Eastern Harbours, we must have looked strung out like a group of athletes in a Pan-Athenian race stadium. We adopted that steady, long-distance pace marathon runners have, saving ourselves at this stage, nobody yet making his move to overtake.
It was a wonderful night. A cool breeze was in our faces, the sky now dark overhead but fizzing with a multitude of tiny stars. Thousands of ships were moored to right and left of us, dark hulks whose rigging made interminable noises, their bumboats splashing and bumping against them in the gently lapping harbour waters. Occasional cries sounded from the dark shore or indignant seabirds let out squawks as their privacy was disturbed. It was too late for casual strollers. If there were lovers or fishermen out there in the gloom, they lay low and kept quiet. On the far side of the Eastern Harbour, I made out buildings faintly lit - the palaces, administrative quarters and other monuments where no one made economies in lamp oil. Any junkets, recitals or concerts would now have ended. Only night-watchmen would be walking the silent marble corridors, though perhaps in some lonely room, by light from a fine wax candelabrum, the Prefect wrote his interminable reports on nothing, to let the Emperor believe he did some work.
I could have been a clerk. I could have allocated sacks and scrawled on dockets. I really could have been a poet. I would have been a poor man, with starving children, but danger would never have approached me . . .
I stopped thinking.
Down seven stadiums’ length we ran, until breathing hurt my chest and my legs felt as heavy as waterlogged wood. I reached Pharos Island. Everywhere was dark. I could no longer see Diogenes. The road forked. Somewhere to the left was a Temple of Poseidon, the great sea god of Greece and Rome, guarding the Western Harbour’s entrance. To the right lay another temple, that of Isis Pharea, the Egyptian protectress of ships. Beyond her, was stationed the Lighthouse, forming the mighty endstop. I went right. The Lighthouse, which must be manned at night, seemed the less lonely destination.
Pharos Island was a curved rocky outcrop, far enough beyond the city to feel like a wild citadel out in the thundering seas that famously beat upon the long, low shores of Egypt. Here, Homer said, Menelaus and Helen were beached during their journey home after the fall of Troy; at that time they found only a lonely fishing village on the island, with seals basking on the rocks. Apart from the Lighthouse, the place seemed uninhabited now, though I could not bank on it.
At the Temple of Isis, I glanced in just in case the fugitive had sought sanctuary. All lay still. No parades of priests in long white robes, no sistrums sounding, no chants. An enormous statue of Isis, big-breasted and striding forwards, held a swelling sail in front of her to symbolise catching the winds for sailors’ benefit. The dim, lonely interior began to unnerve me. I left.
Ahead of me rose the enclosure for the great tower. The Pharos itself had been built as a tall, slim eagerly sought landmark for sailors to aim at from far away, one clear point in an otherwise famously unmarked coastline. It was taller than other lighthouses, perhaps the tallest structure in the world - fully five hundred feet. The walls of its square enclosure were dwarfed by the Pharos within, though when I crept up to one of the long landward sides I found those walls were formed of enormous ramparts with huge gates and corner towers.
Helena had told me how the entrepreneur who organised the twelve years of building had sneakily outwitted a regulation that forbade leaving his personal mark. He had an inscription carved on the eastern walls; on a covering layer of plaster he proclaimed the customary praise for the Pharaoh: when the weather-beaten plaster ultimately peeled off, black twenty-inch letters said:
The Pharos was a civic building, frequented by workers who tended the fire and even by sightseers. Its entrance was occupied by only a couple of Roman soldiers. Diogenes had got past them. The guards were chatting with their boots on a table when I burst in. I introduced myself as an imperial agent, assured them I was neither drunk nor crazy, and warned them to expect trouble. One, named Tiberius, made an effort to appear alert.
‘An unruly crowd is galloping here from Rhakotis. Call for backup!’ I ordered. ‘Send your oppo if you have to - can you communicate with the mainland?’
‘We
‘Not sure - lock up, if you can.’
‘Oh I can lock up, tribune - though I’ll be locking in the workers who mostly come from Rhakotis themselves.’
‘Do your best.’
I limped through the gatehouse to the vast courtyards, where forty-foot-high statues of pharaohs and their queens in colossal pairs dominated the scene. Movement caught my eye: a dwarfish figure I thought was Diogenes. He was climbing the huge ramp into the main tower.
The entrance door was set a couple of storeys above ground level, for defensive reasons. A long ramp, supported on arches, led steeply up. When I myself reached the top, gasping, I found that a wooden bridge crossed from the ramp to the door. I was already feeling afraid of heights - and I had hardly started yet. The doorway was nearly forty feet high, its architraves faced in classic pink Egyptian granite. The same pink granite had been used elsewhere, an aesthetic contrast to much of the rest of the building, which was composed of titanic blocks of white, grey-veined Aswan marble.
The first tier of the building was an enormous square structure, aligned to the four quarters of the compass. Looking up, I could see it was topped by a huge decorated cornice that seemed to replicate the waves that I could hear pounding the outer walls, with massive tritons blowing their horns from each corner. This great tower tapered slightly, for stability. Above it stood a second tier, which was octagonal, and high above that, the circular fire tower, crowned with a tremendous statue. Row after row of rectangular windows must light the interior; I could not stop to count but it looked as though there might be nearly twenty floors in the first tier alone.
When I went inside I found that the interior was a vast space dominated by a central core that bore the weight of the upper storeys. There was what seemed to be accommodation for the keepers just inside the door. They resented disturbance, but unlike the soldiers they could pretend not to understand any languages I tried out. I could get no sense out of them.
I knew the basement housed stores for arms and corn. This place was vast enough to house several legions, if threatened. But currently there was no permanent garrison.
