The Temple of the Muses (10 page)
Read The Temple of the Muses Online
Authors: John Maddox Roberts
Tags: #Fiction, #Mystery & Detective, #Historical
Incense burned in huge bronze braziers all over the temple and its courtyards. It was needed, too. Fifty bulls produce a great deal of blood when they are sacrificed, far more than the gutters and drains of the temple were designed to cope with. The incense deadened the smell and kept down the flies a bit. The heads and hides of the bulls were mounted on stakes, facing inward toward the temple.
Like most Egyptian temples, it was rather cramped inside, what with the thick walls and the usual forest of squat pillars. At the utmost end was the statue of the seated god. Baal-Ahriman was about as ugly as a god can get without turning viewers to stone. His head was that of a lion that appeared to suffer from some form of leonine leprosy. The body was that of an emaciated man with withered female breasts, a little difficult to discern because he was still wearing his cloak of bulls’ testicles. The flies were especially numerous in this inner sanctum.
“You have come to pay your respects to the great Baal-Ahriman?” I turned to see Ataxas, still draped with his snake.
“A Roman official always gives due respect to the gods of the lands he visits,” I said. I took a pinch of incense from a huge bowl and tossed it onto the coals that glowed in a brazier before the disgusting thing. The resultant puff of smoke did very little to allay the stench.
“Excellent. My Lord is pleased. He harbors only the greatest love for Rome, and would like to be numbered among the gods worshipped in the greatest city in the world.”
“I shall speak to the Senate about it,” I said, mentally vowing to start a major war before allowing his ghastly death-demon to set a diseased paw within the gates of Rome.
“That would be splendid,” he said, beaming greasily.
“Am I to understand,” I inquired, “that the god is soon to speak to the faithful?”
He nodded solemnly. “That is true. Upon several occasions of late, my Lord has come to me in visions and has told me that he will soon make himself manifest among his worshippers. He will speak forth in his own voice, requiring no intermediary.”
“I take it, then, that he will speak oracular pronouncements, which you will then interpret for the ears of the vulgar?”
“Oh, no, Senator. As I have said, he will require no intermediary. He will speak plainly.”
“Since his original home was in Asia,” I hazarded, “I presume that he will speak in one of the Eastern tongues?”
“My Lord has now made his home in Alexandria, and it is my belief that he will therefore speak in Greek.”
“And the subject of his pronouncements?” I asked.
He shrugged. “Who may know what is the will of a god, until that will is made manifest? I am but his priest and prophet. Doubtless my Lord shall say that which he deems meet for men to hear.”
Typical priestly prevarication.
“I shall look forward to his advent among men,” I assured the scoundrel.
“I shall send word to the embassy should my Lord tell me that he is preparing to speak.”
“I would appreciate that.”
“Now, please be so good as to come with me, Senator. I am sure that you have not yet seen much of our new temple.” Taking my arm, he gave me a tour of the building, explaining that the papyrus-headed capitals of the pillars were symbolic of Lower Egypt, as lotus capitals symbolized Upper Egypt. I already knew this, having taken the Nile tour, but I wanted the man in a forthcoming mood.
We passed through the back of the temple into the rear courtyard, where a feast was in progress. Great carcasses turned on spits over glowing coals. Like so many thoughtful gods, Baal-Ahriman
desired only the blood of the sacrifice, and left the flesh for his worshippers.
desired only the blood of the sacrifice, and left the flesh for his worshippers.
“I beg you to partake of our feast,” Ataxas said hospitably. “My calling forbids me the eating of flesh, but my Lord wishes his guests to enjoy themselves.”
Sweating slaves stood beside the carcasses wielding curved, swordlike knives. As the spits rotated slowly, they shaved off papyrus-thin slices of the flesh and piled them on flat loaves of Egyptian bread. Hermes looked at me longingly and I nodded. He rushed off to snatch up one of the cakes, which he brought back to me rolled up around its dripping contents. Then he dashed back to get one for himself. A slave girl brought a tray laden with wine-cups and I took one. She was barely nubile, wearing one of those delightful Egyptian slave outfits consisting of a narrow belt worn low on the hips, from which depended a tiny apron of beaded strings. Aside from that, she wore a good many ornaments. This was one fashion I knew I would never succeed in transferring to Rome.
“Excellent wine,” I commented.
“A gift from her Highness,” Ataxas explained.
It had been a long time since breakfast and I had been regretting passing up Ptolemy’s invitation to share his own, so the bread and sacrificial meat were doubly welcome.
“I take it you have heard about the murder of Iphicrates of Chios?”
He paused. “Yes, I have. It was most upsetting. Who would want to kill him?”
“Who, indeed? At Princess Berenice’s reception the other evening, I noticed that the two of you were conversing. What were you talking about?”
He looked at me sharply. “Why do you ask?”
“The king has commissioned me to investigate the murder. I was wondering if Iphicrates might have said something to indicate that he had an enemy.”
He relaxed. “I see. No, we had met at a number of royal receptions where we discussed the relative merits of our callings. He, a Greek philosopher and mathematician of the school of Archimedes, had a great disregard for the supernatural and the divine. He was known to say so loudly. We were merely carrying on a debate of long duration. I fear that he said nothing to indicate who might have had reason to kill him.” He bowed his head and passed a few moments in what appeared to be deep thought. Then: “He did say one odd thing. He said, ‘Some believe in the power of the gods, and some believe in magic, but when the kings of the East want to defy Rome, they consult with me, for in geometry lies the answer to all things.’”
“That is a curious statement,” I said.
“Isn’t it? I thought it was merely more of his philosophical pompousness, but perhaps not, eh?” He shook his head, making his long, oiled locks and curled beard sway. “Perhaps he was involved in things a philosopher ought to avoid. Now, Senator, I must prepare for the evening sacrifice. Please, stay and enjoy yourself. All that we have is yours.” He gave that fluttering, Eastern bow and left. By this time Hermes had returned to my side and was tearing away at the bread-wrapped sacrificial meat.
“What do you think of him?” I asked Hermes.
“He’s done well for himself,” Hermes said, his mouth half full.
“Have you ever eaten beef before?”
“Just scraps, out at your uncle’s country estate. It’s tough, but I like the taste.”
“Take some of the fruit and olives as well. Too much meat is bad for the digestion. But how does Ataxas impress you? It seemed to me that his Asiatic accent slipped a little while I was questioning him.” One of the priestesses gyrated by us, clashing her tiny cymbals in time to the music. Her robes were shredded and her back was colourful with red stripes from the previous day’s flogging.
“He still has chalk between his toes.”
I paused in the middle of a bite. “He was a slave? How do you know?”
Hermes smiled with superior knowledge. “You saw that big ear-bangle he was wearing?”
“I saw it.”
“He wears it to cover a split earlobe. In Cappadocia, a slave who runs has a notch cut out of his left earlobe.” There is a whole world of slave lore most of us never learn.
“I
T SOUNDS LIKE NONSENSE TO ME,” Julia said. We stood on the steps of the Soma, the tomb of Alexander the Great. She was beautifully dressed as a Roman lady, but she had already started to use Egyptian cosmetics. It was a bad sign.
T SOUNDS LIKE NONSENSE TO ME,” Julia said. We stood on the steps of the Soma, the tomb of Alexander the Great. She was beautifully dressed as a Roman lady, but she had already started to use Egyptian cosmetics. It was a bad sign.
“Of course it’s nonsense,” I said. “When everybody is lying, as they usually do when you’re investigating a crime, the art is to sort through the nonsense, and especially the things they
don’t
say, to find the truth.”
don’t
say, to find the truth.”
“And why are you so sure Ataxas is lying? Just because he was once a slave? Many freedmen have done well after earning their freedom, and they usually don’t brag about their former status.”
“Oh, it’s not that. But he said that they were carrying on a dispute of long standing. But I saw them together and it was the only time that evening that Iphicrates kept his voice down. During a
dispute!
You heard him. He bellowed at the top of his lungs anytime anyone questioned him in the slightest fashion.” And that
reminded me of something else: another man I would have to question.
dispute!
You heard him. He bellowed at the top of his lungs anytime anyone questioned him in the slightest fashion.” And that
reminded me of something else: another man I would have to question.
“I admit it seems unlikely,” she said. “Now what’s this I hear about you assaulting the Commander of the Macedonian Barracks? Someone was complaining to the king about it. Are you incapable of staying out of trouble, even in Egypt?”
“The man was insolent, and he tried to draw his sword on me. You can’t let foreigners get away with that sort of behavior.”
“It isn’t a good idea to make enemies, either, especially in a land where you have no stake in the status quo and where the local politics are unfathomable.”
“Cautious good sense sounds strange coming from the niece of Julius Caesar.”
“When Roman men are so reckless, sanity becomes the province of women. Let’s go inside.”
The Soma, as with so many of the marvels of Alexandria, was not a single building but rather a whole complex of temples and tombs. All of the Ptolemies were buried there, along with a number of other distinguished persons. At least, they were famous in their lifetimes. I had never heard of most of them. The Soma proper was the central structure, a magnificent house in the form of an Ionic temple that stood atop a lofty marble platform populated with an army of sculptured gods, goddesses, Macedonian royalty, soldiers and enemies. The kings Alexander had conquered were depicted on their knees in chains with collars around their necks. The roof was plated with gold, as were the capitals and bases of the columns. All was built of colorful marble drawn from all the lands Alexander had conquered.
At the entrance we found a small group of foreign visitors waiting to be shown the place. This tomb was sacred to the Ptolemies and you couldn’t just go wandering through on your own. Before long a shaven-headed priest appeared. Instantly, he caught sight of Julia and me and he hurried over to us.
“Welcome, Senator, my lady. You are just in time for the next tour.” I should hope so, I thought. You’d better not keep us waiting
out here. The others showed him their appointments. We, of course, needed no such thing. It was a mixed group: a wealthy spice merchant from Antioch, a historian from Athens, an overpainted dowager from Arabia Felix, a priest or scholar of some sort from Ethiopia, nearly seven feet tall. This sort of gathering was not at all unusual in Alexandria. We passed through the massive, gold-covered doors into the interior.
out here. The others showed him their appointments. We, of course, needed no such thing. It was a mixed group: a wealthy spice merchant from Antioch, a historian from Athens, an overpainted dowager from Arabia Felix, a priest or scholar of some sort from Ethiopia, nearly seven feet tall. This sort of gathering was not at all unusual in Alexandria. We passed through the massive, gold-covered doors into the interior.
The first thing to greet our eyes within was a huge statue of Alexander, seated on a throne and looking very lifelike but for the odd addition of a pair of ram’s horns growing from his temples. In Egypt, Alexander was worshipped as the son of the god Ammon, whose tutelary animal was the ram. The boy-king was depicted as about eighteen years old, his long hair overlaid with gold. His eyes were extraordinarily blue, an effect I later learned the artist had achieved by inlaying the irises with layer on layer of granulated sapphire.
“Alexander of Macedon, surnamed the Great,” the priest intoned, his voice echoing impressively, “died at Babylon in his thirty-third year, the 114th Olympiad, when Hegesias was Archon of Athens.” I tried to remember who the Consuls of that year might have been, but I couldn’t. “Before he went to join the immortal gods, he conquered more land than any other man in history, adding to the empire of his father the entirety of the Persian Empire and miscellaneous other lands. When he died his lands stretched from Macedonia to India to the Nile cataracts.” Match that, Pompey, I thought.
“He died in mid-June,” the priest went on, “and since the godlike Alexander had no adult heir, his body lay in state for a month, during which his generals settled the future of the Macedonian Empire. Then skilled Egyptians and Chaldeans were called in to embalm his mortal remains.”
“They left him there for a
months?
” I said. “In
June?
In
Babylonia?”
months?
” I said. “In
June?
In
Babylonia?”
Julia dug an elbow into my ribs. “Shh!”
“Er, well, it may be that some thoughtful person drained the,
ah, bodily fluids to aid the preservation and placed the king in some cool part of the palace. In any case, undoubtedly the body of Alexander was not as that of other men. He had joined the immortals, and it is likely that, as when the corpse of Hector was dragged behind the chariot of Achilles, his fellow gods preserved his body from deterioration.”
ah, bodily fluids to aid the preservation and placed the king in some cool part of the palace. In any case, undoubtedly the body of Alexander was not as that of other men. He had joined the immortals, and it is likely that, as when the corpse of Hector was dragged behind the chariot of Achilles, his fellow gods preserved his body from deterioration.”
“I would hope so,” I said. “Must’ve made the whole palace uninhabitable, otherwise.” Another jab from Julia.
“The body,” the priest went on, “was swathed in Sidonian linen of the finest quality and then, as you shall soon see, was completely encased in plates of gold exquisitely wrought so as to preserve and display the exact contours of both frame and features. This was encased in a coffin, also of gold, with the spaces between filled with rare spices. The lid of the coffin, likewise of gold, was also wrought in the exact likeness of the late king.
“A funeral carriage was prepared, of a splendor never seen before or since. It was cunningly crafted to endure the shocks of travel through Asia. Its superstructure combined the elegance of Greece with the barbaric magnificence of Persia. On a throne base covered with a Tyrian carpet of fabulous weave lay the sarcophagus of Pantalic marble, carved by a master sculptor with episodes of the king’s heroic life. The sarcophagus was protected by a cover of gold, over which was spread a purple robe, heavily embroidered with gold thread. Atop this were placed the arms of the king.
“Housing the sarcophagus was a mortuary chamber ten cubits by fifteen cubits in the shape of an Ionic temple, its proportions identical to the temple in which we now stand. Its columns and roof were of gold, embellished with precious gems. At each corner of the roof stood a statue of the winged victory wrought of gold. Instead of celia walls, the temple-chamber was surrounded with a golden net, so that the king’s subjects could see his sarcophagus as the funerary procession passed by. The netting bore painted tablets, taking the place of an Ionic frieze. The tablet on the front portrayed Alexander in his state-chariot, with his Macedonian bodyguard on one side and his Persian bodyguard on the other. The tablet on one
side displayed war-elephants following the king and his personal entourage. That on the other, cavalry in battle formation. The rear tablet showed ships of war ready for battle. Golden lions stood at the entrance of the mortuary chamber.”
side displayed war-elephants following the king and his personal entourage. That on the other, cavalry in battle formation. The rear tablet showed ships of war ready for battle. Golden lions stood at the entrance of the mortuary chamber.”
I was beginning to wonder whether there was any gold left in Alexander’s empire. But there was more to come.
“Over the roof was a huge golden crown in the form of a conqueror’s wreath. As the great vehicle moved, the rays of the sun were dashed from it like the lightning of Zeus. The car had two axles and four wheels. The Persian-style wheels were shod with iron, their spokes and naves overlaid with gold, the axles terminating in golden lions’ heads, with golden arrows in their mouths.” This, I was sure, had to be the end of it. But such was not to be.
“The funeral car was drawn by sixty-four selected mules. The mules wore gilded crowns, and golden bells on each cheek, and collars of precious cloth adorned with gold and gems. The carriage was accompanied by a staff of engineers and roadmenders and was protected by a select body of soldiers. The preparations for Alexander’s last journey required two years.
“From Babylon the king traveled through Mesopotamia, into Syria, down to Damascus and then to the Temple of Ammon in Libya, where the god might behold his divine son. From there the funerary carriage was to proceed to Aegae in Macedonia, there to rest among the tombs of the former Macedonian royalty, but in crossing Egypt the procession was met by the king’s former companion, Ptolemy Soter, who persuaded the leader of the procession to allow him to perform the final rites instead, at Memphis.”
“Hijacked the body, eh?” I said. “Good for him. You wouldn’t catch me letting that much gold leave my kingdom, either.” Jab.
“The king lay at Memphis for a number of years,” the priest went on, ignoring me, “until this splendid mausoleum could be completed. Then, amid much rejoicing and solemn ceremony, the king, Alexander the Great, found his final resting place in the city named for him.”
He let us contemplate all this splendor for a while, then signaled
for us to follow him again. We entered a room where Alexander’s robes and armor were displayed, then another which held the marble sarcophagus the priest had described, along with the outer coffin with its wonderfully carved golden lid. After a few minutes of contemplation, he led us into the final chamber.
for us to follow him again. We entered a room where Alexander’s robes and armor were displayed, then another which held the marble sarcophagus the priest had described, along with the outer coffin with its wonderfully carved golden lid. After a few minutes of contemplation, he led us into the final chamber.
This was a room of relatively modest dimensions, perfectly circular, with a domed ceiling. In its middle lay Alexander, sheathed in thin, perfectly molded gold, looking as if he might wake up at any moment. After the Macedonian custom, he was laid out on a bed, this one carved from alabaster. I leaned toward Julia and whispered in her ear:
“Short little bugger, wasn’t he?”
Unfortunately, the chamber was one of the magical sort that magnifies sound. My whispered words boomed out as if shouted by a herald. The priest and the other tourists glared at us as we made our embarrassed way out, bestowing effusive thanks and proclaiming our appreciation.
“Have you been drinking early again?” Julia demanded.
“I swear I haven’t!”
I thought she was going to attack me, but she couldn’t keep it up, and by the time we fell into our litter we were both laughing helplessly.
“Must be a lot more fun in there than it looks like from out here,” Hermes said.
“To the Heptastadion!” I said, and the bearers hoisted us to their shoulders and off we went.
“Have you learned anything?” I asked Julia as we drifted through the streets.
“It’s difficult to get Alexandrian ladies to talk about anything except religion and clothes. Nobody talks about politics in a monarchy.”
“Forget the Alexandrians,” I advised. “Work on the wives or other womenfolk of the foreign ambassadors, specifically the ambassadors of those yet independent nations that fear being the next additions to Rome’s empire.”
She looked at me sharply. “What have you learned?”
“Very little,” I admitted, “but I suspect that Iphicrates, despite his protestations, ran a profitable sideline in designing weapons for our enemies or those who expect to become our enemies soon. Parthia would be a good place to start. Now that the nearer East is subdued, King Phraates is the one who has Pompey and Crassus and, forgive me, your uncle barking at the gates like so many starving Molossian hounds. The last truly rich kingdom left independent.”
“Except for Egypt,” she said.
“Egypt isn’t … well, Egypt is nominally independent, but that’s a joke.”
“Perhaps it isn’t funny to the Egyptians. They’re only poor because the recent generations of Ptolemies have been stupid. Once they were the mightiest nation in the world. The Pharaohs ruled in Egypt when the Greeks besieged Troy. What nation that has fallen from power doesn’t dream of regaining it?”
“A good question. That would explain Achillas’s interest in Iphicrates. But whatever the military gentry is up to, it’s still stuck with the Ptolemies. Everyone except Egyptians considers brother-sister marriage an abomination. Such matings seem to work well enough with horses, but not with humans. It certainly hasn’t improved the Ptolemaic line.”
“Degenerate dynasties are easily toppled by strong men who have the army behind them,” she said. Leave it to a Caesar to take the pragmatic view of power politics.
“But the Egyptians are awfully conservative. They prize their royalty even if they weren’t Egyptian to begin with. An Alexandrian mob toppled the Ptolemy before this one just because he murdered his rather aged wife, one of the Berenices. What would they do to a usurper, who wasn’t even a part of the family?”
“I’ll look into his pedigree,” she said practically. “I’ll wager he has some sort of family connection. And the traditional way for a usurper to legitimize his power is to marry into royalty. There is a selection of princesses, you’ll recall. Besides, he could ease his
way into power by acting as regent for young Ptolemy.”
way into power by acting as regent for young Ptolemy.”
Caesars can be frightening people. She had worked all this out since hearing of my run-in with Achillas and Memnon, while I was sniffing around the Serapeum, eating sacrificial beef and ogling bloody-backed priestesses. These absorbing speculations were interrupted by our arrival at the Heptastadion.
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