The Princess and the Pirates(55)

“I assumed he would do it the way kings always have: squeeze his subjects until they cough up the money. Egypt is a famously rich land. Surely even a Ptolemy can make something of it.”

“It is also the custom of kings,” Josephides continued, “to victimize foreigners before fellow countrymen. Nobody loves Romans; therefore, the king incurs no wrath among the Egyptians if he robs the Roman community of Alexandria.”

“It’s preposterous!” I said. “Why would King Ptolemy, who owes his throne to Rome, turn against Rome? It would be suicidal! I have met the king, gentlemen. He is a fat, old degenerate who used to play a flute in a whorehouse, but he is not stupid.”

“What is so stupid about it, Senator?” asked Antonius, the metal merchant. “When was the last time the Senate got indignant over the treatment of overseas merchants? We are equites, Senator. We are wealthy and we are often leading men in our communities; but those communities are not Rome, and our families do not serve in the Senate. People lump us together with the publicani and think we are all tax farmers. Some of us are moneylenders, and everyone hates moneylenders. When Lucullus curried favor with the barbarians by ruining the Roman moneylenders of Asia, who wept in Rome?”

“My colleague is bitter, Senator,” said Naso, the grain speculator, “but he is quite correct. Lacking the gloss of nobilitas, we are despised in Rome. Since our wealth comes not from land but from trade and hard work, we are not respectable. King Ptolemy risks very little in attacking us.”

There was much in what they said. Men of my own class committed untold villainies, but we belonged to ancient families and could count many consuls and praetors among our ancestors. Our wealth was decently inherited or wrested by force from our enemies, so we were eminently respectable, despite our frequent crimes and our ruinous ambitions.

The equites were so-called because of an archaic property qualification stating that men with wealth above a certain level were required to serve in the cavalry and supply their own horses. For centuries, though, it had been a mere property distinction. Equites could serve in the Senate if they could get elected, but for the last century, nearly all the senators had come from a tight little circle of about twenty families. Interlopers like Cicero were a great rarity. We called ourselves a republic, but in truth we formed an oligarchy as exclusive and as corrupt as any that ever ruled a Greek city-state. I was not about to acknowledge this to a pack of merchants though, especially in front of an Egyptian court eunuch.

“How great an assessment has he levied?” I demanded. “The levy has been by association rather than by individual merchant,” Brutus said. “Each of our associations have been assessed to the sum of one hundred talents in gold.”

“A stiff sum,” I commiserated.

“Per year,” Antonius added.

I winced. “For how long?”

“Until the ‘state of emergency’ is ended,” said Brutus, “which means until King Ptolemy is solvent, which means until he is dead.”

“Solvency always seems to elude him,” I agreed. “Now what about these threats?”

“Failure to deliver the stipulated sum at the proper date,” Brutus said, “will result in the arrest of the officers of the association. Failure then to render the assessment, with penalties, will be punished by a public flogging of those officers and further penalties added to the assessment. After that, any failure to pay up will be punished by beheading.”

“Ridiculous!” I said. “Photinus, what is your king thinking? Or is he thinking at all?”

“As for the special tax, Senator, it is perfectly just. After all, my king is allowing these people to trade freely in the greatest and richest port in the world. They owe him something for that. The tax would not have been necessary had Rome not been so astoundingly greedy. Your fellow senator, Gaius Rabirius, already has control of the grain revenue and several others, so His Majesty may not apply that to his debts.”

This was true enough. “And threats to imprison, flog, and execute Roman citizens? We have gone to war over far less than that.”

“Senator, you Romans tend to go to war over nothing at all. Possession of a full treasury draws the legions of Rome as a staked goat draws lions. But I think these men need have little fear on that account. It is customary for the successors of Alexander to specify the severest punishments for failure to comply with their will. It is mere form.”

He spread his pudgy palms in an appeal to reason. “What is at stake here anyway? These men, who are already rich, will be a little less rich. In the age-old fashion of merchants they will raise the price of their goods, the loss will be passed along to their customers, and they will all be as fat as ever.”