“Would you care to meet some of the great scholars?” I asked her.
“Lead on,” she said, with that maddeningly superior smile of hers. I escorted her to the ferocious-looking mathematician.
“Julia, this is the famed Iphicrates of Chios, foremost exemplar of the Archimedean School.”
His face turned to oil and he took her hand and kissed it. “Utterly charmed, my lady.” Then he turned and glared at me, an expression lent force by the Jupiter-like prominence of his forehead. “Don’t think I know you.”
“Perhaps it’s slipped your mind, what with all that deep thinking. I attended your talk on the siege of Syracuse.” I pulled this right out of the air, knowing that Archimedes had designed the defensive siege machinery of that city, but it seemed that I had struck my mark.
“Oh.” He looked confused. “Perhaps you’re right. There were a great many auditors at that lecture.”
“And I’ve read your work, On the Practical Applications of Geometry,” Julia said, looking worshipful. “Such a stimulating and controversial book!”
He grinned and nodded like one of the trained baboons. “Yes, yes. It shook up some people around here, I can tell you.” Insufferable twit, I thought. And here was Julia, mooning over him as if he were a champion charioteer or something of the sort. I pried her away from the great man and took her to meet the Librarian. Amphytrion was as gracious as Iphicrates was crude, and I had an easier time of it. Berenice swept her off to meet some perfumed fools, and I was left with the Librarian.
“I noticed you speaking with Asklepiodes,” he remarked. “Do you know him from Rome?”
“Yes, I’ve known him for years.”
Amphytrion nodded. “An estimable man, but a bit eccentric.”
“How is that?” I asked.
“Well …” He looked around to see if any eavesdroppers lurked nearby. “He is rumored to practice surgery. Cutting with the knife is strictly forbidden by the Hippocratic oath.”
“Apollo forbid it!” I said, scandalized.
“And”—he lowered his voice even further—“it is rumored that he does his own stitching, something even the lowest surgeon leaves to his slaves!”
“No!” I said. “Surely this is some scurrilous rumor spread by his enemies!”
“Perhaps you’re right, but the world isn’t what is used to be. I noticed you’ve met Iphicrates. That wild man also believes in practical applications.” He pronounced the word like something forbidden by ritual law.
Now, I knew these rumors about Asklepiodes to be true. Over the years, he had sewn up about a mile of my own hide. But he always did this in strict secrecy, because these Plato-crazed old loons of the academic world thought that it was blasphemous for a professional philosopher (and physicians accounted themselves philosophers) to do anything. A man could spend his whole career pondering the possibilities of leverage, but for him to pick up a stick, lay it across a fulcrum and employ it to shift a rock would be unthinkable. That would be doing something. Philosophers were only supposed to think.
I extricated myself from the Librarian, looked around and saw Berenice, Fausta and Julia talking to a man who wore, among other things, an enormous python. The purple robe with its golden stars and the towering diadem with its lunar crescent looked familiar. Even in Alexandria one didn’t see a getup like that every day. It was Ataxas, the future-foretelling, miracle-working prophet from Asia Minor.
“Decius Caecilius,” Berenice said, “come here. You must meet the Holy Ataxas, Avatar on Earth of Baal-Ahriman.” This, as near as I could figure it, was a combination of two if not more Asiatic deities. There was always something like that coming out of Asia Minor.
“On behalf of the Senate and People of Rome,” I said, “I greet you, Ataxas.”
He performed one of those Eastern bows that require much fluttering of the fingers.
“All the world trembles before the might of Rome,” he intoned. “All the world marvels at her wisdom and justice.”
I couldn’t very well argue with that. “I understand you have an … an establishment here in Alexandria,” I said lamely.
“The Holy One has a splendid new temple near the Serapeum,” Berenice said.
“Her Highness has graciously endowed the Temple of Baal-Ahriman, to her everlasting glory,” Ataxas said, fondling his snake.
And used Roman money to do it, I’d no doubt. This was ominous. Obviously, Ataxas was the latest in Berenice’s long chain of religious enthusiasms.
“Tomorrow we sacrifice fifty bulls to consecrate the new temple,” the princess said. “You must come.”