“The view from here is extraordinary,” she said, changing the subject. And indeed it was. The Paneum was not exactly a lofty eminence, but Alexandria was so flat that no great altitude was required to see all of it. I resumed my character of tour guide.
“The Palace complex you know by now,” I said. “Over there”—I pointed to the southeastern section of the city—“is the Jewish Quarter. It is said that there are more Jews in Alexandria than in Jerusalem.” I pointed to the western side of the city, dominated by the immense bulk of the Serapeum, a single temple that rivaled the entire city Museum complex in size. “That’s the Rakhotis, the Egyptian quarter, so called because there was a native town of that name when Alexander founded the city here. The city is cut up into perfectly rectangular blocks, and these in turn form greater blocks, each named for one of the letters of the Greek alphabet.”
“It’s so odd,” Julia said, “being in a city all made up of straight lines and right angles. I suppose it contributes to public order.”
“I feel the same way,” I said. “It’s like being in a city planned by Plato.”
“Plato favored circles,” she informed me. “But I doubt that circles work very well in city planning. What’s all that beyond the city wall to the west?”
“That’s the Necropolis. They’re very keen on tombs in Egypt. All burial grounds are on the west bank and necropolises are always to the west of the cities. I suppose it’s because that’s where the sun goes down. People have been dying for a number of centuries in Alexandria, so the Necropolis is almost as big as the city itself.”
“And yet Alexandria has been here for a tiny span of time, by Egyptian standards. According to Herodotus, the list of Pharaohs goes back for nearly three thousand years. Even Rome is an infant by comparison. Do you think Rome will last as long?”
“Of course,” I said. Ridiculous question.
But even the most pleasant day must give way to evening, and this one was committed to the banquet at the Museum. We returned to the Palace to bathe and change raiment. A welcome custom among the Romans in Alexandria was to dispense with the cumbersome toga when dining out, wearing instead the light, casual synthesis. The practice was so eminently practical that Caesar introduced it to Rome a few years later. Since by that time Caesar was arbiter of all that was correct, it caught on.
We were carried through the cool evening to the Museum, our body slaves walking behind us, carrying our dining needs. There was quite a crowd of slaves, as Fausta and Berenice were among us. I nudged my bearers to trot up alongside the litter shared by these two.
“How did the flogging go?” I called across to Fausta.
“It was enthralling!” she said. “There were at least a hundred of the priestesses dancing before the statue of Baal-Ahriman, and before the service was over, some of them passed out from shock and blood loss.”
“That sounds like more fun than a Saturnalia riot,” I said, ignoring Julia’s elbow, which nearly cracked one of my ribs. “I wish we had entertainment like that in the Roman temples.”
“It was a very proper religious ceremony,” Berenice insisted. “The Holy Ataxas has revealed the sublime nature of the great god, and the value of religious ecstasy in his worship. During the holy trance, one enters mystic communion with the divinity. The Holy Ataxas has promised that, when his followers have achieved the perfection of devotion, the god will speak to us.”
“Speak?” I said. “You mean, manifest himself in some mystical fashion, as gods have been wont to do?”
The princess shook her head. “No, he will speak, in his own voice, and all will be able to hear.”
“Fascinating,” I mumbled, astonished as always by the unplumbable depths of human gullibility. At last I yielded to Julia’s elbow and sat back in the litter.
“It is not socially correct to ridicule someone else’s religion!” she hissed when the others were out of earshot.
“I wasn’t ridiculing,” I protested. “I merely asked some questions. Besides, this is not a true religion. It’s a foreign cult. And no educated person, whatever his nation, should lend credence to such fraudulent drivel.”
“So what? She is a princess, and certain allowances are always made for royalty. It’s not as if this were Rome and Ataxas were challenging Jupiter for supremacy.”
In such deep theological discussion did we pass the time as our bearers sweated our way to the Museum. The litter lurched a bit as they carried us up the great stairway; then they deposited us in the anteroom of the dining hall. There we were greeted by the luminaries of the place. Which is to say that they groveled to Berenice and graciously acknowledged us as part of her entourage.