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.
“It’s the longest bridge in the world,” I told her as we were carried across. “Almost a Roman mile.” It divided the Great Harbor to the east from the Eunostos Harbor to the west. We paused over the central arches and marveled as several ships passed from one harbor to the other without having to lower their masts.
Back in our litters, we traversed the rest of the causeway to the island of Pharos, which had its own small town, complete with several lovely temples, including the one to Poseidon and another to Isis. At the extreme eastern spit of land we climbed from our litters at the base of the lighthouse. Seen up close, it was oddly unimpressive. That was because the step-back of its construction made its great height invisible. All one could see was a rather massive wall that did not at first seem to be terribly high. We went inside and were shown the dizzying central shaft, which terminated in a tiny dot of light so far overhead that it seemed that the tower was in danger of scraping the underside of the sun. Amid a great mechanical clatter a huge basket of iron and timber was lowered at intervals to be filled with wood for the fire basket overhead. Since Egypt was so poor in native wood, most of it was shipped in from the islands and from the mainland to the west. Ashes were dumped down a chute into a waiting barge, which took them out to sea for disposal.
We turned down an offer to ride up in the wood basket and instead climbed an endless ramp that wound up the inner sides of the base. For Julia, recently arrived from the hilly terrain of Rome, it was an easy climb. I had been living the soft life and was puffing and sweating by the time we walked out onto the first terrace. Even on this lowest section of the lighthouse we stood higher than the highest temple roofs of the city. The stone spire soared interminably above us, its peak sending up smoke into the clear air. Julia leaned back and shaded her eyes, trying to see the top.
“I almost wish I’d had the courage to ride up,” she said wistfully.
“It isn’t natural for people to ascend so high,” I said. “However, if you want to climb the steps up there, I’ll wait for you here.”
“No,” she said, “the view from here is splendid enough. You can see the whole city, from the Hippodrome to the Necropolis. You can see all the way to Lake Mareotis. It’s all so orderly, like a picture painted on a wall.”
“It does seem so,” I said. “It’s hard to believe that in the midst of all that order, something very peculiar and dangerous is happening. At least Rome looks like a place where awful things are happening all the time.”
“I wouldn’t have put it that way.”
“Julia, I want to get to know Princess Berenice better.”
“Why?” she said suspiciously.
“We need to talk religion.”
That evening we were rowed from the royal harbor in the curve of Cape Lochias to the gemlike palace on the Antirrhodos Island. This was an even more frivolous place than the Great Palace, strictly a pleasure retreat, wanting even a throne room or any other place for conducting public business. Berenice was throwing another of her endless parties for the fashionable set. Ptolemy and Creticus weren’t attending, but I went, along with Julia, Fausta and a number of the embassy staff. The parties on the island were legendary because they were without even such feeble restraints as the Great Palace insisted upon.
It was in full roar when we got there, as the setting sun made an imperial purple mantle of the western sky and the torches were being kindled. Music made the evening riotous, and we were helped from our boat by pseudo-Maenads costumed, if that is the word, in leopard skins and vine leaves, wearing masks. Men dressed as satyrs chased naked nymphs through the gardens while acrobats walked on tightropes stretched between the wings of the palace.
“My father would never approve,” Julia said, wide-eyed. “But then, my father isn’t here.”
“That’s the spirit,” I commended her. “I wish Cato was here, just so I could watch him drop dead from apoplexy.” Berenice came out to greet us, leading a half-dozen tame cheetahs on leashes.
The Egyptians are fond of cats of all sorts, from lions down to the little house cats that seem to own the towns. So devoted are they to these little beasts that, when one dies, it is mourned exactly as if a member of the family had died. The punishment for killing one was the same as for murder. It seemed odd to me that people would want little lions running around the house, but in recent years they have become popular even in Rome. They are said to be good at catching mice.