The Temple of the Muses(4)

“Them again,” Rufus said disgustedly.

“In Rome they’d be driven from the city,” said an embassy secretary.

“Are they Maenads?” I asked. “It seems an odd time of year to be holding their rites.” I noticed that a number of them were brandishing snakes, and that now there were a number of young men among them, shaven-headed youths with the expression of one who has just been struck sharply at the base of the skull.

“Nothing so respectable,” Rufus said. “These are followers of Ataxas.”

“Is that some local god?” I inquired.

“No, he’s a holy man out of Asia Minor. The city’s full of his kind. He’s been here a couple of years and acquired a great horde of these followers. He works miracles, foretells the future, makes statues speak, that sort of thing. That’s another thing you’ll find out about the Egyptians, Decius: They’ve no sense of decency when it comes to religion. No dignitas, no gravitas; decent Roman rites and sacrifices have no appeal to them. They like the sort where the worshippers get all involved and emotional.”

“Disgusting,” sniffed the secretary.

“They look like they’re having fun,” I said. By now a great litter was crossing the street, even higher than ours, carried by yet more of the frenzied worshippers, which couldn’t have done much for its stability. Atop it was a throne on which sat a man who wore an extravagant purple robe spangled with golden stars and a tall headdress topped by a silver crescent moon. Around one of his arms was wrapped a huge snake and in the other he held a scourge of the sort one uses to thrash recalcitrant slaves. I could see that he had a black beard, a long nose and dark eyes, but little else. He stared slightly ahead as if unaware of the churning frenzy being staged on his behalf.

“The great man himself,” Rufus sneered.

“That’s Ataxas?” I asked.

“The very same.”

“I find myself wondering,” I said, “just why a procession of high officials gives way to a rabble that would have been chased from Rome with Molossian hounds at their heels.”

Rufus shrugged. “This is Alexandria. Under this skin of Greek culture, these people are as priest-ridden and superstitious as they were under the Pharaohs.”

“There is no shortage of religious charlatans in Rome,” I pointed out.

“You’ll see the difference before you’ve been at court for very long,” Rufus promised.

When the frantic procession was past, we resumed our stately progress. I learned that the street we were on was the Canopic Way, the main east-west thoroughfare in Alexandria. Like all the others, it was straight as a chalk-line and ran from the Necropolis Gate in the west to the Canopic Gate in the east. In Rome, it was a rare street where two men could pass each other without having to turn sideways. On Canopic two litters such as ours could pass easily, while leaving plenty of room for pedestrian traffic on either side.

There were strict rules regarding how far balconies could protrude from the facades of buildings, and clotheslines over streets were forbidden. This in its way was refreshing, but one raised in Rome acquires a taste for chaos, and after a while all this regularity and order became oppressive. I realize that it seems a good idea at first, laying out a city where no city has been before, and making sure that it does not suffer from the ills that afflict cities that just grew and sprawled like Rome. But I would not care to live in a city that was a veritable work of art. I think this lies at the heart of the Alexandrians’ reputation for licentiousness and riotous living. One forced to live in surroundings that might have been devised by Plato must seek relief and an outlet for the human urges despised by philosophers. Wickedness and debauchery may not be the only answers, but they are certainly the ones with the widest appeal.

In time we turned north along a great processional way. Ahead of us were several clusters of impressive buildings, some of them within battlemented walls. As we proceeded northward, we passed the first of these great complexes on our right.

“The Museum,” Rufus said. “It’s actually a part of the Palace, but it lies outside the defensive wall.”

It was an imposing place, with wide stairs ascending to the Temple of the Muses, which gave the whole complex its name. Of far greater importance than the Temple was the cluster of buildings surrounding it, where many of the world’s greatest scholars carried on their studies at state expense, publishing papers and giving lectures as they pleased. There was nothing like it in all the world, so it took its name from its temple. In later years, other such institutions, founded in imitation, were also called museums.