The Venus Throw (5 page)

It had been some time since I had conversed at length with a philosopher. I had forgotten how mach they loved to talk, even more than politicians, and not always to the point. We had rambled far from the purpose of Dio’s visit. It was beginning to grow chilly in the garden.

“Come, let’s go back into the house. If the brazier is too hot, I’ll have the serving girl bring you some cool wine.”

“Heated wine for me,” Trygonion said, shivering.

“Yes, more of your very fine wine,” Dio murmured. “I’m quite thirsty.”

“Hungry, as well?” I said. My own stomach rumbled.

“No!” he insisted. But as he stepped through the doorway he tripped and stumbled, and when I reached out to steady him I felt him trembling.

“When did you last eat?”

He shook his head. “I’m not sure.”

“You can’t remember?”

“Yesterday I dared to take a walk outside, disguised as you see me now, and bought some bread in the market.” He shook his head. “I should have bought more to eat this morning—but of course someone could have poisoned it while I slept . . .”

“Then you’ve eaten nothing at all today?”

“The slaves tried to poison me at the last place I stayed! Even at the house of Titus Coponius I can’t feel safe. If one man’s slaves can be bribed to kill a houseguest then so can another’s. I eat nothing unless I see it prepared with my own eyes, or unless I buy it myself in the markets where it could not possibly have been tampered with.”

“Some men have slaves to taste their food for them,” I said, knowing the practice was especially common in Dio’s Alexandria, where the inbred, rival monarchs and their agents were forever attempting secretly to do away with one another.

“Of course I had a taster!” said Dio. “How do you think I escaped the attempt to poison me? But the problem with tasters is that they must be replaced, and my stay in Rome has exhausted my resources. I don’t even have money to make my way back to Alexandria once the weather warms and the sailing season begins.” He stumbled again and almost fell against the brazier.

“But you’re faint with hunger!” I protested, gripping his arm and steering him toward a chair. “I insist that you eat. The food in my house is perfectly safe, and my wife—” I was about to add some extravagant estimation of Bethesda’s culinary skins, but having just been praised as a seeker of truth I said instead, “My wife is not at all a bad cook,
especially when she prepares dishes in the Alexandrian style.”

“Your wife cooks?” said Trygonion. “In such a grand house as this?”

“The property’s more impressive than my purse. Besides, she likes to cook, and she has a slave to help her. Here she is now,” I added, for in the doorway stood Bethesda.

I was about to say more by way of introduction, but the look on her face stopped me. She looked from Dio to Trygonion, then back at Dio, who in his faint seemed hardly to notice her, then at me, all with a scowl that after thirty years of living with her I could not account for. What had I done now?

“Diana told me that you had visitors,” she finally said. Her old Egyptian accent asserted itself and her tone was even haughtier than usual. She scrutinized my visitors so harshly that Trygonion nervously dropped his eyes, and Dio, finally taking notice of her, blinked and drew back as if he had looked into the sun.

“Is something wrong?” I said, secretly grimacing at her with the side of my face. I thought this might make her smile. I was mistaken.

“I suppose you want to eat something,” she said in a flat voice. The way she twisted her mouth would have spoiled the looks of a less beautiful woman.

Ah, that was it, I thought—she’d been in the doorway longer than I’d realized and had overheard my qualified endorsement of her culinary skills. Even so, a mere lifting of her eyebrow would have sufficed to express her displeasure. Perhaps it was the fact that I had packing to do for a trip the next day and was leaving the work to her while I entertained visitors in my study—and dubious visitors at that. I took another look at Dio, with his rumpled stola and clumsy makeup, and at Trygonion, who played with his bleached hair and nervously fluttered the folds of his toga under Bethesda’s harsh gaze, and saw how they must appear to her. Bethesda
acquiesced long ago to the parade of disreputable characters through our house, but she has never hidden her disdain from those she dislikes. It was dear that she thought very little of the Egyptian ambassador and his companion.

“Something to eat—yes, I think so,” I said, raising my voice to capture my visitors’ attention, for they both seemed spellbound by Bethesda’s stare. “For you, Trygonion?”

The little gallus blinked and managed to nod.

“And for you, too, Teacher—I insist! I won’t allow you to leave my house without taking some food to steady you.”

Dio bowed his head, looking tired and perplexed, trembling with agitation and, no doubt, hunger. He muttered something to himself, then finally looked up at me and nodded. “Yes—an Alexandrian dish, you said?”

“What could we offer our visitors? Bethesda, did you hear me?”

She seemed to wake from a daydream, then cleared her throat. “I could make some Egyptian flatbread . . . and perhaps something with lentils and sausage . . .”

“Oh yes, that would be very good,” said Dio, staring at her with an odd expression. Philosopher he might be, but hunger and homesickness can addle the mind of any man.

Suddenly Diana appeared at Bethesda’s side. Dio looked more confused than ever as he gazed from mother to daughter. Their resemblance is striking.

Bethesda departed as abruptly as she had appeared. Diana lingered for a moment and seemed to mimic her mother’s scowl. The longer I live with a woman the more mysterious the experience becomes, and now that there are two of them in the household, the mystery is doubled.

Diana turned on her heel and followed her mother with the same quick, haughty stride. I looked at my guests. In comparison to comprehending a woman, I thought, comprehending another man—even a philosopher in a stola or a gallus who had given up his sex—was really not so difficult.

The serving girl brought us wine and some crusts of bread
to stave off our hunger until the meal was ready. A chili had crept in from the garden, so I called on Belbo to stoke the brazier while I closed the shutters. I glanced outside and saw that twilight had descended on the atrium, casting the face of Minerva into inscrutable shadow.

With more wine in his stomach, as well as a bit of bread, Dio at last found the fortitude to recount the events which had reduced him to such a state of uncertainty and fear.

*
Catilina’s Riddle
(St. Martin’s Press, 1993).

B
est to begin at the beginning,” sighed Dio, “insofar as that’s possible with such a twisted tale. You know something of the story already—”

“Refresh my memory,” I said.

“Very well. All my life, Alexandria has been in constant political upheaval. The members of the royal Ptolemy clan wage unending warfare against each other. For the people of Alexandria, this has meant bloody massacres and crushing taxes. Time and again the people have risen up to drive ruler after ruler out of the capital. One Ptolemy goes into exile, another takes his place—I won’t recite the list. Whoever is winning occupies Alexandria, with its great granaries and royal treasury. Whoever is losing flees to Cyprus and plots his return. Fortunes reverse and the rulers change places, while the people endure: I forget which Ptolemy was on the throne when you were in Alexandria, Gordianus—”

“Alexander, I believe.”

“Yes, that’s right; a couple of years later he was chased out of the city by an angry mob and died in suspicious circumstances. Then Alexander’s brother Soter took the throne. Eight years later Soter died, leaving no legitimate sons. That was twenty-four years ago.”

Dio put his fingertips together. “The only legitimate male
heir of Ptolemaic blood was Soter’s nephew, named Alexander like his father. He happened to be residing hem in Rome at the time of Soter’s death, under the dictator Sulla’s protection; this is where Rome first enters the story. Backed by Roman diplomacy—and by funds borrowed from Roman bankers—Alexander II returned to Egypt to claim the throne. To do so he had to marry his aunt, Soter’s widow, because she refused to step down as queen. Marry her he did—and summarily murdered her. The queen had been well liked. Her death ignited the fury of the mob.”

“The same mob which rioted over the death of a cat?” Trygonion sniffed. “I shudder to imagine what they did over the murder of a popular queen!”

“You anticipate the story,” said Dio, slipping into his lecturing voice. “Alexander II then announced a rise in taxes so that he could repay his Roman backers. That was the final spark. Nineteen days after he ascended the throne, the new king was dragged from the royal palace and murdered by the mob. They tore Win limb from limb.”

It was tales such as this which Romans like to cite to make themselves feel proud of the relative civility of our republic. As a young man I had admired the Alexandrians’ passion for polities, though 1 could never accustom myself to their propensity for sudden, extreme violence. Alexandrian healers peddle a poultice with the Egyptian name “cure-for-a-human-bite-which-draws-blood,” and most households keep a supply on hand—a fact which says much about the Alexandrians.

“Now we come to the beginnings of the current crisis—the Egyptian situation, as you call it, Gordianus. After the brief and inglorious reign of their cousin Alexander II, two of Soter’s bastards came forward to press their claim for the throne.”

“Brave men!” quipped Trygonion.

“One bastard took Cyprus. The other took Egypt, and has sine reigned for twenty years—proof that a man can
keep himself on a throne without possessing a single kingly virtue. His full name in the Greek”—Dio took an orator’s breath—“is Ptolemaios Theos Philopator Philadelphos Neos Dionysos.”

“Ptolemy, God: Father-Lover, Brother-Lover, the New Dionysus,” I translated.

Dio curled his lip. “In Alexandria, we simply call him Ptolemy Auletes—the Flute-Player.”

“The Piper!” Trygonion laughed.

“Yes, King Ptolemy the Piper,” said Dio grimly, “whose only known accomplishment is his skill on the flute, which he loves to play day and night, sober or drunk. He stages choruses in the royal palace and plays the accompaniment. He debuts his own compositions at diplomatic diners. He organizes contests and pits his talent against common musicians. How did Egypt ever deserve such a ruler? He epitomizes and exaggerates all the baser qualities of his decrepit line—indolent, self-indulgent, luxury-loving, licentious, lazy . . .”

“He should have been a gallus rather than a king,” laughed Trygonion.

Dio looked at him sidelong. “I am compelled to agree with you.”

“I remember something Cicero said about him in a speech,” I said. “ ‘Nearly everyone agrees that the man who occupies the throne of Egypt today neither by birth nor in spirit is like a king.’ And there are those who say the Piper’s reign is illegitimate and always has been, because of a will that was made by his unfortunate predecessor.”

“Ah, yes, and there you put your finger upon the heart of the matter,” said Dio. “Shortly after the death of Alexander II at the hands of the mob, from the very start of King Ptolemy’s reign, a rumor began to circulate to the effect that Alexander II had left a will, bequeathing all of Egypt to the Senate and people of Rome.”

Trygonion raised his eyebrows. “A splendid prize! The
granaries! The treasure house! The crocodiles! But surely no one could believe such a tale. Such generosity is preposterous.”

Dio sighed, exasperated. “You show your ignorance of both politics and history, gallus. Preposterous as such an idea may be, it is not without precedent. Attalus of Pergamum bequeathed his kingdom to Rome over seventy years ago; it became a province of the empire and to this day supplies the people of this city with subsidized grain. Forty years ago Apion left Cyrene to Rome; Apion was a Ptolemy and Cyrene was once a part of Egypt. And less than twenty years ago Bithynia was left to Rome by its last king.”

“But why would any king do such a thing?” asked Trygonion.

“To save his country from the bloodshed of a disputed succession; to spite his presumptive heirs; to protect his people from being conquered by rival kingdoms even more oppressive than Rome; to bow to the tide of Roman expansion.” Dio sighed. “In my lifetime, Rome has gained Pergamum, Cyrene and Bithynia by inheritance, and Pontus and Syria by conquest. Two years ago Rome seized Cyprus without a skirmish; King Ptolemy’s brother committed suicide. Rome has overrun the East. Of all the kingdoms that grew out of the empire of Alexander the Great, only one remains: Egypt.”

“And now the rumors are circulating again, about a will made by Alexander II bequeathing Egypt to Rome,” I said. “King Ptolemy’s sleep must be uneasy.”

Trygonion nodded sagely. “I wouldn’t care to be the slave who has to change his bed sheets.”

“Vulgar, vulgar,” Dio muttered through clenched teeth. “Rome now dominates the East. This is a fact which no one denies. But the people of Egypt demand a ruler who will resist that domination. Our land was ancient beyond imagining even before Alexander the Great came and founded Alexandria. The kingdom he established flourished
with beauty and learning while Romulus and Remus were infants suckling the she-wolf. We have no need of Roman ways or Roman government. But instead of standing firm against Roman domination, King Ptolemy quivers with fright and offers whatever concessions are demanded of him. The people of Alexandria demand that he redeem Cyprus from Roman rule and restore it to the kingdom; instead he plays host to the Roman commissioner sent to plunder the island. To quiet talk about the alleged will, he gives a ‘gift’ of thirty-five million denarii to Caesar and Pompey, so that Caesar can bribe the Roman Senate and Pompey can pay off his own troops. The bill is passed along to the people of Egypt in the form of higher taxes. Our taxes go directly into the pockets of Roman senators and soldiers—we might as well be a Roman province! And what does King Ptolemy receive in return? A tentative acknowledgment by the Roman Senate of his legitimacy as king, and a plaque set up on the Capitoline Hill, inscribed to the honor of Ptolemaios Theos Philopator Philadelphos Neos Dionysos, ‘Friend and Ally of the Roman People.’ To be a friend and ally is all very well, but to pay for the privilege he bleeds his own people white with taxes. The people’s anger finally drove Ptolemy to flee the city, fearing for his life. He fled all the way here to Rome, where Pompey put him up in a great rambling villa with a vast household of slaves to serve him.”