ALEXANDRIA.

A Novel of Marcus Didius Falco.

by Lindsey Davis.

EGYPT: SPRING AD77.

I.

They say you can see the Lighthouse from thirty miles away. Not in the day, you can't. Still, it kept the youngsters quiet, precariously balancing on the ship's rail while they looked for it. When travelling with children, always keep a little game in hand for those last troublesome moments at the end of a long journey.

We adults stood close by, wrapped up in cloaks against the breeze and ready to dive in if little Julia and Favonia accidentally plunged overboard. To add to our anxiety, we could see all the crew making urgent attempts to work out where we were as we approached the long, low, famously featureless coastline of Egypt, with its numerous shoals, currents, rocky outcrops, suddenly shifting winds and difficult lack of landmarks. We were pa.s.sengers on a large cargo boat that was making its first lumbering trip south this season; indications were that over the winter everyone had forgotten how to do this journey. The dour captain was frantically taking soundings and looking for silt in seawater samples to tell him he was near the Nile. Since the Nile delta was absolutely enormous, I hoped he was not such a poor navigator he had missed it. Our sailing from Rhodes had not filled me with faith. I thought I could hear that salty old sea G.o.d Poseidon laughing.

Some Greek geographer's turgid memoirs had supplied oodles of misinformation to Helena Justina. My sceptical wife and tour-planner reckoned that even from this far out you could not only see the Lighthouse, shining like a big confusing star, but also smell the city wafting across the water. She swore she could. True or not, we two romantics convinced ourselves that exotic scents of lotus oil, rose petals, nard, Arabian balsam, bdellium and frankincense were greeting us over the warm ocean - along with the other memorable odours of Alexandria, sweaty robes and overflowing sewage. Not to mention the occasional dead cow floating down the Nile.

As a Roman, my handsome nose detected this perfume's darkest under-notes. I knew my heritage. I came fully equipped with the old prejudice that anything to do with Egypt involved corruption and deceit.

I was right too.

At last we sailed safely through the treacherous shoals to what could only be the legendary city of Alexandria. The captain seemed relieved to have found it - and perhaps surprised at his skilful steering. We pootled in under the enormous Lighthouse then he tried to find one empty s.p.a.ce to moor amongst the thousands of vessels that lined the embankments of the Eastern Harbour. We had a pilot, but pointing out a spare stretch of quay was beneath him. He put himself off into a b.u.mboat and left us to it. For a couple of hours our ship manoeuvred slowly up and down. At last we squeezed in, shaving the paint on two other vessels with the joggle-mooring method.

Helena and I like to think we are good travellers, but we are human. We were tired and tense. It had taken six days from Athens, via Rhodes, and an interminable time out from Rome before that. We had lodgings; we were to stay with my Uncle Fulvius and his live-in boyfriend - but we did not know them well and were anxious about how we would find their house. In addition, Helena and I were well-read. We knew our history. So, as we faced up to disembarkation, I could not help joking about Pompey the Great: how he was collected from his trireme to go ash.o.r.e to meet the King of Egypt - and how he was stabbed in the back by a Roman soldier he knew, butchered with his wife and children watching, then beheaded.

My job involves weighing up risks, then taking them anyway. Despite Pompey, I was all set to lead the way bravely down the gangplank when Helena shoved me out of her way.

'Oh don't be ridiculous, Falco. n.o.body here wants your head - yet. I'll go first!' she said.

II.

Foreign cities always sound so loud. Rome may be as bad, but it is home and we never notice the racket.

Groaning on a strange bed as I flexed beneath unusual coverlets made from no fleece I recognised, I awoke from dreams where my body seemed to be still rocking on the ship that brought us, to find unsettling light and noise. At my movement, an extremely unusual insect flew away from just beside my left ear. Agitated voices rose from streets outside, through those wobbly shutters with latches that I could not close last night upon our arrival, too exhausted to solve the incomprehensible riddles of strangers' door- and window-furniture. I had made some joke about us being set a life-or-death test by a winged Greek Sphinx, and my clever partner had pointed out we were now in the territory of the lion-bodied Egyptian Sphinx instead. It had not struck me there was any difference.

Thundering Jupiter. The inhabitants of this new place conversed at the tops of their voices, as they held harsh, pointlessly long arguments - though when I looked out hoping to see a knife fight, they were all just shrugging casually and strolling off with loaves under their elbows. The level of street sound seemed absurd. Unnecessary bells clanged to no purpose. Even the donkeys were noisier than at home. The inhabitants of this new place conversed at the tops of their voices, as they held harsh, pointlessly long arguments - though when I looked out hoping to see a knife fight, they were all just shrugging casually and strolling off with loaves under their elbows. The level of street sound seemed absurd. Unnecessary bells clanged to no purpose. Even the donkeys were noisier than at home.

I fell back into bed. Uncle Fulvius had said we could sleep in as long as we liked. Well, that got the maids clattering up and down the stone stairs. One even burst in on us to see if we were up yet. Instead of vanishing discreetly, she just stood there in her shapeless shift and sloppy sandals, grinning.

'Don't say anything!' Helena muttered against my shoulder, though I thought her teeth were gritted.

When the servant or slave left, I raved for a while about how many loathsome indignities are imposed upon blameless travellers via that filthy phrase, remember, darling, we are guests! remember, darling, we are guests!

Never be a guest. Hospitality may be the n.o.blest social tradition of Greece and Rome, possibly of Egypt too, but stick it straight back in the sweaty armpit of whatever helpful relative wants to bore you to death with his army stories, or the very old friend of your father who hopes to interest you in his new invention - whichever menace has invited you to share his inconvenient foreign house. Pay your way in an honest mansio. mansio. Preserve your integrity. Keep the right to shout Preserve your integrity. Keep the right to shout get lost! get lost!

'We are in the East,' Helena soothed me. 'They say the pace of life is different.'

'Always a good excuse for foreigners' ghastly incompetence.'

'Don't be bitter.' Helena rolled into my arms and snuggled, becoming once more comfortable and comatose.

I had a better idea than sleeping. 'We are in the East.' I murmured. 'The beds are soft, the climate balmy; the women are sinuous, the men obsessed with l.u.s.t -'

'And don't tell me, Marcus Didius - you want to put a new entry on your list of ''cities where I have made love''?'

'Lady, you always read my mind.'

'Easy enough,' suggested Helena cruelly. 'It never changes.'

This was the life. We were in the East. We had no pressing business and breakfast would go on being served all morning.

I knew the arrangements for breakfast because Fulvius had told me. As a man with a past he never talked about, who was engaged in trades he kept mysterious, my maternal uncle tended to be terse (unlike the rest of our family), so he imparted vital information with unsparing clarity. His house rules were few and civilised: 'Do what you like but don't attract attention from the military. Turn up for dinner on time. No dogs on the reading couches. Children under seven to be in bed before dinner starts. All fornication to be conducted in silence.' Well, that was a challenge. Helena and I were enthusiastic lovers; I was eager to see if it was feasible.

We had left my dog in Rome but had two children under seven - Julia, approaching five, and Favonia, two. I had promised they would be exemplary house guests and since they were fast asleep when we arrived, n.o.body yet knew otherwise. With us too was Albia my foster-daughter, who was probably about seventeen, so sometimes she attended formal meals like a very shy grown-up or sometimes she stormed off to her room with a murderous scowl, taking all the sweetmeats in the house. We had found her in Britain. She would be a poppet one day. So we told ourselves. I had promised they would be exemplary house guests and since they were fast asleep when we arrived, n.o.body yet knew otherwise. With us too was Albia my foster-daughter, who was probably about seventeen, so sometimes she attended formal meals like a very shy grown-up or sometimes she stormed off to her room with a murderous scowl, taking all the sweetmeats in the house. We had found her in Britain. She would be a poppet one day. So we told ourselves.

Albia was a fixture, on her second major trip with us. Helena's brother Aulus was an unexpected addition to my party. He could be a trial when he wanted to be; since he was an abrasive character, that was frequent. Aulus Camillus Aelia.n.u.s, the elder of Helena's two brothers, had worked as my a.s.sistant in Rome before he took himself off to learn law at Athens, after (for the fourth or fifth time, to my knowledge) he was blindingly struck by his 'real' vocation. Like all students, immediately his family thought he was finally settling down in a prestigious, extremely expensive university, he heard through some grapevine that there was better teaching at another one. Or better parties and the chance of a better love life, anyway. When we dropped in to visit him last month, he hitched a free ride on our ship, saying he pa.s.sionately wanted to study at the Alexandria Museion. I said nothing. His father would pay for it. The senator, a diligent, tolerant man, would just be thankful that Aulus had not - so far - expressed a wish to be a gladiator, a master forger or a writer of ten-scroll epic-poetry.

Fulvius could not have known I would bring my wastrel brother-in-law, but he expected the rest. My mother's brother, the most complicated of a crazy trio, years ago Uncle Fulvius ran away from home to join the cult of Cybele in Asia Minor. After that, he was not seen for a good two decades, during which he was known as 'the one we never talk about' - though of course he always came under avid discussion at family parties, once enough wine had been drunk and people got on to insulting absent members. I grew up with many a dainty auntie chewing on bread rolls toothlessly while speculating whether Fulvius had actually castrated himself with a flint, as devotees supposedly did.

I had encountered him a year back, in Ostia. I had been fully accompanied on that mission, so he knew I came with a tribe. His reappearance in Italy was a shock at the time. He now engaged in suspicious-sounding overseas activities, which presumably continued in some form now that he lived in Egypt. Being Fulvius, he had not bothered to explain why he moved here. At Ostia he and his crony Ca.s.sius took to Helena; at least, it had been to her that the couple addressed an invitation to stay in their Alexandrian house. They knew she wanted to see the Pyramids and the Pharos. Like me, Helena Justina had mental lists; a methodical tourist, she aimed to one day see all the Seven Wonders of the World. She liked numbered aims and ambitions; for a senator's daughter, those ambitions were extravagantly cultural, which - she joked - was why she married me. We had done Olympia and Athens on a trip to Greece last year. En route En route to Egypt we had added Rhodes. to Egypt we had added Rhodes.

'And how was the dear Colossus?' Fulvius asked, when we joined him on the flat roof of his house. There the promised breakfast was indeed still being served, and judging by the crumbs on the tablecloth it had been going on for at least the past three hours.

'Tumbled down in an earthquake, but the broken pieces are phenomenal.'

'He's a cutie - don't you adore a man with thirty-foot thighs?'

'Oh Marcus is muscular enough for me... Fulvius, thank you so much for inviting us - this is heavenly!' Helena knew how to biff aside rude talk.

Fulvius allowed himself to be diverted. A paunchy figure in pristine Roman dress - ankle-length full whites - he was the kind of tetchy expatriate who did not believe in trying to fit in. Abroad, he wore a toga even on occasions when he would never have dreamed of bothering in Rome. Only his enormous cameo ring hinted at his exotic side.

Looking north across the ocean, Helena gazed out at the panorama of gorgeous sea views that simmered beneath a hot blue sky. My astute uncle had somehow acquired a house in the Brucheion region, once the royal quarter and still the most magnificent and sought-after place to live. Now that the incestuous royal Ptolemies had been kicked into oblivion by us Romans - deftly cleansing the world of rivals - the district was even more desirable to those with taste. We had glimpsed its atmospheric a.s.sets on arriving last night, for Alexandria was home to an enormous lamp-manufacturing industry; the streets here were gloriously lit at night, unlike every other city Helena and I had lived in - Corduba, Londinium, Palmyra, even our own dear Rome, where if lamps were hung up the burglars immediately doused them.

Our ship had berthed very close to my uncle's house. This good luck was unlikely to last. After more than ten years as an investigating informer, I expected Fortune to allot me kicks, not caresses. But we had even managed to find a trustworthy guide, which suggested the citizens of Alexandria were strangely friendly to foreigners; I doubted it. I was born and bred in a city, the best in the world, and I knew all cities shared the same att.i.tude: the only thing to admire about foreigners is the innocent way they part from their travel money. Still, with the guide's help, we had found the house so fast, all we saw was that Alexandria was expensive, expansive and extremely Greek in style.

Helena always devised lecture notes. So I knew Alexander the Great had come here towards the end of his conquering adventures, found a clutch of fishermen's huts decaying beside a deep freshwater lake, and spotted the potential. He was going to build a mighty port todominate the eastern end of the Mediterranean, where safe harbours were few and far between. You don't spend years beating up the world's famous cities without acquiring a sense of what will impress visitors - and what will last. Alexander had incentives. If you are founding a new place and putting your own nametag on it, you get it right. the eastern end of the Mediterranean, where safe harbours were few and far between. You don't spend years beating up the world's famous cities without acquiring a sense of what will impress visitors - and what will last. Alexander had incentives. If you are founding a new place and putting your own nametag on it, you get it right.

'He laid out everything himself'

'Well you don't become the greatest general in history unless you know to never never trust subordinates!' trust subordinates!'

'Apparently' Helena informed me, 'he had brought no chalk - or, since his satchel was full of maps of Mesopotamia, there was not room for enough. So some ingratiating courtier told him to use bean flour instead, to mark out the street plan. He went to endless trouble over the alignments - he wanted the cooling, health-giving winds from the sea to waft in for the inhabitants - they are called Etesian winds, by the way -'

'Thank you, dearest.'

'Then when Alexander had finished, a huge dark cloud of birds rose up off Lake Mareotis and devoured all the flour. The books say -' she was frowning - 'Alexander was persuaded by soothsayers that this was a good omen.'

'You disagree?' I myself was busy devouring - the array of bread, dates, olives and sheep's cheese that Uncle Fulvius had provided.

'Well, obviously, Marcus. If the birds ate the markings, how did Alexander's nice Greek grid of streets ever get built?'

'No allowance for myth and magic, Helena?' asked my uncle.

'I cannot believe Alexander the Great let himself be bamboozled by a bunch of soothsayers.'

'You chose an extremely pedantic wife,' commented Fulvius.

'She chose me. Once she made her views known, her n.o.ble father handed her over very very quickly. This should perhaps have worried me. Still, her attention to detail comes in handy when we work.' I enjoyed alluding to our work. It kept Uncle Fulvius on the alert. The old fraud liked to imply quickly. This should perhaps have worried me. Still, her attention to detail comes in handy when we work.' I enjoyed alluding to our work. It kept Uncle Fulvius on the alert. The old fraud liked to imply he he was involved in undercover dealings for the government. I myself had taken on tasks as an imperial agent but I had never found anyone official who knew about this uncle of mine. 'Informing needs scepticism as well as good boots and a high expenses budget, don't you find, Uncle Fulvius?' was involved in undercover dealings for the government. I myself had taken on tasks as an imperial agent but I had never found anyone official who knew about this uncle of mine. 'Informing needs scepticism as well as good boots and a high expenses budget, don't you find, Uncle Fulvius?'

He jumped up. 'Marcus, my boy, can't sit around chatting! Ca.s.sius will look after you. He's around somewhere; he likes to flap and he loves being domestic! We have a grand treat laid on this evening - I do hope you will like it. Dinner is in your honour - and I've invited the Librarian.'

III.

Once Fulvius had bustled out of earshot, Helena and I both groaned. Still drained by travel, we had been hoping for an early night. The last thing we wanted was to be paraded as Roman trophies in front of some uninterested provincial dignitary.

Don't get me wrong. I love the provinces. They supply us with luxury commodities, slaves, spices, silks, curious ideas and people to despise. Egypt ships at least a third of Rome's annual corn supply, plus doctors, marble, papyrus, exotic animals to kill in the arena, fabulous imports from remote parts of Africa, Arabia and India. It also provides a tourist destination that - even allowing for Greece - must be unparalleled. No Roman lives until he has scratched his name indelibly on a timeless Pharaonic column, visited a Canopus brothel and caught one of the hideous diseases that have led Alexandria to produce its world-famous medical pract.i.tioners. Some visitors pay up for the extra thrill of camel-riding. We could miss that. We had been to Syria and Libya. We already knew that to stand near a spitting camel is a loathsome experience, and one of the ways all those doctors keep in business.

'Fulvius is only excited that we are here.' Helena was the decent, kindly one in our partnership.

I stuck to vitriol. 'No; he's a social-climbing sn.o.b. He'll have some reason to ingratiate himself with this big scroll-beetle; he's using us as an excuse.'

'Maybe Fulvius and the Librarian are best friends who play board games every Friday, Marcus.'

'Where does that put Ca.s.sius?'

We soon found out where Ca.s.sius was: in a hot kitchen in the bas.e.m.e.nt; in the middle of organising menus; and in a tizz. He had a cohort of puzzled staff working for him, or in some cases against him. Ca.s.sius had clear ideas how to run a party, and his system was not Egyptian. Since I believed Fulvius might have first met him cavorting with the worshippers of Cybele on the wilder sh.o.r.es of Asia Minor, his businesslike approach to a lie-down banquet surprised me.

'We ought to be nine couches, to be formal, but I'm settling for seven. Fulvius and I don't believe in touting invitations around the baths, just to make up numbers. You attract fat bores with no morals, who will be sick in your peristyle. It goes without saying, they never ask you back ... I thought your father would be here with you, Falco?'

'Did he write and tell you that? No chance, Ca.s.sius! He did suggest imposing himself - I forbade the devious old b.a.s.t.a.r.d to come.'

Ca.s.sius laughed, the way people do when they cannot believe you are serious. I glared. My father and I had spent half of my life estranged, and that was the half I liked. He worked in the antiques trade, in that specialism where 'antique' means 'put together yesterday by a man with a squint in Bruttium'. My smooth-tongued father could make 'doubtful provenance' sound like a virtue. Buy from him and you would get a fake, but so flagrantly overpriced you could never admit to yourself that he diddled you. Ten to one a handle would fall off while you lugged the object home.

'He is not coming. I am serious!' I declared. Helena snorted. Ca.s.sius laughed again.

Despite greying hair, Ca.s.sius was st.u.r.dily built; he went weightlifting twice a week. If ever Fulvius got into bother, Ca.s.sius was supposed to fight their way out of it, though I had seen this bodyguard in action and had no faith in him. A handsome chunk, he was about fifteen years younger than my uncle, who must be ten years older than my parents; that put Fulvius well into his seventies, Ca.s.sius late-fifties. They claimed they had been together for a quarter of a century. My mother, who always knew everyone's private business, swore her brother was a loner who had never set up house. That just showed how elusive Fulvius could be. For once Ma was wrong. Fulvius and Ca.s.sius had anecdotes that went back decades, involving several provinces. Certainly Ca.s.sius was getting flushed over his canape recipes like a man who had spent years having mental breakdowns over parties he had hosted. His act was polished and he was heartily enjoying it.

Helena offered to help, but Ca.s.sius sent us out sightseeing.

As soon as we stepped outside, the customary local who knew strangers had arrived jumped up from the gutter where he was patiently waiting. We knew better than to hire a guide for the sights. We elbowed him aside and headed away briskly. He was so surprised, it took him some moments to gather himself together to curse us, which he did with sinister muttering in a strange language.

He would be there every day. I knew the rules. Eventually I would weaken and allow him to take us somewhere. He would get us lost; I would lose my temper; the unpleasantness would convince him that foreigners were loudmouthed, insensitive braggarts. In a couple of centuries the acc.u.mulated loathing from such incidents would lead to a vicious revolt. I would be part of the cause, just because I had wanted an aimless hour or two, walking hand in hand in a new city with my wife.

Today at least we escaped by ourselves. Aulus must have been up with the light and had hoofed to the Museion to try to convince the academic authorities he was a worthy scholar. If students had to have rich fathers, he would barely qualify. If brains were required, he was on even stickier ground. Albia was sulking because Aulus went out without her. Our two little daughters also rebuffed us; they had discovered where the servants hung out waiting for cute little girls in matching tunics to happen along looking for raisin cakes.

For Aulus to play the intellectual was fine with me. He wanted the kudos of saying he had studied at Alexandria, whilst I could use an agent in the Library. If he failed to worm his way in by himself, I would have to fix it with the Prefect, but our cover would look better if Aulus got his feet under the reading-tables independently. Besides, I hate prefects. Begging for official favours never works for me.

Egypt has been kept as a personal jewel case for the emperors, ever since Octavian - subsequently renamed Augustus - sank Antony's ambitions at the Battle of Actium. Since then, emperors clung on to this glittering province. Others are governed by ex-consuls, but not Egypt. Every emperor sends trusted men of his own to run the place - equestrians, often ex-palace slaves - whose task is to siphon its rich resources straight into the imperial purse. Senators are officially forbidden to set foot in Nile mud, lest they get ideas and start plotting. Meanwhile, Prefect of Egypt has become a sought-after job for middle rank officials, second only to heading the Praetorian Guard. These men can be political heavyweights. Eight years ago it was a Prefect of Egypt, Julius Alexander, who first acclaimed Vespasian as Emperor and then, while Vespasian manoeuvred to clinch his accession, provided his power base in Alexandria.

I disapproved of emperors, whoever they were, but I had to earn a living. I was a private informer, yet from time to time I carried out imperial missions, especially where they helped fund foreign travel. I had come here on a 'family visit' but it did contain a chance to do work for the old man. Helena knew that, naturally, and so did Aulus, who would help me with it. What I was not sure, was whether Vespasian had bothered to inform the current Prefect I had been informally commissioned.

Let's say, meeting the Librarian this evening was a little too soon for me. I like to get the measure of an investigation by myself, before I tangle with the princ.i.p.als.

But tourism came first: Alexandria was a beautiful city. Neatly laid out, it made Rome look as if it had been founded by shepherds - as indeed was true. The Sacred Way, meandering into the Forum Romanorum with gra.s.s between its haphazard stone slabs, was like a sheep track compared to glamorous Canopus Street. The rest was no better. Rome has never been given a formal street grid and that's not just because the Seven Hills get in the way. In domestic situations, Romans do not take orders. I doubt if even Alexander of Macedon could instruct an Esquiline copper-beater how to orientate his workshop; it would be inviting a sharp blow with a hammer to the heroic Macedonian skull.

Helena and I wandered through as much of this n.o.ble city as we could manage, given that I became grumpy as an admiring visitor and she was four or five months pregnant - another reason we had rushed to accept my uncle's invitation. We came as early in the year as we could sail. Soon Helena would cease to be mobile, our mothers would insist she stayed at home, and if we waited until the birth was over there would be - we hoped - an extra infant to drag around with us. Two was quite enough, and having a relative's house here to dump them in was a boon. This might be the last time sightseeing was feasible for the next ten or twenty years. We threw ourselves into it.

Alexandria had two main streets, each two hundred feet wide. Yes, you read it correctly: wide enough for a great conqueror to march all his army past before the crowds got sunburned or for him to drive along several chariots abreast, chatting with his famous generals as they occupied their own quadrigae. Clad with marble colonnades for its entire length, Canopus Street was the longest, with the Gate of the Moon at its western end and the Can.o.bic Gate in the east. We hit it around the middle, from where the gates would be just distant dots if we could see past the milling crowds. Running through the royal quarter, Canopus Street intersected with the Street of the Soma, named for the tomb to which Alexander the Great's embalmed body had been brought after he died of wounds, weariness and drink. His heirs struggled to possess his remains; the first of the Ptolemies s.n.a.t.c.hed the corpse and brought it to lend renown to Alexandria.

If the tomb of Alexander seemed rather familiar to us, that was because Augustus copied it for his own Mausoleum, complete with plantings of cypress trees on its circular terraces. Alexander's was substantially larger, one of the tallest buildings at the city centre.

Naturally we went in and inspected the famous body, covered with gold and lying in a translucent coffin. Nowadays the coffin lid was sealed, though the guardians must have given access to Augustus after the Battle of Actium, because when that reprobate pretended to pay his respects, he broke off part of Alexander's nose. All we could make out was the hero's blurred outline. The coffin seemed more like sheets of that stuff called talc than moulded panes of gla.s.s. Either way, it needed a sponge down. Generations of gawpers had left smeary fingerprints while sand dust had blown in everywhere. Given that the ill.u.s.trious corpse was now almost four hundred years old, we did not complain about lack of closer contact.

Helena and I had a witty discussion about why Octavian, Julius Caesar's great-nephew, had taken it upon himself to destroy Alexander's best feature - that nose so gloriously embodied in elegant statues by his tame sculptor Lysippus. Octavian/Augustus was obnoxious and self-satisfied, but plenty of Roman patricians have those faults without attacking corpses. 'Horseplay,' explained Helena. 'All generals together. One of the lads. ''You may be Great - but I can tweak your nose!'' - Oh dear, look; it's come off in Octavian Caesar's hand... Quick, quick; stick it back and hope no one notices.' Undeterred by convention, my darling leaned down as close as she could get to the opaque dome and tried to see whether custodians had glued the nose back on.

We were asked to move along.

The Soma was just one feature of the grandiose Museion complex. A Temple to the Muses sat in a huge area of formal gardens, within which stood phenomenal buildings dedicated to the pursuit of science and the arts. It had a zoo, which we left for another day when we could bring the children. It was also home to the legendary Library and other handsome accommodation where scholars lived and ate. 'Tax-free,' said Helena. 'Always an incentive to intellectuals.' I was not yet ready to explore the seat of learning. We refreshed ourselves strolling among the shady terraces and water features, admiring the stork-like ibises who dipped their curved beaks in the elegant ca.n.a.ls, where lotuses were in flower in brilliant blue. I plucked an opening bud to present to Helena; its scent was exquisite.

Later we strolled towards the sea. We came out at the end of the narrow causeway that linked the mainland to Pharos Island. This causeway was called the heptastadion because it was seven Greek stades long - about four thousand feet, I reckoned by eye - more than we wanted to tackle that day. From the docks on the Great or Eastern Harbour, we had a good view of the Lighthouse. When we sailed in yesterday, we had been too close to look up and see it properly. Now we could appreciate that it stood on a spur of the island, set within a decorative enclosure. Overall, it rose to about five hundred feet. The tallest man-made structure in the world, it had three storeys - an enormous square foundation, which supported an elegant octagon, which in turn held up a round lantern tower, topped off with a great statue of Poseidon. Back in Italy, the lighthouse at Ostia was built to the same pattern, but I had to concede it was no more than a feeble imitation.

Part of Pharos Island, together with the heptastadion, formed one enormous arm around the Great Harbour. On the sh.o.r.e side, where we were, lay various wharfs; some encircled sheltered docking areas. Then away to our right, near where we were staying with Fulvius, another promontory called Lochias completed the circle. On this famous peninsula, we knew, many of the old royal palaces stood, the haunt of Ptolemies and Cleopatras long ago. They had had a private harbour and a private island they called Antirrhodus because its gorgeous monuments rivalled Rhodes. On the sh.o.r.e side, where we were, lay various wharfs; some encircled sheltered docking areas. Then away to our right, near where we were staying with Fulvius, another promontory called Lochias completed the circle. On this famous peninsula, we knew, many of the old royal palaces stood, the haunt of Ptolemies and Cleopatras long ago. They had had a private harbour and a private island they called Antirrhodus because its gorgeous monuments rivalled Rhodes.

The main part of Pharos Island turned in the opposite direction to form the sheltering mole around the Western Harbour. This was even bigger than the Great Harbour, and was known as the port of Eunostos, with its inner basin Kibotos, supposedly all man-made. Way out of view behind us, on the other side of the city, was Lake Mareotis, a huge inland stretch of water where yet more wharves and moorings served the export of papyrus and other commodities that were produced around the lake.

For Romans all this was a shock.

'We are so used to thinking that Rome is the centre of the trading world!' Helena marvelled.

'Easy to see why Alexandria was able to pose such a threat. Just suppose Cleopatra and Antony had won won the Battle of Actium. We could be living in a province of the Egyptian Empire, with Rome just some unimportant backwater where uncultured natives in crude tribal garments insist on speaking Latin instead of h.e.l.lenic Greek.' I shuddered. 'Tourists would rush straight through our town, intent on studying the curious civilisation of the ancient Etruscans instead. All they would have to say for Rome is that the peasants are rude, the food is disgusting and the sanitation stinks.' the Battle of Actium. We could be living in a province of the Egyptian Empire, with Rome just some unimportant backwater where uncultured natives in crude tribal garments insist on speaking Latin instead of h.e.l.lenic Greek.' I shuddered. 'Tourists would rush straight through our town, intent on studying the curious civilisation of the ancient Etruscans instead. All they would have to say for Rome is that the peasants are rude, the food is disgusting and the sanitation stinks.'

Helena giggled.' Mothers would warn impressionable daughters that Italian men might look handsome, but would get them pregnant then refuse to leave their Campagna market gardens.'

'Not even if the girl's uncle offered the fellow a good job in a papyrus factory!'

As we turned back for home, we walked by an absolutely enormous Emporium that made the central warehouse in Rome look like a collection of cabbage stalls. Also beside the waterfront we found Cleopatra's Caesarium. This monument to Julius Caesar, at the time still unfinished, had become the place of refuge where the Queen hauled up the wounded Mark Antony to die in her arms after he tried to kill himself in his own refuge, another impressive monument by the harbour which was called the Timonium. Then the Caesarium was the scene of her own suicide as Cleopatra pipped the gloating Octavian's hopes of flaunting her in his ceremonial Triumph. For that alone I liked the girl. Unfortunately Octavian turned the Caesarium into a shrine to his own dreadful family, which spoiled it. It was guarded by enormous old red granite obelisks, which we were told he had brought from elsewhere in Egypt. That was one advantage of this province. Exotic outdoor ornaments littered the place. Had these obelisks not been such dead weights, Augustus would undoubtedly have shipped them off to Rome. They were begging to be used in trendy landscape gardening.

We gazed at the Caesarium, and felt the pang of standing next to history. (Trust me; it is extremely similar to the pang of badly wanting a sit-down and a drink of cold water.) We found a giant sphinx against whose lion paw we could lean weakly until guards chased us off. Helena was at pains to a.s.sure me that Cleopatra's mystique had derived not from beauty but from wit, vivacity and vast intellectual knowledge.

'Don't disappoint me. We men imagine she bounced about on scented satin pillows, wildly uninhibited.'