False God of Rome

CHAPTER XVIII

Vespasian was woken by a knock on his bedroom door.

Magnus stuck his head round the corner. ‘I’ve ordered a chair to be…ah! I’ll leave you to it.’ He beat a hasty retreat.

Vespasian turned on his side and looked at Flavia; she opened her eyes.

‘When he says “it” I assume he means me?’ she said with a yawn.

‘He could have meant the act itself.’

‘That would be a preferable interpretation, but I’ll only believe you if you prove it to be the correct one.’

Vespasian smiled and kissed her while running the tips of his fingers down over her breasts, across her flat belly before easing them in between her legs. Flavia moaned softly as she had done for most of the night as she had sucked on his mouth and his nipples and his penis between bouts of intense sexual activity; he had made love to her in a way that he had done to no other woman except Caenis.

Vespasian had decided to bed her the moment that he saw her again; and the feeling had seemed to become very mutual, especially once he had explained to her that he had found Capella and had brought him back out of the desert; he had not let her down. She had not seemed too distressed at the news of Capella’s savage death and was genuinely surprised to learn that he had not been trading for camels. Vespasian did not, however, tell her what Capella had really been doing, and when she had pressed him on the subject he had just alluded to imperial business and it was better if she did not know; which, indeed, it was. Admiring his high connections, which she had evidently found irresistible, she had started to work her charms on him to the full, quite unnecessarily but much to Vespasian’s enjoyment and the other guests’ embarrassment. When the dinner broke up Flaccus appeared most aggrieved and a triumphant-looking Laelia did not even bother to ask Flavia if she wanted her litter called.

The orange glow of the newly risen sun filtered through the shutters and Vespasian was spent; he climbed off Flavia and sat on the edge of the bed. ‘I should be going; I’ve got business to attend to.’

‘What sort and how much?’ Flavia asked, resting her head on her hand.

‘Private and a lot.’

‘I’ll come with you.’

‘No; you just be here when I get back.’

She sighed and lay back down on the pillow. ‘I can’t see that as being a problem.’

‘Dinner was successful by the looks of it,’ Magnus commented as Vespasian appeared from his bedroom.

‘Very,’ Vespasian replied while Ziri began to drape his toga around him.

‘Well?’

‘Well, we’ll go to see the Alabarch first and then on to the Forum to Thales and then try and find Felix.’

‘I know what we’re going to do; I meant: well, who is she then?’

‘You won’t like it.’

Magnus thought for a moment and then slapped his palm on his forehead. ‘Venus give you the strength to resist her: Flavia!’

‘A small world, isn’t it?’

‘Too small; you’re just about to cash a draft for a quarter of a million — she’ll have that off you in no time.’

‘Not if I marry her.’

‘The last time you thought about that a whole load of people ended up dead. Why don’t you just be content to have her as a bed-toy while you’re here?’

‘Because I’ll be twenty-nine this year and I need to have sons; my parents write of hardly anything else in their letters.’ Vespasian examined the folds of his toga draped over his left arm; he nodded with satisfaction. ‘That’s perfect, Ziri, you’ve finally mastered it.’

Magnus frowned. ‘So you’re going to take her back to Rome?’

‘I’m not going to live here.’

‘She might not want to come.’

‘Oh, she’ll come; it’ll be the best offer she’s had since she got here. Anyway, how was your evening?’

‘Much the same as yours, but without the long-term commitment to a very expensive woman.’

‘How come you both got a fuck last night and I didn’t?’ Ziri asked resentfully.

‘Because, Ziri, you’re a slave,’ Magnus said, clipping him lightly around the ear, ‘and besides, I haven’t noticed any camels around the palace. Now stop moaning and go and get Sir’s box.’

Optio Hortensius and his men were waiting for them at the palace gates, sitting in the shade of an outsized sedentary statue that reminded Vespasian of the image of Amun in the temple at Siwa but was, according to the Greek inscription, a representation in the Egyptian style of the first Ptolemy.

‘You can guide us to the Alabarch’s house near the Canopic Gate, optio,’ Vespasian said, getting into the chair that Magnus had ordered, ‘seeing as we’re saddled with you.’

Hortensius saluted and his men fell in.

‘You could make yourself useful and give us a guided tour as we go,’ Magnus said with a grin.

Hortensius ignored the jibe.

‘Don’t antagonise him,’ Vespasian muttered, as they passed through the palace gate and into the enclosed Royal Harbour, ‘he may prove useful.’

‘I can’t remember the last time that anyone in the Twenty-second Deiotariana did anything useful; the legion hasn’t seen proper action for ages.’

Clearing the Royal Harbour they entered the city itself and passed by the side of the old Macedonian barracks, two storeys high and now used for housing legionaries on duty within the city — the Roman military camp being situated outside the eastern walls. Turning left they walked along the length of its drab, two-hundred-pace, square-windowed facade, with their escort clearing the way through the crowd, and then turned right, into the Jewish Quarter.

Immediately there was a change of atmosphere; it was still busy but there was a sullenness in the air and, as they walked down the middle of the street, Vespasian noticed many a resentful glare at not only the legionaries but also at the thick, purple senatorial stripe on his toga. He kept his head held high and, disdaining to look either left or right, progressed with all the dignity befitting a Roman senator in a part of the Empire that belonged to the Senate and people of Rome.

As they got deeper into the quarter the people began to move aside less willingly and their escort were forced to draw their swords as a warning and occasionally push a more stubborn obstacle out of the way with their shields.

‘Maybe it weren’t such a bad thing to be given a guard,’ Magnus said from behind his right shoulder, ‘we don’t seem to be too popular.’

They carried on for half a mile past rows of Greek-style houses — two-storeyed and built around an oblong central courtyard with a couple of small windows and a plain wooden door in the whitewashed facade — before turning east onto the Canopic Way. Nothing in Rome had prepared Vespasian for this sight: three and a half miles long and sixty paces wide, lined with temples and public buildings for all its length, it ran from the Canopic Gate in the eastern wall straight as an arrow’s flight to the western wall and out into the Necropolis. Vespasian tried not to stare like some hill-farmer — which, he reflected, he was.

The going became easier as the width of the street and the more multicultural make-up of the pedestrians played their parts. Between the buildings to his left and right Vespasian noticed, out of the corners of his eyes, small areas shaped like the Circus Maximus with one open end, seating up to a hundred people, mainly Greek, listening to a speaker at the curved, far end. As they approached the fourth area the noise emanating from within was not what one would expect of a group of students listening to a philosophical debate.

Getting closer Vespasian could see that the audience was not only Greeks but Jews and native Egyptians as well. They were all involved in a fierce shouting match with scuffles breaking out and the two sides were not split by racial divides; a minority of Jews were taking issue with the majority of the audience — which included many of their race — who seemed to be supporting the main speaker, a short, balding man standing at the far end trying to make himself heard. Vespasian almost did an undignified double-take as he recognised the bow legs and imperious voice of the speaker shouting over the arguments: Gaius Julius Paulus.

‘What the fuck’s he doing here?’ Magnus exclaimed as he too noticed Paulus.

‘What he seems to do best, by the looks of it,’ Vespasian replied. ‘Causing fights and spreading discord.’

‘Loathsome little shit!’

‘This is the house of Alexander the Alabarch, senator,’ Hortensius informed Vespasian as they approached a large house on the northern side of the street — the edge of the Jewish Quarter. It was Greek in style but built with a grandeur that fitted in with the Canopic Way’s architecture. ‘Me and my lads will wait for you out here, senator.’

‘Thank you, optio,’ Vespasian said, getting down from the chair and taking Ataphanes’ box from Ziri. ‘You and Ziri wait here too, Magnus; I’ll be as quick as I can.’

‘I still have some correspondence with that family, senator,’ Alexander the Alabarch of the Alexandrian Jews assured Vespasian, ‘and I can promise you that it’ll be no problem getting this thing to them. There is a caravan leaving for Parthia at the next full moon in three days’ time, its owner is a cousin of mine; you can trust him. May I see what’s inside?’

Vespasian lifted the lid of Ataphanes’ box, which stood on the desk between them. They were sitting in the cool of the Alabarch’s study on the northern side of his house away from the threat of direct sunlight. The room was filled with many scrolls, labelled in Greek, Hebrew, Aramaic and Latin, giving it a musty smell reminiscent of a library storeroom. The only light came from two slatted windows in the wall opening out onto the central courtyard from whence came the sound of two young men reading aloud, at great speed, in unison.

‘Your freedman was wealthy,’ Alexander commented, fingering the gold coins and trinkets inside. ‘How much is here?’

‘I’m afraid that I don’t know exactly.’

‘Then I shall weigh it.’ Alexander got up and retrieved a large set of scales from a wooden chest in the corner of the room. ‘My fee, which will cover all expenses including those of my cousin’s, will be eighteen per cent of the weight of the gold. I won’t take into account the value of the workmanship; would that be agreeable to you?’

‘Ten.’

‘Sixteen.’

‘Twelve.’

‘Fifteen.’

‘Eleven.’

Alexander smiled beneath his full, sand-coloured beard. ‘You bargain strongly considering that it is not your money. Very well, twelve it is.’

‘Done,’ Vespasian said. Alexander started to weigh out the gold.

The Alabarch’s appearance had surprised Vespasian; he had expected a wise-looking, old grey-beard with rheumy eyes, a dripping nose and, perhaps, a slight stoop. The reality had been far different: Alexander was a fit and powerful man in his late forties with alert, piercing blue eyes and long, almost blond hair with a beard to match. The only things about him that fitted in with Vespasian’s stereotypical ideas of Jewishness were his clothes — very typical — and his pronounced nose — averagely so. He had the calmness about him of a man at ease with himself and his position in life and Vespasian could tell immediately that he was a man he could trust.

‘Six minae, twenty-four drachmae and three obols,’ Alexander said eventually.

‘Which makes your percentage one obol short of seventy-five drachmae,’ Vespasian said after a moment’s thought, ‘or, almost exactly, one Roman pound in gold.’

Alexander did some quick calculations on a wax tablet and raised his eyebrows. ‘I can see that you would be a hard man to cheat.’

‘Not that I believe you would try, Alexander.’

Alexander began to weigh out his share. ‘I was brought up to be honest and truthful in all things, something that I hope I’ve passed on to my sons.’ He indicated to the voices in the courtyard. ‘That’s them at their Torah studies, which, I’m afraid, they resent as much as I did at their age, but I insist upon them doing it because otherwise, when they come of age, how can they make an informed decision as to whether they believe in the religion or, like me, do not?’

‘You’re not a Jew?’

‘Of course I’m a Jew racially, I’m just not a practising Jew. Why else do you think that I’m the Alabarch? With me Rome gets the best of both worlds: it has a Jew running the Jewish community here in Alexandria and collecting its taxes, which makes it acceptable to the Jews.’

‘Even though you don’t share their religion?’

Alexander chuckled. ‘Oh, I do enough to be seen as a righteous man in their eyes. I recently paid for the nine gates of the Temple in Jerusalem to be gilded, so they have to accept me; but at the same time Rome has an Alabarch who isn’t swayed by religious dogma. Rome can see me as being even-handed.’

‘That’s not the impression that Flaccus gave me,’ Vespasian said, realising that he was talking out of turn. ‘He said that you had been making too many demands recently.’

‘There is an ongoing issue of Alexandrian citizenship and whether Jewish citizens are allowed to live outside the Jewish Quarter, not to mention the statues of the Emperor in the temples. But I’ve also been trying to mediate between the elders and the prefect on another matter: they want him to crack down on this new sect that they see as preaching heresy and consider it to be a Roman attack on their religion.’

‘But that’s ridiculous, there’s nothing Roman about it at all.’

‘The main preacher is a Roman citizen.’

Vespasian frowned. ‘Paulus? Surely not; he’s trying to eradicate it.’

‘He was trying to eradicate what was known as The Way; four years ago he was here doing some very unpleasant things to anyone suspected of being a member of the sect.’ Alexander indicated to the perfectly balanced scales.

Vespasian nodded his approval of the twelve per cent. ‘Yes, I came across him in Cyrenaica; he was ruthless. I had him arrested and put on a ship back east.’

‘A pity that you didn’t have him killed.’ Alexander tipped his gold into a bag and placed it in a drawer. ‘Well, he claims to have had some sort of spiritual enlightenment since then while on his way to Damascus. He appeared out of the desert a couple of months ago, having lived there by himself for three years, and started preaching without permission. He claims that he has God’s authority and it’s not a Jewish matter at all; and in a way he’s right. He’s not preaching a reformed version of Judaism along the lines that the followers of The Way claimed that Yeshua bar Yosef preached to the Jews alone; he’s preaching a completely new religion to Gentiles as well as Jews centred on our God but not the Torah. He claims that Yeshua bar Yosef is God’s son who came to die for the sins of the world and redeem all mankind. Only through him, Paulus professes, can those who truly repent of their sins hope to live with God in the Kingdom of Heaven, which is not of this world, rather than wait for resurrection in an earthly paradise at the End of Days as most Jews believe. He also adds fear and urgency into his message by claiming that the End of Days, or the Day of Judgement, as he calls it, is close at hand. Paradoxically he blames the Jews for having this Yeshua crucified even though it is a Roman form of execution, and if he hadn’t been executed Paulus wouldn’t have anything to base his incoherent religion on. You can understand why the elders and my people are angry.’

‘Yes, I felt it as I came through the Jewish Quarter. Why doesn’t Flaccus do something about Paulus?’

‘Ask him yourself,’ Alexander replied, replacing Ataphanes’ gold back in the box. ‘I don’t know, but I think that it’s because he doesn’t care; after all, what’s another new religion to a Roman? You embrace them all.’

‘And rightly so, if it doesn’t involve having your foreskin cut off. But this one sounds different.’

Alexander closed the box. ‘It is different and it’s dangerous because it doesn’t acknowledge any earthly authority; its appeal lies in the promise of salvation and reward in a world to come, not in the here and now. If it is allowed to take root, then the whole emphasis of our civilisation could change from a philosophical debate on how to live in the present, to a spiritual debate on how to prepare for a theoretical afterlife. I’ve been thinking about it and I wonder what would happen to science and learning if all that people worried about was the idea of an immortal soul.’

‘I’m afraid that you’ve lost me there,’ Vespasian replied as Alexander began to write out a receipt. ‘However, I can see the danger of a religion that doesn’t acknowledge the ultimate authority of the Emperor — whatever he may be like. But surely this is just a small sect created by one man?’

‘But it will grow because Paulus aims his preaching at the poor and slaves who have nothing in this world to lose and everything to gain from his idea of salvation and spiritual riches in the next; it’s very potent. Paulus is an extremely ambitious man who believes that his abilities have never been truly recognised and that all his life he’s been denied his rightful place in society. He asked, demanded even, to marry the High Priest’s daughter, just before he went to Damascus, and was refused; I think that he saw that as the final indignity and decided to find a way to power in his own right because it was shortly after that he disappeared. Now he’s back and I believe that he has found a way to turn this world upside down with him finally at the top.’

‘I’ll speak to Flaccus and try to get him to arrest Paulus,’ Vespasian said, before realising that Alexander had done exactly what Flaccus had predicted: got him involved.

Alexander smiled and handed him the receipt for Ataphanes’ gold. ‘Thank you, Vespasian, I would appreciate that; but he needs to do more than arrest him, he must execute him.’

Vespasian looked into the piercing blue eyes of the Alabarch and saw that he was in earnest. He was genuinely afraid of this new sect. ‘Very well, I’ll suggest that, Alexander,’ Vespasian agreed, getting up and proffering his arm. ‘I should go now; I’ve a busy day ahead. Would you be able to tell me where I can find the late Lady Antonia’s steward, Felix?’

Alexander grasped his forearm across the desk. ‘He’s in the city at the moment; you’ll find him at Antonia’s house right next to the south side of the Gymnasium.’

Vespasian followed the Alabarch out into the courtyard; the reading stopped immediately and Alexander’s two sons stood in the presence of their elders; they were both in their teens.

‘Senator Vespasian, this is my eldest son, Tiberius,’ Alexander said, gesturing to the taller of the boys who looked to Vespasian to be about seventeen, ‘and his brother, Marcus.’

The boys bowed their heads.

‘Your father keeps you hard at your studies,’ Vespasian observed.

‘He seems to find pleasure in our suffering,’ Tiberius replied with a grin.

‘Either that or he’s trying to numb our minds with pointless repetition,’ Marcus suggested; he was a couple of years younger than his brother.

Alexander smiled with pride at his sons. ‘For that cheek you can learn an extra fifty lines. I shall test you at sundown.’

‘You’ll have to find us first,’ Tiberius said, quickly ducking a playful clip around the ear from his father.

‘Enough of this,’ Alexander said laughing, ‘back to your studies. I shall see you out, senator.’

Despite being carried, Vespasian was sweating profusely as they progressed west back along the Canopic Way; even though it was not yet midday the dry heat and the still air combined to make the conditions almost intolerable, especially when wearing a woollen toga. Unlike Cyrene, which was built upon a plateau overlooking the sea, Alexandria did not seem to benefit from a cooling breeze.

‘How do you cope with this, Hortensius?’ Magnus asked, sweltering even though he only had on a tunic. ‘Your helmets and armour must be cooking you alive.’

‘You get used to it, mate,’ the optio replied in a friendly way, ‘once you’ve been here for ten years or so.’

‘You mean you just stop caring.’

‘You’re right, mate,’ Hortensius concurred with a laugh, ‘ain’t he, lads?’

His men agreed good-naturedly. Vespasian could tell that Magnus had used the time waiting outside the Alabarch’s house to fine effect and had got on good terms with their guards.

‘Looks like Paulus has been moved on,’ Vespasian commented to Magnus, seeing the arena where he had been preaching was now empty.

‘Did you find out from the Alabarch what he’s doing here?’

‘I did, and you won’t believe it-’

A series of shouts and the hard stamp of many running feet cut him off. A couple of Jews came pelting across the street, from south to north, followed by a howling mob of Greeks waving improvised clubs and hurling stones at their quarry.

With a sharp, curtailed cry the hindmost Jew was brought down with a direct hit to the back of his head; crashing forward on to the paved road he skidded along for a couple of paces tearing the skin off his face. His colleague ran on into the Jewish Quarter as the chasing mob surrounded the stricken man, hitting and kicking him as he lay motionless on the ground.

‘With me, lads,’ Hortensius shouted, drawing his gladius, ‘line abreast, two deep, shields up and use the flats of your swords.’ He broke into a run with eight of his men on either side. Women in the street screamed and the men drew back, hurling abuse or encouragement depending on their race. Vespasian stepped out of his chair and, with Magnus and Ziri, followed slowly as the legionaries charged into the mob, who were so intent on beating their victim that they did not notice the threat until nine interlocked shields punched into them, cracking bones and hurling men to the ground. Burnished iron flashed in the sun as the legionaries brought the flats of their blades cracking down on the heads of the closest men still standing, felling them.

Those who could turned and ran, leaving the legionaries kicking and stamping on their fallen mates.

‘That’s enough, Hortensius,’ Vespasian shouted, ‘call your men off.’

It took a few moments for the legionaries to respond to their optio’s orders but eventually, after a couple more arms were snapped and another skull cracked, they pulled back, leaving a half-dozen blood-stained bodies on the ground. A couple of them were shrieking in agony but the rest lay either unconscious or rolling around clutching shattered limbs and groaning with pain.

‘Have a look at him,’ Vespasian ordered Magnus, pointing to the blood-spattered Jew who lay motionless.

Magnus stepped over a couple of bodies and knelt down, turning the man over; one look at his glazed eyes told him all he needed to know. ‘Dead,’ he announced as men and women came rushing from the Jewish Quarter.

Hortensius formed his men up in a protective wall around the dead and the injured. ‘Stay back!’ he warned as the first of the Jews drew close.

‘That’s my brother,’ a middle-aged man shouted, stepping forward from the crowd.

Vespasian recognised him as the Jew who had been running with the murdered man. ‘Let him through, Hortensius,’ he ordered, ‘and get these injured men locked up; they should be tried by the prefect for murder.’

The legionaries parted, letting the man through to his stricken sibling; he knelt and, taking the lifeless head in his hands, wept.

‘Why were they chasing you?’ Vespasian asked.

‘There’s been a preacher of heresy in the city; he was here again this morning. My brother and I went to argue against him but he doesn’t listen; he just insists that God loves all people whether they follow the Torah or not, and the way to God is through eating the body and drinking the blood of the man he claims was God’s son, Yeshua. It’s blasphemy.’

‘Eating his body and drinking his blood? That’s ridiculous; Yeshua’s been dead for five years or so.’

‘He says he turns bread and wine into his body and blood.’

Vespasian struggled to understand the concept. ‘Do you mean literally?’

‘I don’t know; I can only assume so, why else would he say it? After the meeting was broken up the preacher told his followers that he would perform this ceremony; my brother and I followed them to find out what happens. They went to a house by the Lake Harbour, a few hundred paces away; we managed to climb onto the roof and look down through a crack in the tiles but before we saw anything we were spotted and had to run for our lives.’

‘From the preacher’s followers?’

‘No, from ordinary Greeks; we Jews are not welcome anywhere in the city outside of our quarter at the moment. They chased us away but they’ve never done anything like this before.’ He indicated to his battered brother’s corpse and started to sob.

‘Take his body for burial,’ Vespasian said, sympathy colouring his words. ‘Tell me, what is your name?’

‘Nathanial,’ the distraught man answered through his tears.

‘I will ensure that his killers are brought to justice for this, you have the word of a Roman senator who owes your Alabarch a favour for a service he’s just rendered me.’

‘Thank you, senator,’ he replied, lifting his brother with difficulty. He looked at Vespasian with bloodshot eyes. ‘I don’t think that my brother is going to be the last person killed in this city just for being Jewish.’

Vespasian turned to Hortensius who now had an escort of only eight legionaries, the others being busy dealing with the Jew’s murderers. ‘Let’s get going, optio,’ he ordered wearily, ‘I’ve got much to do.’

‘It ain’t good when people start getting murdered just for being Jewish,’ Magnus observed to Vespasian as they set off again.

‘People get murdered just for having a weighty purse on them.’

‘That ain’t what I mean, sir. The way I see it is that if more of them get murdered for being Jewish then it won’t be too long before they retaliate and people find themselves getting murdered just for being Greek or Egyptian or, the gods forbid, Roman.’ He looked pointedly at the senatorial stripe on Vespasian’s toga. ‘If you take my meaning?’

Vespasian did indeed.

It was the fifth hour of the day by the time Vespasian and his depleted party reached the Forum, which was, like everything else he had seen in Alexandria, truly impressive. With a panoramic view over the Great Harbour it was set between the theatre, seating over thirty thousand, to its east and, to its west, the Caesareum, the palace, guarded by two needle-like obelisks, built by Cleopatra for her lover and named after him. Two hundred paces long and a hundred across and surrounded by a colonnade of immense proportions constructed of different coloured marbles, the Forum teemed with people of many races going about their business; it was the beating heart of a great city.

Thales proved easy to find as he turned out to be one of the most important and respected bankers in the city. Vespasian’s senatorial toga enabled him to jump the queue but to the relief of the other disgruntled clients his business did not take long. He left within a quarter of an hour with a receipt for his bankers’ draft and a promise from the bald and immensely overweight Thales that upon his return the following morning there would be 237,500 denarii in cash, paid in gold for ease of transport back to Rome. Thales had made 12,500 denarii commission on the deal but Vespasian did not let that sour his mood as they made their way past the extensive Gymnasium complex and found the Alexandrian abode of his late benefactress.

Magnus pulled on the bell chain and almost instantly the door was opened by a dark-skinned, wavy-haired slave who looked very much like Ziri.

‘Senator Titus Flavius Vespasianus here to see Marcus Antonius Felix,’ Magnus announced.

They were immediately granted entry and were escorted through to an atrium with many fountains, not just in the impluvium but at intervals all around the room, cooling the atmosphere and filling the air with the constant but gentle sound of falling water.

‘Senator Vespasian,’ a voice said from the far end of the room, ‘what a pleasure to see you; I had heard that you had arrived but did not expect to be honoured with a visit so soon into your stay.’ Felix appeared from behind a statue of Poseidon — a small replica of the one crowning the Pharos but, nevertheless, twice life-sized; it gushed water from its open mouth.

‘That is because you said to come if you could be of service, Felix,’ Vespasian replied, walking towards his host, ‘and, most certainly now, I do need your help.’

‘I didn’t say that it would be impossible,’ Felix quietly reminded Vespasian and Magnus, ‘I said it would be difficult but not impossible.’

‘Well, it looks impossible to me,’ Magnus muttered.

‘But it has to be done,’ Vespasian said flatly but wondering nonetheless how Felix thought that it could be achieved.

They were standing in the dim interior of the burial chamber in Alexander’s Mausoleum at the heart of the Soma, the sacred enclosure where the bodies of his heirs in Egypt, the Ptolemys, rested. Before them, ten feet away, resting on a granite slab supported by two similar slabs on their sides, lay a sarcophagus of translucent sheets of crystal set in a latticed bronze framework. It shimmered orange and golden in the flickering light of three flaming sconces burning on its far side from low down, giving the impression that it glowed with a light generated internally. Cocooned tightly within it, Vespasian could see the silhouetted outline of the mummified body of the greatest conqueror known to the world: Alexander of Macedon.

Although the sarcophagus could be viewed by means of a shaft cut through the ceiling to the temple, thirty feet above, the chamber itself was not open to the public. However, the priests of Alexander’s cult were happy to allow access to the body for visiting dignitaries, and as the first senator to visit Egypt for over four years Vespasian was admirably qualified and they had been honoured to grant his request. Only Ziri had been refused access because of his slave status and he now waited in the Temple of Alexander above them.

Despite the practical reason for his visit, Vespasian still felt overawed to see physical proof that Alexander had existed and was not just some hero conjured out of myth. He had felt close to the great man in Queen Tryphaena’s palace in Thracia standing by the desk that Alexander had used and gazing at the same view that he had seen every morning when he had come to raise Thracian mercenaries for his conquest of the East; but that was as nothing compared to being in the same chamber as his preserved remains.

Vespasian walked forward to get a better view of the body and also to examine the sarcophagus to see how it might be opened.

‘You may approach it, master, but it is forbidden to touch,’ the priest standing behind them in the chamber’s entrance warned.

Vespasian looked down through the crystal and found himself staring at a face that was at the same time both ancient and youthful. There were no lines on the smooth, brown skin, coloured by age not race, which stretched over the skull and jaw like the finest vellum; but neither was there substance to it, so the outline of the bone beneath was plainly visible giving the impression of great age. However, the mouth was closed with the thin lips pulled slightly up in a faint smile; the eyes, which had seen more wonders and riches than any others before or since, were shut as if sleeping. Long hair, still abundant and blond, covered the ears and lay perfectly dressed on the pillow framing the face with a soft outline of ochre; all this combined to give the effect that here was a young man resting peacefully. Vespasian drew his breath and looked closer; the only blemish was that the nostril on the shadowed side of the face had fallen away.

‘The great Augustus did that by accident when he had the sarcophagus’ lid removed so that he could touch Alexander,’ the priest said, realising what Vespasian was examining.

‘Was that the last time the lid was taken off?’

‘No, Germanicus brought his sons here and also we take it off every year to replace the spices that surround and preserve Alexander.’

Vespasian walked around the sarcophagus looking at the seal between the top and bottom halves of the sarcophagus and saw that they were held together by nothing more than the weight of the lid. ‘Do you think two men could lift that?’ he whispered to Felix and Magnus who had joined him as he completed his circuit.

Magnus shrugged. ‘If they can’t they could certainly lift one end enough to get to the breastplate.’

Vespasian’s eyes moved down to the object that Caligula had sent him to Egypt to steal; it was not what he had expected: gilded, inlaid and adorned with jewels. It was evidently the actual breastplate that he had worn in battle and not one made especially for his eternal rest. Just like Marcus Antonius’ sword it was the choice of a fighting man: made of hardened leather moulded in the shape of the muscles it concealed. Its only decoration were two rearing horses of inlaid gold facing each other on the chest and bronze edgings around the neck, shoulders and waist to give it added strength.

‘Can you memorise the inlays?’ Vespasian murmured to Felix.

‘There’s no need to; almost every statue of Alexander in the city depicts him wearing this.’

‘In which case our work here is done.’ Vespasian straightened up and turned to the waiting priest. ‘Thank you for allowing me the honour of gazing at the greatest man who ever lived,’ he said with genuine feeling.

‘I must stay for few moments to perform the short cleansing ritual that is prescribed every time we visit,’ the priest said, acknowledging their thanks with an inclination of his head. He stepped aside to allow them to mount the two flights of stone steps leading back up to the temple.

Coming out of the dark staircase, past the armed guard in Macedonian uniform at its top, Vespasian’s eyes took a short while to get used to the bright light; once they had done so he looked around the cavernous, circular chamber that he had only briefly glimpsed earlier as they had been ushered through its main doors and straight down to the tomb. It was dominated by a huge equestrian statue of Alexander, helmetless with his hair flowing behind him, mounted on Bucephalus and with a lance couched under his arm as if in mid-thrust. Next to it, rather incongruously, stood the now obligatory statue of Caligula.

In the absolute centre of the floor was a circular balustrade, waist high, surrounding the opening of the narrow shaft down which the public could gaze at Alexander’s preserved corpse. Directly above this was a similar sized hole cut in the ceiling, fifty feet above.

‘At noon on the tenth of June, the anniversary of Alexander’s death according to the Roman calendar,’ the priest informed Vespasian as he appeared at the top of the steps, his ritual complete, ‘the sun is directly aligned to shine down onto his face. I’m afraid that you’ve missed that by a month.’

‘That is a pity,’ Vespasian said gazing up at the hole. ‘What happens when it rains?’

‘It rarely does here, but there is a hatch up there that we can close.’

Vespasian nodded thoughtfully. ‘Thank you, you’ve been most accommodating.’ As he turned to leave, his foot slipped and he would have stumbled had Magnus not caught his arm; he looked down at a smear of greenish slime on the floor.

‘Please accept my apologies, senator,’ the priest said hastily, ‘I will have the slaves who clean the floor punished for their slackness.’

‘What is it?’

‘We keep geese in the temple at night as a security; should anyone overpower the guards outside and gain access their noise would raise the alarm. I’m afraid that is their residue.’

‘You’re right, the windows are out of the question; the best way in and out is through the roof, if the hatch is strong enough to attach a rope to,’ Magnus agreed as they sat in some shade in the long and wide central courtyard of the Soma surrounded by the individual mausoleums of the Ptolemaic dynasty and with Alexander’s temple at its northern end. At its centre stood an altar at which a priest waited to accept the offerings brought by the people of the city in the hope that their semi-divine dead rulers would intercede for them with the gods on matters close to their heart, be they financial, legal or personal.

‘But first we’ve got to get into the Soma,’ Vespasian pointed out, looking at the only gate through the high walls of the complex through which a group of Greeks walked leading a lamb.

‘That should be fairly straightforward,’ Felix assured them. ‘The main gate is guarded but never closed so that the people have access to the altar day and night.’

‘So we just pretend to be supplicants?’

‘Exactly.’

‘All right,’ Magnus said sceptically, ‘say that we do get in and manage to sneak off unnoticed to the temple, get up onto the roof and then down through that hole, how the fuck do we deal with the geese?’ He indicated across to a small enclosure to the left of the temple in which were housed two dozen of the nocturnal guards.

Vespasian shrugged and looked at Felix.

‘The problem of the geese I can solve,’ Felix assured them, ‘we just need to get a man on the inside the evening before we go in — Ziri could do that. The big dilemma is the replica breastplate.’

‘What’s so hard about that?’ Vespasian asked. ‘You said the pattern is easy to replicate.’

‘It’s not the pattern that worries me. You said that the switch must never be noticed, which would be fine if the priests were just looking at it through the crystal. The trouble is that once a year they take the lid off and would then see that the leather isn’t old. No matter how much we try to age it it’ll never match the original if they inspect it closely.’

‘So we need to find a leather breastplate that’s three hundred years old or so?’ Vespasian questioned, raising his eyebrows.

‘Exactly,’ Felix replied, looking beaten.

‘That won’t be a problem; I saw more than a dozen of them last night.’