The House of the Vestals

THE ALEXANDRIAN CAT

We were sitting in the sunshine in the atrium of Lucius Claudius's house, discussing the latest gossip from the Forum, when a terrible yowling pierced the air.

Lucius gave a start at the noise and opened his eyes wide. The caterwauling terminated in a feline shriek, followed by a scraping, scrambling noise and then the appearance of a gigantic yellow cat racing across the roof above us. The red clay tiles offered little traction to the creature's claws and it skittered so close to the edge that for a moment I thought it might fall right into Lucius's lap. Lucius seemed to think so, too. He scrambled up from his chair, knocking it over as he frantically retreated to the far side of the fish pond.

The big cat was quickly followed by a smaller one, which was solid black. The little creature must have had a particularly aggressive disposition to have given chase to a rival so much larger than itself, but its careless ferocity proved to be its down-fell-literally, for while its opponent managed to traverse the root without a misstep, the black cat careered so recklessly across the tiles that at a critical turning it lost its balance. After an ear-rending cacophony of feral screeching and claws scraping madly against tiles, the black cat came plummeting feet-first into the atrium.

Lucius screamed like a child, then cursed like a man. The young slave who had been filling our wine cups came running. "Accursed creature!" cried Lucius. "Get it away from me! Get it out of here!"

The slave was joined at once by others, who surrounded the beast. There was a standoff as the black cat flattened its ears and growled while the slaves held back, wary of its fangs and claws. Regaining his dignity, Lucius caught his breath and straightened his tunic. He snapped his fingers and pointed at the overturned chair. One of the slaves righted it, whereupon Lucius stepped onto it. No doubt he thought to put as much distance between himself and the cat as possible, but instead he made a terrible error, for by raising himself so high he became the tallest object in the atrium.

Without warning the cat gave a sudden leap. It broke through the cordon of slaves, bounded onto the seat of Lucius's chair, ran vertically up the length of his body, scrambled over his face onto the top of his head, then pounced onto the roof and disappeared. For a long moment Lucius stood gaping.

At last, assisted by his slaves (many of whom seemed about to burst out laughing), Lucius managed to step shakily from the chair. As he sat, a fresh cup of wine was put into his hand and he raised it to his lips unsteadily. He drained the cup and handed it back to the slave. "Well!" he said. "Go on now, all of you. The excitement's over." As the slaves departed from the atrium, I saw that Lucius was blushing, no doubt from the embarrassment of having so thoroughly lost his composure, not to mention having been got the better of by a wild beast in his own home, and in front of his slaves. The look on his chubby, florid face was so comic that I had to bite my lips to keep from grinning.

"Cats!" he said at last. "Accursed creatures! When I was a boy, you hardly saw them at all in Rome. Now they've taken over the city! Thousands of them, everywhere, wandering about at will, squabbling and mating as they please, and no one able to stop them. At least one still doesn't see them much in the countryside; farmers run them off, because they frighten the other animals so badly. Weird, fierce little monsters! I think they come from Hades."

"Actually, I believe they came to Rome by way of Alexandria," I said quietly.

"Oh?"

"Yes. Sailors first brought them over from Egypt, or so I've heard. Seafarers like cats because they kill the vermin on their ships."

"What a choice-rats and mice, or one of those fearsome beasts with its claws and fangs! And you, Gordianus-all this time you've sat there as if nothing was happening! But I forget, you're used to cats. Bethesda has a cat which she keeps as a sort of pet, doesn't she? As if the creature were a dog!" He made a face. "What does she call the thing?"

"Bethesda always names her cats Bast. It's what the Egyptians call their cat-god."

"What a peculiar people, worshiping animals as if they were gods. No wonder their government is in constant turmoil. A people who worship cats can hardly be fit to rule themselves."

I kept silent at this bit of conventional wisdom. I might have pointed out that the cat-worshipers he so offhandedly disdained had managed to create a culture of exquisite subtlety and monumental achievements while Romulus and Remus were still suckling a she-wolf, but the day was too hot to engage in historical debate.

"If the creature comes back, I shall have it killed," Lucius muttered under his breath, nervously eyeing the roof.

"In Egypt," I said, "such an act would be considered murder, punishable by death."

Lucius looked at me askance. "Surely you exaggerate! I realize that the Egyptians worship all sorts of birds and beasts, but it doesn't prevent them from stealing their eggs or eating their flesh. Is the slaughter of a cow considered murder?"

"Perhaps not, but the slaying of a cat most certainly is. In fact, when I was a footloose young man in Alexandria, one of my earliest investigations involved the murder of a cat."

"Oh, Gordianus, you must be joking! You're not saying that you were actually hired to track down the killer of a cat, are you?"

"It was a bit more complicated than that."

Lucius smiled for the first time since we had been interrupted by the squabbling cats. "Come, Gordianus, don't tease me," he said, clapping his hands for the slave to bring more wine. "You must tell me the story."

I was glad to see him regain his good spirits. "Very well," I said. "I shall tell you the tale of the Alexandrian cat…"

The precinct called Rhakotis is the most ancient part of Alexandria. The heart of Rhakotis is the Temple of Serapis, a magnificent marble edifice constructed on a huge scale and decorated with fabulous conceits of alabaster, gold and ivory. Romans who have seen the temple begrudgingly admit that for sheer splendor it might (mind you, might) rival our own austere Temple of Jupiter-a telling comment on Roman provincialism rather than on the respective architectural merits of the two temples. If I were a god, I know in which house I would choose to live.

The temple is an oasis of light and splendor surrounded by a maze of narrow streets. The houses in Rhakotis, made of hardened earth, are built high and jammed close together. The streets are strung with ropes upon which the inhabitants hang laundry and fish and plucked fowl. The air is generally still and hot, but occasionally a sea breeze will manage to cross the Island of Pharos and the great harbor and the high city wall to stir the tall palm trees which grow in the little squares and gardens of Rhakotis.

In Rhakotis, one can almost imagine that the Greek conquest never occurred. The city may be named for Alexander and ruled by a Ptolemy, but the people of the ancient district are distinctly Egyptian, darkly complected with dark eyes and the type of features one sees on the old statues of the pharaohs. These people are different from us, and so are their gods, who are not the Greek and Roman gods of perfect human form but strange hybrids of animals and men, frightful to look at.

One sees many cats in Rhakotis. They wander about as they wish, undisturbed, warming themselves in patches of sunlight, chasing grasshoppers, dozing on ledges and rooftops, staring at inaccessible fish and fowl hung well beyond their reach. But the cats of Rhakotis do not go hungry; far from it. People set bowls of food out on the street for them, muttering incantations as they do so, and not even a starving beggar would consider taking such consecrated food for himself-for the cats of Rhakotis, like all cats throughout Egypt, are considered to be gods. Men bow as they pass them in the street, and woe unto the crass visitor from Rome or Athens who dares to snigger at such a sight, for the Egyptians are as vengeful as they are pious.

At the age of twenty, after traveling to the Seven Wonders of the World, I found myself in Alexandria. I took up residence in Rhakotis for a number of reasons. For one thing, a young foreigner with little money could find lodgings there to suit his means. But Rhakotis offered far more than cheap dwellings. To reed my stomach, vendors at crowded street corners hawked exotic delicacies unheard of in Rome. To feed my mind, I listened to the philosophers who lectured and debated one another on the steps of the library next to the Temple of Serapis. It was there that I met the philosopher Dio; but that is another story. As for the other appetites common to young men, those were easily satisfied as well; the Alexandrians consider themselves to be the most worldly of people, and any Roman who disputes the point only demonstrates his own ignorance. Eventually, I met Bethesda in Alexandria; but that, too, is another story.

One morning I happened to be walking through one of the district's less crowded streets when I heard a noise behind me. It was a vague, indistinct noise, like the sound of a roaring crowd some distance away. The government of Egypt is notoriously un-stable, and riots are fairly common, but it seemed too early in the day for people to be raging through the streets. Nevertheless, as I paused to listen, the noise became louder and the echoing din resolved into the sound of angry human voices.

A moment later, a man in a blue tunic appeared from around a bend in the street, running headlong toward me, his head turned to look behind him. I hurriedly stepped out of the way, but he blindly changed his course and ran straight into me. We tumbled to the ground in a confusion of arms and legs.

"Numa's balls!" I shouted, for the fool had caused me to scrape my hands and knees on the rough paving stones.

The stranger suddenly stopped his mad scramble to get to his feet and stared at me. He was a man of middle age, well groomed and well fed. There was absolute panic in his eyes, but also a glimmer of hope.

"You curse in Latin!" he said hoarsely. "You're a Roman, then, like me?"

"Yes."

"Countryman-save me!" By this time we were both on our feet again, but the stranger moved in such a spastic manner and clutched at me so desperately that he nearly pulled us to the ground again.

The roar of angry voices grew nearer. The man looked back to the way he had come. Fear danced across his face like a flame. He clutched me with both hands.

"I swear, I never touched the beast!" he whispered hoarsely. "The little girl said I killed it, but it was already dead when I came upon it."

"What are you saying?"

"The cat! I didn't kill the cat! It was already dead, lying in the street. But they'll tear me limb from limb, these mad Egyptians! If I can only reach my house-"

At that moment, a number of people appeared at the bend in the street, men and women dressed in the tattered clothing of the poorer classes. More people appeared, and more, shouting and twisting their faces into expressions of pure hatred. They came rushing toward us, some of them brandishing sticks and knives, others shaking their bare fists in the air.

"Help me!" the man shrieked, his voice breaking like a boy's. "Save me! I'll reward you!" The mob was almost upon us. I struggled to escape his grip. At last he broke away and resumed his headlong flight. As the angry mob drew nearer, for a moment it seemed that I had become the object of their fury. Indeed, a few of them headed straight for me, and I saw no possibility of escape. "Death comes as the end" goes the old Egyptian poem, and I felt it drawing very near.

But a man near the front of the crowd, notable for his great long beard curled in the Babylonian fashion, saw the mistake and shouted in a booming voice, "Not that one! The man in blue is the one we want! Up there, at the end of the street! Quick, or he'll escape us again!"

The men and women who had been ready to strike me veered away at the last moment and ran on. I drew into a doorway, out of sight, and marveled at the size of the mob as it passed by. Half the residents of Rhakotis were after the Roman in blue!

Once the main body of the mob had passed, I stepped back into the street. Following behind were a number of stragglers. Among them I recognized a man who sold pastries from a shop on the Street of the Breadmakers. He was breathing hard but walked at a deliberate pace. In his hand he clutched a wooden rod for rolling dough. I knew him as a fat, cheerful baker whose chief joy was filling other people's stomachs, but on this morning he wore the grim countenance of a determined avenger.

"Menapis, what is happening?" I said, falling into step beside him.

He gave me such a withering look that I thought he did not recognize me, but when he spoke it was all too clear that he did. "You Romans come here with your pompous ways and your ill-gotten wealth, and we do our best to put up with you. You foist yourselves upon us, and we endure it. But when you turn to desecration, you go too far! There are some things even a Roman can't get away with!"

"Menapis, tell me what's happened."

"He killed a cat! The fool killed a cat just a stone's throw from my shop."

"Did you see it happen?"

"A little girl saw him do it. She screamed in terror, naturally enough, and a crowd came running. They thought the little girl was in danger, but it turned out to be something even worse. The Roman fool had killed a cat! We'd have stoned him to death right on the spot, but he managed to slip away and start running. The longer the chase went on, the more people came out to join it. He'll never escape us now. Look up ahead-the Roman rat must be trapped!"

The chase seemed to have ended, for the mob had come to a stop in a wide square. If they had overtaken him, the man in blue must already have been trampled to a pulp, I thought, with a feeling of nausea. But as I drew nearer, the crowd began to chant: "Come out! Come out! Killer of the cat!" Beside me, Menapis took up the chant with the others, slapping his rolling pin against his palm and stamping his feet.

It seemed that the fugitive had taken refuge in a prosperous-looking house. From the faces that stared in horror from the upper-story windows before they were thrown shut, the place appeared to be full of Romans-the man's private dwelling, it seemed. That he was a man of no small means I had already presumed from the quality of his blue tunic, but the size of his house confirmed it. A rich merchant, I thought-but neither silver nor a silvery tongue was likely to save him from the wrath of the mob. They continued to chant and began to beat upon the door with clubs.

Menapis shouted, "Clubs will never break such a door! We'll have to make a battering ram." I looked at the normally genial baker beside me and a shiver ran up my spine. All this- for a cat!

I withdrew to a quieter corner of the square, where a few of the local residents had ventured out of their houses to watch the commotion. An elderly Egyptian woman, impeccably dressed in a white linen gown, gazed at the mob disparagingly. "What a rabble!" she remarked to no one in particular. "What are they thinking of, attacking the house of a man like Marcus Lepidus?"

"Your neighbor?" I said.

"For many years, as was his father before him. An honest Roman trader, and a greater credit to Alexandria than any of this rabble will ever be. Are you a Roman, too, young man?"

"Yes."

"I thought so, from your accent. Well, I have no quarrel with Romans. Dealing with men like Marcus Lepidus and his father made my late husband a wealthy man. Whatever has Marcus done to bring such a mob to his door?"

"They accuse him of killing a cat."

She gasped. A look of horror contorted her wrinkled face. "That would be unforgivable!"

"He claims to be innocent. Tell me, who else lives in that house?"

"Marcus Lepidus lives with his two cousins. They help him run his business."

"And their wives?"

"The cousins are married, but their wives and children remain in Rome. Marcus is a widower. He has no children. Look there! What madness is this?"

Moving through the mob like a crocodile through lily pads was a great uprooted palm tree. At the head of those who carried it I saw the man with the Babylonian beard. As they aligned the tree perpendicular to the door of Marcus Lepidus's house, it purpose became unmistakable: it was a battering ram.

"I didn't kill the cat!" Marcus Lepidus had said. And "Help me! Save me!" And-no less significantly, to my ears-"I'll reward you!" It seemed to me, as a fellow Roman who had been called on for help, that my course was clear: if the man in blue was innocent of the crime, it was my duty to help him. If duty alone was insufficient, my growling stomach and empty purse tipped the scales conclusively.

I would need to act swiftly. I headed back the way I had come.

The way to the Street of the Breadmakers, usually thronged with people, was almost deserted; the shoppers and hawkers had all run off to kill the Roman, it seemed. The shop of Menapis was empty; peering within I saw that piles of dough lay unshapen on the table and the fire in his oven had gone out. The cat had been killed, he said, only a stone's throw from his shop, and it was at about that distance, around the corner on a little side street, that I came upon a group of shaven-headed priests who stood in a circle with bowed heads.

Peering between the orange robes of the priests I saw the corpse of the cat sprawled on the paving stones. It had been a beautiful creature, with sleek limbs and a coat of midnight black. That it had been deliberately killed could not be doubted, for its throat had been cut.

The priests knelt down and lifted the dead cat onto a small funeral bier, which they hoisted onto their shoulders. Chanting and lamenting, they began a slow procession toward the Temple of Bast.

I looked around, not quite sure how to proceed. A movement at a window above caught my eye, but when I looked up there was nothing to see. I kept looking until a tiny face appeared, then quickly disappeared again.

"Little girl," I called softly. "Little girl!"

After a moment she reappeared. Her black hair was pulled back from her face, which was perfectly round. Her eyes were shaped like almonds and her lips formed a pout. "You talk funny," she said.

"Do I?"

"Like that other man."

"What other man?"

She appeared to ponder this for a moment, but did not answer. "Would you like to hear me scream?" she said. Not waiting for a reply, she did so.

The high-pitched wail stabbed at my ears and echoed weirdly in the empty street. I gritted my teeth until she stopped. "That," I said, "is quite a scream. Tell me, are you the little girl who screamed earlier today?"

"Maybe."

"When the cat was killed, I mean."

She wrinkled her brow thoughtfully. "Not exactly."

"Are you not the little girl who screamed when the cat was killed?"

She considered this. "Did the man with the funny beard send you?" she finally said.

I thought for a moment and recalled the man with the Babylonian beard, whose shout had saved me from the mob in the street-"The man in blue is the one we want!" — and whom I had seen at the head of the battering ram. "A Babylonian beard, you mean, curled with an iron?"

"Yes," she said, "all curly, like sun rays shooting out from his chin."

"He saved my life," I said. It was the truth.

"Oh, then I suppose it's all right to talk to you," she said. "Do you have a present for me, too?"

"A present?"

"Like the one he gave me." She held up a doll made of papyrus reeds and bits of rag.

"Very pretty," I said, beginning to understand. "Did he give you the doll for screaming?"

She laughed. "Isn't it silly? Would you like to hear me scream again?"

I shuddered. "Later, perhaps. You didn't really see who killed the cat, did you?"

"Silly! Nobody killed the cat, not really. The cat was just play-acting, like I was. Ask the man with the funny beard." She shook her head at my credulity.

"Of course," I said. "I knew that; I just forgot. So you think I talk funny?"

"Yes… I… do," she said, mocking my Roman accent. Alexandrian children acquire a penchant for sarcasm very early in life. "You do talk funny."

"Like the other man, you said."

"Yes."

"You mean the man in the blue tunic, the one they ran after for killing the cat?"

Her round face lengthened a bit. "No, I never heard him talk, except when the baker and his friends came after him, and then he screamed. But I can scream louder."

She seemed ready to demonstrate, so I nodded quickly. "Who then? Who talks like I do? Ah, yes, the man with the funny beard," I said, but I knew I must be wrong even as I spoke, for the man had looked quite Egyptian to me, and certainly not Roman.

"No, not him, silly. The other man."

"What other man?"

"The man who was here yesterday, the one with the runny nose. I heard them talking together, over there on the corner, the funny beard and the one who sounds like you. They were talking and pointing and looking serious, the one with the beard pulling on his beard and the one with the runny nose blowing his nose, but finally they thought of something funny and they both laughed. 'And to think, your cousin is such a lover of cats!' said the funny beard. I could tell that they were planning a joke on somebody. I forgot all about it until this morning, when I saw the funny beard again and he asked me to scream when I saw the cat."

"I see. He gave you the doll, then he showed you the cat-"

"Yes, looking so dead it fooled everybody. Even the priests, just now!"

"The man with the funny beard showed you the cat, you screamed, people came running-then what happened?"

"The funny beard pointed at a man who was walking up the street and he shouted, 'The Roman did it! The man in blue! He killed the cat!'" She recited the lines with great conviction, holding up her doll as if it were an actor.

"The man with the runny nose, who talked like me," I said. "You're sure there was mention of his cousin?"

"Oh yes. I have a cousin, too. I play tricks on him all the time."

"What did this man with a runny nose and a Roman accent look like?"

She shrugged. "A man."

"Yes, but tall or short, young or old?"

She thought for a moment, then shrugged again. "Just a man, like you. Like the man in the blue tunic. All Romans look the same to me."

She grinned. Then she screamed again, just to show me how well she could do it.

By the time I got back to the square, a troop of King Ptolemy's soldiers had arrived from the palace and were attempting, with limited success, to push back the mob. The soldiers were vastly outnumbered, and the mob would be pushed back only so far. Rocks and bricks were hurled against the building from time to time, some of them striking the already cracked shutters. It appeared that a serious attempt had been made to batter down the door, but the door had stood firm.

A factotum from the royal palace, a eunuch to judge by his high voice, appeared at the highest place in the square. This was a rooftop next to the besieged house. He tried to quiet the mob below, assuring them that justice would be done. It was in King Ptolemy's interest, of course, to quell what might become an international incident; the murder of a wealthy Roman merchant by the people of Alexandria could cause him great political damage.

The eunuch warbled on, but the mob was unimpressed. To them, the issue was simple and clear: a Roman had ruthlessly murdered a cat, and they would not be satisfied until the Roman was dead. They took up their chant again, drowning out the eunuch: "Come out! Come out! Killer of the cat!"

The eunuch withdrew from the rooftop.

I had decided to get inside the house of Marcus Lepidus. Caution told me that such a course was mad-for how could I ever get out alive once I was in? — and at any rate, apparently impossible, for if there was a simple way to get into the house the mob would already have found it. Then it occurred to me that someone standing on the same rooftop where Ptolemy's eunuch had stood could conceivably jump or be lowered onto the roof of the besieged house.

It all seemed like a great deal of effort, until I heard the plaintive echo of the stranger's voice inside my head: "Help me! Save me!"

And of course: "I'll reward you!"

The building from which the eunuch spoke had been commandeered by soldiers, as had the other buildings adjacent to the besieged house, as a precaution to keep the mob from gaining entry through an adjoining wall or setting fire to the whole block. It took some doing to convince the guards to let me in, but the feet that I was a Roman and claimed to know Marcus Lepidus eventually gained me an audience with the king's eunuch.

Royal servants come and go in Alexandria; those who fail to satisfy their master become food for crocodiles and are quickly replaced. This royal servant was clearly feeling the pressure of serving a monarch who might snuff out his life with the mere arching of an eyebrow. He had been sent to quell an angry mob and to save the life of a Roman citizen, and at the moment his chances of succeeding looked distinctly uncertain. He could call for more troops, and slaughter the mob, but such a bloodbath might escalate into an even graver situation. Complicating matters even more was the presence of a high priest of Bast, who dogged (if I may use that expression) the eunuch's every step, yowling and waving his orange robes and demanding that justice be done at once in the name of the murdered cat.

The beleaguered eunuch was receptive to any ideas that I might have to suggest. "You're a friend of this other Roman, the man the mob is after?" he asked.

"The murderer" the high priest corrected.

"An acquaintance of the man, yes," I said-and truthfully, if having exchanged a few desperate words after colliding in the street could be called an acquaintance. "In fact, I'm his agent. He's hired me to get him out of this mess." This was also true, after a fashion. "And I think I know who really killed the cat." This was not quite true, but might become so if the eunuch would cooperate with me. "You must get me into Marcus Lepidus's house. I was thinking that your soldiers might lower me onto his roof by a rope."

The eunuch became thoughtful. "By the same route, we might rescue Marcus Lepidus himself by having him climb the same rope up onto this building, where my men can better protect him."

"Rescue a cat killer? Give him armed protection?" The priest was outraged. The eunuch bit his lip.

At last it was agreed that the king's men would supply a rope by which I could make my way onto the roof of the besieged house. "But you cannot return to this building by the same route," the eunuch insisted.

"Why not?" I had a sudden vision of the house being set aflame with myself inside it, or of an angry mob breaking through the door and killing all the inhabitants with knives and clubs.

"Because the rope will be visible from the square," snapped the eunuch. "If the mob sees anyone leaving the house, they'll assume it's the man they're after. Then they'll break into this building! No, I'll allow you passage to your countryman's house, but after that you'll be on your own."

I thought for a moment and then agreed. Behind the eunuch, the high priest of Bast smiled like a cat, no doubt anticipating my imminent demise and purring at the idea of yet another impious Roman departing from the shores of the living.

As I was lowered onto the merchant's roof, his household slaves realized what was happening and sounded an alarm. They surrounded me at once and seemed determined to throw me into the square below, but I held up my hands to show them that I was unarmed and I cried out that I was a friend of Marcus Lepidus. My Latin seemed to sway them. At last they took me down a flight of steps to meet their master.

The man in blue had withdrawn to a small chamber which I took to be his office, for it was cluttered with scrolls and scraps of papyrus.

He looked at me warily, then recognized me. "You're the man I ran into, on the street. But why have you come here?"

"Because you asked for my help, Marcus Lepidus. And because you offered me a reward," I said bluntly. "My name is Gordianus."

Beyond the shuttered window, which faced the square, the crowd began to chant again. A stone struck the shutters with a crash. Marcus gave a start and bit his knuckles.

"These are my cousins, Rufus and Appius," he said, introducing two younger men who had just entered the room. Like their older cousin, they were well groomed and well dressed, and like him they appeared to be barely able to suppress their panic.

"The guards outside are beginning to weaken," said Rufus shrilly. "What are we going to do, Marcus?"

"If they break into the house they'll slaughter us all!" said Appius.

"You're obviously a man of wealth, Marcus Lepidus." I said. "A trader, I understand."

All three cousins looked at me blankly, baffled by my apparent disregard for the crisis at hand. "Yes," said Marcus. "I own a small fleet of ships. We carry grain and slaves and other goods between Alexandria and Rome." Talking about his work calmed him noticeably, as reciting a familiar chant calms a worshiper in a temple.

"Do you own the business jointly with your cousins?" I

"The business is entirely my own," said Marcus, a bit haughtily. "I inherited it from my father."

"Yours alone? You have no brothers?"

"None."

"And your cousins are merely employees, not partners?"

"If you put it that way."

I looked at Rufus, the taller of the cousins. Was it fear of the mob I read on his face, or the bitterness of old resentments? His cousin Appius began to pace the room, biting his fingernails and casting what I took to be hostile glances at me.

"I understand you have no sons, Marcus Lepidus," I said.

"No. My first wife gave me only daughters; they all died of fever. My second wife was barren. I have no wife at present, but I soon will, when the girl arrives from Rome. Her parents are sending her by ship, and they promise me that she will be fertile, like her sisters. This time next year, I could be a proud father at last!" He managed a weak smile, then bit his knuckles. "But what's the use of contemplating my future when I have none? Curse all the gods of Egypt, to have put that dead cat in my path!"

"I think it was not a god who did so," I said. "Tell me, Marcus Lepidus, though Jupiter forbid such a tragedy-if you should die before you marry, before you have a son, who would inherit your property then?"

"My cousins, in equal portions."

Rufus and Appius both looked at me gravely. Another stone struck the shutters and we all gave a start. It was impossible to read their faces for any subtle signs of guilt.

"I see. Tell me, Marcus Lepidus, who could have known, yesterday, that you would be walking up that side street in Rhakotis this morning?"

He shrugged. "I make no secret of my pleasures. There is a house on that street where I spend certain nights in the company of a certain catamite. Having no wife at present…"

"Then either of your cousins might have known that you would be coming home by that route this morning?"

"I suppose," he said, shrugging. If he was too distracted to see the point, his cousins were not. Rufus and Appius both stared at me darkly, and glanced dubiously at one another.

At that moment a gray cat came sauntering into the room, its tail flicking, its head held high, apparently oblivious to the chaos outside the house or the despair of those within.

"The irony of it!" wailed Marcus Lepidus, suddenly breaking into tears. "The bitter irony! To be accused of killing a cat- when I, of all men, would never do such a thing! I adore the little creatures. I give them a place of honor in my home, I feed them from my own plate. Come, precious Nefer!" He stooped down and made a cradle for the cat, who obligingly leaped into his arms. The cat twisted onto its back and purred loudly. Marcus Lepidus held the animal close to him, caressing it to soothe his distress. Rufus appeared to share his older cousin's fondness for cats, for he smiled weakly and joined him in stroking the beast's belly.

I had reached an impasse. It seemed to me quite certain that at least one of the cousins had been in league with the bearded Egyptian in deliberately plotting the destruction of Marcus Lepidus, but which? If only the little girl had been able to give me a better description. "All Romans look the same," indeed!

"You and your cursed cats!" said Appius suddenly, wrinkling his nose and retreating to the far corner of the room. "It's the cats that do this to me. They cast some sort of hateful spell! Alexandria is full of them, making my life a misery. Every time I get close to one, the same thing happens! I never sneezed once in my life before I came here!" And with that he sneezed, and snorted, and pulled a cloth from his tunic to blow his runny nose.

What followed was not pretty, though it may have been just.

I told Marcus Lepidus all I had learned from the little girl. I summoned him to the window and opened the shutters enough to point out the man with the Babylonian beard, who was now overseeing the construction of a bonfire in the square below. Marcus had seen the man before, in the company of his cousin Appius.

What outcome did I expect? I had meant to help a fellow Roman far from home, to save an innocent man from the wrath of an unreasoning mob, and to gain a few coins for my purse in the process-all honorable pursuits. Did I not realize that inevitably a man would die? I was younger then, and did not always think a thing through to its logical result.

The unleashed fury of Marcus Lepidus took me by surprise. Perhaps it should not have, considering the terrible shock he had suffered that day, considering also that he was a successful businessman, and therefore to some degree ruthless; considering finally that treachery within a family often drives men to acts of extreme revenge.

Quailing before Marcus Lepidus, Appius confessed his guilt. Rufus, whom he declared to be innocent of the plot, begged for mercy on his cousin's behalf, but his pleadings were ineffectual. Though we might be hundreds of miles from Rome, the rule or the Roman family held sway in that house in Alexandria, and all power resided in the head of the household. When Marcus Lepidus stripped off his blue tunic and ordered that his cousin Appius should be dressed in it, the slaves of the household obeyed; Appius resisted, but was overwhelmed. When Marcus ordered that Appius should then be thrown from the window into the mob, it was done.

Rufus, pale and trembling, withdrew into another room. Marcus made his face as hard as stone and turned away. The gray cat twined itself about his feet, but the solace it offered was ignored.

The bearded Egyptian, not realizing the substitution, screamed to the others in the mob to take their vengeance on the man in blue. It was only much later, when the mob had largely dispersed and the Egyptian was able to get a closer look at the trampled, bloody corpse, that he realized the mistake. I shall never forget the look on his face, which changed from a leer of triumph to a mask of horror as he approached the body, studied its face, and then looked up at the window where I stood. He had overseen the killing of his own confederate.

Perhaps it was fitting that Appius received the fate which he had intended for his cousin. No doubt he thought that while he waited, safe and sound in the family house, the bearded Egyptian would proceed with the plot as they had planned and his older cousin would be torn to pieces on the Street of the Bread-makers. He did not foresee that Marcus Lepidus would be able to elude the crowd and flee all the way to his house, where all three cousins became trapped. Nor did he foresee the intervention of Gordianus the Finder-or for that matter, the intervention of the gray cat, which caused him to betray himself with a sneeze.

Thus ended the episode of the Alexandrian cat, whose death was terribly avenged.

Some days after telling this tale to Lucius Claudius, I chanced to visit him again at his house on the Palatine. I was surprised to see that a new mosaic had been installed on his doorstep. The colorful little tiles pictured a snarling Molossian mastiff, together with the stern caption cave canem.

A slave admitted me and escorted me to the garden at the center of the house. As I approached I heard a yapping noise, accompanied by deep-throated laughter. I came upon Lucius Claudius, who sat with what appeared to be a gigantic white rat on his lap.

"What on earth is that?" I exclaimed. "This is my darling, my sweet, my adorable little Momo."

"Your doorstep shows a Molossian mastiff, which that animal most certainly is not."

"Momo is a Melitene terrier-tiny, true, but very fierce," said Lucius defensively. As if to prove her master's point, the little lapdog began to yap again. Then she nervously began lapping at Lucius's chin, which he appeared to enjoy immensely.

"The doorstep advises visitors to beware the dog," I said skeptically.

"As indeed they should-especially unwelcome visitors of the four-footed variety."

"You expect this dog to keep cats away?"

"I do! Never again shall my peace be violated by those accursed creatures, not with little Momo here to protect me. Is that not right, Momo? Are you not the fiercest cat chaser who ever lived? Brave, bold little Momo-"

I rolled my eyes, and caught a glimpse of something black and sleek on the roof. It was almost certainly the very cat who had terrified Lucius on my last visit.

An instant later the terrier was out of her master's lap, performing a frantic circular dance on the floor, yapping frantically and baring her teeth. Up on the roof, the black cat arched its back, hissed, and disappeared.

"There, you see, Gordianus! Beware this dog, all you cats of Rome!" Lucius scooped the terrier up in his arms and kissed her nose. "There, there, Momo! And disbelieving Gordianus doubted you…"

I thought of a truism I had learned from Bethesda: there are those in this world who love cats, and those who love dogs, and never shall the two close ranks. But we could at least share a cup of wine, Lucius Claudius and I, and exchange the latest gossip from the Forum.