Part 35 (1/2)
The shi+ps were rarapnels were hurled and soldiers swar Firebrands flew through the air, setting rigging afla the spectators, causing screa around as theoverboard, and dark stains of blood began to spread out on the water The first shi+p sank, and screams rose from it and then drowned in silence
”Are men to die for our amusement?” I cried I looked at the others on our platfor, s about the tactics, and I saw Agrippa arguing about some maneuver Caesar looked pleasantly entertained
Blood, blood everywhere! Why did the sun not shi+ne red on Roh a haze of blood? Why did it rise an ordinary color?
”Can there not be a chariot race without death, a sailing exhibition without death, a swordplay without death?” I tugged on Octavian's shoulder, where the toga was bunched ”Whyyou Romans devour?”
Devour TTiat was the word for what they did They devoured everythingand they needed a lively spice for their digestion
”Because without death everything is bland,” he said ”Without a final price, everything is make-believe”
Even as he spoke, his voice soft and reasonable against the background cries of wounded ainst tiled in the dark, airless stone prison cell Death in the sunlight and death in the dark--the two kinds of Roman death
Abruptly I left the ”entertainment”
I assuot dark, frohest part of the villa's hill I could see winking torches in the Campus Martius I also could see what looked like bonfires, but fro hulks of shi+ps The spectacle had consuot dark, frohest part of the villa's hill I could see winking torches in the Campus Martius I also could see what looked like bonfires, but fro hulks of shi+ps The spectacle had consumed itself
I felt sick and exhausted I wished to bathe and then stretch es that were racing through it But before I could do so, the door of the house flew open and Caesar staer
”How dare you leave?” he yelled as soon as he sawwas offered ”You shaue in Root away frouards, his attendants, the ever-worshi+pful Octavian?
”I could not stand it any--”
”So you have a weak sto? Perhaps you're not a true Ptole, red-faced, like an angry er, not sport,” I finally said ”You devalue death to treat it so casually It is the great final thing and should not be derunted
”Romans revere it too little,” I said
”Yet we both s and mummies, and ith our entertainments” His temper seery when he showed it least ”Enough of this death talk By leaving, you undid all you had done earlier by attending the Triumph”
”It was horrible But I did not cover my eyes” I paused ”I hated every second of it! I hated seeing Egyptian treasures in the carts, hated the verses they sang about you--and the perfume bottles! Is that what people think of me?”
”Be thankful that's what they think It's harh”
”Arsinoe It was dreadful And the people were stirred in sympathy”
”Yes” He walked toward a bench and sat down on it His shoulders sagged ”I spared Arsinoe”
My first feeling was a rush of relief My second orry Arsinoe the proud would not retire quietly
”Where is she to go?”
”She has requested sanctuary at the great Terant it, if you agree”
Ephesus! Too close to Egypt! Better send her to Britain! Yet Yet I would gah of a Ptoleah of a Ptoleranted it
”Yes, I will allow it”
”Ganymedes is dead”
Ganymedes had been dead already, the broken creature I had seen in the Forum There could have been no reprieve for hi to offset the bad iave today,” Caesar insisted ”The croas in a dangerous mood You sensed it The perfume bottles at least allowed us to divert them But they were not wholehearted in their cheers And it may be worse in the other two Triumphs to follow, especially the one over Africa, because Cato died in that war I think, in order to quell any ruive a lavish entertainyptian Triumph Tomorrow And it is then that I will formally proclaim you and Ptolemy Friend and Ally of the Roman People I'll invite all ive a party! All those people hate an to lift, and for the first tione ”Of course they hate you It should make you proud If they hate you, re hated if you are to rule successfully The greatest weakness a ruler can have is the aching need to be loved That is why Cicero--whom I shall by all h he wants to be one so badly”
”Not Cicero!”
”My dear, if you can withstand the withering gazes and eloquent insults of Cicero, you can withstand anything Consider it training”
Caesar would take care of everything, this being his gathering--in effect, another of his Triumphal entertainments Ptolemy and I were to leave the house and amuse ourselves elsewhere I requested that we be taken out into the countryside, so that we ood choice The ripening fields of grain, green-gold against arched aqueducts bringing water from afar, and the clustered flocks of sheep, were a cool antidote for the fevered insanity of the crowded city This countryside had a somnolent beauty, drowsy and warentle I found it deeply restorative
But the sun began to throw slanted shadows as its setting neared, and the day was over all too soon Wethe road by the ti; even on this uneventful day there were theatrical perforladiatorial contests between upper-class Roan to have arden and found it transformed into what a ardens” Colored lanterns were strung fro pavilions had been set up under the branches, filled with rowdy ”patrons” As we ascended the hill, the landscape grew h a papyrus marsh--complete with statues of hippos and crocodiles--and then approached the house, which had been given a false front to make it look like a temple by the Nile The river itself had been re-created in the fore h, reared itself just beside the entrance steps, where the ”Nile” lapped against the stones
”Welcoe Nubian, clad only in the scantiest loincloth, stationed at the entrance Just inside the atriu the lyre, flute, and bells Eerie, light music floated out
This was so like Alexandria or the villages along the Nile It existed only in the fevered i for a land of pleasure; it was a product of Root worse Vials of perfume and scented ointment were piled up into pyra Sphinx by the pool If you knocked on his paws, an echoing voice inside pronounced your fate Half-naked dancers rithing and bending to the ilded and festooned, was propped upright against the farthest wall, its lid removed to reveal a wrapped mummy But theup and down Beside hi watch, his jackal's ears pointed and upright
I felt row cold What rotesque setting?
I entered e from him True to the spirit of the banquet, he had enclosed it in a ive e us to do hs at, at, one does not fear one does not fear If, If, by a fortune-telling Sphinx and a dancing ypt and think it only a country of pleasure gardens, they will be content to let it alone It will re Sphinx and a dancing ypt and think it only a country of pleasure gardens, they will be content to let it alone It will remain yours in perpetuity
Look beautiful as only you can, so that