Richard Blake: The Blood of Alexandria

If I hadn’t been long in Alexandria, I’d managed to learn one important truth. This was that the less Greek someone looked, the louder he damned the natives. This creature’s ancestors might well have bought a pedigree showing descent from the Macedonian settlers called in by the first Ptolemy. His dark eyes and swarthy face told a different story. Indeed, when not twisted in almost apoplectic rage, his lips had a slight touch of the Ethiopian about them.

But so it was with most of them. Their Greek was barely less harsh than that of the natives who spoke it as a foreign language. In private, their customs differed hardly at all. Even so, they had their Greek names and Greek robes, and they clung – at least in public – to the Orthodox Faith laid down at Chalcedon. They called themselves a Greek ruling caste in the country. And they didn’t care to learn they might have to behave otherwise.

I held up my arms for silence. No one paid attention. I nodded to one of the guards at the back of the Hall. He drew his sword and beat hard against his shield.

That brought them all to order. There was a flicker from overhead as the sun moved round to be caught by another of the mirrors.

‘Gentlemen,’ I said, ‘I must remind you that I am not here to negotiate with you, but to inform you of the settled will of Caesar himself. My Lord Apion has already told you that this is the law not merely for Egypt, but for the Empire as a whole. I will, however, do you the honour of explaining the purpose of the law.

‘For the past three hundred years, the Imperial government has generally had one response to each successive crisis of the state. This has been to ensure continued production by tying the cultivators of the soil ever more firmly to the soil, and putting them under the dominion of the great landowners.

‘This may, in each case, have given a temporary respite. In the long term, it has reduced the bulk of the population from free citizens to something approaching slaves. It has also reduced the numbers of the population.

‘I understand that this process was completed somewhat earlier in Egypt than elsewhere in the Empire. Indeed, it predates the entry of Egypt into the Imperial system.’

Well, that was certain truth. If you’ve ever seen those repulsive wall carvings put up by the kings here before any foreign conquest, you’ll know just how exalted every ruling class has made itself since time immemorial.

But, again, I continued: ‘Whatever the case, the effect has been the same in all places. The Empire is fighting desperately for life on every frontier. You all know of our losses to the Persians. You may not be aware that, in the past year alone, we have lost our last part of Spain to the Visigoths; and our losses in Italy to the Lombards have put Rome itself under almost continual siege. But for the efforts of His Holiness the Universal Bishop, Rome would long since have fallen.

‘We need soldiers to defend the Empire, and we need taxes to pay them. That means we must give the cultivators of the soil ownership of the soil they cultivate. Only then will they produce. Only then will they pay taxes. Only then will they lift a finger in defence of the Empire.

‘As My Lord Apion has also said, there is no alternative. If the landed interest in every part of the Empire will not give up part of what it has, all of it will finally be taken away under the rule of barbarian and Persian invaders who care nothing for established orders.

‘We have heard it said that native landowners will squander what they are given and settle in Alexandria. This has not been our experience elsewhere. The land grants and duties of military service will be inalienable. I do assure you, the natives will be tied more firmly to the land by interest than they ever have been by law.

‘If this Empire is to survive, it must become, more than it has in recent centuries been, one of farmers and soldiers. Only those cities shall survive that have trade or manufactures to support them – and only so far as trade or manufactures can support them.’

I sat down to a deathly silence. Perhaps I’d been carried away when I dropped that little hint about ending the bread dole. I don’t suppose anyone there gave a damn for the poor of Alexandria who lived or died by the free bread we handed out. But it was unexpected news that they’d have to feed their domestics out of their own pockets.

And no – it still wasn’t finished. Leontius had now broken cover. He was, I knew, the real leader of the resistance. He’d arrived in town almost before the wax had set on the writs of summons I’d squeezed out of Nicetas. For months now, he’d been slipping from dinner to dinner, getting up a regular party of opposition. I was surprised he hadn’t spoken already. Perhaps he was waiting to see what, if any, concessions I’d been authorised to make by Heraclius. He’d only speak after I’d done half the work for him.

‘Your Magnificence, My Lord Al-ar-ic,’ he began, dripping contempt for a name that, Latin or barbarian, was still from the West. A good thing I’d long since given up, except with Martin, on my English name: he’d have had fun with that opening diphthong.

‘My most Magnificent Lord,’ he went on, the flab around his neck wobbling as he shifted about for the right oratorical pose, ‘the will of Caesar is, of course, our command. If it is his will that we resign the lands from which we have always fed the great city of Constantinople, and before then Rome, what is there for us to do other than bow and go quietly into the dark? If we are told that the natives to whom our dominion must be transferred will thereby be raised from their so far eternal vice and degradation to become like the great men of Rome who, in olden times, fought and tilled until they had conquered the whole world, who are we to disagree?

‘But’ – he’d evidently practised this oration, and thought its sarcasm ever so witty – ‘we are unjustly put upon when accused of not paying our taxes. Whenever bread and gold have been required for the Sacred Armies of Our Most Noble Augustus, when have we ever stayed the hand of generosity? When have we ever withheld the six million bushels of corn that we send every year to Constantinople?

‘Nay, when this year we were called on to supply not six but ten million bushels, did we stay the hand? We did not. Now is the time of year when, by ancient custom, the people of Egypt rejoice in the plenty afforded them by the Nile and by their labour. It is now that the Alexandrians rejoice in low prices of bread. If they now grow thin – if they worry that the supplies left among us will give out before the next harvest – is that the fault of us who own the land? Nor have we made these truths known to the people. If we are in any sense at fault, it is surely in our blind devotion to the will of the Caesar who has sent his young and beautiful Legate to accuse us of disloyalty.’

There was another murmur about the Hall. And he was right. We had stripped the country bare. We’d had our reasons in Constantinople. But it remained that the Egyptians – or some of them – were buggered. It was a good question, indeed, how many Alexandrians would make it through to the next harvest. Still, though, Leontius wasn’t done.

‘If we have refused to fill the Treasury in Alexandria,’ he cried, suddenly passionate, ‘it is only from regard for the True Faith of Our Lord Jesus Christ.’

He looked dramatically round the Hall. If he was up to something, he’d kept it to himself. Every face was as mystified as I was. Again, I noticed that no one was standing close beside him. He might be leader of the opposition. That didn’t make him liked.

‘I am not referring,’ he went on, ‘to those separated brethren who accept the heresy of a single Human and Divine Nature for Christ. While they have strayed from the true orthodoxy, they at least accept that no salvation lies but through Jesus Christ.