György Spiró - Captivity

“No one is allowed to settle down here, don’t you know that? The city is overcrowded; we are not in a position to support immigrants, and those coming from Palestine are particularly unwelcome.”

“But I’m a Roman citizen,” said Uri.

Heraclitos looked up and now inspected Uri properly for the first time as a human individual, sizing him up from head to toe, but he was not satisfied with the result and puckered his brow.

“What’s your name?” he asked.

“Gaius Theodorus.”

Heraclitos shook his head in disbelief. The other astronomers now also looked up. There was silence as Heraclitos went on:

“Not the son of Ioses Lucius, in person?”

Uri stiffened: how did he know that?

“Actually… yes.”

“So tell me: what is your father famous for?”

It then hit Uri.

“For having me as his son!”

“And what’s his son famous for?”

“For being one of the apostles who took the sacrificial tithe money from Rome to Jerusalem.”

Heraclitos whooped in joy and bounded up.

“Why didn’t you say so from the start, you hare-brain? We were just about to ask you to leave!”

The elderly, graying, highly respectable man leapt on Uri and embraced him.

The other astronomers also got to their feet, came over to Uri with great respect and, one after the other, gave him a solemn, ceremonial embrace, kissing his cheek on both sides of the face. Uri didn’t know what to make of this and tolerated the embraces; his hands were free and he knew that he ought to return the embraces, but he just couldn’t do it.

The young man returned meanwhile to the room and stopped in utter amazement.

“It’s him!” Heraclitos shouted to him jubilantly. “He’s finally here! Gaius Theodorus, Agrippa’s courier! Take him straightaway to Philo!”

Uri was shaking all over. This must be another dream. He didn’t know what to think.

“Philo?” he asked faintly. “The philosopher?”

“The same,” shouted Heraclitos. “He has been waiting for you most eagerly!”

He was not taken to Philo right away, because evening had come, and Philo did not receive guests during evenings: he was accustomed to doing his writing then.

Philo lived on the banks of Lake Mareotis, a few hours’ travel west of Alexandria; it was possible to reach the place at night if you had torchbearers to accompany you, but that was pointless. In any case a whole party was about to set off for the tavern; wouldn’t Uri tag along? Some one would take him to see Philo the next morning.

All fifteen of them went to the Alpha; not one was missed back home, even though several of them had families. Their wives had grown accustomed to the fact that their husbands did not spend the nights with them, and usually not the daylight hours either. The astronomers’ pay was not so great — they could have earned a great deal more working as merchants. That was not the reason why the wives forgave them, or their in-laws had considered them good catches in the first place. Rather, all of them had been schooled at the Gymnasium, which meant that they had been given military training and in the process had won Alexandrian citizenship rights, which could otherwise only be extended to Greeks and exempted them from the electoral tax usually imposed on Jews. Uri didn’t inquire any further about that; he find out later on, once he was allowed to put down roots.

They asked Uri about Jerusalem, and it turned out that none of them had ever been there, nor did they ever intend to go there: the Jewish stargazers of Alexandria were not big fans of pilgrimages, preferring to gossip. They knew precisely which hostelry they were headed for, but on the way they would pop into one inn or another for a drink or two. They did not give Uri a chance to say much at all about Jerusalem, because they grew more interested in Rome, though when Uri outlined how Far Side was arranged, they cut in to say that Rome wasn’t really of interest either. Uri was dumbfounded: they showed as little interest in anything else as the peasants in Judaea. Of course, the stargazers justified their outlook: if Mark Antony had been victorious, and there had been every chance that he would have, Rome would now be a province of Alexandria, and if one of the emperors had an ounce of sense, he would have transferred the seat of the empire to Alexandria — that was where the real money was, trade, and there was no Senate here to make life difficult.

It was an unexpected point of view, but he did not have time to ruminate on it because he had to concentrate on not getting hopelessly drunk before they even reached the hostelry for which they were aiming. He did not truly register the fact that one of the astronomers had raised the point that since Cleopatra had not been too fond of Jews, things would not have gone so well for them even if Mark Antony had been victorious.

In the end, they did not end up at the hostelry they had spoken of, but one that was closer, and also very good, on a broad avenue which even in the evening was packed with crowds of promenading people as if it were daytime, and small shops, in which one could get anything, were still open. There was no need for them to order anything because dishes and wine were continually brought to the big, round table, even without being asked for, the moment anything was polished off. Heraclitos was given beer because that’s what he preferred. He didn’t have to order that either: he was well known there. They sat in an inner, closed-off garden in a circle under fragrant thuja trees, surrounded by knots of young and old people, Greeks, Jews, Somalis, Ethiopians, Hindus, and peoples of who-knows-what origin. Perhaps Egyptians were the only ones not to be found among them, but that was because the Copts by that time were resting under their own roofs. Torches and sturdy candles provided illumination, along with oil lamps, which were bigger than Jewish lamps and ingeniously designed so that in each one the oil fed nine different flames — an old trick, to be sure, maybe as old as the menorah. There were also musicians trilling away, beating drums and fiddling on strings. Uri was appreciative of the fact that they could perch their backsides on chairs and did not have to eat Roman-style, reclining to one side.

He also took a bit of everything without asking if it was pure, because the Jewish stargazers were eating it, and they must know. He was a bit surprised, it was true, because one thing they served up was seafood, and the astronomers enthusiastically dunked these delicious marvels in garum sauce, and when he finally asked, they pooh-poohed it, with Heraclitos saying that anything coming from the sea was pure. They reassured him that, as Jews, they would not be brought anything uncooked; they took great care with that, so he could eat without any worries.

Uri didn’t know how they managed to get back to the island of Pharos; obviously along the Heptastadion as there was no other way, but that had somehow slipped his memory by the time he woke up the following morning in a little room upstairs. He burped contentedly then quickly had to look for a privy. The one he found on the ground floor had a window overlooking the sea; Uri spent a fair time on the throne, for good reason, but the view was also fascinating: even with his poor eyesight he could see the immense sailing ships bobbing in the Western Harbor.

What a city this is, Most High Eternal One! What a city!

He was also treated to breakfast, and offered sips of decent wine to counter any hangover, before he was sent on his way.

Hippolytos, who accompanied him, was the same young man who had taken the roll down to the archive the previous day.

As they walked to the west, Hippolytos related that Philo rarely stayed in the city, at the palace of his younger brother, Alexander, the alabarch, because he preferred the quiet of the countryside, where he was better able to concentrate on his writing. Philo had a big and splendid house, it wasn’t far away, no more than four or five hours’ walk, but Philo had the feeling that he was living in the country, and that allowed his mind to calm itself. He was in the habit of throwing big parties there, and sometimes as many as a hundred guests would arrive on horseback or ass. But the house was so big and there were so many outbuildings belonging to it that even that number, along with their mounts, could be easily accommodated.