György Spiró - Captivity

That Soter himself must be one of the old kings, Uri thought, ashamed at not knowing anything about Alexandria’s history. Never mind: if he were allowed to stay, he would be able to bone up on it.

They moved past extensive, nicely kept gardens attached to the villas of wealthy citizens of the town, and at one place he even saw gravestones. He didn’t know what to make of that.

That was the Western Necropolis, one of the old burial grounds. In times gone by the rich of Alexandria were buried in ample, shaded parkland just beyond the city wall, but eventually the living begrudged the dead the fine space they were occupying, and pushed into it while they were still alive. Plots of land here were extremely expensive, whether intended for the living or the dead, Hippolytos explained admiringly. Some people were born here and also happily died here, but Jews were never established in these parts, alive or dead.

“Have you people been expecting me?” Uri finally asked, summoning all his resolve.

“We’ve heard talk about you,” Hippolytos averred respectfully.

“From who was that?”

“That I don’t know, but I’ve heard your name before, and more than once at that. We knew that you had been knocking about in Judaea for a fair time on a mission of some kind… I had also heard your father’s name mentioned — his perhaps more than your own. He must be a big wheel in Rome if Agrippa asked him for a loan.”

Uri “umm”ed and “aah”ed.

“Here Agrippa asked the alabarch himself for a loan the last time he paid a visit,” said Hippolytos. “As best we know, the alabarch also gave him a sizable amount, two hundred thousand drachmas, it’s said, or rather not him but his wife, Cypron, but only the first installment, a tenth of it…” Hippolytos snorted ironically. “He handed it over in installments, the latter of which were forwarded to Dikaiarchia for Agrippa to pick up once he got there, and even then only at intervals so that the whole lot could not be picked up in one go to blow on a single dinner… A wise man, Alabarch Alexander, otherwise he wouldn’t have the entire tax revenues of the Nile for himself… And your father must be wise man also, Gaius Theodorus.”

“On a mission of some kind.”

But what on Earth might my mission be?

Uri sensed that Hippolytos would like him to be more forthcoming, but nothing more occurred to Uri. He felt odd that a highly intelligent young man should speaking to him in the most fantastic city in the world; more than that, he had the feeling that Hippolytos wanted to present himself as being even more intelligent than he in fact was. He’s another who fancies I’m some potentate, and feels it necessary to sketch for me an entertaining potted history of the Jews of Alexandria. If I utter a word it will immediately show how much of a nonentity I am, but then again it won’t be possible for me to keep my trap shut permanently!

Right now they were headed for the house of the most famous living Jewish philosopher… Who is dying to meet me! My father can have had no notion of what he was doing when he had me pushed into that ill-fated delegation!

They were now walking along the shore of Lake Mareotis. Here there were even larger docks, set deep in the water beside the stone moles like the teeth on a comb, as in the Great Harbor, and even more ships bustling about to unload and load. Uri paused and stared. Hippolytos confirmed that internal commerce was greater than the external trade, with all of the goods from India and Persia transferred here to craft that navigated the Nile. Papyrus, frankincense and saffron — Egypt’s best known exports — were also brought here, with only a small fraction of that making its way down the canal into the Western Harbor. Uri could also see strange reed-like plants on the shore, and was amazed to learn that these were papyrus. Hippolytos just laughed and reassured him that these were only used to make the poorest quality of papyrus used for packaging and baling. These somewhat smaller and gnarlier plants were also papyrus, though their bark was stripped not for writing on but to chew. If Uri looked a bit closer later on, back in Alexandria, he would see that people were constantly munching, and what they were chewing on was the stripped and crushed bark, which left a pleasant tingle in the gums and was also an aphrodisiac. Jews chewed it too; there was nothing to forbid that in the Scriptures.

They reached a beguilingly pretty fishing village, which Hippolytos declared with pride was the renowned Taposiris, where they held an annual festival of Osiris, always worth the trip because of the beauty contests: Hedylos the epigrammatist had written about these, which were open not only to rosy-cheeked girls but to older women too, who could enter any body parts that remained in good condition, their thighs, say, or their noses. This was not Athens, he added; here spectators were not lured to come to the competitions or theatrical performances by bounties but had to pay — though not a lot — with the cost of food and drink included in the price.

Uri stood and looked at the peaceful village, the boats, their crews placidly stowing their ropes, the unhurried people, the green and blue islets on the lake on which, if he narrowed his eyes in a squint, he could see white villas rising from among trees.

“Philo also has a small house on one of the islets where he grows vines, himself picks and presses the grapes at vintage time, then himself puts the wine aside to ferment,” noted Hippolytos. “If ever he tires of creative solitude in the country, that’s where he pulls back to. He invites no guests, so only trusted servants accompany him there, and all the scrolls he needs which deal with the mysteries of wine production are packed onto five or six boats. The tales go around that Philo grinds grape stalks and pips into the wine-barrels out of forgetfulness, so the resulting wine is more properly a marc that only he finds drinkable.”

Hippolytos’s laughter was mocking.

Philo’s house in the country, whitewashed on the outside, was very large, and it sat in the midst of a gigantic property, with orchards, stables, forests, fields, with a great number of servants, three of whom escorted the two guests to the atrium.

“The master is working,” one of them said deferentially, “and he instructed us that he was not to be disturbed… Nor was he expecting any guests today.”

Hippolytos nodded and parked himself on a couch. Uri remained standing and gazed at the circle of Hellenistic statues, sculptures of women, men, and winged beings, fine enough that they would have graced even the old Forum in Rome. All around the walls were colorful depictions of nature, and Uri became self-absorbed, as though the atrium he was standing in was a valley bordered by trees, flowers, and hills. Something of the kind was perhaps also to be found in the bedroom of the emperor Augustus and his wife, as went the gossip in the taverns in Rome from those who had seen them, or just heard about them — there every tree, every blade of grass was as true to nature as if it had been alive, and the mural he found himself gazing at here seemed to have the same realistic depth. Uri thought it amusing: in Rome, ringed by masses of stone it might make sense to feign nature on a wall, but here, where the house was truly standing in the middle of nature?

He stepped closer to one of the walls and examined it thoroughly. He had the distinct feeling that it was a landscape that he had seen before even though he had not seen many murals — actually, he hadn’t even seen many landscapes at all, on account of his poor eyesight. How could he be familiar with the picture all the same? It quickly dawned on him that the encircling mural depicted the surroundings of the very house in which he was standing. Lest any inhabitant of the atrium, cut off from the outside world, should forget — among all the other things to which he might be attending — where he happened to be situated.