CHAPTER VIII
AN ALEXANDRIAN CHARACTERISTIC
Nothing but prescience could have inspired Alexander, the youngMacedonian conqueror, to decide to plant a city on the sandy peninsulawhich lay hot, flat, low and unproductive between the glassy waters ofLake Mareotis and the tumble of the Mediterranean.
For a century previous, a straggling Egyptian village, called Rhacotis,eked out a precarious existence by fisheries; the port was filled withshoals or clogged with water-growth, and the voluptuous fertility ofthe Nile margin followed the slow sweep of the great river into the seatwelve miles farther to the east. No other port along the coastpresented a more unattractive appearance. But Alexander, having nomore worlds to conquer, turned his opposition upon adverse conditions.
So he struck his spear into the sand, and there arose at the blow acity having the spirit of its founder--great, splendid, contentious,contradictory, impetuous and finally self-destructive through itsexcesses.
He enlarged and embellished Rhacotis, which lay to the west of the newcity and left it to the tenantry of the Egyptians, poor remnants ofthat haughty race which had been aristocrats of the world before Troy.In its center arose that solemn triumph of Pharaonic architecture, theSerapeum.
But it was they who approached from the south, with the sand of theLibyan desert in their locks, who saw noble Alexandria. Between themand the city was first the strength of its fortifications, prodigiouslengths of wall, beautiful with citadels and towers. Within was theBrucheum, with the splendor of the Library, for the Alexandrian spiritof contentiousness sharpened and forced the intellect of herdisputants, till her learning was the most faultless of the time andits house a fit shape for its contents. After the Library the pillaredfacade of the Court of Justice; next the unparalleled Museum, and,interspersed between, were the glories of four hundred theaters, fourthousand palaces, four thousand baths. Against the intense blue of therainless Egyptian sky were imprinted the sun-white towers, pillars,arches and statues of the most comely city ever builded in Africa.Memphis, lost and buried in the sand, and Thebes, an echoing nave ofroofless columns, were never so instinct with glory as Egypt's splendidrecrudescence on the coast of the Middle Sea.
To the northeast, there was abatement of pagan grandeur. Here werequaint solid masses of Syriac architecture, with gowned and beardeddwellers and a general air of oriental decorum and religious rigorwhich did not mark the other quarters of the city. In this spot theJews of the Diaspora had been planted, had multiplied and strengtheneduntil there were forty thousand in the district.
Those turning the beaks of their galleys into the Alexandrian roadsteadsaw first the Pharos, a mist-embraced and phantom tower, rising out ofthe waves; after it, the Lochias, wading out into the sea that thepalaces of the Ptolemies might hold in mortmain their double empire ofland and water; on the other hand the trisected Heptistadium; between,the acreage of docking and out of the amphitheatrical sweep of thegreat city behind, standing huge, white and majestic, the grandestJewish structure, next to Herod's Temple, that the world has everknown--the Synagogue.
The Jews of Alexandria; as a class of peculiar and emphaticcharacteristics, a class toward which consideration was due indeference to its numbers, its wealth and its sensitiveness, werenecessarily the object of particular provision. Therefore, that theymight be intelligently handled as to their prejudices, they wereprovided with a special governor from among their own--an alabarch;permitted to erect their own sanctuaries and to practise the customs ofrace and the rites of religion in so far as they did not interfere withthe government's interests.
Thus much their privileges; their oppressions were another story.
Peopled by three of the most aggressive nations on the globe, theGreek, the Roman and the Jew, Alexandria seemed likewise to attractrepresentatives of every country that had a son to fare beyond itsborders. Drift from the dry lands of all the world was brought downand beached at the great seaport. It ranged in type from thefair-haired Norseman to the sinewy Mede on the east, from the Gaul onthe west to the huge Ethiopian with sooty shining face who came fromthe mysterious and ancient land south of the First Cataract.
It followed that such a heterogeneous mass did not effect union andamity. That was a spiritual fusion which had to await a perfectconception of liberty and the brotherhood of man. The racial mixturein Alexandria was, therefore, a prematurity, subject to disorder.
So long as a Jew may have his life, his faith and his chance atbread-winning, he does not call himself abused. These things the Romanstate yielded the Jew in Alexandria. But he was haughty, refined,rich, religious, exclusive, intelligent and otherwise obnoxious to theAlexandrians, and, being also a non-combatant, the Jew was the commonvictim of each and all of the mongrel races which peopled the city.
The common port of entry was an interesting spot. The prodigiousstretches of wharf were fronted by packs of fleets, ranging in classfrom the visiting warrior trireme from Ravenna or Misenum, to the squatand blackened dhow from up the Nile or the lateen-sailed fishing-smackfrom Algeria to the papyrus punt of home waters. Its population wasthe waste of society, fishers, porters, vagabonds, criminals, ruffiansea-faring men, dockmen, laborers of all sorts, men, women andchildren--the pariahs even of the rabble and typically the Voice ofRevilement.
Agrippa, landing with his party, attracted no more attention than anyother new-comer would have done, until Silas gravely inquired the wayinto the Regio Judaeorum.
"Jupiter strike you!" roared the man whom the sober Silas hadaddressed. "Do I look like a barbarian Jew that I should know anythingabout the Regio Judaeorum!"
His words, purposely loud, did not fail to excite the interest he meantthey should.
"Regio Judaeorum!" cried a woman under foot, filling her basket withfish entrails. "What say you, Gesius? Who, these? Look,Alexandrians, what tinsel and airs are hunting the Regio Judaeorum!"
"Purple, by my head!" the man exclaimed. "Roman citizens with the bentnose of Jerusalem!"
"Agrippa, or I am a landsman!" a sailor shouted. "Fugitive fromdebtors, or I am a pirate!"
"Jews!" another woman screamed; "coming to collect usury!"
A howl of rage, threatening and lawless, greeted this cry, out of whichrose the sailor's voice with a shout of laughter.
"Usury! Ha, ha! He has not a denarius on him that is not borrowed!"
The Jewish prince had lived a life of diverse fortune, but never untilthen had he been the object of popular scorn. A surprise was arousedin him as great as his indignation; he stood transfixed with emotion.Cypros, thoroughly terrified, came out from among her servants andclung to his arm. On her the eyes of the fishwives alighted.
Cypros, thoroughly terrified, clung to his arm (missingfrom book)]
"Look! Look!" they cried. "Sparing us our husbands by hiding herbeauty! The rag over her face! Bah! for a plaster of mud!"
"Fish-scales will serve as well," another cried, snatching up a handfuland throwing it at the princess.
"Have mine, too, Bassia! Thou art a better thrower than I!" a thirdshouted, handing up her basket.
"Be sure of your aim, Bassia!"
The uproar became general.
"A handful for the simpering hand-maid, too!"
"Don't miss the she-Herod!"
"Fall to, wives; don't leave it all to Bassia!"
"'Way for the proconsul!"--a distant roar came up from the water's edge.
"Bilge-water in my jar, there, mate; it will mix their perfumes!"
"'Way for the proconsul!" the distant roar insisted.
"Don't soil the proconsul, women!"
"'Ware, Bassia! The proconsul is coming!"
"Perpol! he will not see! He is the best Jew-baiter in all Alexandria!Sure aim, O Phoebus of the bow!"
"'Way for the proconsul!"
"Pluto take the legionaries; here they come!"
"One more pitch at them, though Caesar were coming!"
"No privileges exclusive for thyself, Bassia!
_Habet_! More scales!"
"Scales; shells; water! Scales; sh--"
"Fish-heads! _Habet_!"
"Entrails--"
"'Way for the proconsul!"
"Directly, comrades! Shells, water!"
"Ow! You hit a soldier!"
"Bad aim, Bassia!"
"The legionaries! Scatter!"
The centurion at the head of a column now appeared, with his brassesdripping with dirty water, threw up his sword and shouted. The columnflung itself out of line and went into the mob with pilum butt or pointas the spirit urged.
Pell-mell, tumbling, screaming, scrambling, the wharf-litter fled,parting in two bodies as it passed Agrippa's demoralized group, onehalf plunging off the masonry on the sands or into the water, the otherscattering out over the great expanse of dock. The soldiers pressedafter, and, following in the space they had cleared, came a chariot, alegate in full armor driving, his charioteer crouching on his haunchesin the rear of the car.
His apparitors brought up against Agrippa's party. They did nothesitate at the rank of the strangers; it was part of the blockade.Eutychus took to his heels and Silas went down under a blow from areversed javelin. Agrippa, besmirched with the missiles of his lateassailants and blazing with fury, breasted the soldiers and cursed themfervently. Two of them sprang upon him, and Cypros, screaming wildly,threw off her veil and seized the foremost legionary.
The legate pulled up his horses and looked at the struggle. Cypros'bared face was presented to him. With a cry of astonishment, he threwdown the lines and leaped from the chariot.
"Back, comrades!" he shouted, running toward them. "Touch her not!Unhand the man! Ho! Domitius, call off your tigers!"
"How now, Flaccus!" Agrippa raged. "Is this how you receive Romancitizens in Alexandria?"
The legate stopped short and his face blackened.
"Agrippa, by the furies! I knew the lady, but--" with a motion of hishand he seemed to put off his temper and to recover himself. "Tut,tut! Herod, you will not waste good serviceable wrath on anAlexandrian uproar when you have lived among them a space. They are nomore to be curbed than the Nile overflow, and are as natural to theplace. But curse them, they shall answer for this! Welcome toAlexandria! Beshrew me, but the sight of your lady's face makes meyoung again! Come, come; bear me no ill will. Be our guest, Herod,and we shall make back to you for all this mob's inhospitality. Ah, mylady, what say you? Urge my pardon for old time's sake!"
He turned his face, which filled with more sincerity toward Cypros thanwas visible in his voluble cordiality to Agrippa. Cypros, supported bythe trembling Drumah, put her hand to her forehead and tried to smilebravely.
"But thou hast saved us, noble Flaccus; why should we bear thee illwill? Blessed be thou for thy timely coming, else we had been killed!"
Agrippa, still smoldering, with Silas at his feet, alternately brushingthe prince's dress and rubbing his bruises, took the word from Cypros.
"What do Roman citizens, arriving in Alexandria, and no proconsul tomeet them? Perchance Rome's sundry long missing citizens have beenlost here!" intimated Agrippa.
"Ho, no! They never kill except under provocation. Yet I shall have aword with the wharf-master and the praetor. But come, have my chariot,lady. Apparitor," addressing one of his guards, "send hitherconveyance for my guests!"
"Thy pardon and thanks, Flaccus," Agrippa objected shortly, "we areexpected by the alabarch."
"Then, by the Horae, he should have been here to meet you. Forget himfor his discourtesy and come with me. Beseech your husband, sweetlady; you were my confederate in the old days."
She smiled, in a pleased way. "But we did not inform the alabarch whenwe expected to arrive," she answered. "He hath not failed us."
"And perchance," Agrippa broke in, "it might disturb Alexandria againto know that the proconsul had entertained Jews!"
"Still furious!" Flaccus cried jocosely. "Oh, where is that elastictemper which made thee famous in youth, Herod? But here are ourcurricles; at least thou wilt permit me to conduct thy party to thealabarch's."
It was the bluff courtesy of a man who assumes polish for necessity'ssake, and suddenly envelopes himself with it, momentarily for apurpose. Agrippa, looking up from under his brows, glanced criticallyat the proconsul's face for some light on his unwonted amiability, but,failing to discover it, submitted with better grace to the Roman'soffers.
The proconsul was near Agrippa's age, and on his face and figure wasthe stamp of unalloyed Roman blood. He was of average height, but sosolidly built as to appear short. His head was round and covered withclose, black curls; his brows were straight thick lines which met overhis nose, and his beardless face was molded with strong muscles on thepurple cheek and chin. He was powerful in neck and arm and leg, andprominent in chest and under-jaw. Yet the brute force that publisheditself in all his atmosphere was dominated by intellect and giantcapabilities.
He was Flaccus Avillus, Proconsul of Egypt, finishing now his fourthyear as viceroy over the Nile valley. One of the few who stood in thewintry favor of Tiberius, the imperial misanthrope of Capri, his wasthe weightiest portfolio in all colonial affairs; his state little lessthan Caesar's.
Wherever he walked, industry, pleasure and humankind, low or lofty,stood still to do him honor. So, when he headed a procession ofcurricles and chariots up from the wharves of Alexandria, he did not gounseen. Many of the late disturbers watched with strained eyes andgaping mouths and saw him turn his horses into the street which was thefirst in the Regio Judaeorum, and not a few stared at one another andbabbled, or pointed taut or shaking fingers at the prodigy. Flaccus,the most notorious persecutor of the Jews among the long list ofEgyptian governors, was visiting the Regio Judaeorum escorting Jews!
The sight created no less wonder and astonishment under the eaves ofthe Jewish houses, and throughout their narrow passages, but there wasno demonstration. Each retired quietly to his family, or to hisneighbor, and gravely asked what new trickery was this.
But Agrippa's party, following their conductor, proceeded through theless densely settled portion of the quarter into a district where thestreets opened up into a stately avenue, lined by the palaces of thearistocratic Jews of Alexandria.
Before one, not in the least different from half a dozen surroundingit, their guide halted. The residence was square, with an unbrokenfront, except for a porch, the single attribute characteristic ofEgypt, and the window arches and parapet relieved the somber masonrywith checkered stone. The flight of steps leading up to the porch wasof white marble.
One of the proconsul's apparitors knocked and stiffly announced hismission to the Jewish porter that answered. Immediately the master ofthe house came forth, followed by a number of servants to take chargeof the prince's effects.
The master of the house, Alexander Lysimachus, alabarch of Alexandria,was a Jew by feature and by dress, but sufficiently Romanized indisposition to propitiate Rome. He wore a cloak, richly embroidered,over a long white under-robe; and the magisterial tarboosh, with abandeau of gold braid, was set down over his fine white hair. Hisfigure was lean and aged, a little bent, but every motion was as steadyas that of a young man, and his air had that certain ease and gracewhich mark the courtier.
His first quick glance sought Flaccus, for the visit was withoutprecedent and highly significant. But there was neither hauteur norsuspicion in his manner. The bluff countenance of the proconsul showeda little expectancy, but there was even less to be seen on the Jew'sface that should betray his interpretation of the visit. Themagistrates bowed, each after his own manner of salutation--the Jewwith oriental grace, the Roman with an offhand upward jerk of his headand a gesture of his mailed hand.
"Behold your guests, Lysimachus," Flaccus said, "or what is left ofthem after an encounter with the rabble at the wharf. You should havebeen there to meet them."
"So I should, had I been forewarned," the alabarch explained, thepeculiar music of the Jewish intonation sh
owing in mellow contrast tothe Roman's blunt voice. "What! Is this how the accursed vermin haveused you!"
He put out his old waxen hands to the prince and searched his face.
"O thou son of Berenice!" he said softly. "Welcome to the worshipinghearts of Jews, once more."
"Thanks," replied Agrippa, embracing the old man. "My latest adventurewith Gentiles has well-nigh persuaded me to remain there!"
"God grant it; God grant it! And thy princess?"
Cypros had uncovered her face and was reaching him her hands.
"Mariamne!" he exclaimed in a startled way. "Mariamne, as I live!"
Flaccus, who had fixed his eyes on Cypros the instant her veil waslifted, started.
"Mariamne! The murdered Mariamne!" he repeated.
"Ah, sir!" the alabarch protested, smiling. "Thou wast not born then.But I knew her: as a young man I knew her! But enter, enter! Prayfavor us with thy presence at supper, noble Flaccus. It shall be anevening of festivity."
He led them through a hall so dimly lighted as to appear dark after thedaylight without, and into one of the noble chambers characteristic ofthe opulent Orient. The whole interior was lined with yellow marble,and the polish of the pavement was mirror-like. The lattice of thewindows, the lamps, the coffers of the alabarch's records, the layersfor the palms and plantain, the clawed feet of the great divan were allof hammered brass. The drapery at arch and casement, the cushions andcovering of the divan were white and yellow silk, and, besides asprawling tiger skin on the floor, the alabarch's chair of authority,and a table of white wood, there was no other furniture.
The alabarch gave Flaccus his magistrate's chair, and, seating his twonoble guests and their children, clapped his hands in summons.
A brown woman, with eyes like chrysolite and the lithe movements of apanther, was instantly at his elbow.
The alabarch spoke to her in a strange tongue, and the servantdisappeared.
"I send for my daughter," he explained to his guests. "Thewaiting-woman does not understand our tongue. My daughter--the onlyone I have, and unmarried!"
"I remember her," Agrippa said with a smile.
At that moment in the archway leading into the interior of the house agirl appeared. She lifted her eyes to her father's face, and betweenthem passed the mute evidence of dependence and vital attachment.
She wore the classic Greek chiton of white wool without relief of coloror ornament, a garb which, by its simplicity, intensified the firstimpression that it was a child that stood in the archway. She was alittle below average height, with almost infantile shortening of curvesin her pretty, stanch outlines. But the suppleness of waist and theexquisite modeling of throat and wrist were signs that proved her to beof mature years.
Her hair was of that intermediate tint of yellow-brown which in adultyears would be dark. It fell in girlish freedom, rough with curls, alittle below her shoulders. There was a boyishness in the noblebreadth of her forehead, full of front, serene almost to seriousness,and marked by delicate black brows too level to be ideally feminine.Her eyes were not prominent but finely set under the shading brow,large of iris, like a child's, and fair brown in color. In theirscrutiny was not only the wisdom of years but the penetration of asage. Though her tips were not full they were perfectly cut, andredder than the heart of any pomegranate that grew in the alabarch'sgarden.
But it was not these certain signs of strength which engaged Agrippa.Beyond the single glance to note how much the girl had developed infour years he gave his attention to certain physical characteristicswhich called upon his long experience with women to catalogue.
As she stood in the archway, the prince had let his glance slip down toher feet, shod in white sandals, and her ankles laced about with whiteribbon. One small foot upbore her weight, the other unconsciously, butmost daintily, poised on a toe. She swayed once with indescribablelightness, but afterward stood balanced with such preparedness of youngsinew that at a motion she could have moved in any direction. Foremostin summing these things, Agrippa observed that she was whollyunconscious of how she stood.
"Terpsichore!" he said to himself, "or else the goddess hath withdrawnthe gift of dancing from the earth!"
"Enter, Lydia, and know the proconsul, the noble Flaccus," the alabarchsaid. The girl raised her eyes to the proconsul's face and salaamedwith enchanting grace. Flaccus checked a fatherly smile. He wouldwait before he patronized a girl-child of uncertain age.
"And this," the alabarch went on, "thou wilt remember as our prince,Herod Agrippa."
"Alas! sweet Lydia," Agrippa said, fixing soft eyes upon her. "Must Ibe introduced? Am I in four years forgotten?"
"No, good my lord," she answered in a voice that was mellow with themusic of womanhood--a voice that almost startled with its abatedstrength and richness, since the illusion of her youth was hard toshake off, "thou art identified by thy sweet lady!"
Agrippa stroked his smooth chin and Flaccus shot an amused glance athim. Meanwhile the girl had opened her arms to Cypros. The children,one by one, greeted her. The alabarch went on.
"My sons are no longer with us," he said. "They are abroad in theworld, preparing themselves to be greater men than their father. Butgo, be refreshed; it shall be an evening of rejoicing. Lydia, be myright hand and give my guests comfort."
He bowed the Herod and his family out of the chamber and they followedthe girl to various apartments for rest and change of raiment.
The alabarch turned to the proconsul.
"If thou wilt follow me, sir--"
"No; I thank thee; I shall return to my house and prepare for thyhospitality. But tell me this: what does Agrippa here?"
"He comes to borrow money, I believe."
"Of you?"
"Doubtless."
"Put him off until you have consulted me. He is not a safe borrower."