During those evenings of the summer festival, Alexandria was lighted
more brilliantly than Rome itself. The town glittered with hundreds
of lights, lamps, lanterns, torches and links; it glittered in
its harbours, where the blinding sheaves of light floated from the
dome of the light-house; it glittered in its two main streets, which
intersected each other; it glittered in the colonnades of the Museum
and the Gymnasium, colonnades and stadia themselves restlessly teeming,
up to where the multitude were making merry for the festival.
But above all it glittered over Lake Mareotis and the Canopus
Canal. The splendid villas on the lake were bright with many-coloured
lanterns and balls of fire; the temple of Aphrodite, on the eyot,
was silhouetted in flaring lines; and over the golden waters of the
lake itself the illuminated boats pressed and crowded, filled with
song, filled with dance, full of colour, gladness and joy; streamers
flapped and rugs trailed over the sides of the boats down to the water.
Through the lighted streets the bearers hurried and thronged with the
litters towards Lake Mareotis. They hurried from the diversorium, with
the harpists and the dancing-girls and a great procession of slaves
in festive raiment. An army of freedmen followed on horses and mules;
and the passers-by pointed to the imposing procession, evidently the
household of a very wealthy Roman who was going to Canopus to dream.
The procession reached a landing-stage on the lake. Here a great barge
lay moored, a thalamegus which Caleb had succeeded in hiring at the
last moment for a vast sum of money. The thalamegus was painted blue
and gilded, with blue-and-gilt oars, which stuck out like so many
swan's-legs. Caleb had had her covered with tapestry and adorned
with wreaths of flowers and festoons of leaves. The silver statue of
Aphrodite stood on the prow, with incense burning before it. The troop
of slaves, male and female, and freedmen, with Vettius and Rufus,
hastened on board to await the master's coming.
A dense multitude pressed round to look on greedily. Now a Roman
litter approached, recognizable by its square shape; yet another and
the master alighted, with the aid of his slaves, male and female. He
was accompanied by an old, corpulent kinsman and a grave tutor.
"He's going dreaming! He's going dreaming!" cried the populace. "See,
he has his dreaming-veil on! He looks like Serapis himself!"
Beggars crowded round the travellers:
"Divine lord and exalted prince! Image of Horus, the son of Osiris! May
Serapis send you good dreams! May Serapis load you with blessings! May
he keep bad dreams locked far from you, in the shadowy underworld!"
The stewards distributed money among the beggars. Lucius had gone on
board. The slave-girls scattered flowers before his feet as he walked.
The song of the rowers was heard from the body of the boat. The
creaking ropes were cast off; the barge glided towards the middle of
the lake. She gleamed with blue, green and yellow lights and left a
trail of brightness in her wake; the water was bright around her. On
the banks the villas and palaces of light stood in gardens of light.
Hundreds of other barges were gliding slowly in the same
direction. Above the monotonous drone of the rowers' song rang ballads
and hymns. The music of citharas was heard in descending chords;
the harps rang out; the notes of double flutes quavered through the
evening air with a magic intoxication of melody.
The waters of the lake stood high. It was the month when the kindly
Nile stepped outside its banks with a moist foot and overflowed the
Delta. The golden waters of the lake lapped higher than the marble
steps of the villas down which the brilliant hetairae descended, holding
the lappets of their veils, to take their seats on the cushions of
their barges.
Flowers fell on the water, in unison with the notes of hymn and
song. All the craft, hundreds and hundreds, large and small, barges
and coracles, square rafts and canoes, pressed gently forward towards
the entrance of the Canopian Canal. On the banks were thousands of
idlers and spectators, all the people of Alexandria.
The vessels glided to the harmony of the twanged strings into the
broad canal. It was very full of water; the banks were flooded. Reeds
tall as a man, biblos and cyamos, rose like pillars, blossoming during
this month with thousands of waving plumes: the leaves of the biblos
were long and bending over, as though each were languidly broken;
those of the cyamos were round as scales and goblet-deep, stacked
one above the other along the stems, like cups. [1] In the light on
the barges, golden patches glowed among the stalks; and the reeds
and rushes blossomed up as though out of molten gold.
Here lay the Canopian harbour, here the suburb of Eleusis; and the
canal split into two branches. The narrower channel led to Schedia,
on the Nile; the broader led past Nicopolis to Canopus.
Beyond stretched the sea, wide and blue. Only a narrow strip of land
separated it from the canal; and it lay boundless under a thousand
twinkling stars.
"Lucius," said Thrasyllus, sitting spell-bound at the feet of the
young Roman, who sat on a raised throne and gazed in front of him like
a priest, full of longing for his dream of that night, "Lucius, my
Lord Catullus, look! We have passed Nicopolis, with its amphitheatre
and stadium; and yonder lies Taposiris, with Cape Zephyrium; and on
a height I can see the temple of Aphrodite Arsinoe."
"I see," said Lucius, turning his eyes towards the temple, which
was lit with lines of fire and rose above the water like a mansion
in Olympus.
"I see," echoed Uncle Catullus, seated by Lucius' side.
"I was reading," Thrasyllus explained, "that at the same place where
that temple now stands there once stood the city of Thonis, named
after the king who hospitably entreated Menelaus and Helen. Homer
mentions it and speaks of the secret herbs and precious balsams which
Helen received from Queen Polydamna, Thonis' spouse."
"You know everything, Thrasyllus," said Uncle Catullus, warmly,
"and it is a joy to travel with you."
"Tell the slave from Cos to sing the Hymn to Aphrodite as we row past
the goddess' temple," said Lucius.
Thrasyllus went to Cora and communicated the master's order. Forthwith
a group of singers and dancers rose to their feet. Cora herself struck
the resounding chords. And she sang:
"Mother of Eros, hear thy slave!
"Child of the foam, great goddess of love,
Aphrodite, look down from above!
Thou, who dost madden the gods with desire,
Thou, who fulfillest men's hearts with thy fire,
All but the heart of my lord that I crave,
Hark to thy slave!"
She stood as one inspired while she sang, with her fingers on the
chords, facing the temple. Around her the girls danced to the song. The
movements of their lithe bodies, light as the ripple of a silken
scarf in the breeze, met and dissolved in picture after picture with
each word of the song. The singer's voice swelled crystal-clear. From
the bank of the canal, from the open houses, on the temple-steps the
people listened to her song. In the tall reeds lay smaller boats,
wherein a man and woman embraced in love. Their hands thrust aside
the yielding stems; and their smiles glanced at Cora.
"All but the heart of my lord that I crave,
Hark to thy slave!"
the other singers now sang after her.
"She sings well," said Lucius.
Cora heard him. She blushed crimson between the great rose-coloured
flowers at her temples. But she behaved as though she had heard
nothing. And she sat down quietly among her companions, at the foot
of the silver statue of Aphrodite.
The barge glided on slowly with the others. From all of them, in turns,
came music. The water of the flooding canal was like a broad golden
mirror. On the bank, between the stalks of the tall reeds, the open
taverns and brothels rose, wreathed in flowers, as from an enchanted
lake. The women in them beckoned and waved with long lotus-stems.
But the barges glided on, towards Canopus. They were all going to the
temple of Serapis. Not until after the dreams would the brothels and
taverns be visited. The orgy was to come after the dream.