The procession was over.
At the great service which had been performed before him in the Greek
Serapeum, Ptolemy Philometor had endowed the priests not with the whole
but with a considerable portion of the land concerning which they
had approached him with many petitions. After the court had once more
quitted Memphis and the procession was broken up, the sisters returned
to their room, Irene with crimson cheeks and a smile on her lips, Klea
with a gloomy and almost threatening light in her eyes.
As the two were going to their room in silence a temple-servant called
to Klea, desiring her to go with him to the high-priest, who wished to
speak to her. Klea, without speaking, gave her water-jar to Irene and
was conducted into a chamber of the temple, which was used for keeping
the sacred vessels in. There she sat down on a bench to wait. The two
men who in the morning had visited the Pastophorium had also followed
in the procession with the royal family. At the close of the solemnities
Publius had parted from his companion without taking leave, and without
looking to the right or to the left, he had hastened back to the
Pastophorium and to the cell of Serapion, the recluse.
The old man heard from afar the younger man’s footstep, which fell
on the earth with a firmer and more decided tread than that of the
softly-stepping priests of Serapis, and he greeted him warmly with signs
and words.
Publius thanked him coolly and gravely, and said, dryly enough and with
incisive brevity:
“My time is limited. I propose shortly to quit Memphis, but I promised
you to hear your request, and in order to keep my word I have come to
see you; still--as I have said--only to keep my word. The water-bearers
of whom you desired to speak to me do not interest me--I care no more
about them than about the swallows flying over the house yonder.”
“And yet this morning you took a long walk for Klea’s sake,” returned
Serapion.
“I have often taken a much longer one to shoot a hare,” answered the
Roman. “We men do not pursue our game because the possession of it is
any temptation, but because we love the sport, and there are sporting
natures even among women. Instead of spears or arrows they shoot with
flashing glances, and when they think they have hit their game they
turn their back upon it. Your Klea is one of this sort, while the pretty
little one I saw this morning looks as if she were very ready to be
hunted, I however, no more wish to be the hunter of a young girl than
to be her game. I have still three days to spend in Memphis, and then I
shall turn my back forever on this stupid country.”
“This morning,” said Serapion, who began to suspect what the grievance
might be which had excited the discontent implied in the Roman’s speech,
“This morning you appeared to be in less hurry to set out than now, so
to me you seem to be in the plight of game trying to escape; however, I
know Klea better than you do. Shooting is no sport of hers, nor will she
let herself be hunted, for she has a characteristic which you, my friend
Publius Scipio, ought to recognize and value above all others--she is
proud, very proud; aye, and so she may be, scornful as you look--as if
you would like to say ‘how came a water-carrier of Serapis by her pride,
a poor creature who is ill-fed and always engaged in service, pride
which is the prescriptive right only of those, whom privilege raises
above the common herd around them?--But this girl, you may take my word
for it, has ample reason to hold her head high, not only because she
is the daughter of free and noble parents and is distinguished by rare
beauty, not because while she was still a child she undertook, with
the devotion and constancy of the best of mothers, the care of another
child--her own sister, but for a reason which, if I judge you rightly,
you will understand better than many another young man; because she
must uphold her pride in order that among the lower servants with whom
unfortunately she is forced to work, she may never forget that she is
a free and noble lady. You can set your pride aside and yet remain what
you are, but if she were to do so and to learn to feel as a servant,
she would presently become in fact what by nature she is not and by
circumstances is compelled to be. A fine horse made to carry burdens
becomes a mere cart-horse as soon as it ceases to hold up its head and
lift its feet freely. Klea is proud because she must be proud; and
if you are just you will not contemn the girl, who perhaps has cast a
kindly glance at you--since the gods have so made you that you cannot
fail to please any woman--and yet who must repel your approaches because
she feels herself above being trifled with, even by one of the Cornelia
gens, and yet too lowly to dare to hope that a man like you should ever
stoop from your height to desire her for a wife. She has vexed you, of
that there can be no doubt; how, I can only guess. If, however, it has
been through her repellent pride, that ought not to hurt you, for
a woman is like a soldier, who only puts on his armor when he is
threatened by an opponent whose weapons he fears.”
The recluse had rather whispered than spoken these words, remembering
that he had neighbors; and as he ceased the drops stood on his brow, for
whenever any thing disturbed him he was accustomed to allow his powerful
voice to be heard pretty loudly, and it cost him no small effort to
moderate it for so long.
Publius had at first looked him in the face, and then had gazed at the
ground, and he had heard Serapion to the end without interrupting him;
but the color had flamed in his cheeks as in those of a schoolboy, and
yet he was an independent and resolute youth who knew how to conduct
himself in difficult straits as well as a man in the prime of life.
In all his proceedings he was wont to know very well, exactly what he
wanted, and to do without any fuss or comment whatever he thought right
and fitting.
During the anchorite’s speech the question had occurred to him, what
did he in fact expect or wish of the water-bearer; but the answer was
wanting, he felt somewhat uncertain of himself, and his uncertainty and
dissatisfaction with himself increased as all that he heard struck him
more and more. He became less and less inclined to let himself be thrown
over by the young girl who for some days had, much against his will,
been constantly in his thoughts, whose image he would gladly have
dismissed from his mind, but who, after the recluse’s speech, seemed
more desirable than ever. “Perhaps you are right,” he replied after
a short silence, and he too lowered his voice, for a subdued tone
generally provokes an equally subdued answer. “You know the maiden
better than I, and if you describe her correctly it would be as well
that I should abide by my decision and fly from Egypt, or, at any rate,
from your protegees, since nothing lies before me but a defeat or a
victory, which could bring me nothing but repentance. Klea avoided my
eye to-day as if it shed poison like a viper’s tooth, and I can have
nothing more to do with her: still, might I be informed how she came
into this temple? and if I can be of any service to her, I will-for your
sake. Tell me now what you know of her and what you wish me to do.”
The recluse nodded assent and beckoned Publius to come closer to him,
and bowing down to speak into the Roman’s ear, he said softly: “Are you
in favor with the queen?” Publius, having said that he was, Serapion,
with an exclamation of satisfaction, began his story.
“You learned this morning how I myself came into this cage, and that
my father was overseer of the temple granaries. While I was wandering
abroad he was deposed from his office, and would probably have died in
prison, if a worthy man had not assisted him to save his honor and his
liberty. All this does not concern you, and I may therefore keep it to
myself; but this man was the father of Klea and Irene, and the enemy
by whose instrumentality my father suffered innocently was the villain
Eulaeus. You know--or perhaps indeed you may not know--that the priests
have to pay a certain tribute for the king’s maintenance; you know? To
be sure, you Romans trouble yourselves more about matters of law
and administration than the culture of the arts or the subtleties of
thought. Well, it was my father’s duty to pay these customs over to
Eulaeus, who received them; but the beardless effeminate vermin,
the glutton--may every peach he ever ate or ever is to eat turn to
poison!--kept back half of what was delivered to him, and when the
accountants found nothing but empty air in the king’s stores where
they hoped to find corn and woven goods, they raised an alarm, which of
course came to the ears of the powerful thief at court before it reached
those of my poor father. You called Egypt a marvellous country, or
something like it; and so in truth it is, not merely on account of the
great piles there that you call Pyramids and such like, but because
things happen here which in Rome would be as impossible as moonshine
at mid-day, or a horse with his tail at the end of his nose! Before a
complaint could be laid against Eulaeus he had accused my father of the
peculation, and before the Epistates and the assessor of the district
had even looked at the indictment, their judgment on the falsely accused
man was already recorded, for Eulaeus had simply bought their verdict
just as a man buys a fish or a cabbage in the market. In olden times the
goddess of justice was represented in this country with her eyes shut,
but now she looks round on the world like a squinting woman who winks
at the king with one eye, and glances with the other at the money in
the hand of the accuser or the accused. My poor father was of course
condemned and thrown into prison, where he was beginning to doubt the
justice of the gods, when for his sake the greatest wonder happened,
ever seen in this land of wonders since first the Greeks ruled in
Alexandria. An honorable man undertook without fear of persons the
lost cause of the poor condemned wretch, and never rested till he
had restored him to honor and liberty. But imprisonment, disgrace and
indignation had consumed the strength of the ill-used man as a worm eats
into cedar wood, and he fell into a decline and died. His preserver,
Klea’s father, as the reward of his courageous action fared even worse;
for here by the Nile virtues are punished in this world, as crimes are
with you. Where injustice holds sway frightful things occur, for the
gods seem to take the side of the wicked. Those who do not hope for
a reward in the next world, if they are neither fools nor
philosophers--which often comes to the same thing--try to guard
themselves against any change in this.
“Philotas, the father of the two girls, whose parents were natives of
Syracuse, was an adherent of the doctrines of Zeno--which have many
supporters among you at Rome too--and he was highly placed as an
official, for he was president of the Chrematistoi, a college of judges
which probably has no parallel out of Egypt, and which has been kept
up better than any other. It travels about from province to province
stopping in the chief towns to administer justice. When an appeal is
brought against the judgment of the court of justice belonging to any
place--over which the Epistates of the district presides--the case is
brought before the Chrematistoi, who are generally strangers alike to
the accuser and accused; by them it is tried over again, and thus
the inhabitants of the provinces are spared the journey to Alexandria
or--since the country has been divided--to Memphis, where, besides, the
supreme court is overburdened with cases.
“No former president of the Chrematistoi had ever enjoyed a higher
reputation than Philotas. Corruption no more dared approach him than a
sparrow dare go near a falcon, and he was as wise as he was just, for
he was no less deeply versed in the ancient Egyptian law than in that of
the Greeks, and many a corrupt judge reconsidered matters as soon as it
became known that he was travelling with the Chrematistoi, and passed a
just instead of an unjust sentence.
“Cleopatra, the widow of Epiphanes, while she was living and acting as
guardian of her sons Philometor and Euergetes--who now reign in Memphis
and Alexandria--held Philotas in the highest esteem and conferred on
him the rank of ‘relation to the king’; but she was just dead when this
worthy man took my father’s cause in hand, and procured his release from
prison.
“The scoundrel Eulaeus and his accomplice Lenaeus then stood at the
height of power, for the young king, who was not yet of age, let himself
be led by them like a child by his nurse.
“Now as my father was an honest man, no one but Eulaeus could be the
rascal, and as the Chrematistoi threatened to call him before their
tribunal the miserable creature stirred up the war in Caelo-Syria
against Antiochus Epiphanes, the king’s uncle.
“You know how disgraceful for us was the course of that enterprise,
how Philometor was defeated near Pelusium, and by the advice of Eulaeus
escaped with his treasure to Samothrace, how Philometor’s brother
Euergetes was set up as king in Alexandria, how Antiochus took Memphis,
and then allowed his elder nephew to continue to reign here as though he
were his vassal and ward.
“It was during this period of humiliation, that Eulaeus was able to
evade Philotas, whom he may very well have feared, as though his own
conscience walked the earth on two legs in the person of the judge, with
the sword of justice in his hand, and telling all men what a scoundrel
he was.
“Memphis had opened her gates to Antiochus without offering much
resistance, and the Syrian king, who was a strange man and was fond of
mixing among the people as if he himself were a common man, applied to
Philotas, who was as familiar with Egyptian manners and customs as with
those of Greece, in order that he might conduct him into the halls of
justice and into the market-places; and he made him presents as was his
way, sometimes of mere rubbish and sometimes of princely gifts.
“Then when Philometor was freed by the Romans from the protection of the
Syrian king, and could govern in Memphis as an independent sovereign,
Eulaeus accused the father of these two girls of having betrayed Memphis
into the hands of Antiochus, and never rested till the innocent man was
deprived of his wealth, which was considerable, and sent with his wife
to forced labor in the gold mines of Ethiopia.
“When all this occurred I had already returned to my cage here; but
I heard from my brother Glaucus--who was captain of the watch in the
palace, and who learned a good many things before other people did--what
was going on out there, and I succeeded in having the daughters of
Philotas secretly brought to this temple, and preserved from sharing
their parents’ fate. That is now five years ago, and now you know how it
happens, that the daughters of a man of rank carry water for the altar
of Serapis, and that I would rather an injury should be done to me than
to them, and that I would rather see Eulaeus eating some poisonous root
than fragrant peaches.”
“And is Philotas still working in the mines?” asked the Roman, clenching
his teeth with rage.
“Yes, Publius,” replied the anchorite. “A ‘yes’ that it is easy to say,
and it is just as easy too to clench one’s fists in indignation--but
it is hard to imagine the torments that must be endured by a man like
Philotas; and a noble and innocent woman--as beautiful as Hera and
Aphrodite in one--when they are driven to hard and unaccustomed labor
under a burning sun by the lash of the overseer. Perhaps by this time
they have been happy enough to die under their sufferings and their
daughters are already orphans, poor children! No one here but the
high-priest knows precisely who they are, for if Eulaeus were to learn
the truth he would send them after their parents as surely as my name is
Serapion.”
“Let him try it!” cried Publius, raising his right fist threateningly.
“Softly, softly, my friend,” said the recluse, “and not now only, but
about everything which you under take in behalf of the sisters, for
a man like Eulaeus hears not only with his own ears but with those of
thousand others, and almost everything that occurs at court has to go
through his hands as epistolographer. You say the queen is well-disposed
towards you. That is worth a great deal, for her husband is said to be
guided by her will, and such a thing as Eulaeus cannot seem particularly
estimable in Cleopatra’s eyes if princesses are like other women--and I
know them well.”
“And even if he were,” interrupted Publius with glowing cheeks, “I would
bring him to ruin all the same, for a man like Philotas must not perish,
and his cause henceforth is my own. Here is my hand upon it; and if I am
happy in having descended from a noble race it is above all because the
word of a son of the Cornelii is as good as the accomplished deed of any
other man.”
The recluse grasped the right hand the young man gave him and nodded
to him affectionately, his eyes radiant, though moistened with joyful
emotion. Then he hastily turned his back on the young man, and soon
reappeared with a large papyrus-roll in his hand. “Take this,” he said,
handing it to the Roman, “I have here set forth all that I have told
you, fully and truly with my own hand in the form of a petition. Such
matters, as I very well know, are never regularly conducted to an
issue at court unless they are set forth in writing. If the queen seems
disposed to grant you a wish give her this roll, and entreat her for a
letter of pardon. If you can effect this, all is won.”
Publius took the roll, and once more gave his hand to the anchorite,
who, forgetting himself for a moment, shouted out in his loud voice:
“May the gods bless thee, and by thy means work the release of the
noblest of men from his sufferings! I had quite ceased to hope, but if
you come to our aid all is not yet wholly lost.”