by Mike Ashley
The temple of Serapis occupies the northern half of the Serapeion complex; the temple of Isis, the southern. Although it was designed by Greeks – like Alexandria itself – the Iseion is laid out in the Egyptian fashion. This means that only the first courtyard of the temple is open to the public: the shrine itself is reserved for the priesthood and initiates of the mysteries. The doors of the shrine, however, are opened at dawn during the morning service, and are kept open until the middle of the afternoon, so that visitors can worship the image of the goddess, which stands just inside them. The public courtyard is large and beautiful, surrounded by a portico and lavishly adorned with stelae and statues. It was crowded when we arrived: people had already heard about the sacrilege, and had rushed to see it for themselves. They were conversing in shocked whispers, but when we appeared, at the front of a flood of excited newcomers, there was uproar.
The Gabinian and I kept close behind the young priest as he made his way through the shouting mob. A small knot of priests was gathered about the main altar, which is a waist-high column of carved porphyry. Behind them the temple doors stood open, and the statue of Isis, dressed in her seven black robes and crowned with a golden serpent, gazed tolerantly down on the mortals who had rushed to her defence.
We were almost at the altar before the temple attendants could even get a look at us. “Theophanes caught him!” shrieked one of them at last, pointing. He was middle-aged, with a thin, pinched face, and he wore the short tunic of a sacristan, rather than the long one of a priest. “That’s the brute who did it!”
The priestess beside him covered her face, as though she couldn’t even bear to look. The remaining priest in the group – an older man in a magnificent cloak – simply stared. I recognized him as the pterophoros, or senior priest, Lord Pachrates. (I’ve been known to worship Isis, from time to time, and the office had dealings with him every time the Iseion held a procession.)
The Gabinian suddenly straightened and began walking towards the altar with a long stride, pushing past me and the younger priest and forcing us to hurry to keep up with him. The crowd, always willing to enjoy a good scene, pulled aside to let us through. When we reached the altar the barbarian stopped. He glanced at the altar – which had just been washed, by the look of it – then at the statue of the goddess. Then he raised his right hand as though he were taking an oath.
“I swear by Isis and by the gods of my own people that I am innocent!” he proclaimed loudly. He clenched his raised hand and struck himself on the chest, making his mail jingle, then turned to the senior priest. “The goddess saw the one who defiled her altar. She knows that I am innocent. I surrender myself to her judgment!”
There was a murmur around the courtyard. Pachrates stared at the young barbarian for a moment with vast displeasure, then looked accusingly at the priest who’d accompanied me. “Why have you brought the problem back here, Theophanes?” he demanded in a whisper.
“I had to,” said the young priest defensively. “He’d have been killed if he stayed on the street, my lord, and then there would be reprisals.” He glanced at me and added, “This man here belongs to the market supervisor’s office: he’s promised to see that it’s dealt with by the city.”
I opened my mouth ready to say “If I can,” – then closed it again. It wasn’t the time to express doubts.
Pachrates snorted in disgust. The sacristan glared and shrieked, “The city can’t do anything! The savage has defiled the altar of our holy lady! Take him out of here, out, out into the street!” No doubt at all what would happen to him there.
“I didn’t do it!” the Gabinian shouted back. He crossed his arms and glared around him. “I honour the great goddess Isis. I came here this morning because I’d heard her fame, and I wanted to see her for myself. This priestess – this woman here! – told me that I could buy a flask full of holy Nile water to take away with me. I went away to buy the flask, but when I came back with it, there was shit on the altar and everyone started screaming that I’d put it there!”
“There was no one else in the courtyard!” snapped the priestess, dropping her hands to glare at him. “I went to fetch the water, and when I came back, there you were, admiring your handiwork!”
“You put dog-shit on the altar of the holy goddess!” agreed the sacristan, quivering with rage. “A trail of dog-shit from there to here!” He pointed at the altar to Anubis, which stood just to the right of the main altar. A statue of the god, shown in the Egyptian fashion with the head of a jackal, stood on the temple porch before it.
“No!” protested the Gabinian, before the crowd could catch its breath to curse him. “It wasn’t me!”
“Just a moment!” I protested, staring at the old sacristan in bewilderment. “Dog-shit?”
The old man nodded, red with anger to the crown of his shaven scalp.
I know that many Romans do find the idea of a jackal-headed god ridiculous, I could easily imagine a group of soldiers deciding to profane the altar as a joke, but . . . “How do you know it was dog-shit?” I asked uneasily. “How do you know it wasn’t the human variety?”
“I had to clean it up, didn’t I?” he replied bitterly. “There was a whole frog in it, and . . . and straw, where the dirty creature had been eating manure, all over the altar of our holy lady!” He was almost in tears.
“A frog?” I repeated in disbelief.
“Frog-bones!” cried the sacristan. “Disgusting half-digested frog-skin and a frog skull and little bones mixed with shit! May the man who left such an offering on the altar of our holy goddess perish most miserably!” He glared at the Gabinian.
“You’re saying that this man came into the temple with a great big basket full of dog-shit – a smelly thing he must have carted clear across the city – and nobody said anything?” I demanded incredulously. “You not only let him into the temple, you left him alone before the altar?”
There was a sudden silence. “He . . . he must have hidden the basket,” said the sacristan uncertainly. “Before he came in.”
“What do you mean, he must have carted it across the city?” demanded Pachrates the Pterophoros, looking down his nose at me. “Stray dogs do get into the temple precinct. The gates are open.”
“Not ones that eat frogs, my lord,” I told him flatly. “Oh, it’s the season when the creatures are abundant down at the lakeshore and along the canal, but that’s miles from here, and even stray dogs have territories. Shit from a dog that had been eating frogs must have been carted in.” I looked at the sacristan. “Do I gather the fellow didn’t have a basket?”
“He must have hidden it,” repeated the sacristan defensively.
“But he was caught while he was standing before the altar, looking at what he’d done,” I pointed out. “Where was the basket then?”
The old man sputtered. I turned to the Gabinian. “Let’s see your hands,” I ordered.
Puzzled, he held them out.
“You cleaned the altar?” I asked the sacristan. “Did you find a handful of dirty leaves lying around it, perhaps? Or a sponge?”
“My hands are clean!” shouted the barbarian, abruptly understanding. “How am I supposed to have put shit on the altar without a basket and without anything to clean my hands afterwards?” He grinned at the sacristan triumphantly. “And why would I have profaned the altar, then cleaned up, put the basket away somewhere, and hung about waiting for the priestess to come back with the holy water?”
Pachrates gave me a very unfriendly look. Important men often do that, and I handled it the way I normally do: bowed deeply and tried to look contrite. He gave a small snort of displeasure, then turned to the crowd, raising his arms.
“People of Alexandria, worshippers of the Holy Isis!” he called loudly. “Have no fear! The great goddess will reveal the truth. I will question this man privately, and soon all will be made plain. In the meantime, the altar of the Lady has been cleaned and washed with the sacred water of the Nile: I urge those of you who love the goddess to c
over it with sweet incense, to take away the stink of pollution from her nostrils.”
While the crowd was applauding this suggestion he turned back. He looked at me, at the barbarian, at the sacristan, the priestess, and Theophanes. “All of you, come with me!” he commanded, and set off, scowling ferociously.
He led us to the left of the shrine and around behind it, then along a covered walkway and into the part of the temple complex called the pastophorion, which provides living quarters for the priests. We went up a flight of stairs into what I guessed was a reception room used by the senior priests – a sumptuous place, with a carpet on the floor, lampstands of gilded bronze, and a window with a view out over the city towards the west. Pachrates sat himself down in a high-backed chair at one side of the room; the sacristan at once hurried over to stand behind him. The rest of us shuffled about uncertainly.
“You,” said the pterophoros, looking straight at me. “You work for the market superintendent, do you? Are you Archippos’ own man, or do you just belong to his office?”
“To his office, my lord,” I admitted, bowing again. “A public slave, my lord, of long standing. My name is Peridromon.”
“And you promised Theophanes that your master would prosecute this barbarian for sacrilege? What makes you think Archippos will do anything of the sort? It seems to me that he’s far more likely to hand the criminal over to Gabinius with a letter of complaint which nobody will even bother to read.”
I winced: he knew Archippos. Our illustrious market superintendent happened to be one of the most useless weak-chinned aristocrats ever to have scrambled into the position, but he had only recently been elected, and I hadn’t expected the priests of Isis to know what he was like. “Matters could be arranged otherwise,” I murmured.
The senior priest gave me a long hard look. “I see. You are one of those officious public slaves who tries to run the city’s affairs behind his masters’ backs – an insolent and impertinent meddler in the affairs of free men.”
Well, yes, so I am – and very good at it. I set my teeth, put on the contrite look, and bowed. “My lord,” I said, in the tone of unctuous respect I can only manage when someone powerful genuinely annoys me.” I am heartily sorry if you have found me insolent or impertinent. The city, in its wisdom, has decided that the supervision of shopkeepers and the maintenance of cleanliness and good order on the street is a menial task, more suited to a slave than to a free citizen, so it purchases men like myself. I try do my assigned tasks faithfully and obediently. I admit that I do arrange many of my master’s affairs – but he has been in office only six weeks, and he expects such assistance from his staff. I intervened today only because I wanted to help you obtain satisfaction for this foul sacrilege without provoking reprisals from the Gabinians, and I am very sorry if my zeal has offended you.”
Pachrates gave me another hard look, as though he understood exactly how much those humble words were worth, then grunted. “And how do you think we can obtain satisfaction?”
I hesitated. “I had been thinking in terms of a hearing convened at once, before Aulus Gabinius even knows what’s going on. With a couple of senior priests and a couple of magistrates it should be perfectly lawful, and with luck it could reach a verdict this afternoon. Once there’s a legal verdict the criminal could . . .”
“You still think I’m guilty!” objected the Gabinian in dismay. “You yourself just showed that I am innocent, that . . .”
“I did nothing of the sort!” I snapped. “Maybe you came up here with a friend, and the friend was carrying the basket. Maybe you’d agreed that you would distract the priestess while he defiled the altar. Maybe he ran off fast afterwards, thinking you would do the same, and you hung about waiting because you didn’t realise he’d already gone.”
The barbarian glared. “Why would I go to so much trouble to . . . to commit an ill-omened act of sacrilege against a great and powerful goddess?”
“They make fun of Egyptian gods in your mess hall, don’t they?” I asked sourly. “ ‘Ha, ha, ha, that Anubis looks like a dog, wouldn’t it be funny if he shat on the altar of Isis?’ A few drinks and a dare in a tavern can account for almost any stupidity in a soldier.”
“No!” cried the barbarian, with what seemed to be real indignation. “I don’t . . . that is, yes, there are men like that, but I’m not one of them. We have a temple of Isis at home. I’d had a letter . . .” He stopped.
“Yes?” I asked quickly.
He shrugged, then continued resentfully, “I had a letter from my sister in Massalia. She’s married, she’s expecting her first baby. I thought I could send her a gift from the temple of Alexandrian Isis. For luck and protection, you see, because she’s nervous about it.”
It was, actually, a respectable and entirely believable reason for a foreign soldier to visit the temple of Isis. I looked at him thoughtfully.
So did Pachrates. “You’re from Massalia?” he asked.
The Gabinian nodded. “Quintus Julius Vindex,” he identified himself, “a registered foreign resident of Massalia, now of the Fifth Alaudae, second century, currently on secondment to Aulus Gabinius.”
The priest’s eyes narrowed. “A legionary?”
I was staring, too. Most Gabinians were Gaulish and German mercenaries, whose only qualifications were ferocity and greed. Legionaries are altogether a better class of soldier. Vindex was probably an officer of some kind – and the fact that he was from Massalia might well indicate exactly what kind. Although that city lies in Gaul, it was founded as a Greek colony. It is nominally independent – though dominated by Rome and with many Roman residents – and it has more trade with Alexandria than any other city in the West. A Roman from Massalia, who could be expected to speak good Greek and know something about Alexandria, would be an ideal person to liaise between a unit of Gaulish Gabinians and the officials of the Bastard’s court. If he had not committed the sacrilege – and I was beginning to believe him that he hadn’t – then there were suddenly a lot of very unpleasant possibilities as to who else might have done it, and why.
“Julius Vindex,” said Pachrates with distaste. “Julius Vindex. Did your family obtain the citizenship from Julius Caesar, perhaps?”
The barbarian hesitated – then nodded.
I suppose that wasn’t too surprising. Gabinius was a friend and supporter of that ambitious general; if he asked Caesar for some capable young Greek-speaking legionaries to serve as liaison officers in his army of bailiffs, Caesar would provide them, and pick men he knew. But, oh Lady Isis, this game was getting harder to win by the minute. I groaned, and Pachrates gave me a glance of disgusted agreement.
“Well,” said Pachrates heavily. “Quintus Julius Vindex, since you claim to be an innocent man who honours Isis, explain to me how you’ve come to be accused of sacrilege.”
“I told you already,” answered Vindex. “I came up here to see the goddess, the priestess there offered to get me some holy water . . .”
“From the beginning,” said Pachrates sharply. “When did you receive this letter?”
Vindex had received the letter three days before, off a ship which had arrived from Massalia with a cargo of olive oil. He had told some of his friends about it, but not the men in his unit. Yes, he was indeed a liaison officer for a Gaulish unit, but the rest of the men were from another part of Gaul and a different tribe, and he didn’t seem to like them much. His friends were fellow officers, some on Gabinius’ staff, one or two attached to royal guard of King Ptolemy Auletes – as Vindex respectfully termed the Bastard. He had told them that he intended to go to the temple of Isis to pray for his sister and buy her a good-luck charm, and he’d informed his commander that he wanted the morning off.
He had walked up from the Gabinian barracks that morning – a long walk; since the barracks lie in the palace area on the Lochias promontory, to the east of the Great Harbour. He had been in no hurry, though, and had arrived in the middle of the morning to find the temple quiet: the public no
rmally come when the shrine is opened at dawn, or when it shuts in the middle of the afternoon. The priestess, however, whose name was Tabzes, had been sitting on the steps sewing a new robe for the goddess’ statue, while the sacristan had been busy in the shrine. Vindex had offered the priestess a donation for incense, and had told her about his sister; she’d suggested that he buy a flask of holy water.
“She told me to buy a flask in the outer court,” he continued, “and said that while I was buying it, she’d fetch the water. So I went out and found a vendor who sold flasks, and bought one. Then I came back to the shrine. There was nobody around, so I waited. Then I noticed the dog shit – I saw it on the ground first, and I thought a dog had got in, but then I saw it was on the altar as well. I was shocked. I was standing there looking at it, wondering whether I should clean it away, when the priestess came out of the shrine and started screaming sacrilege.”
“What about the flask?” I asked.
He looked blank.
“You said you’d bought a flask for the holy water. What happened to it?”
“Oh! I . . . I don’t know. I must have dropped it. Everyone was screaming at me, and I . . . I just thought I had to get away.”
“He never had a flask!” interjected the priestess, with some venom. “I came out of the shrine, and he was standing there admiring what he’d done!”