All that done with, Caesar sent a servant to rent twenty-six horses and set out to inspect his dispositions. Which were, he soon discovered, disgraceful. Potheinus had located his 3,200 legionaries in Rhakotis on some disused land haunted by cats (also sacred animals) hunting myriad rats and mice, and, of course, already occupied by ibises. The local people, all poor hybrid Egyptian Greeks, were bitterly resentful both of the Roman camp in their midst and of the fact that famine-dogged Alexandria now had many extra mouths to feed. The Romans could afford to buy food, no matter what its price, but its price for the poor would spiral yet again because it had to stretch further. "Well, we build a purely temporary wall and palisade around this camp, but we make it look as if we think it's permanent. The natives are nasty, very nasty. Why? Because they're hungry! On an income of twelve thousand gold talents a year, their wretched rulers don't subsidize their food. This whole place is a perfect example of why Rome threw out her kings!" Caesar snorted, huffed. "Post sentries every few feet, Rufrius, and tell the men to add roast ibis to their diet. I piss on Alexandria's sacred birds!" Oh, he is in a temper! thought Rufrius wryly. How could those fools in the palace murder Pompeius Magnus and think to please Caesar? He's wild with grief inside, and it won't take much to push him into making a worse mess of Alexandria than he did of Uxellodunum or Cenabum. What's more, the men haven't been ashore a day yet, and they're already lusting to kill the locals. There's a mood building here, and a disaster brewing. Since it wasn't his place to voice any of this, he simply rode around with the Great Man and listened to him fulminate. It is more than grief putting him out so dreadfully. Those fools in the palace stripped him of the chance to act mercifully, draw Magnus back into our Roman fold. Magnus would have accepted. Cato, no, never. But Magnus, yes, always. An inspection of the cavalry camp only made Caesar crankier. The Ubii Germans weren't surrounded by the poor and there was plenty of good grazing, a clean lake to drink from, but there was no way that Caesar could use them in conjunction with his infantry, thanks to an impenetrably creepered swamp lying between them and the western end of the city, where the infantry lay. Potheinus, Ganymedes and the Interpreter had been cunning. But why, Rufrius asked himself in despair, do people irritate him? Every obstacle they throw in his path only makes him more determined can they really delude themselves that they're cleverer than Caesar? All those years in Gaul have endowed him with a strategic legacy so formidable that he's equal to anything. But hold your tongue, Rufrius, ride around with him and watch him plan a campaign he may never need to conduct. But if he has to conduct it, he'll be ready. Caesar dismissed his lictors and sent Rufrius back to the Rhakotis camp armed with certain orders, then guided his horse up one street and down another, slowly enough to let the ibises stalk out from under the animal's hooves, his eyes everywhere. At the intersection of Canopic and Royal Avenues he invaded the agora, a vast open space surrounded on all four sides by a wide arcade with a dark red back wall, and fronted by blue-painted Doric pillars. Next he went to the gymnasium, almost as large, similarly arcaded, but having hot baths, cold baths, an athletic track and exercise rings. In each he sat the horse oblivious to the glares of Alexandrians and ibises, then dismounted to examine the ceilings of the covered arcades and walkways. At the courts of justice he strolled inside, it seemed fascinated by the ceilings of its lofty rooms. From there he rode to the temple of Poseidon, thence to the Serapeum in Rhakotis, the latter a sanctuary to Serapis gifted with a huge temple amid gardens and other, smaller temples. Then it was off to the waterfront and its docks, its warehouses; the emporium, a gigantic trading center, received quite a lot of his attention, as did piers, jetties, quays curbed with big square wooden beams. Other temples and large public buildings along Canopic Avenue also interested him, particularly their ceilings, all held up by massive wooden beams. Finally he rode back down Royal Avenue to the German camp, there to issue instructions about fortifications. "I'm sending you two thousand soldiers as additional labor to start dismantling the old city walls," he told his legate. "You'll use the stones to build two new walls, each commencing at the back of the first house on either side of Royal Avenue and fanning outward until you reach the lake. Four hundred feet wide at the Royal Avenue end, but five thousand feet wide at the lakefront. That will bring you hard against the swamp on the west, while your eastern wall will bisect the road to the ship canal between the lake and the Canopic Nilus. The western wall you'll make thirty feet high the swamp will provide additional defense. The eastern wall you'll make twenty feet high, with a fifteen-foot-deep ditch outside mined with stimuli, and a water-filled moat beyond that. Leave a gap in the eastern wall to let traffic to the ship canal keep flowing, but have stones ready to close the gap the moment I so order you. Both walls are to have a watchtower every hundred feet, and I'll send you ballistas to put on top of the eastern wall." Poker-faced, the legate listened, then went to find Arminius, the Ubian chieftain. Germans weren't much use building walls, but their job would be to forage and stockpile fodder for the horses. They could also find wood for the fire-hardened, pointed stakes called stimuli, and start weaving withies for the breastworks wonderful wicker weavers, Germans! Back down Royal Avenue rode Caesar to the Royal Enclosure and an inspection of its twenty-foot-high wall, which ran from the crags of the Akron theater in a line that returned to the sea on the far side of Cape Lochias. Not a watchtower anywhere, and no real grasp of the defensive nature of a wall; far more effort and care had gone into its decoration. No wonder the mob stormed the Royal Enclosure so often! This wouldn't keep an enterprising dwarf outside. Time, time! It was going to take time, and he would have to fence and spar to fool people until his preparations were complete. First and foremost, there must be no indication apart from the activity at the cavalry camp that anything untoward was going on. Potheinus and his city minions like the Interpreter would assume that Caesar intended to huddle inside the cavalry fortress, abandon the city if attacked. Good. Let them think that. When Rufrius returned from Rhakotis, he received more orders, after which Caesar summoned all his junior legates (including the hopeless Tiberius Claudius Nero) and led them through his plans. Of their discretion he had no doubts; this wasn't Rome against Rome, this was war with a foreign power not one of them liked.
On the following day he summoned King Ptolemy, Potheinus, Theodotus and Ganymedes to the guest palace, where he seated them in chairs on the floor while he occupied his ivory curule chair on a dais. Which didn't please the little king, though he allowed Theodotus to pacify him. That one has started sexual initiation, thought Caesar. What chance does the boy have, with such advisers? If he lives, he'll be no better a ruler than his father was. "I've called you here to speak about a subject I mentioned the day before yesterday," Caesar said, a scroll in his lap. "Namely, the succession to the throne of Alexandria in Egypt, which I now understand is a somewhat different question from the throne of Egypt of the Nilus. Apparently the latter, King, is a position your absent sister enjoys, but you do not. To rule in Egypt of the Nilus, the sovereign must be Pharaoh. As is Queen Cleopatra. Why, King, is your co-ruler, sister and wife an exile commanding an army of mercenaries against her own subjects?" Potheinus answered; Caesar had expected nothing else. The little king did as he was told, and had insufficient intelligence to think without being led through the facts first. "Because her subjects rose up against her and ejected her, Caesar." "Why did they rise up against her?" "Because of the famine," Potheinus said. "Nilus has failed to inundate for two years in a row. Last year saw the lowest reading of the Nilometer since the priests started taking records three thousand years ago. Nilus rose only eight Roman feet." "Explain." "There are three kinds of inundation, Caesar. The Cubits of Death, the Cubits of Plenty, and the Cubits of Surfeit. To overflow its banks and inundate the valley, Nilus must rise eighteen Roman feet. Anything below that is in the Cubits of Death water and silt will not be deposited on the land, so no crops can be planted. In Egypt, it never rains. Succor comes from Nilus. Readings between eighteen and thirty-t
wo Roman feet constitute the Cubits of Plenty. Nilus floods enough to spread water and silt on all the growing land, and the crops come in. Inundations above thirty-two feet drown the valley so deeply that the villages are washed away and the waters do not recede in time to plant the crops," Potheinus said as if by rote; evidently this was not the first time he had had to explain the inundation cycle to some ignorant foreigner. "Nilometer?" Caesar asked. "The device off which the inundation level is read. It is a well dug to one side of Nilus with the cubits marked on its wall. There are several, but the one of greatest importance is hundreds of miles to the south, at Elephantine on the First Cataract. There Nilus starts to rise one month before it does in Memphis, at the apex of the Delta. So we have warning what the year's inundation is going to be like. A messenger brings the news down the river." "I see. However, Potheinus, the royal income is enormous. Don't you use it to buy in grain when the crops don't germinate?" "Caesar must surely know," said Potheinus smoothly, "that there has been drought all around Your Sea, from Spain to Syria. We have bought, but the cost is staggering, and naturally the cost must be passed on to the consumers." "Really? How sensible" was Caesar's equally smooth reply. He lifted the scroll on his lap. "I found this in Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus's tent after Pharsalus. It is the will of the twelfth Ptolemy, your father" spoken to the lad, bored enough to doze "and it is very clear. It directs that Alexandria and Egypt shall be jointly ruled by his eldest living daughter, Cleopatra, and his eldest son, Ptolemy Euergetes, as husband and wife." Potheinus had jumped. Now he reached out an imperious hand. "Let me see it!" he demanded. "If it were a true and legal will, it would reside either here in Alexandria with the Recorder, or with the Vestal Virgins in Rome." Theodotus had moved to stand behind the little king, fingers digging into his shoulder to keep him awake; Ganymedes sat, face impassive, listening. You, thought Caesar of Ganymedes, are the most able one. How it must irk you to suffer Potheinus as your superior! And, I suspect, you would far rather see your young Ptolemy, the Princess Arsino, sitting on the high throne. They all hate Cleopatra, but why? "No, Lord High Chamberlain, you may not see it," he said coldly. "In it, Ptolemy XII known as Auletes says that his will was not lodged either in Alexandria or Rome due to er 'embarrassments of the state.' Since our civil war was far in the future when this document was drawn up, Auletes must have meant events here in Alexandria." He straightened, face setting hard. "It is high time that Alexandria settled down, and that its rulers were more generous toward the lowly. I do not intend to depart this city until some consistent, humane conditions have been established for all its people, rather than its Macedonian citizens. I will not countenance festering sores of resistance to Rome in my wake, or permit any country to offer itself as a nucleus of further resistance to Rome. Accept the fact, gentlemen, that Caesar Dictator will remain in Alexandria to sort out its affairs lance the boil, you might say. Therefore I sincerely hope that you have sent that courier to Queen Cleopatra, and that we see her here within a very few days." And that, he thought, is as close as I go to conveying the message that Caesar Dictator will not go away to leave Alexandria as a base for Republicans to use. They must all be shepherded to Africa Province, where I can stamp on them collectively. He rose to his feet. "You are dismissed." They went, faces scowling.
"Did you send a courier to Cleopatra?" Ganymedes asked the Lord High Chamberlain as they emerged into the rose garden. "I sent two," said Potheinus, smiling, "but on a very slow boat. I also sent a third on a very fast punt to General Achillas, of course. When the two slow couriers emerge from the Delta at the Pelusiac mouth, Achillas will have men waiting. I am very much afraid" he sighed "that Cleopatra will receive no message from Caesar. Eventually he will turn on her, deeming her too arrogant to submit to Roman arbitration." "She has her spies in the palace," Ganymedes said, eyes on the dwindling forms of Theodotus and the little king, hurrying ahead. "She'll try to reach Caesar it's in her interests." "I am aware of that. But Captain Agathacles and his men are policing every inch of the wall and every wavelet on either side of Cape Lochias. She won't get through my net." Potheinus stopped to face the other eunuch, equally tall, equally handsome. "I take it, Ganymedes, that you would prefer Arsino as queen?" "There are many who would prefer Arsino as queen," said Ganymedes, unruffled. "Arsino herself, for example. And her brother the King. Cleopatra is tainted with Egypt, she's poison." "Then," said Potheinus, beginning to walk again, "I think it behooves both of us to work to that end. You can't have my job, but if your own chargeling occupies the throne, that won't really inconvenience you too much, will it?" "No," said Ganymedes, smiling. "What is Caesar up to?" "Up to?" "He's up to something, I feel it in my bones. There's a lot of activity at the cavalry camp, and I confess I'm surprised that he hasn't begun to fortify his infantry camp in Rhakotis with anything like his reputed thoroughness." "What annoys me is his high-handedness!" Potheinus snapped tartly. "By the time he's finished fortifying his cavalry camp, there won't be a stone left in the old city walls." "Why," asked Ganymedes, "do I think all this is a blind?"
The next day Caesar sent for Potheinus, no one else. "I've a matter to broach with you on behalf of an old friend," Caesar said, manner relaxed and expansive. "Indeed?" "Perhaps you remember Gaius Rabirius Postumus?" Potheinus frowned. "Rabirius Postumus . . . Perhaps vaguely." "He arrived in Alexandria after the late Auletes had been put back on his throne. His purpose was to collect some forty million sesterces Auletes owed a consortium of Roman bankers, chief of whom was Rabirius. However, it seems the Accountant and all his splendid Macedonian public servants had allowed the city finances to get into a shocking state. So Auletes told my friend Rabirius that he would have to earn his money by tidying up both the royal and the public fiscus. Which Rabirius did, working night and day in Macedonian garments he found as repulsive as he did irksome. At the end of a year, Alexandria's moneys were brilliantly organized. But when Rabirius asked for his forty million sesterces, Auletes and your predecessor stripped him as naked as a bird and threw him on a ship bound for Rome. Be thankful for your life, was their message. Rabirius arrived in Rome absolutely penniless. For a banker, Potheinus, a hideous fate." Grey eyes were locked with pale blue; neither man lowered his gaze. But a pulse was beating very fast in Potheinus's neck. "Luckily," Caesar went on blandly, "I was able to assist my friend Rabirius get back on his financial feet, and today he is, with my other friends the Balbi Major and Minor, and Gaius Oppius, a veritable plutocrat of the plutocrats. However, a debt is a debt, and one of the reasons I decided to visit Alexandria concerns that debt. Behold in me, Lord High Chamberlain, Rabirius Postumus's bailiff. Pay back the forty million sesterces at once. In international terms, they amount to one thousand six hundred talents of silver. Strictly speaking, I should demand interest on the sum at my fixed rate of ten percent, but I'm willing to forgo that. The principal will do nicely." "I am not authorized to pay the late king's debts." "No, but the present king is." "The King is a minor." "Which is why I'm applying to you, my dear fellow. Pay up." "I shall need extensive documentation for proof." "My secretary Faberius will be pleased to furnish it." "Is that all, Caesar?" Potheinus asked, getting to his feet. "For the moment." Caesar strolled out with his guest, the personification of courtesy. "Any sign of the Queen yet?" "Not a shadow, Caesar."
Theodotus met Potheinus in the main palace, big with news. "Word from Achillas!" he said. "I thank Serapis for that! He says?" "That the couriers are dead, and that Cleopatra is still in her earth on Mount Casius. Achillas is sure she has no idea of Caesar's presence in Alexandria, though what she's going to make of Achillas's next action is anyone's guess. He's moving twenty thousand foot and ten thousand horse by ship from Pelusium even as I speak. The Etesian winds have begun to blow, so he should be here in two days." Theodotus chuckled gleefully. "Oh, what I would give to see Caesar's face when Achillas arrives! He says he'll use both harbors, but plans to make camp outside the Moon Gate." Not a very observant man, he looked at the grim-faced Potheinus in sudden bewilderment. "A
ren't you pleased, Potheinus?" "Yes, yes, that's not what's bothering me!" Potheinus snapped. "I've just seen Caesar, who dunned the royal purse for the money Auletes refused to pay the Roman banker, Rabirius Postumus. The hide! The temerity! After all these years! And I can't ask the Interpreter to pay a private debt of the late king's!" "Oh, dear!" "Well," said Potheinus through his teeth, "I'll pay Caesar the money, but he'll rue the day he asked for it!"
"Trouble," said Rufrius to Caesar the next day, the eighth since they had arrived in Alexandria. "Of what kind?" "Did you collect Rabirius Postumus's debt?" "Yes." "Potheinus's agents are telling everybody that you've looted the royal treasury, melted down all the gold plate, and garnished the contents of the granaries for your troops." Caesar burst out laughing. "Things are beginning to come to a boil, Rufrius! My messenger has returned from Queen Cleopatra's camp no, I didn't use the much-vaunted Delta canals, I sent him at the gallop on horseback, a fresh mount every ten miles. No courier from Potheinus ever contacted her, of course. Killed, I imagine. The Queen has sent me a very amiable and informative letter, in which she tells me that Achillas and his army are packing up to return to Alexandria, where they intend to camp outside the city in the area of the Moon Gate." Rufrius looked eager. "We begin?" he asked. "Not until after I've moved into the main palace and taken charge of the King," said Caesar. "If Potheinus and Theodotus can use the poor lad as a tool, so can I. Let the cabal build its funeral pyre in ignorance two or three more days. But have my men absolutely ready to dash. When the time comes they have a great deal to do, and not much time to do it in." He stretched his arms luxuriously. "Ah, how good it is to have a foreign foe!"
6. The October Horse: A Novel of Caesar and Cleopatra Page 5