Ancient World 02 - Raiders of the Nile Read Online Free PDF Page B

Ptolemy, deeply in debt to Roman bankers and fearful of Roman arms, did not dare dispute the will—and so the kingdom had lost one of its principal cities, and the Romans had been allowed to establish a province bordering directly on Egypt, only a few days’ march from the capital.
    The people of Alexandria had reacted violently to this turn of events. Armed force had been necessary to quell the riots. Though eight years had passed, their resentment still simmered, and their conviction that King Ptolemy had betrayed his birthright had only deepened. In their view, Cyrene had mattered no more to the king than his own feces mattered to the merchant.
    Emptied at both ends, and assisted at every step by the two boys, the merchant gave a sigh of relief and waddled back to his chair. He began a conversation with his scribe having to do with two rivals who were engaged in a fierce competition. One was from Rome and the other was a distant relative from Pontus, and the merchant was in a quandary because he couldn’t decide which side to take.
    If the mime in the fat-suit was meant to be King Ptolemy, then the rival merchants clearly represented Rome and King Mithridates of Pontus, who (by some genealogical twist I had never untangled) was a cousin of King Ptolemy’s. In the last year, Mithridates had overrun all of Asia, driving out Rome’s provincial magistrates and Roman businessmen. The impacts of this war were being felt all over the Mediterranean world, but Egypt had managed to remain neutral.
    “If only I didn’t owe so much money to that filthy Roman,” the merchant whined, “I’d stab him in the back this minute!”
    “Why don’t you simply pay him off, and be free of him?” asked the scribe.
    “Pay him with what? My cousin from Pontus took the rest of my money. And took my little boy, to boot!”
    This was a reference to King Mithridates’ recent seizure of the island of Cos, where Egypt kept a treasury and where King Ptolemy’s son, still a teenager, had been residing, presumably at a safe distance from the palace intrigues of Alexandria. (This was a son from the king’s first marriage, not his current marriage to his niece.) Mithridates had seized not just the island, but the Egyptian treasury and the Egyptian prince as well, ostensibly treating the boy as an honored guest but in fact holding him hostage.
    “And don’t forget the cloak he took!” said the scribe.
    “Piddle! What’s a moth-eaten old cloak to one who wears silk?” At this the crowd loudly booed the fat merchant. The reference was to one of the treasures seized by Mithridates, a cloak that had belonged to none other than Alexander the Great.
    “They say your cousin goes about wearing it and putting on airs,” said the scribe. “Don’t you want it back?”
    “I hardly think it would fit me!” said the merchant, shaking his bulbous arms and getting a laugh from the audience. “Oh, if only my mother were still here, to tell me what to do!”
    “But she’s not,” said the scribe. “Don’t you remember?” He made a hacking sound and mimed the universal gesture of a finger drawn across the throat.
    “What about my big brother? Where is he? He’d know what to do!”
    The scribe rolled his eyes. “You and the old lady ran him off! Have you forgotten that, as well?” This was a reference to the king’s older brother, who had his own turn at the throne before being driven into exile some years ago.
    “If only big brother could come home!”
    “Really? Most husbands dread a visit from their father-in-law!”
    “He was my brother before he was my father-in-law.”
    “And master of the house before you kicked him out!”
    “If only big brother would come, I’m sure he could sort things out.”
    “Be careful what you wish for.” The scribe shook his head. “Two of your sort are two too many. And yet, I wish there were three of you.”
    “Three?”
    “Three hatchlings from your mother’s nest, so I could have another