"Is that some local god?" I inquired.

"No, he's a holy man out of Asia Minor. The city's full of his kind. He's been here a couple of years and acquired a great horde of these followers. He works miracles, foretells the future, makes statues speak, that sort of thing. That's another thing you'll find out about the Egyptians, Decius: They've no sense of decency when it comes to religion. No dignitas, no gravitas; decent Roman rites and sacrifices have no appeal to them. They like the sort where the worshippers get all involved and emotional."

"Disgusting," sniffed the secretary.

"They look like they're having fun," I said. By now a great litter was crossing the street, even higher than ours, carried by yet more of the frenzied worshippers, which couldn't have done much for its stability. Atop it was a throne on which sat a man who wore an extravagant purple robe spangled with golden stars and a tall headdress topped by a silver crescent moon. Around one of his arms was wrapped a huge snake and in the other he held a scourge of the sort one uses to thrash recalcitrant slaves. I could see that he had a black beard, a long nose and dark eyes, but little else. He stared slightly ahead as if unaware of the churning frenzy being staged on his behalf.

"The great man himself," Rufus sneered.

"That's Ataxas?" I asked.

"The very same."

"I find myself wondering," I said, "just why a procession of high officials gives way to a rabble that would have been chased from Rome with Molossian hounds at their heels."

Rufus shrugged. "This is Alexandria. Under this skin of Greek culture, these people are as priest-ridden and superstitious as they were under the Pharaohs."

"There is no shortage of religious charlatans in Rome," I pointed out.

"You'll see the difference before you've been at court for very long," Rufus promised.

When the frantic procession was past, we resumed our stately progress. I learned that the street we were on was the Canopic Way, the main east-west thoroughfare in Alexandria. Like all the others, it was straight as a chalk-line and ran from the Necropolis Gate in the west to the Canopic Gate in the east. In Rome, it was a rare street where two men could pass each other without having to turn sideways. On Canopic two litters such as ours could pass easily, while leaving plenty of room for pedestrian traffic on either side.

There were strict rules regarding how far balconies could protrude from the facades of buildings, and clotheslines over streets were forbidden. This in its way was refreshing, but one raised in Rome acquires a taste for chaos, and after a while all this regularity and order became oppressive. I realize that it seems a good idea at first, laying out a city where no city has been before, and making sure that it does not suffer from the ills that afflict cities that just grew and sprawled like Rome. But I would not care to live in a city that was a veritable work of art. I think this lies at the heart of the Alexandrians' reputation for licentiousness and riotous living. One forced to live in surroundings that might have been devised by Plato must seek relief and an outlet for the human urges despised by philosophers. Wickedness and debauchery may not be the only answers, but they are certainly the ones with the widest appeal.

In time we turned north along a great processional way. Ahead of us were several clusters of impressive buildings, some of them within battlemented walls. As we proceeded northward, we passed the first of these great complexes on our right.

"The Museum," Rufus said. "It's actually a part of the Palace, but it lies outside the defensive wall."

It was an imposing place, with wide stairs ascending to the Temple of the Muses, which gave the whole complex its name. Of far greater importance than the Temple was the cluster of buildings surrounding it, where many of the world's greatest scholars carried on their studies at state expense, publishing papers and giving lectures as they pleased. There was nothing like it in all the world, so it took its name from its temple. In later years, other such institutions, founded in imitation, were also called museums.

Even more famous than the Museum was the great Library attached to it. Here all the greatest books of the world were stored, and here copies were made and sold all over the civilized world. Behind the Museum I could see the great pitched roof of the Library, dwarfing all surrounding structures. I commented upon its immensity, and Rufus waved a hand as if it were a trifle.

"That is actually the lesser Library. It's called the Mother Library because it's original, founded by Ptolemy Soter himself. There's an even bigger one, called the Daughter Library, attached to the Serapeum. It's said that, between them, they contain more than seven hundred thousand volumes."

It seemed unbelievable. I tried to picture what 700,000 books must look like. I imagined a full legion plus an extra auxiliary cohort. That would be about 7,000 men. I imagined such a body of men, having looted Alexandria, filing out, each man carrying 100 books. Somehow, it still did not convey the reality. The wine probably didn't help.

Once past the Museum, we passed through yet another gate and were within the Palace itself. The Palace of Alexandria displayed the by-now familiar urge of the Successor Kings to build everything bigger than anyone had built before. Its lesser houses were the size of ordinary palaces, its gardens were the size of city parks, its shrines were as big as ordinary temples. It was a veritable city within a city.

"They've done well, for barbarians," I said.

We were set down before the steps of a sprawling stoa that ran the length of an apparently endless building. A crowd of court functionaries appeared at the top of the steps. In the middle of them was a portly, pleasant-faced man I recognized from his previous visits to Rome: Ptolemy the Flute-Player. He began to descend the Palace steps just as Creticus descended from his towering litter. Ptolemy knew better than to await him at the top of the steps. A Roman official climbs stairs to meet no one but a higher-ranking Roman official.

"Old Ptolemy's fatter than ever," I noted.

"Poorer than ever, too," Rufus said as we made our unsteady way to the mosaic pavement. It was a matter of constant amazement to us that the king of the world's richest nation was also the world's most prominent beggar. Not that we failed to take advantage of the fact.

The previous generation of Ptolemies had assassinated one another nearly out of existence, and an irate Alexandrian mob had finished the job. A royal bastard, Philopator Philadelphus Neos Dionysus, who was, in sober fact, a flute-player, had been found to fill the vacant throne. For more than a century Rome had been the power broker in Egypt, and he appealed to Rome to help shore up his shaky claim and we obliged. Rome would always rather prop up a weak king than deal with a strong one.

On the pavement Ptolemy and Creticus embraced, Creticus making a sour face at the scent Ptolemy wore. At least Ptolemy did not affect the Egyptian trappings so favored by the court. His clothing was Greek, and what remained of his hair was dressed in the Greek fashion. He did, however, make lavish use of facial cosmetics, to disguise the ravages of time and debauchery.

While Creticus and the king went into the Palace for the formal reception, I sneaked off with Rufus and a few others to the Roman embassy, where we would be staying. The embassy occupied a wing of the Palace and came complete with living quarters, banqueting facilities, baths, a gymnasium, gardens, ponds and a mob of slaves who might have staffed the biggest plantation in Italy. I found that my own quarters were far more spacious than my house in Rome and that I was to have twenty slaves for my personal service.