Across the way, I saw the queen of Egypt smile. She turned to confer with someone in her entourage. She turned back and began to stand. Did she intend to draw attention to herself, to make her presence known to the crowd?

Before that could happen, the moment passed. The mood of the crowd abruptly changed. The air rang with jeers, shouts, and taunts, for immediately following Cleopatra's statue came the procession of Egyptian prisoners. From the golden glory of the queen, the crowd's attention was drawn to the abject misery and wretchedness of her vanquished enemies.

Cleopatra sat. Her smile vanished.

The few surviving officers of Ptolemy's army were paraded before us in chains and rags and tattered Egyptian headdresses. A few of these were eunuchs, and the crowd peered at their near-naked bodies curiously, looking for distinguishing characteristics. To be sure, the eunuchs were not as hirsute as some of their compatriots, but their bodies had none of the voluptuousness of women; perhaps because they had been fed so poorly, all the prisoners looked gaunt and bony. Nor did the eunuchs express emotions differently from their fellows. The eunuchs and the other exhibited the same range of reactions: a few stared back defiantly at the crowd; some hid their faces; and many trembled and wept, broken by their humiliation and the approach of death.

The last but one of the prisoners was Ganymedes. I had last seen him in a shimmering, wide-sleeved gown and a khat headdress, with kohl outlining his eyes. Now he wore only a filthy loincloth, and his undressed hair hung in tendrils around his pale, winkled face. His chains robbed him of any pretense of dignity; the shackles on his ankles and wrists forced him to bow and take shambling steps. He was barefoot and his feet were bleeding.

Someone in the crowd hurled a piece of fruit-a green, unripe fig-and struck him between his legs. Ganymedes flinched but did not cry out. Others hurled more bits of fruit and even stones, always aiming for the same spot. They were mocking him with blows that would have made an intact man scream with agony but served only to humiliate the eunuch by drawing attention to the part of his anatomy that had been amputated.

Following Ganymedes, at a distance which clearly set her apart, was Arsinoe. The princess, too, was barefoot and dressed in rags, baring more of her arms and legs than was considered decent for a high-born woman in public, inviting the prurient inspection of the crowd. The manner in which she was chained seemed calculated to emphasize her debasement; her ankles were connected by a short chain and her hands were bound tightly behind her, forcing her to mince forward with her shoulders back and her breasts thrust forward. But the position also allowed her to hold her chin high. Her face was clearly visible, and her expression was surprisingly composed. She looked neither fearful nor defiant; there was neither hatred nor panic in her eyes. Her face was sphinxlike, without emotion, as if her thoughts were completely elsewhere, far removed from the degradation to which her body was being subjected.

As Arsinoe slowly drew nearer below us, I looked from her face to that of Cleopatra. They appeared to wear the same expression, despite the difference in their situations. Cleopatra watched her sister's march to oblivion without showing the least sign of regret or rejoicing. Arsinoe moved toward her fate with no more expression than if she were gazing at the slow, steady, unending flow of the Nile. Of what stuff were these Ptolemies made?

What had Caesar presumed would happen, when he decided to parade a helpless young woman in his triumph? He had presided over the rape of many cities; he had seen the merciless reaction of his soldiers to the sight of tender females stripped of all protection. Did he think the Roman mob would react in the same way at the sight of Arsinoe in chains, allowing a desire to revel in her debasement to overcome any impulse toward pity?

I would not have been surprised to see the onlookers pelt Arsinoe with fruit, cruelly aiming for her breasts, and taunt her with lascivious remarks and perhaps even reach out to strip the remaining rags from her body, forcing her to walk naked to her death.

But that was not what happened.

Instead, the crowd, which had been so eager to jeer at the captured military men and ministers of state, fell silent as Arsinoe passed by. Foulmouthed men became speechless.

In the sudden quiet, the soft clinking of Arsinoe's chains was the only sound. Then a murmur passed through the crowd. I could not make out any words, only a low grumbling, but its tone was clear. This was not right. What we were seeing was improper, indecent, wrong-perhaps an affront to the gods. The murmur grew louder, the crowd more uneasy.

It was Rupa who took action.

He was sitting next to me. When he stood, I thought he was getting up for some other reason-to go relieve himself or simply to stretch his legs. But something about the urgency of his movements caught my eye as he stepped over the spectators and made his way to the nearest aisle. Others saw him as well and took notice; there was a resoluteness about his demeanor that drew attention, especially amid that uncertain, suddenly anxious crowd.

He reached the bottom of the stands, and then, looming taller than everyone around him, he elbowed his way through the standing spectators. He stepped onto the triumphal path. He ran toward Arsinoe.

There were gasps of surprise and cries of apprehension. Rupa was so much larger than the princess, and his movements so determined, that some people must have thought he was about to attack her. Instead, before he reached Arsinoe, he turned and raised his hands, waving them in the air to catch the crowd's attention. At the same time, he opened his mouth and made a strange braying noise, a plaintive cry that echoed around the Forum.

His behavior excited cries from the crowd.

"Who is that big fellow?"

"Awfully good-looking-"

"And what does he want?"

"He's trying to say something-"

"Can't you see? He must be mute."

"Makes a loud noise, though."

"What's he up to?"

"Looks big enough to do whatever he wants with the little princess!"

Caesar's lictors, preceding the triumphal chariot, were not far behind Arsinoe. Seeing Rupa, the foremost among them broke from the processional file and rushed toward him. My heart lurched in my chest. Like everyone else in the stands, I jumped to my feet.

Amid the sudden tumult, a few voices rang out more clearly than the rest.

"The lictors will protect the princess!"

"From what? The mute won't hurt her. He means to escape with her!"

"Escape where? She's heading straight for the Tullianum, along with her pet eunuch!"

This last comment referred to Ganymedes. Realizing that something was transpiring behind him, he had turned. With a look of alarm on his wrinkled face, he was frantically shambling back toward Arsinoe, as if he could somehow protect her despite his shackles.

But Arsinoe was in no danger. With every eye fixed upon him, Rupa turned toward the princess. For a moment, he loomed over her. Then he dropped to his knees and bowed deeply. With a great flourish of his outspread arms, he touched his lips to one of her bare feet.

Throughout the entire episode, Arsinoe's expression, or lack of expression, had remained unchanged. But when Rupa's lips touched her big toe, a smile lit her face, transforming it completely. It was like the face of Alexandros's Venus of Milos-serene and aloof, sublime and majestic.

The reaction of the crowd was instantaneous and overwhelming, like a thunderbolt from Jupiter. People raised their hands in the air, giddy with excitement. They laughed, squealed, roared, shouted. Some of them mimicked the plaintive noise that Rupa had made, not mocking but paying homage.