"He bends too far for the Romans," said Dio sternly. "What does it matter whether they conquer us outright, if they can use King Ptolemy as their private tax collector to drain our lifeblood?"

"Perhaps; but I think I see a contradiction, Teacher. Why do you resist Roman rule if you despise your own rulers so very much?"

Dio sighed. "Because, ultimately, the Ptolemies rule over Egypt by the will of the people. When they rule badly, the people rise up and cast them out. When they rule tolerably, the people tolerate them. Such a system may lack the perfection of Plato's ideal republic, but it suits the people of Egypt and has done so for hundreds of years. On the other hand, if Egypt should become a Roman province under the sway of a Roman governor, its people will become mere vassals of Rome, and we shall have no say at all over our destiny. We shall be drafted to fight in wars that are not of our choosing. We shall be forced to abide by laws dictated to us by a Senate of wealthy Romans who live too far from Alexandria to hear the complaints of its people. We shall become just another outpost of Rome's empire, watching our wealth become Roman plunder. Our statues and carpets and paintings will decorate the houses of Rome's rich; our grain will fill the stomachs of the Roman mob, and you can be sure that any payment will be far less than fair. Egypt is a great and free nation; we will not become minions of Rome." Dio took a deep breath. A tear glinted in his eye, and the gravity of his expression was oddly heightened by the feminine cosmetics that colored his weathered, wrinkled face. The absurdity of his costume could not disguise the depth of his emotion.

"But this is all academic, if you'll pardon the pun," said Trygonion blandly but with a twinkle of mischief in his eyes. "If the former king, Alexander II, really did leave a will bequeathing Egypt to Rome -"

Dio exploded. "No one in Egypt believes in the validity of the so-called will, because no one in Rome is able to produce it! The will of Alexander II is a fiction, a fraud, a pretext for the Roman Senate to go meddling in Egyptian affairs, a device to make whoever rules Egypt grovel at their feet. 'You may hold sway for the moment,' they say, 'but you cannot be legitimate without our approval, and you can never be anything but an impostor, for Egypt was left to us by our puppet Alexander II and we may choose to exercise our hegemony at any time.' They wave an imaginary scrap of parchment in the air and call it a will. King Ptolemy was a fool to play along with such a lie. 'Friend and Ally,' indeed! The plaque on the Capitoline should read, 'Piper and Puppet of the Roman People.' "

"But now you've replaced the puppet," I said.

"The Piper has been booed off the stage!" cried Trygonion.

Dio clenched his teeth. "The crisis which revolves around Egypt's "throne may be a matter of amusement to you, gallus, but to the people of Egypt I assure you it is not. Roman diplomats and merchants in Alexandria seldom go out of doors these days, for fear of being torn apart by the mob. Rabble-rousers make speeches against Roman greed, and even my fellow philosophers neglect their teaching to engage in heated debate about the Roman threat. That is why I came to Rome, heading a delegation of one hundred Alexandrians: to demand that the Roman Senate stop meddling in Egyptian affairs and to ask for their recognition of Queen Berenice."

"I see a contradiction, Teacher," I said quietly. "To request the Senate's approval of your new monarch implies, in itself, that the Senate has a right to meddle in your affairs."

Dio cleared his throat. "In philosophy we seek the ideal. In politics, as I have learned to my bitter enlightenment, we seek whatever accommodates. So it was that I came to Rome at the head of the delegation of one hundred. So many distinguished voices, we thought, simply could not be ignored, even by your lofty senators. And that is where this despicable farce turns to tragedy!"

He put his hands to his face and suddenly began to weep, so profusely that even Trygonion was stunned. Indeed, the little gallus seemed deeply moved by the old philosopher's tears, biting his lips in sympathy, pulling at his bleached hair and rubbing his hands together in agitation. I have heard that the galli, cut off from the circle of earthly passion, are given to sudden transports of extreme and inexplicable emotion.

It took Dio a moment to compose himself. The fact that a philosopher of his stature should have lost control and given vent to such an outburst, even briefly, testified to the depth of his despair.

"This is how it was: we landed down in Neapolis at the very end of the autumn sailing season. I had friends there, members of the Academy who offered us lodgings. That night, men armed with knives and clubs came crashing into the houses where we were staying. They up-turned furniture, set curtains afire, smashed priceless statues. We were roused from sleep, dazed, barely able to fend them off. Bones were broken and blood was spilled, but no one was killed, and the attackers escaped. The assault put such fear into some of our party that a few set sail for Alexandria the next day."

Dio stiffened his jaw. "The attacks were well organized and planned in advance. Do I have proof of King Ptolemy's complicity? No. But one need not see the sun to deduce its presence by the casting of a shadow. The midnight attacks in Neapolis were engineered by King Ptolemy, have no doubt. He knew that we were coming to dispute his right to the throne. His agents were ready for us.

"After that we moved on to safer quarters in Puteoli, to regroup and plan our strategy for approaching the Senate. We stayed closer together and guarded ourselves at night, but we made the error of thinking that we would be safe walking in the town forum in broad daylight. One afternoon a group of fifteen men, led by one of my Academic colleagues, Onclepion, went out to buy provisions for our journey up to Rome. Out of nowhere they were set upon by a group of small boys who began to pelt them with stones. The boys shouted curses. When passersby stopped to ask why, the boys told them that the Alexandrians had been defaming the honor of Pompey and his troops with vicious slanders. Some members of Onclepion's group, simply to protect themselves, began to shove at the boys and tried to drive them off by throwing stones in return. One of the boys suddenly screamed, clutched his head and collapsed in the dust-or feigned collapse, as I suspect, for I'm told that his body was not found afterward. The crowd that had gathered was sparked into a frenzy, and soon a mob of grown men and women had joined the boys to stone the Alexandrians, who found themselves surrounded on three sides and trapped against a wall. Have you ever witnessed a stoning, Gordianus?" Dio shuddered. Beside him, the little gallus shivered in empathy. "Thirteen of them were killed that day, stoned or trampled to death. Only Onclepion and his slave managed to escape. Onclepion boosted the slave onto the top of the wall, and the slave managed to pull his master after him. But Onclepion was blinded in one eye, and his slave lost several teeth.

"That was the outrage at Puteoli. More men deserted the delegation that night, until only sixty of the original one hundred remained. I thought it best to head immediately to Rome, before some further incident occurred. The trip was not easy. The oxen we hired to pull our wagons fell to their forelegs just outside Capua and died with blood-flecked bile pouring from their mouths-poisoned, I had no doubt, since they all died in the span of an hour. More of the delegation deserted.

"Halfway to Rome, we stopped to spend a night off the Appian Way at an estate owned by my acquaintance Palla. It was a rustic house in the woods which he kept for hunting boar, simple and without luxuries but with provisions for a great many visitors. Palla himself was absent, staying at one of his villas north of Rome, but his slaves had been told to expect us. To accommodate us all, they crowded our sleeping couches close together, blocking the hallways. That very nearly proved disastrous.