Does the hermit seriously think I can pass for a fisherman with my dyed hair?
‘I’m not getting in that thing, dear. I’ll sink it.’
The hermit steadies the boat, checking both sides of the canal for people. Water laps against the wooden hulls of colourful fishing boats as they bob in the torchlight by the bridge.
Aeson takes my hand to help me in. Thank Bacchus my Biblos slaves went with Apollinos. They would never have forgiven me for such demeaning transportation. What a life fishermen must have, paddling down these mosquito-infested canals, back and forth to the lake everyday. Doesn’t bear thinking about. These reed sacks the hermit made us throw round our shoulders reek of fish.
‘Not even a cushion, dear. It stinks worse than a smokery. Bah! We’re doing the owner a favour pinching his boat.’
Aeson pulls the oars back slowly in time with the hermit. I can’t see his face, but I know he’s nervous. ‘Shush, Rufius. Keep your voice down.’
There’s the city wall, coming into view ahead of us. I can’t see any guards on the bridge. Why are Aeson and Dera being so cautious?
‘Every last city guard will be in the Agora looting the temples, dear. What –’
‘Rufius, shush! Alexandria’s under curfew.’
It’s such a squash in here. We should have taken a bigger boat.
‘Who goes there?’ The bridge guard’s voice makes me bounce on the hard wood. Give a pleb an iota of power and they act like the bloody Emperor. The bridge is almost above our heads… so where’s the bossy guard?
The hermit stands and speaks in his slow, level voice. At least he pronounces all his consonants.
‘We are just fishermen, sir. We request permission to pass under the wall to fish in Lake Mareotis.’
The guard peers over the bridge, his torch held out in front of him. Well, that’s a first: a bridge guard dressed in full armour.
‘Oooo, isn’t he grand!’
‘Shush!’ Aeson turns to face me. It’s impossible to make out his features but I know he’s frowning.
‘Why’s there three of you fishing together? You lot usually fish alone.’
‘Safety in numbers, sir.’
He sucks the night air in through his teeth, coughs and spits. Delightful manners, dear! His gob plops somewhere in the black water near the boat.
‘Gutless fishermen,’ he mutters loud enough for us to hear him.
Dera stands, huge black legs spread wide on the curved sides of the hull, and sways with the movement of the boat to retain his balance. What a man. He wouldn’t look out of place in the arena. Aeson holds his breath in anticipation.
‘Why should I let you pass?’
Oh, I’ve had enough of this. Since when does a bloody bridge guard pose a threat?
‘Because a gold coin might put a smile on that ugly face of yours, dear.’
Aeson groans.
‘Who’s calling me ugly?’
‘Never you mind, dear. You’ll feel like a beauty after a night on Venus Street. Whores will tell you anything if you pay them well enough.’
He disappears from the bridge. That’s the clank of the gate bolt being released, the slap of his sandals on the bridge steps… here he is, the surly oaf. He must have outgrown his old armour years ago.
‘Show us yer money, old man.’
He leers over us, one hand gripping the hilt of his sword, the other outstretched towards us.
Come on, purse, let’s have you. Here it is, tied inside my fishy tunic. What I’d give for a bath.
‘Hand it to him, Aeson, will you, dear.’
The bridge guard holds the coin up to his torch, bites it between his teeth and grunts. What’s he going to do, eat it?
‘Where did a bunch of poor fishermen get a gold coin, that’s what I want to know… an’ you don’t talk like a fisherman talks.’
I’m bored of this oaf.
‘The Serapeum. Where else, dear man? What are you doing here when the rest of the city guard is looting the temple? I do hope your colleagues give you your fair share of the profits.’
‘What, no one told me…’ His breastplate clanks as he stuffs the coin under his tunic.
That’s it: back up the steps you go, dear. His sandals slap along the wall and out of earshot.
‘Ha! Off we go, dears. Put your backs into it. I want off this stinking excuse for a boat as soon as possible.’
‘Rufius, will you keep your mouth shut. He might alert the army.’
How can a beauty travel the Empire and retain his innocence?
‘You still have a thing or two to learn about people, dear. We’ll finish your education when we reach Italy.’
My gut’s tight and I’m sweating so much my tunic’s stuck to my skin under this fish sack. The relief of being outside the city walls has turned to apprehension. The sight of so many boats on fire in Lake Mareotis harbour makes me queasy.
Dera and Aeson stop rowing and look at the lake port. Dera exhales with a low whistle. ‘Deserted as the streets of the Necropolis. The looters have been and gone.’
Taverns and shops along the port are shut up, some have had their windows smashed in, and furniture and rubbish litter the street that runs parallel to the lake. The torches have not been lit tonight and the flames from burning boats nearest to the port don’t throw much light out here. We’re swamped by the blackness of the lake. It feels like we’re being swallowed up by the dark.
I feel a tantrum coming on. I’ve not eaten since midday – even this fish sack’s starting to smell appealing.
‘If those looters have burnt Biblos, I’ll, I’ll…’ My shoulders slump forward. I don’t have the energy to throw a temper fit. Aeson’s hand on my shoulder is a comfort at least.
A great blast of noise – like an avalanche of rocks falling – comes from the city. We turn towards Moon Gate. Can’t see a thing from here.
There it is again. It’s coming from the Serapeum. Aeson stands up in the boat to get a better view.
‘They must be pulling down the great columns that support the temple.’
And I thought I would get old and die here in Alexandria. It was home for a while. Where in the world will an old cinaedus rest his fat old knees now?
‘Aeson, sit down, dear. Exile isn’t so bad.’ I fell in love.
‘He’s right, lad. We must go, there’s a long journey ahead of us.’
Lake Mareotis stretches out into infinite blackness; it will take us to the Nile, then up river into Upper Egypt. Perhaps we can charter a decent boat and crew further up river. This is going to be an uncomfortable journey. By Bacchus, I hate boats.
The oars slosh in the water. Despair hangs in the silence between us.
We’ll find no rest in any town along the Nile tonight. Pyres rage high from of the Temple of Antinous; their flames light up the riverbank. What a sad sight.
‘Looks like the destruction has spread down river, brothers. Every Temple of Antinous we’ve passed has been in flames.’
Does that giant hermit have to state the obvious?
‘The Emperor Hadrian would turn in his grave, dear.’
‘You’re shivering, Rufius.’ Aeson offers me his fish sack.
‘Don’t be soft, Aeson. It’s boiling, dear. I’m shaking with rage.’
Perhaps Rome’s not the best destination. What if this new law condemning cinaedi is actually enforced… in avenging flames in the sight of the people? Bloody intolerant Emperor this one, and now his head’s stuck up the church’s arse it’s only going to get worse. At least the lawyers who drafted it made some concession for a final show of exhibitionism.
‘Here, Rufius, I pinched a pot of Turk’s Desert Honey.’
Ha! That’s my boy. What did Apollinos say? – once a thief, always a thief.
‘Shall we retire to my villa on the Naples coast? It’s near Baia.’ I was joking, but why not? Retirement has never occurred to me. But look where being Director of the Scriptorium got me: on a stinking fishing boat dressed in a sack!
‘What do you think, Aeson?’ Please say you’ll come. My heart pounds with longing. Bacchus, do not part us again.
‘Really, Rufius! Would you retire to the coast?’ Is that hope in his voice? ‘It might be an idea to keep a low profile…’ He’s worried about the laws too, about a cinaedus who refuses to hide his tasselled tunics and jewels in the closet.
‘We could copy a few more versions of The Book of Wisdom in honour of little Kiya, dear.’
‘Thank you for saving Kiya’s book, Rufius.’
‘Ha! We gave the Archbishop the run around, didn’t we?’
The hermit clears his throat. ‘I will make a copy of The Book of Wisdom in Henite’s native tongue. Coptic is the language of her people. She would like that.’
‘Of course, Dera. You take the book.’
Aeson is pensive… I know when he’s thinking. His rowing has fallen out of time with Dera’s strong strokes. My boy never was able to multitask.
‘Rufius, you know, I felt a little cheated when you sent me off to Apollinos to learn to write. I mean, Apollinos was a brilliant teacher, but…’
‘But you wanted to learn the ropes from an old cinaedus, is that it? Ha!’
‘You must stop calling yourself that now, Rufius.’
‘What, at my age, dear? I’m too old to jig to the beat of a different drum…’ My voice is shrill in the night… like the stars are listening to us. ‘… now I’ve lost my eyebrows, you mean?’ With all this sweating they must be halfway down my face.
Aeson’s laughter echoes up into the night sky. It lifts me; I want to laugh long and hard, until the laughter turns to tears and back to laughter again.
The hermit chuckles. ‘You are blessed with a lightness of spirit, Master Librarian. It is a gift, to see life’s comedy, even on a night like this.’
‘Oh, it’s no joke, dear. A cinaedus without his eyebrows is a very serious matter.’
Σ
Cinaedus comes from kinaidos, the Greek word for an effeminate buggeree. A cinaedus was an adult male who dressed effeminately, wore make up and the Latin insult implied that he was the receptive partner. The Ancient Romans defined their sexuality not on a spectrum with gay at one end and straight at the other, but whether you conquer, or submit. Gender was not the issue. For the Romans, if you were a rich adult man, you were expected to conquer and penetrate. It was a social outrage to deviate from the hard ideal of Roman masculinity, wear make-up and bend over for your pleasure. On the other hand, it was perfectly acceptable for boys to submit to older men as long as the boys had sprouted soft down on their faces and were showing the signs of manhood. Once a youth had grown a full beard, he was expected to take the ‘active’ role. Julius Caesar, for example, was accused of being a cinaedus by his political opponents due to a rumoured interlude with King Nicomedes when he was a young soldier – and too old to play the receptive role. The laws which condemned the cinaedi became harsher under the Christian Emperors. In 390 AD, a law was passed which sentenced cinaedi to death by public burning.
There are several sentences or phrases in the manuscript commonly referred to as Pistis Sophia (called The Book of Wisdom in the novel) that are a mystery even to scholars. The manuscript was bought by the British Museum in 1785 from the heirs of Dr. Askew, and is catalogued as Askew Codex MS.Add.5114 in the British Library. It is possible the book was hidden at some point in fourth century Egypt, when non-canonical texts were condemned as heretical, a copy of an earlier Greek original. The book contains Jesus’ secret teachings to his disciples after his resurrection on the Mount of Olives and the story of Holy Sophia’s, or Faith Wisdom’s fall into matter, and her journey back to the Father.
Alexandria had been under Roman rule for three hundred years by this point. Although it is a Hellenic city, I assume a fair amount of Latin would have entered the language and so refer to gods and temples with both their Greek and Roman names. Certainly there is evidence of both Greek and Roman temples in the city at this time.
Several conflicting accounts of the events leading up to and including the destruction of the Serapeum in 391 A.D. have survived. The two contemporary accounts are from the Christian historian Rufinus’ Ecclesiastical History and the pagan historian Eunapius’ Lives of the Philosophers. Neither of them were eyewitnesses. There are other historians (Socrates, Sozomen and Theodoret) who wrote about the destruction of the Serapeum, but were not contemporary to the events. It is probable that the Christian accounts are as hyperbolic in their exaggeration of bloodshed as is Eunapius’ conflicting insistence that the soldiers met with no pagan resistance when they attacked the statues in the Serapeum. My only firm conclusion of the historical sources is that the contemporary accounts are so starkly in opposition that none of them present the actual events and so I have taken the liberty of assuming, rightly or wrongly, that the truth resides somewhere between the two. I’ve cherry-picked elements from Socrates and Sozomen’s later accounts to add some pagan spice.
Please note that any apparent departure from history is to be blamed entirely on Rufius Biblus Catamitus.
I am deeply grateful for the guidance of so many historical experts that it would be exhaustive to list them here, but I would especially like to thank Dr David Bagchi, not only for his historical wizardry, but also his literary suggestions; Dr Kelly Olsen, fashionista of the Ancient Roman World; Dr Craig Williams for a fascinating interview; Dr. Jennifer Inglehart for allowing me to not only gatecrash, but present at Durham University’s Romosexuality Conference; Dr Alexander Petrov, Director of the Moscow Library for Foreign Literature who oversaw the most recent translation of the Askew Codex and his kind invitation to deliver a paper for the International Russia and Gnosis Conference, and Dr Nersessian, curator of the Askew Codex for giving me permission to view the manuscript in 2004 – and for his patience and enthusiasm while I picked his brains. It was during those long days in the Oriental Reading Room at the British Library poring over the manuscript that Rufius first spoke to me.
A warm thank you to the novelists who so generously shared their creative process for writing the ancient world – Steven Saylor, Bernadine Evaristo OBE, Allan Massie CBE and José Luis de Juan. I’m grateful for creative feedback from D.D. Johnston, Dr Bethan Jones, Allan Massie and José Luis – as well as tea in Deià in view of Robert Graves’ house.
Amicus means friend in Latin, and I owe so much to all those friends who came on the journey with me, and some I met along the way. Thank you to Martin for believing in Rufius and James for his sharp editorial eye – and to Barbican Press for taking a punt on a novel partly inspired by an obscure Latin insult. Also for Christina and Emilio’s cartography help, Jude’s proofing; Miles and Patricia Walton, Phoebs, Amanda, Angela, Richard, Frode, Fizz, Geoff and Kat’s firm faith. Eternal love to both Davids for letting me bore them for years with Ancient Roman law and the everyday clutter of Roman life. You’re all fabulous, by Bacchus!
A special thank you to cartoonist Mariana de Oliveira for her artistic impression of Rufius, which can be found at: www.sarahwalton.org.