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  For the wrath of the Furies who keep watch upon mortals will not follow deeds, but I will let loose death in every form.

  —AESCHYLUS, The Eumenides

  The war with the Romans has begun.…

  How will our glorious king

  Mithradates Dionysus Eupator

  find time to listen to Greek poetry now?

  —C. P. Cavafy, “Darius”

  Prologue: From the Secret Diary of Antipater of Sidon

  [The fragmentary text begins in mid-sentence.]

  … not even allowed me to keep my own name! Instead the king insists that I continue to use that absurd pseudonym (which he himself suggested) that I took when I agreed to fake my own death and travel the world as a spy for him. So everyone here in Ephesus knows me not as the venerable Antipater of Sidon, greatest of all living poets in the Greek language, but instead as gray-bearded Zoticus of Zeugma, itinerant tutor of wayward Roman boys and all-around nonentity. The humiliation!

  But oh, how I wish that were the only humiliation I have been made to suffer, or even the worst.

  I would challenge him in this matter, but I have seen what happens to those who dare to cross the Shahansha—King of Kings!—as he now styles himself in the barbaric tongue of the Persians. Part Greek the king may be, but part Persian as well—and since I joined his traveling court I have seen far too much of the barbarian and far too little of the Greek!

  His execution of the captured Roman general Aquillius, which I was made to witness at Pergamon, is a case in point. I have no doubt that Aquillius was a scoundrel, one of the very worst of the Roman overlords who have subjugated the Greek-speaking world. He deserved to be tried for his crimes, and punished for them. But did even Aquillius deserve the horrible death the king devised? What sort of fiend could invent such a cruel punishment, and make a public spectacle of it? I was close enough to smell the sizzling flesh. The sounds Aquillius made—his convulsions of agony—I grow faint when I think of it.… Perhaps at some later date I will describe what happened, but I cannot bear to do so now.

  I wonder sometimes if such a horrible fate lies in store for me—or some death even worse, devised by the king’s boundless imagination.

  When I remember the life I had in Rome, only a few years ago—recognized and respected by all the best people, well paid and well fed for my recitations, the envy of every poet in the city … Then the agents of the king approached me, and whispered in my ear: “What are you doing among these people? A Greek you are, not a Roman! The Roman conquerors have overrun your homeland. They empty our treasuries. They loot our temples. The rich they make poor with taxes. The poor they make into slaves. Any who dare to protest, they strike down with a sword. Yet here you live in luxury, reciting pretty verses to tickle their ears!”

  “But what can I do to stop the Romans?” I asked them. “What can anyone do?”

  “Have you not heard?” they answered. “King Mithridates of Pontus is on the march! He has taken up the mantle of Alexander, and that of Cyrus the Great as well—heir to the greatness of both Greece and Persia. Mithridates is the world’s only hope to stop these infernal Romans!”

  So I was seduced into the service of the king—and once I dispatched my first secret report to his agents, there could be no turning back. Even the most cultured and Greek-loving of my patrons in Rome would have had me crucified if they knew of my activities on behalf of the king.

  But I was careless. The veil of secrecy grew thin. To escape discovery, I was obliged to fake my own death and to leave Rome. As the clouds of war gathered, I traveled all over the Greek-speaking world—not as Antipater the poet, but incognito, as Zoticus the nobody—carrying messages and secretly rallying support for the king. To Olympia I journeyed, and to the ruins of Corinth, and even as far as Babylon to the east and Alexandria to the south.

  Sometimes I adopted a disguise, but this was rarely necessary. Antipater might be the world’s most famous poet, but it was my words that people knew, not my face. I had been living in Rome a long time, and there I was known by sight, but in Greece and Asia and even in my hometowns of Sidon and Tyre, no one knew what Antipater looked like. When an old man introduced himself as Zoticus of Zeugma, no one gave him a second glance.

  Then, at last, the war began in earnest. Some say Manius Aquillius initiated the hostilities, on his own initiative and without the approval of the Roman Senate. Whoever started the war, Mithridates quickly enjoyed a string of victories in and around the province the Romans called Asia, liberating city after city—liberating them from Roman control, that is, and placing them under his own control, or that of his appointed overseers.

  To celebrate his victories, Mithridates staged a triumphal tour of the liberated cities of Asia—and I received a message, written in our secret code, inviting me to join him. As I made my way from Alexandria to Pergamon, I thought: He will reward me now. The King of Kings will make me his court poet. In return for my faithful service, a grateful Mithridates will crown me with glory!

  Instead, at our first meeting, before I could even begin to recite the poem I had composed for the occasion—the meeting of the world’s greatest poet and the world’s greatest king—Mithridates told me that I must continue to play the role of Zoticus. “Antipater is useless to me,” he said, “but Zoticus—oh, as wily Zoticus you have served me well! I may yet have need of your secret services, so Zoticus you shall remain.”

  For a long moment, I was dumbfounded. “But surely,” I said, “I am more valuable to you as Antipater than as Zoticus. When it becomes known that the greatest of all living poets has joined your retinue, and is eager to dedicate his art to your service, all the world will see that you are the champion of Greek culture.”

  I thought this would make him smile. Instead he scowled. “I am already the champion of Greek culture, as everyone already knows—everyone except you, perhaps!”

  I stammered, unused to being at a loss for words. “Ah, yes, widely known your achievements may be, but my words will make those achievements immortal.”

  His scowl deepened. “My achievements will be immortal with or without your words—Zoticus!”

  It is hard for an old man with a stiff back to bow, but I bowed even lower before him. “Please, King Mithridates. For whatever time I have left in this world, I would live not behind a mask, but openly and proudly as myself.”

  The king grew furious. “You will address me as Shahansha, King of Kings! And all men shall address you as Zoticus!”

  “But … for how long, O King of Kings?” I managed to utter, ashamed at the mouse-squeak that came out of my mouth.

  “For as long as I say. Or for as long as you continue to live—and that, too, is for the King of Kings to decide!”

  I dared to look into his eyes. I could bear his gaze for only an instant—but in that brief moment I caught a glimpse of madness behind those fiery eyes. This was the man for whom I had given up eve
rything, in whose service I had become a wandering nobody, a vagrant, a liar, a spy!

  Zoticus I had become, and Zoticus I would remain.

  And so, in his victory march across the liberated lands, I followed in the king’s retinue, but not among the luminaries of his court. Instead of taking my rightful place alongside the famous scholars, philosophers, astrologers, and Magi, I, Antipater of Sidon, was relegated to the outermost circle of the court. I found myself surrounded by jugglers and acrobats, sniveling sycophants and hangers-on of the lowest sort!

  Then there is the matter of my relations with the king’s wife, a sly young minx called Monime. Hardly more that a child she looks, but what a schemer! The little queen bends the will of the king this way and that, as if he were her plaything, and he doesn’t even realize it. Worst of all, she took an instant disliking to me. No doubt she saw the look of reciprocal loathing on my face, and marked me at once as her enemy. And those whom Monime dislikes have a way of leaving this world sooner rather than later.

  Now we have arrived in Ephesus, where with great pomp and ceremony the king has appointed Monime’s father, Philopoemen, royal overseer of the city. While the king is busy plotting his next military campaign, the little queen and her father wield absolute power over Ephesus. As long as I remain here, I know …

  [This fragment ends in mid-sentence. A portion of the diary appears to be missing, after which the text resumes, again in mid-sentence.]

  … is in an even worse dilemma than myself, it would be the Romans who remain in Ephesus. Thousands already lived here, and thousands more fled to this city ahead of the king’s arrival, hoping to escape by ship to the island of Rhodes, which remains loyal to the Romans. But even with their decks crammed to overflowing, there were not enough ships to carry so many refugees. Many Romans—thousands of them—remain in Ephesus. Some are longtime residents who go about their business as best they can, but many are homeless. They fill the temples to overflowing, seeking sanctuary and crying out for the protection of the gods.

  So it is, not just in Ephesus but in all the cities up and down the coast. Where Roman magistrates and merchants once held sway, they now find themselves stripped of their power and at the mercy of Mithridates. How low our former masters have fallen! What shall become of them now?

  * * *

  Eutropius, my host here in Ephesus, has just given me shocking news.

  He says he has been approached by one of the king’s agents, who swore him to secrecy upon pain of death. According to this agent, the king is determined to exterminate every remaining Roman under his control—not just in Ephesus, but in all the liberated cities, and not in stages, but in a single, vast slaughter, occurring everywhere on the same day. Eutropius, as one of the leading citizens of Ephesus, is to be enlisted in this secret enterprise.

  The magnitude of such a massacre is almost unimaginable. There must be tens of thousands of Romans remaining in the lands King Mithridates has liberated from Roman control. Eutropius estimates the number to be as high as eighty or even a hundred thousand! Is it even possible those eighty thousand unsuspecting human beings, living hundreds of miles apart, could all be slaughtered in a single day, upon the order of a single man?

  I thank the gods that my erstwhile traveling companion, young Gordianus, is not here with me—any time he spoke a word of Greek, his atrocious Latin accent always gave him away as a Roman! His friendship with myself and with Eutropius would afford him no protection if this butchery takes place, for no Roman is to be spared. Men and women, the old and the young—if the king has his way, all will be killed, without exception and without mercy. And all in a single day!

  Ah, Gordianus, as much as I miss you, how glad I am that you are far from this place, safe in Alexandria where I left you, or perhaps even back in Rome with your father. Tonight I shall go to the Temple of Artemis and sacrifice to the goddess, with a prayer that you may remain far, far away from the catastrophe about to occur here in Ephesus.…

  [Here ends this fragment from the secret diary of Antipater of Sidon.]

  I

  I, Gordianus of Rome, was living a few miles to the west of Alexandria that summer, in a house on the beach next to a small fishing village.

  My hosts were the owners of the house, two eunuchs who had retired from the Egyptian royal court, Kettel and Berynus. When King Ptolemy lost control of Alexandria and the city became too wild and lawless even for a footloose young Roman like me, the eunuchs invited me to stay with them for a while, and I gladly accepted. I shared a room with my slave, Bethesda. The room was quite small, but the bed was just large enough for two.

  From the rooftop terrace of the house, looking east over the sand dunes and up the coastline, we had a clear view of the skyline of Alexandria in the distance. Most prominent was the towering Pharos Lighthouse in the harbor; its fiery beacon was visible for many miles, both day and night. The Temple of Serapis, situated atop the city’s highest hill in the quarter nearest to us, was also easy to make out. The rest was all a jumble of obelisks and rooftops surrounded by the high city wall.

  “No smoke today,” noted Kettel, whose massive bulk threatened to overflow even his commodious dining couch. It seemed to me that he had gained even more weight since his retirement. His appetite was certainly as voracious as ever. When Bethesda mounted the stairs from the kitchen and approached carrying a steaming platter of grilled fish, he eagerly took a helping.

  Berynus, who was as slender as Kettel was fat, looked toward the skyline and squinted. “There’s been no smoke—and so presumably no rioters—since the day King Ptolemy sailed off, even as his brother, our new king, marched into town with that huge army of his.” He turned up his nose at the fish and waved Bethesda on. “Are we to conclude that the chaos is ended and the civil war is really, truly over?”

  “Hardly!” Kettel chomped and snorted. “The old king will still have some fight in him. Just because he’s fled into exile doesn’t mean he’s given up the throne. If he can somehow raise an army, he’ll be back. Unless, of course, he loses his head in the meantime.”

  “Always a possibility,” said Berynus, nodding grimly.

  “They say the city has calmed down considerably since the new king’s arrival,” I said. “It may actually be safe to walk the streets again.” Bethesda stepped toward me and held forth the platter of fish, from which I took a modest portion. Her back was to my hosts, who could not see as she dared to lift a morsel to her own lips and nibble at it, giving me a sly smile as she did so. I sighed. What a poor excuse for a Roman I was, unable to control the only slave I possessed.

  “I was thinking I might venture into the city tomorrow,” I said.

  “Whatever for, Gordianus?” asked Kettel, smacking his lips. “Do you not have all that you need here? Good food, good company, long walks on the beach to pass the day, and the murmur of the surf to lull you to sleep at night.”

  “If indeed our bearded young friend gets much sleep,” Berynus muttered under his breath, raising an eyebrow and casting a sidelong glance at Bethesda as she retreated down the steps to the kitchen to fetch more food and drink. Her black hair, glistening in the sunlight, was so long that it almost reached her hips, which swayed provocatively as she descended out of sight.

  “The harbor seems to be rather busy again, since the old king fled,” I said. “With all those ships coming and going, I was thinking a letter might have arrived for me.”

  “A letter?” With his fleshy forefinger Kettel poked at a bit of fish that threatened to escape from between his lips.

  “Yes, perhaps there’s a letter … from my father.”

  “Ah, yes, your father—back in Rome.” Kettel licked his fingertips. “How long has it been since you last heard from him?”

  “Months,” I said.

  “Such a long time,” said Berynus.

  “Yes.” I frowned. “Of course, it may be that he’s written, but his letters were lost or went astray.” This was true. Travel by land and sea had been greatly
disrupted in recent months, not just by the civil war in Egypt, but by events in Asia, where King Mithridates was said to be driving the Romans out of one province after another, and in Italy as well, where Rome’s subject cities had rebelled against her. The whole world was at war. The days when one could exchange regular letters across great distances—as I had done with my father after I first arrived in Alexandria three years ago—now seemed a distant memory.

  So it was entirely possible that my father had written any number of letters to me in recent months, but for one reason or another none of them had reached me. But there was another possibility. It might be that no letters had come from my father because my father was no longer among the living.

  The little news that had arrived from Italy was grim. For rebelling against Rome, entire cities have been massacred, and the Roman Senate itself had descended into a kind of civil war. Growing up in Rome, I had observed that my father was always careful to tread a middle path, allying himself with no particular family or faction. This independence allowed him to work for any man who sought out his services. But could even my father remain neutral—and safe—amid the chaos in Italy?

  In reality, just how neutral was my father? And how loyal was he to Rome? He had seen trouble coming in Italy—that was one of the reasons he sent me off with my old tutor Antipater on our journey to see the Seven Wonders, to get me far from Rome and away from the looming danger. I had been more naive than a young Roman of eighteen should be. I had thought our trip was merely for pleasure. Even Antipater’s faked death and assumption of a false identity—Zoticus of Zeugma—had not alerted my suspicion. I accepted at face value Antipater’s explanation that he simply wanted a fresh start, a last chance for an old man to see the world through new eyes.

  But there was much more to Antipater’s deceit than that. As I learned only at the end of our journey, Antipater had been a spy for King Mithridates all along—and thus an enemy of Rome. Our trip to the Wonders had been a grand reconnaissance mission for him, as he carried messages for the king’s agents from Olympia to Babylon and to many cities between. No sooner did I discover Antipater’s deception than he vanished from Alexandria, before I could get any sort of explanation from him.