He had heard in Jerusalem that Jews also prayed in this Basilica, in addition to many hundreds of synagogues that were scattered throughout all parts of Alexandria (because Jews lived not just in the Delta, the fourth district, but also in the other four districts as well). Uri looked over the eastern double stoa, or colonnade, to see where there might be an ark or cabinet in which Torah scrolls might be kept, but he saw no fixture that might have served that purpose. Maybe it was delivered here on Friday evening and for any feast days. That would mean the platform in the center of the stoa acted as the bimah, the “elevated place” from which the Torah readings were made. To hold divine services outdoors, under the open sky, was a fine, even sublime idea. He looked at the interior space and estimated that each row of stone benches might hold as many as a hundred people, which would come to 7,200, plus there was a lot of free space between the benches and the columns, while lots of people would also fit in between columns, so several tens of thousands of Jews might cram in if need be, assuming the poorer ones stood, of course. He felt a strong urge to take a seat in the middle of the first row of stone benches to the west of the rostrum, but not now — later on when a divine service was in progress. I’m going to win that right for myself, Uri vowed; it was his duty to conquer Alexandria.
He would have been more than ready to make a votive offering, but that was only possible at the Temple in Jerusalem, whereas here there was only a Basilica — a marketplace which could also be used as a house of prayer.
Scattered here and there on the rows of benches were small knots of Jews discussing various things, either doing business or gossiping in unhurried, contented fashion; around them women were chatting, their faces not made up, while children were running around freely and kicking up a racket. Whoever had power and prestige in Alexandria stood closer to the head of the Jewish populace than the priests in Jerusalem, to say nothing of the Roman Jews.
Under one of the arches a group of master jewelers had set out their merchandise; Uri went over and immersed himself in the sight. One master and his assistants were producing settings, the silver for which was heated up over the flame of a small oil lamp and bent with tweezers; the gemstones, standing nearby in a small container, must already have been cut. Anyone with the nerve could have snatched up a few of the sparkling gems and run off into the crowd, yet nevertheless no one stooped to this level, and the masters seemed to have no apprehensions on that score. Uri looked at them, and once again the thought crossed his mind that this would be a craft worth learning: it suited him better than cabinetmaking or laying stone floors. Who could know? Perhaps he might somehow get the chance.
In the end, he asked where he might find the stargazer Heraclitos.
On the third try, he was informed that the Jewish stargazers resided on the island of Pharos — that was where their synagogue stood, and anyone on the island would be able to tell him which building that was, and anyway it had a massive marble menorah over its entrance; Uri should go back to the harbor along the Heptastadion, to the island, you couldn’t go wrong. It wasn’t far, nothing in Alexandria was. He would reach it by evening.
Holy Moses, Uri sighed as he passed under the bridge at the southern end of the Heptastadion, the causeway that separated Alexandria’s two harbors, connecting the island of Pharos to the mainland. If I could only lay my hands on a shack in this wonderful city!
Stepping onto the causeway, he could see skiffs heavily laden with goods being rowed out of the Great Harbor into the Western Harbor, the port of Eunostos, through the seawater channel that ran under the tightly curved stone bridge at the Heptastadion’s northern end, nearly a mile away. The traffic was dense, with boatmen bawling at one another and occasionally even colliding or clashing with their oars. There was also traffic in the opposite direction, with all kinds of bales being moved from the Western Harbor into the Great Harbor. Boats, skiffs and other watercraft also plied a broad channel that fed from the southwest into the Western Harbor, which to Uri’s squinting assessment was a great deal larger than the Great Harbor. Might that be the channel that connected Lake Mareotis to the Western Harbor? No doubt. But he could not see the lake itself, since the tall edifices rising toward the south blocked off his view of the horizon.
The stargazers’ house stood at the western tip of the island. A temporary, timber lighthouse tower was situated nearby; the captain had told him that morning that a new Pharos, much bigger than the old, was to be built but that the city did not yet have the financing for it. How was it possible, Uri had wondered, that a city like this did not have sufficient money? The captain had just laughed: Every third person in a city might well be rolling in it, and every second person able to buy up the whole lot, all the same a city might still be poverty-stricken.
The fires were not yet burning in the interim Pharos; it was still early evening. Uri could not understand why the house of the Jewish astronomers had been constructed next to the Pharos, of all structures, as the fires surely interfered with their examinations of the firmament. On the ship even the few small torches that lit the deck at night interfered with the examinations of the heavens by the captain, who was well versed in the mysteries of the cult of Mithras. Uri came to realize, however, that the of the Jewish astronomers had settled in first, and it was only afterward that the timber lighthouse had gone up.
Uri had his fill of astronomers.
When he had returned from Samaria and drawn his reward of 120 zuz — the tidy sum they had each received for the lie that Pilate’s soldiers had been responsible for the massacre — it happened to be a half-holiday after Rosh Hashanah and before the Day of Atonement. He had tried to arrange his departure along with the Alexandrian delegation immediately after Sukkot, but he wasn’t allowed anywhere near them; the Alexandrian delegates went around under strong-armed protection and cut themselves off from beggars and petitioners. Offices resumed work only after Sukkot, but so slowly that he needed something to do until they go around to him, so he asked where he might find a library, but they couldn’t grasp what he was after: there were no public libraries in Jerusalem, and the office did not have any private libraries at its disposal. They suggested that he move in with the stargazers in the tower of Phasael, as they buried themselves in books for sure.
That is how Uri found himself where the stargazers lived, at the top of the tower of Phasael, at ninety cubits high the tallest structure in Jerusalem and built as a copy of the Pharos in Alexandria.
The astronomers did not concern themselves with him, beyond simply taking note that he was present. In any case they did little or nothing, spending the whole day eating, drinking, basking in the sun, and spinning yarns. On top of the tallest tower in the city they were invisible from below due to the projecting balcony that ran all around its lip. Uri found a few interesting books and became immersed in a volume of Eratosthenes. He delved for months on end into the secrets of trigonometry as his quarters were free, even his board, and he spent hardly anything of the 120 zuz. He rarely went down into the city, living in the tower of Phasael much as he had done in his cubbyhole in Rome.
When he got tired of reading, he went up to the balcony at the top of the tower, and there he would always find people just looking around. He slowly worked out that these stargazers were not astronomers as such — they were more interested in what was going on down below than up above. From the top of the tower of Phasael even Uri, squinting, could see the square by the Temple and the squares of the Upper City — everything. It was only gradually that the realization dawned: these stargazers were lookouts.