Right now they were headed for the house of the most famous living Jewish philosopher… Who is dying to meet me! My father can have had no notion of what he was doing when he had me pushed into that ill-fated delegation!
They were now walking along the shore of Lake Mareotis. Here there were even larger docks, set deep in the water beside the stone moles like the teeth on a comb, as in the Great Harbor, and even more ships bustling about to unload and load. Uri paused and stared. Hippolytos confirmed that internal commerce was greater than the external trade, with all of the goods from India and Persia transferred here to craft that navigated the Nile. Papyrus, frankincense and saffron — Egypt’s best known exports — were also brought here, with only a small fraction of that making its way down the canal into the Western Harbor. Uri could also see strange reed-like plants on the shore, and was amazed to learn that these were papyrus. Hippolytos just laughed and reassured him that these were only used to make the poorest quality of papyrus used for packaging and baling. These somewhat smaller and gnarlier plants were also papyrus, though their bark was stripped not for writing on but to chew. If Uri looked a bit closer later on, back in Alexandria, he would see that people were constantly munching, and what they were chewing on was the stripped and crushed bark, which left a pleasant tingle in the gums and was also an aphrodisiac. Jews chewed it too; there was nothing to forbid that in the Scriptures.
They reached a beguilingly pretty fishing village, which Hippolytos declared with pride was the renowned Taposiris, where they held an annual festival of Osiris, always worth the trip because of the beauty contests: Hedylos the epigrammatist had written about these, which were open not only to rosy-cheeked girls but to older women too, who could enter any body parts that remained in good condition, their thighs, say, or their noses. This was not Athens, he added; here spectators were not lured to come to the competitions or theatrical performances by bounties but had to pay — though not a lot — with the cost of food and drink included in the price.
Uri stood and looked at the peaceful village, the boats, their crews placidly stowing their ropes, the unhurried people, the green and blue islets on the lake on which, if he narrowed his eyes in a squint, he could see white villas rising from among trees.
“Philo also has a small house on one of the islets where he grows vines, himself picks and presses the grapes at vintage time, then himself puts the wine aside to ferment,” noted Hippolytos. “If ever he tires of creative solitude in the country, that’s where he pulls back to. He invites no guests, so only trusted servants accompany him there, and all the scrolls he needs which deal with the mysteries of wine production are packed onto five or six boats. The tales go around that Philo grinds grape stalks and pips into the wine-barrels out of forgetfulness, so the resulting wine is more properly a marc that only he finds drinkable.”
Hippolytos’s laughter was mocking.
Philo’s house in the country, whitewashed on the outside, was very large, and it sat in the midst of a gigantic property, with orchards, stables, forests, fields, with a great number of servants, three of whom escorted the two guests to the atrium.
“The master is working,” one of them said deferentially, “and he instructed us that he was not to be disturbed… Nor was he expecting any guests today.”
Hippolytos nodded and parked himself on a couch. Uri remained standing and gazed at the circle of Hellenistic statues, sculptures of women, men, and winged beings, fine enough that they would have graced even the old Forum in Rome. All around the walls were colorful depictions of nature, and Uri became self-absorbed, as though the atrium he was standing in was a valley bordered by trees, flowers, and hills. Something of the kind was perhaps also to be found in the bedroom of the emperor Augustus and his wife, as went the gossip in the taverns in Rome from those who had seen them, or just heard about them — there every tree, every blade of grass was as true to nature as if it had been alive, and the mural he found himself gazing at here seemed to have the same realistic depth. Uri thought it amusing: in Rome, ringed by masses of stone it might make sense to feign nature on a wall, but here, where the house was truly standing in the middle of nature?
He stepped closer to one of the walls and examined it thoroughly. He had the distinct feeling that it was a landscape that he had seen before even though he had not seen many murals — actually, he hadn’t even seen many landscapes at all, on account of his poor eyesight. How could he be familiar with the picture all the same? It quickly dawned on him that the encircling mural depicted the surroundings of the very house in which he was standing. Lest any inhabitant of the atrium, cut off from the outside world, should forget — among all the other things to which he might be attending — where he happened to be situated.
This is just too extravagant for me. The thought entered Uri’s mind. Senseless. They’d do better to cut a window in the wall of the atrium and anyone could gaze outside through that. Cheaper.
Perish the thought, he chided himself. The reason the wealthy had money was to squander it on senseless luxuries.
Two of the servants vanished, leaving the one who stayed there standing respectfully without watching them.
“I’ve never been here before,” said Hippolytos, happily sprawled on the couch. “I’ve you to thank for this, Gaius Theodorus.”
He was also gazing at the mural, examining the length of the four walls, though he could look at it from where he was seated as his eyesight was good. All of a sudden he shrieked:
“This panorama depicts precisely the spot where we are now! Do you see?”
“Yes, I see it.”
A short, bald, aged man hastened into the atrium accompanied by one of the servants. He was wearing a simple white tunic and there was a conspicuous flushed quality about his cheeks. Hippolytos leapt to his feet.
“Your Worthiness, Philo…” he began until Philo gestured for him to hold it, and turned to Uri.
“Are you Gaius Theodorus?”
“That’s me,” said Uri.
Philo rushed over and hugged him. Uri returned the embrace. The great philosopher had slender bones.
“The rest of you can go,” Philo said impatiently.
Uri watched sorrowfully as Hippolytos, the young astronomer, who was no doubt a hundred times brighter and more talented than himself, disappointedly trailed out after the servants. Uri called out to him:
“Many thanks for accompanying me, Hippolytos.”
“My dear son, come — take a seat! What can I offer you? Tell me all! Or rather, take a bath: you’ll get a rub-down with oil and get beaten with birch twigs… What do you hanker after? Some wine? Food?”
Uri felt somewhat faint as he took a seat on a couch with a twisting, convoluted ornamental back, made from a beautifully grained wood, not turned on a lathe but handcrafted, he noted as he ran his fingers over it.
“How lovely this is!” broke from his lips.
Philo sat down on the couch next to it with a happy laugh.
“You’ve got good taste! That is the most expensive seat in the whole room! Rosewood.”
“I was a cabinetmaker for a while…”
“Marvelous!” the elderly man clapped in delight. “A cabinetmaker! Terrific!”
Some servants raced at the sound of the clapping. Philo didn’t understand what they wanted, but since they were there he gave orders for one thing and another, after which the servants left.
“So, tell me all!”
It was now Uri’s turn to laugh out loud.
“What could I possibly tell you that you don’t know already? I am deeply honored… I’ve read your works — at least some of them… But the idea that one day I would get to meet the author is something I never even dreamed of doing.”