Marcus, the alabarch’s firstborn son, had been named after Mark Antony, trounced by the emperor Augustus around fifty years before Marcus was born. Plainly had been so named by the alabarch for the sake of the Greeks of Alexandria, who with their contemptuous attitude toward Rome, cherished the memory of Mark Antony and his struggle for Egypt’s independence. It was maybe only in the wake of this that the alabarch had entered Roman service. Marcus was a tall, thin, blond, fine-haired boy, with misty blue eyes and a slightly rolling gait, who smiled convivially on all and liked to listen. As Uri could see, Marcus was not on good terms with his younger brother Tija, though he never caught them squabbling. Tija, for his part, pretended that Marcus did not exist; Marcus in return regarded his brother as if he were not even a five-year-old and therefore not worth arguing with. Marcus was rarely to be seen, being preoccupied with the Boule, the Jewish Council of Elders, of which he was the youngest member. Uri had no idea what duties might be accomplished by the seventy-two members of the supreme body of Alexandrian Jews, which in principle was drawn from leaders of the strongest guilds and families, but it turned out that they had not held sessions very often since there had been no head since Augustus abolished the office. Marcus most likely functioned as a secretary in a virtually nonexistent council, and did he receive any pay for doing so; he probably busied himself assiduously producing documents. When Uri asked about Marcus’s activities Tija derisively shrugged his shoulders.
“He’s the firstborn,” Tija said, “so it doesn’t matter what he does. He’s where he is that one of us should be there as well.”
Philo did not test Uri any further: the impression he had formed on the first day sufficed for Uri to be loved liked a son, but he was challenged by Tija. There could hardly be a more cultivated, cleverer, wittier or better-looking young man anywhere in the Jewish world. Everything about him was fine: his slender, long face; his Grecian profile; his curly, wiry, blond hair; his straight nose, his thick, sensual lips; his ears, set close to the head; his tall, muscular frame. Uri was astounded that such a being might also be created by the Eternal One. He had no envy, as he once had held for Pilate’s brawny litter bearers; this young man was made of different stuff than most men — a person cannot envy a lion or elephant, only his own kind.
Tija set about testing Uri the moment Philo introduced him, which was at the palace in Alexandria. Uri was granted an entire suite of rooms with a bedroom, a separate atrium, baths, and kitchen, and he was free to stay there, he was assured, for as long as he stayed in Alexandria, with no reference made to the duration of that stay. After the first Sabbath was over, Uri mentioned to Philo that he would have to go back to the harbor for his residence permit, but Philo brushed that aside and sent a servant for the permit, who brought one, too, for three months. Palace servants were also placed at Uri’s disposal, but he respectfully declined. Philo smiled, the alabarch shrugged his shoulders; Uri was relieved not to be at the focus of the alabarch’s attention, because he was afraid of him. He sensed from Philo’s smile that he had for some reason become his favorite, and it was a position he would not lose for the time being; indeed, every cloddish mistake that Uri made would redound to his favor as long as that affection held.
At last — to the extent that he felt he ought to declare it was his intention, after taking a short holiday — he announced that he would have to return to Rome to assist his father make business deals because he would be going back much richer in experience. He would have to admit that he had been of little use to his father… but Philo waved that aside. Your father will get by without you, he’s obviously a good merchant.
“Is there something that you know of about him?”
“No,” said Philo. “All we know is that he lent money to Agrippa.”
“And who told you that?”
“Agrippa in person,” said Philo.
While Uri had been in Judaea, Agrippa had appeared in Alexandria and asked to be lent money. Uri had already heard this from the stargazer Hippolytos, and Philo related essentially the same story, adding only that the two hundred thousand drachmas were merely a bridging loan: Agrippa had for years owed the Roman exchequer eight hundred thousand drachmas, and if he did not pay off a chunk then he would not be allowed to set foot on Italian soil, where he was heading at the time; if he were to enter at Dikaiarchia, he would be arrested. He had been given three hundred thousand sesterces by Antonia, it was true, but it seems he squandered that on something else. It was during his sojourn in Alexandria that Agrippa had dropped a reference to a Ioses Lucius in Rome to whom he likewise owed money; he had also mentioned his son, Gaius Theodorus, who had become a member of the delegation that was delivering the holy tribute. Philo tacked on that they had later also heard this from other sources: it did no harm to treat any boastful statement that Agrippa made with some reservation, Philo elucidated, but this time it seems he had told the truth.
Uri wondered whether Agrippa had done anything since then toward repaying his overall debt to the Roman exchequer. Philo seemed to hesitate before reluctantly admitting that yes, in Dikaiarchia Agrippa had been given an interest-free loan of one million drachmas by a Samaritan slave, which he had been able to put toward sorting out his debts, as a result of which it became possible for him to travel to see the emperor on Capri.
Uri did not ask any further questions.
But how could a Samaritan slave have come by such an immense fortune? He couldn’t have, otherwise he would not long have been a slave. He must have been a cover for someone else, but Philo wasn’t going to say who that was. Maybe it was the alabarch himself. Even the emperor, to whom Agrippa was of importance. Or maybe some senator. When all was said and done, it made no difference.
Tija, anyway, began quizzing him, throwing out questions seemingly arbitrarily, about astronomy, Greek literature, or philosophy or history, listening to Uri’s answers for only two or three sentences, by which time Uri’s proficiency had become apparent and then switching to another topic. The one area in which he did not pose any questions was Latin literature, and Uri was shrewd enough to ask him — during a lull in the barrage of questions — which particular line in Virgil was Tija’s favorite. Tija was speechless: he was not used to being interrogated. Uri loftily brushed that aside, all right, then, what about being so kind as to quote something from Livius’s rough translation of the Odyssey. Tija started to grow uneasy and began declaiming bits of Greek, but Uri was impertinent enough to signal that he should stop: Latin, if possible. Tija made an attempt to render in Latin hexameters the passage he had just quoted in Greek, but he could not do it without errors, omitting to place a caesura in the line, as Uri was not slow in pointing out. Philo, who had been an earwitness to the exchange, gleefully swooped down on his nephew:
“See, you don’t know everything!”
Tija fumed angrily; probably nobody had ever dared to humiliate him in such a fashion. Not that it was a serious humiliation: more in the way of a little teasing, but Tija still turned bright red.
“That’s not fair!” he burst out. “He lives in Rome; Latin’s his native tongue!”
Uri protested: Greek was his native language too; he had learned Latin through his own industriousness, for at least a third of the Roman populace, if not half, didn’t speak a word of Latin, or at best read only graffiti. The Jews there spoke no Latin, as they had no need to.