Alexandros fumed.
“They didn’t wrestle,” he said in disappointment — though that was more to himself.
Uri didn’t understand who was supposed to have wrestled: the servants or the women.
An intermission followed. The notables reappeared, mounted the steps in dignified fashion, and resumed their seats. The procession was again accompanied by jubilation, the public being grateful that beforehand, by their absence, they had allowed what would otherwise have been a prohibited item in the program. Uri understood well enough: the local dignitaries could not watch immoral acts like that, only the plebs could do that.
He was discomposed. That was the very first time he had seen living female bosoms — twenty of them at that. True, he had barely seen them; his unflagging goggling had been to little avail, though he had seen enough to spot that they were quite varied, with even the individual units of a pair differing. A female crotch was another matter, but the one he saw had been bleeding, and in his dreams it was encircled by disemboweled guts. He would be having no dreams, good or bad, about these particular bosoms.
Following that, arriving from the direction of the stables and accompanied by several of his retinue, the philosopher stepped up onto the wall from the left. The same one, indeed, whom Uri had seen in Syracusa. Now he wore white stars on a silk mantle of dark blue, with a wreath of laurels adorning his brow. This time the short physician stopped at the foot of the steps and gazed up.
Makedonios shook hands with one of the notables and bowed deeply to one of the ladies sitting there on high before turning to bow to the spectators. He was greeted just like the chariot drivers, athletes, and women. He downed a tumbler of wine before beginning to declaim in a ringing voice that was as clearly audible as it had been in Syracusa.
He told exactly the same two stories as before, changing not a single word.
The soldiers guffawed, taking pleasure at each shoddy twist like little boys, interjecting. He was even more successful than at Syracusa, applauded almost as warmly as the naked women; their earlier triumph had obviously rubbed off on him. The philosopher gratefully made repeated bows, then, joined by his physician and a servant, he took a place at the top of the wall to watch the high point in the program: a final match in which the two earlier winners were pitted against each other. Both started in green, clearly on the principle that a green had to win; the soldiers would have that pleasure, thought Uri, and he was forced to conclude that this was hardly pure chance. Evenly matched, each won a round, leaving the third to decide the competition. The one who came second in the final contest struck his head repeatedly on the ground, threw his arms to the sky, and lashed his horses to get a laugh from the public.
They were just acting, performing a predetermined dance; they too were buffoons. The philosopher was a buffoon, so were the local dignitaries. Who knows, maybe even the chariot spills had been arranged in advance to add an element of suspense. The horse’s legs, it now occurred to Uri, were obviously insured.
Except during the number with the dancing girls, Alexandros kept scouring the auditorium with his gaze, an expression of somber attention on his face. It’s not me he’s spying on, Uri thought, but everyone here.
On the way out, they lost each other, though it was true that they had not agreed to part together. Uri thought for a brief moment before jumping over the ditch between the auditorium and the arena, and addressed the philosopher, who was wheezing his way down the steps from the wall.
He was the only one to approach the philosopher as the crowd thronged around the victorious charioteer to touch his tunic’s ornately edged hem. The competitor’s bodyguards pushed the fans farther back, and there was much gloating when two of them eventually plopped into the ditch, though they too had a laugh.
Uri congratulated him on the two highly amusing stories, and he stammered out the titles of the philosopher’s works with which he was already familiar. The philosopher came to a halt; the physician and a servant holding a fan idled impatiently as these signs of interest on Uri’s part were not to their taste. A faint smile appeared on the philosopher’s face as Uri mentioned the titles.
“I wrote those a long time ago,” he said with a dismissive gesture, and proudly drew himself up. “Nowadays it’s not possible to get acclaim for writing those sorts of works: they’re too good. The signs of decay are dreadful. That is the only word I can use, young friend: dreadful.”
Uri made no reference to the fact that he had heard exactly the same stolen tales before in Syracusa, asking instead where the philosopher’s itinerary would be taking him. The sage told him that he would be traveling northward, with audiences waiting impatiently in Sidon and Damascus, and once there he would organize the rest of the tour. From that Uri took it that he had started off from Alexandria.
“From Sicily I took a boat to Africa,” the philosopher recounted. “I had appearances in Leptis and Cyrene, but Alexandria was not one of the stops… There are too many so-called thinkers there; it’s just impossible to attract an audience. Even a Plato or Aristotle would be whistled off the stage these days; the public has been mollycoddled, and also hardened: the fashion is for their own primitive local favorites.”
Uri asked what work he had in progress.
“Not a single thing has come to my mind for years,” said the philosopher woefully. “I have forgotten even the things I once wrote. I wasn’t able to find a wealthy sponsor; I have to keep traveling all the time, even though I loathe doing that. I was not too clever in arranging my fate.”
Uri wagged his head in disbelief.
“There you have it. In Rome I am known even to the Jews,” the philosopher sighed happily. “Who would have believed it! Perhaps a time will come when I make an appearance even in Rome itself… It must be twenty years since I went that way… I had a major success there. But those were the days when there was still culture, erudition in the world…”
Uri trudged slowly among the civilians toward the town center. The soldiers, formed into detachments, made faster progress; the nailed soles of their boots struck the pavement hard, and they disappeared in the direction of the barracks, which had been built here, as throughout the empire, outside the city walls as a precautionary measure.
Uri had the feeling that as a Jew who paid taxes to the Romans in Judaea, he too had been robbed. He thought about how much was collected from each Jew in Rome in poll taxes and the tariffs on produce, out of which these free shows were paid for. He had heard back home that dues here were self-assessed, with the newborn and dead only being reported every fourteenth year. But how high a percentage was the tax? He would ask when the occasion arose.
He cautiously inspected the Jews trudging by, not noticing that he was staring at them. Apart from feeling cheated, he had nothing in common with them. Yet our religion is the same, Uri thought uncertainly; we are one race, the chosen people.
The charming family with whom they had spent the night in Campania, near Puteoli, came to mind. The many children who shouted happily at one another; the loom; the sheep. God willing, I shall pay them a visit again, he resolved.
He decided to make a solemn promise on the matter. He was amazed how close he now was to the Temple, where that vow was due. Only he could not imagine how he would pay for the sacrificial dove that was necessary for such a vow.