"Welcome, Princess!" cried one of the officers, his voice somewhat muffled as his face was pressed to the deck.
"Rise, Admiral," Zarabel said. He and the other officers got to their feet. They wore a version of the traditional Egyptian dress: stiff linen kilts, striped head-cloths and broad pectorals of colorful beads. The admiral's clothing and jewelry were of finer quality than that of the others.
"You have had a successful voyage, I take it?" she said.
"A perfect voyage, Highness. Not a ship lost, no spoilage among the cargo, not even a serious leak in the whole fleet."
"Wonderful! The gods have favored you. We have come to inspect the ship and your cargo."
"It will be my privilege."
With proprietary pride, the admiral displayed his vessel's splendid appointments: luxurious cabins for the officers, a banqueting hall for visiting dignitaries, shrines to Greek and Egyptian gods, with an especially splendid one to Serapis, the Alexandrian god who was patron of the grain fleet. A catwalk down the centerline of the ship took them above the great hold. Marcus could see that this ship was one of the vessels for carrying luxury cargoes. Everywhere he saw marble, alabaster and gold. The air was redolent of perfume, incense and fragrant wood. Baled pelts of rare animals lay everywhere, and great jars of palm wine ballasted the ship.
Zarabel paused to point toward some large but nondescript bales wrapped in linen and bound with rope. "There is one of the greatest treasures of Egypt, Marcus. It isn't colorful, but we would be lost without it."
"What might it be?" he asked.
"Papyrus. It is the only decent writing material in the world, and it is made only in Egypt, from a reed that grows in the Delta and the Nile shallows."
"In Noricum we use parchment made from lamb skins. It lasts forever and can be washed and reused, but it is costly."
The admiral opened chests of books: scrolls in leather covers each labeled by author and work.
"This is another specialty of Egypt," Zarabel explained. "The great library of the museum has the largest collection of manuscripts in the world. It employs armies of copyists and sells the copies abroad."
"A nation that exports books," Marcus said wonderingly. Then he remembered something. "Did you not say that Archimedes fled to the Museum at Alexandria after the fall of Syracuse?"
"I did. Is this significant?"
"Nothing important. It just lodged in my mind." He picked up a scroll, slipped its cover off and unrolled it. It proved to be a copy of Prometheus the Firebringer by Aeschylus. The censors had repeatedly forbidden the performance of Greek plays in Noricum. They were felt to be weakening. He mentioned this to the princess and this set off a lively discussion about the emasculating properties of Greek culture. He did not want her thinking about Archimedes.
That evening the Roman party met and discussed their latest discoveries about Carthage, both the city and its empire. They were compiling an impressive study to deliver to the Senate, far more than they had thought they would ever have when they left Noricum.
"Carthage is not enough," Marcus asserted when he had taken all the other reports.
"That is uncommonly enigmatic for a Cornelius Scipio," Flaccus commented. "Ordinarily, you are such a plainspoken and forthright lot. Rather unimaginative, really. Whatever do you mean?"
"This"-he poked the growing stack of parchments with a finger-"is splendid and I am proud of all of you. But Carthage, imposing as it is, is just one power on the Middle Sea. There are others and we must know about them."
"But Carthage is our ancient enemy," said young Caesar.
"And Carthage shall be dealt with," Marcus said. "But we must not be so focused on revenge that we leave ourselves open to attack by the others."
"The Seleucids are crumbling, so I hear," Norbanus said. "The Parthians will probably crush them soon."
"And will the Parthians prove any less formidable?" Marcus said. "I am told that they are a virile, warlike people of the eastern plains. They are horse-archers of a sort we have never fought before. With the bulk of the old Persian Empire in their hands, might they not be far more formidable than the degenerate descendants of Seleucus?"
"In another generation or two, very probably," Norbanus answered in a reasonable tone. "I am sure they will provide our grandsons with some lively campaigning. But that is for the far future. Right now, Carthage is all we have to concern ourselves with."
"There is also Egypt," Marcus said.
The others laughed. "Egypt!" cried Lucius Ahenobarbus. "The Egyptians worship animals! They pickle their kings so they won't rot and then pile artificial mountains of stone over them to keep the jackals from munching on them!"
"When did the Egyptians last conquer a foreign enemy?" snorted Brutus the augur. "It was around the time that Troy fell, wasn't it?"
"A bit more recently than that, I think," said Flaccus. "But not by much. Marcus, what are you getting at?"
"Today I watched the Egyptian fleet unload in the harbor. This despite the fact that Egypt and Carthage are about to go to war, mind you. There were treasure ships, certainly, but I saw vessel after vessel unloading a single cargo. They are still unloading and will be doing so for several more days. Do you know what this cargo is?"
They looked at him as if he were demented. "Cargo?" said Norbanus. "What can the wares of a merchant fleet have to do with our work and plans?"
"Those ships were full of grain," Marcus told them. "Wheat and barley by the ton. I think it safe to assume that the Egyptians aren't starving. They ship this grain here every year. The Carthaginians middleman it to the west, all the way to Britannia. And Egypt exports it to the lands of the eastern Middle Sea and to Greece as well."
He paused while this intelligence sank in. He could see the thoughts working in their heads. "Egypt must be unbelievably rich," Flaccus said.
"It is the sort of wealth that really counts," Marcus said. "The land is incredibly fertile, the peasants are industrious and the river floods every year and leaves a fresh layer of silt on the fields. The growing season is far longer than we have in the north. In an ordinary year they get two crops. In a really good year they get three. Egypt raises so much grain that they can consume only a small part of it. Some they put up in granaries against a bad year. The rest they sell abroad. Many of the lands of the Middle Sea have come to depend on the Egyptian grain fleet."
"The nation that holds Egypt," Flaccus said, "will have a stranglehold on many other nations."
"Exactly," Marcus said.
"It is too much," Norbanus said. "We can't deal with Carthage and Egypt both. It has to be done one at a time, and Carthage must come first."
"I agree," said Marcus.
The others looked at him in amazement. "I didn't expect to hear that from you," Norbanus said. "So what is your meaning?"
"It may surprise you to learn that not everything is solved by conquest," Marcus said, grinning. "If we have Carthage, we may be able to dictate policy to Egypt without having to station a single legion on Egyptian soil. Egypt is governed from Alexandria, and Alexandria is a Greek city. The ruling dynasty, the Ptolemies, are another pack of degenerate Macedonians. The kings marry their sisters to keep the royal bloodline pure and I'm told that such breeding practices don't work as well with men as with horses and cattle."
"What is your proposal?" Ahenobarbus asked.
"I think we may be able to cement our control of Egypt with the conquest of Carthage, but to do so we must have good, up-to-date intelligence about Egypt. I propose an embassy to the court of Alexandria."