Yet in the course of this recent visit both Hadrian and the lad were entranced by Alexander's survival after so long a time. We each asked if we too would still be enticing visitors in four hundred years time? Without that corpse as its core symbol, Alexandria would have come to nothing as a city.
While dining at Antirrhodos, this theme led to the fashionable subject of surviving death. It seems to be everywhere these days. Antinous was particularly fascinated. Not satisfied with the tale of Osiris being killed and re-assembled by Isis, or the story of Bacchus surviving death to be resurrected, and so on among others, Antinous regaled us with even newer tales.
The fellow was struck by the story put about by certain people at Alexandria. He seemed especially interested in fanciful tales of surviving death told by the followers of Chrestus, who are everywhere across the Empire these days.
Well, in the course of all this heady discussion Antinous and the woman Perenna began talking together to one side. I didn't catch the drift of it, but I think Titianus's consort impressed the lad with her reputation as a mystic-priestess and dream-reader of her antique Roman lineage.
At the dinner I reminded the Governor's consort of her earlier Soma visit, but she had the gall to claim she had no recollection of it at all. It irked her to remember it, it seems. I have no idea why she was so obstreperous about something so readily recalled by everyone else."
Julia Balbilla sat back to relax beneath the riverside lookout's shady parasol. The blinding white haze of an Egyptian noon seared one's sight.
"In what context did your ancestor's advice to Nero arise?" Clarus reminded the gentlewoman.
"Of a substituted death?" she reflected. "After discussing all these fashionable resurrection cults at dinner, I responded how the Anna Perenna form of resurrecting the dead seems far more plausible than the Eastern ones. At least you get to see the living result."
"What way is that?" the biographer queried.
"Well, each high priestess of the ancient cult of Anna Perenna, who is known as the grandmother of time, assumes the title and name of her predecessor, also named Anna Perenna. After all, 'Anna Perenna' means something like the perennial year, it's not a family name, is it? It's a priestess's rank, not a bloodline," she stated. "When the high priestess of the cult dies she resurrects as a new priestess, her former assistant priestess, who is now endowed with the same name. The Grandmother of Time becomes eternal, generation by generation, onwards into eternity. That's what I'm told. It's a very clever ruse."
"What happens to her original family name before being named Anna Perenna?" Clarus enquired. "Does she deny her heredity and her family gens?"
"It's subsumed behind her cult one," Balbilla replied. "It's relinquished for the remainder of their lives. This particular priestess at Alexandria travels under the Prefect Governor's protection as his consort while Titianus's legal wife stews in Rome with his four children. Perenna even has a detachment of Praetorians to protect her.
But in discussing such 'resurrection', she grew irritable with me. This lady is quite strong willed. It was she who loudly reminded me of my grandfather's faux pas under Nero. She had read your book, Tranquillus, and knew the details."
"I see. You said earlier how Caesar had been preparing for Antinous's death for weeks. What did you mean by that?"
"I didn't say preparing for Antinous's death, but I did say he'd been preparing for something for weeks. Surely, gentlemen, you've been aware of the unusual activities going on around this Encampment?" Balbilla asked. "We at The Dionysus have been very aware of these activities ever since we moored here a week ago.
Governor Titianus and his architects have been busy surveying and measuring the landscape for many weeks now. Macedo's Praetorians have been running messages up and down the river at haste speed. Vestinus's couriers have been trotting to and fro with more-than-usual Empire correspondence, and teams of engineers, tradesmen, and builders have been assembled at a special camp just outside the nearby village. Something big is going on."
"What do you think Caesar has been preparing?" Suetonius furthered.
"I don't wish to spread gossip, but some around the Court report how Caesar was hugely impressed by that magician-priest Pachrates' killing of a condemned man, who was then magically resurrected. It gave him the idea of extending the same principle to this year's Isia," Balbilla revealed. Her voice had lowered to a confidential hush. "It's said how, because the annual Nile deluge has been so paltry for the second year in a row, he would sacrifice a condemned criminal into its waters to fulfill the people's expectation.
This appears to be the traditional solution to low flooding. The sacrificed man assuages the gods somehow; he is magically resurrected in their view to become Osiris Reborn on the third day of The Isia. This act guarantees next year's flood will be normal. Well, that's what they claim. It's all very convoluted, but these superstitious people have faith in it."
"My lady, seeing we're talking plainly, allow me to question you plainly," Suetonius roused himself. "Where do you think Antinous spent the day or night of his death?"
"Gentlemen, you appear to know as much as I do, and that's absolutely nothing. But if you want my advice, considering the preparations underway nearby, I'd suggest you talk with Governor Titianus. He knows everything worth knowing in this land.
Besides, Tranquillus, both the Augusta and I suspect the young man's death is too convenient by half. We'd say there's more to it than meets the eye."
CHAPTER 21
"Reporting as instructed, sir!"
Urbicus saluted the group of four. His Alexandrian Praetorian troop was approaching the riverside jetty giving access to The Alexandros. Suetonius, Clarus, Surisca, and Strabon were proceeding along the same pier.
"You requested my report by the highest sun, sir," he announced with a fumbling stammer. He seemed ill-prepared to meet the four.
"Greetings Centurion!" Clarus responded crisply. "Make your report."
"Hail Caesar! I and my men have searched for the river craft painted blue bearing the Eye of Horus and without sail markings, just as the fishermen who discovered the deceased described to us yesterday.
We have located such a vessel secured in slips by the river at an inlet close by the Temple of Amun near the Imperial Encampment. I am told on authority it is the only such boat on the river here. The temple is less than a stadion north of our protected stockade, surrounded by palm trees. You'd never know it was there it's so well concealed."
"Have you been able to establish whether this vessel was sailing the river at dawn on the day of Antinous's death, and who its sailor or sailors may have been?" Suetonius queried.
"This was difficult, sirs, as our enquiry would have raised suspicion among the chief priests of the temple. But yes, we apprehended a worker-priest attached to the temple who was performing manual work in the vicinity of the docked vessel. We persuaded the man to join our company so we could question him in private," the officer announced in crisply-articulated soldier-speak.
"Question him? You mean you abducted the fellow, put him to the sword, pressured him, and probably threatened him to some degree?" Suetonius asked genially, if apprehensively.
"Indeed this might be so, Special Inspector," the Praetorian confirmed with no hint of irony. "The fellow resisted and claimed he knew of no such voyage. But he was eventually amenable to persuasion and revealed what we wished to know."
"Amenable? So what was revealed?" Suetonius queried. He was alarmed at the Guard's impetuosity in dealing with a workman, priest, or slave under some other institution's protection.
"He told us the master of the Temple, a priest of Amun named Panchrates or Pachrates of Memphis, had been sailing the river at the appointed time in this vessel accompanied by an acolyte," Urbicus concluded. The Praetorian officer fell silent, displaying visible satisfaction.