I would have stayed to look more at those reliefs. But when you are passing for the first time through the treasure house of the Muses, you barely know where to look. You barely feel the urge to look too long on one masterpiece when there are so many others all about. The wall was topped with bronze statues that gleamed darkly above their marble bases.
‘That must have been the pediment for the big statue of the demon Athena,’ Martin said, pointing directly ahead.
I smiled at the slight emphasis he put on demon. Of all the arguments we’d had to while away loose moments, one of the more pointless was whether the gods of the Old Faith had been demons come to deceive the ancients, or had been figments of the ancient imagination. Doubting the existence of the old gods may have said nothing either way about the True God, but only ever set Martin into a sweat about my general beliefs. Saying nothing, I followed his pointed finger. Yes, the pediment must have held the statue of Athena. Like everything else that was beautiful and could be moved, this had long since been taken off to Constantinople. There, I think, it had perished in the big riots against Justinian. Unlike the Hadrian pictures, this was a decided loss. Now I was looking at the massive pediment, I could see how the absence of its statue robbed our carefully planned surroundings of complete perfection. Far over on the left was a cluster of low buildings. Normally, I’d have been straight off to look at them. But, as I said, I was in the treasure house of the Muses. Between the high wall on my right and another on my left, there was an approach to the east. This terminated in a group of more buildings of a magnificence that I now realised I’d seen duplicated in one of the central squares of Alexandria — duplicated though not matched.
I hurried forward through the forest of statues that narrowed the path. Though often ancient in their own terms, these too were mostly late additions to the original plan. One of them, indeed, had the fussy robes and porcupine hairstyling of an official from barely a generation back. I hurried forward. Martin puffed along behind, the Count behind him, the modern Athenians now some way behind us all. Nicephorus had expected me to spend time on looking at the statues, and was still spouting gibberish about how they represented a visit in ancient times of the entire Senate from Rome.
Even without the deliberate shaping of the plateau to make it obvious, I already knew that the great Temple of Athena was best viewed from the east. As I emerged at the far end of the approach, I kept looking forward. On my left were buildings that would have crowned the whole composition — but, that is, for what was on my right. I forced myself not to look. I quickened my step. I could hear Martin beginning to wheeze again. If we’d been alone, he’d surely have complained about the hurry, or just hung back to follow at his own pace. If I even bothered to note his lack of condition, it was only to blot out the far worse noise of the Count’s commentary. I circled what had been the small Temple of the Roman Majesty built by Augustus. My right foot on its lowest step, I looked up and stared west.
You need to bear in mind that conversion to a church imposes change on a building that even a skilled architect can’t fully reconcile with the original. You should also consider the altered effect of allowing the ancient paintwork to fade, and its replacement within the portico by a set of mosaics in the modern style. But, though it’s hard to find much good to say about Justinian — every disaster we now faced, after all, was an effect of his schemes of Imperial reconquest, and of his demands for uniformity of faith — he had employed good architects in Athens. And nothing short of complete ruin could have taken away the miracle worked in ancient times. I looked and looked. It doesn’t do for a member of the Imperial Council to be seen weeping in public. So I sat down on the steps of the temple Augustus had built and took off my hat. I fanned my sweating face and waited for Martin and Nicephorus and everyone else to come over and stand beside me. About a dozen hooded monks shuffled over and stopped between me and the west pediment of the temple. Their faces were hidden, but you could tell from their height that they weren’t locals. One of them pointed at the mosaic. Now, they all hurried over to stand under the portico. They might have wanted to assure each other how the mosaic had improved on the original scheme. Perhaps they just wanted to get out of the sun.
But no — they had trouble in mind. They joined another group of monks in a different style of horrid clothing and started an argument. I didn’t bother straining to hear what they were shouting about, though it did have the rhythm and confidence of proper Greek. But one of them suddenly stepped forward and jostled another. In no time, they’d set about each other with sticks and leather satchels. I rubbed my eyes and looked up at the blue sky.
‘You’d never think it, dear boy, but there’s not a straight line in the whole building.’
Oh, no! I thought. What was he doing up here? I stared to my right. Over by a wooden shrine of Saint Prolapsius the Unthinking, Priscus was reclining in a chair carried by four sweating slaves.
Chapter 24
This was the first I’d seen of Priscus in full daylight since just west of Cyprus, and there was no doubt how he’d aged and shrunk within himself in so short a time. Balthazar was probably as wrong about him as he was about everything else. But he might have had a point. Priscus jabbed with his cane at the chief carrier’s head, and the chair came properly over. He smiled brightly and waved a satchel that was doubtless stuffed with drugs.
‘When I was last here,’ he cried in a voice as bright as his smile, ‘the bricked-up entrance still hadn’t been rendered, and it was all an untidier thing to behold. I’m glad it looks so much better now.’ He got up unsteadily and waited for Martin and Nicephorus to help him down from the chair.
Now he was showing himself in full view, the local trash had set up a low and sinister mutter. Before his arrival, they’d been edging closer and closer to where I sat; one of them had even reached out a short and rather dark arm to touch the damp robe in which I was trying to look grand. Now, they’d all withdrawn to stand a dozen feet away. I can’t say I’d been glad to see Priscus. But I wasn’t displeased by the effect he was having on the Athenians.
He tottered past me and sat down heavily on my left. He sat a while in silence, absorbed in the shouting, wheeling monks over by the temple. Then he stretched his legs with a groan that showed his real state of mind. But he gathered himself almost at once. ‘I guessed you’d be up here the moment the weather permitted,’ he said with a forced return of jollity.
He bent forward and looked past me to the right. ‘Ah, there you are, my fine young man,’ he said. ‘Come on, don’t be shy. If I haven’t bothered eating you, the Lord Senator Alaric will do you no harm.’ He laughed and waved at a darkish boy whose lack of size was only emphasised by the amount of clothing in which he’d been swathed. ‘Well, come on, Theodore,’ he urged, ‘the Lord Senator is waiting for enlightenment.’
The boy blushed and stood up straight. He gave a slight bow of greeting to Nicephorus, who stared back without movement or expression. ‘Every line is curved to give an impression of straightness,’ he said in the harsh but correct Greek of a Syrian. He pointed at the western portico and stammered slightly from shyness. ‘The centre point of the base here is two inches higher than the outer points. The centre point of the long base is four inches higher. On this, the columns incline inwards. If you extend the lines of the outermost columns, they would meet a mile and a fifth above the base. Because they incline in diminishing proportion to their distance from the edges of the base, any two pairs of the inner columns also form a triangle, though of progressively shorter base. .’