All of this took place in front of the spear-bearers from the palace, who did nothing to stop it. Nor did the guards at the gate take action. They stood outside the guard post, smirking and laughing.
How I longed to have a voice at that moment, but what could I have said? I trembled with anger, humiliated that I could do nothing to help the man.
“Stop this! Stop this at once!”
The deep, commanding voice was that of a man used to being obeyed. I realized it was the Great Megabyzus, who strode past the spear-bearers and confronted the crowd. They fell back before him.
A man armed with a fistful of radishes dared to step forward. “But Your Eminence, this man is a Roman. A dirty, toga-wearing Roman! He has no business-”
“Be silent!” shouted the priest.
Shamefaced, the man with the radishes stepped back into the crowd.
The Great Megabyzus strode into the crowd and began to pluck items from food baskets. When he could carry no more, he moved toward the Roman, walking slowly and rigidly erect, so as not to disturb his towering headdress.
“Take this,” he said to the Roman, who looked dazed for a moment, then made a basket with the folds of his toga and eagerly accepted the jumble of food from the Great Megabyzus.
“Now go back to the place you came from, and don’t enter the city again,” said the Great Megabyzus. “The Temple of Artemis is your only sanctuary now.”
“But there’s no food left,” pleaded the Roman. “How are we to-”
“Go!”
The Roman lowered his head. Clutching the food, he turned and scurried past the guards at the gate. They stepped back to let him pass, but one of them spat in his face, then laughed when the Roman uttered a last, plaintive whimper before disappearing.
The Great Megabyzus rejoined the retinue. “The interruption is over,” he said, addressing the spear-bearers. “You will pay attention to me now. We are about to step through the gate. We will proceed at a normal pace along the Sacred Way to the Temple of Artemis. There, at the great altar in front of the temple steps, a group of Megabyzoi will be awaiting us, with the sacrifice. After the lamb is slaughtered, and a portion has been consecrated to the goddess, the meat will be roasted on the fire, and a piece will be given to every man here. But before that happens, every man here will join in a prayer to the goddess on behalf of this suppliant.” He gestured to me. “He is Agathon of Alexandria, and he comes to Artemis seeking to have restored to him the voice he was born with, but which he possesses no longer. We may anticipate…”
He paused, looking past the spear-bearers to the place where he had confronted the mob. Most of the angry Ephesians had dispersed. Only a few still lingered, going about their normal business.
“We may anticipate a certain amount of … disturbance … from those who have sought refuge at the temple. The authority of the Megabyzoi should be enough to discourage any serious hindrance. But if anything untoward should occur, you are armed and authorized, at my command only, to use your weapons. Does every man here understand?”
“Yes, Your Eminence,” said the men behind me.
A few moments later, with the Great Megabyzus on one side of me and the Grand Magus on the other, and with the spear-bearers behind us, and Bethesda somewhere behind them, we set out for the temple.
Beyond the gate, there were few buildings and few people. The land tilted gently downward, so that walking was easy. Ahead of us, looming majestically, was the temple. From such a distance, the people swarming around the temple looked very small. Ahead of us on the road I could see the Roman, walking quickly with a crooked gait as he tried not to spill any of the precious food wrapped in the folds of his toga.
The Grand Magus and the Great Megabyzus began to converse in low voices, speaking just behind my head, as if I weren’t there.
“Why in Hades did you help the Roman?” asked the Grand Magus.
“Hades has nothing to do with it. I am a priest of Artemis, and the Romans have sought sanctuary in her temple.”
“That Roman was not in the temple. He dared to stray into the city, where his kind are not wanted. The people had every right to show their displeasure.”
“Displeasure? They’d have been pelting him with stones next. There would have been bloodshed.”
“Bloodshed? The Romans have caused enough of that over the years! People want to see if a Roman can bleed like the rest of us.”
“They bleed,” the Great Megabyzus assured him.
“They also need to eat, it seems,” said the Grand Magus. “Stopping the violence was one thing, but you actually gave the man food.”
“He has a wife and child.”
“Feeding them only postpones the inevitable. It’s a waste of food.”
“Hunger makes people desperate.”
“Hunger makes them weak,” said the Grand Magus. “And the weaker they are, the easier…”
As his voice trailed off, I felt his gaze on me. He seemed suddenly to remember that while I might be mute I was not deaf. He looked straight ahead, and neither of them said another word as we drew nearer to the temple and the crowded sacred precinct around it.
The sheer magnificence of the structure contrasted sharply with the squalid encampment of makeshift shelters and tents, populated by a throng of miserable-looking people. Seeing them from a distance, I had thought they numbered in the hundreds. Now I realized their number must be much greater than that.
In the shallow valley beyond the city, surrounding the Temple of Artemis, there were thousands of men, women, and children desperate for food and shelter. And we were about to eat a lamb while they watched.
XVIII
First, a great deal of incense was burned.
Incense is said to be pleasing to the gods. It summons their attention, just as a whiff of a perfume piques the attention of mortals.
Incense can also mask other smells, and for my mortal nostrils it gave much-needed distraction from the powerful odors that inevitably follow on the gathering of a large number of people, especially if they vastly outstrip the facilities for washing themselves or disposing of their bodily wastes. While we were still a considerable distance from the temple, I got my first whiff of the smell emanating from the restless, wretched crowd surrounding the Temple of Artemis-a combination of urine, excrement, and unwashed humanity. The closer we came to the temple, the more powerful the smell grew, until I thought it might gag me.
But, once immersed in such a smell, little by little one becomes used to it. I remembered something my father had said: “However horrible, no odor ever killed a man.” It also helped that I found myself standing before a broad stone altar, with massive braziers to either side of me belching clouds of smoking incense. The altar was on a raised platform, several steps above the crowd.
When I had last attended a sacrifice in this spot, it had been a day of celebration, and a huge crowd of visitors from all over the world had paraded out of the city to the sound of music and laughter. Cattle, sheep, goats, and oxen too numerous to count had been consecrated to the goddess and slaughtered, after which the entire crowd was treated to the roasted remains, along with a great deal of wine.
What a starkly different experience this was. Our procession consisted only of myself and the two holy men and a troop of spear-bearers to protect us. (And Bethesda, of course, trailing behind. What did she make of this peculiar experience? This was her introduction to one of the world’s greatest marvels, the Temple of Artemis, and I feared any wonderment she felt would be forever tainted by the circumstances.)
The shallow valley surrounding the temple is a large open space with scattered trees for shade, grassy in places and trampled to bare dirt in others, suitable for accommodating the huge crowds that attend the festivals at Ephesus. On this occasion the crowd consisted of sullen-looking Roman refugees. They kept their distance as we paraded before them and congregated at the altar. They stared at us with blank expressions. I found it unnerving to look at them. I averted my eyes.