This eBook was produced by David Widger <widger@cecomet.net>
[NOTE: There is a short list of bookmarks, or pointers, at the end of thefile for those who may wish to sample the author's ideas before making anentire meal of them. D.W.]
By Georg Ebers
In the very midst of the white wall with its bastions and ramparts, whichformed the fortifications of Memphis, stood the old palace of the kings,a stately structure built of bricks, recently plastered, and with courts,corridors, chambers and halls without number, and veranda-like out-buildings of gayly-painted wood, and a magnificent pillared banqueting-hall in the Greek style. It was surrounded by verdurous gardens, and awhole host of laborers tended the flower-beds and shady alleys, theshrubs and the trees; kept the tanks clean and fed the fish in them;guarded the beast-garden, in which quadrupeds of every kind, from theheavy-treading elephant to the light-footed antelope, were to be seen,associated with birds innumerable of every country and climate.
A light white vapor rose from the splendidly fitted bath-house, loudbarkings resounded from the dog-kennels, and from the long array of openstables came the neighing of horses with the clatter and stamp of hoofs,and the rattle of harness and chains. A semicircular building of newconstruction adjoining the old palace was the theatre, and many largetents for the bodyguard, for ambassadors and scribes, as well as others,serving as banqueting-halls for the various court-officials, stood bothwithin the garden and outside its enclosing walls. A large space leadingfrom the city itself to the royal citadel was given up to the soldiers,and there, by the side of the shady court-yards, were the houses of thepolice-guard and the prisons. Other soldiers were quartered in tentsclose to the walls of the palace itself. The clatter of their arms andthe words of command, given in Greek, by their captain, sounded out atthis particular instant, and up into the part of the buildings occupiedby the queen; and her apartments were high up, for in summer timeCleopatra preferred to live in airy tents, which stood among the broad-leaved trees of the south and whole groves of flowering shrubs, on thelevel roof of the palace, which was also lavishly decorated with marblestatues. There was only one way of access to this retreat, which wasfitted up with regal splendor; day and night it was fanned by currents ofsoft air, and no one could penetrate uninvited to disturb the queen'sretirement, for veteran guards watched at the foot of the broad stairthat led to the roof, chosen from the Macedonian "Garde noble," and owingas implicit obedience to Cleopatra as to the king himself. This selectcorps was now, at sunset, relieving guard, and the queen could hear thewords spoken by the officers in command and the clatter of the shieldsagainst the swords as they rattled on the pavement, for she had come outof her tent into the open air, and stood gazing towards the west, wherethe glorious hues of the sinking sun flooded the bare, yellow limestonerange of the Libyan hills, with their innumerable tombs and the separategroups of pyramids; while the wonderful coloring gradually tinged withrose-color the light silvery clouds that hovered in the clear sky overthe valley of Memphis, and edged them as with a rile of living gold.
The queen stepped out of her tent, accompanied by a young Greek girl—thefair Zoe, daughter of her master of the hunt Zenodotus, and Cleopatra'sfavorite lady-in-waiting—but though she looked towards the west, shestood unmoved by the magic of the g