Advertisement, Movie, Alexandria, Ptolemy, Lighthouse
DAVID 450
Ptolemy rose from the throne and stood upon the ivory dais. He turned to the scribe and nodded, and the scribe took up his stylus and set it to the tablet, ready to take down Ptolemy’s decree. Another attendant brought the ceremonial crook and thresher upon a pillow. Ptolemy took them, and crossed them in front of him. He was a perfect likeness of the stone figures that flanked the enormous winged sun hanging behind the throne except that their expressions were blank. He wore a bitter scowl.
A hush fell over the crowd.
“Let it be known,” he began, “ that on this day I decree that you, and only you, Arsinoe, shall be queen when I am gone.”
The crowd gasped. A sole queen? While two younger brothers still remained?
Arsinoe stood, smiling sweetly, and bowed to her father. She cast a quick smile to her sister and the blue-eyed giant standing behind her. She had won. The throne was hers.
“Your two younger siblings are to be banished to the farthest corners of civilization, to wander ever farther until the day they die, the younger one to wander westward, and the elder one to wander to the east. For their role in helping your sister, Berenice, let them never set eyes upon their homeland or upon each other again, and let no man in Egypt, nor anyone they know, set eyes upon them.”
Berenice’s heart sank, Tears came to her eyes. It wasn’t fair to punish them. They were just boys. David sensed the dread in her heart. He grasped her shoulders gently from behind.
“Of my daughter…” Ptolemy’s voice faltered. He paused to catch his breath, and then he abandoned the statue-like stance of official decree and turned his head to look at Berenice. “I am made sick to even think of you as my daughter.”
Berenice sobbed. “But I–”
“Silence!”
The crowd trembled.
Ptolemy turned his entire body to face her. “For your role in this, you shall be abandoned upon the isle of lepers, to serve them until the day you die.”
The crowd gasped again.
Berenice covered her mouth with her hands.
David’s mouth hung open, awestruck by Ptolemy’s cruelty.
“And you!” said Ptolemy. His anger brought him off the dais. He took a few steps toward David, stopping at the edge of the altar-like steps which raised the throne above the level of the vast room. He focused his eyes onto David’s face with a burning hatred. “The Hebrew David,” he began, raising his voice so that all could hear, “shall this very day have a collar of iron forged about his neck. Let it hold a shield of iron in front of his face, that no man shall see him, and so that he shall see nothing…at all. Ever! Until the day he dies.”
David shuddered. He tried not to show fear. He met Ptolemy’s gaze and held his breath.
“And thus collared and blinded like a beast, he shall pull a plow, until the day he dies.”
The crowd began to murmur, and quiet conversation began, now that Ptolemy had decreed his will. The pharaoh descended the steps slowly and quietly addressed Berenice, his voice barely above a whisper. “Once you were princess of Egypt,” he said. “Now I see that everything you’ve done, all you have said, has been only in the name of ambition and treachery.”
“No!”
“Your sister was right.”
“She lies!”
Ptolemy looked up into David’s eyes once more. “And you look at me as though I am the cruel one. It is you who did this to her. It is you she will curse.”
“No!” shouted Berenice. She turned and buried her face in David’s chest.. David wrapped his arms around her.
Ptolemy turned and ascended to the throne. The crowd quieted. He addressed the crowd with his customary signature for official decrees. “Let no man cross my will, for it is the will of Egypt.” And then he turned to hand the crook and thresher to the attendant.
Immediately, the rabble of voices filled the room again, but it was not the only noise. David turned towards it, to gaze outside. Nearly a hundred birds suddenly took flight from the fountains and pools outside, and in the distance perhaps a thousand more, and above the palace the sound of still more. It was as if, suddenly, they’d all been frightened by something. Now their squawking and screeching rivaled the chatter of the hundreds of people in the great room. People turned to look outside. And then it seemed as though the rush of a breeze joined in, yet the trees did not move. And finally, the sound of thunder in the distance, yet there was not a cloud in the sky. And then they noticed the continuous clink and rattle of everything made of metal and glass around them, and the flames in the lamps trembled, and though the air did not move, the filmy curtains which covered the vast expanse of windows moved inwards, as though pushed by an invisible hand.
There was indeed thunder, but it was not coming from the sky. It was coming from below.
A hush suddenly fell over the crowd and they stood as still as statues..
The rattling of glass and metal grew louder.
The crescendo stopped Ptolemy in his tracks, directly in front of the throne.
Now it was sight that boggled the mind. The entire crowd, hundreds of people, without moving their bodies, seemed to move ever so slightly from side to side.. The great arrays of lamps that hung from the ceiling began to sway. Dust fell from above. Timbers creaked. There was the distinct impression that the vast room was moving beneath them, as though it were suspended, and was gently swaying.
“Oh no,” said David.
And at that moment, the palace, the city, the land and the sea, lurched to the right for a distance equal to that of a man’s forearm. And then it lurched twice as far on the return, and then repeated the horrible movement again, and again.
Screams erupted from the crowd.
The racks of lamps above swung wildly back and forth. The giant statues beside the throne were pitched backwards, and then forwards, off their pedestals, crushing those beneath them. Great cracks fractured the plaster on the walls. “Run!” someone shouted, and the crowd bolted for the hall that led to the courtyard entrance, but the violent rocking brought them all to their knees and they fought to regain their footing. Some of them dared not stand. Some crawled. Others had to crouch with their legs spread wide and their arms held out for balance, and still they were sometimes thrown to the floor.
The timbers no longer creaked…they split. The great blocks of granite that comprised the ceiling, now loose from their frames, came tumbling down into the crowd with a roar, and the rooms above disgorged their contents into the throne room below.
Berenice screamed.
“Run!” shouted David. “This way!” He took her by the hand and they fled, not out of the palace, but into it. “We must find a quicker way out!”
Ptolemy was on his hands and knees, stupefied by the carnage and destruction before him. The giant winged sun of polished metal which hung on the wall behind the throne broke loose and came down like the blade of a woodsman’s ax. Ptolemy covered his head at the terrible sound so close behind him. The great icon stood on its edge in an upright position, touched the wall for a moment, and then the next great lurch of the floor brought it forward, away from the wall. Ptolemy turned towards it, just in time to see his death falling towards him in the form of half a ton of beaten bronze.
Fighting to keep their balance, David and Berenice held onto the walls and found themselves in the hallway that led into the central indoor court to their left and out to the garden far down the hall to their right. The hall was built in the Egyptian style, with soaring ceilings and walls covered in painted figures. Dozens of Greek statues that had once lined the hallway now littered the floor. Only two remained on their pedestals. But the great expanse of the hall was more terrifying than comforting for it twisted and rolled like a string of boats on a rough sea. As they watched, the walls lost their square angles and the tension shattered the plaster of the walls, and the beautiful paintings came tumbling down. As the walls rocked back and forth, the mortar between the great blocks of stone crumbled, and the stones began to shift and move with each wave.
Just beyond them, to the right, an archway stood in the middle of the hall and another archway beyond it framed the exit to the garden. To their left, the archway to the central court was much nearer, and they could see sunlight filtering into the great room from the walkways outside..
“Come!” said David. “Hold onto the wall!”
They braced themselves against the inner wall as they walked towards the central court. Behind them, a block of granite fell from the ceiling and landed where they had been standing. They advanced quickly, barely breathing from their fright, and then the violent rocking threw Berenice to the ground. David bent down to pick her up and then he too was thrown off balance and fell to the ground beside her. The rocking was not rhythmic. The movement was a haphazard thrusting of the world from side to side. Behind them, near the middle arch, two more blocks of granite fell to the ground. Ahead of them,, from the inner courtyard, they heard a chorus of screams and then the rumble of massive stone upon massive stone as the ceiling collapsed. They both squeezed their eyes shut at the sound and when they opened them, they saw the sunlight from the courtyard disappear as the room filled with stone, and then a cloud of dust barreling down the hallway towards them like a charging animal.
Through sheer fright, they rose quickly. David regained his footing and scooped Berenice from the floor. They ran away from the dust cloud and headed back in the direction from which they’d come, trying not to look at the walls as they rocked and swayed. Their eyes were riveted on the far arch now, the one that led to the garden. It seemed impossibly far away, but David forced himself to look straight ahead at it, and he succeeded in keeping his concentration until the outer wall did a strange thing…it stopped moving for a moment, for it was now detached from the ceiling above them. It stood still, in a precarious position, leaning outward toward the gardens, and then, after a moment, it began to move again, leaning farther and farther and farther out.
The ceiling was never meant to be anchored on only one side. Held only by the twisting inner wall, it began to break apart.
“Run!” shouted David. They were not even halfway to the exit. There was no way they would reach it in the few seconds they had left, but if they could make it to the middle arch, it might serve as shelter. It was in the Egyptian style, carved from a single block of stone twenty feet tall and four feet thick.. A shower of granite blocks began to rain from the ceiling. Berenice tripped on a broken statue and fell hard, too stunned to move. A slab of granite fell inches from her legs. David turned, picked her up, and dove headlong beneath the arch just as the greater part of the ceiling broke loose and hurtled towards them. A moment later, the leaning outer wall, a vast expanse of granite thirty feet high and a hundred feet long, broke apart and tumbled down into the garden.
It sounded like a massive landslide.
He hugged Berenice tightly and squeezed his eyes shut. If this was how he was going to die, then at least he was holding her. If they died, the impact of a granite block to the head would make it a quick death. Worse would be a broken back or broken legs or to be buried alive, all of which might happen in the next second. He drew his legs in and tried to make himself as small as possible.. He covered Berenice’s head with his hands.. He held his breath and stayed very still. It seemed as though even his heart was waiting for the roar of falling stone to stop, and when it finally did, he was afraid to open his eyes. He finally released the breath he was holding. The smell of crushed stone was strong. He had felt no impact of stone but in his dive under the arch, he had landed on his shoulder. He didn’t think any bones were broken, but he was sure that there would at least be a massive bruise. Berenice was conscious and was raising her head, so carefully, he opened his eyes.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
She rubbed her forearm. “I…I hurt my arm. But I can go on.”
David stood and helped her up, and then they looked at their new surroundings.
The experience was surreal in the extreme for moments ago they had been inside the palace; now they were outside in the open air. The archway under which they hid and the far one that led to the garden survived virtually untouched. All around them were stone and timbers and dust. For a moment, they breathed a sigh of relief for there was nothing but the blue sky and the sloping lawn of the garden before them. A violent thrust, which made the arch above them wobble, and the shifting of the giant, fallen stones around them, brought them to their senses. David stood and turned to look up, at the inner wall that leaned in and then out, and then in and then out again. All the mortar above the doorway that led into the throne room had disintegrated and the great wall had broken into two sections, each rocking independently of the other. Great chunks of stone at the fissure began to fall away and with each thrust of the earth, the farther section of wall began to lean. They could still hear people screaming in the throne room on the other side of the wall.
“Come!” David said. “We must go!” Berenice took his hand and they ran along the shattered floor tiles until they came to a section of the collapsed outer wall that had, for the most part, slid down the lawn. They maneuvered their way through the towering rubble, and every few seconds David heard a great block of stone settle and slide down from the top of the piles, crushing everything beneath it. They finally reached the lawn and three great slabs of the wall that had fallen one on top of the other like giant stairs. They climbed to the top, at last free from the palace and the shifting debris and held each other as they looked out at the city. The sights left them dumbfounded.
The waters of the harbor were roiling and the boats along the nearest docks tugged at their moorings like frightened horses. There was a great roar like a monstrous waterfall and as they looked at the tumult, they had the distinct impression that the water in the harbor was moving backwards, away from the city. It was a bizarre sight, as though a great plug had been pulled from the ocean floor and the harbor was draining away. Far out in the harbor, a trireme slowly pivoted in the swirling water. The confused rowers were helpless and their oars dipped into the water and then were held clear in a haphazard array. An Egyptian barge had broken loose and was sailing out without anyone on board, and it too turned in the eddies and swirls of the turbulent water. The pall of dust that rose from the city was chalky and thin so it did not hinder an observer from gazing at the farthest reaches of the city. David looked towards the docks near the Emporium. The boats there were not being pulled back by receding water as the ones near them were because the boats there were already sitting in mud, and when the keels of the larger ships met the mud, the ships rolled over onto their sides. A Greek ship was slowly tipping over now, and when it’s oars slid out from the deck, they touched the mud, and as the ship continued to roll, the oars snapped in rapid succession.
Berenice felt dizzy standing on the slab of wall. Though the rubble on which they stood felt relatively stable, the ground still moved violently. With so much space around them now, they could see the walkways buckling. At times, it seemed as the ground moved in great waves, and at those times, the violent thrusting from side to side felt momentarily like the world swaying in the breeze and it was just as difficult to keep one’s balance then as it was when the shoving from side to side resumed. She crouched low and then kneeled on the great slab beneath her, rubbed her arm, and breathed deeply.
David still stood, amazed at what he was seeing. He looked towards the center of the city. Of the four obelisks at the crossroads of the boulevards, one had already fallen. Another was still standing but teetered away from center. Another seemed more stable, But the remaining one was leaning steadily towards the center of the square. It’s movement was so smooth and regular that it was hypnotizing. He could not tear his gaze away. For a moment it leaned at an angle that seemed to defy gravity, and then finally, it passed the point of no return and fell into the center of the square, coming down right across the tomb of Alexander. Its crash through gilded glass could be heard all the way to the palace.
Across the harbor, the Great Lighthouse of Alexandria was shedding the decorative stonework of its parapets and statuary on its lofty terraces. Great chunks of stone came down, trailing marble dust, so that it looked as though comets were being fired straight down at the island below. To his left, David saw all the pillars on the east side of the Temple of Saturn lean outward, and the next great thrust sent them down into the street. Unsupported, the entablature above them came crashing down a moment later. The Temple of Isis moved as though the stones had no mortar. With each thrust the joints of each great pillar opened and closed, yet they did not shift, but the carvings on the walls on the massive pylons were unrecognizable, their entire surface having been shattered like an eggshell.
David could just make out the great dome of the Serapeum. The whole building seemed remarkably stable. Most of the friezes along the drum of the dome were intact and very little dust rose from the courtyards around it. Near the center of the waterfront, the entire temple of Poseidon suddenly dropped down two feet as though the foundation beneath it had evaporated. The impact caused the statues on its roof to crack off at their bases and fall. The entire pediment above the great columns shattered and rained down on the front steps, and the iron bolts which held the marble blocks of the roof together snapped and the roof slid down both sides, pulverizing the steps below. The floor under the great columns cracked, and one by one, their bases shifted and tilted into the void left by the stairs, and then the columns separated and tumbled through the wall of the temple or out into the streets.
To the west, another building fell into the ground, and then another. The Moon Gate sank slowly, inching downwards into the earth beneath it which had now become mud. The floor of the temple of Tyche shattered and, with a thud that could be felt in the air, the structure fell as a whole into its foundation ten feet below. The dozens of statues that lined the roofline of the Great Museum had toppled and the portico collapsed. The two giant statues of Thoth that guarded its entrance leaned to their sides and fell into the streets. Clay tiles had fallen from the edge of the roof, but now the building suffered through an exceptionally strong lurch and the spine of the roof shattered, sending the entire roof sliding down either side of the building. Like waterfalls, the clay tiles cascaded into the streets.
The jerking of the ground, and the struggle to keep one’s balance, was exhausting. His first impulse was to run to the library docks and swim out to a boat. But he dared not do that for he remembered what he had read from the works of Thales and Epicurus and their accounts of what happened when the sea retreated after the shaking of the earth at Crete and Rhodes and Thera.
“When will it stop?” Berenice cried, covering her ears with her hands, and she had to shout to be heard over the roar of the water and the rumbling of the earth.
“It will,” David said. He offered his hand and she took it. She stood and embraced him, but they both gasped in fear as the slab on which they stood slid a few inches.
“Get down!” said David. He held her hand as he led the way. He set down first, and then lifted her off. The great stone was settling, actually becoming more stable, but he had no desire to stand on a moving stone. They stood on the lawn. It felt strangely soft and their feet sank into it. They put a good deal of distance between themselves and the rubble and looked out into the harbor. You could see the level of the water falling slowly if you watched where it washed up against the pier or the docks. Great crowds were running toward the imagined safety of the promenade by the royal harbor. In the main harbor, people ran headlong onto whatever boats they could find that were still afloat. Some even ran down into the mud and tried to right smaller boats that had been left stranded by the receding water.
Bernice touched his arm. “Look,” she said. “Look at all those people.”
David nodded. “I see them.”
“We can find a boat…and get away!”
“No.”
“In the confusion, no one will find us. We can sail out of the harbor. This great tide will take us.”
“No.”
“We can hide in the delta, and make our way to the Nile.”
“No, no, no, no, no,” said David. “There will be no safety from the sea.” He looked off into the distance. The movement of the ground seemed to lessen for a few moments, and then it resumed. When would it stop indeed! They both clung to each other for comfort, and for stability. David gazed out again, looking for a place to go, for he knew they could not stay here. He looked to the great mass of the temple of Serapis. It was huge and solid, but it was on the other side of the city. They would never make it there in time. He looked to his right, at his beloved library. It too barely moved, so much so that the frightened crowds escaping it ran far enough away so as to keep a safe distance, and then, like David and Berenice, stood still, fighting to keep their balance as they gazed out on the continuing destruction around them. He and Berenice could go there…but the library was right on the water. “We must go somewhere high,” said David, “and strong.”
She looked at him, now even more frightened.
He looked out across the harbor. The Great Lighthouse of Alexandria now stood swaying gently, enrobed in a pale cloud of dust. Amid the crashing of temples and the screams of people, and the lurching of the earth, he suddenly felt very peaceful, and he remembered the first time he had read the first translation of the Hebrews’ testament, and how he had felt at peace then, especially when he had read the words of Moses:
“…before them, a pillar of cloud by day that led their way, and a pillar of fire by night, to give them light…”
Yes. They could run along the breakwater, and swim the gap, or commandeer a boat to cross it, and then run along the far breakwater to the island. “The lighthouse,” he said to her. “We must go to the lighthouse. Quickly!”
2010