The Egyptian (21 page)

In this city I had a seal cut for me in a rare stone, as befitted my dignity; for seals also differ from those in Egypt, being worn not in a ring but hung about the neck in the form of cylinders that, when rolled over the tablet, leave their impression in the clay. The poor and illiterate merely press their thumbs upon it—if they ever have occasion to make their mark.

We continued our journey and crossed the border into Naharani, none hindering, where we came to a river flowing upward instead of down as the Nile does. We were told that we were in the land of Mitanni, and we paid the travelers’ tax into the royal revenues. But because we were Egyptians, the people greeted us with respect, coming up to us in the street and saying:

“We bid you welcome; our hearts rejoice at the sight of Egyptians, for it is long since we beheld them. Our hearts also arc uneasy, for your Pharaoh has sent us no soldiers, no arms, and no gold; and the rumor runs that he has offered to our king some new god of whom we know nothing, though we have already Ishtar of Nineveh and a number of others who have hitherto protected us.”

They invited me to their houses and gave me food and drink, and they also served Kaptah because he was an Egyptian, though only my servant, so that he said to me, “This is a good land. Let us remain here, lord, and practice medicine, for it appears that these people are ignorant and credulous and would be easy to deceive.”

The King of Mitanni and his court had gone up into the mountains for the hot season. I had no desire to follow them there, being impatient to see the wonders of Babylon, of which I had heard so much. But I did as Horemheb had commanded me and spoke with the great ones and with the humble; all told the same tale; all were uneasy. The land of Mitanni had formerly been powerful, but now it seemed a land floating in the air, walled in by Babylon in the east, by savage tribes in the north, and in the west by the Hittites, the name of whose country was Hatti. The more I heard of the Hittites, who were greatly feared, the firmer became my resolve to journey to the land of Hatti also, but first I desired to visit Babylon.

The inhabitants of the land of Mitanni were small of stature, their women were beautiful, and their children like dolls. It may be that they had been a mighty people in their time, for they said that they had once ruled over the peoples of the north and the south, the east and the west—but that is what every nation says. Ever since the time of the great Pharaohs this country had been dependent upon Egypt, and for two generations the daughters of its king had dwelt as wives in Pharaoh’s golden house. By listening to the talk and the complaint of the Mitannians, I came to understand that their country had been designed as a shield for Syria and Egypt against the might of Babylon and of the savage peoples, to receive in its body the spears aimed at Pharaoh’s sovereignty. For this reason, and this reason alone, the Pharaohs propped up the king’s tottering throne and sent him gold, arms, and mercenaries. But the people did not understand this, and they were exceedingly proud of their country and its power.

I saw that it was a weary and declining nation with the shadow of death on its temples. The people were unaware of this, and they paid more attention to their food, preparing it in many remarkable ways; they also squandered their time in trying on new clothes—their pointed shoes and tall hats—and they were particular in the choosing of jewelry. Their limbs were slender like those of the Egyptians, and the women’s complexions were so transparent that one might see the blood flowing blue in their veins. They spoke and behaved with delicacy and were taught in their childhood to walk gracefully, men as well as women. To live here was pleasant; even in the pleasure houses there was no brawling: all was silence and discretion so that I felt clumsy when I frequented them and drank my wine there. Yet my heart was heavy, for I had seen war and knew that if all that was said of the land of Hatti was true, then Mitanni was doomed.

Their medicine also was of a high standard, and their physicians skillful men who knew their trade and also a great deal that I did not know. I obtained from them a potion for expelling worms that was far less troublesome and unpleasant than any I had met with before. They could also cure blindness with the needle, and in this also I became more proficient. But they knew nothing of skull opening and said that only the gods could cure head injuries—and that even then the patients were never the same again so that it was better for them to die.

Nevertheless, the people were curious; they came to see me and brought their sick, being attracted by anything strange. Just as they loved to wear foreign clothes and jewelry and eat exotic dishes and drink imported wine, so they desired to be treated by an alien physician. Women came also and smiled upon me and told me of their maladies and complained that their men were lazy and tired and without virility. I understood well enough what they were after but was careful not to give way to them, for I did not wish to offend against the laws of a foreign land. Instead I gave them drugs to mix with their husbands’ wine. I had obtained such drugs as would set even a dead man rutting from the doctors in Smyrna, the Syrians being the cleverest in the world in this matter and their medicines more powerful than those of Egypt. But whether the women gave these drugs to their husbands or to quite other men I do not know, though I fancy they preferred strangers, for they were free in their ways. Few of them had children, which again was a sign to me that the shadow of death hung over their land.

I must mention that these people no longer knew the boundaries of their own kingdom since the boundary stones were constantly being moved. The Hittites bore them away in their chariots and set them up where they pleased. If the Mitannians protested, the Hittites laughed and challenged them to put them back again if that was their desire. But that was not their desire, for if what was told of the Hittites was true, there had never on this earth been seen so cruel, so formidable a people. Legend had it that their keenest pleasure was to hear the cries of the mutilated and to watch blood flow from open wounds. They cut off the hands of the Mitannian border folk who complained that the Hittite cattle trampled their fields and devoured their crops and then mocked them and told them to lift the boundary stones back into their places. They would cut off these peasants’ feet also and tell them to run and complain to their king or slit their scalps and pull the skin down over their eyes so they could not see whither the landmarks had been carried. I cannot recount all the evil that the Hittites had done, all their cruelties and hideous practices. It was said that they were worse than locusts, for after locusts the earth brings forth again, but where the chariots of the Hittites had passed, no grass ever grew.

I did not wish to tarry any longer in the land of Mitanni, for I felt that I had learned all I desired to know, but my doctor’s pride was hurt by the doubts of the Mitannian faculty, who did not believe what I had told them of skull opening. Now there came to my inn a distinguished man who complained that he had the roar of the sea continually in his ears, that he was given to swooning, and that he suffered from such excruciating pains in his head that if no one could cure him he desired to die. The physicians of Mitanni would not treat him.

I said to this man, “It is possible that if you let me open your skull you will be cured but more possible that you will die. From this operation only one in a hundred recovers.”

He answered, “I should be mad not to agree to this, for then at least I have one chance in a hundred of survival. I do not trust to your curing me, but in dying by your hand there is no transgression in the sight of the gods as there would be in putting an end to my own life. If on the other hand you do cure me, I will gladly give you half of all I possess—and that is no mean sum—nor will you repent if I die, for then also my gifts will be liberal.”

I examined him with great thoroughness, feeling every part of his head with my hand, but my touch gave him no pain, and no place on his head was more tender than any other.

Then Kaptah said, “Tap him on the head with a hammer; you have nothing to lose.”

I tapped him with the hammer at different points, and he made no sign until suddenly he cried out and fell to the ground senseless. I concluded from this that I had found the spot where it would be best to open his skull.

Summoning the skeptical physicians, I said, “You may believe or you may not believe, but I mean to open the skull of this man to heal him though his death is the more probable result.”

The doctors sneered, “This indeed should be worth seeing!”

I borrowed fire from the temple of Ammon, then purified myself and my distinguished patient and all that was in the room. When the noon light was brightest, I began my work. Slitting up the scalp, I stanched the copious bleeding with red-hot irons, though I was uneasy at the agony this caused him. But he told me that the pain was nothing to that he suffered every day. I had given him plentiful draughts of wine in which narcotics were dissolved so that his eyes protruded like those of a dead fish and he was cheerfully disposed. Next I opened the bone as carefully as I could with the instruments I had at my disposal, and he never even fainted but drew a deep breath and told me it already eased him when I removed the piece of bone. Now my heart rejoiced, for just where I had opened his head either the devil or the spirit of disease had laid its egg, as Ptahor had taught me. It was red and hideous and the size of a swallow’s egg. With the utmost care I removed it, burning away all that held it to the brain, and showed it to the doctors, who laughed no longer. I closed the skull with a silver plate and stitched the scalp over it, and the patient never lost consciousness at any time. When I had finished, he rose and walked about and thanked me with all his heart, for he no longer heard the terrible roar in his ears, and the pains also had ceased.

This achievement brought me fame in the land of Mitanni, and my fame went before me into Babylon. Although my patient began to drink wine and enjoy himself, his body grew hot and he raved. On the third day he left his bed in his delirium, fell from the wall, and broke his neck. But all dedared the fault was not mine and praised my science greatly.

Kaptah and I then hired a boat with oarsmen and journeyed down the river to Babylon.

The land under the sway of Babylon is called by many names; it is known as Chaldea and also the land of the Kassites after the people who live there. But I will call it Babylon, for everyone knows what land that is. It is a fertile country whose fields are threaded with irrigation ditches, and it is flat as far as the eye can see, differing from Egypt in this as in everything else. Thus, for example, while Egyptian women grind their corn in a kneeling position and turning a round stone, the women of Babylon sit and grind two stones together, which is of course more toilsome.

There are so few trees that to fell one is regarded as an offense against gods and men and is punishable by law. But whoever plants a tree thereby wins the favor of the gods. The inhabitants of Babylon are fatter and oilier than other people and like all fat folk are given to laughter. They eat heavy, floury food, and I saw a bird there they call a hen, which could not fly but lived among the people and laid an egg as large as a crocodile’s egg for them every day, though no one hearing this would believe it. I was offered some of these eggs to eat, for the Babylonians regard them as a great delicacy, but I never ventured to try them and contented myself with dishes familiar to me or of which I knew the ingredients.

The people of the country told me that Babylon was the greatest and most ancient of all the cities in the world, though I did not believe them, knowing that Thebes is both the greatest and the oldest. There is no city in the world like Thebes, though I will admit that Babylon astonished me with its size and wealth. Its very walls were as high as hills and formidable to see, and the tower they had built to their gods soared to the sky. The town houses were four and five stories high so that people lived their lives above and below each other, and nowhere—not even in Thebes—have I seen such magnificent shops and such a wealth of merchandise as in the trading houses of the temple.

Their god was Marduk, and to the honor of Ishtar a gateway had been built that was loftier than the pylons of Ammon’s temple. It was covered with many-colored glazed tiles fitted together into pictures that dazzled the eyes in sunlight. From this gateway a broad road ran to Marduk’s tower, up which a spiral way led to the summit—a way so smooth and wide that a number of chariots might have been driven up it abreast. At the top of this tower dwelt the astrologers, who knew all the heavenly bodies, calculated their paths, and proclaimed auspicious and inauspicious days so that all might regulate their lives thereby. It was said also that they could foretell a man’s destiny, though for this they had to know the day and hour of his birth. Being ignorant of my own, I could not put their science to the test.

I had as much gold as I cared to draw from the temple counting house, and I took up my dwelling near the Gate of Ishtar at a large inn many stories high, on the roof of which were gardens of fruit trees and myrtle bushes and where streams flowed and fish leaped in the pools. This inn was frequented by eminent people visiting Babylon from their country estates—if they had no town house of their own—and also by foreign envoys. The rooms were carpeted with thick mats and the couches soft with the skins of wild animals, while on the walls were frivolous pictures very gaily and colorfully pieced together with glazed tiles. This inn was called Ishtar’s House of Joy and belonged, like all else of note in the city, to the Tower of the God.

Nowhere else in the world are so many different sorts of people to be seen or languages to be heard as in Babylon. The citizens say that all roads lead thither and that it is the center of the world. Its people are first and foremost merchants; nothing is more highly regarded than commerce, so that even their gods trade among themselves. For this reason they have no love for war, and they maintain mercenaries and build walls merely to safeguard their business. Their desire is for roads in every country to be kept open to all, chiefly because they know themselves to be the greatest merchants of any and that trade is of more advantage to them than war. Yet they are proud of the soldiers who guard their ramparts and temples and who march every day to the Gate of Ishtar, their helmets and breastplates gleaming with gold and silver. The hilts of their swords also and thei: spearheads are adorned with gold and silver in token of their wealth They inquire eagerly of the stranger whether he has ever before seen such troops and such chariots.