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was a marriage in form only.
    Perhaps it was time we searched in other royal houses for our mates. The age difference in this generation was too great for us to continue our former practice.
     
    Then my whole world changed, and again, it was because of the Romans. Father had finally succeeded in getting the questionable will set aside and himself recognized as undisputed King by Rome. It had cost him six thousand talents, or the entire revenue of Egypt for one year. He had had to pay it to the three unofficial, but actual, rulers in Rome—Pompey, Crassus, and Caesar. In exchange, they had acknowledged him as King, and conferred upon Egypt the formal title Socius Atque Amicus Populi Romani , Friend and Ally of the Roman People. That meant they recognized us as a sovereign state, one whose boundaries they would respect. The price of this respect was very high. But not paying it was higher still, as my uncle found out.
    My father had a brother, also known as Ptolemy (how monotonous), who ruled in Cyprus. Once we had controlled vast areas of land, but we had been losing them steadily for generations. Some thirty years earlier, yet another Ptolemy, a cousin—with less fight in him than we had—had willed the province of Cyrenaica, which included Cyprus as well as the African coastal land, to Rome. After his death, Rome took it, but left Cyprus, part of the territory, still in the hands of our cousins. So my uncle Ptolemy still ruled there, until the Romans decided to annex it anyway. He did not have enough money to dissuade them, and was powerless to stave them off. They offered him the high priesthood in the temple of Artemis at Ephesus—a sort of honorable retirement—but he preferred suicide.
    We were greatly saddened by this, but the people of Alexandria turned against Father because of it. They were angry about the huge payments to Rome anyway, and what they saw as my father’s lack of support for his brother infuriated them. They seemed to feel that he could have rescued him somehow, although what he could have done is a mystery. Was he supposed to take on the Roman legions? It was hopeless; but perhaps it was touching that the Alexandrians ascribed more power to us than we actually had.
    But Father had to flee! His own people drove him from the throne, sending him to Rome, as a beggar. He came to my rooms the night he fled, his eyes wild and his manner distracted.
    “At midnight I leave,” he said. “I hope to return in two months, with legions to back me up.”
    How could he leave? Who would govern Egypt? As if he read my mind, he said, “My ministers will oversee the government. And I will not be gone long—just long enough to secure the military aid I need.”
    “But…if the Romans come here with troops, will they ever leave?” By now I had studied enough to know that when the Romans were called in to “help,” they stayed.
    “I have no choice,” he said, miserably. “What else can I do? They are bound to back me up—they have to, if they ever want to collect their bribe money!” Now he laughed bitterly. “They have quite a vested interest in keeping me on the throne.”
    This was awful, awful. I felt shame flooding me. But was my uncle’s suicide preferable? What vicious, degrading choices the Romans forced on us!
    “May all the gods go with you,” I wished Father. “May they watch over you.”
    And thus he departed, making his way to Rome to beg for protection and restoration.

4
    Alexander the Great became my friend while my father was away. Strange that a mummy can be one’s friend, but I was desperate. I was eleven years old, and as the days passed and Father did not return, I began to fear for him and for Egypt.
    Day after day I would descend into the crypt beneath the gleaming white marble dome of the Soma, and gaze upon the Conqueror where he lay in his alabaster coffin. Each day it was the same: As I reached the bottom of the stairs and could see him, the flickering candles set all