Chapter 6: He helps some of the citizens.

Hiram had become friends with the four Nicators, and they asked him for his help, as they had been finding it increasingly difficult to feed themselves. There were fewer and fewer people in the city, and fewer and fewer opportunities to make a living. They knew that he was a scholar, and so perhaps could tell them they should do.

He could have advised them to leave the city, but he did not want them to go. He thought that if they had been peasants, they could have had all they needed. However, neither his nor their professions or backgrounds allowed this option. They knew nothing of sheep or goats, or of the plough.

All he knew was the location of his nut trees and his fruit, and the season of their harvest. He taught this to them, and also caught fish, fowl and deer for them. In time they learned to dig with their hands for the roots of water lilies and reed mace.

They pruned their trees and propagated them till they had productive groves, which they prevented from becoming overgrown. In the heat of the midday they slumbered under willows by their lotus lake.

The eldest of the four Nicators was called Cleopatra Thea. She was considered by her family to be a true monarch, the inheritor of the Seleucid dynasty. The Seleucids had been all powerful, but wars and dynastic feuds had brought them low. They fought with the Ptolemies of Egypt, then with the Romans and Parthians, and with themselves. Their lands were now fought over by Rome and Parthia.

Her father had decided that if his first-born child were female he would call her Cleopatra Thea, after the ruling queen of their dynasty, not knowing if he would live to produce a son. When he died, she became a queen, as well as High Priestess of Ishtar. However, only those in her branch of the family recognised her titles.

She delighted in the fruit of the mango, and Hiram made a grove of these trees for her. She would sit with her maid Nitocris in the grove and they would eat many fruit. Most of the time the five women would spend their days together, often singing. Hiram liked to watch them as they swam in the lotus lake and dived for lotus roots.

Hiram occupied his time in fishing and hunting, while the women gathered, and he considered himself to live like an aristocrat. He was contented.

The Greeks had considered Babylon an example of oriental decadence, the Romans even more so. The Jews had held Babylon to be the source of evil. Despite his triple heritage as a Roman, a Jew, and a scholar of Greek culture, he had only respect for the city. He considered its history, and could find no reason for dislike. Babylon slumbered, and Hiram with it. He slumbered in the heat of the day under willows and under arches. If this were decadence, then he embraced it.

Babylon had been the first big city in the world, and now lay abandoned. The five women made him their king, and danced around him in a ring.