"Is there still no news from Father?"
"He should have arrived in Rome by now, Your Highness."
"Assuming the gods haven't chosen to toy with him, that is."
Berenice IV said, leaning against the balcony railing.
On either side of her, slaves fanned the air with large palm leaves.
"How are the people of Alexandria reacting?"
"Discontent among the citizens grows by the day. More and more people are protesting over rumors that new taxes will soon be imposed."
"Good. Everything is proceeding exactly as we anticipated."
Berenice said, turning her gaze outward.
The sea stretching out before the royal palace was a magnificent sight in itself.
Yet grander still was the colossal lighthouse standing at the tip of Pharos Island.
It was Alexandria's greatest monument, begun under Ptolemy I, founder of the Ptolemaic dynasty, and completed by his successors.
"Spread word that Father has gone crawling to Rome for its friendship. Keep repeating it until every citizen in Alexandria has heard it."
"Understood, Your Highness."
Berenice watched the courtier withdraw before looking back out at the city.
Alexandria was, as always, immaculate and beautiful, its gleaming white buildings arranged in districts of geometric precision.
The Great Library, the zoo, and the observatory were awe-inspiring even at a glance.
For all the city's order and beauty, its citizens were notoriously fickle.
Much like cats, they cared far more about their immediate interests than about loyalty to the royal family.
Dethroning pharaohs they disliked—and dragging them from the palace to be slaughtered—was almost second nature to them.
However, if she played on that fickleness skillfully, it could give her the opportunity she needed to claim the throne.
Above all, the citizens of Alexandria despised the idea of Roman rule.
"And yet Father clings pathetically to the hem of Rome's toga."
Berenice muttered.
Her father was a servile coward.
He would undoubtedly offer whatever vast sums of gold it took to secure Rome's 'friendship.'
And that would inevitably pave the way for her own bid for the throne.
"Let us see how the citizens of Alexandria react to that."
***
The shore at Ostia was packed with people.
While everyone gazed out at the sea with eager anticipation, purple sails finally came into view on the distant horizon.
Tyrian purple—the rarest and most expensive dye of the era, and a symbol of the highest status.
Only a select few people in the world were wealthy enough to dye a sail that enormous entirely in Tyrian purple.
"Young Master, why do you suppose the Pharaoh of Egypt is coming to Rome right now?"
"For the same reason all the other cities are coming to Rome."
Felix and I stood side by side on the pier, watching the ship slowly approach.
"To buy Rome's friendship."
News that Ptolemy XII, pharaoh of Egypt, was coming to Rome had arrived only a few days earlier.
To think the pharaoh himself would make the journey.
Why had Ptolemy rushed to Rome so suddenly?
"Right now, Egypt is subordinate to Rome, but it's not a province. At least on paper, it's an independent kingdom."
The Pharaohs ruling Egypt were descendants of Ptolemy, one of Alexander the Great's Macedonian generals.
His dynasty had practiced sibling incest for generations to preserve its royal bloodline.
Yet the dynasty had been bowing to Roman power for quite some time.
By now, an Egyptian pharaoh could survive only with Rome's formal recognition.
"They're arriving."
As the ship drew closer, gasps of awe rippled through the crowd.
A golden pavilion stood atop the massive vessel, while its oars gleamed silver.
I'd never seen a ship so absurdly luxurious.
No wonder people called Egypt the wealthiest kingdom in the entire Mediterranean.
Finally, the vessel docked, and attendants spread a richly woven carpet before the pharaoh.
Ptolemy himself looked surprisingly ordinary.
Strip away the extravagant golden robes draped over him, and he would have looked like any middle-aged man you might pass on the streets of Rome.
What truly caught my eye, however, was the young girl standing right behind him.
So that's the famous Cleopatra.
She was the famous femme fatale who would one day wrap Gaius Caesar and Mark Antony around her finger and alter the course of Roman history.
Right now, though, she was just an ordinary-looking young girl. Admittedly, she was practically dripping with gold jewelry from head to toe.
The Pharaoh and the princess slowly walked down the carpet.
Father and Luceius sat in two elevated chairs at the head of the pier.
The arrangement forced Ptolemy to look up at them.
The Romans really did love staging little displays of power like this.
The moment Ptolemy stepped forward alone, Father and Luceius rose and approached him.
Father clasped Ptolemy's hand and spoke.
"Welcome to Rome, Your Majesty."
"I thank you for Rome's generous hospitality."
As whispers rippled through the crowd, I stepped forward as well.
In the history I remembered, Ptolemy had indeed visited Rome around this time.
Yet there was no record of his daughter Cleopatra accompanying him.
Nor had he arrived with such an enormous delegation.
Had he really rushed his visit just because of the Religious Council?
It didn't take long to get an answer to that question.
That very afternoon, during the welcoming banquet at Father's domus, the pharaoh approached me directly.
"Lucius Caesar."
"Yes, your majesty."
Then the pharaoh asked me something I never could have expected.
"Would you, by any chance... be able to lend me some money?"
***
"Lend you money?"
I certainly hadn't expected a request like this today.
"I am willing to pay twenty percent annual interest. That is hardly an unfavorable condition for you, Caesar."
Seeing my expression, Ptolemy hurriedly added.
He looked embarrassingly desperate for a king.
"If it is not an imposition, may I ask why Your Majesty requires such funds?"
The two of us sat alone in a private room prepared for the occasion.
I knew he wanted a private conversation, but I never imagined he'd outright beg for a massive loan.
"In a way, one could say it is because of you, young Caesar," he said with a bitter smile.
"Because of me?"
"It is humiliating for me to admit this as pharaoh, but Egypt's royal treasury is in dire straits. We must supply vast amounts of wheat to Rome every year, and recently we suffered a famine as well. To make matters worse, a substantial portion of our royal revenue suddenly vanished not long ago. All because of paper."
"Paper."
I muttered. Paper had caused the royal revenue to collapse? Don't tell me...
He meant papyrus?
"Until recently, a significant portion of our tax revenue came from the papyrus trade. But a short while ago, that income dropped drastically. In fact, saying it vanished entirely would be more accurate."
I nodded. That made sense.
Once my new paper entered the market, demand for papyrus had cratered.
Papyrus simply couldn't compete in price or production efficiency.
Still, I hadn't realized papyrus accounted for such an enormous share of Egypt's royal revenue.
Who knew inventing paper would cause this kind of butterfly effect?
"However, Your Majesty has not fully answered my question. If your only goal were to borrow money, there would have been no need to come all the way to Rome in person."
Was that what he planned to do with the money he wanted to borrow from me?
"You came to buy Rome's friendship with gold."
I adjusted my posture.
Ptolemy, Cleopatra's father, was a ruler heavily reliant on Rome.
In the original timeline, after losing his throne to his eldest daughter, Berenice IV, he fled to Rome and begged the Romans to restore him to the throne.
His strategy was always the same: borrow vast sums from wealthy Romans, use the money to bribe Roman politicians, and then squeeze the Egyptian populace dry to repay the debt.
It was no surprise he was despised by his own people.
Still, I didn't think he'd lay it out so blatantly on his very first day here.
"I wish to 'earn' the friendship of the Romans." Ptolemy cleared his throat. "Egypt is currently in an extremely volatile state. Several of my courtiers are manipulating my children in an attempt to undermine my rule, while actively stoking anti-Roman sentiment among the populace."
"And if you can demonstrate that Rome firmly backs Your Majesty, you can neutralize the threat of rebellion."
It was a reasonable strategy on paper.
Rome's military power was vastly superior to Egypt's.
There was just one fatal problem.
In the original history, this strategy failed spectacularly.
His eldest daughter, Berenice IV, rebelled anyway.
Ptolemy only managed to reclaim his throne later with the armed intervention of Roman legions.
"I cannot give you an immediate answer today. For now, please enjoy the Nova Troia festival. I will give you my response after the festivities conclude."
I cleared my throat as I spoke.
I hadn't decided what to do with Egypt yet.
Egypt was not fully annexed by Rome and turned into a province until the reign of Augustus.
So what should I do right now?
Helping Ptolemy was one option. We could keep Egypt as a client state, as it currently was, or annex it outright as Augustus eventually did.
Stepping out of the room alone, I walked down the corridor leading to the atrium.
In the atrium, two people were reclining on couches, conversing.
Father and Cleopatra.
As I approached, Cleopatra turned her head.
"Lucius Caesar."
"Princess."
"Did your conversation with my father go well?"
"Yes. His Majesty was looking for you. He's waiting in the private room."
"Thank you."
Cleopatra offered a polite nod before rising from her seat. Escorted by her slaves, she headed down the hall toward the room where her father waited.
I sank onto a couch and waited until she was completely out of sight.
"Father, what do you think of Cleopatra?"
"She's quite a cute child."
At Father's answer, I choked on my wine and spat it out.
"Are you alright?"
"Yes. It just went down the wrong pipe. What were you saying?"
"She is remarkably clever for her age. She seems to speak not only Greek but also a fair amount of Latin," Father said with a chuckle. "She also understands Roman politics surprisingly well. Given the opportunity, she will make a fine ruler one day."
I fell silent for a moment. Even people with zero interest in history knew about the relationship between those two.
Cleopatra and Caesar. Their strategic alliance had famously extended all the way to the bedroom.
Cleopatra even gave birth to Caesarion, widely believed to be Caesar's son.
"Lucius, don't tell me..."
Father eyed me suspiciously.
"You aren't interested in a girl that young, are you, Lucius?"
"Me?!"
A burst of laughter escaped me. Hearing those exact words from Julius Caesar, of all people, was almost too much.
The irony nearly choked me all over again.
"Of course not. Please don't say things that might give Pompeia the wrong idea."
"So, what did the Pharaoh ask of you?"
I repeated what Ptolemy had told me.
"Asking for a loan...I had no idea the Egyptian royal treasury had taken such a massive hit because of your paper."
"Neither did I. I'm currently debating what to do."
"Lending him the money wouldn't necessarily be a bad choice. Putting the pharaoh in our debt would give us considerable leverage over Egypt, after all."
"However, if Ptolemy starts using that money to bribe Roman politicians, some of the backlash will inevitably spill over onto us as well. That could easily jeopardize the Religious Council."
That was exactly what happened in the original timeline.
Roman citizens deeply resented Ptolemy's blatant bribery of their politicians.
That resentment eventually extended to Cleopatra as well.
Octavian later exploited those same sentiments among Roman citizens in his propaganda campaign against Mark Antony.
"When a problem seems complicated, you must focus on the simplest fact. The pharaoh wants Roman recognition," Father said, sitting up straight.
"We just have to find a way to secure that recognition for him without lending him money."
"Which means you're dumping this onto me."
"I have to preside over the council every single day, after all," Father said with a hearty laugh. "Unless, of course, you'd like to moderate the council in my place?"
"Honestly, that sounds far easier."
I rose from the couch.
We couldn't simply brush off the Pharaoh's request.
Even if I refused to lend him money, he'd just seek out someone else.
Regardless of what we decided to do with Egypt later, there was no harm in placing the Pharaoh in our debt.
The question was how to secure Rome's backing for Egypt without spending a single coin.
"Rome is a republic."
I muttered.
Perhaps the answer lay right there.
***
The pharaoh's visit ignited intense curiosity among the citizens of Rome.
"I hear he wears gold jewelry all over his body."
"Rumor has it he wears so much gold that his entire body practically glows."
"Is that really true?"
Egyptian deities already had a considerable following in Rome, particularly Isis and Serapis.
Yet worship of Egyptian gods did not translate into support for the Egyptian royal house.
"Isn't the current pharaoh supposed to be terribly weak? I hear he can't even keep his own subjects under control."
"To come to Rome dressed in such ostentatious luxury... Is he looking down on us Romans?"
No matter how rapidly Roman society was changing, the citizens still looked down on rulers who flaunted their wealth and luxury.
That was especially true when a foreign monarch came to Rome and flaunted his wealth.
"He arrives on a lavish ship, covered head to toe in jewels, with hundreds of attendants in tow. Who does he think he is?"
"Shouldn't Rome just annex Egypt outright?"
The annexation of Egypt was one of the most fiercely debated issues in Roman politics.
Decades ago, a previous Pharaoh had bequeathed the Kingdom of Egypt to Rome in his will. Rome could easily use that will as a pretext for annexation.
The real problem was deciding who would be entrusted with carrying it out.
Everyone knew Egypt was a land overflowing with gold and grain.
Whoever oversaw Egypt's annexation would gain access to enormous wealth and resources.
Roman politicians had no intention of handing such an opportunity to one of their rivals.
Their fear of letting a rival grow too powerful was precisely what had preserved Egypt's independence.
"King or princess, why should we have to watch either of them strut around Rome as if they own the place?"
Soon after Ptolemy and Cleopatra arrived, hostility toward them began to spread among Rome's priesthoods.
"If we play this right, we might be able to drive the cult of Isis out of Rome entirely."
"Yes, let us use this council to our advantage."
Priests from other temples, unhappy with the rising popularity of Isis worship, began spreading rumors.
"We must never allow the King of Egypt to influence our sacred council!"
And amidst this hostile atmosphere, two women met inside a tent.
They were Cleopatra and Pompeia.
"Let me ask you once more."
The young Egyptian princess fixed her gaze on the Roman noblewoman.
"Are you telling me to go out there and help the people of Nova Troy myself?"