Egypt -- History -- To 332 B.C. -- Fiction; German fiction -- Translations into English
strangers here, and whoever has once experienced her hospitality and has
the time at command will never after be found absent when the flag
announces an evening of reception. Every Greek of mark is to be found
here, as it is in this house that we consult on the wisest measures for
encountering the hatred of the priests and bringing the king round to our
own views. Here you can obtain not only the latest news from home, but
from the rest of the world, and this house is an inviolable sanctuary for
the persecuted, Rhodopis possessing a royal warrant which secures her
from every molestation on the part of the police.
[A very active and strict police-force existed in Egypt, the
organization of which is said to have owed much to Amasis' care. We
also read in inscriptions and papyrus rolls, that a body of mounted
police existed, the ranks of which were generally filled by
foreigners in preference to natives.]
Our own songs and our own language are to be heard here, and here we take
counsel on the best means for delivering Greece from the ever fresh
encroachments of her tyrants.
In a word, this house is the centre of attraction for all Hellenic
interests in Egypt, and of more importance to us politically, than our
temple, the Hellenion itself, and our hall of commerce.
In a few minutes you will see this remarkable grandmother, and, if we
should be here alone, perhaps the grandchild too; you will then at once
perceive that they owe everything to their own rare qualities and not to
the chances of good fortune. Ah! there they come! they are going
towards the house. Cannot you hear the slave-girls singing? Now they
are going in. First let them quietly be seated, then follow me, and when
the evening is over you shall say whether you repent of having come
hither, and whether Rhodopis resembles more nearly a queen or a freed
bond-woman."
The houses was built in the Grecian style. It was a rather long, one-
storied building, the outside of which would be called extremely plain in
the present day; within, it united the Egyptian brilliancy of coloring
with the Greek beauty of form. The principal door opened into the
entrance-hall. To the left of this lay a large dining-room, overlooking
the Nile, and, opposite to this last was the kitchen, an apartment only
to be found in the houses of the wealthier Greeks, the poorer families
being accustomed to prepare their food at the hearth in the front
apartment. The hall of reception lay at the other end of the entrance-
hall, and was in the form of a square, surrounded within by a colonnade,
into which various chambers opened. This was the apartment devoted to
the men, in the centre of which was the household fire, burning on an
altar-shaped hearth of rich AEginetan metal-work.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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