If the tomb of Alexander seemed rather familiar to us, that was because Augustus copied it for his own Mausoleum, complete with plantings of cypress trees on its circular terraces. Alexander’s was substantially larger, one of the tallest buildings at the city centre.

Naturally we went in and inspected the famous body, covered with gold and lying in a translucent coffin. Nowadays the coffin lid was sealed, though the guardians must have given access to Augustus after the Battle of Actium, because when that reprobate pretended to pay his respects, he broke off part of Alexander’s nose. All we could make out was the hero’s blurred outline. The coffin seemed more like sheets of that stuff called talc than moulded panes of glass. Either way, it needed a sponge down. Generations of gawpers had left smeary fingerprints while sand dust had blown in everywhere. Given that the illustrious corpse was now almost four hundred years old, we did not complain about lack of closer contact.

Helena and I had a witty discussion about why Octavian, Julius Caesar’s great-nephew, had taken it upon himself to destroy Alexander’s best feature - that nose so gloriously embodied in elegant statues by his tame sculptor Lysippus. Octavian/Augustus was obnoxious and self-satisfied, but plenty of Roman patricians have those faults without attacking corpses. ‘Horseplay,’ explained Helena. ‘All generals together. One of the lads. “You may be Great - but I can tweak your nose!” - Oh dear, look; it’s come off in Octavian Caesar’s hand . . . Quick, quick; stick it back and hope no one notices.’ Undeterred by convention, my darling leaned down as close as she could get to the opaque dome and tried to see whether custodians had glued the nose back on.