Pharaoh

by Karen Essex

  I am enclosing herewith a coin that I have issued commemorating his birth. I believe the image of the queen as Isis-an image to which my subjects are accustomed-suckling the baby Horus, will hearten the people both Egyptian and Greek, and spread through the Two Lands of Egypt the joy that comes with the birth of a future king. The Greeks associate Isis and Horus with Aphrodite and Eros to the extent that there is no difference in their minds between the native deities and their own. But I hope the coin reminds you of our time together at the temple of Horus in a land that I believe you found enchanting.

  Will you see Little Caesar within the year? Shall I bring him to you once the quarantine is lifted? We do quarantine royal children for a period of six months. Though his astrological chart says he is not susceptible to illness, no chances may be taken.

  Remember my confession to you that as a girl I escaped to the marketplace where I hoped to hear tidbits from gossiping merchants about Mighty Julius Caesar and his Exploits in Rome? I did not dream at that time, or perhaps I did, that I would one day listen firsthand to the observations of Caesar himself, whispered into my ear late into the evening for my amusement. Please do not spare me any details of your travels or your travails. I do so long to have you here, letting your wisdom wash over whatever youthful inexperience remains after my years of tumultuous rule, and listening to your insights into political schemes and human nature. I also miss vexing you. Until I see you again, your words will be like the fingers that so affectionately brushed my face, so do not spare those words, dear General. I cling to each one.

  In the meanwhile, I shall devote my every thought to the health and safety and nurturing of your son.

  Yours, Kleopatra

  From: Gaius Julius Caesar in the city of Rome

  To: Kleopatra VII, Queen of Egypt

  (By private messenger)

  My dear Kleopatra,

  Caesar assures you that the news of the birth of his son is presently his singular source of gladness. Though he returned to Rome in triumph, recent events cloud his many victories.

  There is murder in the streets of Rome-not among the enemies of Caesar but among his friends. Caesar charged Antony with gaining Ciceros favor, and he has done the opposite, forcing the old man to eleven months of exile in Brundisium. The two despise one another, and I have not been able to repair it. Cicero executed Antonys stepfather in the mess of the Catiline conspiracies of many years ago. I advised against it, but he did not heed my warnings, and Antony, an affectionate man of great familial loyalty, will never forgive him. Besides, the two are temperamentally opposite, fire and ice. Cicero, whom I have taken pains to cultivate despite his unfaithfulness to me and my causes, has never forgiven Antony a minor, manly indiscretion with a certain Volumnia Cytheris, an actress whose company Antony keeps. Years ago, when poor Pompey was still alive and Cicero was vacillating between the two of us, Antony passed his house in an open carriage with Volumnia, and Cicero, who is rather prudish, treated the incident as if it were a crime against the Republic itself. Kindling his outrage was the fact that Antonys mother, Julia, was also present. Only a moral bankrupt would subject a pious Roman matron to such an indignity, Cicero declared, though I assured him that I share Antonys enjoyment of people of the theater, despite their dramatic temperaments. Cicero himself has recently put away his wife, Terentia, and taken a teenage bride. It is also rumored that he whispers words of love in secret to his secretary, a learned Greek slave, Tiro. And yet he does not forgive the passions of others. Perhaps it is the urgency, ferocity, and youthful vigor of Antonys ardor that he resents.

  That is the background of their feud. I was forced to stop in Brundisium and personally rub salve on Ciceros wounded vanity. Meanwhile, in my absence, Antony conducted a personal war against young Dolabella for committing adultery with his wife, Antonia, whom he is now divorcing. I do not doubt the charge, but the true reason for divorce is so that Antony might marry Fulvia, the widow of our mutual late friend Clodius, with whom he has bedded for so many years. Fulvia is an absorbing woman, with political ambitions more complicated than the many plaits and ribbons she weaves into her hair. The gods only know how many husbands she’s buried and will bury before she is called to Hades. Her most recent husband, Curio, was killed in North Africa by Pompeys son. But she will tame Antony for the better, and he demonstrates fine judgment in calling such a taskmaster to the cause of his discipline. The first order of her reign: Give up Volumnia Cytheris. He has sheepishly agreed.

  Dolabella and Antony both owe in personal debt more than the sum of the treasury of many a nation, due to their extravagant living and poor management. While Caesar was away in the cause of his country, Dolabella proposed a new debt law favorable to his situation and then barricaded the Forum to guarantee its passage. Antony charged the barricades and destroyed the placards announcing the law. Hundreds died in the skirmish. I have chastened the both of them, though I have dealt with Antony more severely. I have deposed him of his powers and named Marcus Lepidus co-consul for the year, and I have thrown his dissolute friends out of the houses he stole for them and returned them to the state, where they might be auctioned off to assist in paying Rome’s legions. I shall forgive Antony, for he is good-natured, the greatest warrior in Rome next to Caesar himself, and highly influential, but only after dishonor has humbled him.

  After settling these many problems, Caesar personally faced hostile Roman legions who had the audacity to march straight into the city demanding their settlements from the war. I confronted them in the Field of Mar, and demonstrated my disdain for their mutinous actions by addressing them as “citizens.” I acted delighted to grant their discharge, whereupon they protested that they were not mere citizens but soldiers, Caesars soldiers! And then begged to be kept in my service.

  At this moment my enemies are organizing against me in Africa. I had intended to meet and put an end to these insults to my honor, and yet conditions in the capital make it impossible to leave. My personal attention seems to be the key ingredient in the solution of all present problems.

  It is the express wish of Caesar that this missive had been delivered in his person to receive the delight of your smiles and sympathies as you read of the tribulations of his public life. There is no other in whom he has ever wished to confide or to seek comfort for life’s many difficulties. In the meanwhile and in his absence, he has written and dedicated a short verse to you:

  Venus, your placid countenance is a seduction, an illusion. From the waters of your canal flow Eros, who fills the ocean of the heart, cresting like the cimmerian torrent of the Black Sea.

  Yours, C. Julius Caesar

  To: Gaius Julius Caesar, Dictator of Rome

  From: Kleopatra VII, Queen of Egypt

  My darling Caesar,

  I have read your letter a thousand times and then a thousand times more to our son so that he might know of his fathers brilliance, his glory, his wit, and to know that his father is not merely general and statesman but poet-a complete man by the definition of the Greek philosophers. How I long to kidnap you and shelter you from your many worries. If you were here in Alexandria with me, I would see that all evidence of the honor you deserve was heaped upon you every day of your life. And at the same time, I would guard our private life together so that every day I might sit upon your lap and listen to your stories of foreign lands and of battles fought and won and of the friendships and adversaries you face in your capital city. That you continue to unburden yourself to me is my joy. I think often of the happiness of our few days together after the war when you began to reveal to me the contents of your mind. Would that I could do more than receive your distant thoughts in letters. For it pains me to know that time and distance stand between us and I am not able to know what you are thinking at this very moment, nor to share with you my thoughts and ideas as they take form and then quickly transform into the next. We are made anew each moment, are we not? I have found, dear General, that that is your particular genius-the fact that you approach
each of life’s many hurdles with a fresh mind, always open to the inspiration of the gods as to how to solve a particular situation. Was it Venus herself who directed you to shame your soldiers by addressing them as citizens? It seems to me that you and I share in common that the gods whisper directly into our ears. Perhaps it is because we are sanctioned by the Divine as leaders of men. You are every day a new man, and that is why those who cling to the old ways fear you. I believe this is another of our common traits-the desire to part with traditions that are no longer relevant to present-day realities. The changes, of course, are not simply to serve ourselves, but to further all mankind.

  I fret over your health, dear one. I worry that someday in the heat of battle or in the throes of debate on the senate floor, you shall be overtaken by your malady. Why am I not there to watch over you, to hold you to me while you make your strange voyage to some unseen place, and then to mop your brow with my own handkerchief while you take shallow breaths and return to the earthly realm? I treasure the moments I spent with your head in my lap, watching you come back to me from your journey to the unknown. Do you recall what you said? It seemed to me that you were still lost in the place between this world and that one when you looked at me with misty and distant eyes and said, “She is you and you are she.” And then you closed your eyes again and your hands went limp at your sides, sliding off your chest, and you fell into a peaceful sleep as if you were just a small boy taking comfort in his mothers safe and tranquil presence.

  I have seen the same look now on the small face of our son. He is strong, like both his parents. Though he is but three months old, he holds his head tall, looking intently at all who attend him as if he wished to impart to them the secrets of life that he has carried forth from his time with the gods. I have spoken to him at length about his position in life, so that he seems to have absorbed it into his very being. His countenance expresses the seriousness and the weight of his lineage and all that to which he is heir. His eyes are a dark blue; I cannot say that they are yet the gray of Alexander, and they are shrouded by rather heavy and sensuous lids. His brow is well-defined for an infant. He has a philosophers thinness despite his vehement enthusiasm at the breast. I nursed him myself for two months for that is the Egyptian way. The native midwives say that precious life-enhancing fluids are passed to the child from the mothers milk in the early months, and so like a peasant I held him at my breast before releasing him to a wet nurse. I find the Egyptian women’s knowledge of spells and remedies far in advance of those of Greek women. For example, I have bathed in donkeys milk brought back from Aswan under the advice of the wife of the Egyptian priest, and already my skin has recovered its youthfulness after the birth. (I hope I am not boring the General with these tedious details. I feel certain that if he were here, I would share every thought in my head with him from the profound to the banal and he would indulge all of them as if I, too, were his child.)

  I long to hear more of you, though the financial demands you placed upon me before you left keep me busy day and night with enterprises that will replen-ish my treasury. I have increased the laborers in the Cypriot copper mines so that our revenues from that territory you restored to us should double in the coming months. Duties on merchants have increased, much to their chagrin. I have toured the linen factories myself and with the craftsmen have invented new dyes that are sure to bring greater demand for our cloth from rich Roman ladies, and have granted new licenses for the export of jewelry and other adornments to a whole new generation of merchants. When you see a lovely Roman girl wearing Egyptian finery, do think of me. I was tempted to raise the price of beer, but was assured that public opinion would sway very far away from me if I did.

  So you see, dear General, despite the burden you placed upon my people, I am still your devoted one. (I do hope the money has finally placated Rabirius and that he plagues you no more with his demands.) I live only for your hap-piness, for my sons future, and for our future together. Though we must tolerate this lapse in our togetherness, when next we meet I am certain that it shall be as if we had not spent a day apart.

  Yours, Kleopatra

  From: Hammonius in the city of Rome

  To: Kleopatra VII, Queen of Egypt

  My dear Majesty,

  Your old friend and faithful servant reports to you on the conditions in the city of his exile. Ye, ye, I can see your smile spread as you read of my woe, and I do admit that I have grown as prosperous as a king while in the service of your father and your Royal Person here in this strange and ghastly land. But Your Majesty, please believe me when I say that no amount of gold can truly compensate for not having ones two big feet planted firmly on olive-drenched Greek soil.

  Your Majesty, I believe I can explain the recent silence of Julius Caesar. One month ago he was pulled away from the problems in the city to face his enemies on African shores, where the sons and remaining allies of Pompey united with King Juba of Numidia to continue the Roman Civil War. The dissenters were mighty in numbers, for they had the many thousands of the kings archers and horsemen and another army that rode into battle on fearsome ele-phants. Once again, Caesar was outnumbered by his enemies. It is said that food and supplies were so depleted that he forced his soldiers to dismiss their slaves, and was reduced to feeding seaweed to his horses. And yet, as the gods would have it, Caesar was victorious. The soldiers say that he drilled the newer recruits in the arts of war himself, demonstrating the finer, more subtle artistry of sword-play, when to advance and retreat, and how to maneuver one efficient mortal blow This personal instruction from so great a man made his young soldiers fiercely loyal to him. The African soldiers had no real loyalty to the Pompeians, who demanded much of them and promised little, and the fearsome reputation of Caesar was enough for whole legions and towns to come over to him at his request. Still, the sheer multitude of the enemy was awesome, and at the onset of the deciding battle, some of the less-experienced men tried to run away. It is said that Caesar stood back so that he might catch them in their retreat and personally point them in the direction of the battle. The deciding battle was fought at Thapsus, and then Caesar moved on to Utica, where his enemies easily surrendered to him, but for Cato, who died by his own sword.

  And now, Caesar has made a glorious reentry into the city. The rabble was represented in record numbers in the streets of Rome for the forty-day Thanksgiving festival (twice longer than any victor has previously enjoyed) accorded to Caesar for his victories abroad. Caesar was given permission to cel-ebrate Four Triumphs: over Gaul, Egypt, Pontus, and Africa. His victories over his fellow Romans go unmentioned, or at least uncelebrated. The senate was extremely indulgent of Caesar upon his return to Rome, voting him dictator for another ten years and inventing a new office for him, Overseer of Public Morality, through which he is vowed to restore discipline. His opinion will heretofore be delivered first at all senate meetings. He will not only nominate all magistrates, but himself will sit on the magistrates’ bench. And he will give the opening signal at all public games, which will undoubtedly thrill his throng of common admirers.

  I witnessed each spectacle staged for the Triumphs, and I attended a banquet for the public where I sat at one of twenty-two thousand dining couches and feasted until my rebellious spleen sent me running to the public latrines. There was no end to the food served. I believe that millions, not thousands, of tender sea eels, quails, pigs, geese, goats, lambs, hares, cows, chickens, and ducks were eaten by the population at large, while the more fortunate of us with high political connections were also treated to peacock (eaten to encourage immortality), oysters, and even tender morsels of songbird, once said to be a favorite of Darius the Persian. You will also be pleased to know that rare spices imported from Egyptian merchants at great expense peppered each dish. And then Caesar made a great store of giving two thousand denariis to each legionary, claiming it was more than twice what they would have received from Pompey, and that he aimed to be “rich with the Roman people, not their robber.”

>   The parades called to mind the Grand Procession of your ancestors, revived by your father when you were but a girl of nine. But the Romans added the ingredient of cruelty, missing from our more festive and holy Greek and Egyptian celebrations, for people and animals lost their lives brutally. One such was a huge blond creature whom Caesar had defeated in Gaul. He was strangled for the crime of defending his tribe against the Romans. Your own sister Arsinoe was marched in chains along with a four-year-old African prince, who amused the crowd with his playfulness. He obviously thought the festival had been staged in his honor, so generous was he in waving to the throng. But soldiers who complained that the cost of the celebration was eating into their settlements were beheaded! Gladiators murdered their opponents in blood-drenched reenactments of the battles won by the Romans. And I, an old man who has seen so much inhumanity, turned my head away from the slaughter of hundreds of lions and giraffes done only for the pleasure of cruelty. This awful display lacked any of the noble intentions of manly sport and took all honor and dignity from hunter and animal alike.

  Caesar himself was escorted in his parade by seventy-two high official, whose slaves carried vats of burning perfume to neutralize the fetid odor of a large mob on a hot day. He had a boy with him, Gaius Octavian, his grandnephew, grand-son of his sister Julia. The boy is thin and pale and looks perhaps to be about eighteen years old. I inquired of him, thinking he had performed valiantly in Caesars service, though his appearance betrays not a trace of military ability or potential. I was told that he had not participated in any war, and those with whom I spoke were also puzzled as to the place of honor he was given in the Triumph, when the great Marcus Antonius, who committed impossible feats of heroism in the war, was given no special honors at all.