If Cleopatra and Caesar did venture as far south as the ancient sources claim, they would certainly have reached Horus’ cult centre, Edfu. As a site of incalculable importance for the Ptolemies, Edfu was the preeminent place to celebrate the cult of the royal ancestors in which each dead king was represented by Osiris, and the living pharaoh by Osiris’ son Horus. It was founded by the third Ptolemaic couple and inaugurated by the eighth, while Cleopatra’s father had also made a very definite mark at the site with his huge front pylon gateway. A maze of internal stairways recalled those of Dendera, while its facade was adorned with massive figures of Auletes smiting the enemies of Egypt alongside two pairs of huge flagpoles of imported Lebanese cedar, which set the pennants of the gods fluttering 130 feet above the ground. Then, at the centre, a pair of 45-foot-high doors of the same timber, covered in highly polished copper, reflected the sunlight and literally dazzled all who approached.
Far more than a colossal gateway, Auletes’ pylon and adjoining court beyond had been skilfully designed to exploit the use of light and dark, so that the pylon’s shadow at the winter solstice on 21 December covered the courtyard in darkness, while at midsummer on 21 June it cast no shadow and instead acted ‘as a giant sundial’. This subtle exploitation of sunlight was also employed within the temple, and in an ancient form of special effects designed to heighten the atmosphere the light decreased towards the darkness of the innermost santuary, where a monolithic shrine of highly polished syenite dating back to Nectanebo II had been retained as a link with the last native pharaoh. It held within it a smaller gilded shrine whose delicate doors opened to reveal Horus’ gold cult statue set with semi-precious stones. A live falcon was housed alongside as the living incarnation of both Horus and the current monarch. Kept well fed with meat provided by the crown, and presumably with its wings well clipped, the sacred falcon was worshipped alongside its sculpted equivalent in daily rites each morning, noon and dusk, and every year both were taken up to the roof to unite with the sun.
Falconry duties aside, Edfu’s clergy were also employed in the temple’s small perfume laboratory’ whose walls were inscribed with the costly materials once housed within, from the frankincense used as the gods’ wake-up call in the morning ceremonies, via the sixteen different kinds of myrrh burned at the main midday service, to kapet, the Greek ‘kyphi’, a sweet, cinnamon-based incense employed in evening rites. Then there were specific perfumes designed to anoint the gods’ statues, from the ‘best quality oil’ used to illuminate the face of the sculpted Horus to the traditional ‘sacred oils’ which had been in use since the Pyramid Age. By Ptolemaic times there were nine of these, ranging from the frankincense and fir seeds of ‘Festival Scent’ to the carob, lotus and white frankincense of ‘Madjet’.
While other side rooms housed sacred vestments and equipment, the temple library held such ancient works as The Book of Conducting the Cult, The Secret Forms of the God and Knowing the Periodic Return of the Stars, along with scripts for the sacred drama The Triumph of Horus in which the god avenges his father Osiris by slaying his murderer Seth. The drama was performed to a musical accompaniment which no doubt appealed to the Ptolemies’ love of theatre, and the story was replicated in highly detailed scenes on the temple walls alongside those of Horus’ sacred marriage to the goddess Hathor.
For a ceremony known as the ‘Festival of the Beautiful Union’, Hathor’s golden statue was brought 110 miles south from Dendera to Edfu each year. Surrounded by flowers and doused in her signature ‘tisheps’ unguent used exclusively ‘for anointing the Golden Goddess Hathor’, she was carried in stately procession towards the darkness of the temple’s inner sanctum and joined to Horus in sacred marriage.
It certainly seems possible that the ‘Festival of the Beautiful Union’ was repeated for Caesar and Cleopatra, earthly representatives of the divine couple Hathor, the Roman Venus, and Horus ‘the faraway conquering god’. Perhaps they exploited the gods’ atypical marital arrangements, in which they retained their independent status and continued to live some distance apart despite their union. The iconography of Hathor also fitted Cleopatra’s requirements. In keeping with Egyptian tradition the goddess was both Horus’ partner and his mother, to emphasise the endless cycle of regeneration. The name Hathor, ‘Hut-Hor’, meaning the ‘house’ or ‘womb’ of Horus, highlighted Cleopatra’s pregnant state, which the Edfu priesthood would have done all they could to safeguard through traditional protection rituals. For, as the temple’s god declared, ‘I am Horus whom Isis has brought forth and whose protection was guaranteed in the egg.’
Protection ceremonies formed a key part of most ceremonials, from coronations, jubilees and gods’ installations to ensuring safe delivery of the next generation of royals. As described in the temple’s Book of the Magical Protection of the Ruler in the Palace, a lengthy rite required the monarch to be covered with protective amulets and surrounded by the same kind of seal images of previous rulers found in storage at the site. Then, with the accumulated powers of gods and ancestors forming a kind of divine force field, a live falcon, goose, hawk and vulture were each made to spread their wings around the ruler, who was also anointed with tears extracted from the falcon’s eyes — the Eye of Horus was the most potent of the amulets found throughout Egyptian culture. With such spells as the ‘Formula for Repelling the Evil Eye’ read out, execration rites were performed to neutralise harmful forces. The ceremony ended with the birds being taken up to the temple roof and released to the four cardinal points to mark the renewal of royal protection.
Yet all this meant far more than simply ensuring Cleopatra a safe delivery. The unborn child’s role as the future Horus would have been particularly significant at Edfu, where Horus the ‘Great God’ was believed to have had ‘his being before the ancestors’, and whose rites were celebrated immediately after the main daily ceremony in all temples. The ancestors’ presence at coronations, jubilees, harvest rites and sacred marriages also raises the intriguing possibility that the main purpose of Cleopatra’s long cruise south with Caesar was largely to visit Edfu, where their sacred union, followed by protection rites for an heir to guarantee divine continuity, was central to Cleopatra’s dynastic plans.
Although it is not known whether the couple ventured any further south, where the steep sandstone cliffs reaching down to the river made the Nile difficult to navigate, they may well have continued, albeit with a smaller naval escort, since one of Caesar’s Roman biographers was adamant that they ‘would have sailed together in her state barge nearly to Ethiopia had his soldiers consented to follow him’. In her attempts to alleviate the serious famine ravaging her kingdom Cleopatra would surely have wanted to continue south towards the legendary source of the Nile as previous Ptolemies had done, both to invoke the annual flood and to keep an eye on a border region vital to Egypt’s security. There was an important military base at Pa-Sebek, ‘the land of Sobek’, the crocodile god known to the Greeks as Ombos (Kom Ombo). Its beautiful temple, built on a promontory on the Nile, had been a favourite with Cleopatra’s father, whose monumental gateway gave direct access from the river.
Perhaps Auletes’ daughter and unborn grandchild passed through with Caesar, viewing the progress on wall scenes showing Cleopatra solo before the gods, or the temple crocodiles in their stone pool with its elaborate system of fountains. The people of Ombos, like the Fayumis, regarded the creatures as divine and treated them with great respect. Yet at a time when such animal cults had become emotive symbols of regional status, stage-managed fights between neighbouring temples were a form of worship: rival supporters travelled to away matches to get drunk and taunt their rivals. Since the people of Edfu and Dendera regarded the crocodile as evil, their visits to Ombos could sometimes get out of hand, and when the Dendera crowd became increasingly drunk on one visit the mood is said to have turned nasty; spurred on by religious hatred, the Ombites began a fist-fight ending in a murder, the man’s body torn to pieces as ‘the victorious crowd, gnawing hi
s bones, ate all of him’ in an apparent act of ritual cannibalism.
Most Nile journeys ended at the ancient trading post of Swenet, the Ptolemaic Syene (modern Aswan), which was a magnet for scholars. Eratosthenes had come here from Alexandria to calculate the circumference of the earth from the angles of shadows, since at midsummer the sun cast no shadow at noon. Other researchers had come to study the Nile floods and investigate Egyptian beliefs that the ram-headed creator god Khnum sent forth the annual flood from his cave beneath the large island in the middle of the Nile. Caesar’s own desire to discover the true source of the flood must have made this a place of great interest for him, and studying the island’s well-built Nilometer, he may have quizzed the priests about the new theories concerning rains further south as he had discussed with one of the Memphis clergy. He may also have accompanied Cleopatra on her state visit to the island’s red granite temple of Khnum, built by the first Ptolemy on behalf of Alexander’s son Alexander IV, and where the visit of her grandfather Chickpea was commemorated on a large red granite stela. The temple complex also housed Khnum’s sacred rams, whose vigorous powers of fertility were preserved at death when each was mummified and buried within the island where Khnum himself resided. Their powers would have combined with those of Cleopatra as she presumably celebrated a version of the annual Festival of Inundation as her grandfather is known to have done. Perhaps this was followed by a visit to the island’s temple of Isis housing the goddess’ oracle, whose priests are likely to have sought royal assurance that their privileges would not be reduced in the face of the crown’s growing support for Isis’ main cult centre only a little way south at Philae.
Founded by the last native dynasty, so only a few centuries rather than millennia old, Philae had certainly been the destination for the first Cleopatra, who came with her husband in 186 BC to celebrate both a military victory and the birth of her son. Now it was the likely end point for Cleopatra and Caesar’s own journey, using a smaller vessel to negotiate the narrow channels dug out of the river’s rocky outcrops (known as cataracts). Philae’s gleaming temple on the ‘Island from the time of Ra’ would then have appeared to rise up from the waters before them.
No doubt greeted by its priests as Living Isis, ‘Queen of the South’, Cleopatra is likely to have adopted the multi-horned crown of Geb to emphasise continuity with her great predecessor Arsinoe II, portrayed in Philae’s relief scenes in the same crown she in turn had borrowed from Hatshepsut in a reassuring continuity of female monarchs combining with Isis to become ‘Mistress of Life, as she dispenses life. Men live by the command of her soul’. In further scenes bestowing the milk of life to her infant son Horus in the temple’s Mammisi, Isis received myrrh, jewels and even a sacred gazelle from Ptolemy Physkon and his two wives Cleopatras II and III. The same rulers had provided Philae with its library, perfume laboratory, three granite shrines for Isis’ statues and a pair of stone obelisks, behind which the first great pylon gateway once more featured the huge figures of Cleopatra’s father Auletes smiting Egypt’s enemies.
Auletes had also created a beautiful temple for Osiris on the nearby island of Biga, the ‘pure mound’, where local tradition claimed he was actually buried surrounded by a sacred grove of trees. Here the clergy sang their daily dirges and poured their libations of milk, sacred to Isis whose cult statue was regularly ferried over from Philae to lead her husband’s funerary rites. Pilgrims from as far afield as Italy collected the sacred waters Lourdes-style to use in Isis’ worship back home. Many threw gold coins into the waters or brought rich offerings, and as the crown diverted large amounts of their own wealth into Isis’ sacred coffers neighbouring temples fought a losing battle to retain their traditional spheres of influence against the powerful priests of Philae.
With the imminent motherhood of Living Isis destined to create a new golden age in which they would surely play a key role, the Philae priesthood commemorated the time when their goddess appeared amongst them with a golden figure that would be venerated and cherished for centuries to come. As she sailed down the Nile Cleopatra had been worshipped as the most powerful deity incarnate, and the impact of some two million people paying heartfelt homage to his partner clearly made a lasting impression on Caesar, who was already contemplating the way in which his own divinity might be used to bring Rome even more completely under his sole control.
Chapter 6
Great Mother Isis: the Birth of Caesarion
Following the couple’s return to Alexandria after their cruise south, Caesar began preparations for his return to Rome where Pompeius’ sons were still at large and their supporters growing in strength. Although his failure to return immediately after the Alexandrian War was criticised by those in Rome who blamed his protracted stay on Cleopatra, accused of ensnaring the noble Roman with her feminine wiles, factors beyond even his control had been at play, from the onslaught of the Alexandrians to the onset of unfavourable coastal winds which made sailing hazardous for several months, and all of which he described himself in his own accounts. Caesar had therefore used the winter and spring of 48-47 BC to maximise support in the East, replacing an uncooperative regime with a loyal ally and guaranteeing himself a potential heir, a steady cash flow and a reliable source of grain for the people of Rome, whose backing would be vital if he was to push his policies through the Senate.
To ensure Cleopatra’s safety and maintain her position, he left three legions in Alexandria under the reliable command of his favourite freedman, Rufio. Their presence would also demonstrate to his critics back in Rome that he had made Egypt a Roman protectorate. Not only that, it would offset any suggestion of seizing the country and simply making it a province, something which Caesar would certainly have done had he not been romantically involved with its persuasive monarch.
Although theoretically Cleopatra still ruled alongside her remaining half-brother Ptolemy XIV and had the twelve-year-old firmly under her control, her half-sister Arsinoe IV was still causing problems. By declaring herself monarch in Cleopatra’s place when the Alexandrians were besieging the palace she had committed a treasonable act which Cleopatra would not forget. Yet, rather than imprison her in Alexandria as a focus of potential resistance, or risk the backlash that her execution would cause, it was decided that Caesar should take Arsinoe back to Rome as his prisoner.
Having presumably said their farewells in private, the heavily pregnant monarch in her golden carrying chair must have accompanied him in procession the short distance from the palace to the Great Harbour keen to demonstrate their alliance in the full glare of the Alexandrian public. Perhaps they clasped each other’s right hands in the formal gesture of farewell, as Caesar finally boarded ship and left Egypt. The occasion surely affected Cleopatra. Since him had given her her throne, her heir and indeed her life, she decided to create a suitably impressive monument to honour him — the Caesar-eum which in Greek was ‘Kaisaros Epibaterios’, ‘Embarking Caesar’, hinting at its inspiration.
Sailing out of Alexandria’s Great Harbour past the palaces, the Pharos and the colossus of Isis, Caesar did not go straight back to Rome. Needing to shore up Jewish support for his forthcoming struggles against Pompeius’ sons, he sailed along the coast to Acre to reward Pompeius’ former supporters Antipatros and Hyrcanus for their valuable help in the Alexandrian War. As Rome’s representative, he confirmed their regime, excused them all tribute, allowed them to rebuild Jerusalem and gave them the port of Joppa (Jaffa) which Cleopatra had wanted herself as part of her plans to regain the Ptolemies’ former territories. Caesar had instead restored Cyprus to her, and the revenues from that island allowed her to relax the heavy taxes she had been forced to impose at the beginning of her reign in order to keep Egypt afloat.
With the economy gaining ground and Roman troops available for military support if needed, Cleopatra was in an increasingly secure position as she finally prepared to give birth to her first child on 23 June 47 BC. Yet a pharaoh in labour was no everyday occurrence. Her own lif
e and that of her successor were of such paramount importance to the future of the country that the birth would have been accompanied by every form of protection that the gods of Egypt and the rest of the ancient world could bestow. Isis the Great Mother was repeatedly invoked along with Hathor — her classical equivalents Greek Aphrodite and Caesar’s own ancestor the Roman Venus. Artemis was another vital member of the divine birth team. As the ‘Reliever of the birth pangs of women’ and revered as Artemis ‘Polymastica’ (meaning ‘the Many Breasted’), Artemis had left her own great temple in Ephesus to attend Alexander’s birth in Macedonia. She was linked to the Greek goddess Eileithyia, and portrayed like Isis with a torch to help mother and child in the darkness. The combined Artemis-Eileithyia declared, ‘I have brought forth the new-born baby at the tenth orbit of the moon — fit light for the deed that is consummated’.
Given the child’s paternity, the polytheistic Egyptians may well have invoked the Roman deities associated with childbirth, from Alemona who guarded the foetus to Partula who presided over the birth itself. And given the presence of Caesar’s troops within the palace quarter, it seems likely that at least one of their number would have performed the ancient, albeit bizarre, rite in which a light cavalry spear which had already been used to kill in battle would be thrown over the house in which the birth was taking place in order to ease the delivery. Known as the ‘hasta caelibaris’ or ‘celibate spear’, it was thought to have magical powers over life and death, although its purpose was the very opposite of that of the Roman spears which had rained down around the palace only six months before.
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