by Talbot Mundy
“That sort of language may accomplish what you intend when you address your dancing-girls, but it only shows me that your tutors neglected their duty. It is possibly my duty to remove you to Rome, where you would have less opportunity to make yourself ridiculous.”
The unintentional clang of a Roman’s shield against a breastplate, breaking on the silence, sounded loud and ominous. It startled Ptolemy into even less restrained speech. Throwing off Potheinos’ hand again, he shouted:
“You, Caesar, of all demagogues in regal garments! You with your little remnant of an army! Precedents and restoring order! You, who have defied your own laws! You, the rebel who invaded Rome! You, who have ruined every land on which you set foot! Go! Take my sister to Rome! Take her and welcome!” (He was choking.) “But begone! Or I will crucify your little army one by one — aye, crucify them! — to the masts of those impudent ships that you have dared to moor beneath my balconies! Begone, and leave me here to reign alone!”
“You will reign according to the treaty and your father’s testament, or not at all,” said Caesar. “Let me warn you: it is easier for me to remove you from the throne forever than to talk about doing it.”
Then Ptolemy’s passion overwhelmed him and Potheinos’ efforts to restrain him only aggravated rage. He turned and slapped Potheinos’ face. He struck another minister who dared to try to remonstrate. Gnashing his teeth he snatched his golden wreath and hurled it on the floor at Caesar’s feet.
“There! Tread on that! Amuse yourself by spitting on it! You, who talk of treaties and restoring order! — Ho!” he shouted. “Alexandrians! This Roman, with his pirate and his Jew, has insulted Egypt!”
Pandemonium broke loose. Excitable at the best of times and liable to lose their heads in any crisis — realizing now that Caesar possibly intended to retain them all as hostages, those notables began to give an exhibition of the city’s temper, men’s and women’s voices vying in a tumult of execration that brought all twelve lictors closing in on Caesar to protect him.
But if Caesar was disturbed he showed no sign of it, not even glancing in the direction of his guards. Ahenobarbus served a warning with one trumpet-blast and followed that with the heavy tramp of armed men as he made his legionaries mark time. His second warning was a blast from all six trumpets — a clamorous, raucous, insolent tara-ra, ending on a high note like a herald’s challenge.
And then silence — sudden and still as the coming of death. Some unexpected thing had happened — nobody knew what. Even Caesar’s eyes now turned toward the legionaries, who had halted after wheeling into double line with trumpeters behind them. In front of them Ahenobarbus stood with sword drawn. Suddenly he raised it and the throne-room echoed to the clang of sixty shields on armor as the legionaries moved in thrilling unison and stiffened in salute. It was moments before all eyes turned toward the dais —
She had entered by the door behind the screen of emeralds. She was already seated on the right-hand throne, a scepter in her hand, and on her head the double crown of Egypt. The black Amazonians behind her rhythmically swayed the ostrich-feather fans, and in a rigid row behind them were a dozen Gaulish guards commanded by a man who might have been Olympus, only nobody had ever seen Olympus in a helmet, wearing armor. Charmian, in pure white, looking frightened, stood beside her; and to the right of the throne, wearing a wreath of roses, and his handsome face lit with amusement, Apollodorus waited for the exact, artistically chosen moment to announce her. Suddenly he threw his hand up:
“Royal Egypt — Pharaoh of the Upper and the Lower Nile!” he chanted in a voice that filled the throne-room.
Caesar, Calvinus and Tros saluted her. Esias stepped into obscurity behind the breadth of Tros’ back. The lictors, taking their cue from Caesar, raised their fasces, and at sight of the upraised ax-blades all Ahenobarbus’ trumpeters let rip a fanfare.
Cleopatra sat still, smiling with the mystic calm that gazed on Nile and desert from the faces of the statues of the olden kings — the symbol of the soul of Egypt.
Ptolemy threw his cloak over his face. He wept. He shouted he was cheated by a wanton — by a she-dog — by a pupil of the Didascalion — by witchcraft.
Caesar went to him and in a low voice, audible to none except the prince himself, spoke like a father to him. It was possible to hear the bat-like rhythm of the fans behind the throne.
Ptolemy ceased weeping, amid dreadful stillness. There was drama yet to come, so the Alexandrians sat straining — breathless — and Cleopatra neither spoke nor moved, although Charmian seemed to be whispering to her. Caesar strode back to his own place where he stood and licked his upper lip, selecting words to rivet the sensation and snatch bloodless victory.
But rage seized Ptolemy again. He stood up, gesturing at Cleopatra as if hatred could destroy her. Three times in succession he clenched his fists as if he picked up filth. Three times — pausing, as it were, to see the straightness of his aim — he hurled imaginary missiles at her — symbolism that his nurses or the slave-girls may have taught him.
Then he turned on Caesar, struggling to suppress the sobs that broke his voice:
“Do you suppose I want a throne that I must share with her?” he exploded. “She will watch me — she will set traps — she will interfere — am I to be a prisoner in my palace? Hers and yours? I know — everybody knows what has happened! She and you—”
A raised hand made him pause, for Caesar’s anger was hypnotic when a matter touched him personally and he chose to let his face and attitude declare it. Words froze on Ptolemy’s lips.
“If you feel that way about it, you may leave the Lochias,” said Caesar.
Ptolemy clenched his fists and shouted:
“I refuse to leave the Lochias!”
The furrows around Caesar’s mouth resembled chisel strokes on marble as he answered:
“Then listen to me: a king, in Roman eyes, is only as important as his own good sense may make him. Present difficulties are the outcome of mismanagement, which I can readily perceive has not been wholly your fault. But the future must depend on present wisdom, and of that I see no signs. Do you propose to let me see how wise you are? Or will you leave the Lochias and show me how incapable you are of solving your own difficulties?”
From behind Ptolemy Potheinos was whispering, whispering, the other ministers, like dummies in a row, avoiding compromise by saying, doing nothing. There was something not altogether unworthy of admiration about the eunuch’s efforts to save the situation; he appeared to have forgotten his own feelings and even his own dignity — to be thinking solely of his master’s interests. Ptolemy’s next answer, shouted like a spoiled child’s, was addressed as much to Potheinos as to Caesar:
“No, I will not leave the Lochias! I have my father’s palace. I refuse to leave it! I will stay here. Let Achillas hurry before Caesar can summon reenforcements! Caesar has the whole world to draw soldiers from, has he? — So — then if we give him time he will defeat my army! Then she and he will have everything — everything! No! I stay here! Let Caesar do whatever he wishes until Achillas comes!”
“Incipient wisdom!” remarked Caesar. “I perceive the signs of germinating common sense! But to instruct you fully is likely to cost me more trouble than Achillas’ army has the slightest chance of doing!”
“Trouble!” Ptolemy retorted, pointing at Cleopatra. “There is your trouble! She bewitches everyone who sees her for the first time! She will wear that purple cloak of yours to-morrow — and then you will either wring her neck and throw her in the sea or else take orders from her! Come away, Potheinos!”
By main force Potheinos and two other ministers restrained him, forcing him down in his chair. The Alexandrians, who riotously loved their liberties, preferred, nevertheless, that their kings should seem omnipotent — would rather that their tyrants should preserve at least an air of tyranny. But Ptolemy forestalled their burst of indignation by beginning to shed tears again, collapsing in his chair and covering his face.
&n
bsp; Potheinos put a word in:
“Caesar, you can see his Majesty is unwell. He is nervous.”
Once more Caesar crossed the carpet. He called for the vacant chair that had been meant for Cleopatra. He sat beside the boy. With something of the skill that he reputedly employed in wooing women he began to coax him, calming him, suggesting to him possibilities that might ensue if he should rise to the occasion and behave himself more like a monarch and a man of courage Sulkily the prince began to yield, and Caesar took him by the hand. At a nod from him the lictors raised their fasces. Instantly Ahenobarbus ordered a fanfare by the trumpets and his legionaries clanged a bronze-on-bronze salute.
Caesar then led Ptolemy toward the dais, up the steps, and to the throne beside his sister, all the notables applauding until the room grew thunderous. Cleopatra neither spoke nor moved, but Charmian’s eyes were like those of a victim waiting for the executioner; it was not clear which she dreaded most, young Ptolemy or Caesar.
“O Alexandrians,” said Caesar, speaking from before the throne when the applause had died, “I urge you to remember: a treaty is binding. A monarch’s testament may not be set aside except by mutual consent.”
If he was conscious that the Alexandrians regarded him as champion of treaty-breakers and as arch-repudiator of traditions, he betrayed no sign of it. Himself among the foremost orators of Rome, he none the less omitted oratory, thus immeasurably strengthening the force of his appeal. Magnanimously letting pass the scene that they had witnessed, and the insults to himself, he concentrated on the need to settle differences; himself he took the first step:
“Nothing would be easier,” he went on, “than to end with violence what these misunderstandings have begun. It would be well within my reasonable privilege — an act of justice even — to retain you all as hostages to guarantee tranquillity and the fulfilment of those lawful claims that I, as Rome’s chief magistrate, am here to prosecute. But I prefer another method, weary as I am of violence and carnage, and unwilling as I ever have been to resort to force of arms so long as milder means remain untried.”
He spoke as if he honestly believed his own words. But there were some who saw the crow’s-foot wrinkle at the corners of the eyes of Calvinus, his freedman, who had known him intimately many years.
“So you may go,” said Caesar. “You may pass out from the Lochias. And you may come when loyalty impels you to do homage to the Queen and King, who occupy the throne together in accordance with their father’s testament and under the protection of the Roman People. For the present” — he looked sharply at Potheinos— “I will recommend no change of ministers, since men familiar with past events are sometimes better capable than substitutes of reuniting broken threads — a purpose to which I, also, will address my efforts.”
Potheinos, meeting his deliberately searching gaze, stood up and bowed to him, then made obeisance to the thrones. The other ministers immediately followed suit, more humbly, arousing the mirth of the Alexandrians. There began to be laughter, and comment shouted from the gallery:
“Make all of them into eunuchs, Caesar! They would be even more amenable!”
“Draw their teeth, too!”
“Give them Roman citizenship!”
Caesar blazed in to their rescue. He could make men breathless with his sheer restraint of white-hot dignity.
“If force of arms is needed to support authority, I have it!”
At the words Ahenobarbus sent another trumpet-peal resounding through the room; and when the clamor of that had died Caesar arrogated to himself a privilege that no crowned head of Egypt ever yet had let slip from his own grasp: he dismissed them, with a regal insolence that cost him many hundred men before the Alexandrians at last submitted.
“You may do your homage to the throne — then go, and spread the news through Alexandria.”
And so the tense scene ended in the calm of ceremony — ominously quiet, like a lull before a simoon. Marshaled into the line by Caesar’s lictors and the palace guards, the galaxy of beauty that Potheinos had assembled to seduce the calvus moechus looked a little drooped and disappointed as it filed by. And yet not so meek as its obeisance, on the surface, indicated. Bowing to the two thrones it divided its attention between Caesar and the young girl queen, who sat as mystically calm as if that double crown of Egypt had in some unfathomable fashion defied her — she who — rumor had it — came to Caesar rolled up in a carpet in the night.
Caesar, standing well away from both thrones, viewed the Alexandrian nobility as if he were a purple god from high Olympus meditating what new destiny his genius should presently provide.
CHAPTER XX. “Egypt — could you make Rome wise?”
Only the immoral are disturbed about the semblance of morality. The actually moral care no more about it than a fish cares for the name by which men call the sea in which he swims.
— Fragment from The Diary Of Olympus.
UNDER the stars, on the palace roof, resting against a marble balustrade over which she gazed at the harbor, Cleopatra stood alone between Charmian and Olympus.
“When you are gloomy like this,” said Charmian, “I am more afraid of you than of your enemies.”
Olympus signed to her to keep still, but she was now and then as suddenly jealous of Olympus as if she thought him responsible for all their difficulties.
“Night is the mother of day,” she said, quoting the Isis ritual. “Out of the gloom, lo! glory cometh!”
“Out of the dark the knives of murderers!” said Cleopatra. “How can you prate of good, when there is only evil! Caesar has intensified the evil. He arouses enmity and dallies with it — cat-and-mouses with it!”
“Would you have him burn the city?” Charmian asked.
“I would have him open his eyes and see his opportunity. I can do nothing now without his aid; and his army is too small for anything but guarding the Lochias. Is he afraid of me?”
“I think he is not afraid enough, and he admires you too well,” Charmian said darkly.
“He is slow,” she answered. But as if to mask the underlying meaning of that she added, “Has he not been warned how Arsinoe and Ganymedes are plotting to join Achillas? Does he not know that Potheinos is planning to murder all of us?”
“He knows Potheinos and Ganymedes mistrust each other,” said Olympus. “Probably he waits the outcome of their jealousy.”
“And meantime, does he mistrust me? Do you suppose that Samothracian forgot to warn him against me?”
“No,” said Olympus, smiling. “Tros told Caesar you will snare him to his ruin. Calvinus and all Caesar’s officers are still laughing about it. Caesar has sent Tros to Herod and to Mithridates of Pergamum and to Antipater, Herod’s father. Tros refused at first to go, saying he was your admiral and that his ship needed repairs. But Caesar threatened to destroy his ship, which was helpless for the moment, being careened and mended below the waterline. Caesar promised, on the other hand, whatever Tros might ask in reason after his return from Syria. So Tros agreed. But he warned Caesar against you again so tragically that Calvinus mocked him.”
“What did Tros say?”
“Tros said: ‘As a crock goes to the well too often, Caesar, you will tempt one woman too many!’ Caesar answered: ‘Do you fear for me or for the woman?’ And Calvinus said: ‘You are perhaps dissatisfied that Caesar did not know your mother?’ Whereat Caesar reproved Calvinus, who withdrew from the room to continue his laughter.”
Cleopatra leaned against the balustrade and watched the comet in the northern sky that had brought all Alexandria to the housetops, and had filled the temples full to overflowing with suppliants for mercy against heaven’s wrath.
“Olympus,” she said, suddenly turning again to lean her back against the balustrade, “is there a reigning king, or a living heir to any king’s throne, who would be reckoned fit, by THEM, to see what I saw, hear what I heard, do what I did, at Dendera?”
“That I know not,” Olympus answered. “If they have found one
fit, then they have in all likelihood signified as much to him.”
“At Dendera?”
“Elsewhere possibly. They recognize no boundaries. Wherever food is, thither fly the birds.”
“And Caesar?”
“Caesar and his eagles — love-birds?”
She turned away again. Olympus waited silently, aware there was a question coming that he would have to answer yea or nay. His black robe shaded away into shadow by imperceptible graduations, so that except when he moved he resembled a disembodied specter — face and hands emerging out of gloom. Cleopatra watched the comet, and the Pharos beacon — ruby-red against the purple night. Charmian tapped a finger-nail against her teeth, and suddenly nearly screamed at the sound of armor clashing in the darkness near at hand.
“It is only the Gauls relieving guard,” remarked Olympus.
The interruption seemed to crystallize a thought in Cleopatra’s mind — to make it concrete — almost to explode it. She turned on Olympus as if accusing him:
“Answer me: THEY are the choosers. But what if an unchosen man should storm their secrets and insert himself among the gods? What then?”
“You speak of Caesar?”
“Never mind of whom I speak, but answer me!”
“It is impossible to force the impregnable, on which no violence can be brought to bear,” said Olympus. “Caesar can slay men’s bodies. Can he slay their souls?”
She tried another angle of assault: “What if I, who have been chosen, choose another? What then?”
“Can you?” he retorted. “Are you wise enough to read a man’s heart, and its past, and its destiny? You have had lovers, Egypt, even as this Land of Khem has lovers — nay, devourers! You have tried them and thrown them aside. Were you then such a wise chooser?”
“For what then is my genius, Olympus, unless to test and choose? Men test their weapons. And my body is the only weapon that I have. Shall I yield my body to a man who might beget me weakling sons? Or to a hero? Knowing what I know, shall I submit myself to bearing children who could never know? Or shall I prefer barrenness? If so, for what are a woman’s attributes? I am told I shall reign over Egypt. I am told I shall save our Wisdom from the iron forces that would mangle and obliterate it. Shall I do all that, and leave no son to carry on my work?”