Complete Works of Talbot Mundy

by Talbot Mundy

  She assented, fearing Tros might speak his mind to Caesar otherwise, who was as capable of crucifying Tros as of beheading Vercingetorix. His magnanimity was more fitful and less predictable than ever, now that he was tasting the fruit of victories instead of winning them.

  The fruit was bitter. Very late that night as he and Cleopatra walked together in the gardens by the Tiber he complained to her of Rome’s ingratitude:

  “All that the world asks of its hero,” he said, “is success — until success comes. Then they demand that he shall lay his neck under their feet and submit himself to their stupid opinions. It was suggested to me when I reached the capitol to-night that I might do well to remember Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus. They refer to his simplicity. They invite me to be a sort of peasant farmer and eat my dinner of raw turnips seated on a fence. As if forsooth they themselves would do that. Hypocrites! And it appears that now Cato is dead there is a party devoted to praising him, as if that old humbug ever accomplished anything except to find fault with his betters. If I had celebrated a meager triumph for the sake of the economy they hint at, they would have accused me of being parsimonious and would denounce me for it to the mob.”

  Dangerous counsel she gave him. But she knew he needed comfort, not more criticism. He was weary from the day’s excitement, dreading three more days of it. The reek of Rome renewed his jaundice, and the physical strain of being the hub of Rome’s excitement from dawn until after dark had ill prepared him for the mental irritation of mean men’s gibes adroitly veiled by flattery and offered with a thin-lipped smile. She, too, had her nerves to consider: on the morrow she must watch the Egyptian triumph — her own subjects being led in chains, and trophies representing Egypt being flaunted before a mob that recognized no fine distinctions. She must reassure herself that Caesar, whatever the mob might think, distinctly in his own mind differentiated between Egypt and those Alexandrian rebels whom, according to her view of it, he had suppressed in justice to herself to raise her to an independent throne. He and she were alone again — utterly lonely amid tumult.

  “You have brought Rome wealth,” she answered. “Cities and men which have wealth in their keeping have no choice but to submit to the rule of him who permits or assists them to keep it. If I were in your shoes I would show my contempt for their jealousy, for you are greater than them all.”

  Because contempt provided the relief his nerves craved, he opened his mind to it as to a soothing drug. And because she had suggested it, and he realized, too, that she was nerving herself to witness the next day’s gross indignity toward her throne and country, he felt a sudden wave of generosity and offered her in turn a modicum of comfort. He was grateful that she had never once tried to obstruct him or to fortify her own position at the cost of his. Even her secret agents, all of whose activities were known to him, employed the policy of praising and supporting him in order to forward her interests.

  “I will confer full civic rights in Rome,” he said, “on all those Alexandrian officials whom you have brought here with you — doctors, astronomers, priests, financiers and who not else. My senators will object; but it may help to make them realize their unimportance. They may also learn how ignorant they are; for I will employ the Alexandrian financiers to organize the treasury.”

  Then, seeing that was hardly personal to her he grew reckless and urged her to use more ostentation; but she shrewdly saw the danger and refused. As opportunist as himself in some ways, she had rearranged her policy; she would maintain a quiet court and an extremely modest appearance in public but would lavish gifts and money wherever her busy agents, Serapion and Hammonios, advised her that that road to popularity was open. She had already sensed that the upper classes resented her influence over Caesar and that even the mob was jealous of her wealth and dignity.

  However, she felt obliged to witness the Egyptian triumph. She must celebrate with Caesar — must appear to enjoy the sight of rebels being led in chains to execution. So the balcony from which she looked on was splendidly decorated — a blaze of flowers and of banners with inscriptions to the effect that Egypt was grateful to Caesar for having suppressed rebellion and restored peace. Hammonios and Serapion had persuaded several wives of prominent Romans to share her hospitality on the balcony; they were plied with costly presents and delicious things to eat; and they flirted with Apollodorus and several other handsome Alexandrian gallants.

  But Cleopatra was not always in the best of tempers or in a mood to endure effrontery. She made no headway with the Roman women, whom she despised as lacking delicacy and civilized manners They openly admired her jewels and her hands and feet, but were as sarcastic as they dared to be and made pointed references to Caesar’s wife, Calpurnia, the effect of which on Cleopatra was to make her recklessly contemptuous:

  “Do you Roman women like being bought and sold?” she asked them. “I am told you think marriage respectable though your husbands and parents trade you for a handful of votes or for a provincial appointment. You should come to Egypt, where a man who tried to do that would be ostracized.”

  A matron tried to show the Roman viewpoint: “Women are more socially free in Rome than anywhere. Our money and possessions are our own. If we are divorced we take those with us. We have to yield something in return for all the freedom we enjoy.”

  “So you yield your self-respect?” suggested Cleopatra; and there was not much cordiality exhibited thenceforward. Conversation was mainly confined to questions by the Roman women, calculated to dismay and irritate, and to answers by Cleopatra that went straight between the joints of the armor of Roman self-esteem.

  The triumphal procession of that day was the least war-like and the most picturesque, coming as something of an anticlimax after the celebration of the conquest of Gaul. The principal attraction was the animals, some of them driven in herds and some confined in cages. There were effigies of Potheinos, Theodotus and Achillas; crowds of slaves all carrying sacks of corn; enormous floats conveying models of the Pyramid, the Sphynx, the Pharos lighthouse and a few of the Alexandrian temples. Effigies of the Egyptian gods were borne by priests; and there were a hundred Egyptian army chariots loaded with weapons, shields and helmets. The rest was a sort of streaming panorama illustrative of the population and its industries.

  But the center of attraction was Arsinoe, half naked, prouder than Diana and appearing chaste, oblivious of all the interest that she aroused and seeming to accept her escort as a guard of honor. Caesar had seen fit to let her wear no jewelry. She had no insignia of royalty except that her arms were loosely held with golden chains, whereas the other’ prisoners, were manacled with iron. Her name, without title, was painted on signs that men carried before and behind her. Taller than Cleopatra by an inch or two, she nevertheless looked like a queen in miniature and the crowd, that had hooted Vercingetorix the day before, took pity on her, venting displeasure instead on Ganymedes, who was dragged along behind her noisily lamenting the disgraceful fate that he knew awaited him. They had tried to make Ganymedes carry the sign on which was painted his name and the list of the crimes for which he was condemned to death, but he had refused although savagely beaten, and the man who bore it for him kept prodding him with the pole. Arsinoe took no notice of him and appeared indifferent to his suffering. She betrayed no emotion at all until she arrived abreast of Cleopatra’s balcony, enduring the hot stench and clamor of the mob, and the awkward cobblestones on which it was so difficult to walk with dignity, without glancing to right or left or seeming to care what happened to her. But as she passed the balcony she paused and, extending her chained hands, spat deliberately, so that the crowd laughed and for a while there was a jeering aimed at Cleopatra.

  That night Caesar came very late to the villa by the Tiber. He had been outside the city in the camps where next day’s captives were in custody and the confusion of preparation by torch and lamplight, the last minute changes and the sheer stupidity of tired officials had exasperated him to the verge of a nervous breakdown. Reports
of criticism, too, had worried him. And he had heard among other things about Arsinoe’s behavior and the mob’s reaction to it.

  “Do you wish her executed?” he asked curtly. “It can be done now. It is customary to behead important prisoners immediately after a triumph. It is now or never.”

  “No,” said Cleopatra. “Let her go to Cyprus. She is Queen of Cyprus.”

  “Are you afraid to kill her?” Caesar asked.

  “No. I am too proud to harbor fear of her. That is all.”

  Insomnia was wasting Caesar’s health and there was no relief he found so comforting as midnight hours with Cleopatra. She would pace the gardens with him or lie on couches on the roof where they could watch the light and shadow and hear the vague roar of the excited, half-slumbering city. All her conversation seemed to meet his mood; they never quarreled, never argued, always seemed to understand each other, and above all he enjoyed that courage of hers that never compromised with fear of other people and never advocated yielding to their opinions.

  “Never forget you are Caesar,” she urged him. “If you descend to the plane of thought of meaner men their numbers can overwhelm you. Stay above them, and they can neither reach you, understand you, nor do anything except obey your will.”

  He began to speak to her about his wife Calpurnia, a subject carefully avoided hitherto.

  “She is Caesar’s wife,” he said, “and she proposes not to risk that position by annoying me in any way whatever. So she annoys me by her tame submissiveness, which is hardly a good reason for divorce.”

  They laughed together over that for a few moments, until Cleopatra seized her opportunity and forwarded her own design with deeper guile than Caesar guessed, although he puzzled over why she should appear to throw away the chance at which he had plainly hinted.

  “Why divorce poor Calpurnia?” she asked. “Am I the alternative? Undeceive yourself! For it would ruin you and me to make me Caesar’s wife. If Caesar were raised to a throne could Caesar’s wife rise with him? Would Romans accept Calpurnia as Queen? You know they would not! She would still be merely Caesar’s wife. As long as you are merely a dictator marriage is not worth discussing.”

  He began to fall in love with her again, with all the more determination since she turned the conversation into other channels and encouraged him to unburden his mind of the problems of the hour weighing so heavily upon him.

  The third day’s triumph celebrated the victory in Pontus and the “Veni, vidi, vici” of the letter to Amantius was painted on an enormous tablet, borne through the streets in front of Caesar, who sat smiling in his chariot, less flattered by the mob’s applause than cynically recognizing the effect of the timely use of carefully chosen phrases. The crowd raged with delight. The three words became a synonym for Caesar, and the least important victory of all became the greatest in the popular imagination.

  But more thoughtful men, considering the boast in bad taste and afraid of Caesar’s daily increasing popularity, were not at pains to hide their feelings from him; and when Caesar came to Cleopatra early in the evening he was irritable and it was a long time before he admitted her into confidence; but when he did he withheld nothing:

  The following day he was to celebrate his victory over Cato, and there were rumors that his arrangements were not likely to be over-well received. He was not in the least afraid of rioting; he had his troops where they could overwhelm the city at a moment’s notice. But criticism and the hints that men kept letting fall were like the dripping rain through a roof — discouraging and totally destructive of his own enjoyment of the triumph.

  “I don’t mind what Brutus says, for I know Brutus; he is ever old-fashioned and alert for something new to shock his moral susceptibility. He joins one school after another and at present is mourning Cato, whom he hated recently. But Cassius and others — I think Cicero is one of them — are accusing me of bad taste in celebrating a triumph over rebellious Romans. They are of the opinion that Cato’s memory should be allowed to rest in peace.”

  He had come to the last place for discouragement or for any counsel of backsliding.

  “Who is the ruler of Rome?” she retorted. “You or Cicero and Cassius and Brutus? Is it they who have shown such taste and wisdom and ability to rule? Or is it you who teach them? Did not Cato flee to Africa and set up a rival government on foreign soil? Has any other Roman ever done that? Do you think you would be justified in letting Rome forget too easily the fate of such rebels? And suppose you were to cancel your arrangements for tomorrow’s triumph and omit that altogether, what then? Would not your malcontents say that you fear them?”

  It was nearly dawn before he left her to snatch the few hours’ fretful sleep that were all that his nerves permitted him. Before he left he had talked to her about his will and his nephew and heir Octavian, discovering her once more scornful of apparent opportunity.

  “Caesar,” she said, “if you should die and they should find you had left Caesarion your heir, with me as the executrix, what hope would there be of Rome assenting to that arrangement? It will be time enough to change your will when you are king of Rome, and have conquered Parthia, and the Romans recognize your acts and wishes as divine — to be obeyed, not tampered with.”

  He nodded. He had known no woman, and remarkably few men, who at her age could refuse the shadow for the substance. All his old enthusiasm for her flooded back; his old impulsiveness returned; he would have proclaimed her his queen and wife before the world that moment if she had consented.

  But when he was gone Olympus came and, standing beside her on the roof, gazed long in silence at the city, where the temple lights were dying and grimness, raw and ominous, was shaping the soft night shadows into bricks and mortar for the dawning day.

  “It is a city of dreadful destiny,” he said at last, turning to her. “A devourer! All life is its meat; all men and women are its fuel for the furnace of its passion. Give — give — give, and it will take — take — take, returning insolence for generosity and cruelty for gentleness! Self-glorifying, and self-destroyed at last, how many men and women — aye, and nations and hopes and aspirations shall not perish in its vortex, as the moths that are dazzled and die, when they cherish the flame! Caesar, I tell you, Egypt, is the soul of all that wolfish greed, that shall devour him and shall make of him an excrement, as fire makes ashes of the wood that feeds it. And his soul shall enter into ashes; they shall be the ashes of ideas; so that whatever is vile on the face of the earth and without merit but only empty and cruel and false shall be honored in the days to come in Caesar’s name!”

  She resented it.

  “Rome,” she retorted, “is all that you say it is. Caesar is Caesar! If he is the soul of Rome, he shall redeem Rome, as our souls redeem our lower natures. Give? Give? Does he not give of his genius? What is there that Rome can take from Caesar that he cannot give doubly again and again? That source is inexhaustible! The greater part of godliness is liberality and bounty. Gods give. Mortals take, and squander and corrupt. Let Caesar only know how much a god he is, and he shall pour such affluence of virtue into Rome as shall make Egypt stir herself to prove an equal merit! Fie on you, Olympus! You are become a raven croaking in the dark!”

  She stayed away from that last day’s triumph, not because she dreaded the possible outcome but because she was aware of Caesar’s irritable dignity. She preferred not to witness such insults as the Romans might offer him, knowing that he would feel about that as he did about the epilepsy and perhaps remain away from her a day or two. He was morbidly sensitive and, when humiliated, as inclined to sulk as he was sure to be revengeful. She knew what a conscienceless rabble of bankrupt peasantry and mongrel aliens the Roman mob was, proud of its ignorance and taught to look to buyers of its votes for sustenance and fun; it was a vulgar, riotous, indecent mob, as cruel as superstitious; but its god was Rome and Cleopatra understood that just as well as Caesar did. All other gods were tributary. He who offered insult to the dignity of Roman citizenship, did
so at his peril.

  So Caesar’s course was stark audacity, and in the outcome bitterly resented, when he rode through Rome parading wagonloads of captured Roman weapons and the standards of defeated Roman legions. The great spectacle that he provided — elephants, ivory, ostriches — ebony-black Numidians and droves of women — effigies of Cato and his friends — a chariot drawn by lions and a hundred more or less important victims, bound and naked, whipped along the streets to face the executioner — was received in silence. And in silence the senators greeted him when he ascended the steps of the capitol, where for three days in succession they had shouted themselves hoarse to demonstrate that, whatever their private feelings, they admired his generalship.

  He paused and eyed them one by one with glittering contempt before he strode to the altar to offer the victor’s sacrifice.

  “You do well to be silent,” he assured them sharply.

  “Let the spectacle that you have seen to-day serve to remind you of the fate of all self-seeking and disloyal men!”

  That speech committed him. Thenceforward there could be no compromise. He had issued his challenge. He was absolute. They must submit themselves obediently to his will or reckon themselves rebels against Rome and either take the consequences or else overthrow him if they could.

  That night he took the reins of power wholly in his own hands, conferring alone with Cleopatra as to what instructions he should issue for reorganizing all the provinces and reconditioning alliances with subject kings. He made long memoranda to be drafted into laws and senatorial decrees, to be presented to the Senate for immediate confirmation without discussion — a deliberate challenge to the Senate — a repudiation of its power, its rights, its privilege.

  And Cleopatra needed no urging to play Egypt’s hand. She knew that Herod, among others, had been bribing every senator whose friendship was for sale. She showed her grasp of the strategic situation in the East and her almost unerring judgment of individuals, amazing Caesar with the shrewd advice she gave him and, at last, when they had settled nearly all the boundaries, as by an afterthought she slipped into her net the richest slice of Herod’s heritage — the rich, low-lying orchard lands of Jericho.