The Memoirs of Cleopatra

by Margaret George

  We spread out our blankets on the sand between the creature’s paws and kept the parasols over our heads. There was little talking; it was as if the vast silence of the place forbade it. We could see a raised causeway off to one side, and knew it was an abandoned road to a pyramid, perhaps used to push stones along in the building of it. But no one walked it now.

  We watched the day pass from under the shadow of the Sphinx. Occasionally a black shape would fly through the deep blue sky—a vulture. Or the sands would move a little, and we would see a small snake burrowing deeper to escape the heat. But other than that, there was no movement. This was a place in the grip of death.

  I wondered who lay inside the pyramids, and what was there with them. There must surely be jewelry, food, books, and instruments. Somewhere in that utter darkness and isolation in the heart of the pyramid would be paintings of stars and Nut, goddess of the sky, as if to fool the dead Pharaohs into believing they lay outdoors under the night sky, rather than imprisoned in stone and surrounded by stale, stifling air for eternity.

  The pyramids gradually began to change color. At noon they had been almost white, but that softened to a tan and then, as the sun sank lower—Atum again—they took on a warm glow with a rosy tinge. Little creatures—lizards, snakes, mice—began to stir and leave their hiding places all around us. We also emerged from the paws of the Sphinx and walked around the pyramids again. Now great, long shadows stretched on one side, and the slant of the light showed all the irregularities of the surfaces. Here and there the stones were crumbling; time was eating away at their fabric. Even they, the most immortal things anyone knew of, were not proof against the relentless enmity of time.

  The setting sun picked out the pebbles and ripples of the sands all around, showing the pyramids to lie not in a featureless frame but in a richly textured one, whose writing is invisible except under certain light conditions.

  The sky was pink and purple, a twisted mixture of colors spreading upward from a bright red spot at the horizon. A breeze suddenly sprang up out of nowhere, warm like melted ointment, and as sweet as a long-ago death.

  “Come,” said Nebamun. “We should leave. It grows dark very quickly, and we should not be here when the light fades.” He hopped on his donkey with surprising speed.

  What would the pyramids be like at night? Darkness against darkness?

  I wanted to stay. But I was young, and must obey.

  7

  Nothing is ever the same twice. I expected that the journey back would be exactly like the one coming. And for a while it was—the same riverbanks, the same canals, the same clumps of date palms. But as we neared Alexandria and saw the white towers of the city walls blinking in the sun, we saw an unusual amount of movement, and crowds of people. Nebamun called out, “What’s the news?” as we approached the dock.

  “Cleopatra’s dead!”

  Although I knew it was not I, it is chilling to hear the death of someone with your name announced so nonchalantly.

  “Poisoned!” cried another man on the dock. “I’m sure of it!”

  “Where is Berenice?” asked Nebamun.

  “In the palace. Where else should she be?”

  “She hasn’t fled, if that’s what you’re asking,” his companion added. “But she might well have to. One of the other children already has—the younger Cleopatra. They’re out looking for her everywhere. The Romans are coming.”

  “The Romans? What Romans?” I cried.

  “The Romans from Rome,” said the man with sarcasm. “What other kind are there?”

  “Not true,” said his companion smugly. “These Romans are coming from Syria—three legions—to try to restore Ptolemy to the throne. He bought them, after all.”

  “But the prophecy? What of the prophecy?” I asked. By that time we were out of the boat and scrambling out onshore. “Supposedly the Sibylline books forbade any armed help from Rome.”

  “Money finds a way,” said the man. “Clever child, if you know about Sibylline books, you should know that money overrules all prophecies.”

  “Come!” said Nebamun, herding us toward the street of the Soma. He was alarmed, and realized he should return us to the palace as quickly as possible. As it was, he would probably be lashed as punishment for taking us.

  “Nebamun, don’t be afraid,” I said. “It was my idea to go; I will take the blame and the punishment.” My sister would be pleased enough to order mine, that I knew; but whether she would forgo Nebamun’s lashing as well was not so certain.

  Had she poisoned Cleopatra? Would she destroy me, and Arsinoe as well? I felt weak with fear.

  Once back in the palace, I did not wait for her to send for me, but went straight to her quarters. They were filled with professional mourners, weeping and beating on their breasts, and wailing in high, ghostly moans. I begged leave to go directly to the Queen’s rooms, and, flinging myself down in sorrow—and trepidation—awaited her. I heard her footsteps come nearer and stop.

  “Oh, sister!” I cried. “Is it so? Is Cleopatra dead? And have I added to your grief by being absent? Forgive me!” I did not have to feign my distress.

  “Get up; stop sniveling. Yes, our sister is dead. Mushrooms have been her entry into the realm of Osiris. One must be careful with mushrooms. I avoid them entirely.”

  I looked at her, stolid and seemingly unmoved by the death. No one should be unmoved by death, I thought. Then, as I looked closer, I saw that there was a half-smile on her face, which she was trying hard to keep under control.

  “Where have you been?” she shot at me. “How dare you leave the palace and stay away for days without informing me? You are only a child! Who is behind this?”

  “It was I who planned it, and forced Nebamun, Mardian’s uncle, to take me, and several others. We did it to him, not he to us.” Please let her believe me!

  “Take you where?”

  “To see the pyramids and the Sphinx.”

  I expected her to be angry, but she burst out laughing. Then I realized why. She had been afraid we were involved in something political, but this was innocent. I felt relief flooding me. She was not going to harm me. Not today.

  “I’ve never seen them myself,” she said. “I am a bit embarrassed to admit it.”

  “They were all I had dreamed of,” I said. “They made me proud to be an Egyptian.”

  “You aren’t an Egyptian, you are a Ptolemy—a Greek!” she reminded me.

  “The Ptolemies have been here three hundred years; we must be Egyptian by now.”

  “What a stupid thing to say! Another of your silly ideas! We don’t have a drop of Egyptian blood; it doesn’t matter how long we’ve been here!”

  “But—” I started to say that we could be Egyptian in spirit if not in blood, but she cut me off.

  “If a red piece of granite stands next to a gray piece of granite for a thousand years, does it change?” she bellowed.

  “People are not granite,” I insisted.

  “Sometimes they can be almost that hard.”

  “Not you,” I said. “There is a part of you that is kind.” I was trying to flatter her.

  The half-smile returned. “I hope my husband may find me so.”

  “Husband?” I almost choked.

  “Yes. I had just married when our sister Cleopatra left us. She turned my house of joy into one of mourning. But such are the accidents of fate.”

  “Who—who is he?”

  “Prince Archelaus of Pontus,” she replied, and this time the smile became a full one. He must be handsome, and pleasing to her.

  “How much has happened in the few days I was away!” I blurted out.

  “And more besides,” she said. “We are making ready to defend ourselves against our father’s mercenaries! With Roman money—borrowed, of course—he has hired yet other Romans to invade Egypt and try to take back the throne!” Her voice shook with the effrontery of it all.

  “But what of the Sibylline prophecy?” I asked, yet again.


  “Cicero found a way around it! Yes, the great Roman orator, who prides himself on being so noble, is like any merchant making a deal in the bazaar. The only difference is that he trades in words, not deeds.”

  “But what words did he use?” Would no one tell me? I knew the prophecy: If an Egyptian king should come asking for help, do not refuse him friendship; but do not go to his aid with force, for if you do you will meet with dangers and difficulties. How to get around that?

  “Something to the effect that Gabinius, the Roman governor of Syria, should send the King on ahead of him, so that he won’t be accompanying him ‘with force’—only backing him up!” She snorted. “We shall be ready for them!” she said with certainty.

  Father was on his way back! The Romans would restore him to the throne! It was all I could do not to burst into cheers. “I shall stay in my quarters,” I assured her. “You need not worry again about my whereabouts. I am grieved that my absence caused you any concern.”

  She had forgotten about punishing Nebamun; the Roman army had banished all ordinary thoughts from her mind. I would hide in my rooms and hope she forgot about me, too.

  Things happened very quickly. It was your wish, O Isis—you who deliver the plotter of evil against other men into the hands of the one he plots against—that my father, Ptolemy XII Philopator Neos Dionysus, should be restored to his throne. It was you who brought the troops of Gabinius to the outskirts of Egypt at Pelusium, who let them overcome the garrison there, and march upon Alexandria. It was you who caused the confusion and overthrow of Berenice’s forces and the death of her new bridegroom, Archelaus. It was you who made Gabinius’s young cavalry commander show mercy to the defeated Egyptians, and give an honorable burial to Archelaus, and thus win the love of the Alexandrians. His Roman name was Marcus Antonius, and he was twenty-seven years old.

  It was you who arranged it all, moved all these events, in only a few days provided my entire future and revealed its form.

  Berenice must be publicly executed. Now I was the eldest surviving child, the one who would be Queen.

  Queen. I would be Queen. I kept repeating the words to myself, but I was not impatient for it before my time; unlike my sisters, I would let it happen when it was destined to. Their attempts to twist fate had merely given the throne to me. That made me smile.

  I—Queen. The third child, and a girl. Truly, this was the work of Isis, she who shapes fate.

  My joy at seeing Father again was unbounded. I threw my arms around him, realizing that now my eyes were almost level with his. He had been away three long years, years that had wrought many changes in me.

  “You are back! Safe!” It seemed impossible, as the answers to prayers often do.

  He was looking at me as if he had forgotten what he would see. “You have grown lovely, child,” he finally said. “You will be the Queen that Egypt deserves.”

  “I am fourteen now,” I reminded him, in case he had lost track. “I hope I will not be Queen for a long time—may the Pharaoh live for a million years, as the ancients said.”

  “Your smile is the same,” said Father gently. “I carried it with me in my heart the whole time.”

  Yet this same sentimental man forced us to witness the execution of his other daughter, Berenice. How can we be so many different people, all contained within the same body?

  I tried to excuse myself, on the grounds that it was an intrusion; a person should be able to die privately. But Father insisted.

  “Just as her treason was public,” he said, “so too must her punishment be.”

  And he insisted that the Romans be present, too. The Romans, who had restored him to power—for a price. Now they must see what their money had bought.

  We had to take our places before a barracks that housed the Household Guards; seats of honor had been hastily erected. Before leaving for the grounds, Father had presented the Roman officers to me. Aulus Gabinius was a square, stocky man, a no-nonsense sort, as one would expect of someone who defied a prophecy. And his star cavalry officer, Marcus Antonius…I found him a winsome young man, one whose smile was genuine.

  And, to be honest, that is all I remember of him from that first meeting.

  Berenice was led out before the barracks, her hands bound behind her back. She was not blindfolded, but forced to look at us all, her ghoulish audience.

  “You have been found guilty of treason, of usurping the throne in the absence of your rightful King,” intoned Pothinus, one of the King’s ministers, a young eunuch. His voice had the timbre of a child’s but the carrying power of an adult’s. “For this you must pay the penalty, and die.”

  “Have you any words?” asked the King. It was a formality only. Did he truly wish to hear any?

  “Slave of the Romans!” she cried. “There they sit!” She jerked her head toward Gabinius and Antonius and Rabirius, the moneylender who had financed the campaign. “There they sit, never to be dislodged from Egypt! Who, then, is the traitor to this country, Father?”

  “Enough!” said Pothinus. “This will be your last breath!” He motioned to the soldier who was to strangle her. The man stepped up behind her. His forearms were the size of most men’s thighs.

  Berenice was standing rigid, waiting. She closed her eyes as he brought his hands around her throat, then clasped them with a jerk. For what seemed a very long time she was obviously holding her breath, but then suddenly her body rebelled and she began twisting, trying to loosen his grip. Her hands were helplessly tied behind her, and there was little she could do. The soldier finally lifted her up by her neck and held her there as the life was snuffed out in her and her body at last stopped twitching. Her feet hung down straight from the ankles; one of her sandals fell off, making a loud plop in the still air. I saw that her face had turned a hideous dark color, and I looked away. Then I heard a noise of tramping feet, and saw her being loaded onto a litter and carried away. One of her feet—the one without a sandal—dragged along the ground; if she had been living it would have distressed her. But now she did not mind.

  Father’s face had lost its color, although he did not betray any open emotion. Next to him Gabinius had winced, and Antonius had looked away. Soldiers preferred battlefield killing to this formal, ritualized death. On either side of me sat my remaining siblings, taking in this cautionary lesson. Arsinoe had given a sharp gasp when the executioner stepped forward. The two boys—six and four—squirmed in unison. Even they understood that this was not a game, that Berenice would not jump up off the litter. We all saw, and learned, different things that day.

  As I watched the hideous ritual, I knew that she had bequeathed something to me, something she had not exactly intended. From her I knew now that a woman could rule alone—a strong woman, that is. The earlier Ptolemaic queens had come to power through their marriages, but Berenice had proved that a woman could seize her own power, and only afterward choose the man. Or choose no man at all, should she prefer that.

  Then, I was acutely aware that Roman troops had brought about this restoration, and that Roman troops were for hire for the promise of Ptolemaic money. Their forces, our money: a formidable combination. And last, in spite of the hatred of the Romans as a political fact, individual Romans were not demons. In fact, they could be quite attractive. Gabinius and this Antonius were personable, pleasant, and well mannered. All the pat jokes about Romans being barbarians—I remembered what I had believed about them before the Pompey dinner—were simply not true.

  And there was something else, something I had glimpsed in all this: The Romans were divided among themselves. One group was against restoring Father, another for it. One set of rules forbade it, but a clever rewording got around that. Everything in Rome was not set in stone, and perhaps one side could be used to counteract another….

  These were ideas, formless at the time, but just beginning to reveal themselves to me. The Romans were not merely a force against which we were helpless, but were torn by factions and rivalries of their own, which could be turne
d to our advantage. I saw that our adversary had holes in his armor. Father had successfully exploited one—with Egyptian money. One must always have money.

  Father made it clear that the Romans were welcome to stay in Alexandria—for a short time. Then they should discreetly remove themselves. But first there was to be a Dionysian festival to celebrate the King’s restoration to the throne. He saw himself as the descendant of that mysterious god of wine, of joy and drama and life itself. In the great festivals of Bacchus—the god’s Roman name—he sought release and ecstasy and belonging: all the things he could not find in Alexandria in the broad daylight, dazzling though it is in that city of cities.

  In readying myself for the formal procession through the streets, I was acutely aware that I would be the object of intense curiosity. I, hitherto the third child and practically unnoticed, was now the heir. Everyone would want to assess me; all eyes would be upon me. I went through anguish in choosing my costume, having my hair dressed. And when it was finished, I knew I would look in the mirror and have the answer that had been so long in coming. Was I beautiful? Pleasing? Special? Would a timely jar of beauty from Persephone open itself for me?

  I settled on a hairstyle that hung down around my shoulders. I was still young enough to wear a girl’s hairdo, and I knew that my hair was pretty—no sense in hiding it before its time. It was almost black, thick and shiny, with a slight curl to it. And I chose for my dress a thin white linen, knowing that nothing becomes black hair like a white dress. I wanted to wear the tight style of older Egypt, since my shape was slim, but Grecian style fitted the occasion better, with all its floating folds.

  At least I no longer had to bind my breasts; the death of Berenice had ended that. I could let my body speak for itself. And my breasts—even in my critical eyes, I could find no fault in them.