The Memoirs of Cleopatra

by Margaret George

  “Come,” said Caesar, steering me over to the right. We passed near the Curia and by a stout building that was built into the Capitoline Hill. I had not noticed it before—although I would never tell Caesar I had come here earlier to see the Forum for myself.

  “What is that?” I asked, pointing to it.

  “The Tullianum Prison,” he said. “The place where state prisoners are kept.”

  “Is—is my sister there?” I could not picture proud Arsinoe in a prison.

  “Yes, along with all the others to be displayed in the Triumphs. There’s the Gallic chieftain Vercingetorix, and little Juba, son of the Numidian king, and Ganymedes, Arsinoe’s accomplice.”

  “What happens to them—afterwards?”

  “They are executed,” he said. “In the little chamber beneath the prison cell.”

  “Always?”

  “Of course. They led armies against Rome. Now they must pay the price. But they are killed privately. It is not part of the spectacle.” He paused. “It is not sad. What’s sad is their lack of self-respect. If they’d had any, they would have committed suicide rather than end up like this!”

  “Surely the child is innocent of his father’s deeds,” I said.

  “Oh, Juba will not be killed. He will be brought up in a Roman family.”

  “Arsinoe is a woman. Do you execute women, too?”

  “Did she lead an army?” He made it sound so simple. “If she fought like a man, she must die like one.”

  I had seen my other sister executed by my father’s command; I should accept it. Arsinoe had tried to kill both me and Caesar. In my place she would have had me dispatched without a second thought. Still, defeat and exile were a great punishment in themselves.

  “You do not sound very merciful,” I said, “and yet you are known for your clemency.”

  “That depends on who I am compared to. But no one spares foreign enemies. Your own countrymen—well, that’s a personal matter. I myself believe that if someone wishes to join me, having previously fought against me, he should be welcomed. I burned the papers of Pompey that I found in his tent; I did not wish to know who had corresponded with him.”

  “That is very magnanimous of you,” I said. “But is it not rather foolhardy?”

  We were traversing a small street that was completely dark, and I had to take Caesar’s hand, since I did not know the way.

  “Perhaps,” he said. “But I believe that any other way leads to tyranny, and provokes such hatred that you cannot survive.”

  “But if you pardon your opponents—like Brutus—it seems to me that you must do more, in order to please them and bring them around. Just pardoning them without making any attempt to win them over is purposeless. It achieves nothing.”

  “They should be grateful to me!”

  “Not unless they like you.” It seemed so obvious to me. If someone we hate does us a favor, we spurn both the person and the favor.

  “I would never fawn and pander to them,” he said. “I leave that to Cicero and his like. Cicero wants so badly to be loved and appreciated, he is like a girl just coming into womanhood who peers in the mirror constantly to check his appearance, and analyzes every remark anyone makes. Feh!”

  There was no arguing with him. Perhaps he was right. We stumbled along the dark paved street; where were we going?

  “The office of Pontifex Maximus—how did you get appointed to it?” I was curious, and it seemed a safe subject.

  “I bought the election,” he said. “In Rome everything is for sale.”

  Abruptly we swung around a corner, and I saw before me Caesar’s new Forum. The clouds had vanished, and the moonlight shone full and bright on its white perfection.

  Even though I had already seen it, in this light it was supremely beautiful, and it took my breath away.

  “This is my gift to Rome,” he said. “A new Forum.”

  He strode across the half-paved courtyard, keeping hold of my hand. We mounted the steps on the side of the temple, and then he bent to light his lantern.

  “And this is my gift to the goddess Venus Genetrix, who founded the Julian clan through my ancestor Aeneas—this temple, which I vowed to build, if she would grant me victory at Pharsalus.”

  His voice was hushed in reverence of his own creation. The portico sheltered a number of paintings—Greek, by the looks of them—and there was a suit of antique armor on one of the walls.

  The inner recess of the temple was dark and silent, and it had the smell of new stone, a dusty, sharp smell. It echoed with our movements, and it felt cavernous, although I was not sure how I sensed that, since I could see nothing.

  Caesar swung the lantern over his head, illuminating a little circle around us. Still the corners and the far end were invisible to me. He walked as silently as a priest to the back. Looming ahead I saw three statues on pedestals—large statues.

  “Here is the goddess,” he said, holding up the lantern to the face of the middle one. She had an expression of supreme contentment, with a mysterious smile, and her marble breast was laden with pearls.

  “Arcesilaus of Greece carved her,” he said.

  “So you have indeed honored her,” I said. “He is among the greatest of the living sculptors.”

  He swung the lantern to the right, lighting another statue, this one of himself. Then he said, “And this is my gift to you,” and moved the lantern to the left, to the remaining statue.

  She leapt out of the darkness. She was myself.

  “Arcesilaus wants only to see you in person in order to refine the details,” said Caesar.

  “What have you done?” My voice was trembling. I was stunned.

  “I have ordered a statue of you, in the robes of Venus, to put in the temple,” he said simply.

  “In your family temple,” I said. “What can you be thinking of?”

  “I wanted to.”

  “What are you trying to say?” I kept staring at the huge statue; myself wearing the robes of a goddess and flanking his protective goddess and himself. “What will people think? What will Calpurnia think?”

  “Aren’t you pleased?” He sounded disappointed, like a child. “The affront to public opinion is part of the gift. Anyone can make gestures that earn him credit with the masses, and offer them up to his friends. But to risk displeasure—that’s a gift of a higher order.”

  “What do these statues say?” I asked. “What do you mean them to say?”

  “What would they mean to you, if you saw them as an ordinary citizen?”

  “They would mean—that you are descended from Venus, that your house is semidivine, and that I, in my incarnation of Venus and Isis, am your consort. What else could I think?”

  “Just so,” he said. “That is exactly what I mean.” He stood and stared at them. “I felt led to do it. I know not what repercussions there will be, but I could not disobey. Now do you believe I love you?”

  “Yes.” Indeed I did. But there was more than love at work here. It seemed mad to court such public disapproval.

  “I will dedicate the temple in between Triumphs,” he said. “There will be games and banquets.”

  “Yes.” I could think of nothing more to say.

  “We must be bold,” he said. “We must be who we are, and not shrink from it.”

  “Do you believe your victories have earned you the right to do as you please?” I asked. “Is that why you do not hold back?”

  “I only know I must follow my own instinct,” he said. “It has never failed me yet. My goddess of Fortune leads me on; all she asks is that I grasp eagerly what she offers.”

  “This was not offered by Fortune, but conceived and built by you. You did not stumble on this temple; you created it.”

  “I created the victories in Gaul, in Alexandria, in Pharsalus, in Africa, as well. Fortune offers you opportunities to create; she does not hand you presents.”

  I could not answer. There was no answer, or none that would satisfy him. He was bent on this co
urse, as he had been bent on crossing the Rubicon and marching into Italy. But whereas others had given him reason for those actions, in this case no one but he was involved.

  “They will blame me,” I finally said. “They will say I made you do it.”

  “I care not what they say.”

  “Yes, you do. You cannot be that lofty. You are not a god, to disregard the opinions of men.”

  “To regard them overmuch is to be less than a man, to cower and grovel and—”

  “You are describing a beast, not a man. There is a middle ground between arrogance and prostration.”

  He set the lantern down on the shining marble floor, plunging the upper part of the statues into darkness. He took my shoulders gently. “Show me that middle ground,” he said. “You tread it so well; but then you have had many more years of practice than I. You were born royal, born to rule, recognized as a goddess from your childhood on. So you mix that element with the human so easily.”

  “Just be Caesar,” I said. “That is enough.” Then I added, “And do not wound enemies you do not have the heart to kill.”

  He stood silently for what seemed a long time. I could hear water dripping off the pediments of the temple outside, splashing onto the pavement: the aftermath of the storm.

  He bent down and kissed me, tightening his arms around me. “I would conduct a worship of Venus here,” he said softly.

  Short shafts of moonlight were lying in bands at the entrance to the temple, and I knew we were alone. The goddess was looking down at us, as well as the idols of ourselves, waiting to see what we would do.

  “When the dedication of the temple takes place, we would have already made offering to it,” he said. His arms tightened around me, and I felt myself longing for him. The enforced polite distance between us during the dinner had sharpened the ache for closeness.

  But there had been too much talk of enemies, of executions, of fate; there had been too much of the company of Brutus, Calpurnia, and Octavian. It was not a promising night to indulge in the pleasures of Venus.

  “Those who worship Venus must come to her wholeheartedly,” I finally said, pulling back from him a bit. “My mind is clouded with all that has passed this night before we entered her temple.”

  “Ask the goddess to remove it,” he said. His voice was low and persuasive. “She can do so.”

  I marveled at how he could put aside troubling thoughts and be only here. The echoing space of the pristine temple indeed seemed to be crying out for some warmth, some stirring, to break the spell of incompleteness within it.

  I let him guide me back into the utter darkness of the apse, behind the base of the Venus statue. He left the lantern on the floor in front of it, and a soft, diffuse light shone from around the sides.

  “Have you not a villa for this?” I protested weakly. “A villa, with a room appointed with couches and coverlets, and windows opening onto a garden that lets in the smells of paradise?”

  “You know well I have,” he said, “but it is missing one thing all lovers want, and which we have never tasted: privacy. Behold a paradox: the richer you are, the less of it you have. Now we shall have it, by heaven. We shall have it.”

  His voice was warm in my ear, and I felt myself melting with it. He was right; we were alone as we had rarely been before, and might never be again.

  He eased the sleeve of my gown down over my arm and kissed my shoulder lingeringly. I could feel my own bones beneath his lips, and became at once aware of my body; the confusing thoughts of the mind began to take flight.

  “I love you,” I said. “I would die for you.”

  “Hush,” he said. “No talk of dying. That belongs to poets, not to queens.” He kissed me then, strongly, and I returned it, clinging to him in the darkness. We were alone. He was mine, and I was his.

  The goddess above us looked down with favor.

  Brilliant sun. Piercingly blue sky. A slight breeze on this day, the first Triumph. I sat in the special stand of seats constructed along the Via Sacra to enable exalted guests to observe the last, most important part of the Triumphal parade that wound its way through the Forum and then up to the Temple of Capitoline Jupiter. We would wait a long time in the sun, which is why Caesar had ordered silk canopies to be erected over us. They flapped now, billowing as each breeze passed through them, diluting the light and turning it blue.

  Ptolemy was beside me, and in the other places of honor were Calpurnia, Octavia, Caesar’s nephew Quintus Pedius, and his great-nephew Lucius Pinarius. He had a very small family.

  People had begun waiting long before dawn along the route he would pass: from the Campus Martius and through the Circus Maximus before circling the Palatine Hill and entering the Forum. I could hear the roars and shouts from far away as he appeared at each station, and wondered what they were seeing; I was impatient to behold it.

  At midday I saw a slight movement from the far end of the Forum, and soon a company of men appeared. Slowly, very slowly, they wound their way down the Via Sacra, past the Temple of Vesta, past the Temple of Castor and Pollux, past the half-finished porticoes of the Basilica Julia, and then abreast of us. The faint strains of music grew louder, and the leaders of the procession, the musicians with their trumpets and pipes, passed by. Behind them came a company of priests, swaying as they lifted their thuribles of incense high, the sweet perfume burning in the summer air.

  Then came a vast company of dignitaries, the officers of the city of Rome, and behind them the senators, walking proudly in their magisterial togas; there must have been more than five hundred of them.

  Then a shout went up from the far side of the Forum, and as the elaborately decorated wagons trundled into view, I knew why. It was the spoils, heaped high in carriages built of Gallic timber and inlaid with citruswood. Spears bristled from the wagons, shields rattled, the wagons strained under the weight of the gold and silver. Sometimes a goblet or a platter would fall off, and people would dash out and grab it, like dogs lapping up leavings from a table.

  Wagon after wagon groaned past, sagging under its mountain of gold. The wheels of one got stuck between the paving stones, and had to be heaved out. Caesar must have raided every hamlet, stripped every rural altar of its trappings. There must be nothing left in Gaul of value.

  A company of men paraded past, holding signs with the names of battles: Alesia, Agedincum, Bibracte, Lugdunum, Gregovia, Avaricum—unfamiliar names for the wild, unknown places where Caesar had conquered.

  A decorated wagon with an effigy of the ocean in chains rolled past, with a sign denoting the invasion of Britain.

  Then came a company of prisoners, long-haired chieftains, clad in leather and furs. Behind them, walking alone, came a tall figure in chains. It was Vercingetorix, the Gallic chieftain who had led a mighty uprising of the Arverni tribe against Caesar and had finally been defeated at Alesia, where Caesar had emerged victorious against an enemy five times his number. Vercingetorix had lost none of his proud bearing in the six years he had been waiting for his march through the Forum on his way to death, and the crowd, jeering freely at the other prisoners, fell silent as he passed by.

  I shuddered. In the next Triumph, Arsinoe would walk in his footsteps, passing before us in defeat. The shame, the unendurable shame of it!

  Following Vercingetorix paraded the sacrificial animals bound for the temple, columns of white oxen with gilded horns, garlanded and curried, the thanksgiving offering Caesar would make for his victories.

  From the farther end of the Forum a vast shout arose, and I knew that Caesar had finally entered it. Preceding him came the lictors—all seventy-two of them, allowed because Caesar had been dictator three times. They carried those ugly bundles of branches and the gleaming axes, and I liked them no better this time. Their ceremonial red capes made bright spots like blood as they passed by.

  Then Caesar himself, high in a golden chariot pulled by four horses. He stood like a god, dressed in purple and gold, looking out at the people. In his left
hand he held an ivory scepter surmounted by an eagle, and in his right a laurel branch. Behind him stood a slave, holding the heavy gold crown of Jupiter over his head, a crown too weighty for a mortal brow.

  A frenzied shout arose from the throats of all who beheld him. They showered him with flowers, with personal tokens and treasures, with bracelets and earrings.

  Behind him, slight and straight, rode Octavian in his own chariot, as the only other adult male in Caesar’s family.

  The Triumphal chariot passed us by, moving on like the chariot of Phoebus transiting the sky, and I saw wave after wave of people rising to their feet and shouting.

  Then, suddenly, the procession stopped. The Triumphal chariot sagged and lurched. I heard a buzz of confusion. Caesar stepped out.

  The axle of the chariot had snapped, just as he drew abreast of the Temple of Fortune. He dismounted and stood on the pavement, then immediately walked to the steps leading up the Capitoline Hill to the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus, where he was supposed to ascend to dedicate his wreath and scepter.

  He fell to his knees at the first step, and shouted in a ringing voice, “Behold! I will climb to the Temple on my knees, as a sign of my submission to the will of Fate!” And he did so, laboriously making his way up the long incline, his purple toga trailing on the ground behind him.

  The people roared their approval; by quick thinking, Caesar had turned a bad omen into an occasion of good grace. But the incident unnerved me. It was very bad.

  Behind Caesar came his troops, the men who had made his victories possible. They were happy, shouting Io triumphe!—Hail, God of Triumph!—and singing at the top of their lungs. But I was not so happy when I heard the words of their verses:

  Home we bring our bald whoremonger;

  Romans, lock your wives away.

  All the bags of gold you lent him

  Went his Gallic tarts to pay.