The Memoirs of Cleopatra

by Margaret George

  “How dare you leave?” he yelled as soon as he saw me—no other greeting was offered. “You shamed me, you insulted me, you have caused every tongue in Rome to natter!”

  How had he got away from all the people? Where were his guards, his attendants, the ever-worshipful Octavian?

  “I could not stand it anymore,” I said. “The killing—”

  “So you have a weak stomach for killing? Perhaps you’re not a true Ptolemy after all!”

  I stared at him. He was ranting, red-faced, like an angry merchant. “I think killing should be reserved for danger, not sport,” I finally said. “You devalue death to treat it so casually. It is the great final thing and should not be demeaned.”

  “Egyptians revere death too much,” he grunted.

  “Romans revere it too little,” I said.

  “Yet we both make art out of it. You with your tombs and paintings and mummies, and we with our entertainments.” His temper seemed to have cooled, but I was not fooled. He was most angry when he showed it least. “Enough of this death talk. By leaving, you undid all you had done earlier by attending the Triumph.”

  “It was horrible. But I did not cover my eyes.” I paused. “I hated every second of it! I hated seeing Egyptian treasures in the carts, hated the verses they sang about you—and the perfume bottles! Is that what people think of me?”

  “Be thankful that’s what they think. It’s harmless enough.”

  “Arsinoe. It was dreadful. And the people were stirred in sympathy.”

  “Yes.” He walked toward a bench and sat down on it. His shoulders sagged. “I spared Arsinoe.”

  My first feeling was a rush of relief. My second was worry. Arsinoe the proud would not retire quietly.

  “Where is she to go?”

  “She has requested sanctuary at the great Temple of Diana in Ephesus,” he said. “And I will grant it, if you agree.”

  Ephesus! Too close to Egypt! Better send her to Britain! Yet…I would gamble, and be merciful. Perhaps I was not enough of a Ptolemy after all. Arsinoe would not have granted it.

  “Yes, I will allow it.”

  “Ganymedes is dead.”

  Ganymedes had been dead already, the broken creature I had seen in the Forum. There could have been no reprieve for him.

  “We must do something to offset the bad impression your leaving gave today,” Caesar insisted. “The crowd was in a dangerous mood. You sensed it. The perfume bottles at least allowed us to divert them. But they were not wholehearted in their cheers. And it may be worse in the other two Triumphs to follow, especially the one over Africa, because Cato died in that war. I think, in order to quell any rumors that you harbor any enmity to Rome, you must give a lavish entertainment here to celebrate the Egyptian Triumph. Tomorrow. And it is then that I will formally proclaim you and Ptolemy Friend and Ally of the Roman People. I’ll invite all my enemies and shut them up.”

  “No! I don’t want to give a party! All those people hate me!”

  “You sound like a child.” His voice began to lift, and for the first time I sensed that his anger had gone. “Of course they hate you. It should make you proud. If they hate you, remember that they hated me first. You must get used to being hated if you are to rule successfully. The greatest weakness a ruler can have is the aching need to be loved. That is why Cicero—whom I shall by all means invite!—would be a disaster as a ruler, even though he wants to be one so badly.”

  “Not Cicero!”

  “My dear, if you can withstand the withering gazes and eloquent insults of Cicero, you can withstand anything. Consider it training.”

  Caesar would take care of everything, this being his gathering—in effect, another of his Triumphal entertainments. Ptolemy and I were to leave the house and amuse ourselves elsewhere. I requested that we be taken out into the countryside, so that we might see what surrounded Rome.

  It proved to be a good choice. The ripening fields of grain, green-gold against arched aqueducts bringing water from afar, and the clustered flocks of sheep, were a cool antidote for the fevered insanity of the crowded city. This countryside had a somnolent beauty, drowsy and warm. Even the clouds were rounded and gentle. I found it deeply restorative.

  But the sun began to throw slanted shadows as its setting neared, and the day was over all too soon. We must return—to what?

  The torches were already lit along the road by the time we reentered the city. The crowds were still swarming; even on this uneventful day there were theatrical performances and athletic contests, as well as gladiatorial contests between upper-class Romans in the Forum, to amuse the populace.

  I began to have misgivings as we entered the grounds of the garden and found it transformed into what a man costumed as Osiris announced as “Canopic pleasure gardens.” Colored lanterns were strung from tree to tree, and drinking pavilions had been set up under the branches, filled with rowdy “patrons.” As we ascended the hill, the landscape grew more and more fantastic: we seemed to be wading through a papyrus marsh—complete with statues of hippos and crocodiles—and then approached the house, which had been given a false front to make it look like a temple by the Nile. The river itself had been re-created in the form of a large moat around the entrance. A pyramid, about fifteen feet high, reared itself just beside the entrance steps, where the “Nile” lapped against the stones.

  “Welcome to Egypt!” bellowed a huge Nubian, clad only in the scantiest loincloth, stationed at the entrance. Just inside the atrium, a company of musicians sat playing the lyre, flute, and bells. Eerie, light music floated out.

  This was some soldier’s heated dream of Egypt; it was nothing like Alexandria or the villages along the Nile. It existed only in the fevered imaginations of someone longing for a land of pleasure; it was a product of Roman prurience.

  It got worse. Vials of perfume and scented ointment were piled up into pyramids all around the atrium, and there was a fortune-telling Sphinx by the pool. If you knocked on his paws, an echoing voice inside pronounced your fate. Half-naked dancers were writhing and bending to the musicians’ tunes.

  A gigantic sarcophagus, gilded and festooned, was propped upright against the farthest wall, its lid removed to reveal a wrapped mummy. But the mummy had very alert eyes, and I could see his chest moving up and down. Beside him a masked Anubis was keeping watch, his jackal’s ears pointed and upright.

  I felt myself grow cold. What madness had taken hold of Caesar to make him create this grotesque setting?

  I entered my chamber to find a message from him. True to the spirit of the banquet, he had enclosed it in a miniature obelisk.

  My dearest, forgive me for this travesty modeled on Egypt. Politics oblige us to do many unseemly things. Remember that what one laughs at, one does not fear. If, by a fortune-telling Sphinx and a dancing mummy, Romans forget the riches of Egypt and think it only a country of pleasure gardens, they will be content to let it alone. It will remain yours in perpetuity.

  Look beautiful as only you can, so that my enemies can never say my powers of desire are waning.

  Caesar was correct in one thing: this certainly made a mockery of Egypt. Well, then, should I complete the masquerade? Should I be the Serpent of the Nile? Why not?

  I ransacked my trunks for attire that would serve, combining the most extreme elements of costume. I put on an all-but-transparent gown, fringed with gold and faience beads; I twined serpent bracelets on my upper arms and tinkling anklets on my feet. I draped my neck in a four-tiered gold collar and put on a head-hugging vulture headdress. My feet were encased in jeweled sandals.

  Surprisingly, the whole was not ugly, but arrestingly strange. I looked like an idol in the dark sanctuary of a temple. The combination of the heavy gold and the gossamer gown gave me a feeling of unreality. My clothing was as light as a breath, but I was weighted down with metal.

  I found similar fantastic garments for Ptolemy, and I ordered the nurse to dress Caesarion. I would achieve my purpose this night; I would force Caesar
to it. This night would serve me as well as him.

  “Charmian, have you ever seen anything like this in Egypt?” I gestured around me, to the pyramid of perfume and the swaying musicians.

  “Never,” she said, with a soft laugh. “But should such a land exist—it would have a queen that looks like you tonight.”

  The guests began arriving. I had no idea how many Caesar had invited. As if the gods had read my wishes, a young woman purporting to be a niece of Caesar’s sought me out and said he had asked her to stand by my side all evening and explain who everyone was, lest I grow confused.

  “My name is Valeria,” she said. “I will try to explain about them as honestly, and as briefly, as possible.” She looked at me, clearly taken aback by my costume.

  “I do not usually look like this,” I assured her, “even in Egypt. Especially not in Egypt. This was Caesar’s suggestion. He seems determined that this evening will outdo every parody of Egypt.”

  She laughed outright, a hearty laugh. “He has got his wish. Rest assured, Your Majesty, that my uncle and I have always seen eye-to-eye about people. That is why he chose me to be his spokesman this evening. I hope you will not think me rude when I speak my mind.”

  “No. No, I will welcome it!”

  “He himself foresees that he may be busy, but there were many things he wished you to know.”

  Guests started pouring in the entrance, their feet wet from wading through the “Nile.” I stationed myself at the far end of the atrium, near the mummy.

  A group of senators and their wives were the first to be presented, and none of them was important enough to elicit a comment from Valeria. They circled the pyramid of scent and were urged by the dancers, “Help yourself! Take some!”

  A knot of people I did not recognize came in with two I did: Brutus and his mother, Servilia. I smiled as they approached. With them were several men, all wearing senatorial togas. One was thin and dark, with a straight, lowering line of eyebrows; another was beefy and red-faced; and a third had an expression that combined worry and self-complacency.

  “Gaius Cassius Longinus,” muttered the first one, almost spitting out the words. I did not need Valeria to inform me this man did not care for me. How he felt about Caesar I could not know yet.

  “Publius Servilius Casca,” said the stocky one. He nodded gravely and passed on.

  “Marcus Tullius Cicero,” said the third, as if he found it amusing he should have to introduce himself.

  Cicero! He had the surprising attribute of looking almost exactly like his busts.

  “My wife, Publilia,” he said, presenting a woman who looked more like his granddaughter. She smirked and bowed.

  Cicero lingered by my side. “The spoils of Egypt,” he said lightly, indicating the room decorations. His hand circled the periphery and then, ever so casually, included me in its sweep. “How I should love to travel there and behold it.”

  “You must visit us,” I said. “But I have been told you regard leaving Rome as being in exile, even when you were governor of Cilicia.”

  “It is true that I find myself happiest in Rome. It has all that a human being needs in order to fulfill himself.” He sighed like a smitten schoolboy. Truly he was in love with Rome; in that he was sincere.

  “I know that wherever the government is to be found, there Cicero calls himself content,” I said.

  “And the government of the world is in Rome,” he said pointedly.

  “It is true that Rome has conquered much of the world,” I replied, “but she has yet to perfect a means of governing it, especially from Rome. The boundaries of the empire stretch now far to the north and west, as well as to the east.”

  Cicero stiffened. “The Republic is the best system of government the world has ever created,” he said.

  “Until now,” I insisted. “But the Republic may not lend itself to governing a large area. Rome was a small city, after all, when it was invented.”

  I expected him to say something witty, but instead he drew his robes around himself as if he had been contaminated, and muttered, “Come,” to Publilia. They wandered off into the large banqueting chamber.

  “Cicero made a mistake in marrying that girl,” said Valeria in my ear. “He wanted her money, but he’s got more than he bargained for.”

  “She’s very beautiful,” I admitted.

  “He should have stuck with his grumbling old former wife,” said Valeria. “They were well suited.”

  I remembered the dark looks of the first man. “Cassius—what about him?” I asked.

  “He’s one of Pompey’s generals who came over to Caesar afterwards. He’s related to Brutus by marriage. They glower together.”

  “So he’s one of the ones Caesar forgave. Did he come willingly?” I asked.

  “I am not sure. I think the former followers of Pompey gave up after his death. They have shown little interest in supporting his sons.”

  “But do they support Caesar?”

  She thought for a moment before answering. “They tolerate him,” she finally said.

  Octavia arrived, with her husband Gaius Claudius Marcellus, a handsome man.

  “He also was in Pompey’s party, and pardoned by Caesar,” Valeria informed me.

  I was beginning to feel that all of Rome had been pardoned by Caesar. That meant he had an enormous number of former enemies at large.

  More people swept into the room. They were coming in great waves, the hems of their gowns wet from their crossing of the “Nile.” But they were smiling and laughing, so perhaps the ludicrous staging was one of Caesar’s ideas of genius. Nothing else would have put his critics in so jolly a mood.

  A middle-aged man, accompanied by two women, entered hesitantly, then made a straight path toward us. He appeared thin under the voluminous toga, but then, that was one of the glories of a toga—it hid fat and bones alike, so one could never tell the true dimensions of the wearer underneath.

  “Marcus Aemilius Lepidus,” he introduced himself. “I have the honor of serving as Consul with Caesar this year.” He smiled warmly. “My wife, Junia.”

  “He is too modest,” said his wife. “He served as Caesar’s right-hand man as governor of Further Spain while Caesar fought in the east. He held it for him.”

  Lepidus looked embarrassed. “My wife overpraises me,” he said. “No one could be called ‘Caesar’s right-hand man.’ I would say it is enough to serve as his left-hand man, but that sounds threatening.” He laughed.

  “Caesar has granted him a Triumph for his actions in Spain,” his wife persisted.

  “Enough, Junia,” he said. “No one likes a braggart.”

  The other woman now spoke up. “I am also Junia, Junia’s sister, and the wife of Cassius.”

  “Then…you are also Brutus’ sister?” How confusing all these names were! Why did all of a man’s daughters share the same name in Rome?

  “Indeed,” she said.

  They passed on into the larger room, and I turned to Valeria.

  “At last, a wholehearted supporter of Caesar!” I said.

  “Yes. But he is such a broken reed to lean upon.” She shook her head. “Lepidus is…flaccid.”

  In what way? I wondered. On the battlefield, or in bed? I watched his wife’s back as she disappeared into the throng.

  A woman approached us boldly. She was with no man, but carried herself with a soldier’s gait. She was rather attractive, with masses of wheat-colored hair bound in at her neck, and a wide jaw.

  “Fulvia, Your Majesty,” she said, looking directly into my eyes. She waited a moment before saying, “Of the Fulvian family of Tusculum,” as if that would enlighten me.

  But I had heard of her…. What had I heard? Was she not that fiery wife of the insurrectionist Clodius? I remembered hearing her name in connection with the street fights of Rome.

  “Welcome,” I said, thinking how fierce she looked—like an Amazon.

  “Is she not the widow of Clodius?” I asked Valeria a moment lat
er.

  Valeria looked surprised. “So her fame has spread even to Alexandria,” she said. “Indeed she is. And also of Curio.”

  “She does not look as if she will need another husband,” I said. “He would have to be Hercules.”

  “They say that is exactly what she has in mind,” replied Valeria.

  As if this were a staged performance, she had scarcely got the words out when a man dressed as Hercules burst through the doorway.

  He was big and muscled like a bear, and with a lionskin knotted around his neck and a club slung over his shoulder, he looked Olympian. Hanging on his arm was a woman so garishly dressed I had to blink at beholding her.

  “He didn’t!” said Valeria. “He didn’t bring her!”

  The man made his way over to us, striding easily. He stopped and stared at me as if he were seeing a curiosity of nature. He had a wide, well-formed face with intelligent dark eyes, and a thick neck, and a smile that would have blinded a god.

  “How the child has changed!” he blurted out. “Princess Cleopatra, do you not remember me? I am Marcus Antonius—Marc Antony. I came to Alexandria with Gabinius. I saved your throne, if you don’t mind my saying so.”

  The young soldier. Yes, I remembered him now. He had changed as much as I. “Yes, of course. But I thought it was Gabinius who saved my father’s throne, since he was the only man in the world who dared undertake the task, which all of Rome had forbidden.”

  “Gabinius needed a cavalry officer,” he said. “And it was I who overcame the frontier fortress of Pelusium, the most difficult part of the campaign.”

  “So you did.” I remembered now the recounting of it, how he had bravely and quickly taken the fortress, thought to be unassailable. “So you did.”

  “Yes, Princess. I did.” He said this not particularly proudly, but as a matter of fact.

  “I am Queen now,” I said likewise matter-of-factly.

  “And Caesar’s woman,” he said. “Fortunate Caesar.” He waved his hand high. “Beloved of the gods, to be given you as prize and treasure!” His voice was too loud, and everyone heard him.