The Memoirs of Cleopatra

by Margaret George

  Riding behind him in the procession, did Octavian that day absorb the idea? For he was to imitate it later, casting me in the role of Juba and declaring that any Roman who fought with me acted in shame—indeed, had ceased to be Roman.

  The day of the African Triumph was hot, not hot as in Africa, but hot with the characteristic Roman summer heat—a damp, enervating heat. Sweat could not evaporate off the skin; it mingled with perfume and oil to cause the clothes to stick to the body. It caused a peculiar temper in the people—a restless discomfort.

  The crowds began gathering before dawn, and by the time the procession got under way they had been milling and waiting for hours. The sun beat down mercilessly, shining through a damp nimbus.

  African musicians marched proudly, draped in leopardskins, sounding their trumpets and beating the drums, and the huge carts, decorated with ivory inlays, creaked and bent with the spoils of war. The people gasped at the sight of so many ivory tusks; the gigantic crescents looked like a thousand moons fallen to earth. Caged beasts—panthers, lions, leopards, pythons, hyenas—were rolled in. A file of elephants followed, ridden by Getuli, a nomad people from Mauretania.

  Then came Caesar’s mistake: huge pictures showing the ignoble ends of his enemies. Cato was shown ripping his wound open, letting his intestines spill out; Scipio was shown stabbing himself; and Juba and Petreius were pictured fighting their gruesome suicide duel.

  A moan went up from the people along the Via Sacra. They were deeply offended. Caesar’s chariot was greeted with murmurs instead of cheers, and his face showed that, too late, he understood why. He tried to make the best of it, smiling and looking to the left and right, but frowns and head-shaking were all he got in return. Behind him bounced Octavian, taking in every nuance and standing straight as he rode past them.

  In the wake of the triumphal chariots came the sole illustrious prisoner: the small son of Juba, also called Juba. At the sight of the four-year-old walking bowed down by chains, the people began to hiss and boo. The little boy looked at them, flashing a winsome smile.

  The tough soldiers followed, the fighters of the Ninth and Tenth Legions, and they had the thankless task of facing the unresponsive crowd, just as they had had the thankless task of fighting a nasty, protracted war. Nevertheless they sang loudly in honor of the commander they followed so passionately, knowing that the people of Rome would never fully appreciate what occurred on the battlefield. They held civilians to be stupid, unfeeling creatures, anyway.

  In honor of Africa, there was to be a wild beast hunt in the Circus immediately following. Caesar had calculated that this extravagant entertainment would win the disaffected; and certainly the common people, no matter how much they revered Cato, were not about to turn their backs on the promised spectacle. Rumor had been circulating for days that hundreds of animals were to be hunted and matched against one another, and the people were fairly salivating to see it.

  We were carried along in our magnificent gilded litter to the Circus, held above the sea of sweating people making their way toward it. I could smell them; they stank like a combination of caged animals and a market spilling over with overripe food. What had happened to all the perfume bottles they had collected?

  Once inside the Circus, I could hardly believe my eyes: the entire central section, the spina, which had looked so permanent with its statues of Jupiter and its polished turning-stones at each end and its lap-counting devices, had vanished. The expanse was open, with only shadows to mark where the structures had stood. A deep ditch had been dug all around the perimeter, to protect us from the wild beasts.

  Caesar and his family were already seated in the places of honor. Sharing the benches were the allies who had helped defeat the enemies: Bocchus and Bogud, the kings of east and west Mauretania. They looked pleased, even if no one else did. Perhaps they understood the dangers of Africa better than others who had never set foot there.

  A number of brightly dressed men made their way into the arena. Some were heavily protected in leather and leg shields, and others were more lightly dressed, in tunics. These were the venatores, the men who fought beasts.

  “Where are the animals?” asked Ptolemy peevishly. Like all the rest of Rome, he had grown weary of the never-ending spectacles, so when his excitement should have reached a fever pitch, instead he was increasingly difficult to impress.

  “They are coming,” I assured him. “These are the men who must fight them.”

  “Oh.” He stifled a yawn and twisted in his seat. The hot sun was still beating down.

  “These beasts are sent by Gaius Sallustius Crispus, the most noble governor of the new province of Africa—the province won by this war—for the glory of Rome and the marvel of her citizens,” Caesar announced in his loudest voice.

  A cheer went up. Now the people were coming around.

  “We shall fight the beasts in two ways,” one of the men cried, the one dressed only in a tunic. “I have been trained to fight with a long hunting spear, but I have no protection other than my own quickness. My companion”—he indicated the man protected by the leather—“must come closer to the beasts in order to strike, and so he must be able to withstand a direct assault. And he”—he gestured toward another man who had no weapon at all—“well, you shall see what he can do! You shall see, and be astounded!”

  Trumpets sounded, and a parade of cages on wagons were wheeled into the Circus. I could see the dark shapes inside, but could not tell what they were.

  A group of attendants, wearing protective helmets and padding, approached the cages. The door of the first one was opened, and out sprang a lion. A cry of excitement rose from the stands.

  The lion landed on the sand soundlessly, and shook his mane as he got his bearings. Only one man, the spokesman with the spear, remained nearby. The lion crouched down and eyed him cautiously, sniffing the air. The man advanced toward him, making little whirring noises in his throat to excite the animal. The lion cocked his head and stared for many long minutes.

  Then, swiftly, he rose. And almost in the same moment, he sprang.

  But the man sidestepped him, and plunged his spear into the animal’s shoulders. Quickly he pulled it out again, its tip red with blood, and retreated. If he lost the spear, he would have no weapon at all.

  The lion seemed more surprised than hurt. He fell back on his haunches and took several deep breaths. Then he rose and leapt again.

  Again the man avoided the flying paws and dripping jaws; again he plunged the spear into the lion, this time into the chest. With a muffled roar, the lion rolled over. The man wrenched the spear out and fled to a safe distance to see if the lion would recover.

  The animal roared; he clearly was not mortally wounded, but now he was angry. He chased the man, who turned quickly—he never could have outrun him, and there was not a single rock of safety—and, deftly spinning, speared the lion again. But this time he was unable to extract the spear, and in attempting to, he seemed to pull the lion over to himself. The huge clawed paws raked his shoulders.

  Suddenly he had the spear free again, and he fell to his knees and let the animal leap in a great arc toward him, exposing its chest and belly. With superb timing, he sunk the spear into the lion’s heart, the shaft sinking deeply.

  The lion crumpled in midair and fell awkwardly to one side. He writhed and turned, trying to dislodge the weapon. But the blood was spurting out of his body and draining away his strength, and soon he lay feebly panting on the sand, unable to move.

  Delicately the man approached him, and ripped the spear out. Then, as if he wished to spare the beast further shame and pain, he killed him.

  An exuberant cry went up from the crowd, as the man turned and showed that he had suffered no injury except his clawed shoulder. A most impressive performance.

  The next to be loosed in the arena was a black panther, and the leather-clad man had to wrestle with it several times in order to get close enough to try to stab it with the sword. The animal, its curved tee
th white and shiny against its black fur, embraced the man like a pet several times, but the very closeness was what gave rise to the suspense. The panther was not licking him, or cuddling, but trying to devour him.

  The fighter got in three cuts, but that was not enough. And then he lost his sword in wrenching it out to try to stab again. It lay tantalizingly out of arm’s reach on the sand, beyond his wildly scrabbling hand, when the panther managed to tear off his protective helmet and encircle his head with a hemisphere of sharp teeth. A shriek told us that the man was doomed, and an instant later the panther was shaking his limp body, like a cat with a mouse.

  But it was not allowed to savor its kill; there were no Triumphs for victorious animals. Two of the armed guards rushed out; one shot the panther with arrows, while the other finished it off with a javelin. Then the dead bodies of both man and beast were removed.

  The third man, seemingly unshaken by the event, now gestured for a cage to be opened. Another lion emerged, landing on the sand and looking for prey. The man deliberately teased it, jumping up and down and making feinting movements. The lion, cautious, stood still. The man threw an apple at it, forcing it to attack. Even so, it was a halfhearted attack, for it was a reaction rather than a true hunting leap. The lion opened its mouth to roar, as the man knew it would.

  When its jaws opened, he plunged his arm right into its mouth, ramming it down its throat and choking it. With his other hand he grabbed the lion’s tongue and twisted it like a piece of rope.

  The heavy beast fell gasping. Still the man—and I saw now that he had leather arm protectors on—did not let go of the tongue, but continued wringing it. The lion was clawing and fighting for air, but already it was losing strength. Its limbs buckled, and we could hear the hideous sound of it trying to suck air past the brave fist of the man. His arm was lodged in the gullet like a stone, and the animal began twitching and jerking. Its eyes glazed and its massive head fell on the sand. The tail quivered and then nothing moved.

  “Did you see that?” Ptolemy was wildly excited. “How did he do that? How? How?”

  “Through training,” I said. “And unbelievable courage.” I could not help but be impressed. To kill a lion barehanded had always been a feat reserved for Hercules.

  Tumultuous cheers exploded from the stands. The man was carried out of the arena, its new hero.

  Now a group of men trotted in, with strange devices: a spherical cage, bundles of reeds, and rollers. One of the men climbed inside the round cage and closed a flap after him, and the others took up their stations. Several bears emerged from cages, and were teased and taunted by the men. The bears rolled the round cage along the ground like a ball, but could not figure out how to get the man inside; others slipped on the rollers, and still others were baffled by the bundles of reeds. The men outsmarted them at every turn, and the spectators were amused. This was for comedy only. In the end the bears were tricked back into their cages and the men took bow after bow.

  A few moments’ respite led to the next part of the program—matched fights between different types of animals. Bulls fought crocodiles, bears fought pythons, and panthers fought leopards. For variety, the animals might be linked together, so that they had to fight, and could not slink away. The lions were paired against many types of animals, for people loved to see them fight. They took on tigers, bulls, and wild boars. Usually the lion won.

  But the dead bodies of the animals, dragged off into piles, were growing into a mountain. The afternoon seemed to go on and on, stretching out in death. The beautiful pelts of the slain beasts gleamed in the sun.

  Suddenly enormous numbers of lions were set loose in the arena, to hunt each other even as they were being hunted by armed men. In a melee of roars, screams, and growls, the golden beasts worked themselves into a frenzy.

  “I’ve never seen so many lions,” cried Ptolemy, “not even in a dream!”

  And indeed, it did seem dreamlike, this huge gathering of lions filling the Circus. Later I was told there were more than four hundred of them. Not one was allowed to survive.

  At length the most extravagant hunt of all was staged: Scores of elephants were gored into panic and attack, and they rampaged, trumpeting, all over the arena. Only the depth of the ditch kept them from stampeding into the crowds. I understood now why Caesar had had it dug.

  The waste, the waste, the carnage! I could barely stand to watch as the elephants were sacrificed—to what? To entertainment? To Rome? What nation destroys its own wealth? All this killing—of valuable beasts, of men—was crippling to the country, as well as cruel.

  And the Romans prided themselves on their rationality, I thought, looking at the corpse-strewn field. This was not rational; this made no sense. It was their own peculiar madness, to kill in enormous numbers, for sport.

  I felt myself shivering, even in the oppressive heat.

  Twilight fell; the slaughter had to stop. The crowds, on fire with the spectacle, were almost as wild as the maddened elephants. Caesar’s massive, city-wide banquet would have people thronging to his tables in high revelry and excitement.

  This was to be the closing event in the ten-day celebrations; Caesar invited all of Rome to partake in a feast to be set at twenty-two thousand separate tables throughout the city. Twenty-two thousand—all loaded with such delicacies as sea-eels and Falernian wine. He had in mind a scene in which all the warriors, weary from battle, eat and drink together to celebrate their deliverance. It was a scene straight from mythology; probably he was the only one who believed in it. But the people were willing enough to eat at his expense.

  Down in the Forum, the tables were set out where people walked during the day and merchants had their stalls. The most exclusive tables were reserved in the area of the Regia and Caesar’s own house, but thousands of others were set up around the half-finished Basilica Julia, around the Temple of Castor and Pollux, the Rostra, and the Curia. The Via Sacra, where the Triumphal wagons had lumbered, was now a thoroughfare of revelers and waiters, dancers and wine-servers. Torches blazed everywhere, and musicians played on the Rostra.

  Caesar and his family were dining at one table next to his house. The leading senators and magistrates were at another nearby: Cicero, Lepidus, Brutus, and others I did not recognize. All the formal Friends and Allies of the Roman People were at my table: Bocchus and Bogud, the Moorish kings, as well as the rulers of Galatia and Cappadocia, and the envoys who had come from the cities of Asia. I could not help watching Bogud, a rather handsome man with a hawk nose, as I tried to imagine what his wife, Eunoe, looked like. I wondered why she had not come to Rome. Had Bogud forbidden her to? Or was it Caesar? I burned with curiosity to know.

  Throughout the Forum the outdoor party was celebrated raucously; the Falernian was doing its duty. Since the wine was so rare and costly, everyone thought it his duty to drink as much of it as possible. The noise level rose, echoing off the stones. I saw several men get up and dance around the columns of the Temple of Saturn, and another group link arms and form teams to try to knock benches over on the Via Sacra. A bellowing singing contest was held on the steps of the Curia. One man pitched headlong down them and rolled over and over like a barrel, yelling with glee.

  Women, too, were joining in—weaving flowers in their hair, climbing over the benches. The heat of the night added to the intensity and fervor. I felt sweat running down my face and back, plastering my gown to my body. The jewelry I wore felt like manacles. It was no night to have metal against the skin.

  When the dinner was over but the revelry was reaching its highest pitch, Caesar suddenly stood up. Trumpets blared, and he seized a torch and leapt up on the table.

  “Friends! I wish to postpone no longer the dedication of my gifts to the Roman people. Why wait for daylight, when we have the light of a thousand torches here? Why wait for another day, when everyone is gathered here already?” he cried.

  At the far end of the Forum, no one even heard him; they were still guzzling, gorging, and dancing. But aro
und us, everyone fell silent and listened.

  “I wish Rome to be the most beautiful city in the world. And to that end, I have constructed new buildings for her.” Two of his soldiers stepped up beside him, as well as priests, garbed in their striped togas. “Let me show them to you. Come with me!”

  He took Calpurnia’s hand and obediently the rest of his family followed him; he led them to the steps of the almost-finished Basilica Julia. Now a big throng had gathered, following in his footsteps.

  “I give this new covered marketplace and public building to the citizens of Rome,” he said. “Our older ones no longer serve our needs; they are neither large nor modern enough. And so I name this the Basilica Julia, in honor of my family line, the Julian clan. It is yours forever!”

  A vast—although somewhat bleary—cheer rose from the populace.

  Then Caesar turned and began to walk northward between the buildings, leading the people to his gleaming white new Forum and the temple within it. He stood at its entrance and brandished a torch.

  “A new Forum for a new day!” he cried. “The city of Rome has need of a new Forum!”

  Everyone had watched it being built, but even so, it seemed a surprise when it was actually presented. A new Forum. But the old one was sacred—it contained so many historic sites, all bound up with the history of Rome. Here it was that Jupiter stopped the assault of the Sabines, here it was that Curtius had vanished into the mysterious Curtin Lake. So many stories, all dear to their hearts. A new Forum? What did it mean? It could not be as simple as Caesar made it sound, simply a new place with more clean space to do business. No, Caesar must have other motives, I could almost hear them thinking. They were always so ready to believe the worst of him.

  “Come, follow me! Tread on the grass, walk in the porticoes, make it yours!” he urged them. But they hung back, like frightened children.

  Caesar walked alone across the grass and mounted the steps of the temple. He stood there for several moments, one foot placed on a higher step than the other, turned sideways. His Triumphator’s robe looked darker than any wine, splashed against the white of the marble.