The Memoirs of Cleopatra

by Margaret George

  Did I want to see any of them again? I had thought to be done with them. When I had sailed away from Rome—so heartsick, so weakened—I had comforted myself with saying, No more Antony, no more Octavian, no more Cicero, no more Rome. Well, there was no more Cicero, but what of Antony and Octavian?

  Antony…Antony I wanted to see. Lepidus, yes, I would be happy to see Lepidus. Octavian…I had seen all I needed of Octavian.

  For two nights I slept well in the built-in bed they had fashioned for me in the cabin. There were shelves with netting to hold my goods safe, and trunks bolted to the floor served as storage. So well secured was it that nothing rattled or broke loose as the wind rose during the third night, then turned into a howling monster.

  I slept unknowing until the ship lurched and I sat upright, grasping the rails of the bed. The floor was bucking and jerking, and a cascade of water burst in through the closed window, drenching me. I staggered up out of bed, hanging on to the bolted furniture to keep my footing. Grabbing a heavy waterproof cloak, unable to see in the darkness, I felt my way along the passageway to the deck, crawling up the steps.

  Now I could see well enough. A storm had caught us in full fury, and wave after wave was breaking across the deck, rolling in like breakers on a beach. The sailors were struggling to take down the sail, and the captain was shouting orders, barely audible above the roar of the wind. I grasped him by the shoulders, and he turned as best he could.

  “It pounced on us as suddenly as a lion,” he shouted. “The wind changed to the northwest; we’re being blown back against the coast.”

  “No, no, we have to keep out to sea!” I cried. How far were we from shore? It had been visible at sunset, but I had no way of knowing what had happened in the hours since.

  “We will do everything in our power,” he said. “But our ships are toys against the force of the wind and waves.” He broke off to rush across the deck and secure a line that was lashing like a whip, knocking sailors off their feet. While I watched, a man was washed overboard. I crawled to the mast and clung to it. My clothes were soaked, as heavy as metal.

  I looked toward shore—or, rather, away from the wind. I could see the faint pinprick of a light—it must be one of the signal lighthouses. If I could see it, that was bad indeed. It meant we were close to the coastline.

  The captain made his way back to the mast. “We’ve dropped anchor, and will try to ride it out,” he cried. “The rowers will row against the wind, to hold us in place. But I fear the anchor will rip out anyway.”

  And we would be borne relentlessly back onto the shore, there to break into pieces.

  The moon made a quick appearance between gaps in black, racing clouds. It showed a sea wrinkled, dark, and covered with sharp, peaked mountains of water—enormous waves. Seeing the size of them made my heart feel as if it stopped. They were higher than the mast of the ship. They paralyzed you with their sheer size—what could prevail against them? The ship was like a leaf blown into the troughs between waves. The helpless oars were lifted high, out of the water, where they rowed frantically against air, and the anchor line stretched, straining with a fearful whine, and snapped.

  I felt the jerk and shudder of the whole ship as it broke free and, suddenly freed from the weight of the anchor, spun like a top, slammed from all sides. Then the inexorable drifting, shoved by the wind, back, back toward the shore.

  The moon came out again, and in all the surrounding waters I saw the bobbing forms of the rest of the fleet. None of them could escape; we had been sailing close enough together that the storm encompassed us all.

  The ship listed to leeward, almost on its side. Water poured in through the oar ports. Now our only hope of survival would be to reach the shore before we sank. Suddenly the shore, too close before, looked impossibly far away. The ship lurched as it filled with water belowdecks, and the rowers struggled out from the hold, gasping and coughing. They staggered about on deck, dazed.

  Still clinging to the mast, I had to climb on it as the deck tilted, hugging it like a log. I heard a loud crash and realized that two ships nearby had collided, blown against each other. The splintering of wood and the agonized cries of the sailors rose above the wind. Pieces of masts and oars floated by, whirling, disappearing in the foam, then popping up again. Sometimes a man would be hanging on one, riding it like a raft.

  Ahead of us I saw the winking light. We would hit the shore—but would we sink first? If only the sinking was staved off until we were within swimming distance—and that meant very close indeed, for normal swimming was impossible in these high seas.

  A gigantic shudder, and the ship stuck on something. Then it wrenched free—or, rather, was torn free by the waves, lifted off and sent scudding along on its side again. The force of the momentary grounding tore the mast from its mooring, and I was thrown off, rolling across the sloping deck, until I hit the railing. There I stuck, almost in the sea. My face dipped down into the cold waves, and I pulled my head up, dripping with salt water. I had taken some into my lungs, and I coughed and gasped.

  Another shudder. The ship slammed against a sandbar, shaking. I heard a frightful sound, and I recognized it—the gods only know how, for I had never heard it before. But it was the unmistakable sound of the ship breaking up.

  It clove in half, and the two halves separated cleanly, flinging us into the heaving sea. I hit the water with such force I lost my breath, and the cold was a shock. But my head told me the water must be shallow here, or the ship would not have caught and shattered. And I swam in the direction of the lighthouse, pushed by the waves. When they sucked out, I found my feet could touch the bottom; only a little farther in, I could walk to shore.

  Another huge wave engulfed me, knocking me off my feet, but when it receded, I felt the firmness of the beach once more, and used those few seconds to walk closer to shore. The next wave knocked me over, too, but by the next one, I had reached the safety of waist-deep water, and I struggled to shore, exhausted, and collapsed on the beach.

  There I lay, gasping, and watched as others waded ashore, chased by timbers and fittings of the doomed fleet. One by one they reached the shore, falling limp on the sand. And there we lay, waiting for the light and the dreadful and certain knowledge of what had happened in the dark.

  The sun showed its rim above the horizon, in the direction of Alexandria. I had lain shivering under my heavy, waterlogged cloak for hours, hearing the moaning of those around me. The dawn showed a sea strewn with debris, half-hulks of ships still floating, other ships that seemed almost undamaged resting on the sands. Hundreds of sailors were hunched, shivering, up and down the beach.

  I was thankful to be alive, thankful that so many had survived. Some of the ships even looked—at first glance—to be repairable. But the losses were great, and I would be unable to aid the Triumvirs in their campaign. My magnificent fleet had not got very far.

  I could not see it as an omen. Shipwrecks were common, a fact of life. Octavian had been shipwrecked on his way to Spain; Caesar had twice lost his ships in Britain. There was nothing for it but to start over.

  But there was no way a fresh navy could be readied in time to help in the coming contest. I would have to be a passive spectator—something that sat ill with my nature.

  Where were we? The snowy sands held no landmarks. How far west had we got?

  I saw the captain, lurching along, dragging one leg. He had been injured, but was alive. “Phidias!” I called, waving to him. I pulled myself to my feet and ran to him.

  “You are safe!” he cried. “Thanks be to all the gods!” He nervously patted his dagger at his belt.

  “I hope you weren’t thinking of behaving like a Roman,” I said. “No matter what had happened to me.”

  His expression told me that was just what he had considered. A captain who drowned his sovereign had lost his honor and should kill himself. But he was enough of a practical Greek that he wanted to ascertain exactly what had happened before jumping to conclusions. “The fle
et is lost,” he said. “I did my best.”

  “I know. You could not control the heavens. And so many have been saved, it seems a miracle in itself.”

  “The fleet—the beautiful fleet—a shambles!” He shook his head.

  “We will build another.” I grieved for my lost fleet, my pride, my hopes. And under it, the disappointment that I would let Antony down, that I could not keep my word, although it was the gods who had prevented me, not men. Antony had made it across the Alps in winter, and I could not seem to escape from Egypt.

  “I think we are near Paraetonium,” he said.

  The western border of Egypt, a lonely, sunbaked outpost.

  “I suppose I was overdue to see it,” I said, attempting to lighten his spirits. “I should see my kingdom from west to east, as well as north to south.”

  “There is not much to see here, unless you like scorpions,” he grunted.

  The journey back was a sad one. Merchant ships had to come and fetch the survivors and gather up the debris. Some of the ships could be patched and sail slowly back to Alexandria later. But it was a quiet, sober party of survivors who disembarked on the quay of the capital.

  And it was with agitated regret that I had to write Antony and tell him the devastating news—not to expect our help.

  The summer came, a time that should have been happy with planting, harvesting, and laden cargo ships plying the seas. But in Alexandria we were tense with waiting. We were defenseless now, stripped of our legions, our fleet destroyed. I began rebuilding it, beginning with an “eight,” so that the flagship at least might be afloat before we were invaded. There was nothing standing between Egypt and the assassins now; they could march straight through Judaea and down to our borders. I also began raising my own army; it had been foolish to rely on the Roman troops. But that, too, was a slow business. Men are not turned into soldiers overnight.

  The story can be told quickly. Lepidus remained behind to guard Italy with three legions, and Antony and Octavian took twenty-eight to face Cassius and Brutus with their almost equal number. The site chosen by fate for the battle was near Philippi, in Greece. Octavian fell ill, as usual, in the midst of the preparations, and had to linger behind while Antony marched the legions and set up camp. The tactics of the assassins were to hold back and refuse to give battle, knowing that the Triumvirs were weak in supply lines and would run out of food as the weather worsened. Antony, realizing this, tricked them into battle as Caesar would have done, by building a causeway across a marsh to pierce their defense barriers. This lured Cassius from camp to counterattack, allowing Antony to charge into the camp and plunder it. In the meantime, Brutus’s troops had attacked Octavian’s camp and overrun it.

  The gods entered this battle as surely as they had the war in Troy. Caesar visited both camps with signs and spectral appearances. In Octavian’s, a dream warned him to rise from his sickbed and not remain in his tent on the battle day, and so he obeyed and hid in a marsh. Caesar appeared to Brutus the night before the final battle and foretold his end. I imagine that the Caesar Brutus saw was robust and healthy, not slain, and by that Brutus knew he had failed in his deed: that Caesar lived on, stronger than ever.

  When Brutus overran Octavian’s tent and tried to capture him, the bed was empty. Cassius, meanwhile, had been routed by Antony. As a relief force from Brutus followed him, Cassius mistook them for the enemy—the gods blinded him. Assuming that Brutus had already been captured or killed, he did not wait, but killed himself immediately.

  What a victory for the Triumvirs, for Cassius was a better general than Brutus. The assassins had lost their best man.

  Brutus retired, brooding, to his tent, and Octavian emerged from the marsh. Brutus would have waited for winter to do his work for him, starving out his opponents, but he had little control over his troops. Brutus never knew how to lead men, and now the restless soldiers forced a battle on him the morning after Caesar appeared to him. Antony and Octavian won, greatly helped by the lack of morale in Cassius’s soldiers, who had been broken by their commander’s loss. Brutus killed himself, and the characters of Antony and Octavian were clearly distinguished by how they treated his remains. Antony covered the body reverently with his purple general’s cloak, but Octavian yanked it off, then cut off Brutus’s head and sent it back to Rome to lay at the feet of Caesar’s statue.

  In the end, Brutus and Cassius had driven their cursed daggers into their own entrails, as was fitting.

  Thus were Mars Ultor—Mars the Avenger—and Caesar himself satisfied on the field of Philippi.

  41

  The world outside us had been rearranged, but for Alexandria, life continued protected and isolated, and for the rest of Egypt, even more so. Only we in the palace were connected with the tides of the times.

  After my long, soaking exposure to seawater, compounded with the wind and scorching sun, Iras pronounced my skin ruined.

  “The salt has injured it, and then the sunburn has made it like leather—that is, where it is not peeling off,” she said, shaking her head. Olympos concurred, saying I looked like a fortune-teller from the Moeris Oasis.

  “Tell us our future,” he said, cocking his dark head. “Who will control the entire world, and how long will it take?”

  “I am no fortune-teller,” I said. “At least about politics.”

  “What about personal things, my Circe? Can you tell if I will marry Phoebe?”

  Olympos had fallen in love, a startling thing, given his sarcastic personality. Like most skeptics, once he had capitulated to love, he was acting the fool.

  “If you ask her,” I said. So far he had not, relying on her to read his mind.

  “That would be going too far,” he said, laughing.

  “You will never marry, my lady, if you don’t repair your complexion,” said Iras. “Now, in Nubia, where the sun is even crueler than in Egypt, we use the milk of asses to bathe in and save our skin.”

  “I would recommend oil of almonds,” said Olympos. “Easier to come by.”

  “How many asses have to be milked to provide enough?” I asked. “Surely we have enough!” The idea was oddly appealing to me. Olympos raised his eyebrows.

  “I promise to try the almonds next,” I assured him. But my mood was darkened, because of Iras’s comment in passing. To marry…Mardian had been strongly urging it.

  I lay in my shallow marble tub and soaked in the asses’ milk, rubbing it into my arms and legs and patting my face with it. My toes looked odd, sticking up out of the white liquid. A sandalwood screen veiled me from the view of Mardian, who was pacing about the room. I found baths boring, so I had kept myself entertained by having others, disembodied voices, to talk to.

  “My dear madam,” he was saying, his voice higher than usual, because he was frustrated. “Your subjects are most anxious about it!”

  “I have already provided them with an heir,” I said stubbornly. “There is now a co-ruler with me. Even the Romans have recognized Caesarion.” I had just issued a new series of coins with our reign emblazoned on them.

  “Caesarion is only five years old,” said Mardian. He was standing as close to the screen as permissible. “Life is uncertain—for all of us. If he does not attain maturity, the line will end with him. And do you plan to mate with him? It would seem so!”

  I cupped some of the milk in my hands and let it run down over my arms and shoulders. “Don’t be vulgar,” I said.

  “But, don’t you see—there must be more heirs, and you Ptolemies mate only with each other, so—what other conclusion can the world come to?”

  “I do not care!” I said angrily.

  “Yes, you do. You must. You must face this problem!”

  “Not now.” I lowered my face into the milk, shutting my eyes.

  “Yes, now. You are already twenty-seven years old. Soon to be twenty-eight,” he reminded me portentously. “The Ptolemies have on occasion taken up with foreigners. Was not your grandmother a Syrian?”

  “Yes,�
� I said. However, my grandfather had not seen fit to marry her. “But whom do you suggest I marry?”

  “Well, Octavian is unmarried, and—”

  “Octavian!” I cried. “Octavian! What an unappetizing suggestion!” I stood up and called for Iras. I wanted to get out of this bath and look Mardian straight in the eye. Iras came quickly, bringing towels and gowns. Swathed, I stepped out and glared at him. He looked genuinely puzzled.

  “I only suggested a Roman because you clearly aren’t prejudiced against them as so many others are.”

  “Caesar was different.” Caesar defied categories; his true category was more than mortal.

  “Octavian is handsome,” he said lamely. “And powerful.”

  I recoiled at the thought of him; then the memory of what I had seen through the window at the Regia came back to me. Clearly he had a lascivious side to his nature, as out of place in the rest of him as a butterfly in winter. “Oh yes. I grant you that.”

  “Well, what else does a woman want?”

  I laughed. “I admit they are good basics. But I would like a heart to go along with them, a sense of life and joy.”

  “Then I take back what I said. You will have to look for a non-Roman.”

  Iras brought out a jar of almond oil. “If you will just lie down here…” She indicated a couch draped with thick towels.

  “Later.” I needed to finish talking to Mardian. “I know you have a good point. But…” How could I tell him how little interest I had in it, how even my dreams were curiously dry and sterile? He, as a lifelong eunuch, could never understand the fluctuations of passion—how it could be a madness in one stage of life and then disappear, evaporate, like a dry streambed, in another. I remembered my times with Caesar, but my nature then seemed a curiosity to me now.

  “Perhaps you should consider a prince from Bithynia or Pontus,” he went on, oblivious. “Someone younger, who would worship you and do whatever you wished. Never make any demands on you, but exist just to…to satisfy you.” He blushed.