The Memoirs of Cleopatra

by Margaret George

The wine…oh, dear gods! Let us not have another episode like Pergamon! I watched him carefully.

  But he seemed dead sober, as if the shocks of the day had cut him so deep even the wine could not numb him further.

  “I think we must turn our attention back to the ships,” Antony said. “After the attempted escape, what is their state?”

  Sosius gave a quick tally: There were more ships than able oarsmen to man them, and the remaining rowers were in a bad way, both in body and spirit. Their bodies suffered from the food shortage—our only source of grain was bags hauled by Greek villagers over the mountains—and their spirits from the inactivity, inexperience, illness, and failed escape.

  “A deadly combination, sir,” said Sosius.

  “By the gods, man, can they still sit and row?”

  “Yes,” he answered.

  “Then row they shall,” said Antony grimly. “And soon.”

  At last we could retire to sleep, the faithful Eros and Charmian silently preparing us. Once we were alone, we still did not speak. Words seemed futile. Antony lay on his side, turning away from me.

  Just when my weary mind finally began to release its grip on this day, and the pinpricks of light from the hanging lantern were starting to blur, another message arrived. Antony sat up and read it in the faint light.

  Rhoemetalces of Thrace and Marcus Junius Silanus, a commander, had slipped away under cover of darkness to join Octavian.

  75

  “You have only seen him win. You don’t know a man until you see him lose.” Olympos had once said those words, casually, about a chariot racer I had wished to reward by appointing him overseer of the royal stables. Now they haunted me.

  You don’t know a man until you see him lose.

  Antony’s despair, his fits and starts, his irresolution after the second cavalry attack failed, were worse than the defeat itself. I watched in disbelief as this man, whom I thought I had known down to the bone, seemed to break up like a ship caught on the rocks.

  Prince Iamblichus of Emesa and Quintus Postumius, a senator, tried to sneak away, but were caught, and executed by Antony as a warning. That stopped the desertions among the higher ranks, but how much longer would it be until the common soldiers aped their officers and began deserting themselves?

  We were constantly tormented by the messages and slogans fired into our camp, all of them insulting and most urging our men to desert. Someone—Octavian himself?—was thoughtful enough to send a copy of a poem written by Horace celebrating our ignominious sea retreat and Amyntas’s desertion. It must have been Octavian, since the poem was written to his intimate, M aecenas. Who else would have had a copy of it?

  It seemed they were rejoicing in Rome, bringing out their best wine.

  When, blest Maecenas, shall we twain

  Beneath your stately roof a bowl

  Of Caecuban long-hoarded drain,

  In gladsomeness of soul,

  For our great Caesar’s victories,

  Whilst, as our cups are crowned,

  Lyres blend their Doric melodies

  With flute’s barbaric sound?

  A Roman soldier (ne’er, oh, ne’er,

  Posterity, the shame avow!)

  A woman’s slave, her arms doth bear,

  And palisadoes now;

  To wrinkled eunuchs crooks the knee,

  And now the sun beholds

  ’Midst warriors’ standards flaunting free

  The vile pavilion’s folds!

  Maddened to view this sight of shame,

  Two thousand Gauls their horses wheeled,

  And wildly shouting Caesar’s name,

  Deserted on the field;

  Whilst steering leftwise o’er the sea

  The foemen’s broken fleet

  Into the sheltering haven flee,

  In pitiful retreat,

  Vanquished by land and sea, the foe

  His regal robes of purple shifts

  For miserable weeds of woe,

  And o’er the wild waves drifts….

  Come, boy, and ampler goblets crown

  With Chian or with Lesbian wine

  Or else our squeamish sickness drown

  In Caecuban divine!

  Thus let us lull our cares and sighs,

  Our fears that will not sleep,

  For Caesar and his great emprise,

  In goblets broad and deep!

  Both the truths and the untruths made me sick. Amyntas had not deserted because he was disgusted by the sight of my pavilion (what pavilion?) or my eunuchs (what eunuchs?); nor was Antony my slave. But we had been forced to effect a “pitiful retreat” back into the gulf, and…

  Should I show it to Antony? It would have fired the old Antony; first he would have laughed, then he would have set out to punish the taunters. But this new Antony—this stranger, vanquished by land and sea, his regal robes of purple shifts for miserable weeds of woe—would it break him completely? I folded up the offensive poem and hid it. I was afraid to take the chance.

  Swelter: to be faint from heat. To be oppressed by heat. To sweat profusely. That is what we did, at Actium in July. July. The month of Julius. On Caesar’s birthday, the twelfth of that month, we held a sweltering dinner of commemoration, in which sweltering guests ate meager food, served by sweltering servants under a moon that even seemed to emit heat. Yes, a hot moon, its beams burning, searing the scum-rimmed waters of the gulf, making their stink rise.

  The food on our plates was scant enough. There were some boiled beans, some toasted cattails (I had remembered the toasted papyrus stalks in Egypt and tried a substitute), moldy bread, and the ever-sustaining fish. And wine so sour it made the mouth pucker.

  I thought of Maecenas and Horace drinking their delicate amber Caecuban, somewhere in Rome.

  “Why, I wager even Octavian’s pretty little pages are drinking Falernian,” said Dellius, echoing my own thoughts. He was frowning into his cup. “If he brought them with him, that is.”

  “He probably never travels without them,” I said. Octavian, like many Romans, evidently kept what were called deliciae for his pleasures. But of course he felt free to insult Mardian as a eunuch!

  Dellius took another swallow of the wine, making unpleasant noises with his mouth to indicate his suffering. I tried not to dwell on the enemy camp, with its ample supplies for the men and dainties for the officers.

  The last of Antony to change was his public self, and he was able to preside over the gathering in his old manner. The moonlight falling on his tousled hair showed a head still held high, dark eyes alert to all that passed, white teeth ready to flash in laughter. Sweat gleamed on the cords of his thick neck, and on the sinews of his forearms as he held his cup, but the heat did not wilt him.

  “To the god Caesar,” he said, raising his goblet.

  Everyone drank.

  But the unspoken thought must have hovered in everyone’s mind: What would Caesar do in this position? It was unthinkable that he would not be able to extricate himself and force a victory. But how? How?

  “And to his true son, Ptolemy Caesar,” Antony continued. He raised his cup again. The others followed.

  We must not lose sight of that; it was Caesar’s son’s heritage we were defending. Surely Caesar himself would lend us aid! I thought.

  I felt unwell, unsteady and weak. I kept telling myself that it was merely from the near-starvation rations we were on. I prayed it was nothing more. Ahenobarbus had indeed died only a few days after his departure. Even the highest-ranking were not immune from the diseases sweeping through the troops.

  Gathered about us were our officers and about twenty senators, none of them looking robust. I heard a cough here and there, discreetly muffled. In the general discomfort of the camp, togas had long since been laid aside, and the senators were wearing only tunics, as were the military officers. Without their distinctive dress, they were hard to tell apart.

  I picked at my food; starved as I was, I had no appetite. The moon seemed t
o be glaring down at me malevolently.

  “When do we leave?” asked a senator suddenly. “It seems that we must move, do something.”

  “And what do you suggest, Senator?” Antony asked blandly.

  “Run the entire army over them. Send all nineteen legions against them—overrun their camp.”

  “Ah! If only we could. But they are surrounded by stout defenses.”

  “Then batter them down!”

  “I am afraid I did not bring siege machines.”

  “Wouldn’t have mattered if you did,” I heard someone muttering from the back. “They didn’t last long in Parthia.”

  “We will indeed do something,” Antony assured them. “But we must be sure it is the right thing. We cannot afford a mistake—now.”

  Men were shaking their heads, as if they were thinking, Yes, you’ve made enough already. But most likely they were all in their own dream worlds, making perfect military plans—even the non-soldiers. Especially the non-soldiers. It is impossible to get a consensus from so many people, which is why great commanders have to act alone, trusting to their lonely inspiration.

  “Pity about Marcus Licinius Crassus,” someone dared to say.

  Crassus, commander of our garrison in Crete and of the four legions guarding Cyrenaica, had gone over to Octavian.

  Antony handled it well. “Crassus changed for political reasons, but—what a tribute for us!—his troops did not follow suit. Yes, they refused to be disloyal, and thus Cyrenaica is still secure. I have appointed Lucius Pinarius Scarpus, a relative of the great Caesar’s, in his place there.” He lifted his goblet again. “Caesar, you are with us still!”

  “Where was he in Corinth?” someone asked. Agrippa had succeeded in ousting Nasidius from his command there; we had now lost the entire region.

  Still Antony would not be provoked. “Everyone knows Caesar was not a naval man,” he said, with a smile.

  “General Atratinus in Sparta has gone over,” someone else said, “and I have been informed that Berytus has thrown off the Ptolemaic yoke.” He turned to me accusingly.

  I felt a flash of anger at his taunt, but I did not show it. “Berytus was always a troubled spot,” I finally said. “Such places take advantage of unsettled conditions. But it is temporary.” I paused. “Quintus Didius in Syria, with his three legions, is still our loyal governor, and will address the problem.”

  Forcing myself to smile as I sipped the wretched wine, I knew the real difference between our camp and Octavian’s was not the quality of the wine but the bickering, questioning, and rivalry between our leaders. Our lack of consensus was glaring, whereas in Octavian’s headquarters they were probably all of one mind. This put us at a grave disadvantage. There is a strength in the union even of very sorry men, Homer had said. By the same token, even the strongest men are undone by quarrels.

  “Have you noticed,” someone asked snidely, “that no one seems to be crossing the lines to come over here?”

  A swarm of insects flew overhead, buzzing and circling our torches. Some were burnt, making crackling noises. I nodded to our attendants to start fanning to waft them away. It was that still time of evening, before the nightly breeze came down from the mountains.

  The dinner ended early, to my relief. I was pleased that we had managed to honor Caesar even here, but any gathering was now unpleasant. The guests wandered away, back to their tents; no one wanted to linger by the water’s edge.

  But Antony and I did, turning to see our fleet waiting, like chained animals, on the moonlit waters. We stood side by side on the banks and watched.

  “You answered them well tonight,” I finally ventured to say. “It is unfortunate that we must have these gatherings.”

  He sighed, discarding the mask of the hearty man he had just played. “If we did not, worse rumors would arise. They would say—oh, the gods know what! I must show my face on a regular basis, attempt to placate them.”

  “And listen to them.”

  “Yes, listen to them. Both what they say and what they do not say.”

  “I think the latter was louder tonight.”

  “Oh yes, I sense their mood. General discontent, fear, panic—nothing good!” He gave a quiet laugh, and tightened his arm about my waist. “You are so thin. Are you feeling well?”

  “Yes,” I lied. No need to add to his worries. “It has been a long time since you put your arm there; you have just forgotten.” He had kept away from me, living in an abstinence that would have shocked Octavian. But when the spirits are crushed, the appetites flee.

  “I would never forget,” he said. “Do not take my absence for something willful.”

  I leaned my head back against his arm to show him I meant nothing by my remark. “I know,” I finally said.

  The sacred month of July dragged past, and then we were in Sextilis, still sitting, still sweltering. Food stores had fallen further and were now failing in earnest; every day more dead men were carried from the ships and camp, and the dull thump-thump of dirty water against the hulls of the ships beat an ominous rhythm. It was dirty because of the human refuse continually dumped overboard. Moss and slime grew on the timbers, birds nested under the inactive oars, and we feared that if we did not move soon, the ships would be completely unseaworthy.

  Antony spent many hours staring at his maps and reading reports, breaking off to stare glumly into space. We spoke little; people confined together in inactivity have a tendency to lapse into silence.

  I never regained my sense of well-being. Perhaps I had a touch of the illness attacking the men; but I kept it from Antony as well as I could. Only when he was gone from headquarters did I allow myself to lie on my cot, wrapped in a sheet, sometimes feeling a chill pass over me even in this ovenlike heat.

  Charmian would kneel near me and smooth my hair, wipe my face with damp cloths.

  “We will not tell the Imperator,” she would say, with a wink.

  “No,” I said. “We will not tell him.” The gods forbid that he should know!

  Toward the end of Sextilis, with the break in the weather, something seemed to change in Antony. He flung off the black clouds that had shrouded him like those of Strongyle, and reclaimed his old self, wrenching it by sheer self-will out of the mire of despondence.

  “It is time,” he said grimly one night.

  Everything else was the same: the same guttering lamplight, the same grumbling and aching stomachs, the same lines of defense. Why now?

  “I will call a council of war. The situation cannot continue.”

  At last! At last! The stalemate would be broken. Antony had determined on his course. Now, by all the gods, let it be a wise one!

  “Yes,” I said softly, rising and coming to his side. I put my hand on his shoulder; he almost jumped. We had touched each other so seldom of late. Finally he reached up and took my hand in his; his felt so unfamiliar. But I squeezed it nonetheless.

  “I think it must be by sea,” he said simply. “All our land routes are too dangerous.”

  “By sea?” For so long the two had weighed equally.

  “We can escape by sea,” he said. “We cannot escape by land.”

  “Escape?” It had come to this? We were thinking only of escape? My voice betrayed my disappointment.

  “Retreat, if you prefer that term,” he snapped.

  “To have gathered a fleet and an army like this, and not to use them!” I lamented the loss. It seemed—profligate.

  “Neither the army nor the fleet is what it was,” he reminded me. “If we could have used them in the beginning…” He sighed. “Now everything is changed. The worst crime a commander can commit is to fight today’s battle with the troops of yesterday.”

  “Of course.” I must defer to his experience. Let us not compound one error with another.

  “If we can extricate most of our fleet, retreat to Egypt, and regroup there…” He was thinking out loud. “The followers of Pompey were able to do this time and again.”

  But th
at army had ultimately lost. Once someone is on the run, he has lost his initiative and is the hunted rather than the hunter. I refrained from pointing this out.

  “So Egypt is to be the arena,” I said faintly. I did not like it. What if Octavian pursued us to our own shores? I did not want fighting there. That was why Pothinus had killed Pompey—to forestall exactly that.

  “No, no,” he reassured me. “We will merely recover there, and gather our forces again.”

  “Perhaps it would be better to fight it out here, in Greece, now.” Spare Egypt! “Your army is still intact, and Canidius is a fine general.”

  “If they won’t fight, we can’t,” Antony insisted. “All we can do is leave.”

  “But why would Octavian bring an enormous army here and then refuse to fight? It makes no sense!”

  “Stranger things have happened.” He rose and took my hands in his, looking at me in a way I had almost forgotten.

  It had been late already when he had hunched over his maps. Now it must be midnight. The camp was utterly quiet, like a hibernating beast. He blew out the lamps and plunged the tent into darkness, then pulled me over toward the sleeping area. Beside the bed, he took my head in both his hands and whispered, “Forgive me for neglecting you, my most precious—”

  “Ally?” I could not help joking. “At least I have not deserted.”

  He bent his head and kissed me. “That is not funny,” he said.

  I tightened my arms around him. “No, it is not,” I said. “Forgive me.”

  “It seems we both have something to forgive,” he said, falling on the bed and taking me with him.

  Speech after long silence, touching after long abstinence, has a headiness all its own. It was as if he were a new person, and I must learn him all over again.

  At last it had come: the council of war, where we would meet in unison one last time before manning our posts. Everyone had to be certain of his duties, and of our supreme strategy: not as simple as one would suppose.

  The leaders were still deeply divided on what we should do. The only agreement was that we must do something, or perish at this wretched site. Both army and fleet had become a liability, too large to be abandoned, too weakened to be reliable. The only question was, which one was in worse condition?