The Memoirs of Cleopatra

by Margaret George

  Seated around the trestle table were our four admirals—the experienced Sosius and Publicola, and the less-trained Insteius and Octavius (unfortunate name in our camp)—and our leading general, Canidius, as well as Dellius.

  The heat had continued unabated, as had the disease and debilitation, and as we talked, flies buzzed around the stifling chamber, boldly landing on the maps Antony had unrolled. They crawled excitedly, and I wondered if they were anticipating all the corpses that would litter the area depicted on the map and give them joy. Antony swatted one, and its iridescent blob smeared the area of Athens.

  “My friends,” he said, leaning forward on his knuckles, “we must now cast our final plans.”

  Now that the moment had come, everyone suddenly seemed reluctant to settle on a strategy.

  “Canidius, the state of the legions?” asked Antony, to fill the hesitant silence.

  Canidius rose. “Of our original hundred thousand men, we have about seventy thousand still here—and fit to fight.”

  Now a groan or two escaped around the table. To have lost thirty thousand men, and no real battle fought! Truly disease is a worse enemy than catapults and swords.

  “Our biggest loss is in the client kings who deserted; the remaining soldiers are Roman legionaries, many of them veterans.”

  “Just as well,” snorted Publicola. “Octavian never had any of those worthless foreigners to begin with. He was smart.”

  I wondered whether he considered me a “foreigner,” or was past caring what I thought.

  “True, now the numbers are almost equal,” said Canidius.

  “Minus the riffraff,” Publicola emphasized.

  “In any case,” said Antony, “with equal numbers, and Romans versus Romans, would you say we are evenly matched?”

  Canidius thought for a moment. “Yes, except for morale. Spirits are always higher on the side that can claim recent victories, even if they are small ones. However, the men are eager to move, eager for action. I would recommend that we abandon the fleet, and effect an ordered retreat east to Macedonia to link up with our forces there. We can call on help from King Dicomes nearby. Octavian will follow us, and we can draw him into the land battle we have sought for so long.” He looked at me. “The Queen and her retinue can depart for Egypt by land, there to await the outcome.”

  I was taken by surprise. “But, Canidius,” I said, “you supported my presence here!” I felt betrayed.

  “That was before Agrippa rendered your fleet helpless,” he said. “Now you are only a liability—a target for Octavian’s abuse. You are harming Antony’s cause to remain.”

  What he said was true, but there was no help for it. If Egypt did not participate in this war as a sovereign state, we became like the other client kingdoms—worthless allies. The shame would be unendurable. We would deserve the censure that Rome already heaped on us.

  “It seems to me that if you retreat, the troops will misunderstand and think we are conceding defeat,” I argued. “Then they will desert in droves, and there will be no army left to stand and fight the pursuing Octavian.”

  “The alternative plan is to escape from the naval blockade and save as many ships as possible,” said Antony. “After all, if we lose our entire navy, the land army will be trapped in Greece, unable to cross into Asia because we will have no transport, while the enemy rules the waves unchallenged.”

  “Bah!” said Dellius. “Forget the fleet!”

  “What is the state of the fleet?” Antony asked calmly.

  “We are badly undermanned in rowers, and the ships suffer from disrepair,” said Sosius.

  “How many ships would you estimate could be manned with our oarsmen?” asked Antony.

  “No more than three hundred,” he said, “counting the Egyptian ones.”

  Now more groans sounded around the table. This time last year, we had had five hundred warships and three hundred supporting merchant ships, plus scouts. What a decline!

  “We must burn the extra ships, then,” said Antony. “No sense in making a gift of them to Octavian.”

  Burn my ships! No, not my hard-won ships! “The Egyptian ones are manned by my own mercenaries, and are entirely reliable!” I said quickly.

  “The few that are left,” said Publicola. “They had no magic to survive the fevers and dysentery any better than the rest.”

  “Forget the sea!” Canidius burst out. “The fleet is emasculated. Antony is not a naval commander, but a land general. The Roman veterans are still battleworthy. Agrippa is not much on land, and Octavian is nothing anywhere. Seek your victory where you are strongest, not where you are weakest!”

  Antony shut his eyes as if to shut out all the conflicting noise. He was fighting within himself. His instinct was to fight by land, but as supreme commander he had to keep all the issues in mind, and think of the overall strategy, not just one battle. Clearly the sea offered him the best chance to husband his remaining resources and preserve a long-term goal of victory.

  What would Caesar have done? But whatever it would have been, it would have needed Caesar himself to carry it out.

  “I think…” Antony finally raised his head. “It must be by sea.”

  “No!” cried Dellius. “That’s a mistake!”

  “Listen,” said Antony slowly, “Queen Cleopatra is right. Taking a weakened army in a retreat over mountain passes is disastrous—well I know. And so should you, after Parthia. We have no commitment from Dicomes, and if the other client kings are any indication, it is best not to rely on him. Once the army withdraws, the fleet is lost, trapped here with no soldiers on board to fight its way out of the gulf, and can provide no protection for the crossing into Asia. We would then lose both fleet and army, and stand naked before the enemy, surrounded, embayed, begging for terms.”

  “Aren’t you leaving out the possibility that there will be a land battle and you can defeat him?” sneered Dellius.

  “It is unlikely he will be drawn into battle to fight for something he can win while doing nothing. If there is any consistent behavior in Octavian over the years, it is that he follows his own motto: Festina lente, hasten slowly. He inches along, but inexorably. And he never does for himself what time, or fate, or another man’s mistake, can do for him. No, he won’t fight. He’ll watch us go, and catch us easily with Agrippa’s ships when we try to cross the Hellespont.”

  “We might as well fight by sea and send as many of the enemy to the bottom as possible when we make our escape,” said Sosius.

  “To break the blockade is no riskier than to withdraw the army, and we stand to save more,” I said. “We can take four or five of the best legions on board as fighters, and increase our chances of winning, and spirit some of the army away as well.”

  “By Hercules!” cried Dellius. “Is Octavian right? Is Cleopatra running this war?”

  “Why should I not speak?” I said. “I can read the map as well as any of you—yes, and the numbers too!”

  “I hate retreat as much as any man,” said Antony. “It is a bitter fruit, as I know, having chewed it both in Mutina and in Parthia. But there are some retreats that are nothing more than a regrouping. I put this in that category.”

  “But—” Canidius looked bewildered. “What am I to do? Just wait to surrender?”

  “No, you will effect the withdrawal, but only after the sea battle is over. We can then provide ships to transport you into Asia.”

  The flies were buzzing around his head, as if they, too, were protesting. Not enough casualties! they were saying. We don’t like your plan!

  “So we have decided,” said Antony. “We break the blockade and take our treasure and as many ships and soldiers as possible to Egypt. The army will wait, and then make an orderly withdrawal into Asia. We will burn the surplus ships. All this will take place within the next few days.”

  “You have decided,” said Canidius.

  “I am the commander! Who else should decide?” Antony cried. “It is I who command and you who must
obey!” He softened. “But I value your judgment.”

  “Even though you ignore it?”

  “Because I do not follow it in all particulars does not mean I ignore it.”

  “I just pray to all the gods that you are right,” said Canidius.

  “Why, so do we all,” said Sosius.

  The meeting broke up in near confusion. The naval commanders were delighted with the decision, but clearly there was little to choose from between two unpalatable plans. Both involved a high degree of loss, and a high degree of risk. I was unhappy with the prospect of using Egypt as a staging ground, but like everyone else, I had had to compromise. When I had provoked Octavian, I had gambled with Egypt and losing even that which I had.

  Perhaps I should never have…I shook my head. What was done was done. The next generation would have had to fight the same battle. It was inevitable. And that it came in my day—well, fate had chosen and fitted me for it. All I could do now was buckle on the breastplate and hold tight to the shield.

  It was heartbreaking to watch. Yet I forced myself to stand on the shore and ache as the ships marked for destruction were torched. They huddled together like people trying to stave off a collapsing roof or an earthquake, but they were doomed, forced to stay, chained fast by their anchors.

  Also like innocent people caught in a fire, they were of all types—triremes, quinqueremes, even “eights” and “nines.” They had been smeared with pitch and oil to make them burn better, sacrifices to our mistakes. From the shore, men threw flaming torches onto the decks, and the fire caught quickly.

  “Oh, Antony,” I said, taking his hand. It actually hurt to watch. I remembered walking through the boatyard when they were just being built, all new and proud. My children! If the sight of the perishing ships caused me such pain, how did any mother ever endure the loss of a real child?

  “It has to be,” he said.

  “They pay the price of our miscalculations,” I said. “It seems we have made one mistake after another.”

  “All war is a series of calculations,” he said. “Building them at all was just another calculation. That is what makes war so expensive—all the guesses we must make, each one costing gold.”

  “But to see gold burning like that!”

  “Think of all the gold resting on sea bottoms, lost in shipwrecks. When we break out, we can only pray that our treasure on board will survive intact. But you will be with it, on the flagship, our largest and strongest.”

  I always hated taking treasure on board ships. But what were we to do? Leave it for Octavian? Better the sea bottom!

  The fire had truly caught now, passing from ship to ship, making a garish necklace of flame. The yellow pyres, reflected in the calm water, appeared twice as grand. All the smells of different types of burning wood—from the pungent scent of dry cedar to the mushroomlike odor of old, wet planks—drifted toward us, enveloping us in a mantle of smoke. It stung my eyes, but I could not leave. It was a funeral, and I must stay. I owed them that, my ships.

  Antony put his arm around me. “Come,” he said. “No need to torture ourselves.”

  Mistakes…miscalculations…misinformation…The remembrance of them smothered me like the smoke, the tangible proof of them. Oh, torment of remorse! Is there anything more fiendish, more unmanning? It made me doubt all that we now planned.

  Fire even has a voice, a voice very like that of remorse: high, keening, evocative. It rose now from the company of ships, dying, almost a whistle.

  There were others gathered, watching, and I had no doubt that from his heights Octavian could see the red-stained waters, could smell the ashes. People passed shuffling behind us, but no one would intrude on us. But gradually I became aware of someone standing off to one side, watching us rather than the ships. He was hooded, and I could not make out his features.

  “Antony,” I finally said, “who is that? He is staring at us most rudely. Do you know him?”

  Antony peered into the gloom, as if his eyes could somehow pierce the dark. He shook his head. “There is something familiar about him, but no.” He raised his arm. “Sir! Come here!”

  The man stood unmoving for a long moment, then came toward us as if he were the summoner, not the summoned. As he approached, he threw back his hood.

  “Why, it is—” Antony struggled for the name.

  “Hunefer,” the man finished. “It is a long way from Rome, my lord.”

  Now I recognized him, too: the Egyptian astrologer I had sent to Rome with Olympos so long ago to attach himself to Antony’s household and spy. He had better not betray me, even after all this time!

  “I am pleased to meet you,” I said pointedly.

  Hunefer nodded. “And I, you.” He indicated the ships. “A sad day for us.”

  “What are you doing here?” Antony insisted on knowing.

  “I have long followed your fortunes, my lord; I came here to share them.”

  “Well, then, they must look favorable, or you would have stayed away!” Antony sounded pleased, as if the man’s very presence was a good omen.

  “Perhaps he’s just loyal,” I said quickly. I could not bear to hear a fortune right now. Even if it were good. Mistakes. Miscalculations. Misinformation…Misfortune. No fortune.

  “Even loyal servants don’t go rushing into a burning house,” said Antony. “Or board a burning ship.”

  “Perhaps he was just trapped here, like all the rest,” I said.

  “Madam,” said Hunefer, “sometimes the future unmasks herself like a guest at a revel. Then we come close to touching time herself. We cannot turn away from what she would reveal.”

  “He told me that my fate-spirit, my daimon, was overshadowed when Octavian’s was near,” Antony remembered. Of course Olympos had reported it to me. “Well, you were right, old friend. Ever since Octavian landed in Greece…” His voice faded. “But for the six years before that, all was well. So, once we remove ourselves from here…?”

  It had turned into a question.

  Hunefer was silent so long that Antony finally said, “We will escape from here, won’t we?” The pity of it!—reducing his wish for victory to mere escape.

  “Part of you, yes,” Hunefer said slowly. “Another part of you, you will leave here.”

  “Part of the army? Part of the navy?”

  “The stars only say ‘part of you,’ ” said Hunefer. “It is not clear.”

  “Part of—me?” he asked. “My body? My troops? Surely you can discern that!”

  “He means the ships,” I said quickly. “The burnt ships! That’s a large part. And the oarsmen and soldiers who have died—they will remain here forever.” I glared at Hunefer. Stupid old man! Whatever he saw, he should keep it to himself. It was too late now to do anything but harm.

  “No, madam,” he insisted. “That has already come to pass, and is done. This—”

  Suddenly a great realization settled on me, of the way the gods tease us with partial revelations and veiled hints, knowing we will follow them to our doom. Then when we come to grief, they laugh. Such is their amusement. If we fail by following our own ideas, we can take some pride in that; we are not another’s plaything. Even mistakes…miscalculations…misinformation have an innate human bravery lacking in merely following supernatural direction. Let us win, or let us fail, but let it be all ours! I turned on him.

  “Enough. We will not hear.” I linked my arm through Antony’s. “Come. To our tent.” I steered him away.

  The heavy air in the tent oppressed like bondage. Flies were everywhere now; they must breed and double every night. Ugly black buzzing things, they plagued us, forcing us to sleep under nets. Even so, they woke us by diving against the cloth, as if they were arrows intent on piercing it.

  The lurid red of the burning ships making the tent walls glow, the attacking flies…all seemed a foretaste of Hades.

  “I remember a temple we came across in Parthia,” Antony mumbled sleepily. “There’s a god there, a god who commands legio
ns of flies, I forget his name…. He’s evil, causes swarms of flies to attack….”

  “You must have angered him, then,” I said. “He must have followed you all the way from Parthia. You and your men.”

  I meant it to be funny, but what if it was true? There were veterans of Parthia here; were the flies particularly bad around them? I did feel plagued, pursued…there was something unnaturally hellish in this place.

  “Did you destroy his temple?” I asked.

  “I…I remember looking at the carvings. On our way back, perhaps…yes, I think we did, because archers were hiding in it, attacking us.”

  They had destroyed the fly-god’s temple? I wished the answer had been otherwise.

  “What was his name? Try to remember!” We could placate him, promise to build him a new temple, one in Alexandria….

  “I don’t know,” said Antony. “I never knew it would be important.” He sat up on his elbows. “I don’t think it’s important now. Your imagination is playing tricks on you. There are always flies in summer wherever an army camps. Forget this god, this…” He laughed. “Asmodeus. That was his name.”

  Asmodeus. I had heard the name; one of those gods from farther east, where they seemed to breed vicious ones like the Ma and Kali. I would see to it that amends were made—after we escaped.

  Antony turned over, and from his breathing I knew he slept. But I lay there, imagining I could feel the heat from the flames, tormented by the flies waiting outside, crawling on the curtain. I shuddered.

  While Antony slept, I felt all the gods fighting overhead. I wished Caesar would appear and scatter them, give us some sign on the eve of this battle, as he had at Philippi. But I felt abandoned by him, as if he had lost interest in our affairs. Perhaps that meant he was a true god now; nothing left of the mortal, not even affections.

  And Antony, all too mortal, slept on.

  Early in the morning Canidius came to our tent and told us: Dellius had deserted to Octavian.