The Memoirs of Cleopatra

by Margaret George

  “I cannot erase the stripes from your back,” I said, “although I wish I had that power. But I can give you this—to help heal them.” If only it had the power to make them disappear, so Octavian wouldn’t see them. But that was beyond even Olympos’s skill.

  Before he could respond, I went behind him and began spreading the ointment on his wounds, touching them as lightly as possible. Still he flinched at it, because they were deep and raw.

  How many were there? I counted some eight or so—how many would there have been if I had not stopped it?

  “We must ask your pardon,” I said quietly.

  Now at last he spoke. “A queen ask pardon of a freedman?” He was boiling angry.

  “When the freedman has been wronged, yes,” I said. “This should not have happened. If it lies within your gift, please sponge it from your memory. Not everyone has the greatness of mind to do so, however, and I cannot expect it.” I continued smoothing the ointment on his back. He had been cruelly treated. “We do not deserve it.”

  Those last words seemed to melt him. He turned his head and said, “He does not, but I would forgive you anything.” Then he laughed, a very small laugh. “They told me that you are both dangerous to know and able to make the knowing worth the danger.” He winced as I touched a deep cut. “Now I see what they meant.”

  “Who said that?” I must know.

  “Almost everyone in my camp. And—Octavian himself.”

  “Tell him, then, that I have taught him the truth of the first part of the sentence, and would be willing to proceed to the second. If…well, he can read it in this note I have brought for him.”

  O Isis! Was I really doing this? Spreading salve on the wounds of a freedman, giving coy hints to my utmost enemy? But I had promised to do anything for Egypt….

  “What is in it?” he asked.

  “Ah. That is for the eyes of Octav—for the Imperator alone.” I paused. “I have brought you a cloak to replace the one ripped from your back. Take it, and when you see it, try to remember not what the soldiers gave you but what I did.” I pulled it out of its bag and spread it out across his shoulders. It was of the finest, softest wool of Miletus, and his bleeding back would stain it, but he needed some covering to make the journey and protect him from road dust. I also hoped it would serve as some visible reminder of my secret visit to him. I would not be so obvious as to give him jewels.

  83

  It was time to take them out and reread them—the letters from Caesar. After my son had read them, we had divided them. He was to take half with him wherever he went, as his talisman and keepsake. I was to keep the rest, to sustain me and perhaps soften Octavian’s revenge by reminding him of the esteem in which his “father” had held me.

  I made sure I was alone, and unlikely to be disturbed. In a way I dreaded opening them and reading them, because words written by the departed take on entirely different meanings. They seem to whisper secret messages or exhortations that the living person might not have meant. I knew that, in my present circumstances, the words of Caesar would loom portentously.

  I sought my most padded and luxurious couch before placing the small box to one side of me and opening the lid. Inside lay the letters—so few, really. Caesar had had so much official correspondence, not to mention his war reports, that he could spare little time for personal letters. And he had been cautious about committing much in writing. I remembered how eagerly I had awaited his letters after he first left Egypt, how deserted and bereft I had felt. And then the first one—I opened it slowly—had been so impersonal.

  The paper was brittle now and little flakes fell off when I spread it out. The ink was faded; it was almost twenty years since it had been written. The smell of time rose from the surface.

  Greetings to the most exalted Majesty Queen Cleopatra. I am pleased to receive news of your son’s birth. May he live and prosper and have a reign of blessed memory. May his name be great in the annals of your history.

  I find myself beset with problems here in Rome to be taken in hand. I allow myself only a few days in order to do so, for I am bound to set sail for Carthage to carry on the last battle against the rebel forces of Pompey. They have gathered in North Africa and I must pursue them. When all is done, I will send for you, and I pray your duties in Egypt will permit you to leave for a little while and come to Rome.

  Your—Gaius Julius Caesar.

  That was all. But yes, the words did mean something different now. In order for my son to have a “name great in the annals of history” he would have to survive Octavian, which I was now bending all efforts to assure.

  And the problems with which Caesar was beset in Rome—they were never solved, and caused his death. He was always hedged about with crises, as I was now. Even the greatest can be brought down by them, no matter how clever or how hard he struggles. There is not always a triumphant ending for the bravest. How could I succeed where Caesar had failed?

  And the invitation to Rome—“leave for a little while and come to Rome.” Soon Octavian would issue an similar invitation, but it was one I would not accept.

  I put it aside and opened another.

  To the most Divine and Mighty Queen of Egypt, Cleopatra, Greetings:

  The war is finished, and I have been victorious. It was a difficult campaign. I cannot say veni, vidi, vici—I came, I saw, I conquered—this time. I would have to say, I came, I saw, I waited, I planned, I overcame—the opposite of succinct, both the statement and the war. But it is the final outcome, the vici, that matters.

  Now that also meant something beyond what he had written in that time and place. The final outcome was all that mattered. In this hour of last reckoning, he was reminding me of that.

  But even when you win, final victory may not be yours. Caesar had won all those land battles, only to yield up his life at the hands of his own countrymen. And then, later, others of his countrymen had elevated him to godhood. First victory, then defeat, then greater victory…the wheel keeps turning, and we cannot always live to see where it will finally come to rest.

  Caesar, you have gone before me, I spoke silently to him. I will try to follow as best I can, unconquered to the last. And as you have shown, there is a way to triumph beyond the immediate circumstances of one’s death. Even the death itself can be used to further one’s life.

  But we have to go into it unknowing the final accounting….

  I returned the letters to the box, on top of the few others still there. Perhaps I would read them later. I rested my hand on them, drawing strength just from their stubborn physical survival. Those private little works of his hand had not been destroyed in the great funeral pyre. What remains behind to testify for us can be surprising.

  “Madam.” There was a gentle knock, and the sound of Charmian’s voice.

  I had thought to be undisturbed. But I had finished with the reading. “Yes?”

  “It is Epaphroditus, madam. Shall I admit him?”

  “Let him enter.”

  Back I must come to the particulars of life.

  Epaphroditus swept in, two pouches under his arms. “Your Majesty.” He bowed quickly, to get it over with. “I have here the inventories you asked me to make, along with the treasury figures.” He held up one pouch.

  I needed to know exactly what we would be handing over to Octavian—or trying to save. “Thank you.” I reached in for the papers, but I could feel how thick they were. “Summarize them for me,” I said. I swung my legs down from the couch and indicated seats for us at the work table. I placed the pouch there and withdrew its contents.

  He unrolled one scroll and said, “Here are the final tallies.” He stabbed a finger at a column of figures. “I regret to say that Egypt’s finances are very healthy. We have had the best harvest in years, with this year’s Nile rise promising to repeat the bounty. The losses of Actium have been recouped, and even the destruction of the fleet en route to the Red Sea has been covered.”

  “I regret it, too. I wish Octavia
n would stumble upon empty granaries and a depleted treasury.” I looked at him. “You have done well, old friend. You have served me faithfully, against your own inclination, all these years. After today you must resign and lose yourself among your people again. Be nowhere near the palace when the end comes. Leave your reports here, and take my thanks as your farewell.”

  He looked deeply unhappy. “It seems an ungrateful thing to do.”

  “Not if I command it,” I said. “I want as few to perish with this doomed regime as possible. In that way we triumph over the Romans. There is only one thing more: I would like a falsified report that I can submit to Octavian that leaves out portions of the wealth. I will hide some assets so that they may be available later to my children. I think”—I looked at the rows of figures—“there will be enough left to satisfy Octavian. He will not suspect the missing portions.”

  Epaphroditus reached out and covered my hand with one of his. “I cannot bear to hear you talk that way. So resigned to the worst. So accepting that it is all over.”

  “We must hope for the best, while preparing for the worst. I never forget, not even for an instant, that if Octavian were to die in battle—and it does not have to be a big battle, for arrows fly equally fast in a minor skirmish—everything would change in that moment. Rome would be leaderless. Antony would suddenly be the man of the hour. All these preparations would be a mockery. But…” I knew it could happen, but I could not rely on it.

  “I have brought something else, which I will leave with you,” he said, putting the second pouch down. “Some writings from my people which you have professed to find comforting.”

  “So they have writings covering even this situation?” I said with a slight laugh. “You come from a remarkable people.”

  “I have marked out the passages I think will speak to you,” he said.

  “Thank you, dear friend.” I stood up and took his hands. I wondered if I would ever see him again. This long, slow withdrawal of the tide was painful. More and more of the shore was left behind, forcibly abandoned.

  In the late afternoon I opened his second pouch, curious to see what it was he had collected for me. Koheleth, or Ecclesiastes, it was called. It looked like verses of poetry, and certain passages had been selected for my attention. Nonetheless I began at the beginning, for it told a story.

  I the Preacher was King over Israel in Jerusalem. And I gave my heart to seek and search out by wisdom concerning all things that are done under heaven….

  The writer had pursued knowledge, riches, pleasures, and great works, and found them all wanting, all vanities.

  Better is the end of a thing than the beginning thereof: and the patient in spirit is better than the proud in spirit.

  I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favor to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.

  For man also knoweth not his time: as the fishes that are taken in an evil net, and as the birds that are caught in the snare: so are the sons of men snared in an evil time, when it falleth suddenly upon them.

  Like Caesar in the Senate, like us waiting now in Alexandria. Time and chance happeneth to them all.

  Yet what could I do besides wait, and arm myself?

  The late afternoon sun was slanting in the windows, making long diagonal bars of light in the air. I suddenly felt very alone, manning the ramparts by myself. Caesar dead, Caesarion gone, my supporters sent away to safety, Antony to fight no more. And here I stood, peering out over the walls and bracing myself for the assault.

  Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them;

  While the sun, or the light, or the moon, or the stars, be not darkened, nor the clouds return after the rain:

  In the day when the keepers of the house shall tremble, and the strong men shall bow themselves, and the grinders cease because they are few, and those that look out the windows be darkened,

  And the doors shall be shut in the streets, when the sound of the grinding is low, and all the daughters of music shall be brought low;

  Also when they shall be afraid of that which is high, and fears shall be in the way, and desire shall fail: because man goeth to his long home, and the mourners go about in the streets.

  Or ever the silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken, or the pitcher be broken at the fountain, or the wheel broken at the cistern.

  Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it.

  Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher. All is vanity.

  The end of the day. The sun sloping down, Octavian on his way. With the luxury of privacy, I wept for all that the sun was setting on.

  Better is the end of a thing than the beginning thereof. No, never. The Preacher was wrong.

  Antony found me sitting alone in the room, grown quite dark now. The sun had sunk, the purple twilight had come and gone, and now night enveloped me.

  “What’s this?” he cried. “No lamps? What’s the matter?” He rushed off to light one and bring it. He waved it in front of my face.

  “Are you all right?” He looked anxiously into my eyes.

  “Yes,” I said. “I was just sitting here and—thinking.”

  “Deep thoughts, that kept you from lighting a lamp.”

  “It was peaceful.” And it had been. Acceptance always brings peace—after the first wild mourning.

  “What’s this?” He reached out and took the scroll, unrolled around me like a long ribbon.

  “Something Ephaphroditus brought, along with his reports.”

  “Hmm.” Antony lit more lamps, until the chamber was bright. Then he held up the scroll and started reading. “Poetry in one hand, figures in the other. Strange man, Epaphroditus.” His eyes scanned the verses rapidly. “Whoever wrote this was in a bad way,” he said, shaking his head. “Poor devil.”

  The poor devil is us, I wanted to say. Don’t you recognize us there?

  “Hmm. Hmm. Well, he’s right about this,” said Antony.

  “About what?”

  “Listen to this. The poet says,

  “Go thy way, eat thy bread with joy, and drink thy wine with a merry heart; for God now accepteth thy works.

  “Let thy garments be always white; and let thy head lack no ointment.

  “Live joyfully with the wife whom thou lovest all the days of thy life, which he hath given thee under the sun: for that is thy portion in this life, and in thy labor which thou takest under the sun.

  “Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might.

  “He speaks true in that. It’s all we can do.” He had found those happy verses in the writing, while I had overlooked them. How like him. He put the scroll down and reached out for my hands, pulling me up to my feet, holding me against him. He fell silent, just letting us lean together.

  There were two of us on the ramparts after all, one to arm, the other to comfort, taking turns. That was the depth and surety of love, a love that does not desert.

  “Now, my dearest, I think we need a little wine—as the Preacher recommends,” he finally said, leaving me to locate a pitcher and cups.

  “For a merry heart?” I asked.

  “Indeed so,” he said, flourishing the cups.

  Antony: always able to seize joy across the ordinary, across suffering. That was his magic, still undimmed.

  “A messenger from Octavian, madam,” said Mardian, peering around the ivory screen into my work chamber. He said it so matter-of-factly that no one would have suspected we had been waiting anxiously for news, any news, of his whereabouts.

  I rose. “Just arrived?”

  “The travel dust is still on his cloak,” Mardian said.

  The young soldier was indeed dirty from his journey, but I noted that he was a military tribune, not a
common foot soldier. Evidently Octavian had decided to send an envoy of higher grade than the previous one.

  “We welcome you,” I told him. “What has Octavian to say to us?”

  He stood straight and tried not to look as if he was observing everything to report back. “Madam, Imperator Caesar wishes to inform you that he is approaching the very border of Egypt. He rests now at Raphia.”

  “Ah yes, Raphia. An important landmark. It was at the battle of Raphia long ago that Ptolemy the Fourth first employed native Egyptian soldiers to defeat his enemy from Syria. A turning point.” I looked at the young man. “And I suppose Octavian hopes it will prove so again.”

  “It would be a great blessing to us all if it was,” he said. “My commander asks that you send word to Pelusium to surrender.”

  “And why does he think I would?”

  “Because, he says, you have made him an offer based on no bloodshed.”

  “But he has not replied to my offer, and therefore I assume he does not wish to accept it.” No word from him meant no agreement. And after the treatment of Thyrsus, what else could he do?

  “Quite the contrary. But the only way to show your good faith is to let us pass unhindered through Pelusium.”

  I laughed. “His discourtesy in not replying has made that impossible. It has aroused certain…suspicions of his intentions. Now I cannot trust him.” As if I ever could!

  “It is the other way around. You must demonstrate that your offer was made in good faith, and that you wish absolutely to avoid bloodshed, even at some sacrifice to yourself.”

  “Young man, are you aware of what my offer to him was?”

  “No, he has not told anyone.”

  “I thought not.” I decided not to reveal it, either. Then it was only between the two of us. “He has sent no instructions about it, nor any message for me?”

  “He sent you this,” he said, opening a leather pouch and producing a small box.