Song of the Nile

by Stephanie Dray

  CLEOPATRA Selene and Juba II would rule Mauretania for at least another fourteen years, during which Selene issued a series of provocative coins honoring Isis and her mother, and hinting at her status as the Queen of Egypt in exile by showing a crocodile unchained. In spite of these belligerent actions, she seems never to have fallen afoul of Augustus. Her reign with Juba was one of relative peace and prosperity, and though Isis was banned in Rome, adherents of the goddess would find a sanctuary in Mauretania, where Selene and Juba built an Iseum complete with sacred crocodiles.

  That Cleopatra’s daughter memorialized her dead is evidenced by several relics. First, the coins honoring her mother. Second, a stylized Egyptian statue of Petubastes, a priest of Ptah thought to be Selene’s cousin, who died just before the fall of Actium when she was still a little girl. Third, a platter depicting Selene as an African queen with Helios nearby. I pieced together her character from these and other indications that Selene never forgot her past.

  As the daughter of two of the world’s most notoriously fertile rulers, it’s possible that Selene gave birth to many children, but we know only of the survival of a son and a daughter. Though speculation abounds, the evidence for Selene’s daughter is an Athenian inscription in which the girl is not named. I chose the name Cleopatra Isidora because of the single most telling historical fact that we know about Selene: She named her son Ptolemy. Reaching into her heritage rather than that of her husband’s bespeaks her extraordinary power as a client queen in the Augustan Age and I wanted to reflect that here.

  Selene’s husband Juba wasn’t just a dabbler in the scholarly arts, but a respected geographer whose works would later be cited by Pliny, Plutarch, and Strabo. Though Berbers can and should take pride in Juba’s many accomplishments, if his coins are any indication, he was a thoroughly Romanized king. His wit is documented by way of his centaur jest to an irate woman he’d spattered with mud. He seems also to have been a client king of judicious temperament, making him somewhat of an anomaly in an era of bloody tyrants like King Herod.

  Juba and Selene are believed to have been buried in the Royal Mausoleum of Mauretania, located in modern-day Algeria. It bears a striking resemblance to the tomb that Augustus built for himself in Rome. It may have been adorned with an ankh, a symbol later adopted by Coptic Christians, which could account, in part, for the fact that the tomb was known for many years as the Tomb of the Christian Woman.

  These are the things we know about Selene and her husband. Now the time comes to confess my sins.

  Selene and Helios were first introduced in Lily of the Nile at the age of ten when they would have actually been nine years old. I did this because I wanted older, more relatable, protagonists. In this novel, the children of Cleopatra are all aged accurately. However, because of my earlier choice, observant readers may have noticed a small narrowing in the age difference between Selene and Philadelphus.

  A rebellion did result in the razing of Thebes, a revolt in Alexandria, and the subsequent recall of the Roman Prefect of Egypt, Cornelius Gallus, who was forced to commit suicide under mysterious circumstances. However, the entire chain of events occurred earlier than I have posited and any involvement of Alexander Helios in this rebellion is exceedingly unlikely. For all intents and purposes, after Octavian’s triumph, the two sons of Cleopatra and Antony simply disappear from history.

  Every novelist to tackle the life of Cleopatra Selene has dealt with the matter of the boys in a different fashion. Some historians have posited that Alexander Helios and Ptolemy Philadelphus went to Mauretania to live unremarkable lives. Modern scholarship disputes this idea, interpreting the silence of ancient sources as evidence that the boys both died young. Ultimately, I took my own approach, and embraced the sense of mystery that surrounds their fate.

  As for Selene’s half siblings, more is known. Selene’s half brother, Iullus Antonius, appears to have held a number of elective offices, so I filled in the blanks, ensuring that he received the military training that would have qualified him for higher office. His relationship with Julia is borne out by the historical record. Both of Selene’s half sisters, Antonia Major and Antonia Minor, would go on to play prominent roles in the Julio-Claudian dynasty. Their descendants would eventually restore Isis to great prominence in Rome and Selene’s influence is as likely an explanation for that as any.

  The favoritism shown to Cleopatra Selene by the imperial family, as well as the remarkable latitude she was allowed as queen, tells us that her relationship with Augustus was extraordinary. There is no evidence, however, that this extraordinary relationship was amorous. That Augustus was an adulterer is attested to by several sources, but my portrayal of him as a despoiler of virgins comes from Suetonius, who also mentions Livia as a possible partner in her husband’s proclivities. With this in mind, I invented the emperor’s obsession with Selene as a consistent rationale for the unexplained turns in her life, and imagined that it stemmed from Augustus’s preoccupation with Cleopatra VII as explored by Diana E. E. Kleiner in Cleopatra and Rome. Once I took this theory to its natural conclusion, it helped to explain several mysteries in the life of Augustus as well—including Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa’s brief self-imposed exile and apparent estrangement. (Although Augustus’s illness and the episode with his signet ring has a factual basis, I chose not to explore the Murena Conspiracy except by alluding to the unrest in Rome.)

  Though we know that Mauretania was one of the few parts of his empire in which Augustus never set foot, Rome wasn’t a far journey from Iol-Caesaria, and Selene would have almost assuredly visited the capital. There are several indications that she and Juba owned a house in Rome as at least one of Juba’s retainers—a mime named Ecloga—is thought to have died there. Precedence for political visits by sitting monarchs can be found in the doings of King Herod, but Selene had more than political reasons to return to Rome; she had family there.

  By contrast, there is no evidence that Selene visited Augustus during his sojourn on the Isle of Samos or that she was present for the negotiations with the Kandake of Meroë. If she was there, however, she would have almost certainly missed seeing Agrippa, who left the East in 22 B.C. to suppress Isis worshippers.

  If Augustus ever gave serious consideration to restoring the Ptolemies in Egypt, the only evidence of it is on Selene’s coins, which display her clear intent to restore her dynasty. In any case, it must be remembered that Augustus’s residence on the Isle of Samos was actually a succession of visits that took place over the course of three years, during which he settled matters in the Eastern kingdoms, entertained an embassy from India, forged a peace treaty with Meroë, replaced Artaxias in Armenia, and made a show of force on the Parthian border that successfully led to the return of Roman battle standards. The invasion of Egypt by the Kandake of Meroë and her subsequent peace treaty with Augustus were more complex than presented here and the negotiations with Phraates of Parthia, including the return of his hostage son, took place over the course of several years. However, in the interest of brevity, I compressed these events in favor of the fascinating trip to Athens during which Augustus was initiated into the mysteries and witnessed the selfimmolation of an Indian ambassador. While the exact ingredients of kykeon are unknown, it has been described as a simple mixture of barley water and pennyroyal, but the wide variety of magical revelations described by initiates has led scientists and scholars, including Robert Graves, to posit that the drink was laced with hallucinogens.

  Augustus’s personal interest in religion at this juncture might strike some as unusual, but it was part of a larger campaign to reshape his image and purge the Roman world of beliefs that ran counter to his propaganda. (Much more unusual is the coin issued by King Herod honoring Kore. Keen not to anger his Jewish subjects, Herod avoided depicting deities or human likenesses on his coins. That Herod made an exception for Kore, quite possibly on the eve of Augustus being initiated into the cult, struck me as significant.) Long after Alexander Helios disappears from the historical r
ecord, Augustus continued his posthumous argument with Cleopatra about the true bringer of a Golden Age. Virgil’s Aeneid was intended to promote Augustus’s image as a savior. Any contrary imagery or ideas had to be burned from memory. Indeed, Augustus would eventually seize the Syballine Books and destroy the parts he deemed fraudulent or, one presumes, inexpedient.

  The Aeneid does mention Marcellus, and that mention did make Octavia swoon, but Virgil’s affair with Marcellus is my own invention based on the former’s suspected sexual proclivities.

  The traditional notion that Juba was granted his ancestral lands, and that he and Selene started their rule in Numidia, has been disputed by Dr. Duane Roller in his book The World of Juba II and Kleopatra Selene. Consequently, I decided to short-circuit what would have been an interesting journey through Carthage and Africa Nova, in favor of a direct route to Iol, in Mauretania.

  Due to thousands of years of deforestation and depletion of natural resources, today’s growing seasons in the region may be slightly different from those enjoyed in the land Juba and Selene settled, but I adopted relatively modern climate patterns. Juba’s subsequent explorations of his new kingdom posed the basis for one of his many geographic works, entitled Libya. It was in this seminal work that Juba claimed to have discovered the source of the Nile in Mauretania. As a matter of geography, he was wrong, but his theory about the Nile wasn’t definitively disproved for almost another two thousand years! If, however, Juba’s claim about the Nile was a bit of political poetry to woo Cleopatra Selene by tying her new kingdom to Egypt, it must have been very well received.

  As for Selene and Juba’s court, I mixed known historical figures with those of my own creation. Leonteus of Argos and Gnaios the gem cutter are known courtiers and funeral inscriptions of those descended from Selene’s intimates give us names like Cleopatra Antonianus. (Ecloga is thought to have died circa 30 B.C. but as she’s used as evidence by scholars of Selene and Juba’s connection to Rome, I had her survive into their reign, which is not out of range of that approximate date.) The fragmentary literary evidence for Selene’s life comes down to us from Crinagoras of Mytilene—both her wedding poem as well as one written at her death, so I adopted the theory that he was a member of her court at some time. That he seems to have maintained ties to Antonia Minor doesn’t argue against this possibility, as Selene and her half sister may have been in frequent contact. Crinagoras was also an ambassador who wrote on political themes. He dedicated poetry to Tiberius during the latter’s excursion into Armenia, lending support to my notion that Selene visited the court of Augustus on the Isle of Samos or, at the very least, was acutely aware of what was happening during this crucial political transition.

  Lucius Cornelius Balbus the Younger owned many plantations in Spain and North Africa and seems to have had intimate dealings with the Mauretanian King Bogud, an ally of Antony. Yet, after Augustus came to power, Balbus was eventually made a proconsul in Africa. As such, he’d have been quite invested in the progress of the Mauretanian client kingdom before his eventual role in the war against the Garamantes, so when searching for a representative of the type of settler that Selene would have had to deal with in the early years of her reign, I could think of no better example.

  While Lasthenia and Circe are both invented characters, they are archetypes of women who did exist at the time. Several female Pythagorean scholars took the name Lasthenia, and Mauretania would later be noted for the elevated status of women that has been credited to Selene and the relatively egalitarian influence of the Alexandrian culture she imported.

  Euphronius (or Euphronios) is an actual historical figure, referenced in ancient sources as a tutor to Cleopatra’s children. Euphorbus Musa was also a historical figure. He was brother to the more famous Antonius Musa and Juba’s court physician, after whom the plant family Euphorbia is named. With some regret and great trepidation, I combined the two men because of the similarities of their names and because they would serve essentially the same function in the novel.

  Yet, it was the made-up characters of Maysar and Tala who posed the greatest difficulty for me as an author. The Roman-era culture of the Berbers in general and the Mauri and Gaetulians specifically are largely lost to us. Strabo, Herodotus, and other ancient geographers give us little to differentiate the tribes of Mauretania from those in Numidia and elsewhere, but what information they give, I have incorporated. Slavery seems to have fallen off sharply in Mauretania after the initial influx from Rome when Selene and Juba arrived. Whether or not this was because of a personal abhorrence to the practice on the part of the rulers or their Berber subjects is unclear. We know that Garamantes were slave traders, but the Berbers in general declared themselves free people, so it seemed reasonable to ascribe to them a distaste for slavery. Unfortunately, modern-day examples of Berber culture are of limited utility. For example, ancient proto-Berber men are often depicted in art as wearing a great deal of jewelry but modern Berber men largely eschew it. Moreover, because the indigenous Berber culture in modern Algeria has been suppressed, it’s difficult to reconstruct what these North African people must have been like before the spread of Islam. Indeed, it’s always dangerous to assume that the cultural anthropology of tribes as we observe them now has anything to do with their identity in ancient times. Even so, I decided to risk extrapolating known Berber customs of the Tuaregs, including their jewelry and indigo dye, back through time. Certainly, Berber culture outside urban settings such as Iol-Caesaria deserves a more in-depth look than the one presented here, and it’s something I hope to tackle in the next book of this series.

  For a more thorough discussion of the history surrounding the life of Cleopatra Selene, please visit stephaniedray.com.

  READERS GUIDE

  SONG OF THE NILE

  On the Story

  1. Is Helios alive, or is he a manifestation of the part of Selene’s soul that helps her survive the worst moments of her life?

  2. After Selene was raped, Livia offered her a cup of poison to wash away the dishonor. Did Selene have anything to be ashamed of?

  3. Selene’s mother chose death over dishonor, but Selene chose not to drink the poison. What does that say about her?

  4. What does Isis mean when she tells Selene, Child of Isis, you are more than flesh?

  5. Why does Livia do the wicked things she does? Is she motivated by fear, ambition, or something else?

  6. Selene holds grudges and can be vengeful. Do you think she was wrong to instigate the death of Cornelius Gallus, Prefect of Egypt? Should she have forgiven Euphronius sooner? Should she forgive Juba at all?

  7. Were Marcellus and Philadelphus poisoned? If so, by whom and for what reason?

  8. What does it say about Selene’s character that she kept the tattered, bloodstained dress that she wore as a child in the emperor’s Triumph? Why did she give it back to the King of Emesa?

  9. Is Maysar right when he says Selene punishes herself for being alive when all her family is dead? How does Selene’s survivor’s guilt influence her choices in the novel?

  10. What are Selene’s strengths and weaknesses? How is she like Augustus and how does she differ from him?

  11. What lessons did Selene learn from her mother and father?

  12. What did Selene learn from Circe and Livia? What did she learn from the emperor? Can we all learn things from our enemies?

  13. Is Augustus truly Selene’s enemy? She says that she hates him, but her feelings toward him are always evolving. Why do you think her feelings toward the emperor are so complicated?

  14. How does Juba change over the course of the novel? What about Octavia? Helios? Chryssa?

  15. What is behind the emperor’s obsession with Selene and why does Augustus allow her so much power and influence over him?

  16. How is the myth of Persephone and Hades reflected in Selene’s life?

  17. Should Selene have sacrificed her happiness in Mauretania in order to regain her mother’s throne? Did she owe it to her dead famil
y to dedicate her life to Egypt? What about her Alexandrian courtiers and all the other people who want her to become the Queen of Egypt?

  18. What would Selene’s mother, Cleopatra the Great, have to say about her daughter’s choice to return to Mauretania?

  19. Why does Augustus eventually send Selene away?

  20. If Selene has Juba’s son, how will it affect her relationship with Augustus? Do you think he’ll ever summon Selene again?

  On the History, Culture, and Religion

  21. Historically speaking, Philadelphus and Helios disappear from the record. Some historians have theorized that the two boys went to Mauretania to live in obscurity with Selene. Others believe they died or that Augustus had them killed. Song of the Nile embraces the ambiguity about their fates, but what do you think happened to the boys?

  22. One of the few things we know about the historical King Juba is that he rode past a woman at the side of the road, who berated him for having spattered her with mud with his hooves. He replied, “Madam, do you take me for a centaur?” What does this tell us about the character of Juba?

  23. Instead of invading Parthia, Augustus settled upon a negotiation for the lost battle standards of Rome. Why did he make peace with them instead of fighting for treasure and conquest?

  24. Augustus took a serious interest in the prophecies of the Sibyl, going so far as to hunt down “unauthorized” prophecies and burning them. He eventually stored his own “official” version of the Sibylline Books in the Temple of Apollo. Why did he do this?

  25. In the ancient world, to be initiated into the Eleusinian Mysteries was a hallmark of a civilized person. The faithful claimed to have seen visions of the dead and terrors of the night. A modern theory is that the sacred kykeon brew contained hallucinogenics. Do you think these visions were true spiritual ones or drug-induced illusions or both?

  26. While Rome was generally tolerant toward other religions and Isis would go on to dominate the ancient world until the rise of Christianity, Isis worship was out of favor during Selene’s lifetime. What does it say about Cleopatra Selene that she never renounced Isis as her patron deity and continued to be a proponent of her faith in spite of the emperor’s enmity for the cult?