But the moment we arrive on the shore of the lake and glimpse the splendor of the gilded boat reflecting the rays of the Sun God Ra, I know that I have achieved a great success. The queen’s boat is magnificent, even more splendid than its predecessor. “I ordered this to be built in your honor,” I tell him.
“It is beyond anything I could imagine,” he exclaims, taking my hand, and he shows his delight repeatedly as we wander from deck to deck, admiring each exquisite detail. “When do we sail, my darling?”
“Whenever it pleases you, my lord.”
Caesar takes me in his arms, tells me how beautiful I am, and kisses me passionately. I sense his determination to leave for Rome is weakening—but only for an hour, a day, a month at most. I know, even at this moment, that no matter how much Caesar loves me or what I do, I cannot keep him with me for long—not now, and maybe not ever.
Days later, we leave Alexandria together and begin our journey up the Nile. At every stop we greet the governors and priests and make offerings to the gods. Caesar is happy to become acquainted with the land and the people who have come under his protection and my rule. And he relishes the sights as I point them out to him: the Great Pyramids, the Sphinx, the temple to Hathor built in Dendara by my father, just as he promised. We view the colossal statues and gigantic pylons at Thebes, even the half-buried temple of Hatshepsut.
Finally, we reach the sacred island of Philae, watched over by Isis, the goddess I revere most deeply. A part of the god Osiris, her husband, was buried here before Isis gathered up the pieces and made him whole again. I show Caesar the pylon built by my father, proudly pointing out the scenes of Ptolemy XII killing his enemies under the eternal gaze of Isis and her son, Horus.
Beyond Philae lies the First Cataract, and we must turn back. Although I recognize that once we reach Alexandria, Caesar will leave for Rome, I give Mshai the order to return. But before the queen’s boat leaves Philae, I make a special offering to Isis, praying that I will one day bear Caesar a son.
Almost as soon as we arrive in Alexandria I am surprised to discover—though I should not be—that even before we left on our idyllic journey, Caesar had ordered the preparation and provisioning of a ship to carry him back to Rome. The ship is ready and waiting, and Caesar is determined. And so, only days after the end of our journey together, we are saying good-bye.
I promised myself that I would not weep when Caesar left, but I break that promise almost at once. My tears must always be shed in private—the price of being a queen, a pharaoh, semidivine, above human weakness. Through the farewell banquets and ceremonies, I remain stoic and regal, the queen of my people, as I want my lover to remember me.
When the hour comes for his departure, Caesar and I hold each other in one last, silent embrace. We have no words left to say that have not been said before. He steps into the small gilded boat I have given him and is rowed out to his waiting ship, its yellow sails as brilliant as the Egyptian sun.
Seated on a throne by the water’s edge, I watch the ship leave the Great Harbor. The crowd disperses, but I cannot bear to return to the palace just yet. I order my bearers to carry my royal chair over the causeway to the lighthouse. From there I gaze out at the dark sea until the last bright dot of yellow vanishes beyond the horizon.
EPILOGUE
Alexandria, in my thirty-ninth year
Seventeen years have passed since Caesar sailed for Rome. I knew on that day that I would soon bear his child. Today, as I look back on our two months on Egypt’s great Nile River, I remember a time of love and discovery, a time of triumph. Now the triumph is long past, the love brought to a tragic end by the murder of Caesar as he met with the Roman senate three years later. I cannot forget the horror of that day—the fifteenth of March in 44 B.C. on your calendar—as Caesar’s enemies set upon him and stabbed him twenty-three times. His closest friend and general, Marcus Antonius, detained outside the senate chamber, was powerless to stop it.
At the time of Caesar’s assassination I was in Rome with our three-year-old son, Ptolemy XV Caesar, born soon after Caesar left Egypt. Antonius grieved with me at our mutual loss and did what he could to help me, swearing vengeance upon Caesar’s assassins. Within the month, my son and I left Rome and returned to Egypt. Roman law did not allow Caesar to acknowledge the boy, called Caesarion—Little Caesar—as his own. Instead, he named his great-nephew, Octavian, as his heir. I was not even mentioned in his will. In the beginning I harbored no ill will toward Octavian. But events have made him my enemy, and it is Octavian who now waits at my doorstep, demanding to be brought to me. It is Octavian who would take me to Rome in chains, to humiliate me.
On the day I left Rome fourteen years ago, Marcus Antonius came to bid me farewell. “We will meet again, Queen Cleopatra,” he said, bowing low in the Egyptian manner. “I promise you on my honor.”
I came home to Alexandria to mourn. My fifteen-year-old brother-husband, Ptolemy XIV, had been left in charge during my absence, but within months he was dead. I was blamed for his death, though I deny all responsibility. Caesarion was declared king of Egypt, and I ruled as his regent. I now had absolute power, and for the next several years I worked hard to bring prosperity to my country, despite continuing crop failures. But I needed protection, and this is when Marcus Antonius fulfilled his promise and entered my life once again. At his command I sailed to Tarsus to meet him. Inevitably, we became lovers. Our life together is another story, but there is no time left for me to tell it. I leave it to others to tell for me.
Octavian’s friend and then his bitter rival, Antonius has shared my crushing defeat. Just days ago, he died in my arms.
“Cleopatra,” he said as the life left him, “you are as beautiful now as you were when I first met you. You have always been the queen of my heart.”
I bathed his dear face with my tears. “In life nothing could part us from each other, dearest love, but in death we will be parted forever.” I am not certain he heard my last whispered words.
Now Octavian refuses to wait any longer. He demands that I surrender my treasure and myself. Nothing less will satisfy him.
I have anticipated this moment and made my decision. I will not allow myself to be taken prisoner. Irisi prepared a bath of scented waters and helped me dress in my most elegant gown, my most precious jewels, and the royal diadem. I have dined on a splendid meal. Charmion, my faithful friend for so many years, has brought me the basket of figs as I requested.
“Charmion,” I tell her, “the time has come.”
I embrace Irisi and Charmion and lie down on my golden couch. Charmion, weeping, removes the lid of the basket. Venomous cobras writhe among the figs. I reach for the largest snake and hold it to my breast. Twin droplets of blood appear where its fangs have pierced my flesh and released their deadly venom.
CLEOPATRA IN HISTORY
Cleopatra may be the most famous queen in history, and yet beyond a few basic facts of her life, her love affairs, and her children, almost nothing is documented. The exact date of her birth is unknown. The identity of her mother is unknown. There are no eyewitness accounts of her life, and no contemporary records survive to tell her story—fire and flood have destroyed them all. Most of what we do know about Cleopatra has been pieced together from the writings of two ancient historians: Plutarch, author of Life of Antony, who was born seventy-six years after Cleopatra’s death, and Cassius Dio, whose Roman History, written in the third century, supplies additional information, some of it reliable, some not.
In modern times archaeologists, historians, biographers, novelists, and filmmakers all depend to some degree on theory and supposition, filling in the blank spaces with a great deal of imagination. One of the most intriguing mysteries is the identity of Cleopatra’s mother. She may have been a Ptolemy, closely related to Cleopatra’s Greek ancestors, or she may have been of elite Egyptian background with a genetic makeup having its source in many different parts of the Mediterranean world. Some anthropologists claim that Cleopatra’s
mother was a dark-skinned Nubian; most agree that Cleopatra’s skin tone was probably olive or light brown.
The return of Cleopatra and Julius Caesar to Alexandria after their cruise on the Nile ends an early chapter of Cleopatra’s life, in Year 5 of her rule, 47 B.C. in our calendar. As she anticipated, Caesar left for Rome almost immediately, taking with him Arsinoë and Ganymede as prisoners.
A short time later, Cleopatra gave birth to a boy she named Ptolemy XV Caesar, whom the people of Egypt called Caesarion, assuming that he was Caesar’s son. Cleopatra was not only a reigning pharaoh and therefore semidivine in the eyes of the Egyptian people; she was now also a mother—in her own eyes the earthly incarnation of Isis, the goddess of motherhood.
For the next year Cleopatra ruled Egypt with her brother-husband Ptolemy XIV, while Caesar pursued wars in Hispania (present-day Spain), Africa, and Asia Minor against the followers of his late friend-turned-enemy, Pompey. In 46 B.C., Caesar returned victorious from battle and sent for Cleopatra to join him. She made the long voyage with Caesarion and Ptolemy XIV. Caesar welcomed all three and installed them at his country estate outside Rome.
How long Cleopatra stayed as Caesar’s guest is not clear. He did, after all, have a wife, Calpurnia, who surely was not pleased by her husband’s visitor. The Romans, too, disapproved of this exotic foreigner, believing the Egyptian queen was leading Caesar into decadent ways. When Caesar left again, Cleopatra may have decided that she needed to make her presence felt in Egypt. She made a trip to Alexandria with Ptolemy XIV and returned to Rome without him when Caesar came home from his wars in the summer of 45 B.C.
During her time in Rome, Cleopatra renewed her acquaintance with the handsome cavalry commander who had caught her eye some years earlier: Marcus Antonius, now Caesar’s right-hand man, known more familiarly now to English speakers as Mark Antony.
Caesar may have tired of leading troops into battle, but he had not tired of the idea of being the great leader. He aspired to be king, to sit on a golden throne, to wear a royal diadem. Mark Antony supported him in this desire, but many others opposed him. In 44 B.C., on the Ides of March—March 15 was the day on which debts were traditionally settled in Rome—Caesar’s enemies attacked him on the floor of the theater where the Roman senate was to meet and stabbed him to death.
Caesar’s assassination was a terrible blow to Cleopatra, who had to deal not only with the loss of her lover but with the knowledge that their son, Caesarion, was not named as Caesar’s heir and Cleopatra herself was not even mentioned in his will. Instead, his great-nephew, Gaius Octavius, later known as Octavian, was adopted as his son and named his heir and successor. Within a month of Caesar’s death, Cleopatra left Rome with Caesarion, bound for Alexandria. There she found that fifteen-year-old Ptolemy XIV had taken over as pharaoh. Months later, Ptolemy XIV was dead—poisoned, some say, by Cleopatra—and three-year-old Caesarion became King Ptolemy XV, with his mother ruling Egypt as his regent and queen.
Despite continuing low floods and poor harvests, life in Egypt became relatively peaceful. Meanwhile, back in Rome, Octavian and Mark Antony were in power, and they asked for Cleopatra’s help in punishing the assassins responsible for Caesar’s murder. Cleopatra responded by sending back the Roman legions Caesar had left in Egypt. In return the Romans recognized Caesarion as the rightful king of Egypt and Cleopatra as queen.
Without Caesar, Cleopatra and Caesarion were vulnerable and needed protection. Egypt was suffering a dire shortage of grain, and famine stalked the land, but with a wealth of natural resources at her disposal—gems, gold, and minerals—Cleopatra was still the richest queen in the world. Mark Antony needed the wealth that Egypt could provide.
The former cavalry commander summoned Queen Cleopatra to meet him in the city of Tarsus in Asia Minor. With her usual dramatic flair, she arrived in a gilded ship with silver oars and purple sails, as splendid as the boat on which she and Caesar had once floated down the Nile. Declining Antony’s invitation to dine with him, she invited him aboard her ship as her honored guest. At the end of the lavish banquet she presented Antony with the golden plates on which the meal had been served. Like Caesar at his first meeting with Cleopatra, Antony was entranced by her considerable charms. The two became lovers.
When Cleopatra returned to Egypt in the winter of 41/40 B.C., Antony soon followed. Perhaps they made a celebration of Cleopatra’s twenty-ninth birthday, and at around the same time, his forty-second. The pair were inseparable, and less than a year later, Cleopatra gave birth to twins, named Alexander and Cleopatra. But by then Antony was gone.
Mark Antony already had a wife, Fulvia. (He had been married several times.) Even after Fulvia died, he seemed in no hurry to return to Alexandria and the arms of Cleopatra. We can only speculate on how Cleopatra must have felt when, in order to show his loyalty to Octavian, Antony married Octavian’s half-sister, Octavia.
After a separation of some three years, during which Cleopatra succeeded in putting her country on sound financial footing, Antony again sent for her. His relationship with Octavian had soured, and he needed the queen’s help. Their meeting took place in Antioch, in the winter of 37/36 B.C. Antony acknowledged the twins as his own, the old flame was reignited, and Antony and Cleopatra became lovers once more. Nine months later Cleopatra bore another son, named Ptolemy Philadelphus. By then she had bargained control away from Antony of major portions of the eastern Mediterranean, and she returned to Alexandria in triumph.
Not surprisingly, Antony’s marriage of convenience to Octavia, mother of two of his children, was coming apart. Antony chose to stay in Alexandria with Cleopatra, where the two occupied gold and silver thrones with their various children ranged around them. Not everyone was favorably impressed by this display. Among those whose opposition was most outspoken was Octavian.
For several years the two lovers, Antony and Cleopatra, enjoyed the good life in Alexandria while the two rivals, Antony and Octavian, engaged in a war of words. It was inevitable that the rivals would meet in actual battle. Cleopatra pledged to assist Antony, and they began to build a fleet. By late 32 B.C. Antony and Cleopatra had assembled an army of infantry and cavalry and a navy of five hundred warships—Cleopatra herself commanded a fleet of sixty ships—and they waited for Octavian to make his move. It came late in the summer of 31 B.C. at the battle of Actium, which ended with Antony’s humiliating defeat.
Cleopatra hurried back to Alexandria and made an entrance into the city as though she were victorious. Unable to gather support for his cause from his discouraged troops, Antony brooded in solitude for a while before returning to Cleopatra’s palace. Both realized the end was near. Cleopatra hoped to abdicate in favor of her son, Caesarion—by 30 B.C. he was sixteen, of age to rule—and of Antony’s son, Antyllus. Octavian notified Cleopatra that he might agree to this only if she had Antony killed. When lavish gifts and bribery failed to sway Octavian, Antony challenged Octavian to one more battle. But at the crucial moment Antony’s men deserted him, and the once famous warrior was soundly defeated.
Retreating once more to Alexandria, where Cleopatra had taken refuge in her treasure-filled tomb, Antony was told that Cleopatra had committed suicide. At this news Antony stabbed himself, only to learn as he lay bleeding that his beloved was not dead after all. Too weak to move, he had his servants carry him to the tomb and haul him up by ropes to a high window. Antony died in Cleopatra’s arms.
Octavian permitted Cleopatra to arrange Antony’s funeral. Then, rather than allow Octavian to take her prisoner and return with her to Rome as his trophy, she chose to end her own life.
Like most other facts of the queen’s history, Cleopatra’s manner of death is still debated. Only the date is certain: August 12, 30 B.C. According to Plutarch, writing more than a century later, Octavian “gave orders that her body should be buried with Anthony’s in splendid and regal fashion.”
This left Cleopatra’s sixteen-year-old son Caesarion to rule as Ptolemy XV, but he was captured and exe
cuted, and on August 31 Octavian annexed Egypt as a Roman province. Taking the name Caesar Augustus, Octavian had himself declared the first emperor of the Roman Empire. Cleopatra’s three children by Mark Antony were taken to Rome as prisoners and eventually given to Antony’s wife Octavia to raise.
Thus ended the life of Egypt’s greatest queen and began the enduring legend of Cleopatra.
A NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR
Was Cleopatra beautiful?
People who know of my interest in the Egyptian queen often ask me that. There are no portraits of her. Paintings on temple walls thought to be of Cleopatra are highly stylized. Most sculptures are damaged or cannot be positively identified. Her images on coins are worn to a blur. So, was she a classic beauty, or did she have the long hooked nose, bony chin, and thin lips of a witch, as some say? What about those Venus rings, rolls of fat sometimes visible around her neck, indicating pudginess? Was she a woman of color, with an African mother or grandmother, as some people claim, or was she purely Greek? Have we any idea what she really looked like?
The truth is that nobody actually knows, although recently, computer imagery has provided some ideas. For many years my own mental picture of Cleopatra coincided with shots of Elizabeth Taylor playing the role of the ancient queen in a 1963 movie. I know now that mental picture was wide of the mark. But no matter what her physical appearance, Cleopatra was certainly a charming and brilliant woman who fascinated two Roman conquerors and continues to fascinate modern students and readers.
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