Memoirs of Cleopatra (1997)

by Margaret George

  As soon as we were back inside his house, he tumbled onto his bed and shut his eyes. "I think it will pass. I do not think it will develop further," he said, through gritted teeth.

  I wet the hem of my gown in his washing bowl and used it to wipe his brow. I must confess I felt a certain triumphant relief that Calpurnia was not there.

  He remained motionless on the bed for what seemed almost an hour. Then he turned over and sighed. "I think it is safe now. It is going."

  "I thought you said you had conquered the illness."

  "I have. I do not let it get control." His voice was still weak. "In Spain--it was the same once. Just before a battle. But I never fall anymore."

  "No, because you sit down first," I said with a smile.

  "You witnessed what it used to be. Sitting down was not a cure." He carefully sat up. "There. The room is still. My limbs obey. And I never lost consciousness." He sounded very relieved.

  "The men--what was all that about?"

  It was then that he revealed just how ill, momentarily, he had been. He had to reach for the scroll and read it before he could answer.

  "The Senate has made me Dictator for life," he said haltingly, each word being led forth like a sacrificial animal. "This is impossible." Obviously he had no clear recollection of exactly what the men had said when they presented it, any restrictions they had mentioned. He shook his head. "A dictator is appointed for a temporary term only. A dictator is an office outside the regular offices of state--Consul, praeter, censor, tribune. It is not a normal part of the government, because the dictator's power supersedes all those other offices. Dictator for life . . . that's another word for 'king.' For what is a king but a dictator for life?" He was thinking out loud. "This cannot be."

  "But"--I pointed to the scroll--"there it is, in writing."

  "It must be a trick. Was I meant to refuse it? Perhaps that was what it was." He shook his head again. "But I do not remember what I said."

  "You did not refuse it, of that I am sure."

  "How do you know?"

  "The men looked displeased. Perhaps you did not accept it with enough pleasure."

  "Pleasure was not what I was feeling--dizziness and stiffness was."

  "But they do not know that," I reminded him. "Here." I put some pillows behind him so that he could lean back comfortably. "Tomorrow, when you are fully recovered, you will have to attend the Senate. Thank them profusely for the great honor. That is, if you intend to accept it. You always could refuse, you know." I dangled the decision before him. "You could say that you wrestled with your conscience all night and realized, for the good of Rome, you must decline it."

  "But the truth is, for the good of Rome, I must accept it." His voice was stronger now, but quiet. "It is for my own good that I should refuse it."

  "You have never yet refused anything that fate has awarded you," I said. "That is the essence of your character."

  The next day all of Rome was buzzing about the unspeakable arrogance and insolence of Caesar in refusing to rise when the senators came to him with this great honor. They castigated him for overweening pride, and since only the truth about his illness would have exonerated him, and he refused to divulge it, he had to bear the full weight of the accusations. One other way lay open to him--to decline the honor. But as I had known, had he been able to do that, he would not have been Caesar.

  The next incident happened when he was returning from a ceremony outside the city; a throng of bystanders hailed him as king. (I wondered then, and I still wonder--were they planted there by his enemies, in hopes of deluding Caesar, making him believe there was a popular movement to make him king?) He replied, "I am not king but Caesar." Then all Rome buzzed about that.

  It was not long until an invisible hand placed a diadem on Caesar's statue on the Rostra, and one of the tribunes of the people had it removed. Caesar ordered the diadem to be dedicated to Jupiter, Rome's only ruler. Still, Rome buzzed. Under whose orders were these things taking place--Caesar's, his enemies', or were they true indications of popular sentiment?

  I had an idea for taking the initiative out of the invisible hands, which I knew were not Caesar's. Let Caesar stage a show of his own to proclaim his intentions. I called a secret meeting at my villa at night to discuss it, and bade not only Caesar but Lepidus and Antony to come. Antony was necessary to the plot, as he was indeed now the priest of the Julian luperci as Caesar had joked--or threatened--earlier. And Antony, as Consul, would have a part in a certain ceremony due to be enacted soon. Lepidus was Caesar's Master of the Horse, the second-in-command to a dictator, and I knew he was loyal to Caesar. Beyond Antony and Lepidus, I could not be sure of anyone else.

  It had been dark for several hours, and all the lamps refilled once, before Caesar arrived as the first guest. He shook the evening damp from his cloak and handed it to a servant before turning to me and saying, "A clandestine meeting after hours makes me feel like a conspirator."

  "That is just what we are," I said. "Conspirators against your conspirators-- whoever they may be."

  It was a cold night, and the winds managed to find their way in through the windows and doors, rattling the lamp stands, making their suspended lamps sway, throwing wavering shadows on the painted walls. Upstairs I could hear Ptolemy's fitful coughing.

  I was wearing closed shoes, and yet the chill of the floor managed to creep through the soles and into my feet. Until this winter in Rome, I had not appreciated just how very cold marble could be.

  "Come," I said, leading him into a small chamber that I had already heated with a brazier.

  "I have become truly a guest in my own house," he said. "You have lived here so long now, it seems as if it was always yours."

  "It does not feel like home," I admitted. "And soon--"

  "Yes, yes, I know. We will speak of it later," he said. "I have plans that I think will please you in that regard."

  Before he could say anything further, I heard Lepidus arrive. The servants ushered him in. He appeared puzzled. "Greetings, fair Queen. I am about to die of curiosity." He looked at Caesar.

  "Nay, it is not my doing," said Caesar. "I am as much in the dark as you."

  Lepidus stood over the glowing brazier and rubbed his hands vigorously. "I hope it does not involve spending time outdoors," he said with a smile.

  Then Antony arrived, and seemed mildly surprised that he was last. "It was a challenge getting away from Fulvia," he said. "I could not tell her this was anything political, for then she would have insisted on coming. Nor could I pretend it was a pleasure excursion, or she would have barred me from going."

  "Has she tamed you that thoroughly, Antony?" asked Lepidus.

  "Well, you have got away, no matter how you managed it," I said. "Pray, sit down." The three of them had been standing practically at attention in the center of the room. "I have made sure the couches are comfortable." I managed to look at Caesar; I wanted him to think of the pillows and carpets upstairs.

  Obviously cautious, they took their places with care on the couches-- wooden-legged ones with extra cushions and pillows to soften their austerity. They all stared at me, blank-faced, waiting.

  "Tell me about this upcoming Lupercalia festival," I said, taking a seat on a straight-backed chair across from them.

  I could see what they were thinking: Had I invited them, the three most powerful men in Rome, to teach me about folk festivals? Finally Antony said, "It is an ancient ceremony--only the gods know how long its been celebrated. It has to do with fertility. The priests of the various colleges take strips from the hides of sacrificed animals and run through the streets whipping people with them. It's a boisterous, rowdy festival."

  "What he has forgotten to say is that the priests have to run through the streets half-naked, and it's the women-who wish to conceive that crave the touch of the strips, which are called februa. It's a bloody, messy business," said Lepidus. "Not my favorite holiday."

  "If I remember last year, it's wildly popular," I sa
id. "Everyone turns out to see it. And you, Caesar--won't you be on the Rostra observing it? Isn't that your station?"

  "Oh yes," said Antony. "He's required to preside over it, sitting in his golden chair, wearing his Triumphal robes."

  "Then everyone will be looking at you?" I asked Caesar directly.

  "I am not the center of the festival, if that is what you mean," he said, shifting on his elbows.

  "But the priests have to run to him; he is their destination," said Antony. "They dash through all the streets of Rome to end up at the Rostra."

  "You mean that's what you are going to do," said Lepidus. "You are one of the priests now."

  "But you are also a Consul," said Caesar, and I heard that note of disapproval in his voice. "The dignity of a Consul may not permit the hijinks of a priest of the Lupercalia."

  "It is you who created this conflict," I said to Caesar, startling him, "when you appointed him to two contradictory offices."

  He glared at me. I had never chided him in public, and it was clear he did not like it. "What is the point of all this?" he said coldly.

  I realized then how odd it must seem to them to be summoned by a woman. Roman women were at home quietly minding their business or else doing what wives were known to do in joke and song: boss, nag, forbid. As a foreign queen I was the only woman who was their equal and had the power to summon them, question them, and advise them on matters other than domestic details. I thought that a pity; there should be others.

  "Just this," I said, rising to my feet. "It is time that you made your kingly intentions--or lack of them--absolutely clear, and before a large audience. What better time than the Lupercalia? You will even be on a stage, elevated, where everyone can see you. So seize the initiative and shout your message where everyone can hear."

  "What message?" asked Caesar. He swung his feet around and sat up, leaning on his knuckles.

  "That is for you to decide," I said. "But I would assume you would wish to reassure the people that you are not trying to become a king." I paused. "Haven't you had enough of these staged slurs--people shouting titles at you, anonymous hands placing crowns on statues, invisible people writing Republican slogans on Brutus's praetor chair?"

  He sighed. "Oh, I've had enough of it, all right," he said.

  "Then end it! One of you--Antony, or Lepidus--should offer him the crown right on the Rostra at the Lupercal, with all Rome looking on. You should do it as ostentatiously and ceremoniously as possible, and you, Caesar, should resolutely refuse it, just as ostentatiously and ceremoniously. Then you should have it recorded in the Temple of Jupiter on the Capitoline Hill that you have refused it."

  They sat silent for a moment, but I could see Caesar's only quarrel with it was that he had not thought of it first.

  "Very clever," he finally said. "Yes. It would be an answer to the problem."

  "Providing this is the answer you seek," I said. "You should look into your heart and make sure."

  His eyes flared, and I knew I had gone too far. I should have asked that question privately. But it needed to be answered now, so that Antony and Lepidus could be assigned their parts.

  "Well," he said, "I am sure. I will not be king in Rome, nor would I wish to be."

  Was it only I who caught the distinction--in Rome rather than o/Rome? "Then you will agree to the plan? Antony will offer you the crown and you will refuse it? Or Lepidus?"

  "I will offer it," said Antony. "I am already known as someone given to playacting and theatrics, whereas you, Lepidus, are less demonstrative."

  "Then perhaps I ought to be the one," said Lepidus. "People would take it more seriously."

  "No, it would be more believable as a spontaneous action if Antony did it," said Caesar. "He is known for whims and outbursts, whereas you are much more of a planner. We don't want people to think we planned it."

  "The people are one thing," said Antony. "But who do you think is in back of the other gestures? They were no more spontaneous than this one will be."

  "I don't know," said Caesar slowly. "Of course the diehard aristocrats, those known as the optimates, wish to regain all their lost power. But which ones? I have tried to offer them places in the government--I've made both Brutus and Cassius praetors, and other former followers of Pompey I've pardoned are all underfoot and seemingly reconciled--but I cannot read their minds. I sense more than I can prove. Day after day they gather around me, pleasant enough, but when they meet privately, as we are doing, what do they say?"

  "We should place spies among them!" said Antony.

  'Then I would truly be what they whisper--a tyrant. A ruler with secret police, spies, and suspicion. Nay, I would rather die at their hands than be what they imagine me to be."

  "Don't say that!" I said sternly. "A good spy system has saved many a good man."

  "How eastern!" said Caesar. "Sometimes I forget where you come from, my little Ptolemy, my child of the Nile. But it doesn't transplant well here."

  A servant stole into the room to refill the lamps with olive oil. She stood on tiptoe and poured the gold-green oil, with its pungent scent, into the lamps from a narrow-spouted pitcher. Was this a spy? Had she been listening? How easy it was to become obsessed with suspicion. Perhaps Caesar was right.

  We all waited silently until she was finished, then, after she left, burst into nervous laughter.

  "Then it is decided?" I finally spoke. "When is Lupercalia?"

  "In fourteen days," said Antony. "The fifteenth day of February. Why, the month is named after the whipping strips!" he said, as if just realizing it.

  "Not long, then," said Lepidus. "Not long."

  After Antony and Lepidus had left, stealing away into the cold darkness, Caesar hesitated. He took a long time to draw on his cloak, and stood in the room studying the murals as if he had never seen them before. There was one, of a deep-green background showing a ship and harbor, with a fantastic rocky promontory. The waves of the harbor were tipped with whitecaps, and the sails billowed.

  "Surely this vista is not new to you," I said. "You must have chosen it and seen it many times." I leaned up against him--the first personal gesture I had permitted myself that night.

  "Oh yes," he said. "But it looks different tonight. It depicts a world fresh and clean." He allowed himself to put his arm around me. "I am weary of ugly city things--of whispered rumors, feigned emotions, crooked elections, anonymous scribbled slogans. Now I join them with this staged demonstration." Before I could defend my idea, he added, "But I am realistic enough to know it is a good plan. You have more than a touch of political genius, and I am ofttimes in awe of it. You have much to teach me. And you shall have the opportunity. Soon."

  "What is it you keep alluding to?" I said. "Pray, disclose it to me."

  "Not until after Lupercalia. Then I will tell you the plan in its entirety. First we must enact yours. Sleep well, my queen." Kissing me lightly, he turned to depart.

  "You enjoy keeping it from me," I said. "It gives you power over me."

  "No," he said. "Not over you, but over my enemies. It is best for now that no one know but me."

  With his quick footsteps, he was gone out into the night, swirled into darkness.

  After he had gone, I climbed the steps to my chamber, my limbs weary. It was so late; what upside-down hours plotters had to keep! I wondered who else was awake in Rome tonight, meeting in someone's home, whispering? There was a fog in the air, and the waning moon, worn like a detached marble statue's head, was just clearing the tops of the pines. Anyone leaving a dwelling now would have to mask himself against the searching moonlight.

  I listened outside Ptolemy's chamber. He had fallen asleep, but I could hear an occasional feeble cough. As soon as the seas were safe for sailing, we would have to leave. Rome was very bad for his health.

  I entered my own chamber, where I had left a lamp burning. It threw flickering shadows; it had exhausted its oil and was about to go out. Caesarion still shared the chamber suite with me, and was s
leeping serenely in his little bed with its ebony inlays depicting panthers and elephants. I watched his face and felt, as always, that leap of joy and possession, as he was both me and not-me. He was two and half years old now, no longer a baby but a child, running about on sturdy feet and beginning to speak--Latin. It was his first tongue. If we did not return soon, he would know Greek and Egyptian only as foreign languages.

  I knelt and brushed his hair, light and feathery. My dear child, I thought. May Isis always have you in her keeping.

  I disrobed and changed into my sleeping garments. It was too late to call Charmian to assist me. I slid into place on the narrow couch-bed and pulled the wool blankets up around my shoulders, shivering until the space around me grew warm under the covers.

  Cold. Cold. Rome is cold, and one shivers here, I thought. Strange that I have been here so long and it still feels alien. It is not just the climate, but the way of life. So constrained. So watchful. So rehearsed.

  Well, I told myself, perhaps that is just in the higher circles of power. Certainly the common people are none of those things, but the opposite: explosive, indulgent, loud, and hungry. All you have to do is watch them in the Forum, in the streets, at the games, to know that.

  A sharp pang in my breast, as I thought of the brown banks of the Nile and its palms, told me I was homesick. It was just that simple. I ached to return to Egypt.