I blinked back tears, and as we reached a heavy gate, a Greek scholar whom I had often seen in the palace produced a key from his robes. We were about to enter the Soma, the mausoleum of Alexander the Great, and as the gate was drawn open Agrippa whispered, “Mea Fortuna!”
I noted with pride that even Octavian stepped back. I had sketched the building a dozen times, and each time Alexander had wanted to know why. He wasn’t moved as I was by the luminous marble dome, or the beautiful lines of heavy columns that stretched like white soldiers into the night.
“When was this built?” Octavian asked. Instead of turning to either Alexander or me, he looked at Juba.
“Three hundred years ago,” Juba replied. “They say that his sarcophagus is made of crystal, and that he’s still wearing his golden cuirass.”
Now Octavian turned to my brother and me. “Is it true?”
When I refused to answer him, Alexander nodded. “Yes.”
“And the body?” Agrippa asked Juba. “How did it come here?”
“Stolen, by his cousin Ptolemy.”
We passed through the heavy bronze doors, and the scent of burning lavender from a tripod filled the empty antechamber. Torches blazed from iron brackets on the wall, sputtering in the rush of night air we’d let in. The priests here had not abandoned their duties, and an old man in golden robes appeared.
“This way,” he said, and it was clear we were expected.
We followed the old man’s footsteps through a maze of halls, and the soldiers who had chattered all the way there like monkeys, without ever once pausing for breath, were silent. In the dull glow of the priest’s lamp, the men regarded the painted exploits of Alexander. I had sketched these images so many times that I knew them by heart. There was the young king with his wives Roxana and Stateira. In another scene Alexander was lying with Hephaestion, the soldier he loved above all others. And in a last mosaic he was conquering Anatolia, Phoenicia, Egypt, and the sprawling kingdom of Mesopotamia. Octavian reached out and touched the painted locks of Alexander’s hair.
“Was he really blond?”
The priest frowned, and I was certain he had never heard such a question before. “He is depicted on these walls as he was in life, Caesar.”
Octavian gave a small, self-satisfied smile, and I realized why he had wanted to come. Facially, there did not appear much difference between the painting of Alexander and Octavian. Both men were fair, with small mouths, straight noses, and light eyes. Now Octavian imagined himself as Alexander’s heir, the next conqueror not just of Egypt, but of the world. Hadn’t his great-uncle, Julius Caesar, already begun the conquest for him?
We reached a flight of stairs descending into greater darkness, and I heard Ptolemy whimper. “It’s only a few steps down,” I whispered, and when I saw that he was going to protest, I put my finger to my lips.
The priest led the way, and the only noise was the whisper of our footsteps and the crackling of torches. Juba was the last to descend. When the door swung shut behind us, my brother let out a frightened cry. Immediately, Alexander put his hand to Ptolemy’s mouth.
“Not here,” he whispered angrily. “There’s nothing to be afraid of.”
But no one was paying attention to Ptolemy. In the dimly lit chamber, the men’s gazes were fixed on the crystal coffin of the world’s greatest king. The air smelled heavily of embalming spices: cinnamon, myrrh, and cassia.
Octavian approached the coffin with hesitant steps, and the priest pulled back the lid so that everyone could observe Alexander as he had been. There was a gasp of admiration throughout the chamber, and even Ptolemy wanted to draw closer.
“Only thirty-two,” Octavian said. The king’s face was beautiful in its three-hundred-year repose; his arms against the muscled cuirass were still pink with flesh and strikingly large. Octavian called Agrippa and Juba to his side, and although Octavian’s hair was a similar gold, it was Juba, with his broad shoulders and impressive height, who most resembled Alexander. In the poor light of the tomb, I studied the Numidian prince. From his hobnailed sandals to his scarlet cloak, he was every bit a Roman soldier, and only his long dark hair betrayed his ancestry.
“Agrippa, the crown,” Octavian said, and from the folds of his cloak Agrippa produced a thin golden diadem of twisted leaves. Octavian placed it carefully on Alexander’s head, and as he straightened, he caught sight of the Conqueror’s ring. He bent closer to inspect it, and when he saw that it had been engraved with Alexander’s profile, he announced, “This shall be the ring of Imperial Rome.”
“But, Caesar, that belongs—”
Agrippa turned, and the priest’s protest died on his lips.
Octavian held the stiff hand of Alexander, but as he tugged on the ring his elbow swept back and there was a sickening crunch.
“His nose!” the priest cried. Octavian had broken off Alexander’s nose.
There was a moment of terrified silence. Then Octavian exclaimed, “What does it mean?” He spun around. “Shall I send for the augurs?”
“No,” Juba said.
“But then what does it portend?”
“That you will break the Conqueror’s hold on the world and reconquer it yourself,” Juba replied. His dark eyes gleamed, and though I thought he was being sarcastic, Agrippa nodded.
“Yes, I agree.”
But Octavian didn’t move, and his hand with the golden signet ring was frozen over the king’s body.
“It can only be a good sign,” Agrippa repeated.
Octavian nodded. “Yes.… Yes, a sign from the gods,” he suddenly declared, “that I am the successor of Alexander the Great.”
The priest asked meekly if Octavian wished to visit the rest of our ancestors. But Octavian was too full of his prophecy.
“I came to see a king, not a row of corpses.”
I looked back at the shattered face of the great man who was responsible for the long reign of the Ptolemies, and wondered if Egypt would have a similar fate.
Although Juba and Agrippa had proclaimed the breaking of Alexander’s nose a good portent, Octavian’s retinue fell into an uneasy silence as we made our way up the stairs through the Soma. But the throngs of people in the streets—soldiers, Alexandrians, foreign merchants, even slaves—were loud enough to wake the gods. The soldiers were rounding up every Alexandrian they could find.
“What’s happening?” Ptolemy worried.
“We’re going to the Gymnasium,” Alexander said.
“Where Father gave me a crown?”
Juba raised his brows. Although Ptolemy had only been two and could not have had many memories from that time, he clearly recalled the Donations of Alexandria, when our father had seated himself with our mother on a golden throne and proclaimed our brother Caesarion not just his heir, but the heir to Julius Caesar as well. That evening, he’d announced his marriage to our mother, even though Rome had refused to recognize it. Then he’d given Alexander the territories of Armenia, Media, and the unconquered empire of Parthia. I’d received Cyrenaica and the island of Crete, while Ptolemy became king of all the Syrian lands. Although the Ptolemies wore simple cloth diadems bedecked with tiny pearls, our father had presented us with gold-and-ruby crowns, and this was what had stayed in Ptolemy’s memory. Only now, those crowns were being melted to pay Octavian’s men, and we were the inheritors of dust.
Alexander’s lips turned down at the corners, and I knew he was fighting back tears as well. “Yes, that is where Father made you a king.”
We approached the Gymnasium, longer than two stadia, and a murmur of surprise passed among the soldiers. Surrounded by shaded groves, the porticoes had been carefully plastered with gypsum so that even in the moonlight they glittered. But Octavian didn’t stop to appreciate the beauty. He twisted the ends of his belt in his hands.
“Repeat to me what I wrote,” he instructed.
Agrippa quickly unfurled a scroll he had been keeping in his cloak. “First is the matter of the city itself,” he said.
>
Octavian nodded. “And then?”
“The matter of how many citizens will become slaves in Rome.”
Octavian shook his head curtly. “None.”
Agrippa frowned. “Your uncle took a hundred and fifty thousand men from Gaul. When Marius …”
“And what did he get for it?”
“Spartacus,” Juba broke in contemptuously. “An uprising of slaves who didn’t appreciate what Rome had given them.”
“That’s right. There is enough gold in the queen’s mausoleum to pay every man who’s ever fought for me. This time, we don’t pay them in slaves.”
“And the men who wish to take women?” Agrippa asked.
“Let them pay for whores.”
We reached the steps of the Gymnasium, and a phalanx of soldiers with heavy shields formed a wall between us and the people. Suddenly, I couldn’t go on.
“What are you doing?” Alexander hissed.
But I was too afraid to move. Armed men surrounded the Gymnasium, and I wondered what would happen if Octavian decided to set fire to the building. There would be chaos, women and children crushed as men scrambled over their bodies to escape. But their paths would be blocked by Roman soldiers. The doors would be barred, as they were at my mother’s mausoleum. I stood at the base of a long flight of steps, and Agrippa came to my side.
“There’s nothing to be afraid of,” he said. “Caesar wouldn’t have kept you alive this long if he intended to kill you tonight.”
Of course not, I realized. He wants us alive for his Triumph.
I followed Agrippa’s red cloak up the stairs. Inside the Gymnasium, thousands of people fell to their knees in silent obeisance.
Octavian quipped, “I see why Antony liked Egypt so much.”
“You are Pharoah,” one of the soldiers remarked. “They’ll dance naked in the streets if that’s what you wish.”
Juba smirked. “I thought the Egyptians did that anyway.”
For the first time, I saw Octavian smile, and as we mounted the dais I wondered if Alexander felt as sick as I did. Our father had told us how Octavian had ordered the massacre of every last captive at the Battle of Philippi. When a father and son had begged for mercy, Octavian determined that only one should live and ordered the father to play morra with his child. But the old man refused, asking for his life to be taken instead, and nineteen-year-old Octavian himself had wielded the blade that executed him. And when the son wished to commit suicide, Octavian had mockingly offered him his own sword. Even my father, no stranger to battle, had seen only cruelty and single-mindedness in this pretender to Caesar’s throne.
When we reached the top of the dais, Octavian held out his arms. He wore only a simple tunic of chain mail beneath his toga, and I wondered again whether there was a brave Alexandrian who might give his life to rid Egypt of its conqueror. “You may rise,” he said into the silence.
The sound of thousands of unbending bodies echoed in the torch-lit Gymnasium. All along the perimeter, next to every window and heavy cedar door, armed soldiers stood seven deep in case of revolt. But the people stood silent, and when Octavian began his speech I saw men holding their breaths in anticipation of what was to come. When he explained that there would be no taking of slaves, that the city could not be blamed for the errors of its rulers, and that every soldier who had fought against him would be pardoned, the silence remained. “For Egypt does not belong to Rome,” he announced. “It belongs to me, the chosen heir of the Ptolemies. And I always protect what is mine.” Women shifted their children on their hips, looking to their husbands in confusion. Octavian’s cruelty was known throughout Egypt.
It was the High Priest of Isis and Serapis who broke the silence. “He has even saved our queen’s youngest children. Hail, Octavian the Merciful, King of Kings!”
“Octavian the Merciful!” the people shouted. Then one of the men took up the cry of “Caesar,” and the Gymnasium reverberated with it.
“What are they doing?” I shouted to my brother in Parthian, certain that was one language Juba didn’t know. “Why are they chanting his name? He’s a conqueror!”
“And now he’s their savior,” Alexander said bitterly.
“But our father.” My eyes burned. “Antyllus and Caesarion. Don’t they know?”
“Perhaps. But they’re thinking of themselves.”
Octavian held up his arms, and the cries immediately died away. Then Agrippa stepped forward and explained how the wealthy villas around the Soma now belonged to Rome.
“The statues of Kleopatra and Marc Antony have been spared by a generous donation of two thousand talents. Those who would like to spare their own works of art, perhaps even their own villas, may have their chests of gold talents ready when soldiers come.”
“Greed!” I whispered angrily. “Octavian will make them pay for the very bricks they’re walking on.”
“But Alexandria is saved. The Museion, the Library—”
“For whom? For what? These Romans don’t even know how to speak Greek!”
The people beneath us were cheering, even the men who would pay two-thirds the value of their villas to Caesar in order to keep what was rightfully theirs. Octavian, flanked by Juba and another soldier, descended the steps of the dais. Immediately a path through the Gymnasium was cleared as the citizens of Alexandria stepped back.
“Follow me,” Agrippa said gruffly, and I wondered if this was the moment when someone would attempt to kill Octavian. My father would have risked everything to do it, but as we made our way through the frightened silence, nobody moved. A child cried in his mother’s arms, and somewhere in the mass of people a man shouted, “Hail, Caesar.” But when we stepped outside the Gymnasium, Octavian’s cloak snapped in the breeze; he was still alive. No one had risked his life for my mother. I could feel the bile rising in my throat, and I didn’t even have the strength to hold Ptolemy’s hand as we made our way back to the palace. Soon, we would surely sail for Rome.
“Is there anything I forgot?” Octavian demanded. Though he was small, he walked with confidence through the streets, unafraid of the dark corners along the Canopic Way. Forty soldiers surrounded him, their enameled cuirasses reflecting the light of the moon.
“Nothing,” Agrippa promised. “It was the right decision to let the temples stand. The priests will never incite rebellion.”
“And the people?”
“They called you king,” Juba said. “They will find the gold talents to ransom their villas, I have no doubt.”
Octavian smiled, but as we reached the palace, his steps grew uncertain. In the courtyard, a woman was screaming. She ran toward Octavian, and in a single, flawless motion his forty soldiers joined shields.
“Caesar!” she cried. “Caesar, there is news!”
“Put down your shields,” Octavian ordered.
I glimpsed her face between the armor of two soldiers and cried, “Euphemia!”
“Princess, your mother! You must come. She is dying!”
Agrippa looked to Octavian, and neither of them stopped us when the soldiers parted and I ran with Alexander and Ptolemy through the palace. I don’t remember if anyone followed. Perhaps there were a hundred men, or perhaps we were alone when we reached the open door of my mother’s chamber.
“Move away!” Alexander shouted at the servants. “Move!”
Inside, there was a sickening silence. My mother, in her purple gown, lay peacefully on a couch in the center of the room, her smooth skin gilded by the candlelight. On the floor, Iras and Charmion rested their heads on two silk pillows, looking as though they might be sleeping.
“Mother?” I crept forward, while behind us Octavian crowded the doorway with Agrippa and Juba. When she didn’t move, I screamed, “Mother!” My brother and I ran to her. “Mother,” I pleaded. I shook her by the shoulders, and the crown she had carefully placed on her head struck the floor with a hollow clank. Below her, Charmion didn’t stir. I took Charmion’s hands in mine, but the aged fingers that h
ad taught me to sketch were cold. I grasped her arm and reeled back at the sight of two puncture wounds. “Alexander, she used a snake!” I turned and saw Octavian and Agrippa standing in the doorway, surrounded by soldiers.
Juba rushed to my side and felt for my mother’s heartbeat, then bent down and felt the necks of Iras and Charmion. “How do you know it’s a snake?” he asked quickly.
“Look at her arm!”
Juba rose swiftly to his feet. “There are asps in this chamber.” He turned to Octavian. “Seal off the room!” he ordered. “Selene, Alexander, Ptolemy—”
“No!” I moved closer to my mother. “A snake-doctor could drain the wound!”
But Juba shook his head. “She’s already gone.”
“You don’t know that!” I cried.
He looked to Octavian for an answer.
“Find a snake-doctor!” Octavian ordered sharply.
The white-haired soldier next to him didn’t move. “But, Caesar,” he whispered, “you have what you want. She’s dead. And in ten months you can march into Rome—”
“Silence! Find a snake-doctor and bring him here at once!”
Juba took my brother’s arm, knowing he would have less of a fight with him. “Stand at the door,” he instructed sternly. “There is at least one cobra in this room. Do not step inside.”
We waited at the entrance to the chamber, and Alexander looked like one of my mother’s statues, thin and pale and immovable.
“It was a lie,” I whispered in Parthian. “He was never going back to Rome in three days. He wanted her to die. He wanted her to commit suicide.”
A snake-doctor arrived, and his black skin shone in the lamplight as he worked. My brother remained silent, and I could hear the rush of my heart beating as I watched him. He located the wounds on Mother’s arm and made a thin cut above the bites. Then he pressed his lips against her skin and attempted to suck the venom from her body. We watched for what felt like an eternity. Then, at last, he stood up. His lips were red with my mother’s blood, and I knew from his face that we were orphans.
Alexander asked quietly, “Will our mother be buried in her mausoleum?”
The Egyptian Royals Collection Page 82
