The October Horse: A Novel of Caesar and Cleopatra

by Colleen McCullough

  “Very clever, Caesar,” Potheinus sneered from the shadows.

  Caesar nodded at his lictors and turned to walk back to the palace. “As I have told you before, Potheinus, I am clever. May I suggest that you cease your subversive activities among the people of your city and go back to running the Royal Enclosure and the royal purse? If I catch you spreading a false rumor about me and your queen, I’ll have you executed the Roman way—flogging and beheading. If you spread two false rumors, it will be the death of a slave—crucifixion. Three false rumors, and it will be crucifixion without broken legs.”

  Inside the palace vestibule he dismissed his lictors, but put a hand out to rest on King Ptolemy’s shoulder. “No more of these expeditions to the agora, young man. Now go to your rooms. I have had the secret tunnel blocked off at both ends, by the way.” The eyes, very cold, looked over Ptolemy’s tumbled curls to Theodotus. “Theodotus, you are banned from congress with the King. By morning I want you out of here. And be warned! If you try to reach the King, I’ll give you the fate I described for Potheinus.” A slight push, and King Ptolemy ran to weep in his quarters. Caesar’s hand now went out to Cleopatra, took hers.

  “It’s bedtime, my dear. Good night, everybody.”

  She gave a faint smile and lowered her lashes; Trebatius stared at Faberius, staggered. Caesar and the Queen? But she wasn’t his type at all!

  Extremely experienced with women, Caesar found it no trouble to perform a very curious duty: a ritual mating of two gods for the sake of a country, and the girl god a virgin into the bargain. Not facts that provoked the heights of passion or stirred the heartstrings. An Oriental, she was delighted that he plucked all his body hair, though she deemed that evidence of his godhead when in reality it was simply his way of avoiding lice—Caesar was a cleanliness fanatic. In that respect she came up to his standard; plucked too, she smelled naturally sweet.

  Oh, but there was scant pleasure in a naked, scrawny little mound that inexperience and nervousness rendered juiceless as well as uncomfortable! Her chest was almost as flat as a man’s, and he was afraid that a hard hold would break her arms, if not her legs. In truth, the whole exercise was off-putting. No pedophile, Caesar had to exert all his massive will to push her undeveloped child’s body out of his mind and get the business over and done with several times. If she was to conceive, then once was definitely not enough.

  However, she learned quickly and ended in liking what he did very much, if the juices she produced later were anything to go by. A lubricious little creature.

  “I love you” was the last thing she said before she fell into a deep slumber, lying curled against him with one stick across his chest, another stick over his legs. Caesar needs sleep too, he thought, and closed his eyes.

  By the morning much of the work on Royal Avenue and the Royal Enclosure wall had been done. Mounted on his hired horse—he had not brought Toes with him, a mistake—Caesar set out to tour his dispositions and tell the legate of his cavalry camp to close the ship canal road, cut Alexandria off from the river Nilus.

  What he was doing was actually a variation on his strategy at Alesia, where he had inserted himself and his 60,000 men inside a ring with both its inner and its outer walls heavily fortified to keep out the 80,000 Gauls camped on top of Alesia mount, and the 250,000 Gauls camped on the hills beyond him. This time he had a dumbbell, not a ring; Royal Avenue formed its shaft, the cavalry camp its swelling at one end, and the Royal Enclosure the swelling at its other end. The hundreds of beams plundered from all over the city were driven like horizontal piles from one mansion into the next to staple them together, and formed breastworks on top of the flat roofs, where Caesar mounted his smaller artillery; his big ballistas were needed on top of the twenty-foot wall on the eastern side of his cavalry camp. The Hill of Pan became his lookout, its bottom now a formidable rampart of blocks from the gymnasium, and huge stone walls cut off both sides of Canopic Avenue at its intersection with Royal Avenue. He could move his 3,200 veteran infantry from one end of Royal Avenue to the other at the double, and free of the ibis menace too; somehow those crafty birds sensed what was coming, and promptly flew the Roman coop. Good, thought Caesar, grinning. Let the Alexandrians try to fight without killing a sacred ibis! If they were Romans, they’d go to Jupiter Optimus Maximus and draft out a treaty whereby they could be temporarily exonerated of guilt upon payment of an appropriate sacrifice later. But I doubt that Serapis thinks like Roman Jupiter Optimus Maximus.

  To the east of Caesar’s dumbbell lay Delta and Epsilon Districts, all Jews and Metics; to the west lay the bulk of the city, Greek and Macedonian, by far the more dangerous direction. From the top of the Hill of Pan he could see Achillas—ye gods, he was slow!—trying to ready his troops, watch the activity in the Eunotus Harbor and the Cibotus as the warships came out of their sheds to splash into the water, replacing those that had come back from Pelusium and had to be put ashore for drying out. In a day or two—their admiral was as slow as Achillas—the galleys would row under the arches in the Heptastadion and sink all Caesar’s thirty-five transports.

  So he put two thousand of his men to demolishing all the houses behind those on Royal Avenue’s west side, thus creating a four-hundred-foot-wide expanse of rubble larded with hazards like carefully covered pits with sharpened stakes at their bottoms, chains that rose from nowhere to loop around a neck, broken shards of Alexandrian glass. The other twelve hundred men formed up and invaded the commercial dockside of the Great Harbor, boarded every ship, loaded them with column drums from the courts of justice, the gymnasium and the agora, and proceeded to tip them into the water under the arches. In just two hours no ship, from pinnace to quinquereme, could sail through the Heptastadion from one harbor to the other. If the Alexandrians wanted to attack his fleet, they would have to do it the hard way—past the shoals and sandbars of the Eunostus, around the edge of Pharos Isle, and in through the Great Harbor passages. Hurry with my two legions, Calvinus! I need warships of my own!

  Once the archways were blocked, Caesar’s soldiers mounted the Heptastadion and ripped out the aqueduct that sent water to Pharos Isle, then stole the outermost row of artillery from the Cibotus. They met some hard resistance, but it was very clear that the Alexandrians lacked cool heads and a general; they flung themselves into the fray like Belgic Gauls in the old days before they learned the value of living to fight again another day. Not insuperable foes for these legionaries, all veterans of the nine-year war in Long-haired Gaul, and delighted to be pitted against foreigners as loathsome as the Alexandrians. Very good ballistas and catapults, those pinched from the Cibotus! Caesar would be pleased. The legionaries ferried the artillery back to the docks, then set fire to the ships moored at wharves and jetties. To rub it in, they lobbed flaming missiles from the captured ballistas among the warships in Eunostus and on top of the ship sheds. Oh, what a good day’s work!

  Caesar’s work was different. He had sent messengers into Delta and Epsilon Districts and summoned three Jewish elders and three Metic leaders to a conference. He received them in the audience chamber, where he had put comfortable chairs, a nice meal laid out on side tables, and the Queen on her throne.

  “Look regal,” he instructed her. “None of this I-am-a-mouse rubbish—and take Arsinoë’s jewels off her if you can’t find any of your own. Try to look every inch a great queen, Cleopatra—this is a most important meeting.”

  When she entered, he found it hard not to gape. She was preceded by a party of Egyptian priests, clanking censers and chanting a low, monotonous dirge in a language he couldn’t begin to identify. All of them were mete-en-sa save for their leader, who sported a gold pectoral studded with jewels and overlaid with a great number of amuleted gold necklaces; he carried a long, enameled gold staff which he rapped on the floor to produce a dull, booming sound.

  “All pay homage to Cleopatra, Daughter of Amun-Ra, Isis Reincarnated, She of the Two Ladies Upper and Lower Egypt, She of the Sedge and Bee!” the high priest cri
ed in good Greek.

  She was dressed as Pharaoh, in finely pleated white-on-white striped linen covered by a short-sleeved, billowing coat of linen so fine it was transparent, and embroidered all over with designs in tiny, sparkling glass beads. On her head sat an extraordinary edifice that Caesar had already studied in the wall paintings, yet had not fully grasped until now, seeing it in three dimensions. Aflaring outer crown of red enamel rose to a high shaft behind and at its front displayed a cobra’s head and a vulture’s head in gold, enamel and jewels. Inside it was a much taller, conical crown of white enamel with a flattish top and a curled band of gold springing out of it. Around her neck, a collar of gold, enamel and jewels ten inches wide; at her waist, an enameled gold girdle six inches wide; on her arms, magnificent gold and enamel bracelets in snake and leopard forms; on her fingers, dozens of flashing rings; perched on her chin and hooked behind her ears with gold wires, a false beard of gold and enamel; on her feet, jeweled gold sandals with very high, gilded cork soles.

  Her face was painted into a mask with exquisite care, its mouth glossily crimson, its cheeks adorned with rouge, and its eyes replicas of the eye on her throne: rimmed with black stibium extending in thin lines toward her ears and ending in little triangles filled in with the coppery green that colored her upper lids all the way to her stibium-enhanced brows; below them a curled black line was drawn down onto each cheek. The effect of the paint was as sinister as it was stunning; one could almost imagine that the face beneath was not human.

  Her two Macedonian attendants, Charmian and Iras, today were clad in Egyptian mode too. Because Pharaoh’s sandals were so high, they assisted Cleopatra up the steps of the dais to her throne, where she sat, took the enameled gold crook and flail from them and crossed these symbols of her deity upon her breast.

  No one, Caesar noticed, prostrated himself; a low bow seemed adequate.

  “We are here to preside,” she said in a strong voice. “We are Pharaoh, you see our Godhead revealed. Gaius Julius Caesar, Son of Amun-Ra, Osiris Reincarnated, Pontifex Maximus, Imperator, Dictator of the Senate and People of Rome, proceed.”

  And that’s it! he was thinking exultantly as she rolled the sonorous phrases out, that’s it! Alexandria and things Macedonian don’t even enter her ken. She’s Egyptian to the core—once she dons this incredible regalia, she radiates power!

  “I am overwhelmed at your majesty, Daughter of Ammon-Ra,” he said, then indicated his delegates, rising from their bows. “May I introduce Simeon, Abraham and Joshua of the Jews, and Cibyrus, Phormion and Darius of the Metics?”

  “Welcome, and be seated,” said Pharaoh.

  Whereupon Caesar quite forgot the occupant of the throne. Choosing to approach his subject tangentially, he indicated one laden side table. “I know that flesh has to be religiously prepared and that wine has to be properly Judaic,” he said to Simeon, the chief elder of the Jews. “All has been done as your laws stipulate, so after we’ve spoken, don’t hesitate to eat. Similarly,” he said to Darius, ethnarch of the Metics, “the food and wine on the second table has been prepared for you.”

  “Your kindness is appreciated, Caesar,” said Simeon, “but so much hospitality can’t alter the fact that your fortified corridor has cut us off from the rest of the city—our ultimate source of food, our livelihoods, and the raw materials for our trades. We note that you’ve finished demolishing the houses at the rear of Royal Avenue’s west side, so we must presume that you are about to demolish our houses on the east side.”

  “Don’t worry, Simeon,” Caesar said in Hebrew, “hear me out.”

  Cleopatra’s eyes looked startled; Simeon jumped.

  “You speak Hebrew?” he asked.

  “A little. I grew up in a very polyglot quarter of Rome, the Subura, where my mother was the landlady of an insula. We always had a number of Jews among our tenants, and I had the run of the place when I was a child. So I picked up languages. Our resident elder was a goldsmith, Shimon. I know the nature of your god, your customs, your traditions, your foods, your songs, and the history of your people.” He turned to Cibyrus. “I can even speak a little Pisidian,” he said in that tongue. “Alas, Darius, I cannot speak Persian,” he said in Greek, “so for the sake of convenience, let us have our talk in Greek.”

  Within a quarter of an hour he had explained the situation without apology; a war in Alexandria was inevitable.

  “However,” he said, “for my own protection I would prefer to fight the war on one side of my corridor only—the western side. Do nothing to oppose me and I’ll guarantee that my soldiers don’t invade you, that the war won’t spread east of Royal Avenue, and that you’ll continue to eat. As for the raw materials you need for your trades and the wages those of you who work on the west side will lose, I am not in a position to help. But there may be compensations for the hardships you’re bound to suffer until I beat Achillas and subdue the Alexandrians. Don’t hinder Caesar and Caesar will be in your debt. And Caesar pays his debts.”

  He rose from his ivory curule chair and approached the throne. “I imagine, great Pharaoh, that it is in your power to pay all who help you keep your throne?”

  “It is.”

  “Then are you willing to compensate the Jews and Metics for the financial losses they will sustain?”

  “I am, provided they do nothing to hinder you, Caesar.”

  Simeon stood, bowed deeply. “Great Queen,” he said, “in return for our co-operation, there is one other thing we ask of you, as do the Metics.”

  “Ask, Simeon.”

  “Give us the Alexandrian citizenship.”

  A long pause ensued. Cleopatra sat hidden behind her exotic mask, her eyes veiled by coppery green lids, the crook and flail crossed on her breast rising and falling slightly as she breathed. Finally the shiny red lips parted. “I agree, Simeon, Darius. The Alexandrian citizenship for all Jews and Metics who have lived in the city for more than three years. Plus financial restitution for what this war will cost you, and a bonus for every Jewish or Metic man who actively fights for Caesar.”

  Simeon sagged in relief; the other five stared at one another incredulously. What had been withheld for generations was theirs!

  “And I,” said Caesar, “will add the Roman citizenship.”

  “The price is more than fair, we have a deal.” Simeon beamed. “Furthermore, to prove our loyalty, we will hold the coast between Cape Lochias and the hippodrome. It isn’t suitable for mass landings, but Achillas could get plenty of men ashore in small boats. Beyond the hippodrome,” he explained for Caesar’s benefit, “the swamps of the Delta begin, which is God’s Will. God is our best ally.”

  “Then let’s eat!” Caesar cried.

  Cleopatra rose. “You don’t need Pharaoh anymore,” she said.

  “Charmian, Iras, your help.”

  * * *

  “Oh, get me out of all this!” Pharaoh yelled, kicking off her shoes the moment she reached her rooms. Off came the incongruous false beard, the huge and weighty collar, a shower of rings and bracelets bouncing and rolling around the floor with fearful servants crawling after them, calling on one another to witness that nothing was purloined. She had to sit while Charmian and Iras battled to remove the mighty double crown; its enamel was layered over wood, not metal, but it was tailored to the shape of Cleopatra’s skull so it could not fall off, and it was heavy.

  Then she saw the beautiful Egyptian woman in her temple musician’s garb, shrieked with joy and ran into her arms.

  “Tach’a! Tach’a! My mother, my mother!”

  While Charmian and Iras scolded and clucked because she was crushing her beaded coat, Cleopatra hugged and kissed Tach’a in a frenzy of love.

  Her own mother had been very kind, very sweet, but always too preoccupied for love; something Cleopatra could forgive, herself a victim of that awful atmosphere in the palace at Alexandria. Mama’s name had been Cleopatra Tryphaena, and she was a daughter of Mithridates the Great; he had given her as wife to Ptolemy A
uletes, who was the illegitimate son of the tenth Ptolemy, Soter nicknamed Chickpea. She had borne two daughters, Berenice and Cleopatra, but no sons. Auletes had had a half sister, still a child when Mithridates forced him to marry Cleopatra Tryphaena, but that had been thirty-three years ago, and the half sister grew up. Until Mithridates died, Auletes was too afraid of his father-in-law to dispose of his wife; all he could do was wait.

  When Berenice was twelve years old and little Cleopatra five, Pompey the Great ended the career of King Mithridates the Great, who fled to Cimmeria and was murdered by one of his sons, the same Pharnaces at present invading Anatolia. Freed at last, Auletes divorced Cleopatra Tryphaena and married his half sister. But the daughter of Mithridates was as pragmatic as she was shrewd; she managed to stay alive, continue to live in the palace with her own two daughters while her replacement gave Auletes yet another girl, Arsinoë, and finally two sons.

  Berenice was old enough to join the adults, but Cleopatra was relegated to the nursery, a hideous place. Then, as the conduct of Auletes deteriorated, her mother sent little Cleopatra to the temple of Ptah in Memphis, where she entered a world that bore no resemblance to the palace at Alexandria. Cool limestone buildings in the ancient Egyptian style, warm arms to fold her close. For Cha’em, high priest of Ptah, and his wife, Tach’a, took Cleopatra for their own. They taught her both kinds of Egyptian, Aramaic, Hebrew and Arabic, taught her to sing and play the big harp, taught her all that there was to know about Egypt of Nilus, the mighty pantheon of gods Creator Ptah had made.

  More than sexual perversities and wine-soaked orgies rendered Auletes difficult to live with; he had scrambled on to the throne after his legitimate half brother, the eleventh Ptolemy, died without issue—but leaving a will that had bequeathed Egypt to Rome. Thus had Rome entered the picture, a fearsome presence. In Caesar’s consulship Auletes had paid six thousand gold talents to secure Roman approval of his tenure of the throne, gold he had stolen from the Alexandrians. For Auletes was not Pharaoh, and had no access to the fabulous treasure vaults in Memphis. The trouble was that the Alexandrian income was in the purlieu of the Alexandrians, who insisted that their ruler pay them back. Times were hard, the price of food inflated, Roman pressures omnipresent and dangerous. Auletes’s solution was to debase the Alexandrian coinage.