Ave, Caesarion

by Deborah Davitt

  Caesarion exhaled, clearly trying to calm himself. “It’s just a few pieces of bad news that Tiberius was lucky enough to stumble onto. Hopefully in time for us to stop it.” He grimaced. “I need to stomp on the rest of Octavian’s cohorts in Hispania and Illyria. Hard. And put paid to most of this nonsense. The plan was to take Hispania back next summer. Illyria the year after that. This,” and he gestured at the desk, “suggests that I might not have time to finish them militarily before they come after his legacy politically.” Another tight grimace. “I need to talk to Mother. And Antony. And . . . everyone else we have. I might even visit Cicero out in the countryside. I can’t ask that frail old man to travel to Rome. Not unless it really is life and death.”

  He looked up, and suddenly offered Tiberius a wrist-clasp. “Thank you,” Caesarion said, formally. “Forewarned is forearmed, as they say. And it’s always good to know who your friends are. I like being able to count you as one of them.”

  Tiberius suddenly understood why Alexander hero-worshipped his elder brother so. Because in spite of the black tide of anger that threatened to suffocate him at the moment, the despairing sensation that Octavian was going to continue to rule his life from beyond the grave, that his mother would find some way to control him . . . when Caesarion took his hand and smiled at him, the pride that filled him forced the rage and despair down. Gave him a lungful of air to breathe.

  Alexander moved up beside him, staring at the scrolls. “We can’t do anything about these today, correct?”

  “Not much. We’ll go to the play. Come back. Read through them—you too, Eurydice. Make a list of all the ways in which the various laws contradict each other.” Caesarion rubbed his hands together thoughtfully.

  “They won’t be offered all at once,” Alexander noted bluntly. “One or two at a time. Piecemeal. So that no one can see what a jumbled bunch of self-serving nonsense it really is. They’ll just go, ‘Oh, well, with the legions off in Gaul, it makes sense to keep the men from marrying. If they marry at home, their wives will naturally just cheat on them in their absence. And if they marry abroad, they’ll just bring back all these foreigners as wives at the end of their service, and who wants that?’” He aped the wheezing tones of an elder statesman perfectly, down to the rusty cough and discreet wipe at his mouth at the end.

  “So we have to resist each one the same way. Some might get through.” Caesarion’s tone soured. “But, on the other hand, I refuse to let this ruin the rest of our day. I promised Eurydice her first trip to the theater—”

  “I don’t have to go,” she pointed out quickly. “This is more important—”

  Caesarion took her arm lightly. “On the contrary,” he told his sister with an air of utmost gravity. “You’re a woman, about to go to the licentious theater that Octavian wanted to ban women from attending.”

  “I think it is your moral duty to go with us,” Alexander put in, grinning. “For the people and the Senate of Rome, sister!”

  Eurydice spluttered, and then started to laugh, reluctantly. “Oh, well, if it is a moral imperative, who am I to cavil?”

  Tiberius waved Drusus out of the room, noting that his younger brother had lost the pallor that had marked him through so many family fights in the past. Looked reassured, even. And almost skipped away.

  But before he could follow the others out, Alexander caught him around the waist with one arm. And as he looked back at his friend, mildly surprised, Alexander leaned up with a grin, and whispered in his ear, “So, do I need to fuck you tonight? Also for the sake of the people and Senate of Rome?’

  Tiberius halted, midstep. And then turned towards Alexander, and muttered, just as quietly, “I think so, yes. Though you know? The one thing we haven’t done yet? I almost think I’d like to do that to you. For the greater good.” He struggled to keep his mother’s pursed lips and cold eyes out of his mind. But it was difficult. And while he would never really disrespect Alexander in that way, the rage was difficult to quell.

  “I think not. You’re angry,” Alexander returned amiably. “My love for Rome is deep and abiding, but I’d prefer to be able to ride tomorrow. Plus, you know. That way lies infamio.”

  And exhaling a snort of laughter that somehow took most of the black tide of anger with it, Tiberius released his friend from their half-embrace, and followed Alexander out into the atrium. But while the anger had receded, it was still there, at the very periphery of his soul. And he wondered what it would take to rid himself of it, for good.

  ____________________

  The Theater of Pompey had been the first permanent theater in all of Rome—for centuries before the great general and ally-turned-enemy of Caesar had built it, actors and festivals had used temporary wooden structures. Pompey had financed it in an effort to cultivate the love of the common people, a gesture similar to those that came so naturally to Caesar himself. And in a creative bid to prevent it from being torn down as an immoral and licentious place of business, he’d perched, at the very highest point in the structure, a temple to his own personal patron goddess—the Venus Victrix. But Caesar and all his family preferred not the Venus of Victory, but the Venus Genetrix: her aspect as Mother.

  Amid the fountains and pillars at the front, Eurydice knew, sixteen years ago, her father had been set upon by the assassins who wished him dead. And Brutus—faithful, loyal Brutus—had been killed here. While he’d warned Caesar of the conspiracy ahead of time, Caesar had wanted to confront his assassins. And Brutus had laid down his own life to defend his friend.

  As such, there was a statue to Brutus beside one of the main entrances. A constant reminder to all of Rome that the integrity of one man had saved the life of the first Emperor, who had in turn brought them fifteen years of prosperity.

  The press of the crowd around them felt startlingly thick, even with Praetorians to walk ahead, beside, and behind them. At the baths, Eurydice hadn’t felt so terribly out of place. Here, however, walking in with her brothers and Tiberius, the only woman heading for the expensive comfortable chairs in the orchestra area? She felt as if hundreds of eyes bored into her back like needles, and unconsciously moved closer to Caesarion.

  “Courage,” he murmured, taking her arm lightly and looking down at her. “Didn’t Mother tell you to start acting more like a queen? She’s not wrong, you know.”

  Reminded, Eurydice made sure that her shoulders were straight, and brought her head up higher. Planted a smile on her lips that she didn’t feel, and looked back over her shoulder, trying not to gape. The tiers of stone seats curving behind her seemed to rise up to the sky. And, tantalized, she looked up into the cloudless blue, and spotted a hawk circling lazily high above.

  “Don’t go flying away,” Caesarion told her sharply. “That would somewhat defeat the point of bringing you here.”

  “I wasn’t going to,” Eurydice protested, lifting her chin as they picked their way through the seats, winding up in the front row. She arranged her palla over her shoulders and face to protect her skin from the sun, and tried to get comfortable as Alexander took the seat to her right, and Tiberius the one further down. “This is supposed to be a treat.”

  Alexander looked over her head at Caesarion. “She hasn’t read the play yet, has she?”

  “No, I haven’t,” she returned, giving her brother a dark look for talking over her, rather than to her.

  “Then this is going to be very educational for you,” Alexander told her, his face splitting into a grin. “Though honestly, I’m not sure that reading the words on the page really conveys . . . all the nuances.”

  Beside him, she could see Tiberius’ shoulders shake once, and leaned forward to tell their houseguest, with all sincerity, “It’s good to see you in better spirits. Selene told me last night how much she likes your eyes when you smile.”

  Tiberius promptly stopped smiling. “Your sister said what?”

  “It was one of the first things she’s told me in the past year that haven’t sounded frightened, peevish, o
r ill-tempered so it stood out, yes.” Eurydice smiled tentatively, hoping she hadn’t offended him. “Of course, she’s also a little intimidated by you, so I wouldn’t expect you to hear that from her.”

  “Or even see her if he enters the room,” Alexander put in, tiredly. “She’s turning into a mouse. One of your birds will mistake her for a meal someday, Eurydice, and that’ll be the end of her.”

  A snort of laughter from Caesarion, and more people began to pack the seats around them. All men. All in togas with purple bands at the bottom. Most of them middle-aged and older. I’m sitting in the middle of the Senate, only it’s not in session. Gods above and below. Eurydice risked a few glances and spotted an all-female section on the other side of the aisle, populated by patrician women, judging from the dark dyes and elaborate embroidery on their stolas. Catching the shocked stares of the men around them, Eurydice gestured across the way, and whispered to Caesarion, “Hadn’t I better go over there?”

  He rested a warm arm across her shoulders, preventing her from moving. “No. The family stays together. If anyone asks why, you can tell them that our Praetorians find it easier to keep an eye on us if we’re not split up across half the theater.” A light, surprising ruffle at the back of her hair, playing with the curls inevitably falling from how she’d pinned it up this morning. “You’ll just have to suffer.”

  Dancing and juggling to start the festivities; comfortable, familiar sights. Eurydice began to relax, and applauded cheerfully. Caesarion hadn’t moved his arm as he sprawled in his own chair, completely at his ease in the warm sun. Since it felt quite nice, Eurydice opted not to move, lest she remind him of her existence by doing so.

  The jugglers and dancers moved off, and the first actor entered the stage—a young man, dressed in a woman’s peplos, typical Hellene clothing. Open at the sides with loose cross-lacing to hold it together, it revealed what a Roman might consider a scandalous amount of skin. And propped under the thin linen of the peplos? A pair of wax breasts of considerable proportions. He also wore, under a long, heavy, curling black wig of long hair, a white mask with gaping eyeholes to allow him to see, and distended, unnaturally happy smile through which his voice could be heard, raised to a falsetto to convey femininity. Eurydice’s head tipped to the side and her eyes widened slightly.

  “Doesn’t he make a very convincing woman?” Alexander leaned over to whisper in her ear.

  “Not really,” Eurydice replied softly, her brows crinkling. “I can see where they tied on his breasts—”

  “Shh,” Alexander told her, his shoulders shaking with barely contained glee. “He’s starting.”

  And Eurydice’s mouth fell open as the women of Hellas came together to end war forever. Not with spears and swords, but with cosmetics and diaphanous gowns. And absolutely no sex for their husbands until the men all agreed to some sensible treaties. They swore a sacred oath of sisterhood—not on the blood of a ram or a bull, but over a bowl of wine, which most of them seemed more eager to drink than swear on. And half the women remained very reluctant indeed to give up the pleasures of the marriage bed, and had to be cajoled into taking the oath.

  “What if my husband beats me, or forces me to have sex with him?” one of the young men wearing a peplos asked in a soprano voice, waving his hands wildly.

  “Just lie still as a corpse! A man only gains true enjoyment of the act when the woman has equal pleasure in it! He’ll soon give up in frustration!” came the reply.

  Tiberius’ dark-toned voice from Alexander’s right: “Tell that to all the soldiers who raped the women of Brundisium. Against orders.”

  “You’ll note that I had most of those men either whipped or executed, yes?” Caesarion said sharply.

  Her shoulders jerked, and beside her, Alexander muttered, “Peace, Ti. It’s a comedy. Life isn’t all tragedy, you know.”

  Eurydice’s hands stole up to her face. Her cheeks ached, they burned so much, and yet her eyes remained glued to the stage as the women stormed the Acropolis. Were nearly burned out of the citadel by old men with dubious power and authority. Poured water over the old men, making them shriek and complain like children behind the brown masks that helped ensure that everyone could tell who was supposed to be male, and who was supposed to be female.

  And then a young male actor, supposedly husband to one of the women holding the Acropolis appeared, a slave behind him carrying their baby, demanding that his wife come home and take care of the child, her weaving, and to come back to bed.

  The shrieks of laughter from the crowd had announced his presence before Eurydice had glanced to the right and caught sight of him. And she inhaled in a squeak and her hands, already on her burning cheeks, moved up to cover her eyes. For protruding from under his chiton was a phallus that could have belonged to Priapus. It nodded as he walked, and he constantly toyed with it, trying to tuck it down under the folds of the chiton to make it less ‘noticeable,’ except that it tented the folds, and then sprang free—always at the most inopportune moment. “Come home! Don’t you love your child? You haven’t fed it or changed it in a week!” Sproing.

  This she knew solely because she couldn’t entirely resist peeking through her fingers. Dim awareness that beside her, Alexander had convulsed with laughter so hearty, he was practically incapacitated. Probably not at the events on stage, but rather at her reaction. More restrained chuckles, transmitting through Caesarion’s arm, still draped over her shoulders, and he shifted now, leaning forward to whisper in her ear, “Oh, come now, it’s not that bad, is it? Uncover your eyes. You’ve seen battlefields. You’ve seen men writhing in pain in the hospital tents. You’ve seen all of us stripped down for practice in the atrium. This isn’t even real.”

  “This is different than through the hawk’s eyes!” she hissed back, pulling her fingers down enough to meet his gaze for an instant. Read the laughter there. Stole another peek at the stage—sproing. And up her hands went once more, mostly to conceal her own terrible embarrassment. “Oh, gods, I shouldn’t laugh, I shouldn’t laugh—”

  “Yes, you absolutely should!” Alexander told her as the ‘woman’ on stage went about the business of getting her already-frustrated husband even more roused. Fetching a bed. Massage oil. Blankets. Stretching luxuriously and spreading her hands over her amazingly generous curves. And then scampering off. Leaving him to tear at the pillows with his teeth in frustration, turn to the audience and gesture at what plainly hadn’t been attended to, and storm off—bob, bob, bob.

  By now, the women were as frustrated as the men on stage, and kept trying to run off to find their husbands. Only Lysistrata herself kept them all in check, finally managing to force all the seething men of Athens, Sparta, and other areas to sign peace treaties in the hopes of finally having sex again. But the men debated solutions to the sexual catastrophe before they gave in. They even suggested turning to male love—”I’ll know if you do that!” Lysistrata badgered them.

  And in the end, everyone was reunited and peace reigned as the sun went down. Tiberius shook his head over the play, but still seemed to be smiling as people around them milled for the exits. “So, was there anything we needed to explain?” Alexander asked as they waited for the crowd to die down a bit before leaving their seats. “For example, what they’re all about to go do to relieve all that terrible built-up need?”

  Face still flaming, Eurydice spluttered, “No. Mother explained that last year, thank you. She was very thorough.” Cleopatra had been, too.

  A sudden, very thoughtful silence from the three men around her. “I don’t want to know,” Caesarion decided, taking his arm from around her shoulders.

  “Neither do I,” Alexander agreed.

  “I shouldn’t want to,” Tiberius said, his voice mild and his face straight. “But I’ll admit to a terrible dark curiosity.”

  Eurydice lifted her head and gave him a direct look. “There were pictures,” she said, trying for her mother’s own crispness, and only managing to sound strangled. “And h
and-gestures. Oh, and the love-spell that she claims actually works.”

  Another pause as three minds tried to adapt to that information. And for the first time, Eurydice realized that she could tease back almost as well as they’d been teasing her. A kind of power, no different than magic, in a way. Her embarrassment faded, and Alexander cleared his throat. “One of these days, you’re going to tell us what that love-spell really is,” he told her.

  “Ask Selene,” Eurydice told him, tossing her loosening hair back over her shoulders. “Maybe she’ll tell you, but I won’t.”

  Another wicked grin from Alexander. “Oh, but of all my vices, curiosity is my worst,” he told her, his tone wheedling. “How about if you just tell me? You don’t have to tell Caesarion. I’m sure he wouldn’t be interested anyway. What with all the important duties he has to attend to every day.”

  Eurydice leaned over, as if to whisper in Alexander’s ear. And then said, clearly and firmly, “No. It wouldn’t work for you, anyway. You’re a man.”

  “Damnation,” Alexander returned amiably. “And here I thought I might have a delightful shortcut to people’s hearts.”

  Caesarion gave Alexander a very dark look, and now stood, offering Eurydice his arm to make their way to the exit now. “Did you at least enjoy yourself a little once you got done blushing?” he asked, sounding genuinely concerned.

  Eurydice nodded earnestly, stepping over Alexander’s outstretched legs. “I did, thank you.” She paused. “And I suppose now what I saw those two soldiers doing behind the latrines through the owl’s eyes that once, also makes a bit more sense. Though I still can’t think it looked that comfortable,” she added thoughtfully, mostly under her breath. But not enough so. Alexander and Tiberius both choked for some reason.

  Caesarion’s shoulders heaved, and he put his head down on her shoulder to laugh almost as convulsively as Alexander had been throughout the play. Heaviness of his weight leaning on her, and the spasms of genuine, soul-deep laughter. Eurydice darted glances from side to side, trying to determine how much she was being mocked. “What did I say this time?” she asked, by now a little cross with them all.