The Memoirs of Cleopatra

by Margaret George

  Once again, the fair goddess of fortune looked upon her favorite son, and Caesar’s conjecture was proved right. Overnight digging yielded several wells, and when the sun came up the next morning the problem was solved. The enemy’s days of labor had been thwarted in only a few hours by Caesar’s efforts.

  News came that some supply ships of the Thirty-seventh Legion, arriving ahead of the overland troops, had overshot Alexandria and were anchored to the west. Caesar took his small fleet and went out to meet them. It looked as if the end of the war was near, but even this simple action turned into a battle, as the enemy attacked the ships and Caesar was hard put to avoid being captured. In the end, the seamanship of the Romans defeated the enemy, and Caesar returned safely.

  “Each thing has proved harder than I ever expected,” he said wearily. “And this has gone on for much too long. I am very tired.” He shook his head. “I was expecting Alexandria to provide me with a rest from all my campaigning. Amusing, isn’t it?”

  Yes, the war had gone on for a long time. And in the last few days I had finally realized something, something I had decided not to tell Caesar until the war was over. But each time I thought it might be over, it proved to be merely one episode that was over. It seemed to stretch out interminably.

  One of my odd ways of thinking is that I find it hard to mix things. I like to take each thing in its turn, one at a time. That was what I had meant to do now. But the war went on and on! And seeing Caesar grow more and more worn and tired, his sleep deeper and his footsteps less springy, my heart took hold of my tongue. I also found it harder and harder to keep anything from him, he seemed so much a part of myself.

  “You are a great general,” I said slowly. “There is now no one in all the world to challenge you. What is occurring here is almost an accident, as if these men have not heard what everyone else knows. I have heard of isolated troops fighting on long after a war is ended and their commanders have gone home. Such is the situation here. Do not lose heart.”

  “I haven’t lost heart,” he said, “so much as patience.”

  “If you conquered the entire world, it is not too late to found a dynasty,” I said.

  “Rome does not have monarchs.”

  “I said the entire world, not just Rome. Egypt joined with Rome is no longer Rome. And this new creation would need a dynasty.”

  He jerked his head up and looked at me as if I were dangling something dangerous in front of him. A forbidden golden object. A sealed will. An enormous bribe. His eyes narrowed, but not before I had caught the quick leap of curiosity and desire there. “What are you saying?”

  “I am saying simply that—if you have an empire to bequeath, then we shall have the child to bequeath it to.” It was thus I told him.

  “A child.” He looked shocked and disbelieving. “I had not thought to have a child.”

  “I know. It is almost thirty years since your daughter was born, your only child. All the world knew of your sorrow when she died.”

  He struggled not to show his rising joy. “It is possible?”

  “Yes,” I said. “It is not only possible, it is a certainty. And it is my gift to you. Not Alexandria, not Egypt—for those you could conquer—but a child, an heir of Caesar.”

  “A gift from the gods,” he said, rising slowly and holding out his arms to me. “A most sublime, and unlooked-for, gift from the gods.” He held me differently. And I was filled with joy that I had not waited any longer to tell him.

  It was, of course, your gift, Isis: you, the Great Mother, had decided to bestow this fortune on us. It is you who can command barrenness to depart at your will, and you did so for Caesar. It was your purpose that—just as your son Horus could avenge his father, Osiris—when Caesar fell, attacked by evil men, he would have a son to avenge him. I know that now, whereas then I only rejoiced in the fact that I was able to give Caesar something that he wanted so badly, which until now had been withheld from him, when all the rest of the world had been laid at his feet.

  I wished for Olympos, for his medical care, but he and Mardian were still retained behind the lines of the rebel army. How he would shake his head, and say, “Where was the silphion when you needed it? Why did you neglect it?” and when I replied, “I am happy with what has happened,” he would be perplexed. And Mardian! What would he think? Everything was changed from what we had expected and planned for, back in the tent in the desert sand.

  Caesar could not hide his delight. An uncharacteristic smile played over his features at meetings, until his officers asked him if he was pleased that the populace was destroying the buildings of the city in their attempt to replace their navy.

  “They are determined to build themselves a fleet,” reported one of the centurions.

  “With what?” scoffed another.

  “They have doubtless remembered the guard ships at all seven mouths of the Nile, stationed to levy customs duties,” I said, speaking from the back of the room, where I had been quietly listening. “There are also a number of secret dockyards with old, moldering ships. These they could lay hands on with little difficulty.”

  Still Caesar did not lose his pleasant expression. “And they will make these seaworthy—in how many months?”

  “Days, Caesar,” said one of the soldiers to whom the spies reported. “They have already gathered some ships on the lake, and set about preparing them. The shortage of oars and timbers is being met by dismantling public buildings and chopping off the roofs of colonnades for the beams. I have heard that twenty quadriremes are being readied.”

  “Twenty quadriremes!” Still Caesar did not lose his composure. “An industrious people.”

  “How much has been destroyed?” I asked. My beautiful city! That they could so wantonly tear her apart! I braced myself to hear the worst.

  “They have ripped the roof off the Museion, and even attacked the Temple of Neptune,” the man said. “As for the Gymnasion—the long porticoes proved to be too great a temptation. They are taken apart.”

  I gave a moan of anguish. All that beauty, gone. “The Library? The royal tombs?”

  “Those still stand untouched,” he said.

  “But not for long,” another said, “if they wish to equip quinqueremes.”

  “So, if we are to save your city, Queen Cleopatra,” said Caesar, “we will have to distract them, or make it clear there is no further need for naval vessels. The next engagement will be a land one, perforce. After all, we came to rescue Alexandria, not destroy her.”

  That night, in our apartments, Caesar was pacing up and down the largest of the rooms, where sliding doors opened out onto the terrace. The marble floor was so polished that his legs and the lower part of his military attire—the red tunic and the leather thongs—were reflected in it, although the upper parts of him disappeared, dissolved into the dark.

  “What troubles you so, my love?” I asked, coming over to him. “We can rebuild the city, when it is all ours again.” In truth, I was not as unconcerned as I made it sound. My heart ached to picture what was being destroyed, and I knew nothing could ever be the same again. Those timbers could not be replaced; the forests in the Atlas Mountains and in Lebanon no longer grew trees of such height. Skill alone cannot restore the vanished.

  “The destructiveness of war somehow hurts more now that it is lessening what I will leave behind to—to our child,” he said. “But the sailors of the Thirty-seventh told me that land forces, raised by Mithridates of Pergamon, are already on the march. The war will indeed end soon.”

  “Forever,” I said. Now there would be no more uncertainty about who ruled Egypt, what its status was with Rome, whether it would remain independent, and what its future was. All those questions had been answered, even if blood had been spilled to do it. In the future—in the days of our child—there would be no bloodshed necessary, because his parents had already sacrificed it.

  “Mars is a very thirsty god,” he said. “He never seems to have his fill of blood.” He paused. “But, y
es, for the time being…” He pulled out a small message scroll that he had been keeping in his belt. “What do you advise?” he asked me.

  I read it over quickly. It was from a delegation of Alexandrians serving in the council of the enemy army. They stated that the whole population was turning against Arsinoe and Ganymedes and wanted to follow Ptolemy instead, were he released to them. They would sign a cease-fire and negotiate with Caesar under the leadership of their King.

  “This is absurd,” I finally answered. “They can come forward and submit to Ptolemy now. There is no need to release him from the palace.”

  “Exactly. Yet I shall do so,” said Caesar. “This could not be more perfect! Now we can rid ourselves of him, and remove the last enemy from our midst.”

  “No!” I said. “It is a trick!”

  He looked at me as if to say, How slow you are! “Yes, of course it is a trick! But we have a greater trick! For we know their forces are doomed to be crushed between ours and the land army bearing down on Egypt even now. So let us send him out to lead his troops—for a little while. Let him put on his crown and wave his sword. Don’t you think every child deserves to play for an afternoon?”

  I smiled, but his chilling analysis was troubling. How long did it take to become that way, that hardened? How many wars, how many betrayals, how many disappointments? Was that the ultimate outcome of survival? Count no man happy until he is dead, a saying went. Perhaps it should really say, Count no man happy unless he dies young and inexperienced in the ways of men.

  “It is almost over,” I said, to reassure myself. “It is almost over.”

  The next morning, after Caesar had arisen and had his customary cold meal of bread, honey, and cheese, he called for Ptolemy to come to the military room. The little King came striding in, attired in rich golden brocade, wearing his royal fillet. Caesar was seated and did not rise.

  “Good morning,” he said blandly. “I have what I believe will be welcome news for you.”

  Ptolemy looked apprehensive. Could any news that was good for Caesar be likewise good for him? “Yes?” He braced himself.

  Caesar unrolled the little scroll and read it. “As you can see, your subjects long for your presence. Who am I to stand in your way? Perhaps this will be the heaven-sent opportunity we yearn for to end the war. Go to them!” He gave a theatrical wave of his arm.

  Ptolemy was puzzled. “But…why should you force me to leave the palace and join them? I have no wish to do so.”

  “What sort of talk is that for a king? A king must do what is best for his subjects, for his kingdom! Sacrifice, boy, sacrifice!”

  At being called “boy,” Ptolemy bristled and drew himself up taller. He was thirteen now. “I fear they wish to sacrifice me. Arsinoe and Ganymedes will attack me. No, I will not go!”

  “And I say you shall,” Caesar insisted. I watched his face carefully, and I could tell he was enjoying Ptolemy’s discomfort.

  “No, please!” Ptolemy’s face wrinkled up, and he burst into tears. “Please, please, don’t send me away! I wish to remain with you! My loyalty is with my sister and you!”

  “Ah.” Caesar looked touched. “How this pleases my heart.” He solemnly laid his hand over his breast. “But you must have pity on your poor subjects, go to them and help recall them to sanity, persuade them to stop scarring the city with fire and desolation. Thus will you prove your loyalty to me, and to the Roman people. I trust you; why else would I send you directly out to join an enemy under arms against me? I know you will not fail me.”

  He grabbed Caesar’s arm. “Don’t send me away! There is no sight so pleasing in my eyes as you! Neither my kingdom nor my people—only you, great Caesar!”

  Caesar disengaged Ptolemy’s clinging fingers and grasped his arm in a commander’s grip. “Courage!” he exhorted him. “Courage!”

  Weeping, Ptolemy scurried from the room.

  Caesar examined his arm for scratches. “He has a nasty grip, and long nails.” He shook his head. “It felt like being grabbed by a monkey.”

  “So now he’s gone,” I said. “How long until he comes at us at the head of his troops?”

  “Before sunset, no doubt,” said Caesar.

  He was off by only two or three hours. Indeed, before the day was over, Ptolemy had been received by his troops and, raised up on a royal sedan chair, denounced Caesar and me in such vitriolic language that the spy who reported it had to stammer, “ ‘The—word unfit for repetition—tyrannical, unprincipled, greedy Julius Caesar and his whore, the—another word unfit for repetition—pleasure-soaked, lustful Cleopatra, must be destroyed, and the evil—yet another word unfit for repetition—gluttonous Romans stopped in their tracks as they seek to devour us,’ the King said.”

  “I see Theodotos installed an extensive vocabulary in his charge,” said Caesar. Then he laughed, and the messenger breathed a sigh of relief.

  “He makes me sick!” I cried. That heart-wrenching display of loyalty he had put on only that morning—disgusting!

  “You can understand why there are those who likewise question your loyalty to me?” said Caesar. “I am afraid that over the ages the Ptolemies have earned their reputation of being deceitful. Your brother is a classic example of his lineage.” He leaned over and then whispered into my ear, so low I could barely hear him, “But those who question do not know what I know of you. How could they?” He slid his arm around my back and squeezed the flesh near my hip. I am embarrassed to remember how it excited me, bringing back memories of the long nights with him, making me look forward to the coming one. The sun had already set. Oh, had Ptolemy unknowingly been correct in describing me as pleasure-soaked and lustful?

  Caesar’s purpose had been fulfilled. Ptolemy would be destroyed, separated from us, who would ultimately prevail. Had he not sent him away, Ptolemy would have been able to stay on the throne with me after the war was over, claiming Caesar’s victory as his own. Perhaps Ptolemy had not been altogether untruthful when he begged not to be sent away; he could see what his miserable end would be.

  The war now came to its height and closure. Mithridates of Pergamon, Caesar’s ally, was even then at the gates of Pelusium, at Egypt’s eastern borders. He stormed the city and took it, then began to march through Egypt to join Caesar. But Pelusium is a long way from Alexandria, and Mithridates had to march diagonally across the Delta until he reached the spot near Memphis where the Nile is but a single river, before he could cross it and head for Alexandria. Ptolemy and Arsinoe set out to intercept him to prevent him from reaching Caesar, and hurried toward that spot on the Nile where he would be crossing.

  Caesar kept abreast of all this by a constant stream of messengers. I will never forget him standing on the rooftop terrace of the palace and gazing out over the harbor while he formed his plan. His eyes searched the horizon as if he expected a ship, but that was just his way of thinking. Other men’s eyes grow clouded and dreamy when they confer within themselves, but Caesar’s were focused like an eagle’s.

  “When the sun sets,” he said resolutely, “then I go.”

  “How?” I asked. I had learned that he always had a plan, and it was one I never could have guessed. “Part of Ptolemy’s army is blocking the route from the city. They mean to keep you bottled up here.”

  “Do we not have ships? Did I not retain sea power, while destroying theirs?” He smiled slowly. “Tonight, at sunset, I will leave the harbor and sail east, in full view of the enemy. They will look for me to land at one of the mouths of the Nile. Then, as darkness falls, I will turn the fleet. We will sail due west, and land to the far side of Alexandria, on the desert. Then we will march south, circling Ptolemy’s forces, and join Mithridates.” He nodded. It was all so simple—for him.

  That was exactly what happened. I heard all the details from my messengers and the soldiers who reported each engagement. Ptolemy had taken his forces by way of his patched-up vessels down the Nile, then set up a fort alongside it on a bit of high ground protruding above
the marshes. Caesar approached, to the shock of the Egyptians, and they sent out cavalry to stop him. But the legionaries forded the river by makeshift bridges and chased the rebels back into the fort. The next day Caesar’s forces attacked the fort, having ascertained that the highest sector of it was weakly guarded because it was the most naturally secure point. They stormed it, and the Egyptians, in a panic to escape, hurled themselves over the walls, heading for the river. The first wave of them tumbled into the encircling trench and were trampled to death by those behind them, who rushed to the little boats and attempted to paddle away in the reeds and papyrus. The boats were never meant to hold so many, and they sank. Ptolemy was on one; it capsized and he disappeared into the water, vanishing among the reeds.

  The rebels surrendered. Arsinoe was brought before Caesar, her hands behind her back, her dress spattered with swamp slime, her shoes gone. She spat at him and cursed him before she was trussed up and led away.

  “Find Ptolemy!” ordered Caesar. “Where was he last seen?”

  One of his soldiers pointed to a dark, oily-looking area of reeds. Birds were clinging to the swaying stalks.

  “Dive for him! Bring me his body!” He knew that a drowning in the Nile was considered sacred to Osiris, and he also knew that a king who mysteriously disappeared had the potential of reappearing years later—in the form of an impostor.

  It was a nasty business. The shallow swamp had many fetid, oozing beds, home to snakes and crocodiles. Time and again the men emerged from the water, gasping for breath, covered with black decaying matter, empty-handed. But at last one surfaced, holding the slight body of Ptolemy, his eyes wide open, his mouth streaming dirty water. He was wearing a corselet of pure gold, and its links gleamed through the tangle of weeds entwined in it.

  “The weight is what drowned him,” Caesar said, staring at the corpse. “The gold sent him to the bottom.” He reached out and touched the finely wrought show-armor. “Exhibit this to the troops, and the people. Let them all see with their own eyes: The little King has perished. He will not rise from the Nile to lead them again.”