The Memoirs of Cleopatra

by Margaret George

  “What is the present situation of the state treasury?” I asked the guardian of it.

  “Recovering, slowly. It will take years to recoup the losses to Rabirius, and repair the war damage to the city. But as long as there are not other extraordinary expenses, we will first survive, then live well, and finally be rich,” he said. “And of course, Egypt always has her food, and that in itself makes her rich. She can feed not only herself, but others if need be.”

  I hoped we would not have to feed anyone but ourselves, or customers who could pay, and pay well.

  I turned to the chief official of the waterways. “What of the irrigation canals? And the reservoir basins?”

  “They are in reasonable condition,” he said. “The Niles of the past two years have been adequate, and that has allowed us to do maintenance work on the irrigation system—water neither too high nor too low. But there has been some silting of late. It needs to be addressed.”

  “It is all related—the crops cannot grow without adequate irrigation, and without the money from the crops, we cannot dredge to improve irrigation. What of the taxes?”

  “Import tax has been collected as usual,” said the customs head.

  “Profits are up,” added Epaphroditus. “Suddenly there seems to be a craze for olive oil. I don’t know what people are doing with it—bathing in it?”

  “What do we care, as long as they are paying the fifty-percent import tax?” said the tax collector.

  “True,” said Mardian. “People seem to demand the best nowadays. Earlier they were content with linseed oil; now it must be olive or nothing. Well, why complain?”

  “Am I complaining?” said the tax commissioner. “Not I!”

  “The great festivals of Serapis and the pilgrimages to Isis have attracted large crowds and many pilgrims during the past two seasons,” said the priest, speaking suddenly. He had been so silent I had forgotten he was there. “Perhaps it betokens something.”

  “People are searching, tired of this present world,” said Epaphroditus. “Religion everywhere seems to be attracting converts. The mysteries, the Isis devotions, Mithras—all the eastern rites—seem to be especially popular.”

  “But not Judaism,” said Mardian. “Your laws and rules are too exclusive. You make it too hard to join you.”

  “That is the idea,” said Epaphroditus. “We don’t want to become too popular. When things become too big, too successful, then they change into something else.”

  “Like the Romans?” said the high priest sharply. “When they were just a city, they were supposedly high-minded and self-controlled. Now look at them—now that they own most of the known world!”

  “Yes, our God foresaw that pitfall,” said Epaphroditus. “He said, ‘Beware that thou forget not the Lord thy God—lest when thou hast eaten and art full, and hast built goodly houses, and dwelt therein; and when thy herds and thy flocks multiply, and thy silver and thy gold is multiplied, arid all that thou hast is multiplied; then thine heart be lifted up, and thou forget the Lord thy God, and thou say in thine heart, My power and the wealth of mine hand hath gotten me this wealth. And it shall be, if thou do at all forget the Lord thy God, I testify against you this day that ye shall surely perish.’ ”

  “No wonder you don’t attract many converts,” said the priest of Serapis. “Now our god is much more realistic about man’s frailties. And of course, Isis is the supreme compassionate one.”

  “We await a Messiah who will complete our God’s intentions,” said Epaphroditus.

  “Oh, everyone is expecting a deliverer—a golden child,” said Mardian breezily. “I made a list of them all, once. There’s a whole range of them. Some even think the deliverer will be a woman. And come from the east. I think the truth is, we all know there has to be something better; we are good enough to perceive it, but not good enough to bring it about. So we think, ‘If only this mysterious person would come and help us…’ ” He shrugged his rounded shoulders, and the tunic fringe swayed. “But in the meantime we must soldier on.”

  “I think you have soldiered on splendidly in my absence,” I said. “All of you are to be commended; no ruler ever was served by better ministers.” I would have to see to it that they were given some sort of public award.

  Suddenly I was so tired I could hardly hold up my head. Egypt was well; I had found out all I needed to know.

  36

  The fresh air of the harbor poured into my chamber the next morning, and the reflected light played over the walls. I awoke slowly, feeling as if I were submerged on a sea-bed, as I had been dreaming I was. Long strands of seaweed had tangled themselves around my legs, and were streaming out behind me; my hair was waving slowly, caught in branches of coral. As I awoke, I ran my hands through my hair to free it, and then wondered why it was not tangled. What a strange, realistic dream it had been.

  I stretched. I felt the fine, polished linen sheets—sheerer than anything in Rome—wrapped around me. I felt somewhat better; the night had done its restorative work.

  I gave directions to Charmian and Iras to unpack the coffers and trunks, and sent for Olympos. I needed to see him, both for myself and for Ptolemy. Ptolemy had kept his cough, and been sick much of the voyage—the two of us had surely taxed our attendants during that journey. Yesterday Ptolemy had busied himself out in the gardens, but he seemed subdued to me. Perhaps he was just tired. That was what I hoped Olympos would tell me.

  But when Olympos stepped into my chamber, after having first spent the morning with Ptolemy, his attempt to smile was unconvincing.

  “Dear one,” he began, and I knew it was bad.

  “What is it?” I asked him. I could not bear to lead up to it. “What is wrong with him?”

  “I listened to his chest, and had him cough up some congestion for me, and examined it. I also examined his spine, his joints, and looked carefully at his color. I did not like what I saw.”

  “What did you see?” Let him say it!

  “It is the lung rot,” he said. “Consumption.”

  It was Rome that had done it! Rome, with its cold, its frosts, its damp.

  “It occurs elsewhere than in Rome,” said Olympos, as if he had read my thoughts. “Egypt has many cases of lung rot.”

  “Rome did not help it.”

  “Perhaps not. But he is back here now. People come to Egypt for a cure.”

  “Do you think he can throw it off?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “If you were any other ruler, and not a childhood friend, and if I were another type of court servant, I would assure you, ‘Yes, yes, Your Majesty, I see a full recovery for him.’ But you are Cleopatra and I Olympos, and I must tell you honestly—he is in great danger.”

  “Oh!” I could not lose someone else. Not Ptolemy. “I see.”

  “There is nothing we can do. Nothing, except make sure he is kept warm, gets plenty of sunshine, lots of rest, and spends time outdoors. Then we must wait. In autumn we may have to send him to Upper Egypt, where it stays warm and sunny.”

  I bent my head. To send him away again, when he had been so anxious to return home. “So be it,” I said. I looked up at him, and saw that he was staring at me intensely. “What is it?”

  “You are different,” he finally said.

  “How so?”

  “Thinner,” he said. “Something has been burned out of you. If you were gold, I would say you had been refined. It is most becoming. You are finally, truly, beautiful.” He attempted a laugh. “A useful attribute in a queen.”

  “I am with child,” I told him.

  “I guessed,” he said. “But I do not need to be a soothsayer to see that this is very difficult for you. Both in the heart and in the body.”

  “I do not feel well at all.”

  “Are you surprised? Why should you? The situation is dreadful. Caesar dead, not just dead but murdered, assassinated; your patron and protector gone; a child with no one to claim him.”

  “I shall claim him.”

 
“And no story to tell your people. Amun has inconveniently disappeared, at least in his human manifestation.”

  His words were hard, but it was a relief to have them spoken so boldly.

  “I am sorry,” he said. “I am sorry about what happened to Caesar.”

  “I know you didn’t like him. You never did, and you were honest about that.”

  “That has nothing to do with lamenting his end, which he did not deserve. He was a great man,” he said. “I just never thought he was worthy of you. He attained you too easily; and I thought it meant he would not treasure you as you should be treasured.”

  “I think he came to, in time.”

  “Well, time ran out for him. And I am sorry.”

  “I thank you.” I paused. “But I also do not feel well, physically. I fear there may be something wrong. Pray, tell me what you think…”

  He tapped around and listened to my heartbeat, felt my neck and ankles, had me breathe on him, squeezed my ribs and rotated my feet. He listened to my recounting of all the symptoms I could recall. At length he said, “I cannot find anything overtly wrong—nothing that cannot be accounted for by the bad experience you have had. Come, walk with me in my new garden. Or rather, it is your garden, since I planted it on palace grounds! We will walk, and I will teach you a little about medicine.”

  Outside, the air was soft and perfumed with the last bloom of ornamental fruit trees, and their spreading new leaves were creating a dapple of sun and shadow on the green lawns beneath them. How different these grounds were from Caesar’s villa. Here the lawns were flat and winking with white flowers, and seemed to call out for a rich purple cloth spread out for a picnic. Come, and enjoy yourself, the lawn whispered in the breeze.

  Ptolemy was kneeling under one of the trees, and we called to him. He looked up sharply and said, “I am watching this bird’s nest.” He pointed to a neat round nest on a forked branch above his head.

  “The mother bird won’t return if she sees you,” said Olympos. “Come with us. I have something to show you.”

  I looked over at him while he was talking. He also had changed while I was away. His features had sharpened, and now I would describe him as saturnine. That, and his dark sense of humor, must isolate him from people. I wondered if those traits were reassuring in a physician, or kept people away. And what of his private life? He was near my age—had he plans to marry? Such information never passed in letters.

  Ptolemy dragged himself to his feet and then ran over to us. I noted how weak his legs looked, and how out of breath even that little run had made him.

  “Olympos has made a garden while we were in Rome,” I said.

  Ptolemy made a face. “Oh, a garden! That’s for women—or invalids. No, thanks.”

  “This is a garden for murderers and for miracle workers,” said Olympos. “I think you’ll find it unlike any other.”

  It lay on a flat expanse not far from the temple of Isis, but facing the harbor rather than the open sea. It was bordered by, first, a low stone wall, then, inside that, a hedge covered with red blossoms. Olympos lifted a heavy-bolted gate to let us in.

  A fountain was gurgling in the center, and from it four paths radiated out, neatly quartering the garden. “Behold—death in one corner, life in the other.”

  All I saw were beds of plants, some blooming, some tall, some short. I looked at him questioningly.

  “I came across a manuscript in the Museion that had a list of poisonous plants,” said Olympos. “Some of them were quite clearly imaginary—such as a plant that emitted flames and engulfed bystanders. But others—I became curious about them. How did they work? Why did they kill? I thought it would be helpful if someone compiled a treatise on them. After all, some of them are harmless or even beneficial in small doses. And I must admit I was curious to study them—plant equivalents of poisonous snakes.”

  Ptolemy’s eyes had grown round. “Poison!” he said. “Which ones?”

  “For one thing, the entire hedge is poisonous.” Olympos gestured to it.

  “But it is so beautiful!” I said. It was; it shone with deep-green leaves and was studded with flowers.

  “Nonetheless, it is violently poisonous. It is called the Jericho rose, and if the flowers are placed in water, they poison it. If the twigs are used for cooking meat, the meat will be poisoned; even the smoke from it is poisonous. Honey made from the flowers is poisonous, and horses and donkeys die from eating its leaves, but here’s a mystery—goats are immune!”

  “So, if you wanted to kill an enemy, you could serve him the poisoned honey?” asked Ptolemy.

  “Yes. I don’t know how much it would take to kill him, though. He might have to eat a great deal.”

  We began walking along the pebbled pathway. On each side lay neat beds of plants.

  “I have arranged all the deadly ones to the left,” said Olympos. He paused before a clump of plants with lobed, hairy leaves, standing about a foot tall. Buds of flowers were visible, furled on top of the stalks. “Can you guess what that is?” he asked us.

  “Just a weed, like what we see in meadows everywhere,” I said. “And sometimes I have noticed it growing out of crevices in walls.”

  “It’s henbane,” said Olympos, with satisfaction. “It can kill you in only a few minutes. Painfully, too. But in small doses—I have a feeling that it could actually be medicinal. I think it could be used to stop vomiting. But there is no way to control the strength of it. The poison probably varies from plant to plant, and the leaves have different amounts from the roots. It can either make you excited, singing and dancing and talking to imaginary people, or stupefy you, giving you vivid dreams of flying or becoming an animal. Then death. One cannot predict.”

  “What about just touching it?” I asked.

  He smiled. “I always wear gloves.” He strolled a little way down the path, then pointed to a patch of white, star-shaped flowers swaying on slender stems. They looked like miniature lilies. “These are called ‘dove’s dung.’ ”

  “What an ugly name for such a pretty flower,” I said.

  “All of it is poisonous, but especially the bulbs,” said Olympos. “They can be ground up and disguised in flour, to bake a pretty loaf of bread. Of course, it’s somewhat bitter, so it would have to be dipped in Jericho rose honey to entice the appetite.” He laughed.

  “What happens if you eat it?” asked Ptolemy.

  “The first thing you’d notice is shortness of breath,” said Olympos. “Then gasping. Then—you’d die.”

  “All in just a few minutes?” he said. “Then that isn’t what I’ve got, even though I have trouble getting my breath.”

  “No,” said Olympos, but I could see him struggle to make a joke of it. “There are no enemies to put a poisoned loaf of bread at your plate.”

  “Look! What’s that?” Ptolemy was enthralled. He pointed to a bushy stand of plants, topped with bunches of delicate white flowers. The stand was almost waist-high.

  Olympos stood by them proudly, almost paternally. Yes, it was time he married, and had children to dote over, rather than his plants. “You know how to select the most illustrious. This is none other than hemlock, which ended the life of Socrates.”

  Hemlock! I stared at it in fascination. The white-topped stalks, with their drooping foliage, looked merry enough. “What happens when you drink it?” I asked.

  “Oh, you needn’t drink it, although a draught can be made. It has a characteristic odor of mouse urine.” He seemed to find this amusing. “You can also use the leaves to make a tasty salad. It takes a little while before the symptoms appear. You would have an opportunity to finish your meal in polite company.”

  “What does it feel like?” asked Ptolemy.

  “Well…it has been described as a gradual weakening of the muscles, and a creeping paralysis. The mind remains clear, though.”

  “Is it painful?” I asked. It did not sound like a bad way to die.

  “Unfortunately, yes. As the muscles die, they cr
y out in pain.”

  “Tell me, Olympos—is there any relatively painless way to die? Through poison, I mean?” I asked.

  He thought a moment. “None that I can think of. The body does not want to die, especially if it was perfectly healthy up until the moment it ingested the poison. So it fights. And many of the poisons have more than one effect, causing multiple symptoms.”

  “What about the hemlock?” Ptolemy was persistent. “How long does that take?”

  “Long enough to make memorable deathbed speeches, as Socrates did. That makes it a good choice for writers, poets, and philosophers.” He paused. “But hemlock isn’t all bad. A little of it can be used to treat chest pains and asthma. Of course, you have to be brave to try it.”

  “Or desperate,” I said.

  “Poison and medicine are closely allied. In fact, in Greek the term pharmakon is used for both. And who’s to say that when life itself has become a disease, poison may not be the best remedy?”

  I thought of the “Roman way” of impaling oneself on a sword. Certainly poison seemed more civilized. And I thought the Romans were a little too eager to commit suicide. It did not take much of a setback before they were reaching for their swords, or opening their veins.

  “That is true,” I said.

  We continued walking down the path, while Olympos pointed here and there. “Deadly nightshade,” he said, indicating a spindly-looking shrub with oval leaves on it. “Now that’s a lively plant. Everything about it is poisonous. It produces wild symptoms—blurred vision, and heartbeats so loud you can hear them an arm’s length away. Very painful.” He turned to me. “You wouldn’t want to take that.”

  He ambled along. “Here’s the dog-button plant,” he said. The flowers were gray and fuzzy. “There’s something in it that kills with violent convulsions. It leaves a hideous grimace on the victim’s face.”

  “Enough of this!” I said. “Frankly, they are all beginning to sound alike.”

  “No, I want to hear more. What’s that?” Ptolemy pointed to a bush with stalks of white blossoms.

  “A most interesting plant,” said Olympos. “Spurge laurel. Even the scent of the flowers can make someone unconscious in a closed room, and it stays poisonous long after it is dead and withered. The symptoms are dreadful: unquenchable thirst, excruciating stomach pains, skin all over the body peeling off, burning inside.”