The Memoirs of Cleopatra

by Margaret George

  Not that Antony was difficult to live with. I knew already how accommodating he was, how his high spirits could turn any ordinary day into a celebration. That was part of his charm. But now our plans must meld, our aims must be the same; there was no way we could extricate ourselves from each other, no way to say, You do this; it is of no consequence to me. We were now of immense consequence to each other.

  It was what I wanted, had thought I wanted. And his magic always was that when I was actually with him, these doubts and reservations vanished.

  Winter closed in on Antioch. What was a delightful summer spot was dismal in winter—fogs and chilling, torrential rains. I wished to return to Alexandria, but Antony needed to stay where he was to ready his army. Reluctant to leave him so soon, I stayed. There were, of course, the usual festivities that abound wherever soldiers gather, especially in the winter.

  And there were the nights we spent together—some of them placid, with Antony reading reports and maps, planning battle strategies, while I allowed myself the luxury of reading poetry and philosophical essays—and others passionate, fueled by our long separation, both past and future, heightened by the wonder that we actually possessed one another.

  And, inevitably, there were quarrels. A letter came from Octavia, written before the news of our marriage could have reached her. Antony read it aloud, making it sound almost comically dull.

  “ ‘…and you would certainly have enjoyed the reading by Horace, which he presented at the gathering at the home of Maecenas.’ Oh yes, I’m devastated to have missed it—I wonder what we were doing then?” he mused. “Horace always bored my toga off.”

  “Oh, is that what got it off? No wonder Octavia staged Horace readings regularly.”

  He shrugged. “I should have kept it on. Making love to Octavia was like—was like—”

  “I don’t want to hear what it was like.” Whatever it was like, I had been sleeping alone. It must have been more satisfactory than that.

  “It was like—nothing at all.”

  “Oh, not nothing. Surely.” The whole subject made me angry.

  “As near to nothing as possible.”

  “Well, you must have done this nothing often enough to bring forth two children. Strange that you would keep at it so doggedly.”

  “She was my wife! She expected—”

  “I don’t want to hear about that, either! I suppose you were about to say Octavian was patrolling underneath the windows to make sure you were performing your duty.”

  He just laughed, finding it amusing. “No, it was more like having Octavian right there in the room already.”

  “How appetizing.”

  “Why do you keep talking about it?”

  “You brought it up! Reading that letter—” I pointed to it, still hanging limply from Antony’s hand. He had been about to drop it into a basket of correspondence.

  “Then I won’t anymore! I thought if I didn’t read it, you would take it amiss.” He waved it up and down. “I don’t care about it! Forget it! Why does it bother you so?”

  “Why does Caesar bother you so?” The sight of the pendant sent him into fits, so I had reluctantly stopped wearing it. I would save it for Caesarion.

  “Because he—because he was Caesar! Who wants to follow Caesar? But Octavia—there’s nothing extraordinary about her.” He kneaded his forearms. “You are right. It’s equally foolish. Anyone who poisons the present with the past is a fool.” He got off the bench and came over to me, an intent look on his face. “Let us enjoy this honeyed present which the gods have granted us.” He put his hands in my hair and pulled my face toward his.

  “Not now!” I said, alarmed. “The envoys from Cappadocia expect to have an audience any moment.” It never failed to surprise me how Antony could become aroused at the most inconvenient times.

  “They will have to amuse themselves while we amuse ourselves,” he said, picking me up and carrying me off into the bedchamber. “This is a wedding custom in Rome—the man has to carry the woman across the threshold. It’s bad luck if I stumble. Oops.” He dropped to one knee just outside the door, swooping down. “Just missed it.” He stepped over the sill and put me down on the bed. “There. Bad luck averted.” He leaned over me, lowering his face to mine as he bent his arms. He kissed me, first on my eyelids, then gently on both cheeks, before finally seeking my mouth.

  “Now I can pretend that you are war booty,” he murmured. “Captured in your palace, tied up and brought here as a captive.”

  “Why do you make everything into a game?” I whispered. Now he had got me aroused, too.

  “Isn’t Dionysus the god of actors?” he said, his mouth traveling down to my neck, the hollow of my throat. He moved over closer against me, his strong shoulder taking most of his weight. It bore down on me, pushing me into the mattress. I did feel like a captive, but had no desire to escape. I brought my arms around him, running my hands down his shoulders and over his back. The very feel of the muscles and flesh drove everything else out of my mind. His mouth on me made something inside draw together and then expand. An edge of a shudder ran through me.

  “Lord, the envoys—” I heard a forlorn voice in the outer chamber dying away.

  “The envoys…let them wait…a little.” I could barely hear his words, they were so muffled against my flesh.

  This sudden onslaught of desire did not leave him time to take off most of his clothes, so he had little to do later to ready himself to meet the envoys, besides smoothing down his hair, which he did as he rushed out the door. I lay there, dazed, as if I had just been assaulted by a force of nature, which is what Antony in full vigor was like.

  I looked at a cloud formation that had been moving across the sky. It had not gone very far. Antony was right; he did not keep the envoys waiting very long. He had not exceeded the bounds of politeness.

  Like an earth tremor, Antony’s forthcoming campaign made the ground tingle all over the east, sending out alarm signals. It had been almost twenty years since the catastrophic Roman defeat at Carrhae, and yet the Romans were known always to avenge defeats. Ten years later Caesar was departing to do so when he was felled; now once again an army was being readied for the mission. Vengeance had been delayed but it would be certain.

  Rumors about the size and scope of the army went before it like trumpeters, magnifying what was already an enormous host. There were a half a million men, an Armenian merchant reported hearing; no, a million, a trader from the Black Sea had been told by reliable sources. The equipment was secret, made by Egyptian black arts combined with Roman engineering: siege towers that were fireproof, arrows that had a range of a mile and could be accurately aimed at night, catapult stones that exploded, and food supplies that were imperishable and lightweight, so soldiers could live in the field for months at a time.

  Antony told me about these marvels as he lay back one night after dinner, almost lost in the forest of pillows he had arranged for himself. I remembered, fleetingly, the time I had amused Caesar with the eastern den of pillows, but that had been downright austere compared to this.

  “Yes,” he said dreamily, his hands behind his head, “it seems that I command a supernatural force. Rations that never grow stale!” His voice rose in wonder. “An army that can carry all its own supplies, and not have to live off the land. Now that would be a miracle. Ah, well, such rumors may help turn my enemies to jelly before I ever arrive, may do half my work for me.”

  I looked down at him, where he lay in pure contentment. It was time he went back into the field; it had been five years since Philippi. Five years was a long time for a soldier to sit feasting and dreaming and relaxing. Had Caesar ever taken five years off?

  Stop comparing him with Caesar, I told myself.

  But the whole world is comparing him with Caesar. This campaign is meant to compare him with Caesar, to carry out Caesar’s design, to show who is Caesar’s true military heir and successor. That was the truth of it.

  Yes, five years was a lon
g time for anything to lie fallow. He must bestir himself.

  “Unfortunately, you and I know it is just a myth. This war will have to be fought and won the old-fashioned way,” I said. “What is your tally for the troops so far?”

  “When Canidius brings his legions back from Armenia, where he has been wintering, our strength will stand at sixteen legions—sixteen somewhat under-strength legions. But they’re good soldiers, good seasoned Roman legionaries, of the sort—the sort that will be in short supply for me from now on.”

  The last thought caused him pain.

  “Because Octavian prevents you from recruiting any more in Italy, in spite of his agreements!” I snapped. “And where are the twenty thousand he promised you, in exchange for the ships he borrowed from you last year? You need not answer, we know well enough!” It had been this, finally, that had opened Antony’s eyes to his devious colleague.

  “Under his command, never to be released,” Antony said grimly. “But after Parthia, I—”

  “After Parthia is won,” I corrected him.

  “After Parthia is won, I will have no need of favors from him,” said Antony. “As I was saying, I take sixty thousand Roman legionaries into the field, aided by thirty thousand auxiliaries. Half of those auxiliaries are under the kings of Armenia and Pontus.”

  “Can you trust them?” I asked.

  “If I were to trust no foreign allies, how could I trust you?” He smiled.

  “You are not married to King Artavasdes of Armenia, nor to Polemo of Pontus.”

  Now he laughed. “By Hercules, no!”

  “Armenia is Parthian by culture and sympathy,” I said. “How can you trust them to support Rome? It seems very risky to march into Parthia and leave them unguarded at your back.”

  He sighed. “You are a wise general. We should have garrisoned Armenia after Canidius’s victories there, but we cannot spare the troops. The King seems honest in his support, and he is contributing a small army to our cause, commanding it in person.”

  “I like it not,” I said.

  “You have trained yourself to be suspicious of everyone and everybody,” he said.

  “If I had not, I would not be alive now to be sitting beside you.” All my siblings were dead, and none—except little Ptolemy—by natural causes.

  He reached out and touched my hair. “For which I am profoundly grateful,” he said. “But stop sitting, and lie here beside me. You look down upon me too sternly from those heights.”

  “I cannot think clearly when I am lying down amidst a field of pillows, especially with you beside me. Tell me—where are the papers of Caesar’s from which you have planned this campaign? I would like to see them.”

  “Do you not believe me?”

  “Yes, of course I do.” But I also knew he had altered and outright forged many papers that he claimed to have “found” in Caesar’s house—papers relating to appointments and legacies. He had confessed it to me himself. That was forgivable, since it wielded him a counterpower to the assassins, and even brought them to him, hats in hand. But this was different. I was deeply worried because Antony had never planned a campaign of this scope; his successes as a general had been achieved in much smaller arenas. This venture required not only a vision of the entire campaign, but a genius for long-range planning and details that even Caesar would have been taxed to provide.

  “I will show them to you later this evening,” he said. “They are in another part of the palace. For now, I want to lie here and enjoy digesting my food. I want to feel the heat from this well-placed brazier”—he indicated the ornate, footed brass brazier emitting welcome warmth—“and be thankful I am not outside.”

  It was nasty that night, with a driving, cold rain that seemed to penetrate the walls.

  “If the gods look upon me with favor, this time next year I will be wintering near Babylon. It will be warm enough there to sleep out under the stars.”

  “Unlike Armenia, with its snows and mountains. Or even Media. Yes, you must be in Babylon by winter,” I agreed.

  It would take at least two years to carry out such a campaign, I knew. Caesar had allowed for three, assuming—on the basis of his experiences in Gaul—that everything always took longer than expected. But it would be hard to part with Antony again, so soon, and for such a long time. That it might be forever—I refused to let myself dwell on that. Isis would not be so cruel.

  “The very name of Babylon has a magic,” he said. “In truth, I never thought I might be the one to conquer it—the first westerner since Alexander himself. Fate is capricious, is she not? Why should she grant to me what she denied to Caesar?”

  “You have answered your own question—because she is capricious. And deaf to entreaties and questions. And I sometimes think she enjoys offering her prizes to those who seem reluctant to seek them. Perhaps Caesar sought too hard.” I had given much thought to this. Did that mean one should never seek? It was confusing.

  He propped himself up on one elbow. “When my father died in my eleventh year, he left me a tarnished name, an empty purse, and an unstable family. It was not a promising start. And now, thirty-five years later, I call a queen my wife and will lead the largest and finest Roman army of the age—perhaps of any age—into the east. Fate has been a strange partner to me all these years.”

  “I have heard snatches of your scandalous youth, cavorting with Curio and his gang in Rome—again, not a promising start.”

  “True. But I wearied of it—just about the time the debt collectors were breathing uncomfortably close to me. I managed to get far away—betook myself to Greece to study oratory. Speechmaking ran in my family, and it made a reasonable excuse for escaping Rome. On his way to Syria, the new governor, Gabinius, spotted me during some military exercises and persuaded me to come with him as commander of his cavalry.”

  “The first of your good fortune,” I said. What if Gabinius had come to the exercise grounds on a different day?

  “Yes,” Antony acknowledged. “And of course the second stroke of good fortune was leading the cavalry to Egypt when Gabinius agreed to restore your father to the throne. That led me to Alexandria, where I first saw you.”

  It had seemed so unremarkable at the time—a pleasant young Roman who had been kindly tolerant of my father’s weakness. I had been grateful to him for that, and surprised that a Roman could be so likable, but it did not seem a fateful event. “Which did not seem anything out of the ordinary at the time, I am sure,” I said.

  “Oh no, you are wrong!” he protested, sitting bolt upright. “I was very taken with you!”

  I could not help laughing. It was a conventional thing for lovers to plead, but his memory was playing tricks on him. “You said that once before, but I cannot imagine why,” I said. At the time I had been barely fourteen years old, badly shaken by the dethronement of my father and the fine line I had had to walk to mollify my sisters and stay alive. I could recall the fear very vividly, even now. Too vividly.

  “Because of the way you stood,” he said. “Anyone could see you were a princess.” When he saw my questioning look, he hurried on to explain himself. “That you could hold yourself like that after all you had endured, all the uncertainty, the loss of your father—it was very affecting. I knew you were no ordinary person.”

  “So it was my posture that struck you!”

  “It was what the posture meant.”

  I had not even been aware of my posture, in my youthful focus on other things—my hair, my height, my skin. “You saw things in me that I did not,” I said. “I must thank you for those eyes.” I paused. “But Gabinius paid dearly for helping my father—he was sent back to Rome in disgrace. How did you escape that?”

  “Luckily—that word again—I was so clearly just a subordinate, taking orders, that I could not be blamed for Gabinius’s defiance of the Senate. Still, I thought it best to give Rome a wide berth, and so I went to Gaul to serve as a legate to Caesar. And that was my third stroke of fortune, for all else followed f
rom that. Caesar noticed me, gave me responsibilities, trusted me…and in the reckoning with Pompey, when I burst through Pompey’s sea blockade in the dead of night, risking all on that venture, I won Caesar’s heart as a gambler like himself. In the final battle I commanded the left wing of his army, fighting outnumbered. Caesar won the battle and I shared the victory.”

  He had a mighty legacy. Truly, Fate had been leading him, step by step, toward something very large.

  I, too, had been led past many dangers and reversals, to find myself here. Now, on the eve of the greatest leap of all, let not our guardian fates desert us.

  “If I think on it too much, I tremble,” I had to admit.

  “Then do not think on it, do not look down as you skirt the narrow ledge, lest you lose heart, lose balance, and fall,” he said.

  “Yet if you lead an army, you must prepare,” I said. “I think—I think I would like to see those papers now, hear your plans.” Now, before I lost stomach for the details.

  He groaned. “So you will force me to spread them out?” He rose to his feet, then held out his hands for mine. “I warn you, they are numbing in their sheer numbers!”

  Yet from those numbers and charts our chances would be revealed. “It is early yet, and I am not tired,” I assured him.

  Down the seemingly endless hallways—oh, how the Seleucids had liked vastness!—unheated, unlighted, he took me to the apartments where he kept all the war records and documents. A sleepy guard—scarcely more than a boy—jumped to attention and scurried to light a fire and additional lamps to banish the bone-chilling damp and dreariness.

  Antony flung open a trunk and gathered up an armful of scrolls, then dumped them down on a large table. “The best maps we have,” he said. Two of them rolled off the table and lay at his feet. He spread out the biggest one on the table, securing it with a heavy oil lamp.

  “There—that’s the entire region, from Syria to Parthia and beyond,” he said.

  I was impressed with its detail. “Where did you get this?” I asked.

  “I drew it myself,” he said. “I put together all the intelligence about the area. Look—”