Word also reached us that Julius Caesar is planning to invade and conquer Britannia this summer. He has eighty warships ready to cross the channel from Gaul.
I have written letters to these men – Antony, Cicero, and Caesar – letters of friendship with invitations. I will welcome seeing them under peaceful circumstances. I wanted to say more to Antony, but did not know how or even what those thoughts would be.
The next day
I visited the little ones in the nursery. Arsinoë is more beautiful than I remember, and at eleven years clearly rules our brothers. Ptolemy is six and Ptolemy the Younger is four, still babies. For now, they are no threat to Father or myself.
I have been pondering the sorrows of my heart and have made a decision.
If I am to be queen I must learn more about the Egyptian people but I cannot accomplish this by sitting around the palace. Thus, in ten days I will set sail aboard the royal barge for a trip up the Nile. I want to see the Great Pyramids, the Sphinx, and all the villages along the way. With me will be the usual guards, cooks, and servants. Puzo and Neva of course, and Arrow (who follows me everywhere now).
Olympus has been granted leave from medical school for the purpose of studying native diseases and remedies. My heart soars knowing he will be my companion. Our friend Theophilus will remain in Alexandria as he is training to become a rabbi. I know he will be a fine one.
When I met with Father in the throne room, I did not tell him the whole story. If he knew my trip was planned for the purpose of making me a good queen, that I am seeking wisdom and knowledge, he might prefer to kill me. Thus, he has given his blessing. He believes this adventure is merely the frolic of a fourteen-year-old girl, yet he also said he is planning my wedding, which will take place upon my return.
It grieves me that I still fear my own father, and that I must marry the man he chooses. But such is the destiny of a daughter in the Royal House of Ptolemy.
Who this husband will be, I do not know.
12 Junius
Aboard the royal barge Isis
The heat of my Egypt burns down on us all day. But there is shade under our canopy and a slight breeze off the water. Rowers strain against the river’s strong current, sometimes helped along when a favourable wind catches our sail. I am pleased to be once again on a voyage, seeing new things. But this time, I am not frightened of what lies ahead or worried how others will receive me.
Olympus has arranged a desk up here by the mast, which is where I now sit. He does not bother me when I am writing, nor I him, for he is keeping a medical journal; we take turns rotating the hourglass. I look up to see the banks of the Nile slip by. Flocks of herons and flamingos fly up from the marshes, making streaks of blue, pink, and white in the sky. The sounds of frogs and birds and water lapping against our hull is music to me, beautiful music.
There are clusters of mud huts in each village, Egyptian children always playing near the shore. It seems they know where crocodiles hide and are able to keep away from them.
My heart is at peace. The only worry for those who travel this broad green river is drowning, often caused by the hippopotamus. These creatures love to hide in the water until a boat comes along, then ram it until the occupants fall overboard. I have seen this happen. But when my guards tried to kill one by beating it over the head with an oar I stopped them, for Egyptians believe the hippo is goddess of childbirth.
Compared to the Roman arena, the Nile is as safe as heaven.
Late afternoon
We are about to dock at a village called Po-sep. Donkeys are walking in a circle, pulling buckets of water up from the river by a crude wheel. Children have crowded the bank and already are pointing to our beautiful flags and pennants.
Did I mention that during our last stop I had an Egyptian priest at the Temple of Isis marry my dear Puzo and Neva? At least on our trip, which may take two years, they can have the joy of being married. There are plenty of days ahead, for me to think of ways to present this to Father.
Time to put my writing tools in my little chest. Local officials and my cooks are preparing a banquet among a grove of date palms. O, its shade is inviting. I see a child waving to me; another is throwing sweetly scented flowers onto the water.
“Princess,” they are calling. “Welcome … we welcome you.”
Epilogue
Following Egyptian custom, Cleopatra married her brother, Ptolemy XIII, and upon their father’s death in 51 BC they became co-rulers. She was eighteen, he was ten.
Approximately three years earlier, Julia, the beloved daughter of Caesar, died in childbirth, leaving him heartbroken and her husband, Pompey, devastated. Her untimely death, however, loosened the political ties between these two leaders, and they stopped pretending to be friends. Pompey realized he was the last obstacle in Caesar’s rise to power, so he fled with his family to Egypt, hoping to gain asylum with Cleopatra and her brother because at one time they had been under his guardianship.
It was an unfortunate miscalculation. He didn’t realize the thirteen-year-old Ptolemy wanted to gain favour with Rome and was not in the least concerned with old friendships. One of Ptolemy’s advisers suggested murdering Pompey because, after all, “Dead men don’t bite.” Thus when Pompey sailed into Alexandria’s harbour in the autumn of 48 BC and stepped ashore, he was swiftly beheaded, supposedly as his children and screaming wife watched from their boat. When some days later Julius Caesar arrived in Egypt as conqueror, Ptolemy presented him with a royal gift: the severed, pickled head of Pompey the Great, along with his ring. It is said that Caesar wept at the loss of his former friend and son-in-law.
Meanwhile Cleopatra, age twenty-one, went into hiding and devised a more ingenious way to meet the famous Roman, who was about fifty-two years old at the time. She rolled herself up in a rug and had her servant carry her into Caesar’s private quarters. He was smitten with her. They became lovers, and in June 47 BC a son was born to them, Ptolemy XV Caesarion.
In 44 BC, Caesar was assassinated in Rome by a group of senators. He was succeeded by his legal heir, seventeen-year-old Octavian. One year later, another assassination took place: Marc Antony was so angry about the critical things Cicero had written and said about him in the Senate that he ordered Cicero’s head and right hand cut off. These grisly items he displayed at the speaker’s platform in Rome. It is said that Antony’s wife at the time, Fulvia, took one of her hairpins and pierced Cicero’s tongue with it.
A few years after Caesar’s death, Cleopatra and Marc Antony fell in love and, according to some historians, were married in an Egyptian ceremony. They had three children: twins Alexander Helios and Cleopatra Selene, and Ptolemy Philadelphus. Together they tried to protect the city of Alexandria, for Octavian had declared war against the Egyptian queen.
In September of 31 BC, Antony and Cleopatra chose to fight a crucial battle at sea, but their fleet was crushed. Months later, Octavian and his army swept into Alexandria. Realizing that Egypt would be conquered, Cleopatra arranged for her fourteen-year-old son, Caesarion, to escape because she wanted to ensure that the Ptolemaic line would continue. He fled to India with a large sum of money but was murdered before he reached safety.
Humiliated by the military defeat and mistakenly thinking that Cleopatra was dead, Antony stabbed himself with his sword. As he bled to death from his wounds, friends carried him to the queen’s hiding place, where he died in her arms. Later she, too, took her life, apparently by allowing a deadly snake to bite her.
Cleopatra and her physician, Olympus, remained close personal friends throughout her life.
After Cleopatra’s death, her children by Marc Antony – Alexander and Cleopatra, now ten years old, and Ptolemy, age six – were sent to Italy to be cared for by Antony’s Roman fourth wife, Octavia. The boys later disappeared under mysterious circumstances. Their sister survived to marry King Juba II of Mauretania, and they had two
children, Ptolemy and Drusilla.
Some accounts show that Drusilla married Marcus Antonius Felix, the Roman governor of Judea. While in court she and Felix listened to testimony by the Apostle Paul, who was on trial for his belief in Jesus Christ.
Historical note
Cleopatra VII was born in 69 BC and she died in 30 BC, but little is known about her early years.
What information has survived through the centuries often is contradictory and confusing, as is the repetitive use of royal names and the variety of spellings. As a result, researchers often come to different conclusions. For example, what did Cleopatra look like? Some think that Egyptian blood may have given her dark hair and brown eyes; others suggest her Macedonian ancestry made her light-skinned, possibly with blonde hair and green eyes. There is also the question of Cleopatra’s age when she met Marc Antony. Some experts say she was a young princess; others insist she was already queen and in her late twenties.
With respect to other historical figures and events portrayed in this story, every attempt has been made to be as accurate as possible.
It has been said that Alexandria’s great library was destroyed in 48 BC during a civil war, after Julius Caesar had conquered the city. To protect the harbour from Egyptian soldiers and to keep them from seizing all the warships anchored there, Caesar set torches to the fleet. Unfortunately, the roaring flames spread from the docks to the warehouses to the library. It is unknown how many scrolls and manuscripts were lost in this fire.
But we do have the later writings of Plutarch, one of the great biographers of antiquity. He was born in Greece about AD 46 and travelled to Rome and Alexandria, possibly hearing first- or secondhand from those who had known Cleopatra. He wrote:
Their acquaintance was with her when a girl, young and ignorant of the world.
…Her actual beauty, it is said, was not in itself so remarkable that none could be compared with her, or that no one could see her without being struck by it, but the contact of her presence, if you lived with her, was irresistible…
It was a pleasure merely to hear the sound of her voice, with which, like an instrument of many strings, she could pass from one language to another; so that there were few of the barbarian nations that she answered by an interpreter; to most of them she spoke herself, as to the Ethiopians, Troglodytes, Hebrews, Arabians, Syrians, Medes, Parthians, and many others, whose language she had learnt; which was all the more surprising, because most of the kings [who were] her predecessors scarcely gave themselves the trouble to acquire the Egyptian tongue, and several of them quite abandoned the Macedonian.
Plutarch’s comments reveal that Cleopatra was literate and interested in people. It is quite plausible that she herself, rather than a scribe, may have recorded her thoughts and observations.
During Cleopatra’s lifetime, writers used clay tablets as well as leather parchment and papyrus to record information. These papers could be glued together side by side to form one long piece, some times up to thirty feet wide, which would then be rolled onto a scroll simultaneously from both ends. Archaeologists have discovered manuscripts such as these that had been stored in clay jars centuries before.
Perhaps the most celebrated discovery was in 1947, when a young Bedouin shepherd wandered into a cave near the Dead Sea in Jordan. There, he found broken jars with leather scrolls written in Aramaic and Hebrew, Biblical manuscripts dating from more than one thousand years earlier than any previously found. These documents and others from nearby caves are thought to have been a hidden library used sometime between 100 BC and AD 100 by a Jewish sect.
Scholars agree that more stories from the ancient world have yet to be found. Is it possible that a diary truly written by Cleopatra lies hidden in a cave somewhere?
A few interesting events that preceded and followed the life of Cleopatra are worth noting:
• The kingdom of ancient Egypt began before recorded history, approximately five thousand years ago, along the fertile Nile River. It lasted longer than any other civilization in the world, ruled by kings who were also thought to be living gods. Because these rulers believed their lives would continue after death they built pyramids for their tombs, to preserve the body and their earthly treasures for all eternity. Considered to be the oldest man-made monuments on earth, these pyramids were engineered and constructed so superbly that dozens are still standing. Perhaps one of the most remarkable of these is the Great Pyramid, built by Pharaoh Khufu during the 2600s BC, near what is now the city of Cairo. As the largest tomb ever built, its base covers over 50,000 square metres, and it is almost 140 metres tall.
• In 332 BC Alexander the Great conquered Egypt, adding it to his vast empire. After his death, one of his generals, Ptolemy I, established himself as King of Egypt, which began the Ptolemaic dynasty of rulers. This ended when Cleopatra died in 30 BC, and the country was taken over by the Roman Empire.
• Four hundred years before Cleopatra was born, Spartan soldiers were using sulphur, pitch, and charcoal as “chemical warfare”. Approximately two hundred years later, the Great Wall of China was completed during the Ch’in Dynasty. At the time of Cleopatra’s death in 30 BC the magnificent Pantheon was being built in Rome and would not be finished for another 150 years. Much of the city of Rome was destroyed by fire in AD 64. Emperor Nero blamed Christians for starting the fires and ordered scores of them to be killed, some say by having them thrown into an arena with lions.
• As a young girl Cleopatra may have holidayed in Pompeii and Herculaneum, but one hundred years after her death these lovely seaside towns had been buried under the boiling lava of Mount Vesuvius. At least 16, 000 people died when this volcano erupted in August of AD 79.
• After Cleopatra’s suicide, Octavian appointed himself Egypt’s new pharaoh and, as Rome’s first emperor, he renamed himself Caesar Augustus. Some thirty years later he became linked with the birth of Jesus Christ as recorded in the Bible. “In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world”.
• Although Cleopatra died young, at the age of thirty-nine, she is remembered as one of the most influential women in history because of her alliances with Julius Caesar and Marc Antony. Her death marked the beginning of Roman rule in Egypt, which was to last another several hundred years.
The Ptolemy family tree
Alexander the Great (356 BC–323 BC), King of Macedonia, Greece, was a brilliant military leader. He conquered many lands, including Egypt, where he established himself as king and founded the capital city of Alexandria. After Alexander died, one of his generals, Ptolemy I Soter, also a Macedonian Greek, became ruler of Egypt in 305 BC And so began the dynasty of the Ptolemies from which Cleopatra VII descended. The family tree follows the growth of the Ptolemy dynasty, beginning with the twelfth King Ptolemy, Neos Dionysos Auletes, Cleopatra’s father.
The same names are used throughout generations, and dates of births and deaths are not always available. The crown symbol indicates those who ruled over Egypt. Double lines represent marriages or partnerships; single lines indicate parentage.
PTOLEMY XII NEOS DIONYSOS c. 100?–51 BC: Called Auletes, or the Flute Player, Ptolemy XII ruled Egypt from 80 BC until his death in 51 BC
CLEOPATRA TRYPHAENA V ?–69? BC: Wife of Ptolemy XII
Children of Ptolemy XII and Cleopatra V
CLEOPATRA TRYPHAENA VI 79?–57 BC: Eldest daughter of Ptolemy XII. In her father’s absence, Tryphaena seized the throne and ruled Egypt from 58 BC to 57 BC, when she was killed by her father’s supporters.
BERENICE IV 77?–55 BC: The second daughter of Ptolemy XII, Berenice took control of Egypt after Tryphaena VI’s death and ruled from 57 BC to 55 BC, when her father ordered her execution.
CLEOPATRA PHILOPATOR VII 69–30 BC: Third daughter of Ptolemy XII, in 51 BC, Cleopatra Philopator VII became Queen of Egypt at age eighteen. She committed suicide after a twent
y-one-year rule.
ARSINOË 68–45 BC: Youngest daughter of Ptolemy XII. After Cleopatra became queen, she had Arsinoë imprisoned and sent to Rome, where she was paraded through the streets in chains. Cleopatra secured her throne by having Arsinoë murdered.
PTOLEMY XIII 61–47 BC: First son of Ptolemy XII. Following Ptolemaic dynastic law, Cleopatra and Ptolemy XIII married and were joint rulers. As a young teenager, he ordered the execution of Pompey the Great. Months later, during a battle against Caesar, he drowned in the Nile from the weight of his golden breastplate.
PTOLEMY XIV 59–44 BC: Youngest son of Ptolemy XII. Cleopatra married him upon the death of their brother (above). He died suddenly, which freed Cleopatra to rule jointly with her three-year-old son by Caesar, Pt olemy XV Caesar, called Caesarion (“Little Caesar”).
Cleopatra’s loves
JULIUS GAIUS CAESAR 102–44 BC: Roman statesman and general considered one of the greatest men in history. He ruled Rome from 49 BC to 44 BC When he and Cleopatra first met, she was twenty-one years old; he was in his early fifties. Their son was born nine months later, by some records on June 23, 47 BC
MARC ANTONY 82–30 BC: Born in Alexandria, Egypt, to a noble family, he was a soldier and friend of Julius Caesar, serving under him in Gaul. Together with Octavian and Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, Antony formed the Second Triumvirate. He had three children by Cleopatra and several by other wives.
Cleopatra Page 11
