And at his return, a thanksgiving of fifty days should be ordered.
I was hungry to see him. In spite of my earlier contention that I ipust return to Egypt as soon as the seas opened, good reports from Alexandria now permitted me to stay longer in Rome. How could all the crowds see him return and crown him victor of the world, and Caesarion and I not welcome him home--to his city and to us?
But when was he to return? No one seemed to know. He lingered in Spain, settling administrative problems there, and making appointments. Octavian had joined him in his headquarters. Others rushed to meet him in nearer Gaul, which he would pass through on his way home: Brutus, Antony, Decimus.
At last it came: a personal letter to me. It had been written from Hispalis. I thanked the messenger and gave him some token (doubtless too much), and then waited until I could shut the door of my room and read it in private.
.
It is over, and I am victorious. I know you have heard this already. But what you have not heard I now tell you: I have often fought for victory, but at the battle of Munda I fought for my life.
I was spared. I return to you, and to Rome, alive and restored.
My love to you and our son.
.
I fought for my life. What had I been doing that day? Why had I not felt it? It seemed impossible that it could have been an ordinary day for me. Without meaning to, I crumpled the precious letter by holding it too tightly.
It took him a very long time to return. He was not back at the anniversary of his first Triumph, when the Romans duly paraded out his statue in company with that of Victory, at the Victory games. He did not set foot in the city until the heat had begun to wane; he even retired to his private estate at Lavicum for a week or so beforehand. There he rewrote his will. But no one knew that until long afterward.
There were murmurs that Caesar would celebrate a Triumph. But it seemed unlikely that he would allow this to take place, since his enemies had been other Romans. Triumphs were only to be celebrated over foreign foes.
And then he swept into Rome, bringing the speculation to an end. He had returned. He was victorious. He would order all things anew. The suspension of events would end.
He did not send any messages to me, or invite me to attend any of the private events welcoming him. Yet I knew he was waiting, as was I. All things in time.
The night he came to the villa was a rainy, chilly one--yes, the year was turning again. I heard the crunch of the gravel under his horse's hooves and knew someone was approaching outside. I did not think it was he; I had no specific day I was awaiting him. It was enough that I knew he would come.
I heard his voice, heard him dismissing the servants. Then I heard him taking the stairs two at a time, bounding up them to my door. I flung it open and found myself staring into his face in the dim light.
It seemed forever; it seemed only an instant ago that I had seen him. I was overcome with the impact of it, and buried my face in his shoulder. I had no words for the joy I felt in having him with me.
He touched the back of my neck, gently, and drew my head back so he could look at me. A faint smile was on his face, one I had never seen before. Then he kissed me, a deep kiss that spoke of the pain of our separation.
"Let us get out of the doorway," I finally said. We had remained at the threshold, where anyone could see us. I drew him inside.
He stood, a little changed. He looked thinner. His face had more of the eagle in it--leaner, more acute.
"Thanks be to all the gods," I said. "Fortune has not deserted you."
"No," he said. His voice was softer, more tempered. "The sacrifices just before the battle of Munda foretold disaster. But I ignored them. I said all would be well because I wished it to be."
I shuddered. "Fortune was merciful to her favorite son, after such arrogance."
"Perhaps she likes it." He came over to me and embraced me. "Do you?"
"It is part of you," I said, "and I love everything about you."
"Is that true?" he said. "Then you are different from all others."
The rain spattered outside, the branches of the trees dipped and swayed under the wind, and we huddled together under the coverlet of my couch as if we would shelter from it.
"Was it like this in your tents out in Spain?" I asked him, lying beside him and listening to the cold rain.
"No. This is luxurious. The roof does not leak, and the sheets do not take up groundwater." He took my hand. "You haven't lived until you have experienced a winter campaign."
"You must take me on the next one," I said lightly. When he did not laugh, I said, "Surely you aren't planning another one? There is no one left to fight."
"Except the Parthians."
"Leave the Parthians to themselves," I said. "And they will leave you alone."
"Someday those eagles of Crassus's destroyed legions must be returned."
"Not by you," I said. "Rome is a greater challenge today. Leave Parthia for Caesarion. After all, if you have conquered the entire world, what will be left for him? You have to leave something for the next generation to aspire to."
"I will make a bargain with you," he said in his quiet, mock-serious voice. "I will remain in Rome for a while if you stay as well." He paused. "Will you?" Another pause. "Please?"
Yes, why should we hurry from one another, after such a long parting? I put out my arms to him and held him tightly. I would bind him to me with hoops of iron, keep him away from all harm. No more territory. No more conquests. Let him consolidate what he had already won.
For this one night, he was content with the boundaries of this little room, with me and what I could offer him. And I offered him all of myself.
* * *
Against what I held to be all common sense, Caesar was bent on having a Triumph to celebrate his victory. He would claim the war had been a Spanish rebellion, aided by traitorous Romans. This would fool no one, as I pointed out. He said he did not care.
There are those who hold that Caesar, during those days, was not behaving rationally, that his usual clear-sightedness (his sterling trait) was clouded and his judgment suspect. My interpretation is that he was exhausted, increasingly embittered by the failure of his reconciliation policy and the automatic suspicion and hostility of the aristocrats toward his every gesture, and in too great a hurry. He treated the Senate and people of Rome like a pitched battle that must be fought without delay, on the spot. Politics and war are not the same; his genius on the field did not transfer to the byways of the government.
By vanquishing all his foes, and being appointed Dictator, he had been given an unspoken mandate to reorder the government, as Sulla had been. The hope was that he would somehow "restore the Republic"--the pious words on everyone's tongue.
But the truth was that the cherished Republic had grown moribund. Even today, I wonder what could have been done to "restore" it--save going backward in time to an era when it worked. The Republic was a private club, like my Egyptian club--the Society of Imhotep--when I was a child. It answered the needs of only a few aristocrats, while excluding vast numbers of men with equally powerful interests. It was the second group with whom Caesar cast his lot, going over the heads of the old established order. He could not hand the reins of the government back to the rigid old group. And that was what "restoring the Republic" meant.
The Spanish Triumph was held--against my advice, and that of Cicero, Brutus, Cassius, Lepidus, Decimus, and even, some said, Balbus and Oppius. It was an unusually warm day in early October, and once again the streets were swept, garlands were strung on the monuments and buildings, viewing stands were set up. Caesar rode forth in glory, as he had the year before, followed by solemn Octavian in his chariot. But in the midst of all the cheering and adulation, one of the tribunes of the people refused to rise from his bench as the Triumphal Chariot passed by.
I was shocked-when, instead of gazing serenely ahead, Caesar pulled his horses to a stop and glared at the offending tribune. In a harsh voice h
e shouted, "So, Pontius Aquila! Why don't you make me give up the state? After all, you are a tribune!"
Aquila, astounded, just stared back. But he did not rise.
The Triumphal Chariot resumed its journey, but the incident burned its way into common memory.
The banquet afterward was said to have fallen short of Caesar's expectations (or was it the people's?) and so he ordered a second one a few days later.
Then he affronted public opinion further when he allowed his two less-than-competent lieutenant generals, Pedius and Fabius, to celebrate their own Triumphs, even though it was their inability to make headway against the enemy that had called Caesar to Spain to begin with.
At the same time he abruptly resigned his Consulship and appointed Fabius and another man to fill out the last three months of the year.
"Whatever can you be thinking of?" I asked him, one afternoon when he had come to the villa--one rare afternoon when he had a spare moment.
"They keep accusing me of being a tyrant," he said. "Does a tyrant resign his offices?"
"Why must you be so angry?" I asked. "Were you angry at Gnaeus Pompey, or at Vercingetorix? Had you been, could you have defeated them?"
"So now you give me advice--you, whose one experience of war was a stalemate between your forces and your brother's; you, whose one experience of an upheaval in government made you lose your throne and have to flee!" He fairly spat the words.
I refused to rise to this bait. "I admit as much," I said. "But I was only twenty-one years old, and it was my first experience of ruling, or of fighting. You, the most seasoned soldier in the world, should know better."
"And now you are an expert," he said. "How old are you?"
"Twenty-four, as well you know," I said. "And I have had the advantage of being a bystander in this tug-of-war. Bystanders can sometimes see things others closer do not. And what I see is a man acting as if he has been attacked by a pack of wolves--a man striking out in all directions, spitefully. Has it really been necessary for you to say sarcastically at the end of every political promise since the Triumph, 'Providing Aquila allows me to'? It sounds like something a village woman would say at a well about her rival. It is not worthy of you."
He shook his head and sank down on a chair. "I suppose not," he finally said. "It is petty, and petulant." He frowned. "But they drive me past endurance!"
I laughed. "Past endurance? You, who have existed on roots and snow, who have traveled under excruciating conditions. How many miles did you cover a day en route to Spain, in the winter?"
"Over fifty," he said. Then a boyish smile. "And I composed a long poem on the way--I didn't let a minute go to waste. It's called The Journey..' "
"Yes, and you have yet to let me read it," I half scolded him. "But as I was saying--how can you now let these political barbs drive you to distraction, when all that nature has thrown against you cannot do it?"
"People are more maddening than cold, starvation, thirst, or heat."
I knelt at his side. Yes, I knelt. I looked up at him as directly as possible. "You have come too far, done too much, to fail now because of human weakness. Repair this weakness! Do not let it gain control of you!" Would he listen to me? "It will bring you down, negate everything you have worked for!"
"Am I not a human being?" he cried, a howl of anguish. "How can I order myself to be a stone? These things rip at me--they tear my very fabric!"
"Mend it, and rest," I said. "Your spirit is wounded, and you must let it heal as you would a cut of any other sort on your body. I fear," I said slowly, "that if you do not, it will become infected. Indeed, it is on the verge of it."
Perhaps he did as I said; he seemed to disappear for several days. But the unrest and the murmurs continued. For a city at peace, and unthreatened by external enemies, Rome seemed singularly nervous.
I was startled when, near the end of the month, Octavian was announced at the villa. I met with him in a chamber opening off the atrium--it was painted in a deep red, with mythic scenes to compensate for its having only one window.
He looked taller, older. (Had he had higher sandals fashioned?) His delicate beauty had been tempered, and the body under the toga seemed more substantial, sturdier. The Spanish campaign had turned him into a man, after all, though he had seen no actual fighting. Just fighting his way there had been enough.
"You have grown imposing," I said. "Your journey must have had a salutary effect upon you." I was surprised at my own warm feelings for him; he had grown on me. And his loyalty to Caesar had been proved. That counted for a great deal.
"I come to bid you farewell," he said. "My uncle has arranged for Agrippa and me to depart for Apollonia across the Adriatic and receive further training--in both rhetoric and warfare."
"I know it is difficult for him to send you away," I said, meaning it.
"We will join him on his next campaign, when we can be of more use to him," said Octavian.
Next campaign? There was to be another? "Parthia?" I asked softly. It had to be Parthia.
"Yes. We will already be halfway there. He will send for us after he has crossed over."
After he has crossed over. . . . When? "Next spring, then?" I said knowingly.
"I believe so," he said.
"I wish you and Agrippa a safe journey," I said. "No more shipwrecks! And I hope your training is everything you desire." I looked at him: at his pure, incandescent features, his wide-set eyes, his light tousled hair. All I thought at the time was, Caesar's family is a handsome one.
"I have benefited from knowing you," I added.
"And I from knowing you," he said, his pleasant smile in place.
And that, I swear, was my last meeting with him, the last words we ever spoke face-to-face. How the gods like to mock us! I sift that meeting time and again, as if some portentous words might flutter out of my memory. But there were none. Nothing but a cordial farewell between two people who loved Caesar well, and would have died for him.
Chapter 31.
The streets were jammed. My litter could scarcely make any headway. The jostling and pushing meant that the litter rode as roughly as if we had been at sea--and indeed, that was where we were, attempting to tack through a heaving sea of people.
"This is fun!" said Ptolemy, peering out the side. His voice was weak; with the return of the cold weather, his cough and debility had come back.
I wished I had not yielded to Caesar and stayed on so long. Now we were trapped until spring. I longed for the wide streets of Alexandria, where the thoroughfares were never choked like this. We had started out to visit the quarters of the silver-and goldsmiths, because Ptolemy wished to watch them at work. He had a decided artistic bent, especially for design. The arrangements had been made days in advance; they were expecting us at their workshops, and here we were, stuck en route.
What was causing this? I glared out of the litter, as if I could shrivel up the culprit with my gaze. All I saw was the vast throng of heads and shoulders; then I caught sight of an outsized statue lurching along in an open wagon, secured by ropes. Behind it, a little way away, came another. I did not recognize them.
"Look!" cried Ptolemy, pointing. "It's Caesar over there, on those steps!"
I turned to see; indeed, Caesar and some others were standing on the steps of the Theater of Pompey and its attached buildings, bigger than the theater itself.
'That way!" I commanded the bearers, and they turned abruptly and made their way across the road.
What a grandiose building this was, I thought. It looked almost as though it belonged in Alexandria.
Caesar watched us approaching, and came over to us.
"So this draws even you?" he asked, bending down and peering in at us.
"No," I said. "We happen to be here by accident. What is it?"
"Why, it is the day of the restoration of the statues," he said. "Come, and watch." When he saw my reluctance, he said, "Wherever you were going, you cannot get there. You might as well join us." He held out
his hand and helped us out. He did not let go of mine as he returned to his spot on the stairs.
"What a day, eh?" said a man I recognized as Lepidus after a moment of memory-searching. "Who would have thought they'd return?"
"Out of storage," said another man--Marc Antony. "Get the cobwebs off them, they'll be as good as new."
"Yes, never throw anything away," said the woman standing beside him; it was Fulvia, his new wife. "That's what I always say."
"It couldn't be about household things," said Lepidus. "For all the world knows you aren't concerned about those."
Fulvia did not look amused. "I manage well enough," she said finally. "I have not heard Antony complaining." She looked to him to agree.
"No, no," he said. "Nothing to complain about." He turned to me. "In Egypt you celebrate the resurrection of the dead," he said. "This is the first time it has happened in Rome. The statues of the vanquished and the forbidden are rising once again on their pedestals."
Memoirs of Cleopatra (1997) Page 49
