Memoirs of Cleopatra (1997)

by Margaret George

  "Tell me!" I lost control--but it was so crucial that I hear it was not true, and even if it was true, perhaps I could reverse it, or someone could, yes, someone could, doctors in Rome, yes. . . .

  I shook his shoulders, but all he did was cry louder. "Tell me what you saw!" I cried. "Was Caesar assaulted in his house?"

  But the guards would protect him. . . . No, he had dismissed the guards!

  "No, not in his house," the boy snuffled.

  A silly reassurance came to me, proof that it was false, founded on the idea that this boy is from the house and this boy didn't see it, and there's nowhere else he would have been attacked. Not at Lepidus's house, and certainly not in the Senate!

  "Did someone try to attack him in the street?" I cried. Robbers? But he could have defended himself there.

  And then . . . oh, those words!

  "N-no," he whimpered. "They murdered him in the Senate. In front of everyone! They surrounded him and stabbed him to death, there were lots of them, and then he covered his face and died at the foot of Pompey's statue. The one he just--just had put back."

  The statue ... the statue we had watched being carted up the steps . . .

  No, it was a mistake. It was someone else. No one would have . . . not someone who knew . . .

  "Who are 'they'?" I cried aloud, my voice reaching a hundred miles away, I felt. My throat was stripped raw by it, by the anguished howl.

  "A group of senators--I'm not sure, I wasn't inside. Brutus and Cassius were the first ones out of the meeting hall and into the portico, where I was waiting, and they ran out all bloody, waving their daggers and shouting about liberty and the Republic. And all around them, all the senators were fleeing for their lives, holding up their togas and running. Now there's a big riot in the Forum, with the murderers shouting and Cicero trying to make a speech, and an entire company of gladiators loose and looting."

  Yes, I had heard the dreadful din of it, even from this far away. But I had not attached any meaning to it. There were always riots in Rome.

  "O all you gods--" I think I said. I copld not distinguish between what I thought and what I said, because within that cold cage, I was held a prisoner, muffled, the shock wrapping me like a cloak. I wanted to beat my way out of it, but I could not move.

  The mob . . . the Roman mob ... I could hear them so plainly, now that my ears were opened. Would they come for Caesar's son, here at the villa? Now that horror took me captive as well, adding fear to shock and pain. Everyone knows that Caesar's son is here, his only son} and if they hate Caesar, then they also hate his son. O my child! Were they even now running toward us, waving their daggers?

  "Are they pursuing?" I asked the boy.

  "No. They were all running in the opposite direction. No one stayed behind."

  But they might remember, at any minute. I must protect my son. And Caesar? O gods and goddesses, where was Caesar? I must go to him.

  "Where is Caesar? What has happened to him?" I cried. I could rescue him, save him.

  "Hehe's still lying at the base of the statue. Everyone ran away and left him, and he's alone in the Senate house, in a pool of--of blood." He burst into tremulous tears again.

  Now there was feeling, pain penetrating the cold cloak, as if they had plunged a knife into me as well--driven it deep inside, so mortal was the wound that pierced me all the way through. It was impossible--to have left him like that. Everyone fled?

  "Oh, the shame of it!" I wept. "To leave him there! Is everyone afraid of the murderers? Will no one even touch their fallen commander, the man that until this morning they called sacrosanct? Is not his body to be honored?" I cried.

  At that, the boy had a horrible remembrance. "They said that they--they were going to throw the body of the tyrant into the Tiber! Yes, that's what I heard them yelling when they ran out of the building!"

  I felt sick. It was inhuman, degrading. I hated them with a hatred I did not think it possible to experience.

  "Never!" I said. I knew we must go to him. And we must hurry! And when we got there, perhaps . . . perhaps he still lived. If he had been left alone, and no one with him, perhaps he had only been unconscious, and we would revive him. When we got there, yes, it would be all right. "We will go there this instant and convey him to his home," I said. "If anyone attempts to prevent it, they will have to kill me as well! Get some other boys, and bring a litter! Now let us go--directly to Caesar!"

  "No, madam!" Charmian grabbed on to my arm and attempted to stay me. "It is dangerous! There's a killing mob there, and Caesar's murderers--"

  "Caesar's murderers are the most abject of cowards and men of the utmost dishonor. Think you I will shrink from them? Never!"

  At that moment my newborn anger was serving to protect me, forming a shield around even the coldness gripping my heart.

  Pompey's theater in the Campus Martius lay closer to the villa than the Forum, and it did not take us long to reach it. The enormous structure, with its Portico of a Hundred Columns, reared up, and I could see that it was deserted. No one was lurking, save a gladiator or two with his hands full of stolen goods, and they slunk off furtively.

  The building was empty and dark. "Where?" I asked the boy. There were many rooms branching off the portico, and I could never guess which one had been large enough for the Senate.

  He pointed a shaking finger at a doorway far on the other side and walked with me to it, but drew back at the entrance, after he had glanced inside.

  "He is still--safe," he said.

  Strange use of words, I could not help thinking. But now he would be safe, we would make him safe, we would save him. . ..

  At the back wall of the chamber I saw the statue first, more than life-size and standing proudly. And at its feet--a bloodstained bundle, with feet protruding, that looked too small for someone of Caesar's height.

  At once the relief: It isn't him.

  I approached the motionless bundle, holding my breath. There would be someone else there. I knelt down and, with a hand that was shaking so badly I could barely grasp the cloth of the toga, I lifted it and saw Caesar's face.

  I screamed when I beheld it, and dropped the cloth. His eyes were closed, but he did not look asleep. He looked different than I had ever seen him and those who say the dead look asleep are liars. Then, after getting control of myself, I lifted the cloth again, reached out my hand, and stroked his cheek: cold, as if the coldness of the marble floor had crept into him and suffused him while he lay there.

  I gazed at him, and all of myself seemed to drain away; my inner being melted, and I felt utterly lost, deserted, abandoned. My life was gone, torn from me, not gently extinguished.

  "My love, my friend!" I whispered, touching him again. I held absolutely still, but not as still as he. And all the truth rushed in on me, and I knew the purest form of anguish.

  "O Isis!" I wailed, and suddenly the story I had always known about Isis and the death of her husband Osiris, cruelly murdered and then dismembered by his brother, came true. I was Isis and here lay my Osiris, attacked by those who had called him "father of his country" and vowed to protect his life with their own. Now I saw the places in his toga--it seemed like hundreds of them--that had been ripped by the daggers. He had been set upon as if by a pack of wolves, killed by those sworn to protect him. He had been without any weapon, for it was against the law to have weapons in the Senate.

  I flung myself across him and embraced him, stiff and bloody as he was. I knew I was smeared, with blood, but I did not care. I wanted to stay there with him forever--but at the same time I was suddenly anxious for him to be taken from this abominable place.

  The boy had come back, bringing two companions and a sturdy canvas litter. They hung back in the doorway and stared. Finally I said, "Come here," and they obeyed, tiptoeing up as if they were afraid Caesar would rise up under the toga.

  And, oh! if only he could. I would have given my own life if he could.

  "It is time. Convey him to his house. Does--has Ca
lpurnia been told?" There was that to face, as well.

  The boy nodded.

  "Very well, then. Take him to her. I will follow."

  Gingerly they managed to pick him up and place him on the litter. They covered his face again so no one on the way could gaze at him, and hoisted the litter up onto their shoulders. I saw that they had left one arm hanging over the side. It trailed down, swaying with the motion of the bearers, and the hand was limp.

  The sight of that hand, now powerless, ripped through me so that I could hardly stand. If only Charmian we're here, so I could lean against her. But I must not fall, I must not fail that poor arm, now utterly unable to defend itself.

  And I would avenge him, if it took me all the rest of my life. Somehow I would do it, using any weapon, or person, that came to hand.

  Ahead of me the arm swayed, the litter bounced, I am here, Caesar. I will not desert, nor will I leave your enemies unpunished. And what I leave undone, your son, Caesarion, will finish. This I solemnly swear to you.

  The boys carried the litter down the steps, the same steps where Antony had bought all the sausages and Caesar had laughed so loudly.

  The Forum was filled with milling mobs, but we managed to make our way through as if we were invisible, there was such confusion. I was walking and called no attention to myself by an ornamented litter, and no one suspected the three boys of carrying anything important. Strange how blind and dull a crowd can be, even at its most agitated.

  Caesar's house loomed just ahead, and the boys knew which side entrance to go into with their precious burden. We entered and quickly bolted the door behind us.

  The same airy atrium, the same central pool, calmly reflecting the dull gray sky, where Caesar had so elegantly received guests, awaited us. The boys set the litter down, and Calpurnia emerged from the shadows, walking stiffly, leaning on two servants.

  Her face was changed almost as much as Caesar's--puffy and ravaged at the same time. Weeping, she took each halting step toward the litter, her feet dragging. I turned away and sought the other end of the room, to allow her privacy. I heard loud screams, cries, stormy weeping, and then a dead silence. At last I turned back around and saw her in a heap beside the litter, its covering sheet drawn back.

  I went over to her, unsure what to do, but feeling united to her in a terrible way. I bent down and laid my hands on her shaking shoulders. Caesar's face-- that face--was turned toward us. I could not bear it, to see it so changed and ugly-still. I pulled the sheet back over it.

  "My dear," I said--and she was dear to me at that moment, as she had been his, and now everything he had ever touched or been connected to in any way was inestimably precious--"I know you feel the daggers as if they had struck you themselves."

  She allowed herself to lean against me a little. "Yes," she whispered. "I could feel them, even as it happened." She turned her face to mine. "I dreamed it all, last night. I saw it, I felt it. The only difference was that in the dream he collapsed and died in my arms--I saw him alive, not like-- like this!" She attempted to lift the cloth again, having a need to see him, but her hand fell back limply. "I warned him--I begged him--not to go to the Senate!"

  She hunched up on her knees, bending over him. "And he had dreamed that he was carried up in the clouds, and Jupiter reached out for him. Oh, it was all so clear! We knew! We knew! And yet he went. . . ."

  She slumped back down again. Then her voice rose, as she suddenly remembered. "He had agreed not to go after all! A soothsayer had warned him about the Ides. Yes . . . and the hour had passed, and he had not appeared at the Senate, and then Decimus came and begged him to make an appearance. He explained about my dream and the bad omens--for during the storm the shields of Mars fell down off the walls, a terrible warning!--and said he would not come. And then--then"--it began to come together in her mind-- "Decimus laughed and said the Senate might change its mind about the honors if he had to announce that Caesar stayed away on account of his wife's dreams. He made it sound so foolish--but I knew what I had seen in my mind. Oh, we never should have yielded!"

  I had a horrible suspicion. "Decimus--what was he to you?"

  "Why, he was one of Caesar's most trusted friends," she said.

  "And did he escort Caesar to the Senate?"

  "I believe so," she said. "They set out together, Caesar in his litter. I watched them. There were crowds all about, and--someone thrust a scroll in Caesar's hand. But then, petitioners do that."

  "The litter--the ceremonial one he rode in--where is it?"

  "I don't know."

  "It's at the theater still," one of the boys said.

  "Bring it," I ordered him. "Bring it, so we leave nothing of Caesar's for the mob." Perhaps the scroll was still in it.

  Outside I could hear the noise of the crowd. ''Observe well who is at large," I told them. "Where have the murderers gone?"

  Calpurnia allowed herself to be drawn to her feet. "I am afraid they will come and raid this house!" she said. "There is no one to protect it. Caesar had dismissed his guards."

  Lepidus. Lepidus had one legion in the city, as Caesar's military second-in-command. What other forces were there? Decimus had his gladiators. Gladiators! What was it the boy had said? An entire company of gladiators loose and looting. Again I had that sickening lurch of feeling. Decimus's gladiators--why had they happened to be there?

  Decimus had brought them to Rome and stationed them here. Decimus had brought Caesar to the Senate against his will. Decimus was one of Caesar s most trusted friends.

  It was a plot, a huge plot. It was not just Brutus and Cassius, it was a widespread, organized body of assassins.

  For weeks, Caesar had been surrounded by secret enemies--for if they had Decimus, they had other, unsuspected partisans. What about Antony? Was he one of them? And Lepidus? Were Calpurnia and I his only loyal adherents?

  He had eaten with them, laughed with them, planned his Parthian campaign with them, walked through the Forum with them. And they had smiled and fawned and voted more honors to him--I remembered the obsequious magistrates meeting him at the temple--all the while planning to kill him! How they must have gloated over that in their secret conclaves, mocking him.

  The boys returned with the litter, and in it were several rolled-up scrolls, all unread. Most of them indeed contained petitions, but one detailed the entire plot and begged Caesar to save himself. It said the conspiracy encompassed some seventy men.

  Seventy!

  How could they have kept the plot secret?

  But then, they had not kept it secret. Caesar was warned in this scroll, only too late.

  It said that Cassius wanted to kill Antony as well, but that Brutus had argued against it, saying that the sacrifice of Caesar would not be sacrifice but just plain murder if it took in others. So Trebonius was assigned to detain Antony outside.

  Antony was loyal. I felt an immense relief. But where was he? Where had he fled to?

  Rising noise outside. I had a ladder brought so I could look out the upper windows without opening the door. I did not know whether to be thankful Caesar's house was right in the midst of the Forum or not.

  A huge mob had gathered in a knot near the center of the Forum, and I saw a single file of men coming down from the Capitol, holding their hands up and yelling, "Cicero! Cicero!" But I did not see anyone who looked like Cicero. I saw Dolabella, a wild, unstable man who was an expert at whipping up crowds, stand on a pedestal to address the crowd, then Brutus, then Cassius. I could not hear anything they said, but I knew how to read crowds, and I could see that the people were not responding. The conspirators turned and went back up the hill to the Capitol.

  It was growing dark. How sudden! But of course it was not sudden; it was just that time was no longer the normal stretch of minutes but some other monstrous thing. The sun had kept on its journey as if this were any other day.

  It should have stopped. It should have sent forth sparks. Anything but this peaceful transit across the sky, and now a twilig
ht like any other.

  There was a loud banging on the door, and as the bolts were pulled away, Antony burst in. He looked around wildly, throwing off the hood of his slave's cloak, his disguise.

  "Caesar! Caesar! O my lord, my captain!" He rushed to the litter and fell to his knees. Yanking off the covering, he threw back his head and let out a long, mournful wail. His fists were clenched, his arms rigid by his side. Then he brought his hands up to his face and wept.

  Calpurnia and I stood back, silently. It was many minutes before his shoulders stopped shaking and he wiped his cheeks and turned and saw us.

  "Thanks be to all the gods that you are here," said Calpurnia.

  Antony got up, slowly. "And thanks be to all the gods that we are safe," he said, looking around. "And that Caesar is here with us. Now they cannot desecrate him unless they kill us all."

  "They are probably willing to do so," I said. "What would stay their hands--the hands that swore to protect the very man they have slain?"

  "Only their misguided belief that they are high-minded and not ordinary assassins and murderers," he said. "They believe themselves honorable."

  "Honorable?" said Calpurnia.

  "They believe that it was honorable to kill Caesar, and equally honorable to let us live," said Antony.

  "Well, they shall die for their honor," I said. Anger and sorrow kept fighting within me, and at this moment the anger had its turn.