Memoirs of Cleopatra (1997)

by Margaret George

  Antony spun around and stared at me. "When?" he said.

  "As soon as we have forces to oppose them," I said.

  "The gods themselves will see to the hour and place," said Calpurnia.

  "No, Caesar and I will!" I swore, looking at him. I knew his spirit and mine would range over all the world before we would let his murderers live.

  "First we must calm Rome," said Antony. "We do not want the city destroyed in senseless riots--the city upon which Caesar has lavished so much care. After the danger is past, we shall pursue the murderers. But all in good time."

  "We have a lifetime," I said.

  "I am sole Consul," said Antony. "I am now the head of the government, the senior magistrate. I will take control as best I may, but it is tricky. We must disarm the conspirators, both literally and figuratively. I will call a meeting of the Senate for tomorrow."

  "As if everything were normal!" I cried.

  "We must pretend to them that we think it is," he said. "We must not alarm them, but must wrest control from them." He turned to Calpurnia. "Caesar's will--where is it?"

  "With the Vestal Virgins," she said.

  "And what of Caesar's papers, and his money?"

  "All here," she said. "Here!" She pointed toward a room opening off the atrium.

  "They must be transferred to my house," said Antony. "Tonight, under cover of darkness. They must not fall into the conspirators' possession. And once I have control of them, my hand is strengthened." He turned to me. "Return to the villa. Stay there until I send you word it is safe."

  "Do we have any soldiers at our command?" I asked. I had my Egyptian guards; I would encircle Caesarion with them tonight.

  "Lepidus is with us," he said.

  Lepidus. So that question was answered.

  "He will bring his legion onto the Campus Martius tonight, to be ready to move into the Forum at daybreak and occupy it. We will seize the state treasury as well, to prevent the conspirators from having any money at their disposal." He put his arm on my shoulder. "Return to the villa now," he said. "Return, and pray that all goes well in the next two days for us."

  I glanced back at the litter, lying so quietly by the pool. No stirring, no change in it. The hand still lay exposed. I went over to it, took it in mine, and kissed it.

  "Farewell, and farewell," I whispered. That had been his favorite parting, the words he had used when he left for Spain.

  I wanted never to leave him, but I could not bear to stay by his still side any longer.

  I watched from my window all night. How could I rest? Caesar was dead-- the entire world was destroyed. Never for one instant did that terrible vision, the sight of him lying there, fade from my mind; it veiled and shrouded everything, the things seen and the things unseen. I stood, leaning on my shaking elbows at the window, as the stars wheeled in the black sky and slowly faded in the early morning.

  What would happen to me? To Caesarion? To Rome? To Egypt? I was only twenty-five. What would another forty years without him hold for me? The universe was empty; he who had blotted out the sky was gone.

  In the darkest time of the night, when the tumult in the Forum began to die away, I wept at last. Quietly, because I did not want Caesarion to be disturbed--the poor child, unaware of what he had just lost. I was unable to cry aloud as I needed to, so all the sorrow stayed contained within me. The hot tears did no good; my throat was raw and felt as if it were swelling with the very effort of holding in my cries; my chest was on fire, aching with the unearthly pain that filled it. My sobs were silent heaves that tore at me and seemed to increase my suffering, not assuage it. Caesar was gone, gone, gone . . . how would I bear it? Sudden death had torn my dearest and most loving protector away from me a second time.

  The following day had the dull feeling of the aftermath of a natural disaster. There was nothing to do but wait, and continue to prepare for my leave-taking. I was drained from my suppressed crying, and moved like a sleepwalker now, or a person underwater, as if afraid that any sudden movement would cause me to feel even more pain. The things I had cared about--was this container waterproof, had I arranged my official correspondence in the correct chronological order so that it could be transferred intact to the archives in Alexandria?--were of no moment, and so what was usually so wrenching and time-consuming was soon done. Later, when I unpacked, I had no memory of any of it.

  Antony faithfully sent messengers telling me of events. Brutus had called another meeting on the Capitol to try to generate public support and enthusiasm, but he had failed again. The mood was starting to turn ugly; the praetor Cinna, who had denounced Caesar, was pursued into a nearby house, and the hostile mob would have burned it down if Lepidus's soldiers had not prevented them.

  Another night in which I did not sleep. How many sleepless nights can a person endure? The stars blazed again, circled the sky, and died away, and dawn came up, leaving me lightheaded and exhausted beyond mortal weariness. I held my own private communion with grief all through those hours of darkness, but there was no comfort anywhere, and this second night was worse than the first. Each hour seemed to increase my pain and my awareness, not dull or soothe it.

  More messages. The Senate had met, and the senators had expressed a wide range of reactions. The most extreme had proposed that the conspirators be given special honors as public benefactors. So much were the "honors" of the Senate worth! The less extreme merely said that amnesty should be granted to all, and Cicero proposed an "act of oblivion."

  An act of oblivion--like the one they had dealt Caesar?

  Someone else had said Caesar should formally be declared a tyrant and all his acts illegal. Antony had reminded them that if that were done, then every one of them who owed his appointment to Caesar would have to resign it. There would be no praetorships for Brutus and Cassius, no Bithynia for Tillius Cimber, no Asia for Trebonius, no Cisalpine Gaul for Decimus.

  There should be torture and hell for Decimus at the hands of his own gladiators!

  The conspirators had tried to prevent the reading of Caesar s will, but Calpurnia's father had refused to be bullied by them, had ordered the Vestals to release it, and had announced that Antony would read it from his house. Next they tried to block a public funeral for Caesar, but Antony pointed out that any Consul who had died in office was permitted a public funeral, and Caesar was Consul.

  The whole world would pay homage to him. His enemies who had killed him-- now let them see how they would be hated.

  It grew dark again, and this time I felt sleep coming over me. I knew I would, at last, rest, or what from now on must serve as rest. But at midnight a messenger arrived, with a vehement note from Antony.

  .

  The will--I read it out to Caesar s friends and family. It is not what I expected. He has named Octavian his principal heir, and requests him to be adopted as his son! He is to assume the name of Gaius Julius Caesar! And Caesar named Decimus as one of his secondary heirs, should his other great-nephews die early. Oh, the perfidy of Decimus is now made more hideous than ever!

  He has given the gardens of the villa--your villa--to the people of Rome, along with three gold pieces a person. Generous indeed. And when the people hear of it, I cannot vouch for the safety of any of the conspirators--or the Liberators, as they now call themselves.

  I was forced to have Cassius as my houseguest tonight, in exchange for my own son as a hostage on the Capitol! The food tasted like poison. I asked Cassius if he had a dagger, and he said, "Yes, and a big one, should you try to play the tyrant, too!"

  We shall see what awaits him at the hands of the mob!

  The funeral tomorrow night. I speak the eulogy, as his nearest male relative here. There will be a funeral pyre in the Campus Martius, but the bier and ceremony will be in the Forum. Should you wish to attend, you and Calpurnia will be safe on the steps of the Temple of Vesta, where Lepidus will station soldiers.

  .

  My head whirled. Octavian to be his--son? To take his name? But the
re was already another who bore the name Caesar--Ptolemy Caesar.

  How could there be more than one Caesar?

  As if Octavian could ever be Caesar! He was only distantly related, a mere great-nephew. And there was nothing of Caesar about him. His slight frame, his utter lack of athleticism or soldiership or oratory--no, nothing!

  Whatever had possessed Caesar to name him? And why had he not warned me?

  Perhaps I had known him very little. How much more there would have been to learn, had the gods just granted us time!

  Drawn as if by a strong wind, I went to the Forum on the night of Caesar's funeral. I arrived well before dark; my litter had taken me past the enormous waiting funeral pyre in the Campus Martius beside his daughter Julia's tomb. The logs were neatly arranged and decorated. I shuddered. I hated the whole idea of burning someone, but then the Romans hated our custom of embalming. It was all ugly; there was no redeeming death, no matter which method we chose to consume the body.

  Calpurnia was already there, on the curving steps of the round Temple of Vesta. She looked almost pleased to see me, her sister in this strange way, her companion in loss.

  "They are on their way here," she said. "They took his--they took him away this morning. Look! See where they will lay him!" She pointed to a huge bier, made to look like the Temple of Venus Genetrix. Under its columns an ivory couch, covered with purple and cloth of gold, waited to receive him.

  A low sound filled the air, as musicians began to play dirges and solemnly beat their drums around the bier. The people joined in, moaning and swaying.

  Torches were lit all around the Forum, ringing it with golden light. I could see the procession now, making its way toward us. A sigh went up from the people.

  The decorated litter, borne by ten magistrates, wound its way to the waiting bier. Then it was placed reverently on the ivory couch, and the men stepped back. Antony appeared and mounted the bier, resplendent in his consular robes.

  First a herald recited in ringing tones all the decrees passed in Caesar's name by the Senate and people of Rome, including the oath of loyalty they had all sworn. At this the people gave a groan. Then he recited Caesar's wars and battles, the enemies defeated and the treasures sent home, the territories added to Rome, the thanksgivings voted to him.

  Antony then stood beside the bier, and began intoning the sonorous funeral chant. The people took it up, moaning and moving back and forth.

  The chant finished, Antony then began to speak, with the loud, resonant voice and oratory for which he was famed.

  "Caesar, Caesar!" he cried. "Will there ever come another like you to Rome--you who so tenderly loved it like a son, cherished it like a wife, and honored it like a mother? No, no, never, never, never!"

  He looked around at the entire crowd, his head held high. "For the gods, Caesar was appointed high priest; for us, Consul; for the soldiers, Imperator; and for the enemy, Dictator. But why do I enumerate these details, when in one phrase you called him father of his country, not to mention the rest of his titles?"

  He turned and gestured toward Caesar, lying on the ivory couch. "Yet this father, this high priest, this inviolable being, this hero and god, is dead, alas! dead not by the violence of some disease, nor wasted by old age, nor wounded abroad somewhere in some war, nor caught up inexplicably by some supernatural force, but no! he who led an army into Britain died right here within the walls of the city as a result of a plot!"

  His voice rising, he swept his right arm in an arc, indicting everyone before him. "The man who enlarged its boundaries--ambushed in the city itself! The man who built Rome a new Senate house--murdered in it! The brave warrior--unarmed! The promoter of peace--defenseless! The judge--beside the court of justice! The magistrate--beside the seat of judgment! He whom none of the enemy was able to kill even when he fell into the sea--at the hands of the citizens! He who so often took pity on his comrades--at their hands!"

  He turned back to Caesar again and cried out to him, "Of what avail, Caesar, was your humanity, of what avail your inviolability, of what avail the laws? Now, though you enacted many laws that men might not be killed by their personal foes, yet how mercilessly you yourself were slain by your friends! And now, the victim of assassination, you lie dead in the Forum through which you often led the Triumph crowned. Wounded to death, you have been cast down upon the Rostra from which you often addressed the people. Woe for your blood-bespattered head, alas for the rent robe, which you assumed, it seems, only that you might be slain in it!"

  His voice broke and tears streamed down his face.

  Just then someone near the bier shouted the line from a well-known play by Pacuvius: " 'What, did I save these men that they might slay me/' " And it sounded as if the voice were coming from Caesar himself.

  Suddenly, Antony snatched up Caesar's bloody toga and held it aloft on his spear, twirling it around. The torchlight showed the stains--turned black now--and the gaping holes in the garment. "Look there! See! See! See how he was brutally slain--he who loved Rome so that he has left his gardens to you, as well as bequests of money. This was his reward for loving you, the people of Rome!" He waved the toga like a battle flag, and a great cry arose from the crowd.

  They rushed forward in a shouting mass, yelling about Caesar. Suddenly, as if by magic, they were hauling furniture toward the bier--benches, stalls, chairs, staves--and turning it into a funeral pyre.

  "Here! Here in the Forum!" they screamed, piling up the furniture. Antony hastily jumped down off the platform just as the first torch cartwheeled through the air and landed on the pile. It flickered and caught, and then a rain of other torches followed.

  People rushed toward the roaring fire as it reached upward to Caesar. Caesar! My heart stood still as I saw the flames licking up around his couch, and he lying motionless on it. They tore off their clothing and heaved it into the flames. The official mourners, who had worn his four Triumphal robes, tore them to pieces and cast them into the fire. Soldiers ripped off their valuable breastplates and threw them in, and women flung their jewelry, as if they were all sacrificing at some primitive bonfire to the god Caesar.

  Thus the people proclaimed him a god long before Octavian did.

  People fell on the ground, sobbing, beating their breasts, wailing. The smoke rolled in billowing clouds, blocking out the stars; sparks flew upward in the darkness, each a new star, flaming and dying.

  A group of people differently dressed stood by the flames, swaying and chanting. I learned later that these were Jews, who knew Caesar as their partisan and friend. He had obtained many privileges for them, and they were to mourn by the ashes of the funeral pyre for days afterward.

  We watched, transfixed, as the great sacrifice was consumed in the night. The gods accepted it. And I relinquished Caesar into their pitiless hands.

  .

  HERE ENDS THE THIRD SCROLL.

  Chapter 35.

  THE FOURTH SCROLL

  In the fetid, close cabin of the heaving ship that plowed its way through the high seas, I was torturously reborn. Weak and sick, I lay on the bed that bucked and jumped and afforded no rest day or night. But I did not care; it was impossible to be more miserable than I was, no matter where I lay or what surrounded me. I felt that I could lie forever on that foul bed, entombed in the dark. I was dead, as dead as Caesar.

  The tight cabin, the lack of light, the smell and sound of water, all were a hideous repetition of my journey in the carpet to meet Caesar four years--a lifetime--ago. Now I was being borne away from him, knowing that no journey on earth could ever bring me to him again. Then my heart had raced with the gamble of it; now it beat feebly with the blow of defeat it had been dealt. And as day followed day, and the water-seeping, moving cabin held me prisoner, I felt I was enfolded in a birth canal, moving back toward a womb, toward oblivion and nothingness.

  I did not eat. I did not wake--or perhaps I never really slept. And I did not think. Above all, I did not think. But the dreams! Oh, the pursuing dreams that
curled around me. I kept seeing Caesar, seeing him first as alive and strong, then seeing him engulfed in flames as he had lain on his bier. Then I would scream, or mumble, and Charmian would be beside me, taking my hands, quieting me. And I would turn away, close my eyes again, and be taken back by the dream-demons.

  I had not collapsed in Rome. Somehow I had got through those days that now seemed more like a nightmare than the real nightmares besetting me. But I had little memory of them. After the funeral, nothing has a clear edge to it. I left, that is all. I left as soon as I could, without actually running from the Forum directly to a departing ship. Only when I was safely aboard and saw the shoreline of Italy receding in the distance did I go to the cabin, lie down, and die.

  Charmian would sit by me, enduring the dreadful cabin day after day, reading to me, trying to interest me in something besides the all-absorbing world in my dreams. She and the cooks prepared dishes to be as tempting as possible under the circumstances--fresh-caught fish stew, boiled peas and lentils, honeyed cakes. They all looked, and smelled, revolting to me, and would make me sick. I would hang my head over the side of the bed and retch, even though I had not tasted them.

  "You will waste away," Charmian would chide me, taking one of my wrists and circling it with her own hand. "ls this a royal arm? You could not even lift it if you were wearing the bracelet of the Kandake." She would attempt to joke. "I know your ancestor Ptolemy the Eighth and several others were obese, but must you do penance for it this way? To turn yourself into a skeleton?" She appealed to my pride. "What if Caesar could see you now?"