Memoirs of Cleopatra (1997)

by Margaret George

  The Queen in me yearned for his victory, and prayed for that; the wife feared he would not return alive, and begged Isis only for his life. I was both the Spartan wife, saying, "Return with your shield or on it," and the Egyptian wife, saying, "Only return--even without the shield."

  The storms of autumn started, and still no word. But my own body, oblivious of anything else, kept nature's timetable, and in mid-November I gave birth to my new baby--a son. It was an easy birth.

  "You are becoming practiced at last," said Olympos dryly.

  I held the little boy in my arms and looked down at him. He was possessed of rosy cheeks and a thick head of dark hair. As always, I was astounded at the beauty of a newborn, and that I could have produced him. At the same time, I somehow knew he would be my last. For that I cherished him more than I could say.

  "What will you name him?" he asked, dabbing at the baby's matted hair.

  Nothing had come to me since I had first thought of Ptolemy Philadelphos. I wished it could have been Ptolemy Antonius Parthicus, in honor of his father's victory over Parthia. Dear Isis, let me not have the right to bestow Antonius Postumus on a son of Antony! Best to retreat into the past, into the height of Ptolemaic glory.

  "Ptolemy Philadelphos," I said.

  "That's a mouthful," said Olympos, gently wiping the baby's eyes. "You will have to find something shorter for everyday use."

  "It will come," I said. "He will name himself."

  Despite the easy birth, I did not seem to recover as I should. My limbs felt heavy and swollen, and my energy did not return. Long after I should have been back in the council chamber, or in the customs depot, or inspecting the progress of my shipbuilding station, I found I tired so easily that spending more than a morning or an afternoon away from my couch was a challenge. I also had no appetite.

  "You must eat," said Olympos sternly, "or your milk will be too thin." After he had seen how feeding the twins myself had helped my recovery, he had turned against the idea of wet nurses and now had it firmly in his mind that all women, even queens, should nurse their own children.

  "Yes, yes," I said. "But octopus stew is not appealing." I pushed away the bowl.

  "There is nothing better than octopus! The suckers give strength--"

  "To an octopus, yes." The smell was awful. "Please, no more of this!"

  "You try my patience!" He sat down beside me, on a footstool, and took my hand, looking searchingly in my face. I knew him well enough to know his frown hid his worry. "The baby is well," he said cautiously.

  "Olympos, what is wrong with me?" I burst out.

  "I don't know," he admitted. "The whole process of producing a child is a complicated mystery. There are so many ways for something to be--difficult. Oh, you are in no danger. You will slowly get your strength back. But perhaps you should not--should not--"

  "Have more children," I finished for him.

  "Exactly what I was about to say. But then, the men you take up with seem bent on producing as many as possible!"

  "I am a married woman now," I said with imperious dignity. "So you needn't talk about 'the men I take up with'--like one of the temple prostitutes at Canopus!"

  "Well, your new . . . er . . . husband . . . sometimes behaves as if he were a devotee of such precincts--" Olympos still did not like him, that was obvious. But he had not seen him, except at a distance in Rome, for almost five years. He would change his mind when Antony returned. When Antony returned . . .

  "You insult my father the late King when you insult the rites of Dionysus!" I said. It was a religion, for all that the Romans thought the grape arbors and ecstatic dancing were obscene. They also thought dancing itself was obscene, and did not understand actors or the theater or--Thank the gods Antony was different!

  "Forgive me," he said. "Obviously I cannot penetrate the sublime mysteries of Dionysus with my little, scientific, argumentative mind. But from the viewpoint of an ordinary man, it just looks like plain, old-fashioned drunkenness elevated to an elite club!"

  I laughed. "I am pleased to have a man with a questioning mind as my physician. It means common sense will never be abandoned as a remedy. Now tell me--is there not something growing in that garden of yours that would help me?"

  "Perhaps," he said.

  "Does your wife--does Dorcas--have an interest in medicine?" I wondered about her. He had not brought her to many gatherings, and I had yet to have a real conversation with her.

  He looked as though his privacy had been attacked. So it was all very well for him to invade my marriage, my motives, and my habits--even in bed-- but I must keep a respectful distance from his. Physicians!

  "No," he said shortly. "No, she--she is most concerned with literature. Homer and such. Comparing different versions." He looked acutely embarrassed by it.

  "So you have married an intellectual!" I said. "What an odd yoking--the scientist and the literary scholar."

  "No more odd than the cleverest woman in the world with a simple warrior, whose interests revolve around the battlefield and the drinking-board. In some ways he's like one of those northern barbarians, with their yelling and singing and fighting and drinking . . . and bonfires. ..."

  "You really don't know him at all," I said stiffly.

  "Can you honestly say my description is wrong?" he asked, rising to his feet. "Yet I know he makes you happy, and so I pray for his safe return." On his way toward the door, he paused and turned. "I will send you some medicine from my garden. And you will take it!" he ordered.

  All the strength and force of nature seemed concentrated on the sea; none of it flowed into me. Day after day as I dutifully rested in my room and drank Olympos's foul-tasting potion--made of a pinch of ground mandrake dissolved in the juice of cabbage leaves--I watched the storms breaking against the base of the Lighthouse, and the ships tossing against their anchor lines, saw the naked power of nature. I longed for the emblematic Ptolemaic thunderbolt to descend and charge me anew with fiery life. In the meantime there were the usual winter pastimes--games and music--and bored children to keep me company and hang on the arms of my chair. My pet monkey finally had the opportunity to scamper all over me and ply me with tidbits, to pull the covers up over me until I thought I would slap her thin, nervous fingers plucking continually at my blanket. But then, that is what monkeys do, and I could hardly punish her for being a monkey.

  And all the while, nothing . . . from Antony, from the east.

  Yet the news from Rome kept coming in. Octavian formally declared that with the defeat of Sextus the civil wars had at last ended, and put a notice up about his achievement--completing Caesar's work--in the Forum. Unable to have a Triumph because he had not beaten a foreign foe, he had to settle for what was called an Ovation, in which he was lauded--in a restrained manner. He was also granted the right to wear the laurel wreath at all times, like Caesar before him.

  The medicine that Olympos made me take often either robbed me of sleep or sent me vivid, disturbing dreams. One night, when little Philadelphos was almost forty days old, I had a dreadful vision--it seemed more a vision than a dream--of Antony surrounded by dead bodies, grotesque, blackened things, stiffening and drying on a field of stones. He was crawling over them, almost rolling over them as if they were a strewn pile of logs--like the ones I had seen stacked in the fields of Armenia to use against Parthia, but these were rotted and burnt remnants. He was alone on the field, which stretched on and on under a colorless sky.

  I woke up, my heart pounding, the sight still before my eyes. Antony's face ... it looked as though he were being tortured.

  In the corner of the room, the lamp still burned before the statue of Isis, flickering reassuringly. I flung off my sweat-soaked covers and knelt at her feet. I did not know what else to do. Banish that evil dream! I implored her, as the twins did with me when they had nightmares and rushed into my room. But she did nothing, and I knew that meant it was real.

  Now I went back to bed and waited. I had seen what was happening in Part
hia. Antony was alive, but surrounded by death. I clutched the covers around me and ordered the night to pass quickly. When the morning came, so would the news.

  And thus I was expecting Eros, Antony's personal servant and freedman, who was brought into the palace at dawn, shivering and shaken. Yes, it was Eros and not one of the commanders--not Canidius or Dellius or Plancus, but this youth, scarcely more than a boy, who came from his master.

  I insisted on speaking to him alone, in spite of Mardian's devouring curiosity to hear all. Time enough for that later. For now, I had to hear privately.

  I did not bother with thrones or audience clothes, but took him directly into my most private chamber. How many times had Eros been the last to attend Antony and me before leaving us alone for the night? I could not see his face without remembering how eager we usually were for him to depart-- and now he held the dreadful knowledge of what had happened since the splendid army, shining like a new coin, had set out on its mission.

  I took his rough hands. "He is well? lord Antony lives?" After all, it was hours since the dream.

  Eros nodded. "He is safe."

  I looked carefully at him. His face was sunburnt, wind-scorched, and his nails were torn. Then my eyes strayed to his feet and legs--bruised, scabbed, and filthy with the kind of dirt no amount of normal scrubbing will remove.

  "Where is he?"

  "He awaits you at Leuce Come, in Syria."

  Leuce Come? Where was that? What was he doing there? "Where?"

  "A small fishing village in Syria," he said. "He was--we were afraid to go to Tyre or Sidon, for fear that the Parthians would already be there, waiting, having followed up their . . . great victory." He bent his head down, unable to look me in the eyes.

  I reached out and took his chin, as if he were my own child. "I know there was a victory," I told him gently. "But it is enough for me that Antony lives. You must tell me what happened."

  "How did you know?" He allowed me to raise his head.

  "It was sent me by the gods," I said. "Now tell me the details. The gods send pictures, not details."

  "I shall tell you quickly, and then you may question me as you wish," he said. His voice was thin, uncertain. "The winding mountain passes were slow to negotiate, and the baggage train was acting as a brake to the rest of the army. So Lord Antony left it behind, under the guard of King Artavasdes and King Polemo and two Roman legions--"

  Not enough! Not enough guards! Only two legions! Oh, Antony--guarded by twenty-three thousand men, but only ten thousand of them Romans!

  "And the Parthians, seeming to have advance knowledge of this, fell on them, and--slaughtered them." Eros seemed close to tears. I should halt his story and allow him to compose himself, but I found I could not.

  "They annihilated twenty thousand men?" That seemed unbelievable.

  "No--only the Roman legions. And took King Polemo prisoner. Then King Artavasdes galloped away with his thirteen thousand men, back to Armenia."

  It was prearranged. I knew it. He was always in league with the Parthians! The lying traitor!

  Yet he who trusts without foundation--what is the word for him? I had warned Antony about him. As I had warned him about Octavian. Why can a noble nature never foresee treachery? Does it make him blind? Rob him of sense?

  "We did not know about this until too late. When Antony heard about it, he immediately sent back a relief force, but nothing was left. The two legion eagles were captured, and the siege machinery was set on fire and destroyed."

  Without it, there could be no conquest. Antony could do nothing, trapped in the midst of Parthia. He could not besiege cities or force their surrender. And unless his legionaries could make the Parthians stand and fight, he had traveled hundreds of miles for nothing.

  "And how did Lord Antony take this intelligence?" I asked.

  "I saw his sorrow, but he did not show it to his men," said Eros. "He attempted to make the best of the bad situation, to force Phraaspa to fight him, but it was useless. We were stranded there and he knew it--that was the bitter part. The Parthians had no incentive to make concessions or even return the eagles from either Crassus or the latest loss. Then October came and the weather changed. We would have to retreat."

  Retreat. That most abject of all maneuvers to be managed by a general! And after nothing at all!

  "Thus far we had lost only a few men from the main army, since we had fought no actual battles. But that changed. I can tell you, my Queen, that altogether a third of the army has been lost--thirty-two thousand of the best legionaries, more than even Crassus lost!"

  Now he did lower his head and weep. I let him cry as long as he wished, leaving him alone in that corner of the room. I stood trembling before the window, seeing--but not seeing--the nasty seas outside. I must control myself. I must hear it all.

  The thirty-two thousand legionaries--they were the blackened and drying bodies I had seen in my vision, with Antony crawling over them. On that great, open, stony field . . .

  He was wiping his eyes. "A native of that area told us that we must not retreat the same way we had come, in spite of the Parthians' assurances of safe withdrawal. He said they meant to set upon us in the plains and finish us off." He paused. "We did not know whether to trust him or not. Perhaps he was sent merely to mislead us. But in the end Lord Antony did."

  Yes, he always trusted.

  "And it proved to be our salvation."

  Sometimes trust was rewarded. But seldom. "How could it be your salvation? You said you lost a third of the army--not counting those ten thousand killed with the baggage train! Forty-two thousand altogether! Almost half, then!" I cried.

  "Had it not been for the mountainous path of our retreat, and the bravery and strength of the lord Antony, we would have lost the entire army," he said. "We were attacked and harried all the way; we fought eighteen defensive battles to get out. It is difficult to keep an orderly retreat from turning into a rout. Antony did that, although we had no food, little water, and winter was closing in. It took us twenty-seven days to reach the border of Armenia, to cross the Araxes. We had to march under the most extreme conditions, and discipline barely held. Antony brought a starving army in rags across the border. And do you know what the Parthians did when we crossed the river?"

  "No, I am sure I do not." The gods had not granted me that picture.

  "They cheered and applauded our bravery."

  Bravery . . . yes, it was godlike. But it could not confer political power. Antony had failed. He had failed, where Octavian had succeeded. Now the scales must tip, inexorably and irrecoverably.

  Anger and grief overcame me. I cried aloud to the gods. Then I saw Eros staring at me, unnerved. I must not add to his burdens.

  "Pray continue," I said, struggling to make my voice level.

  "I would not grieve you further," he said.

  Both of us, striving to spare each other.

  "No, please speak. I must hear."

  "I must tell it--tell of the worst moment of the entire campaign." He straightened himself, squaring his little shoulders. "There was a point when it seemed we were doomed--overcome. The lord--my Antony believed that the Parthians were upon us. He--he ordered me to kill him, run him through with his sword--" He shook with the memory, and I felt all strength draining from me.

  "And--" I whispered. How could he have wanted that? How could he have left me like that? I knew it was a sentiment unsuited to the battlefield, where all the rules are different, but had he not thought, even for a moment, of his other life? Was he that ready to throw it away? There can be satisfactions in the life of a private citizen; they should not be scorned.

  "I took the sword, and it felt a hundred times heavier than it ever had before. I started to lift it. But when he said, And cut off my head, and bury it so the Parthians cannot capture it,' I could not. I ran away."

  I gripped the back of the chair nearest me. He had actually commanded that? I felt myself about to vomit. I looked around for some vessel, some containe
r, but found none, and rushed to the window. It was so revolting, so unspeakable--I retched over the side of the window, sour vomit splashing on the marble tiles of the terrace. His head! That dearest head!

  Eros looked green as well. I could see his throat constricting. "He remembered what they had done to Crassus's head, using it in a mock Roman Triumph, tossing it about, making sport with it--he had to prevent that."

  Still I went on being sick. That this very person in the room would have had to saw it off! There was nothing left in my stomach, but I clung to the windowsill and coughed. I could not even be ashamed. There could be no reserves left between us.

  "It was unnecessary," he finally said, softly. "It was a false alarm."

  That he could have died for a false report--but for Eros! "Thanks be to all the gods that you loved him enough to refuse."

  "There are those who would say that for me to have refused and run away was a lack of love. Certainly a lack of obedience."

  "I don't care!" I said. "Sometimes one must submit to a higher obedience! To refuse to kill when you feel there is still hope--" I shook my head, and sought for a napkin to wipe my mouth. This was worse than the nightmare, worse than any dream.

  "Once across the border into Armenia, we had no choice but to treat King Artavasdes as a friend, pretending that we believed his excuses for leaving the army. But for our safety we could not winter there. We had to continue our retreat through the mountains of Armenia, where we lost another eight thousand men to disease and exposure."