Memoirs of Cleopatra (1997)

by Margaret George

  "No, we are not set on war," Antony assured him. "After all, how many times have Octavian and I almost fought, only to pull back at the last moment? Five years ago at Tarentum, eight years earlier at Brundisium. It seems we quarrel often, but no blows are struck."

  "Are you calling it a lovers' quarrel?" asked one of the senators, and everyone burst out laughing with high, nervous titters.

  "There is little love lost between them," said Titius.

  At this point I excused myself. I could not bear to sit there any longer. My head was aching, and the welter of accusations and justifications was confusing even me. I needed to get out of that room.

  I was not familiar with the way the house was laid out; it was the headquarters of our legate stationed in Athens. Rome always did her sons proud, and this dwelling was no exception. Little wonder that officers were reluctant to rotate back to Rome, when they could live like this abroad. I wandered down wide hallways, with arched niches filled with statuary, all copies of masterpieces. To the right, Leochares' Apollo looked down on me beneficently; to the left, Pheidias' Dionysus leaned out toward me. Just like Antony and Octavian, their patron gods stood across from each other, staring.

  I stopped and lingered before the Dionysus. The workmanship was superlative. I knew that Athens had gained a new prosperity when wealthy Romans had begun requesting artworks to adorn their homes. Since the world could not order great artists to be born on demand, Athens had risen to the occasion by turning out copies of masterpieces in local workshops and shipping them out everywhere. Today the Roman governor of Syria or the corn merchant on the Esquiline could gaze possessively on identical copies of Praxiteles' Aphrodite. Athens could barely keep up with the orders, and this hallway was a good example of why.

  In spite of its grand size, there was still a formal courtyard surrounded by a roofed colonnade, as in a family home. I found my way to it by following the flow of air through the hallways.

  Air. I needed air. Gratefully I stepped out under the roofed shelter and leaned against one of the columns, cooling my cheeks on the smooth stone. The garden was dark; the moon, past full, would rise later tonight. I could hear a fountain in the middle of the grassy courtyard; the wind, stirring the flower beds around me, brought the delicate sound of splashing water to my ears.

  I sighed; this cool, dark refuge was what I needed to regain my equilibrium. Who would have thought the divorce would have stirred up such heated emotions? But I should not have been surprised. Antony had always had the potential problem of trying to ride two horses: being a Roman magistrate with the inevitable clashes with other Romans, and claiming eastern rights and titles as well. The strain of trying to play-both roles was becoming impossible; the horses were pulling him in different directions. Those who had supported the Roman Antony--that is, the senators and his partisans still in Rome--were horrified to behold this other side. They might refuse to march under his banner at all. But their demand--that he jettison the eastern side-was impossible, in military terms, if nothing else. Abandon the eastern side and he abandoned the money that supported his military machine.

  I tried to think of myself as only that--a military ally who was indispensable. Even had I been a man--Geminius's Herod or Archelaus--with the wealth of Egypt, I would be crucial to his success. He could not leave me-- leave Egypt.

  My eyes became a little accustomed to the dark now, and I could make out the statues--more copies, undoubtedly--standing at gray attention in the garden, surrounded by box hedges emitting their characteristic strong scent. It vied with the lush, full smell of the roses nearby, in full bloom.

  There was a marble bench discreetly set against the wall, and I sat down on it. I would stay here until my thoughts stopped racing, I promised myself. There was no hurry, no need to leave. I leaned my head back and closed my eyes. I could hear the fountain distinctly now. I let its silvery sounds caress my ears.

  I felt trapped here in Athens, as if I could not breathe. From the moment we had landed, one unpleasant finding had followed another. Even Rome had not felt so . . . unfriendly. I was tired of the senators. I wished they would leave . . . no, I didn't. If they left, it would be bad for Antony's cause. I missed the children. I had had to hurry away from Alexandria six months ago, leaving them. June. Tomorrow was Caesarion's fifteenth birthday, and I would not be there.

  Were all these--all the nineteen legions and the four hundred senators-- truly gathered in the name of my fifteen-year-old son's rights? Oh, Caesar-- what a task you left for me. And I am tired, tired, tired ... of pursuing it. I may not be up to it. Your demand may be more than a mortal can bring about, even a mortal who is also a goddess.

  There was no answer, of course. The fountain splashed on, and I could even hear--very faintly--a nightingale somewhere in the dark.

  I must have slept, because I awoke with a start when I heard voices. Men were passing into the garden on the opposite side, their feet crunching on the gravel paths. Instinctively I held still and waited. The meeting must have broken up--or else these men had left early.

  There were no other sounds, so I assumed it meant they had stolen away together, or even that they lived somewhere in the labyrinthine house. They were passing by the fountain. I could see them now, or rather, make out their light-colored tunics moving in the gloom.

  "--it's impossible," one of them muttered.

  "You could see that tonight," his companion answered, in a familiar voice.

  "We must choose."

  "I'm tired of choosing. Just once I'd like to choose right." "Well, even when you choose wrong, you've been able to correct it."

  "I? What about you?"

  "Sure, I have a genius for choosing the losing side. I admit it. But at least I don't stick with it."

  "So much for Sextus." There was a laugh. A laugh I had heard before.

  "How many times have you changed sides now?" The voice was half-admiring, half-sneering. "First Caesar, then Cicero, then Antony. Love 'em and leave 'em, that's my uncle." A slap on the shoulder.

  Plancus and Titius!

  "I didn't leave Caesar," he protested. "He left me."

  "Oh, you mean when he was killed? Thoughtless of him." A laugh.

  "Still, we should congratulate ourselves. We've never failed yet to scramble for the winning side," he continued.

  "Better late than never," agreed Plancus.

  "So you think he's going to lose?"

  They were passing right before the hedge near me. I held my breath and gave thanks that my gown was dark and hard to see.

  "I don't know. It isn't his love for the Queen that disturbs me, it's his dependence on her. He is not free to make the best military plans, but must always consider Egypt and its position. The gods know he's a great tactician, probably the best in the world, but he must compromise his overall strategy because of Egypt. And in war, do you know what they call generals who compromise?"

  "Losers," said Titius.

  They passed by, their arms about each other's shoulders, laughing. Their sandals ground the gravel underfoot.

  Chapter 71.

  "Plancus has gone," said Antony in disbelief, as he read a note just delivered to him in our rooms.

  At least he had the courtesy to write a note, I thought. His mother had taught him well. If you are going to be a turncoat, my boy, always mind your manners. Otherwise youll reflect badly on traitors.

  "And Titius with him, no doubt," I said. I had not yet had the opportunity to tell Antony about the conversation I was privy to in the garden, and I was saddened to hear it confirmed. I had hoped it was just a passing mood with them.

  "You knew about this?" He looked surprised. "How?"

  "I caught part of a conversation between them, but they were only thinking aloud; you know how people rehearse many ideas, but act on few."

  "What was their reason?" Antony kept rereading the note. "This says little, only that after much deliberation, he has decided to return to Rome."

  "I am sorry to say that th
ey were joking--joking about their history of switching sides."

  Antony let out a long sigh. No one had ever left him before, and he, whose strong sense of loyalty was one of his main characteristics, attached great importance to it. "And Titius, you say?"

  "Yes. Shall we pay a call on him? I venture to say we will not find him at home!"

  Titius had been assigned a villa beside that of his uncle, beautifully situated on rising ground with a superlative view of the acropolis. Again, a private palace that any king would have been proud to claim.

  We alighted from the litter and our servant knocked loudly on the door. Eventually a house servant answered, and when we identified ourselves and demanded to see the commander Marcus Titius, he blinked at us and shook his head.

  "The honorable commander is not here," he said.

  "And when will the honorable commander return?" I asked sweetly. "Shall we wait?"

  He looked alarmed. "Oh no, Your Majesty, that would not be fitting. We have no suitable place--"

  I brushed past him easily. "I am not particular," I said. "In fact, I have long wished to tour this villa--I understand that it has several fine mosaics in the dining room. I shall amuse myself for a while."

  "Your Majesty, I must ask you to refrain from--"

  "And I--I'd like to inspect the commander's weapons room. He has long promised to show me his collection of shields, including the copy of Ajax's. He has bragged about it for years!" said Antony heartily. He headed in the opposite direction, to the servant's dismay. He did not know which of us to follow. Finally he settled on Antony.

  As soon as they had gone. Down a hallway, I turned around and followed them. The house was clearly empty. There were a number of telltale trunks stacked in the atrium, and the scattered debris that always seems to appear during packing lay on the floors: dust balls, scraps of paper, pins, and pieces of string.

  "O Athena!" Antony's voice rose in mock surprise. "All the shields are gone!" He stuck his head out of the door and called to me. "Come and see! Someone has stolen Titius's prize collection! Why, you--" He turned to the servant. "He'll have your head for this when he returns!"

  I entered the room, which was stripped and echoing. "Alas, poor Titius!" I had not thought it in me to go along with Antony's game--he, who played when others would weep--but found myself caught up in it. It made things sting less. "How grieved he'll be! Were you asleep when you should have been guarding?"

  I could see the pegs in the wall where the shields had hung. Titius always kept them nearby, as if they brought him luck.

  "No--yes--" He looked miserable.

  "All right, my lad, you needn't pretend any longer," said Antony in consoling tones. "You needn't protect him. We know he's gone, and we know where. We just want to know when--and why."

  "He left last night. As for why, I swear I don't know."

  "He didn't leave letters to be delivered?"

  "No, sir. In the name of all the gods, I am telling the truth."

  It's the younger generation. No manners. I almost laughed at the thought. "Has he taken everything?" I asked.

  "Everything that could be packed," the servant said.

  We left the room and returned to the atrium. Suddenly I said, "As long as I am here, I should see the famous mosaics." I made my way toward the dining room. On the way I passed a bust of Octavian perched on a pedestal. "Why, look! He's forgotten his Octavian!"

  Seeing the face and features of my foe again was startling. After all, I had last seen him when he was barely eighteen, before he became a man, not to mention acquiring an official portrait. This was how he wished to be regarded now. I came closer, scrutinizing it.

  Well, he had changed, but I would still recognize him. He was thinner, and his neck longer, his hair longer and more disheveled. (Why did he want to be portrayed so untidily?) His head was cocked arrogantly, restlessly, his brows furrowed a bit. This was a hungry, seeking man, sizing up anything his eyes fastened on, critically. I had to admire the honesty and nerve of someone who allowed such an accurate characterization of himself to circulate. The energy seemed to burst from the stone.

  "What's wrong? Didn't he want this?" I pressed the boy.

  "He was afraid the marble would crack. Look, there's a fault below the ear." The servant pointed to it.

  I could see the hairline fracture just beneath the little, low-set ears. "What a shame just to leave him here, ail alone! I think we should adopt him!" I turned to Antony. "Don't you think we need an Octavian bust? Let's take him home. And
  "Whatever you wish," said Antony. "But we must find a suitable place for him."

  In the war-planning room, I thought. It is best to keep your adversary before your eyes there.

  That night, when the household noises had ceased and all the servants-- even Eros--had finished their tasks and withdrawn, we talked seriously about the defections. Antony had a drawn look on his face that made him, for the first time, look his fifty years. He was forcing himself to review reports of his junior commanders, in search of good replacements. It was not exactly diverting reading, but it was crucial.

  "There's young Dentatus," he said. "He shows promise. And Gaius Mucianus was recommended by--" He sighed and put down the papers. "Plancus and Titius will be sorely missed. Not that any commander is irreplaceable, except Caesar himself."

  "I think Agrippa's loss to Octavian would be crippling," I said. "He is no Caesar, but he is the nearest thing to a successor, militarily. Except for you, of course," I hastened to add.

  "No point in dreaming about that. Agrippa isn't likely to appear at our headquarters tomorrow."

  I had to ask it. "Antony, why do you think they defected? And what does it mean to our cause?"

  I watched as the thoughts marshaled themselves. His face showed the struggle he had to make sense of it. But he would answer honestly, for that was his nature. He,-like Caesar, did not flinch before the truth.

  "Inasmuch as he stands for anything, Plancus has always favored peace and compromise," he finally said. "He served Caesar loyally, if unremarkably, in Gaul and afterward. Later he voted for amnesty for Caesar's assassins, and tried to support the Senate. Then, when it came down to it, he lost heart for Cicero's policy, and joined me. He never has been a fervent supporter of anything. I suppose he couldn't sustain enough enthusiasm for the coming conflict."

  "Does he think that Octavian will require less?"

  "Perhaps he feels he will be given less responsibility there. And also, lately I caught him in some questionable financial dealings. He was a bit of a thief, as it turned out. I was going to have to take away his privilege of using my signet ring and acting as my agent. He knew what was coming."

  So! He had taken his revenge this way. But would Octavian take him? Octavian (to his credit, I must admit) was reputed to like treachery, but despise traitors. Sometimes he executed them--after extracting their information.

  "But the bust of Octavian--does that mean he always favored him?"

  "Who knows? Maybe it was just an extra one lying around. Octavian has flooded the world with his statues, since they are to be set up alongside Caesar's in all the temples dedicated to Rome, and that's a lot of temples."

  "And Titius?"

  "Titius." He sighed. "I admit he had talent. Although a bit of an opportunist, and a flatterer--"

  I remembered the way he used to kiss my hand, and look meltingly at me. And then I remembered, too, naming that city after him: Titiopolis. I had kept my word. Well, I would change it back again! And Plancus, painting himself blue and dancing around naked at the banquet. . .

  A bit of a flatterer .. .

  "Antony, how many support us only from policy, and how many because of personal loyalty? It seems that we cannot rely on the ones who have joined us for political reasons. Are they with us
out of conviction, or only because they are vaguely against Octavian?"

  "They make it their business to hide that from us, my love," he said. "And it is dangerous to read others' minds. We will just have to trust their better natures." He smiled and pulled me over against him. I rested my chin on the top of his head. "Distrust rots a man's soul."

  I supposed he was right, but it was too noble for me.

  * * *

  Almost two months after Octavia had received her papers of divorce, and left Antony's house, weeping, so it was said, Antyllus, Antony's eldest son, arrived in Athens. Although the wily Octavian had long urged his sister to consider herself divorced and abandon Antony's home, rubbing it in how badly she was treated, when the actual divorce came, he made much of it. He made sure that she transferred from Antony's house to his in broad daylight, with the train of her children trailing after her. She was the wronged woman, the perfect mother, now cast out. With her into Octavian's house went Marcellus, aged ten, the two Marcellas--aged eight and sixteen--then Antony's son Iullus, aged ten, and the two Antonias, aged seven and four. Only Antyllus, at thirteen the eldest of Antony's, wanted to go to his father rather than remain in Rome. And, sensing that he was too old to be used easily, Octavian let him go.

  I had been curious to see Antony's son, this boy who was his Roman heir. Antony talked of him often enough that I knew he carried him close to his heart. But he had not actually seen him in almost nine years, and he was startled by the tall boy who greeted him. He was already in that awkward, gawky stage, without the winsomeness of childhood, that causes such agonies for a youth. He had none of Antony's solidity, but was thin and weedy, with a long, narrow face, and teeth that seemed too big for his mouth. How had Antony and Fulvia ever produced such a slight creature? Still, he had a sweet disposition (which he had inherited from Antony and not from Fulvia), and he was a long way from being grown. He might fill out later.