Memoirs of Cleopatra (1997)

by Margaret George

  My mind was fully awake now, but I did not wish to arise yet. I would lie pretending to be asleep; sometimes I thought best that way, with just a touch of dream still clinging to me. The warmth of the body close beside me cosseted me, making me feel safe. Safe forever and ever. But not so. . . .

  Octavian was coming closer. What if I managed to see him in person? A face-to-face interview could accomplish much that formal letters did not. I seldom failed in a direct meeting; it was my greatest strength. If I saw him, looked him in the eye . . .

  I turned over, suppressing a slight shudder. Those eyes . . . what had Olympos called them? Clear, grayish blue, utterly emotionless . . . a flatness with life yet behind it. I remembered those eyes. I did not really care to look into them. But if I could . . . perhaps . . .

  Antony twitched and jerked, starting to wake up. He would never want me to do it; he would object. But months ago I had decided to do anything. There was no line I would not cross, unlike the proud and noble Antony. In that way Octavian and I were alike. Years ago I had said, May the best man win, between the two of us. The contest was not over yet. An interview with him, alone, could work in my favor.

  Antony's arms tightened around me. If he had known my thoughts, he probably would have recoiled rather than embracing me. He started rubbing his head against mine affectionately.

  At the movement, the monkey made her arthritic way across the floor and jumped stiffly up onto the bed to join us.

  * * *

  Antyllus stood before us, seeming taller since he had qualified for the toga virilis. He was wearing it now, its natural white as pure as the marble of the Lighthouse.

  "You will greet your cousin respectfully," Antony was instructing him. "After all, you have grown up in his sister's home, and known him all your life. You were once betrothed to his daughter."

  "I didn't know him well," he protested.

  "No one knows Octavian well," said Antony, "probably not even his own daughter. That does not matter. I am sending you as my emissary to salute him and present these gifts of gold to him. Give him the letter in which I remind him of our years of friendship, of joint rulership, of ties of kinship. I ask him to let me retire into private life and live in Athens. After all, Lepidus did so. If he refuses, give him this personal letter." "Is it wise for him to go all the way to Ptolemais Ace?" I asked. I did not like sending Antyllus directly into the enemy camp. Had Antony never considered that Octavian might take him as a hostage? It seemed rash to me.

  "He'll do well enough," said Antony. "It is only three hundred miles by sea."

  "Don't remind me how close Octavian is!" Luckily he would have to march by land, much farther, and through the Sinai, too. "And that's not what I meant. I meant, why put your son in his hands?"

  "I have to send the highest-ranking emissary I can, and that is my eldest son and heir. Octavian will not respond to anything less."

  "He may respond in a way you won't like," I said. "I think it's a dangerous risk."

  Antony sighed. "We must hope for the best. Now, Antyllus, no one must see the contents of the second letter but Octavian, in privacy. Make sure of it."

  "What's in it?" I was suddenly suspicious.

  "I said no one but Octavian," Antony said firmly. "Not even you." He put his hands on his son's shoulders. "I have the utmost confidence in you," he said. "I will be awaiting the answer you bring back."

  The boy--young man now--squared his shoulders, proud of his mission. "Yes, Father. I am honored to do it."

  While we waited, Antony and his Synapothanoumenoi held many banquets, rotating around to each mansion throughout the city. Each tried to outdo the last in abandoned profligacy, as if determined to waste all earthly possessions in a blaze of glory, like a funeral pyre. I found them boring, not even a good distraction. Why has no one ever written on the fact that impersonal debauches or extravaganzas leave as much space for brooding as does complete privacy? One is equally alone in both.

  * * *

  Mardian brought the two muscular men in tattered clothes before us.

  "Here are those you seek," he told them. To us he said, "Your champions are here."

  They were utterly unfamiliar. "Good sirs, who are you?" I had to ask.

  "We are gladiators from the school at Cyzicus--trained to fight in your victory games. Which still might be held someday, the gods willing! We have not gone over to him." The man who was speaking was stout and had a shaved head. I wondered what his weapons of choice were. Thracian? Samnite? He would not do well with the net; his arms were too short.

  "But we were halted by King Herod once we reached Judaea. The rest of our party is detained there; we escaped to come to you." His companion had the long legs and dark skin of a Nubian. Good gladiators came from all over the world.

  "And you are all that got away?" asked Antony.

  "Yes, lord. I am afraid so."

  "You and your company have proved more loyal than all the client kings with their effusive vows of allegiance," said Antony. Was his voice trembling, just a little? "For that I am deeply grateful. You are the heroes among heroes." He turned to Mardian. "Give them the gold of their deserving, and let them be housed in the palace."

  "You will have to be retrained," I told them. "The games we normally have here are Greek. No killing. Still, I imagine you can adapt."

  They bowed in a most professional manner.

  Hard on their heels, Antyllus returned. I was deeply relieved that Octavian had not "detained" him as Herod had the gladiators, but Antony was disappointed in the reply.

  Alone with us after the dinner welcoming him home, Antyllus recounted his experience.

  "He treated me courteously enough," he said, "but it was as if I were a stranger! He did not betray any familiarity with me, let alone warmth."

  "He spoke with you in private?" Antony asked.

  "Yes, in the old Phoenician palace he was using for headquarters," Antyllus said. "It overlooks the sea, so close that breaking waves send spray in the windows. It made quiet conversation difficult. But I was alone with him, except for his guards, of course. He was seated casually--he even crossed his legs! He told me to pull up a chair, then chatted away."

  "Well, what did he say?" Antony pressed.

  "His chatting was nothing. I don't remember. He kept staring at me, while pretending not to."

  "Yes, that's his way," I remembered.

  "He examined the gifts carefully, running his hands over the rim of the gold plate. He said he must refuse your request to retire into private life in Athens. He said the city was too fervently pledged to him now for it to be safe for you."

  Antony was fidgeting with his hands, most unlike him. "Did you present the second letter?" he finally burst out.

  "Yes." He rummaged around in a carrying case, and handed the letter back to Antony. The original seal had been broken, but another had been affixed. "He said for you to read it in private. He wrote an answer on it, very quickly. Just a word or two."

  "Well, what was it?" Antony asked, taking the letter.

  "I don't know, sir. Truly I don't. He didn't say."

  "Oh." Antony turned the letter over in his hands. We were all watching him. Slowly he broke the seal and unrolled the letter, his eyes darting down to the end of the scroll. Whatever he read there caused a look of consternation to cross his face. "Oh." He rolled it up again, then tucked it in his belt.

  "Well, perhaps we will have better luck sometime later," he said, an unconvincing smile spreading across his face. "I am proud of you, my son. You have executed a most difficult mission, and done it well." He raised a cup to him, and asked us all to drink to Antyllus.

  The evening passed in congenial conversation, while sipping good Falernian wine. I urged Antony to refill his cup regularly. I wanted his head swimming, so he would be careless of his clothes when he undressed. But to my frustration, he was unusually restrained tonight. And at the end of the evening, he made off for his own quarters, announcing that he intended to sleep th
ere.

  "I have an aching head and would do better by myself," he said. "The palace noises are farther removed there." And he sauntered off, calling for Eros.

  I waited until I thought enough time had passed, then I stole over to his apartments. The startled Eros let me in, and I slid past him into the bedchamber. If I was lucky, Antony would be asleep. But no! He was sitting up, the lamps still lit, reading. He looked surprised to see me.

  "I did not wish to be alone tonight," I said apologetically. "But I will stay on this couch, and not disturb you if your head cannot stand jostling."

  "Oh," he said, his polite smile unfailing, while he touched his forehead, "it is not as bad as all that. I would not banish you to a couch."

  Then followed a set of steps in which we each assured the other. At length we retired to bed together. (I would rather have been on the couch, the better to get up unobserved.) He had put out all the lamps, but I was fortunate in that the moon was nearly full and by midnight cast a shaft of bright light across the floor. His even breathing told me he was asleep by that time.

  As carefully as possible I climbed from the bed and inched my way across the floor to where he had left his clothes when he undressed. The letter was still with the belt; he had covered them up with his discarded outer garment. I stuck my hand under it and felt for the leather case. I found it without difficulty. I crawled across the floor and unrolled the letter as quietly as possible, just outside the rectangle of moonlight.

  Antony suddenly turned over and I froze. What if he was awake enough to notice I had gone? He seemed roused, and I did not dare move. But then his sleepy coughing told me he was still safely unaware, and ready to drop back into slumber. I waited another few minutes and then edged the letter out into the light where I could read it.

  .

  dear brother, I come to you now as that. Between brothers, I hereby declare to you that I am willing to do that which honor albws me. Death wiU be my friend and our bond if thereby I can guarantee the life of the Queen. I gladly exchange my life for hers, and I trust that you will honor your word, once given. Let her live, I ask you. No, I beg you. Your word then given, I will straightway fulfill my promise. I salute you in death, a death I gladly offer.

  --Marcus Antonius, Imperator

  .

  And scrawled right beneath it, under Antony's signature and seal, were the stark words: "Do as you will. Nothing can save her.--Imperator G. Caesar, Divi Filius."

  I felt cold all over. My nose, my fingers . . . Antony had offered this, without telling me.7 And the thing that Octavian had demanded of me, he now refused, when Antony himself offered it. It seemed that Antony's head was not what he had wanted after all, but only to prove he could make me betray him. He was a fiend.

  Shaking, I rolled the letter up again, replaced it, and got back into bed beside Antony, wanting to wake him up and hold him more tightly than I ever had. But better to let him sleep.

  Chapter 82.

  The summer continued to unfold, the high-riding sun mounting to his farthest reach in the sky. The month of Julius arrived, and on its first day we gathered around his statue in Caesarion's old quarters and offered up prayers and requests. Our son must be at the shores of the Red Sea by now, awaiting the ship to take him to India by mid-July. I had heard nothing since he departed. A few days earlier his seventeenth birthday had come around, and I had thanked Isis for him and beseeched her to protect him. One can never ask too many gods, and since Caesar was a new one, it seemed prudent to go to Isis as well.

  Reports were that Octavian had left Ptolemais Ace and was proceeding south; he was expected to reach Joppa before long. Herod was providing him with not only a hero's welcome but with troops, supplies, and guides. Behind him streamed all his legions; Octavian was finally granted the chance to march along at the head of a mighty army, like a genuine general--instead of the imitation one he was.

  It was time for another mission to him. There still might be a chance to buy him off. He must be told about the treasure I stood ready to torch. We must exaggerate the size of the force and resistance waiting to meet him; perhaps he would take the easier way and negotiate. The best we could hope for was abdication and banishment for me, banishment for Antony, in exchange for Caesarion--or even Alexander and Selene--being made ruler in my place. He could have the treasure in return, pay off his soldiers. That way we would both get what we wanted without bloodshed: he the treasury, I the continued independence--nominal, of course--of Egypt under the Ptolemies. Egypt's strength would be gone, but at least she would still be in existence. It was not altogether impossible that I could bring this about.

  This would be my mission, and I would send Euphronius, the children's tutor, as ambassador.

  "Send a schoolmaster?" Antony was incredulous.

  "Yes, why not?"

  "But wouldn't Mardian, or even Epaphroditus, be more respectful?"

  "I am not trying to be respectful. Sending Antyllus did not seem to carry much weight. Perhaps it's better to do the opposite, and send a menial. That will catch his attention." I had decided this would be my last appeal to him; as he approached closer, there would be nothing but silence to greet him.

  There was gold to go along with the letter, in which I repeated my request that he put my heir in my place. I said I would surrender the throne into his hands on this assurance. I also said that I had secured a large portion of the Ptolemaic treasure in a place where it could be destroyed in the twinkling of an eye, if I saw fit. His refusal to accede to my wishes would cost him, literally, a fortune. He did not wish that, did he? Then let us be reasonable, and come to an agreement.

  I sealed the letter, pleased with its wording, but, above all, pleased with my foresight in assuring that I still had something to offer him. As I said earlier, in order to negotiate, one has to have something to bargain with-- something the other person wants, and wants badly. Antony's life did not fall into that category, so Octavian had no incentive to consider his desperate request.

  It seems that in this miserable life, it is not the despair of the supplicant that moves the hearer, but his own selfish desires. If he needs a footstool, and the bent back can serve, then . . . Otherwise, a kick sends him on his way.

  Just as Euphronius was ready to depart, Antony suddenly decided he wished to add a letter of his own. This time I insisted on reading it, as I wanted no repeat of the previous one. What if, on a whim, Octavian said yes? He was just cruel enough to say it offhandedly.

  "Single combat?" This was not at all what I had expected the letter to say. "What do you mean?"

  "Only that if he would agree to meet me, man to man, and we could fight, and thereby determine the outcome, it would save so many lives."

  Was he mad? Was he never fully to regain the hearty common sense he had had before Actium, but continue to have relapses into odd thinking and behavior?

  "You know Octavian would never agree to that," I said slowly. "He has nothing to gain by it and everything to lose. Why would a man with twenty legions, who is a poor fighter, agree to personal combat with his superior, who has no army left? He will laugh at you. Don't send this!"

  "What else can I do?" said Antony. "I must propose something!"

  "It makes no sense to make proposals you know won't be accepted. And we aren't Greeks from the age of heroes; great issues aren't decided by personal combat anymore. You can't play Hector. I know the part suits you, but it can't be."

  "I must send it anyway," he insisted. "The gesture must be made."

  The days stretched out. An eerie waiting seemed to grip all Alexandria, although the city seemingly went about its business. But in every house, supplies were being gathered, books balanced, quarrels either mended or pursued to the end, postponed letters written. Fathers gave sons the advice they imagined they would be remiss to withhold, and wills were drawn up. But the expected event was so ill-defined that more specific actions could not be undertaken. There might be fighting, there might not. Only the name of the ruling P
tolemy might change, or the whole government might undergo a massive upheaval, ending with Egypt a Roman province.

  Epaphroditus kept me apprised of the changing moods of the city. He was attending me more often now, presenting the financial picture as a flooding Nile promised another bountiful harvest. Sadly, he also said he feared the Jews of Alexandria might welcome Octavian because he came in company with Herod.

  "Not that Octavian is our friend, as Caesar was," he said. "But Herod is their hero, and they think of Judaea as their homeland."

  I looked at my minister, older now but no less handsome than when I had first persuaded him to work with me. "First you say 'our,' then you change to 'their,' " I pointed out. "Why?"

  He rubbed his forehead. "I am caught between merely observing what my people do and joining them. I hold myself apart from the common thinking. Certainly I don't look on Judaea as my homeland, and I think it's foolish of anyone who has lived away from a place for generations to call it home. It's a sentimental corruption of their thinking, and can be dangerous." He laughed. "Why, we could no longer read our holy writings in the Judaean tongue, and had to have it translated into Greek, and that was two hundred years ago! We have been gone from that land a long time."

  He looked so fierce in asserting his disapproval that I had to smile. "Well, the Ptolemies have been gone from Macedonia for just as long, but we still call our palace guards the Macedonian Guard," I said.