Memoirs of Cleopatra (1997)

by Margaret George

  I draw it slowly out of its basket. It is longer than I had guessed; as long as the span of both my arms. And as it flops out, I see more movement in the basket. Nakht has sent two. That was foresighted of him.

  "So here it is," I say, staring at the serpent. Its dark eyes look into mine. Its tongue wavers, testing. I hold it up.

  Mardian, Iras, and Charmian flinch. They cannot help it.

  "Madam--" says Charmian, but her protest dies on her lips.

  The creature seems sluggish. He lies upon my hand as if he were a pet, as tame as my dear monkey. But we have not all the time in the world. Octavian will get the note soon. He will know.

  I smack its head, and it draws back, hissing. Then the hood--familiar from a thousand representations, reflected on my own crown--spreads itself.

  So quickly that I cannot follow it with my eyes, it strikes. It bites my arm, sinking its fangs in. They feel like needles, tiny little pins.

  Now I wait. With great joy I know I am delivered. I can only write a little more. It was my other arm it struck, but I yet have things to do before I sleep. My arm tingles; the fingers grow cold, as if they do not belong to me. The loss of sensation is creeping upward, but there is no real pain. At the same time it is affecting my mind; I feel a carelessness--more deadly than pain-- taking possession of me. It is a fuzzy lightheadedness . . . why be concerned? Why take pains to finish the task?

  Because I am the Queen. And my will is stronger than the poison. I will do what I must, until the last moment.

  So I close you, and entrust you to Olympos. May my story be preserved, and the truth survive. The world is a hard place to leave. I have done my best by it, served it and loved it with all my being.

  Isis, your daughter comes. Please spread your robe, and welcome her. She has journeyed long to reach you.

  I feel a tugging, pulling me downward. Now I must close you, scroll. Farewell. Vale, as the Romans say. We part now. Remember me. May you live a thousand--ten thousand--years, so that I may live also.

  Peace, my heart. Obey me and stand still. For I have done.

  .

  HERE ENDS THE TENTH SCROLL.

  Chapter 1.

  THE SCROLL OF OLYMPOS

  Fool! Fool that I am! I suspected nothing, all these months--I cannot believe I was so taken in. But was not your way better than mine? What could my way offer you? I am ashamed that evidently I knew you so much less well than I thought. Puffed up with my own sense of responsibility, I thought I could control events--or rather (see, even here I flatter myself) I was afraid to help move them. Instead I sat like a rock, thinking I was wise and strong, when all I truly was was a hindrance and a wedge between us.

  The sun was setting and I was just finishing my own supper when the soldiers stormed in. (Why am I writing this as if you do not know it all, as if you did not, somehow, behold it? I am frantic, trying to calm myself. Talking wildly.) There were three of them, enormous fellows, made even more enormous by their thick breastplates and high helmets. One of them grabbed me by the shoulder and shook me. I thought my teeth would fly out.

  "Filthy Greek!" he shouted. "Filthy, lying, treacherous Greek!" Then he threw me against the wall. I hit it so hard I actually bounced off and fell onto my face on the floor.

  Then I was hauled up again, and there was more yelling in my ear. All the shaking, throwing, and bouncing made me feel nauseated. I was afraid I would vomit right onto the soldier's sandals, which were wavering dangerously before my eyes.

  "You did it, you can undo it!"

  "Let him loose, Appius," one of the others said. "It won't do any good to have him dead, too."

  "If he can't fix it, he will be dead," my tormentor said.

  As soon as I heard "dead," I knew. And, oddly, what I felt was relief.

  (Then why had I tried to prevent it? Why had I driven you to resort to the bizarre?)

  "The Queen is--you have to save her!" bellowed Appius, the leader.

  "Where is she? What has happened?" I asked. A fair question, would you not agree?

  "You know well enough," he snapped. "Since you arranged it!"

  He jerked my arm and started pulling me toward the door. For good measure another soldier stuck a dagger at my back--as if I needed prodding.

  When we reached the mausoleum, a huge crowd was gathered outside, but the door was strictly guarded. People were trying to peep inside, but the soldiers shoved them back at spearpoint. However, they fell away in exaggerated respect as I was escorted in.

  In the dim light I could see yet more people gathered inside. But I had no eyes for them. All I could see was you.

  Oh, I congratulate you. You had arranged it so well, as well as anything you had ever undertaken. Perhaps everything else had been just a preparation for this, your coup and masterpiece.

  You were lying there on the wide lid of your sarcophagus, as still as stone, wearing your royal robes and crown, your arms crossed, with the crook and flail folded over your breast. That you were completely dead was certain. There would be no rescue, no reversal.

  Nonetheless I approached, while my captors watched eagerly--as if I had some secret of life and death, when all I was was a poor mechanic who could tug at the doors of the underworld occasionally, when the gods permitted me.

  I should tell you (if this is still important to you) that you were utterly beautiful. Whatever means you had chosen had left no mark on you, indeed seemed to have enhanced your appearance. Or perhaps it was just the joy of departure. You were so very happy to escape.

  It was not until I took my eyes off your face that I saw the crumpled bodies of Iras and Charmian lying beside the sarcophagus. I bent down and touched them. They were dead, too.

  Only then did I take your hand, just to be sure, before I spoke. Some trace of warmth yet lingered.

  "They are all beyond saving," I said.

  "The Psylli can work miracles," said one of the soldiers. "The Imperator has already sent for them."

  Now I was astounded. "It was snakes?" I asked.

  "We think so," said one man. "We found a trail outside, and this basket--" He held up a wide-mouthed basket that had figs in it.

  I looked at you carefully. There seemed to be two tiny marks on one of your arms, but I could not be sure.

  Snakes. How fitting. Not only are they sacred to Egypt, but associated with the power of the underworld and with fertility. Perhaps I did you a favor by refusing more conventional poisons.

  The Psylli arrived, with much ado. These tribesmen are renowned for supposedly being immune to snake poison, and able to suck the venom from a victims wound and revive him. But they were far too late, in spite of making a fuss and lingering over your arm.

  However, they soon found a target for their attentions, because a moaning from the back of the mausoleum revealed Mardian, doubled up and unconscious. They hovered around him, locating the bite in his leg and treating it vigorously.

  In the meantime, Octavian arrived, angry and white-faced. He marched directly over to the sarcophagus and stared down at you. I thought he would never stop; his face was unreadable. Finally he stepped back and said, but only to himself, "Very well, then. Indeed I shall grant the request."

  He shook his head and only then looked around. "All dead?" he asked.

  "Sir, the Queen was already dead when we got in," said the head guard. "The women were in the process of dying. One was lying here"--he pointed to the limp Iras--"and the other one was straightening the Queen's crown. I seized her and said, 'Mistress, is this well done of your lady?' and she answered, 'Extremely well, and as becomes the descendant of so many kings.' Then she fell dead, too."

  "She spoke the truth," said Octavian. He had an odd smile on his face, it was a smile of--yes, admiration. You had impressed him. Outsmarting him had won his highest respect.

  "Prepare them all for the burial the Queen requested." He handed the guard a note.

  He looked at you almost fondly; "The note spoke well for you." He glanced over at the o
ther sarcophagus. "You and your Antony will lie here together. No, death will not separate you." Then he turned smartly on his heel.

  "Sir," said one of the guards, "there is this one fellow here who survives." And they carried Mardian around to Octavian, and laid him at his feet.

  Octavian laughed. "So this is all the efforts of the Psylli have achieved? He is of no use to me. Nor to anyone, now. Retire from public life, if you recover," he said, dismissing him. "Come." He motioned to his guards. Then, abruptly, he turned to me. I thought he had not even seen me, let alone remembered me.

  "I will forget the words you spoke to me in Rome about the false claims of the Queen's son," he said. "I suggest you forget them, too."

  Then he was gone.

  The Psylli left, and all the extra guards. Morticians came in to ready the dead for burial, and I looked my last at you.

  No matter how long we look, eventually we must stop looking, and go away. It is what the living are forced to do. No amount of looking ever makes us ready to leave.

  But I could not live here, in the mausoleum. You had given me a task. My work was yet to be done.

  Yes, it was well done, and fitting for the descendant of so many kings. I salute you, even as I grieve.

  Friend of my childhood, I had hoped to share old age with you as well. But goddesses do not grow old.

  Chapter 2.

  From Olympos, to Olympos:

  As I have always kept the most meticulous medical notes (those who think I have a prodigious memory are wrong; I merely have a prodigious system for recording and organizing what I have found), so I will record briefly what happened in the tumultuous days following the death of Octavian's last enemy, the Queen of Egypt, Cleopatra the Great. For she was truly the greatest of Egypt's rulers, a political genius who turned the weak country she inherited into something before which even Rome trembled. Who else but a political genius of the first order would have thought of using Romans to threaten Rome? And she was the last to reign over Egypt as a free country. Yes, these notes may be necessary someday, if only to offset the official version of events, preserve a different viewpoint.

  I secured the Queen's last scroll from where it rested near the tomb, neatly rolled up (how like her!), and took it home, where I read it, to my woe and wonder. Mardian was transported to my house, where Dorcas and I nursed him. His recovery was slow, but as I pointed out to him, it was his fat that saved him. That, and the fact that he was bitten low on his leg, below the knee, and that the snake had already bitten three other people before him, and evidently was running low on venom! I have observed that fat people survive poisonous bites better than thin ones . . . possibly the fat traps the poisons?

  He was feverish and delirious for days, muttering and moaning, while his leg swelled and the skin stretched so taut it shone. But at length it subsided, and he was able to recount those last hours in the mausoleum. How the funeral feast was held, how the serpents had been sent from Heliopolis by an arrangement made months before, and how they were waiting inside the building. There were two of them, but only one was used. Where had the other gone? A mystery--both had vanished in the sands outside. How they had planned it all, and how smoothly it had gone. The note sent to Octavian was a request for burial rites. Of course, as soon as he opened it, he knew. Then he sent soldiers running to try to prevent it.

  The poison must have been very swift, since they had not allowed themselves much time to carry out the plan. Mardian told me the asps were prize ones from Heliopolis, bred for their fast, fatal bites. Even normal asps are used in Alexandria as the most humane and painless means of execution, so these must have been a step beyond even that.

  The funeral was royal and magnificent, but only an echo of other celebrations in Alexandria's history. The city was mourning, having fallen at last to Rome, and having lost its proud Queen. Silently its citizens stood watching the cortege, bidding farewell not only to Cleopatra but to their freedom and their glory among cities. Mardian and I stood with the rest, he leaning on crutches.

  Both Iras and Charmian were entombed beside their mistress, and Octavian erected a memorial tablet to them. As I have said, he seemed quite taken with the courage and grace of the death scene in the mausoleum.

  As soon as the funeral was decently over, Octavian went sightseeing. He visited Alexander's tomb, but, not content with merely looking at the conqueror, he insisted that the crystal cover be removed so he could touch him. Evidently he was imbued with the idea that some power would pass from Alexander to him; after all, were they not the same age, and both possessed of an enormous empire? And, truly, Octavian now controlled almost as great an area as Alexander had. He must, then, be Alexander's true successor. Then something untoward happened: a piece of Alexander's nose came off in Octavian's hand. Was the great one rejecting Octavian, or giving him a precious relic? Like most symbolic events, this one was open to wildly differing interpretations.

  Shortly thereafter Octavian ordered all of Antony's statues to be overthrown, but a timely bribe of two thousand talents by a loyal friend of Cleopatra's prevented hers from being likewise destroyed, and thus they remain standing throughout the land.

  Enemies must be punished: Canidius was executed, as were some senators who had adhered too closely to Antony's cause.

  Making a show of his restraint, Octavian was reputed to have taken nothing from the palace except an agate drinking cup, an old possession of the Ptolemies. It was one I knew Cleopatra to have set great store by. But the victor can take his pick of whatever excites his fancy, large or small.

  Behind his smiling face, Octavian proceeded to his heinous deed, the one he had planned all along, as his words to me in the mausoleum revealed. I must record it in the briefest manner, because to linger over it is to ache with helpless fury and sorrow.

  Using the swiftest messengers, Octavian was able to reach Caesarion and Rhodon before they boarded the ship for India. Money persuaded Rhodon in turn to persuade Caesarion that they must return to Alexandria, where Octavian wished to make him King. Once they were there, acting on the practical advice of his philosopher friend Areius, who paraphrased Homer in saying, "Too many Caesars is not a good thing," Octavian had Caesarion killed.

  Of all the lost things in all the world, the things we will never know, this lost son of Caesar and Cleopatra's must stand as the most tantalizing. What would he have been, what being would he have grown into, with the gifts he had from both of his remarkable parents? Octavian did not wish to find out--and so we never shall, either.

  Only one small glint of mercy here: Cleopatra never knew of his fate; she closed her eyes and went into the dark believing that he was safe. Isis had protected her to the last from that which would hinder her passage into the other world by grieving her spirit.

  Where was Caesarion buried? No one knows; I like to think it was beside Antyllus, wherever that was, and that the two boys are together, consoling each other over the fateful downfall of their parents. Both were heirs whose potential challenge Octavian could not brook.

  Such matters having been taken care of, Octavian took his leave of Egypt, carrying his agate cup, his victory, and Cleopatra's three remaining children. If their mother had refused to grace his Triumph, he must make do with them.

  Chapter 3.

  My duties were not over. I had thought they were, with the departure of the Romans. But no. Those of us who are living do not have our obligations and involvements end as neatly as those who have chosen death. Life drags out, drags on, and continues making intermittent, unexpected demands on our loyalties.

  Human decency and respect constrained me to follow the royal children and watch over them in Rome, if only from a distance. I seemed doomed to continue ministering to the Queen long beyond what I had imagined when I gave my promise.

  I followed them to Rome, arriving in the heat of the summer. The children were all lodged together with the long-suffering Octavia. I could see them when I walked on the Palatine at sunset. They looked content eno
ugh as they played games on the grounds with their half-siblings, Antony's other children. Octavia presided over a household of some nine children now, including hers and Fulvia's as well as the Egyptian ones. Octavian's only child, Julia, must have been there often as well, meaning the ages ranged from the nineteen-year-old Marcella to little Philadelphos, age six. I did not make myself known to them, thinking it was better that way, but I hovered on the edges of their lives, spying from the path outside their house.

  Octavian had dallied, making his way slowly overland. It was not until March that he returned, and then he set about planning the details of his Triumph--or, rather, Triumphs, for there were to be three of them, on three successive days. He chose the month that was called Sextilis, the month that Alexandria had fallen. He would parade through the streets on the very day that the Queen's funeral procession had wound through Alexandria. He liked things to be neat like that.

  In the meantime, while awaiting his arrival, the city busied itself thinking of honors for their master, and deeds to please him. The Senate passed a resolution condemning Antony, declaring the day he had been born to be cursed, and forbade anyone to use the names Marcus and Antonius together. His name on all monuments was to be erased, as if he had not existed. They declared the day that Alexandria had fallen to be a supremely lucky day in the calendar, and even proposed that henceforth all Alexandrians must celebrate it as the start of a new era, the first day of a refigured calendar. They proposed that Octavian be granted tribunician power for life, and that he was to be prayed for at all banquets, public and private, and have libations poured to him.