Antony and Cleopatra (18 page)

Cleopatra was about eighteen when her father died in 51
BC
, the oldest of Auletes' four surviving children. Her sister Arsinoe was younger by one or more years and the older of their two brothers was just ten. Their father had intended Ptolemy XIII and Cleopatra to rule jointly. It is normally assumed that they were quickly married in accordance with the family tradition, but no source explicitly tells us this, and it was unusual for a Ptolemaic king to take a wife who was so much older. On the other hand, if Ptolemy XIII had subsequently married then friction would always have been likely between his wife and his sister and co-ruler, so in many respects marriage between the royal siblings encouraged stability. It is also possible that a marriage was planned, but did not actually take place.

We do not know how Auletes died and whether his death was sudden or long anticipated. This means that it is uncertain how far he prepared the way for the succession. There were problems from the beginning. Ptolemy XIII was a minor who could not rule himself and so required some form of regency. There was a long tradition amongst the Ptolemies of giving important courtiers the status of‘friends' or the even greater honour of‘kinsmen', in keeping with Macedonian tradition, which had surrounded Alexander and other kings with ‘companions'. A number of important men were associated with the boy and formed a loose faction around him. The dominant figures were his tutor Theodotus of Samos and the eunuch Pothinus. There does not seem to have been any formally appointed regent or regency council, merely a group of prominent men able to influence and effectively control the young prince. All had ambitions of their own and were united only in a desire to increase the importance Ptolemy XI and so gain power themselves.
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Cleopatra also had her advisers and allies, although we know next to nothing about them. This is because she was older, confident enough to assert herself and unwilling to let anyone else rule through her. From the beginning this created tension. Her favourites doubtless gained prestige and power within the court, but these were inevitably a minority. Other men saw their rivals doing well, as their own influence and importance declined or at best remained the same. If they were unable to ingratiate themselves with the young queen, then the natural alternative was to turn to her brother. Increasing his power would benefit all those who surrounded and supported him.

The teenage queen made her intentions clear very quickly. Ignoring her father's will, Cleopatra made herself sole monarch of his kingdom. Official documents from 51
BC
make no mention of Ptolemy XIII. They refer instead to ‘Year Thirty, which is also Year One'. The Egyptian system of dating inherited by the Ptolemies was based around the years of rule of each monarch. Year Thirty was the final year of Auletes' reign – tactfully ignoring the period of his exile. Therefore the year marked the end of one era and the start of the new reign of the sole queen. She styled herself the ‘father-loving goddess'
(Thea Philopator),
at once stressing her connection with Auletes and ignoring his declaration that his children were ‘sibling-loving'.

Her sole rule was also reflected in less official sources. A priest of an association dedicated to the worship of the goddess Isis seems to have prepared a statue to dedicate to Ptolemy XII. When the king died, this man had the inscription altered to celebrate ‘Queen Cleopatra Thea Philopator' instead. Time, cost or lack of concern meant that the statue was still of an obviously male figure in the traditional garb of a pharaoh. There is no mention on the inscription of Ptolemy XIII.
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On the 22 March 51
BC
a grand ceremony was held at Hermonthis in Upper Egypt to enthrone a new Buchis bull, the focus of one of the great animal cults of Egypt. Whenever a Buchis bull died, it was carefully mummified and buried, while the priests searched for a replacement of suitable type, size and colour. The Buchis bull was supposed to change colour during the course of each day. The animal cults of Egypt often attracted the scorn of Greek and Roman observers, but that did nothing to prevent their popularity, which extended beyond the indigenous population to many settlers from outside. Most famous was the Apis bull whose shrine was at Memphis, but there were others. The Buchis bull was believed to be in some way the physical manifestation of Montu, a god of war, and was also sacred to other deities. Hermonthis lay on the opposite bank of the Nile to the Upper Kingdom's capital city of Thebes and had immense prestige.

An inscription from Hermonthis, recording the burial of this Buchis bull more than twenty years later, stated that:

Such inscriptions were formulaic, so that we need to be cautious about reading too much into the details. ‘He was installed by the king himself was a traditional formula and did not usually mean that the king was in fact present. We do not know if it anyway refers to Auletes, or less probably Ptolemy XIII, or is simply used vaguely to mean Cleopatra herself, in this traditional religious role of the pharaoh.

Many historians chose to take the description of her participation literally. If this is correct, then it would be striking that the new queen was willing to travel to the south of her realm so early in her reign, removing her from Alexandria and the court for a period of a least a few weeks. Ptolemy Auletes was generous to the temple cults, and this can be seen as an extension of his patronage, taken a stage further by a young queen able to speak the Egyptian language. Upper Egypt does seem to have been consistently loyal to both father and daughter, which could suggest that this attention was rewarded. Cleopatra certainly continued to build temples and fund the cults. Another inscription records that she gave money to pay for the ceremonial feasts accompanying the instalment of a new Apis bull. However, in this case the sum involved was no more than 421 silver coins, making the gift generous, but not on an especially grand scale.
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It is certainly possible that the eighteen-year-old Cleopatra actually did go down the Nile and play a role in the rituals of the Buchis bull. She does seem to have enjoyed theatre, perhaps felt a genuine religious commitment to the cult and may also have wanted to show herself as queen in a very public role. The ‘rowing' would never have to be more than symbolic. Extending this to a deep commitment to traditional Egyptian religion and culture remains a very large step even beyond this, as does the claim that ‘she was indeed queen of Egypt' in contrast to earlier Ptolemies. We do have to remember that her participation may have been entirely symbolic, consisting of financial support and official words of approval issued from distant Alexandria. It was obviously in the interests of the priests of the cult to portray royal involvement as direct and true, in an ideal rather than literal sense. Once again we simply do not know, making this a flimsy piece of evidence on which to base sweeping statements about Cleopatra's policies and attitudes.
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There was no tradition of a Ptolemaic queen ruling alone for any length of time. Cleopatra was intelligent, capable and ambitious, but she was also young and inexperienced. Perhaps she believed that she could be the exception to this, but her position was always precarious and it was difficult to keep enough of the court and wider aristocracy satisfied. The Roman attitude was almost as vital, but remained unclear. Although news of Auletes' death had reached Rome by the summer of 51
BC,
the Senate took no action to recognise the new queen or to enforce the terms of her father's will. There were plenty of other matters occupying the senators' minds and a general indifference to Egypt's affairs. It had after all taken Auletes more than a decade and concerted lobbying and bribery to gain the formal acceptance of the Roman Republic.
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Crassus' unprovoked and disastrous invasion of Parthia was followed by a series of heavy Parthian raids into the Roman provinces. In 50
BC
, the Roman proconsul governing Syria was Marcus Calpurnius Bibulus, son-in-law of Cato. Bibulus had the misfortune to be Julius Caesar's contemporary, and in a succession of magistracies was overshadowed by his far more charismatic and able colleague. In 59
BC
the two men were consuls and after vain attempts to block Caesar's legislation, Bibulus had retired to his house. He produced a stream of scurrilous attacks on his colleague, whilst all the time proclaiming that public business was invalid because of bad omens. People joked that the year was the consulship of Julius and Caesar rather than Caesar and Bibulus.
⁷

Like Cicero, Bibulus had only reluctantly gone out to govern a province, but once there he seems to have tried to do the job to the best of his limited ability. With only the remnants of Crassus' army at his disposal, he sent two of his sons to Alexandria to summon the Gabinian troops. This does suggest that these were still seen as part of the Roman army, although it is just possible that he simply saw them as Roman citizens and so obliged to serve the cause of the Republic. Whatever Bibulus' view, the Gabinians and their officers did not recognise his authority. Not only did they refuse to answer to leave Egypt, but they also promptly murdered the proconsul's sons.

Cleopatra had the ringleaders arrested and sent in chains to Bibulus for punishment. As one source puts it, ‘No greater favour could have been offered to a mourner. But when offered it, he made grief yield to moderation and had the slaughterers of his flesh and blood returned to Cleopatra immediately unharmed, saying that the power to punish them should be the Senate's, not his.'
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The young queen had demonstrated her loyalty to Rome and asserted some degree of control over the Gabinians, who formed such a major part of the royal army. It is not known what happened to the prisoners once they were returned to her by Bibulus. Cleopatra had been able to arrest these men, but had not been able to get the Gabinians to go to Syria, assuming that she wanted this. The queen's willingness to hand these officers over for execution can scarcely have endeared her to their colleagues.

Much of Auletes' unpopularity in 58
BC
came from his fawning attitude to Roman power. Many Alexandrians, and in particular many of the well-off and influential, seem to have resented this. It is more than likely that Cleopatra's actions following the murder of Bibulus'sons caused a similar reaction, but we should be careful not to push this too far. It was not a simple question of pro- and anti-Roman factions at court. Instead, any perceived weakness or mistake made by the queen was bound to be exploited by the faction surrounding her brother. Discontent amongst army officers weakened Cleopatra and aided men like Pothinus and Theodotus.

At some point in 50
BC
the queen's sole rule ended and she was forced to acknowledge her brother as co-ruler. For a while there seems to have been co-operation between the two, at least officially. There are relatively few formal documents from this period, but Ptolemy XIII more often than not is named first. This may simply be because a king would normally be considered the dominant partner, but perhaps reflects the real balance of power. On 27 October a decree was issued in the name of the king and queen forbidding any excess from the harvest being stored locally and commanding that all of this was to be transported to Alexandria. The death penalty was to be imposed on anyone violating this decree and ‘whoever wishes shall inform … about contraventions of this order, on the understanding that he shall receive a third part of the property of the person found guilty, or, if he be a slave, shall be freed and in addition receive the sixth part'. Harsh penalties for violating royal decrees were not unusual.
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In this case, the harvests seem to be have been bad for several years in succession as the annual inundations were low. At the same time the royal bureaucracy pressed hard to levy taxation on what was produced. Other documents from this period hint at widespread hardship and shortages. In some cases the peasants took the traditional route of protest by fleeing from the lands they were supposed to work.

Alexandria was large and had a volatile population. Food shortages there were likely to cause rioting, which could quickly destabilise any regime. Therefore the royal decree may simply have been intended to make sure that however bad the situation was, the inhabitants of the great city were adequately fed. Yet there may be more to it than this. Some scholars have suggested that Cleopatra had already left the city and gone to Upper Egypt to rally support against her brother. If so, then the law was designed to deny her the food supplies she would need to feed any army she raised.
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More probably, the relations between brother and sister had not yet broken down into actual conflict. The measure could just as easily have been intended to keep all resources under the close supervision of Ptolemy's supporters and so deter Cleopatra from resorting to open resistance. It is more than possible that for a year or so there was the same sort of uneasy truce that had at times operated between Ptolemy Physcon and his two queens.

By the end of 50
BC
the official dating system spoke of‘Year One, which is also Year Three', and the former clearly referred to the reign of Ptolemy XIII. Cleopatra may still have been in Alexandria when Pompey sent his elder son Cnaeus Pompey to the royal court in 49
BC
. Having evacuated Italy, Pompey and his allies were busy organising the great army that was intended to smash Caesar, either in Macedonia or by returning to Italy itself. Therefore envoys were sent to gather men and resources from all the provinces and allied kingdoms of the eastern Mediterranean. Pompey's past connection with Auletes may well have encouraged him to send his son to the Ptolemaic court, although it is more than likely that he also visited other regions. Cnaeus got at least some of what he requested. Five hundred Gallic and German cavalry drawn from amongst the Gabinians were despatched to join Pompey's army, which included many contingents of allied troops to support the legions. In addition, he received sixty oared warships, apparently fully equipped and crewed. Egypt also sent wheat to feed the Pompeian forces.
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