Cleopatra the Great (23 page)

In different circumstances, the unfortunate girl might have had access to the sophisticated abdominal surgery certainly being performed by the first century
BC
, when Caesar himself is said to have been delivered this way during his mother Aurelia's difficult labour. The family name of Caesar was perhaps based on the Latin word for womb, ‘caesus'.

Such procedures were certainly possible with advances in medical equipment, ‘expertly-made precision instruments' such as the first-century
BC
dioptra or bronze speculum used for internal examination. It was much smoother than its Renaissance equivalents, and Alexandria's medical texts even gave instructions to warm and lubricate such cold metal implements as well as the hands of the practitioner.

Yet despite every available procedure and painkiller, Cleopatra still faced a labour which may have been complicated by problems both psychological and physical. Had she developed an abnormal pulse and breathing, it was usual practice to lubricate the neck of the uterus with oil or grease; if the child had shifted position, physical manipulation would have been used to prevent a dangerous breach birth. But although Soranus told practitioners that ‘one should do everything gently and without bruising', some truly horrific instruments were available to extract the child in cases of stillbirth or where the mother's life was regarded as more important, even if this was not always necessarily the case.

Traction hooks could be inserted into the foetus to pull it out whole, or hooked knives employed to decapitate and pull it out piece by piece. Soranus preferred to offset such extreme risks to the mother by amputating as the body parts appeared. Then, if the head was too large to come out naturally, a cranioclast made up of metal forceps with jagged teeth, quite similar to its modern equivalent, was used to break and remove the skull.

Since giving birth was, unsurprisingly, the most dangerous time in a woman's life, the fact that many married in their early teens when their bodies were simply not equipped to deal with the process expected of them caused many of them to die from ruptures, uterine haemorrhage or infection. The epitaph of one eighteen-year-old Egyptian asked, ‘Who died here? Herois. How and when? Heavy-wombed in pained labour she set down her burden — a mother she was for a moment, but the child died also. Light may the earth be on her, may Osiris bestow cool water.' In equally moving correspondence to a father, he was told ‘on receiving my letter please be so good as to come home promptly because your poor daughter Herennia has died. And to think she had already come safely through a miscarriage. For she gave birth to a stillborn child in the 8th month, but herself survived 4 days, and only after that did she die ... so if you come and you so wish, you can see her.' Caesar himself had received such a letter when campaigning in Kent, informing him that his only daughter Julia had died in childbirth and that her baby, his only grandchild, had died a few days later. But in the hot August of 54
BC
, both had been cremated before he was able to pay his own last respects. So it must have been with enormous relief to both Caesar and indeed the whole of Egypt that Cleopatra finally gave birth to a healthy child, not only validating her claim to be the ‘Great Mother Isis', ‘Great Mother of the Gods', but truly the mother of Horus, for her first-born was a boy.

Instantly she was transformed into the maternal figure par excellence — the image of Living Isis breast-feeding her new son cannot be underestimated. Yet despite the impact of such massively powerful propaganda, maternal breast-feeding was only recommended after a period of three weeks to allow the mother to regain her strength. Although babies could be bottle-fed using small pots with thistle-shaped strainers, cow's or goat's milk could cause fatal diarrhoea or dysentery. Women with sufficient means therefore tended to employ a wet nurse or ‘nutrix'. They were advised to seek out a woman who was healthy, between twenty and forty, with several children of her own and preferably Greek.

After any birth, both mother and child traditionally remained secluded in the bedroom for seven days, the time when they were most vulnerable to the supernatural forces blamed for high rates of infant mortality — most children were unnamed for at least a week after birth. The incense used by Isis to drive away evil forces following the birth of Horus would also have been burned for Cleopatra, whose surroundings would have been thick with the costliest frankincense, myrrh and pistacia resins to counter all harm.

Then, on the seventh day, the new mother was traditionally presented with cosmetics and a mirror. Once she was suitably attired, a celebration of thanksgiving would be held and the child named at a special ceremony. So, after the careful attentions of Eiras and Char-mion, a splendidly attired Cleopatra was able to issue the public announcement that a new pharaoh had been born.

The decree was set up in Egyptian demotic script at Sakkara's Serapeum, as throughout the country, and this great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandson of Ptolemy I was inevitably given the same name, Ptolemaios, to continue the dynasty descended from Alexander's half-brother. The additional titles ‘Philometor' and ‘Philopator', ‘Mother and Father Loving' in honour of both his parents were also reflected in the Egyptian form of his name, ‘Ptuwlmis djed tuw en ef Kisrs', ‘Ptolemaios named Caesar', for Cleopatra was determined that ‘the child's parentage was not in doubt. He combined Egypt and Rome in his lineage.' This was something the Alexandrians fully acknowledged when they nicknamed him Caesarion, meaning ‘son of Caesar' or ‘Little Caesar', the name by which he is still best known.

Cleopatra's production of a son must have been a particularly proud achievement in Caesar's Roman world, where male children were considered far superior to girls. Announcing the news of his fatherhood to his close associates Gaius Matius and Gaius Oppius, Caesar also began to contemplate plans for a new law which would make it legal for him to have more than one marriage for the purpose of producing an heir — clear evidence of the serious nature of his relationship with Cleopatra and his intentions for their son.

He issued coinage featuring the head of his ancestor Venus-Aphrodite holding her distinctive sceptre, as well as a series of coins from her Cyprus mint showing Cleopatra as Aphrodite holding the same type of sceptre and nursing her tiny baby. As the coins circulated in the Mediterranean world and announced the news abroad, Cleopatra's royal decree sent throughout Egypt was followed up by Caesarion's name and titles being carved upon the walls of key monuments.

Extraordinary scenes of the birth were completed at her Hermonthis Mammisi, where Cleopatra was portrayed as the goddess helped by female attendants as she gave birth to Horus ‘the Sun Child', fulfilling the famous inscription in the temple at Sais which stated that Isis would give birth to the sun. Sustained by the potent milk of Isis, Hathor and Rattawy, the Sun Child was also portrayed as the son of Montu the war god in a subtle compliment to Caesar, Montu's living representative, and, as stated in the accompanying hieroglyphs, in public acknowledgement that he was Caesarion's father.

As scenes of Caesarion's divine birth continued, Cleopatra was then shown alongside Amun-Ra, whose habit of impregnating royal women by assuming the guise of their husbands was well known; the Hermonthis clergy declared that the god had indeed impregnated their living goddess Cleopatra by assuming the form of Caesar. Yet this complex theological motif stressed an even deeper link with Amun, whose role as father of Alexander as well as Caesarion made the child Alexander's true successor, and like him the bringer of a new golden age.

The repeated stressing of paternity and ancestry at Hermonthis is also revealed in Cleopatra's choice of titles. Alongside her epithets ‘Female Horus, the Great One, Lady of the Two Lands' she was also ‘the Goddess who loves her father' and ‘Image of her father', the Egyptian word ‘father' being interchangeable with ‘ancestor'.

This connection with previous generations, be they father or great-great ad infinitum dating back millennia, was emphasised in the Mammisi's very curious architecture, in which Cleopatra had borrowed from tomb design by commissioning a false door. It was built against the wall of the temple's second room to allow communication with the spirit world, and its presence within her Hermonthis Mammisi suggests the same desire to communicate with the dead as revealed in rites undertaken in Alexandria in the burial chamber of the Soma.

Although new mothers were not allowed inside any temple during a forty-day period of purification after giving birth, such rules can hardly have applied to Cleopatra as pharaoh, nominal high priest of every temple and living incarnation of the deity herself. Wishing to present lavish offerings once sufficiently recovered, she, like most Egyptian and Greek women, would have offered up clothing and jewellery. These would have ranged from the silver uterus-shaped amulets offered to Great Mother Isis to the decorated textiles presented to Hathor-Isis and Artemis-Eileithyia, honoured with various items of clothing in heartfelt thanks for ‘keeping dreadful death far away when in labour'. Similar relief was expressed by a second-century
BC
grandmother at the birth of a baby girl: ‘From your mother, greetings. We received the letter from you in which you announce that you have given birth to your child. I kept praying to the gods every day on your behalf. Now that you have escaped, I am spending my days in the greatest joy. I sent you a flask full of olive oil and several pounds of dried figs.'

Exuberant thanksgiving celebrations would have accompanied the birth of the pharaoh's first son and heir as the Nile flood began less than a month later in mid-July; just as she had brought forth a son, Living Isis now brought forth the waters. To mark her country's renewed fertility, Cleopatra adopted a double form of the cornucopia horn of plenty only previously associated with Arsinoe II. She placed the distinctive emblem on her coinage with the words ‘Kleopatras Basilisses', ‘of Cleopatra the Female King', showing herself as mother to her new son on one side and mother of her country on the other.

While continuing work at the Caesareum on Alexandria's shoreline to honour her baby's absent father, it seems highly likely that, in keeping with pharaonic tradition, she began plans for her own tomb at this time, to ensure it would be complete when needed. She made the revealing decision to have a tomb separate from the Soma, wanting a monument of equal standing to perpetuate her status as legendary goddess in tandem with Alexander's as legendary god. One of the few remaining ancient sources states that ‘she had caused to be built joining the temple of Isis several tombs and monuments of wonderful height and very remarkable for their workmanship.' Although the city had many Isis temples, some believe Cleopatra built her tomb in the eastern Hadra quarter of the city based on remains of a temple with sphinxes and royal statues. But as a further ancient reference refers to ‘the tomb which she was building in the grounds of the palace', it is possible that her tomb was in fact built at the edge of the sea beside an Isis temple on the eastern side of the Lochias promontory and ‘actually formed part of the temple buildings; and if this be so Cleopatra must have had it in mind to be laid to rest within the precincts of the sanctuary of the goddess with whom she was identified'.

During these weeks when Cleopatra was busily embellishing her city and planning Caesarion's inheritance, his father Caesar had travelled through Syria to Anatolia in order to obtain money from those who had supported Pompeius. He had also received reports that Pharnaces II of Pontus, son of Rome's old opponent Mithridates VI of poison antidote fame, had expanded into Roman-held northern Anatolia and killed Roman-appointed tax collectors. Even though Caesar needed cash, he dismissed Pharnaces' offer of a huge crown of gold and his daughter, and on 1 August 47
BC
their forces met at Zela in southern Pontus. As the very place where his father had once beaten Rome with the aid of scythe-wheeled chariots, the son's deployment of the same deadly equipment failed to produce the same result and Caesar won a great victory. Borrowing a pithy epithet from the Greek writer Democritus, Caesar sent the Senate the telegram-like message ‘veni vidi vici' — ‘Came. Saw. Conquered.'

Having spent around nine months in Egypt, he had managed to sort out the rest of the East in two before sailing back to Italy. Landing in the south at Tarentum on 24 September he met with the former Pompeius supporter Cicero, who had been kept under house arrest by Antonius ever since the battle at Pharsalus the previous year. Following another one of their ‘courteous, insincere conversations in which the two men specialised', Caesar agreed to free Cicero on condition that he lent him money.

Yet Caesar also discovered that his deputy Antonius had been exploiting his position by seizing Pompeius' property; Caesar now demanded Antonius paid the going rate for it. In addition he found out that Antonius had alienated the elite by his behaviour, carousing in public with the actress Volumnia, driving her through Rome in a chariot drawn by lions and drinking so heavily that he had thrown up in the middle of the Forum the morning after a friend's wedding. Dropping Antonius as a public liability, Caesar replaced him with his former, more reliable if less flamboyant deputy Marcus Aemilius Lepidus as he now prepared to take on Pompeius' pugnacious sons Gnaeus and Sextus, who had been building up their power base in the region of modern Tunisia.

So, after marching down to western Sicily, Caesar set sail for the North African coast on 25 December, arriving at Hadrumetum (Sousse) three days later. Falling as he disembarked, quick as a flash Caesar reversed the ill omen and, clutching firmly at the sand, exclaimed, ‘Africa! I have tight hold of you!' And on the same day, from her own part of North Africa, his wife Cleopatra, as part of the great Mysteries of Osiris, was directly invoking the gods to protect him.