The Memoirs of Cleopatra (128 page)

“Is he to have no lasting monument at all?” I cried.

Only the monument in my mausoleum? For a man who had owned half the world, rearranging kingdoms and principalities as a housewife rearranges furniture? Was nothing of his to endure? That seemed the cruelest punishment of all, extending far beyond a lifetime.

“It is the fate of the vanquished,” said Mardian slowly. “The victors appropriate what they like, and rescind what they don’t.” He sighed. “You know in our own country one Pharaoh erased the name of his predecessor often enough. Some names have vanished completely, so that we don’t even know they ever existed.”

Yes, but for it to happen to
us
!

The Nile had swelled to his greatest extent, flooding the fields, and now began to recede. Mardian proudly presented me with the projections of the harvest to come.

“It will be the most bountiful in recent memory,” he assured me. “That is, if nothing interferes, such as locusts.” He had brought some cakes flavored with honey, dark and runny, from the islands off Spain.

“Just in time to enrich Octavian,” I said. I nibbled on a cake, which was very messy. There was no way to avoid having sticky fingers and a smeared face.

There had been new reports on his whereabouts. It seemed that the veterans he had recently sent back to Italy were rioting, demanding their payment and plots of land immediately. Even Agrippa had lost control of them, and so Octavian had had to rush back there, though it was winter, and risky sailing. I felt great relief knowing he had left our corner of the world. Perhaps he would find himself so embroiled in trouble he would tarry there a long while, giving us time to rally….

But it also meant his eventual arrival was now a certainty. His time of promises had run out, and only gold could keep him in power. My gold. He would have to come and get it.

It is the fate of the vanquished…names erased…no existence…nothing to endure….
There had to be a way to outsmart Octavian, to cheat him of his final victory over our memories, our very existence. Already I had seen how he created his own version of events to flatter himself and to blacken us—as in his pretense that the soldiers had fought on bravely until Canidius deserted them. And as in another story now circulating: that I had fled Actium in cowardice, with Antony following because he was blinded with love. And after it was all over, Octavian would compose his own history of our struggle, while ours would be obliterated.

So it was then, in those bleak days of late autumn, with the sea rising in storms and sealing Alexandria shut, that I began this history of myself and my purposes. I was determined to record it, so that there would exist a record of what had truly happened, to refute the later lies. And I would not be so stupid as to deposit it in some public place, as Antony had done with his will! What is easier than to seize and search the official archives? No, this story, this statement, this confession would be put in a very safe place, where Octavian would not seek it. I would have it conveyed to Philae, there to be committed to Isis in her sanctuary; and another copy would be taken even farther south, to my sister ruler, the Kandake. It would lie beyond the reach of Rome, waiting until its day came, when there would be ears to hear and believe our side. For in time, they would come, and listen. Isis would know the moment to reveal it.

The Kandake…she had warned me about the Romans, long ago. Now she would be the final refuge of my truth.

And so I took two trusted scribes, and told the story you have read, beginning with “To Isis, my mother, my refuge…” and coming at last to…this.

I found it filled my days in strange ways, reliving my own past, threading events together like beads on a necklace, hoping they made a pattern. For we imagine they must make a pattern, which must be comprehensible from a great distance. Perhaps that great distance can only be time, which means it is impossible for me to grasp the meaning of my own life while I am still living it. I have tried to be honest, to record exactly what happened. It will not be contemporaries who read it, after all, but others who may be ignorant of the surrounding events, and therefore bring an open mind to them.

There were more things to be attended to; there was the future as well as the past. I must impart to Caesarion what it was essential he know in the days to follow. Rather than call him for a formal meeting, I waited until the moment arose naturally, although there was nothing natural in my careful compilation of ideas. I needed to study him carefully, assess what he would be capable of. I must not assume he was a replica of either me or Caesar—that was sentimental thinking, and it could prove costly.

I knew he had a keen interest in weaponry and mechanics—I remembered the miniature trireme he had played with—and under the pretext of wishing a demonstration of the bending properties of the spearheads in the newest javelins (which were tempered in only two crucial places, making them hang at awkward angles when they struck), I was able to spend several mornings with him. He observed the javelins and I observed him, while pretending to be utterly fascinated with the weapons.

Well, he had a good head for mathematics; he was able to do calculations easily, and he had no trouble figuring the trajectories of missiles or the volume of water displaced by boats. Strange how we can love our children and know so little about their actual talents and weaknesses. I had never known this about him.

I mentioned certain military records, which were in other tongues. Together we read them, and I was pleased with his grasp of Syriac, native Egyptian, and Hebrew. Of course his Latin was better than mine. He had practically memorized all of Caesar’s writings.

“His writing is so fine,” he said with a sigh, lying on the floor, propped up on his elbows, staring at Caesar’s
Treatise on Analogy
. “Better than Cicero’s, I think. Even Cicero admitted Caesar’s vocabulary was ‘so varied and yet so exact.’ I wish I had inherited that. I have to use three words to hit the target, where he could select one.”

“Still, as long as you hit it…” I made him laugh.

He laughed easily; he was naturally friendly, which was essential in a ruler. It is something that cannot be learned, or forced.

How odd to sit there, analyzing my successor.
This is good, this needs help, this won’t work at all
. Had my father done the same with me? The lighthearted excursions we had made together might not have been so lighthearted on his part, after all.

He lay full-length, cradling his head on his arms. He had grace of person, a pleasing spontaneity, and lack of self-consciousness. His fair hair flopped over his brow, almost in his eyes. Perhaps Caesar’s had been like that at that age. How we search for traits that might linger on in our offspring.

While his earlier resemblance to his father had not faded, and would recall Caesar to anyone who saw him, he was not a duplicate. No one is, in spite of parents’ fond wishes. Each of us has only one lifetime.

I enjoyed the hours with him, for they are never enough when you must carry high duties of state. I had been separated from him too often.

The wind had risen, and the door leading out to the rooftop terrace blew open. He sprang up to close it, and as he pulled the door shut, at once the image of Caesar doing exactly that—the same gesture, the same door, the same half-turn of the body—came back to me. It was the day we had first talked about our child, and now that child—a man—stood in his father’s place. How the days melt down, when seen over the years; how quickly we spring up and vanish. How young I had been then, not much older than Caesarion now. How adult I had felt! My heart grieved for that eager, naive young woman, happy in her ignorance.

Yet I was not old now. I had not even passed the age of childbearing. But feeling my life needed a summary, making provisions for death, for my successor—that killed youth, regardless of the actual years I counted.

“Nasty weather,” he said. To him the door was just a door that needed to be closed, not a symbol.

“It keeps Octavian away,” I said. The moment had come. I got up and went over to him. “You must know that he will eventually come. And when he approaches, I intend to surrender my crown and scepter to him, as is traditional with client kings.”

His mouth fell open. He must learn to hide his feelings better, the judge in me thought. “No!”

“I will ask him to confirm you in my place. It is a time-honored custom. He is likely to do it. I know him; he wants proper respect paid, but he may prefer to take the easy way out and leave a Ptolemy on the throne.” I looked directly at him. “Now I need you to tell me, and tell me truthfully: Do you feel ready to take this on? You will be seventeen, only a year younger than I was when I became Queen.”

He looked uncomfortable; a frown crossed his face, and he chewed on his lip. Another mannerism he would have to conquer. But we would work on that later. Finally he said, “But…where will you be?”

How astute of him to ask that crucial question. And I must answer it. “I am afraid that as long as I live, he will prove…intransigent.”

“You mustn’t think of such a thing! No, I won’t allow it!” He looked horrified, and I realized that my death would leave him an orphan. Even Antony would be gone. Seventeen is young to be all alone, too early to have started a family of his own to comfort him.

“Please don’t make this any more difficult!” I cried, feeling cruel.

“I don’t want the throne, if you have first to grovel to Octavian and then kill yourself. What do you think I am made of?”

“Whether you want it or not, you have to take it. If you do not, then Egypt is lost, and Caesar’s line dies.” I yanked on his tunic. “What do you think I have done it all for? Why have I lived my life as I have? For Egypt, and then for you and your inheritance. Don’t make it all a useless sacrifice!” I had not reckoned on the object of all my efforts being recalcitrant. But I should have. People are unpredictable. What an irony, if he didn’t want it, or refused to take it! “I think you are made of stern stuff,” I finally answered. “I think you are the son of Caesar and Cleopatra.”

“I wish I weren’t!” he cried. “It requires too much of me! I can never fulfill your ambitions or your sacrifices. And as for my father—I’d rather be the son of a mortal! Someone who made mistakes, who lost a battle or two, who used the wrong word occasionally!”

“Someone like Antony,” I said. “But you have had him for a father, the only father you’ve ever known. The gods were kind.”

“And now he’s gone, too! Why does everyone desert me?” He burst into tears. “Don’t leave me!” He grabbed me and held me so tightly I could hardly breathe. His sobs may have been a child’s, but he had the strength of a man in his arms.

This was horrible, worse than I could have imagined. I shouldn’t have told him now. There is never any affair of state that justifies a mother deciding to kill herself, not in a child’s eyes. When the events forced it, that was another matter….

“Very well,” I managed to get out. “I will do nothing violent. But I will then insist that you leave Egypt as the time approaches. Seek safety elsewhere, while I take my stand against him. Will you do that?”

He finally dropped his arms and let me go. “Leave Egypt?” he said.

“We cannot both be here,” I said. “Surely you understand that. I will face him, but only if I know he cannot harm you. And before you depart, I will proclaim that you have come of age and that the Egyptians now have a man to lead them. That will make it easier for Octavian to recognize you. Will you agree to that?”

“In exchange for your life, yes.”

“Alexandria will resound to one last celebration, then,” I said. “It will be like days gone by.”

He clasped me to him again, still trembling. “Don’t leave,” he kept saying. “Don’t leave me.”

Finally he let me go. Shaking myself free, I decided another moment had come, although I had not planned it. I placed in his hands the special box I had kept for Caesar’s letters to me. No one but I had ever read them. But he needed them.

“These are your father’s letters to me,” I said. “No other eyes have ever looked upon them. But you should read them; you are included in them. And I think you will find that he made mistakes. There are even some words crossed out. He chose the wrong ones sometimes.”

“That’s only because he was writing in Greek,” said Caesarion, half smiling.

Surrendering the letters was like opening a door into my soul. But he needed them more than I did.

“I love you, Mother,” he said. “Forgive me if I would rather have you than your throne.”

I forced myself to laugh and make a joke. “Then you are not a true easterner, for we are renowned for killing our parents to get their crowns.” But I had been proud of the fact that my children were not like the other Ptolemies in that regard. “It must be your Roman blood.”

The next step in my plan likewise went awry. I wanted Olympos to recommend and procure the best poison for me. He, too, was horrified.

We had been talking of other things; he had been most insistent that I needed to eat cucumbers and lettuce and melons to offset the privations of Actium, where there had been nothing fresh.

“I could tell just by looking at you that you were practically starving,” he said, settling down on one of my couches and putting his hands behind his head.

“Why, because I could wear some gowns that had been too tight?” I asked. “I was pleased about it.”

“Women! Vanity! Would it interest you to know that starving doesn’t improve anyone’s looks, no matter what gown they can fit into? Your skin had lost its color, your hair was dull, and your face had a pinched look.”

“Well, I’m better now,” I said. “There’s plenty of food here.” All the food that had been held up in Egypt, never reaching us.

“Better, but not well.” He cocked his head. “We have to get you back to your fighting form, the better to seduce Octavian when he arrives.”

“Very funny.”

“Well, it’s worth a try. He must be tired of Livia by now. Another married Roman strays into your orbit….” He rolled his eyes. “They say he’s partial to Corinthian vessels. Perhaps you can hide in one, and pop out.”