The Memoirs of Cleopatra (42 page)

“None that I am aware of,” he replied, with that cold, perfect smile.

This entertainment was to feature a naval battle between the fleets of Tyre and Egypt. Two thousand oarsmen and a thousand fighting men from each nation manned their respective ships, and, at the sound of trumpets, cast off from the spots where they rocked on the sparkling water. I assumed it was to be an exhibition only, but as smoke rose from one of the ships and men dived overboard, followed by groans and screams, I suddenly became aware that it was real.

I turned to Octavian accusingly. “What is this? Are these men called upon to mimic fighting, or to fight?”

“In a
naumachia
, great battles are reenacted—reenacted in all their particulars,” he said. “We have staged the battle of Salamis, with the Athenians defeating the Persians, and watched the Carthaginian fleet being destroyed again and again from the comfort of our seats.”

“If a war is once fought, and an issue decided, is that not final?” I demanded. “What purpose is served in fighting it again? Will history’s verdict be reversed?”

The ships were ramming one another; grapnels were hurled and soldiers swarmed onto enemy ships, swords flashing. Firebrands flew through the air, setting rigging aflame. Some of these missiles landed among the spectators, causing screams and panic.

The ships swung around as the men on them struggled for mastery. I saw bodies being flung overboard, and dark stains of blood began to spread out on the water. The first ship sank, and screams rose from it and then drowned in silence.

“Are men to die for our amusement?” I cried. I looked at the others on our platform, who were nodding and watching, smiles on their faces. Two men were conferring about the tactics, and I saw Agrippa arguing about some maneuver. Caesar looked pleasantly entertained.

Blood, blood everywhere! Why did the sun not shine red on Rome, beaming through a haze of blood? Why did it rise an ordinary color?

“Can there not be a chariot race without death, a sailing exhibition without death, a swordplay without death?” I tugged on Octavian’s shoulder, where the toga was bunched. “Why must death be a sauce to accompany everything you Romans devour?”

Devour
. That was the word for what they did. They devoured everything…and they needed a lively spice for their digestion.

“Because without death everything is bland,” he said. “Without a final price, everything is make-believe.”

Even as he spoke, his voice soft and reasonable against the background cries of wounded men and the shudders of ship timber against timber, I pictured Arsinoe being strangled in the dark, airless stone prison cell. Death in the sunlight and death in the dark—the two kinds of Roman death.

Abruptly I left the “entertainment.”

I assume the
naumachia
lasted until after sunset. As it got dark, from the top of the highest part of the villa’s hill I could see winking torches in the Campus Martius. I also could see what looked like bonfires, but from their sheer size I knew they were the burning hulks of ships. The spectacle had consumed itself.

I felt sick and exhausted. I wished to bathe and then stretch myself out on my bed and purge my mind of the hideous images that were racing through it. But before I could do so, the door of the house flew open and Caesar stamped in. His face was a mask of anger.

“How dare you leave?” he yelled as soon as he saw me—no other greeting was offered. “You shamed me, you insulted me, you have caused every tongue in Rome to natter!”

How had he got away from all the people? Where were his guards, his attendants, the ever-worshipful Octavian?

“I could not stand it anymore,” I said. “The killing—”

“So you have a weak stomach for killing? Perhaps you’re not a true Ptolemy after all!”

I stared at him. He was ranting, red-faced, like an angry merchant. “I think killing should be reserved for danger, not sport,” I finally said. “You devalue death to treat it so casually. It is the great final thing and should not be demeaned.”

“Egyptians revere death too much,” he grunted.

“Romans revere it too little,” I said.

“Yet we both make art out of it. You with your tombs and paintings and mummies, and we with our entertainments.” His temper seemed to have cooled, but I was not fooled. He was most angry when he showed it least. “Enough of this death talk. By leaving, you undid all you had done earlier by attending the Triumph.”

“It was horrible. But I did not cover my eyes.” I paused. “I hated every second of it! I hated seeing Egyptian treasures in the carts, hated the verses they sang about you—and the perfume bottles! Is that what people think of me?”

“Be thankful that’s what they think. It’s harmless enough.”

“Arsinoe. It was dreadful. And the people were stirred in sympathy.”

“Yes.” He walked toward a bench and sat down on it. His shoulders sagged. “I spared Arsinoe.”

My first feeling was a rush of relief. My second was worry. Arsinoe the proud would not retire quietly.

“Where is she to go?”

“She has requested sanctuary at the great Temple of Diana in Ephesus,” he said. “And I will grant it, if you agree.”

Ephesus! Too close to Egypt! Better send her to Britain! Yet…I would gamble, and be merciful. Perhaps I was not enough of a Ptolemy after all. Arsinoe would not have granted it.

“Yes, I will allow it.”

“Ganymedes is dead.”

Ganymedes had been dead already, the broken creature I had seen in the Forum. There could have been no reprieve for him.

“We must do something to offset the bad impression your leaving gave today,” Caesar insisted. “The crowd was in a dangerous mood. You sensed it. The perfume bottles at least allowed us to divert them. But they were not wholehearted in their cheers. And it may be worse in the other two Triumphs to follow, especially the one over Africa, because Cato died in that war. I think, in order to quell any rumors that you harbor any enmity to Rome, you must give a lavish entertainment here to celebrate the Egyptian Triumph. Tomorrow. And it is then that I will formally proclaim you and Ptolemy Friend and Ally of the Roman People. I’ll invite all my enemies and shut them up.”

“No! I don’t want to give a party! All those people hate me!”

“You sound like a child.” His voice began to lift, and for the first time I sensed that his anger had gone. “Of course they hate you. It should make you proud. If they hate you, remember that they hated me first. You must get used to being hated if you are to rule successfully. The greatest weakness a ruler can have is the aching need to be loved. That is why Cicero—whom I shall by all means invite!—would be a disaster as a ruler, even though he wants to be one so badly.”

“Not Cicero!”

“My dear, if you can withstand the withering gazes and eloquent insults of Cicero, you can withstand anything. Consider it training.”

Caesar would take care of everything, this being his gathering—in effect, another of his Triumphal entertainments. Ptolemy and I were to leave the house and amuse ourselves elsewhere. I requested that we be taken out into the countryside, so that we might see what surrounded Rome.

It proved to be a good choice. The ripening fields of grain, green-gold against arched aqueducts bringing water from afar, and the clustered flocks of sheep, were a cool antidote for the fevered insanity of the crowded city. This countryside had a somnolent beauty, drowsy and warm. Even the clouds were rounded and gentle. I found it deeply restorative.

But the sun began to throw slanted shadows as its setting neared, and the day was over all too soon. We must return—to what?

The torches were already lit along the road by the time we reentered the city. The crowds were still swarming; even on this uneventful day there were theatrical performances and athletic contests, as well as gladiatorial contests between upper-class Romans in the Forum, to amuse the populace.

I began to have misgivings as we entered the grounds of the garden and found it transformed into what a man costumed as Osiris announced as “Canopic pleasure gardens.” Colored lanterns were strung from tree to tree, and drinking pavilions had been set up under the branches, filled with rowdy “patrons.” As we ascended the hill, the landscape grew more and more fantastic: we seemed to be wading through a papyrus marsh—complete with statues of hippos and crocodiles—and then approached the house, which had been given a false front to make it look like a temple by the Nile. The river itself had been re-created in the form of a large moat around the entrance. A pyramid, about fifteen feet high, reared itself just beside the entrance steps, where the “Nile” lapped against the stones.

“Welcome to Egypt!” bellowed a huge Nubian, clad only in the scantiest loincloth, stationed at the entrance. Just inside the atrium, a company of musicians sat playing the lyre, flute, and bells. Eerie, light music floated out.

This was some soldier’s heated dream of Egypt; it was nothing like Alexandria or the villages along the Nile. It existed only in the fevered imaginations of someone longing for a land of pleasure; it was a product of Roman prurience.

It got worse. Vials of perfume and scented ointment were piled up into pyramids all around the atrium, and there was a fortune-telling Sphinx by the pool. If you knocked on his paws, an echoing voice inside pronounced your fate. Half-naked dancers were writhing and bending to the musicians’ tunes.

A gigantic sarcophagus, gilded and festooned, was propped upright against the farthest wall, its lid removed to reveal a wrapped mummy. But the mummy had very alert eyes, and I could see his chest moving up and down. Beside him a masked Anubis was keeping watch, his jackal’s ears pointed and upright.

I felt myself grow cold. What madness had taken hold of Caesar to make him create this grotesque setting?

I entered my chamber to find a message from him. True to the spirit of the banquet, he had enclosed it in a miniature obelisk.

Caesar was correct in one thing: this certainly made a mockery of Egypt. Well, then, should I complete the masquerade? Should I be the Serpent of the Nile? Why not?

I ransacked my trunks for attire that would serve, combining the most extreme elements of costume. I put on an all-but-transparent gown, fringed with gold and faience beads; I twined serpent bracelets on my upper arms and tinkling anklets on my feet. I draped my neck in a four-tiered gold collar and put on a head-hugging vulture headdress. My feet were encased in jeweled sandals.

Surprisingly, the whole was not ugly, but arrestingly strange. I looked like an idol in the dark sanctuary of a temple. The combination of the heavy gold and the gossamer gown gave me a feeling of unreality. My clothing was as light as a breath, but I was weighted down with metal.

I found similar fantastic garments for Ptolemy, and I ordered the nurse to dress Caesarion. I would achieve my purpose this night; I would force Caesar to it. This night would serve me as well as him.

“Charmian, have you ever seen anything like this in Egypt?” I gestured around me, to the pyramid of perfume and the swaying musicians.

“Never,” she said, with a soft laugh. “But should such a land exist—it would have a queen that looks like you tonight.”

The guests began arriving. I had no idea how many Caesar had invited. As if the gods had read my wishes, a young woman purporting to be a niece of Caesar’s sought me out and said he had asked her to stand by my side all evening and explain who everyone was, lest I grow confused.

“My name is Valeria,” she said. “I will try to explain about them as honestly, and as briefly, as possible.” She looked at me, clearly taken aback by my costume.

“I do not usually look like this,” I assured her, “even in Egypt.
Especially
not in Egypt. This was Caesar’s suggestion. He seems determined that this evening will outdo every parody of Egypt.”

She laughed outright, a hearty laugh. “He has got his wish. Rest assured, Your Majesty, that my uncle and I have always seen eye-to-eye about people. That is why he chose me to be his spokesman this evening. I hope you will not think me rude when I speak my mind.”

“No. No, I will welcome it!”

“He himself foresees that he may be busy, but there were many things he wished you to know.”

Guests started pouring in the entrance, their feet wet from wading through the “Nile.” I stationed myself at the far end of the atrium, near the mummy.

A group of senators and their wives were the first to be presented, and none of them was important enough to elicit a comment from Valeria. They circled the pyramid of scent and were urged by the dancers, “Help yourself! Take some!”