The Triumph of Caesar (20 page)

There followed an exhibit celebrating the various crops grown along the Nile, the great granary of the Mediterranean, thanks to its yearly inundation. The pretty Egyptian maidens in pleated linen gowns carrying sheaves of grain were not as exciting as crocodiles on leashes, but they nonetheless garnered the crowd's applause, and cheers rang out for Caesar when a crier announced that a distribution of free grain to the citizenry would follow the triumph.

The tone of the procession grew more martial as placards were exhibited showing incidents of the war. (Caesar had promised to tell the full story in his continuing memoirs, but that volume had not yet been published.) There were scenes of the battles in the harbor of Alexandria, in which the skies were filled with flaming missiles hurled from shipboard ballistae. Other scenes illustrated the long siege of the royal palace by the Egyptians, who attempted for months to penetrate Caesar's defenses or else to cut off his water supply, and failed at every turn. There were several scenes of the final, decisive battle on the banks of the Nile, where young King Ptolemy's royal barge was capsized by fleeing Egyptian soldiers. The king's remains were never found; nonetheless, a number of his personal effects had been retrieved from the Nile, including some of his ceremonial weapons and armor, and these magnificent pieces were displayed as trophies.

Other scenes depicted the deaths of Caesar's chief enemies in Egypt. King Ptolemy's lord chamberlain, the eunuch Pothinus, had been forced by Caesar to drink poison for conspiring against him; the man had died before my eyes, cursing both Cleopatra and her brother. The placard illustrating his death portrayed him with exaggerated breasts and hips, which he had not possessed, and feminine makeup, which he had not worn; Pothinus was reduced to a Roman caricature of a eunuch. The crowd laughed and cheered as they were shown the picture of him writhing in agony at Caesar's feet, the death cup still clutched in his hand.

Another placard showed the death of Achillas, the Egyptian general who had mounted the siege against Caesar; it was Arsinoë who eventually executed him for treachery. Achillas was a name of infamy in Rome, for he had been among the murderers of Pompey, delivering the blow that struck the Great One's head from his shoulders even before he could step ashore in Egypt.

Curiously, there was no placard to illustrate Pompey's demise, or the subsequent presentation of Pompey's head as a gift from King Ptolemy to Caesar. Pompey's defeat at Pharsalus, his desperate flight to Egypt, and his ignominious death were not to figure in any of Caesar's triumphs. Whether for fear of hubris, or in deference to the lingering sentimental attachment many Romans felt for Pompey, Caesar did not seize the occasion to gloat over his rival's desecrated corpse.

Others besides me noticed this omission; and clearly not everyone felt sentimental about the Great One. A man called out, "Where is Pompey's head? Show us the head!"

Some joined in this call, but many others groaned, shushed their neighbors, and booed. A ripple of discord passed through the crowd, sparking restlessness and loosening tongues.

"And while you're at it, show us Cleopatra!" someone yelled.

"Yes, where's Cleopatra? Let's have a look at the little nymph who has Caesar so hot and bothered!"

"Show us the queen! Show us the queen!"

"There should at least be a picture of her . . ."

"Preferably naked!"

The wags in the crowd remained unaware that Cleopatra was among them, seated amid the dignitaries. I looked across the way, and saw that she had moved back from the parapet, as if to further conceal herself. Her face showed no expression.

The inevitable chants followed, speculating on the activities of Caesar and the Egyptian queen during their long boat trip up the Nile. Many in the crowd already knew these lewd ditties and joined in at once, clapping in unison as they recited one verse after another. Men share such bits of doggerel in the Forum; wives bring them home from the marketplace; soon, even children know them by heart. For all his earthly glory, Caesar was powerless to stop the spread of a rude joke or an awful pun at his expense.

I gazed at Cleopatra across the way. Her face remained impassive, but even at such a distance I could see that her cheeks had reddened a bit. The queen was not used to being mocked.

Then, abruptly, the ditties fell silent and the clapping stopped. As if conjured by the will of the crowd, Cleopatra suddenly loomed before them—or rather, her image loomed, for approaching on the path, mounted on a platform and pulled by a team of Nubian slaves, was a breathtaking statue of her.

It was larger than life and appeared to be made of solid gold, though it was probably gilded bronze. The gilt shimmered brightly beneath the sun; flashes of golden light dazzled my eyes. The queen was portrayed not in the outlandish garb of the pharaohs, which the Ptolemies had appropriated when they assumed the rule of Egypt, but in elegant Greek dress, wearing a simple diadem on her brow. The statue's face had a stern, almost mannish quality; perhaps the sculptor made his subject look older and plainer than she was, so as to emphasize her qualities as a ruler of men rather than an object of male desire. The face, with its sparkling lapis eyes and elusive smile, nonetheless projected a powerful feminine allure; one could see why a man like Caesar had been captivated by such a woman.

I drew a sharp breath. Caesar's inclusion of the statue—a gift from the queen herself?—was a considerable gamble. Who could predict the crowd's reaction? Or did he brazenly parade the statue for just that reason, as a means to gauge the temper of the Roman mob? If the statue had been a piece of captured booty, and Cleopatra a vanquished enemy, there would have been no controversy; but Caesar's war in Egypt had affirmed Cleopatra's claim to the throne, so the appearance of the statue seemed to be a celebration of the queen herself. Here, for all to see, in golden splendor, was the exotic creature who claimed to have borne Caesar's son and whom many thought was encouraging Caesar's royal ambitions. If the crowd found the statue offensive, they might break into a full-scale riot.

I looked around me, wondering if our high seats would prove to be our salvation or our doom. Would we remain above the rampaging mob or be driven up and over the top, to fall to our deaths? There was also the possibility that the crowd might realize that Cleopatra was present and vent their fury against her.

I gazed at the queen in her box across the way. Our eyes met. Cleopatra nodded slightly, to show that she recognized me. She saw the alarm on my face, and her own expression grew apprehensive. She raised her eyebrows slightly. She frowned.

But the reaction of the crowd was far from violent. A hush fell over the throng. There were no jeers, no cries of outrage, not even any ribald jests. The golden statue seemed to cast a spell. People gazed up in wonder as it passed before them.

Across the way, I saw the queen of Egypt smile. She turned to confer with someone in her entourage. She turned back and began to stand. Did she intend to draw attention to herself, to make her presence known to the crowd?

Before that could happen, the moment passed. The mood of the crowd abruptly changed. The air rang with jeers, shouts, and taunts, for immediately following Cleopatra's statue came the procession of Egyptian prisoners. From the golden glory of the queen, the crowd's attention was drawn to the abject misery and wretchedness of her vanquished enemies.

Cleopatra sat. Her smile vanished.

The few surviving officers of Ptolemy's army were paraded before us in chains and rags and tattered Egyptian headdresses. A few of these were eunuchs, and the crowd peered at their near-naked bodies curiously, looking for distinguishing characteristics. To be sure, the eunuchs were not as hirsute as some of their compatriots, but their bodies had none of the voluptuousness of women; perhaps because they had been fed so poorly, all the prisoners looked gaunt and bony. Nor did the eunuchs express emotions differently from their fellows. The eunuchs and the other exhibited the same range of reactions: a few stared back defiantly at the crowd; some hid their faces; and many trembled and wept, broken by their humiliation and the approach of death.

The last but one of the prisoners was Ganymedes. I had last seen him in a shimmering, wide-sleeved gown and a khat headdress, with kohl outlining his eyes. Now he wore only a filthy loincloth, and his undressed hair hung in tendrils around his pale, winkled face. His chains robbed him of any pretense of dignity; the shackles on his ankles and wrists forced him to bow and take shambling steps. He was barefoot and his feet were bleeding.

Someone in the crowd hurled a piece of fruit—a green, unripe fig—and struck him between his legs. Ganymedes flinched but did not cry out. Others hurled more bits of fruit and even stones, always aiming for the same spot. They were mocking him with blows that would have made an intact man scream with agony but served only to humiliate the eunuch by drawing attention to the part of his anatomy that had been amputated.

Following Ganymedes, at a distance which clearly set her apart, was Arsinoë. The princess, too, was barefoot and dressed in rags, baring more of her arms and legs than was considered decent for a high-born woman in public, inviting the prurient inspection of the crowd. The manner in which she was chained seemed calculated to emphasize her debasement; her ankles were connected by a short chain and her hands were bound tightly behind her, forcing her to mince forward with her shoulders back and her breasts thrust forward. But the position also allowed her to hold her chin high. Her face was clearly visible, and her expression was surprisingly composed. She looked neither fearful nor defiant; there was neither hatred nor panic in her eyes. Her face was sphinxlike, without emotion, as if her thoughts were completely elsewhere, far removed from the degradation to which her body was being subjected.

As Arsinoë slowly drew nearer below us, I looked from her face to that of Cleopatra. They appeared to wear the same expression, despite the difference in their situations. Cleopatra watched her sister's march to oblivion without showing the least sign of regret or rejoicing. Arsinoë moved toward her fate with no more expression than if she were gazing at the slow, steady, unending flow of the Nile. Of what stuff were these Ptolemies made?

What had Caesar presumed would happen, when he decided to parade a helpless young woman in his triumph? He had presided over the rape of many cities; he had seen the merciless reaction of his soldiers to the sight of tender females stripped of all protection. Did he think the Roman mob would react in the same way at the sight of Arsinoë in chains, allowing a desire to revel in her debasement to overcome any impulse toward pity?

I would not have been surprised to see the onlookers pelt Arsinoë with fruit, cruelly aiming for her breasts, and taunt her with lascivious remarks and perhaps even reach out to strip the remaining rags from her body, forcing her to walk naked to her death.

But that was not what happened.

Instead, the crowd, which had been so eager to jeer at the captured military men and ministers of state, fell silent as Arsinoë passed by. Foulmouthed men became speechless.

In the sudden quiet, the soft clinking of Arsinoë's chains was the only sound. Then a murmur passed through the crowd. I could not make out any words, only a low grumbling, but its tone was clear. This was not right. What we were seeing was improper, indecent, wrong—perhaps an affront to the gods. The murmur grew louder, the crowd more uneasy.

It was Rupa who took action.

He was sitting next to me. When he stood, I thought he was getting up for some other reason—to go relieve himself or simply to stretch his legs. But something about the urgency of his movements caught my eye as he stepped over the spectators and made his way to the nearest aisle. Others saw him as well and took notice; there was a resoluteness about his demeanor that drew attention, especially amid that uncertain, suddenly anxious crowd.

He reached the bottom of the stands, and then, looming taller than everyone around him, he elbowed his way through the standing spectators. He stepped onto the triumphal path. He ran toward Arsinoë.

There were gasps of surprise and cries of apprehension. Rupa was so much larger than the princess, and his movements so determined, that some people must have thought he was about to attack her. Instead, before he reached Arsinoë, he turned and raised his hands, waving them in the air to catch the crowd's attention. At the same time, he opened his mouth and made a strange braying noise, a plaintive cry that echoed around the Forum.

His behavior excited cries from the crowd.

"Who is that big fellow?"

"Awfully good-looking—"

"And what does he want?"

"He's trying to say something—"

"Can't you see? He must be mute."

"Makes a loud noise, though."

"What's he up to?"

"Looks big enough to do whatever he wants with the little princess!"

Caesar's lictors, preceding the triumphal chariot, were not far behind Arsinoë. Seeing Rupa, the foremost among them broke from the processional file and rushed toward him. My heart lurched in my chest. Like everyone else in the stands, I jumped to my feet.

Amid the sudden tumult, a few voices rang out more clearly than the rest.

"The lictors will protect the princess!"

"From what? The mute won't hurt her. He means to escape with her!"

"Escape where? She's heading straight for the Tullianum, along with her pet eunuch!"

This last comment referred to Ganymedes. Realizing that something was transpiring behind him, he had turned. With a look of alarm on his wrinkled face, he was frantically shambling back toward Arsinoë, as if he could somehow protect her despite his shackles.

But Arsinoë was in no danger. With every eye fixed upon him, Rupa turned toward the princess. For a moment, he loomed over her. Then he dropped to his knees and bowed deeply. With a great flourish of his outspread arms, he touched his lips to one of her bare feet.

Throughout the entire episode, Arsinoë's expression, or lack of expression, had remained unchanged. But when Rupa's lips touched her big toe, a smile lit her face, transforming it completely. It was like the face of Alexandros's Venus of Milos—serene and aloof, sublime and majestic.