Pharaoh (44 page)

N
eos Dionysus!” shouted the Ephesians gathered at the harbor, chanting Antony’s divine moniker as soon as he appeared at the
bow of the
Antonia.
“Queen of Kings! Queen of Kings!” Kleopatra heard the people shouting for her as she hurried to Antony’s side.

Antony and Kleopatra had sailed into the Great Harbor of the city of Ephesus in Asia Minor with their entire navy Eight hundred
ships from all over the world had come to join them in their cause, two hundred built by Kleopatra and flying the Ptolemaic
standards with the red and white colors of Egypt. The
Antonia,
their flagship, led the aquatic parade, a pageant of power that took one’s breath away. Kleopatra knew that on this day,
every spectator would rush from the docks, spreading the word of this mighty force that had landed on their shores.

She and Antony alighted from their vessel and walked together up broad Harbor Street under a prescient blue sky unmarred by
clouds while the citizens of Ephesus threw rose petals in their path. She had once walked this street at night, when its fifty
lanterns cast gigantic columnar shadows from the colonnades across its big square stones. Ephesus was one of the region’s
holiest spots, the location of the temple of Artemis, and therefore a good place to secure the absolute favor of the gods
before going to war. Blinding white columns along the route both welcomed foreigners into the city and warned them to wash
before
entering its gates. Strangers were welcome; their diseases were not. Ephesus was a marble city, and it shimmered now in the
noontime sunlight like some divine desert mirage. Only the barren fig trees and the tapered cypresses stuck like spears into
the ground made the city seem earthbound.

The royal procession continued through town. Looking up, Kleopatra could see the theater built by Lysimachus into the slopes
of the mountain. Straight ahead, at the end of the street, a huge statue of a boar, the mascot of the city, opened his chasm
of a jaw. The porticos along the streets were jammed with people spilling into the avenue to catch a glimpse of the divine
queen and her Roman consort. A little boy with two goats trailing him had become the unofficial leader of the procession.
He scampered ahead of Kleopatra’s party, swatting the bottoms of his animals to keep a few steps ahead of her guard. The crowd
stayed with them until they reached a great corridor of pines that were taller than the temple. There they boarded the carriage
that would take them to their winter quarters, a Greek-style palace in the slopes above the city with a view of the sea so
that they might look out upon their navy.

It seemed to Kleopatra at this moment that all the world was with them, and today even the heavens showed approval for their
cause. They had sailed in perfect weather with the most favorable winds and landed gently on the white sands of the ancient
city. Not only the populace had been there to greet them. Many Roman senators, outraged by Octavian’s actions, had fled their
own country to join with Antony and Kleopatra and were now headquartered in Ephesus.

“If it’s war Octavian wants, it’s war we shall give him.” Kleopatra was resolute, standing on tiptoes to whisper these words
in Antony’s ear, though she was smiling and waving at the throng.

Without the courage to declare war on the great Antony, Octavian had been waging a war of slander, propaganda, and sabotage,
inventing wild stories and poisoning minds that lacked the discretion or the knowledge to think for themselves. Through some
loudmouth poets, Octavian had spread the word that Kleopatra had taken to ending every sentence with the oath,
As surely as I shall dispense justice on the Capitol! She
had laughed to Antony when she heard that. “Firstly, it is a cumbersome phrase with which to end a sentence,” she said.

“And secondly,” Antony added, “Even if you were so inclined to
make that your ambition, you would
never
be foolish enough to say it.” How low was the level of the Roman intellect that they would believe such ridiculous tales?
Not only accept such strange fantasies as truth, but react with such enormous outrage? The latest stories invented were the
most foolish, and yet they were accepted and circulated by Antony’s Roman enemies with the ferocity of a hurricane. It was
now said that Antony’s appetite for Egyptian luxury had grown so great that even Kleopatra chastised his extravagances. It
was said that he only pissed into golden chamberpots-the least serious charge leveled by Octavian, but interestingly, the
one that solicited the most ill-will among the Romans. Rumors had also spread that at banquets, Kleopatra melted priceless
pearls in vinegar and drank the potion to Antony’s health; that Antony anointed Kleopatra’s feet as if he were her body slave;
that he had robbed the library at Pergamum to appease her unquenchable thirst for stolen manuscripts; and that the two wrote
one another love letters on priceless tablets of onyx and silver. Kleopatra wondered if the most ignorant and superstitious
servants in her palace would have believed the kinds of ridiculous things propagated by Roman aristocrats. The stories had
all the elements of cautionary fables written to frighten little children into obedience. She supposed that made sense; intellectually-
with rare exception-the Romans were less sophisticated than little Greek schoolboys.

But the rumor and innuendo secretly disturbed Kleopatra’s peace of mind. Had she and Antony made tactical errors? She had
asked herself that question as they sailed toward Ephesus. She did not share her concerns with Antony because he allowed what
were mere questions in her mind to shadow his moods and humor. He preferred utter optimism, and so that is what she presented
to him. But privately, she reviewed the choices they had made. Nothing was irreversible as far as she was concerned. What
had been said today might be taken back tomorrow. Or at least that seemed the Roman way. Antony planned to proceed from Ephesus
to Rome to set the record straight on Octavian’s lies. Kleopatra was to wait in Ephesus with the army and the navy, for surely
her presence in Rome, after Octavian’s propaganda against her, would pose too much of a threat. That was the plan, until Octavian
took the final step in breaching with Antony forever. He declared Kleopatra Enemy of Rome. Now there was no question of Antony
going there peaceably.

“Of course he could not say such a thing of the Imperator, who still has the support of at least half the senate, the eastern
forces of the army, and a good number of the country’s monied classes,” said the senator Ahenobarbus, one of the many who
had fled Rome and joined Antony and Kleopatra in Ephesus.

Kleopatra sat with Antony and his War Council as Ahenobarbus reported Octavian’s recent exploits. “With no constitutional
authority, he has denied the Imperator the consulship-an elected office-and he has declared that the great Marcus Antonius
is no longer a Roman officer, but a mercenary in the service of a foreign queen!”

“The insult to Your Majesty will not go unpunished,” Canidius added.

Kleopatra wondered how much of Ahenobarbus’s fury was genuine and how much had been called up to make a show of his loyalty
to Antony, who did not join in the fray but sat calmly listening to the reprehensible actions of his enemy. He had a look
of incredulity on his face, as if he did not quite believe he had to take these bizarre actions of Octavian seriously. Kleopatra,
too, wondered how Octavian managed to get away with his actions in a country that supposedly had slavish love of its constitution.
The Romans had murdered Caesar over what they considered violations of that sacrosanct document. Now they allowed his pale
nephew open interpretation of five hundred years of inalienable law. Octavian was cagey, however, and while he played fast
and loose with the constitution itself, he adhered publicly to the strictest Roman forms. Very clever, the queen noted.

Calling upon all the Roman traditions he could summon up, Octavian staged a drama in which he cast Kleopatra as the evil predator
and magician who had bewitched Antony and many of his supporters. Himself he portrayed as the upholder of the constitution
and the Roman Republic who would vanquish the Egyptian menace in the names of the gods.

“He put on his priest’s robes and marched into the Field of Mars, where he dipped a sword in blood and threw it toward the
east,” Ahenobarbus said. “There were those who remarked that he could not throw very far, so frail is he. But he declared
the war against you a holy war, Kleopatra.”

Kleopatra did not like the way Ahenobarbus made use of her given
name, which was reserved for intimates of the queen. It made her suspicious of him. If he could not address her by her formal
titles, what was his true opinion of her partnership with Antony? But she said nothing, encouraging him to supply more details.

“Then he set about Italy with a large army, making the population swear an oath to him.”

“What sort of oath?” Kleopatra asked.

“The typical sort of thing a Roman is made to swear to a general. ’I will hold my loyalty to the Son of the Divine Julius
Caesar above my loyalty to family, children, and friends. I declare the enemies of the Son of the Divine Julius Caesar to
be my enemies and I swear to fight to vanquish them.’ Oh, it goes on and on, but that is the gist of it.”

Kleopatra had no control over the way her body cringed when she heard that Octavian referred to himself as the Son of the
Divine Julius Caesar. Perhaps because her son was the only true son of Caesar. Maybe it was motherly protection, but every
time she heard the phrase, she shuddered.

“He frightened people into signing it by saying that the Imperator and the queen wished to destroy the city of Rome and to
make Alexandria the new capital of the world.”

Antony still had said little. He looked at Kleopatra. “Perhaps that’s what we should do.”

She laughed. “Destroy the city of Rome?”

“No, set up a new Rome in Alexandria. We’ve got enough of the Roman senate with us to make a case for having Rome itself.
What is Rome? A piece of geography? Is it not the families who have made it great? The scions of those families are here with
me. The ones who are not are with the shopkeeper’s son-a boy who is elevated only by adoption. And I am convinced that Caesar
named him his heir while in one of his dizzy spells.”

“Sir, you can’t be serious?” Canidius spoke softly.

“About Octavian being the son of a shopkeeper? His grandfather made unguents for the people of Aricia. That is his fine lineage.”

Kleopatra could see Antony’s temper rise. It was a point of pride, having to fight this boy after he had won so many battles
over more formidable opponents. Once, drunk and angry, he had told Kleopatra that Octavian was Caesar’s last great joke on
them all.

“No sir. I mean that you cannot be serious about moving the capital to Alexandria.”

“I am perfectly serious. Rome is the senate and the constitution and the nobility. The senate is here with me. It is not I
who have broken the constitution by preventing an elected consul to serve his term. And if I may claim descent from Herakles
through my ancestor Anteon, while Octavian descends from a purveyor of liniments, then I ask you in all seriousness-who is
Rome? Octavian or me?”

“Would the senate support a new capital?” Kleopatra asked. She and Antony had always intended to make Alexandria his eastern
headquarters, but they had never discussed making it the capital of the Roman empire. Why not? she thought. Was it not a more
fitting location for the center of a great empire than the noisy, chaotic, violent city on the Tiber?

“Sir, you go too far,” cautioned Ahenobarbus.

“Shall we ask them?” Antony replied. He was very calm. He chuckled, turning to Kleopatra. “Perhaps we should just take everyone
home to Alexandria and show them their new quarters.”

“It isn’t advisable, Imperator,” Canidius said. “It is too extreme.”

“How is anything in this matter too extreme? My opponent goes for the throat, practicing every kind of extreme, while my supporters
and advisers caution me to act prudently. Where is the wisdom in this?”

“Octavian will use it as more evidence that you have abandoned Rome and act on behalf of the queen. You have too many supporters
still in Rome to take such a drastic measure.” Ahenobarbus spoke as emphatically as Kleopatra had ever heard anyone speak
to Antony. She decided to stay out of the discussion. She did not quite trust Ahenobarbus, and was certain that anything she
said would be misinterpreted and sent directly back to Octavian.

“I see. Then I will take a more conservative measure. All the kings and princes of the eastern territories must swear an oath
of loyalty to me, similar to the one Octavian has solicited in Italy. To these men, and to my Roman supporters, I will vow
to destroy Octavian in a war that will accept no compromises. Then, six months after the war, I shall return my triumviral
powers to the senate and the people of Rome.”

All of Antony’s advisers approved the measure, giving him a mixture of hugs, bows, and hails before leaving the meeting to
carry out his plan, until only Kleopatra and Canidius remained in the chamber with him.