The Memoirs of Cleopatra (10 page)

“O living gods, and goddesses, we throw ourselves at your blessed feet—” the magistrate was saying. One by one citizens came and bent their heads before us, then knelt. I looked down and saw people shaking, as if they were afraid of inhaling some deadly, divine mist. Who could know how much playacting went into it, or how much they were overtaken by the moment?

And then Father spoke, saying, “Today my children, the gods, assume a new title: Philadelphoi, Brother-and-Sister-Loving. May they be locked together in the love that binds those who share the same blood.”

Standing shoulder to shoulder with my siblings, I knew it could never be. But it was touching that Father wished it so.

Afterward we gathered in Father’s private dining chamber to seal the ceremony with a meal. Arsinoe was the first to fling off her gold robe: Pronouncing it too heavy to drag around, she let it fall in a crumpled heap.

“Should not the weight of gold sit lightly on a goddess’s shoulders?” I teased her. Underneath it she was wearing a thin blue gown that duplicated the blue of her eyes.

She merely shrugged. Either she felt no different, or she had always assumed godhood for herself.

Father took his place at the head of our family. He looked tired, as if he should be the one to find the heavy robes oppressive. It was only then that I saw the weariness in him; suddenly he seemed much older.

He took up an agate cup and stared at it moodily as he motioned for wine. “This cup came from our ancestral homeland,” he said. “Macedonia. I wish you to remember that we started out drinking from stone cups, even though we have ended surrounded by gold.” He took a sip. Then another.

“Did the ceremony please you?” he asked.

We all nodded dutifully.

“Surprise you?”

“Yes. Why did you bestow the two new titles?” I finally asked, since no one else seemed willing to talk.

“Because I wish you all to be treated as sacrosanct, by each other as well as by outsiders, after I am gone—”

Was he just being foresighted and tidy, or was he aware of a reason to hurry?

“Gone where?” asked the smallest Ptolemy, perched on his stool—it was padded and studded with gems, but it was a stool nonetheless—and leaning on his elbows.

“After he’s dead,” said his brother, coldly, the nine-year-old realist.

Arsinoe kept chewing languidly on an onion stalk, such was the warmth of our little family. “Oh,” she finally said.

“It is kind of you to think so far ahead,” I said. “But surely that is not of immediate concern.” I meant it as a question. But he chose not to answer it.

“A good ruler must take precautions. Now, I wish to inform you about my will. I have dispatched a copy to Rome, since they have such an…interest in our affairs, proclaiming themselves guardians of our welfare. It might give offense if I did not. And there is already a precedent for it.” He took several sips of the wine, each one closer to a gulp.

“One copy remains here,” he continued. “That, too, is a precaution. Wills can be altered, lost…and to offset that, you must hear my provisions from my own mouth.”

I noticed that Arsinoe had stopped chewing and was sitting up straighter.

“Surely it will come as no surprise to you that Cleopatra will succeed me,” he said. He turned toward me with a smile. “She is the oldest, and has been trained for the station.” But his eyes said more; they said,
And she is the child of my heart, the one I choose above all others
.

I did not look at Arsinoe, but I knew that she was sullen.

“With her as co-regent will be her first brother, Ptolemy. In due time they must marry, as is the custom.”

Both boys giggled, as if they found it all silly and odious. Well, it was odious, but too serious to be silly.

“Father,” I said, “perhaps that custom should be allowed to lapse.”

He shook his head, sadly. “Ending it would bring more trouble than observing it. Every fortune hunter of a prince would converge on our shores. It would be like one of the old myths, where suitors hung about, being tested by the father or the gods, having to perform impossible feats—I have other things to do than to preside over contests for your hand.”

“I always wondered why the suitors came and risked themselves in the stories,” said Arsinoe. “The rejected ones always got killed.”

Father laughed. “Princesses exert a deadly lure.”

After the meal was over, Father asked me to remain with him. The others did not linger; the scowling Arsinoe picked up her robe and dragged it scornfully behind her as she left, as if to show that she disdained Father’s gifts, since he did not offer her the highest one.

“Now, my child,” he said, as he took his seat on a cushioned bench beside me, with a fine view of the harbor, “there is something else.”

I had sensed that there must be. “Yes?”

“I think it would be wise to associate you in ruling with me now,” he said.

“In ceremonies? But we already—”

“No, to elevate you formally to co-regency. To proclaim you Queen.”

Queen…now? It seemed toe wonderful—to taste the joys without having to swallow the sorrow of Father’s loss at the same time. “I am touched by the honor you offer me,” I finally said.

“There will be another ceremony soon, then,” he said. He gave a cough, then another, and I knew then that these arrangements were not premature.

“Father, please don’t make me marry my brother!” I must say it now. “He’s a whining little tattletale! And he will grow up to be something worse!”

But the King was not to be dissuaded, even by me. He shook his head. “You are fortunate I don’t just skip over you and name him as heir. It is unprecedented for the Queen to be first ruler.”

“You wouldn’t dare.” But I said it affectionately, not angrily. I leaned my head on his shoulder, thinking how seldom I touched, or was touched, by anyone. Even normal human contact was shunned in our family.

He sighed, then permitted himself to pat my head. “No, probably not. You are too strong-willed to be pushed aside. That’s good.”

“I don’t like your minister Pothinus,” I felt obligated to tell him. “Perhaps you should replace him.”

“Ah,” he said. “One strong-willed person to keep another in check.” He could be as stubborn as I—which is probably where I got it.

“I don’t like him,” I repeated. “He’s untrustworthy.” The worst trait I could think of.

“I plan to make him head of the Regency Council.”

“I don’t need a Regency Council. I am already a grown woman.”

“You are seventeen, and your future co-ruler, dear little Ptolemy, is only nine. Should I die tonight,
he
would need a Regency Council.”

“Must you make it as disagreeable as he is?”

Father sighed. “You weary me! Be happy! Stop arguing! Learn to like Pothinus!” He paused. “I plan to live so long Ptolemy won’t need a Regency Council, but a nurse for his old age!” He coughed again, and I took his hand.

The first time I stood beside Father in robes of state, and heard the fateful words
Queen Cleopatra, Lady of the Two Lands
, I felt not as if a weight were laid on me but a hitherto unknown strength and readiness miraculously conferred. Whatever the task would be, this mysterious power would graciously be granted me to meet it. Nothing I had read or heard had hinted at this transformation, so it came as an unexpected gift.

In the old tales, to question a gift too closely meant the gods could revoke it; it bespoke ingratitude and disbelief. And so I accepted it with all my heart, trustingly.

In the thirtieth year of Ptolemy Auletes which is the first year of Cleopatra…
So it began, as the gods would have it.

In the late winter of the next year, when the gales had quit lashing the sea and the waves did not dash quite so high against the base of the Lighthouse, I was spending a great deal of time reading poetry—both the old Egyptian poetry and Greek. I had interested myself in learning the Egyptian language, and I told myself that was why I was reading the poetry, but that was not strictly true. I was reading it because it concerned love, and I was nearly eighteen years old.

I would read the poetry late at night, when my attendants had left me and only the oil lamp kept me company. Then the poetry felt different from the way it did when I went over it with my tutor. In lessons I paid great attention to my translation, and to verb forms. Now, by myself, I could exchange all that and feel the faint, humming thrill of the words themselves.

“Oh! Were I but her slave, following her footsteps. Ah! Then should I joy in seeing the forms of all her limbs.”

I ran my hand along my leg, wondering how it would appear to someone else. To a young man. I stroked it with sweet-scented oil, feeling the long muscles under the skin.

“Love to thee fills my utmost being, as wine pervades water, as fragrance pervades resin, as sap mingles itself with liquid. And thou, thou hastenest to see thy beloved as a steed rusheth to the field of battle.”

I shivered. Such feelings seemed close to divinity, to madness.

I put away the scroll. There were more poems there, but I would save them for another night.

I was restless. The poems had made me so; I should be ready to lie down, and instead I paced the chamber. The sea outside was loud tonight, and I could hear the long, mournful sounds of the waves dashing against the rocks, then sliding away. Again. And again.

And then, far away, a sound of music, of pipes and voices. It seemed to be coming from the east, but that way lay only the sea. It grew a little louder, and now there was no mistaking it for anything besides human instruments and exquisite voices. Was it in the palace? Now it sounded as if it were coming from under the ground, directly beneath the building. It swelled louder, then passed by, wafted away, faded. I lay down, hearing its last faint strains. I slept.

The next morning, early, they awakened me. The King was dead. He had died during the night. And I knew then what music I had heard. It was the god Dionysus, playing his pipes, come to the palace to take his devotee to himself.

I arose. Father dead! Only yesterday I had seen him, and he had seemed in fine spirits, although his health was obviously delicate. But he had not been ill. Father dead! And I had left him without a word of good-bye. We had bade only an ordinary good-night. We were cheated; we always bid farewell after the simplest supper, and is it right to send those we love off on the greatest journey of all without a special word?

I asked to see him. He was lying on his bed, eyes closed, looking asleep. His parting had not been violent; he had gone gladly with Dionysus.

“He must be prepared for the Monument,” I said. There he would sleep surrounded by the kings of his line, near where Alexander lay. O to have to make these heavy plans!

“The orders are already given,” said a distinctive voice behind me. Pothinus.

“I am the one who should issue the orders,” I said. “I am Queen.”

“Co-ruler, along with my charge, the most divine Ptolemy the Thirteenth.” He enunciated each word deliberately. “Queens do not attend to ordinary details.”

“Queens that do not attend to ordinary details soon find themselves ignorant of the larger ones.” I glared at him. So here we were, so soon, crossing swords. “You may attend to the details of the announcement of the King’s death and my coronation.”

“Your and Ptolemy the Thirteenth’s coronation.”

This was going to be wearisome. “Yes.” I let him win that point. “Please let it be as soon as possible. We will have to address the people from the steps of the Temple of Serapis, and then be crowned according to Ptolemaic rites. Then I would like to be crowned at Memphis as well, according to the ancient custom of the Pharaohs. See to it.” Let that keep him busy.

As he walked away, his tall frame swaying, I turned back to where my father lay. He seemed smaller, changed. My heart swelled with grief for him, and for all the hardships he had had to endure to retain his throne.

It will not have been in vain, Father, I promised him. Your sacrifices will bear fruit. We will not end up as a Roman province!

Thirty days later, on a brisk and windy day, Ptolemy and I rode together in the gilded ceremonial chariot at the head of the coronation procession that wound its way through the streets of Alexandria, past thousands of curious citizens. I had just had my eighteenth birthday, and he was ten. He had not grown much yet; he came up only to my chin—and I am not a tall woman. But he stood on tiptoe and waved at the cheering crowds, holding up his spindly arm and nodding his head.

I looked behind us at the chariot carrying Arsinoe and little Ptolemy, followed by the retinue of the Regency Council: Pothinus, of course, and Theodotos the tutor and Achillas, general of the Egyptian troops. Pothinus, with his unusually long legs (which eunuchs often have), towered over the other two. They looked almost gleeful; clearly they saw their future as bright. Behind them rode the ministers of state and, marching in their wake, the Macedonian Household Guards. The turning of the chariot wheels made winks of gold all along the way.

We wound our way out of the royal palace grounds and skirted the harbor, then turned at the Temple of Neptune and traveled through the Forum. Turning west, we passed by the Soma.
Alexander, are you proud of me?
I wanted to call to his tomb as we passed. I could almost believe I heard his reply in my mind:
Not yet, for nothing yet has come to pass
.

Across from the Soma, thousands more spectators were standing in the shade of the porticoes around the Gymnasion and the law courts. Then, a little farther down, more people were thronging over the steps of the Museion, particularly the scholars and their students. I recognized the various schools of philosophy by the styles of beard on the faces of their adherents.

The hill crowned by the great Temple of Serapis began to rear up ahead of us. This hill, the only natural one in all Alexandria, made a fitting site for our city god. His temple was known throughout the civilized world as something to take one’s breath away—huge, imposing, framed against the sky, with fast-moving clouds always in the background. Inside the marble building was the statue of the god himself, gilded ivory and, if not as large as the Zeus of Olympia, still a marvel of beauty and construction.

The temple grounds sloped upward, and as we entered the sacred precinct, the crowds had to remain outside. But we were in view of all as we left the chariot and mounted the temple steps slowly, approaching the priests who stood, robed in scarlet.

They draped purple mantles over our shoulders, then led us inside, to the cool, dark, echoing hall of marble. As we walked slowly to the statue of Serapis, the holy flame lit before him flared up.

“A good omen,” said one of the priests. “The god welcomes you.”

They brought a silver vessel with two carrying handles, and poured some of the water into a gold basin. We were to dip our fingers in the sacred water, and then touch our tongues with a drop of it.

“The god has chosen you to rule,” the priests said.

They went to a shrine behind the statue and brought out a little coffer, bound round with iron bands and sealed with a jeweled lock. One of them had the key on a band around his neck; he removed it, fitted it in the lock, and opened the coffer. With trembling hands he removed two plain strips of material: the Macedonian diadem. One priest handed mine to me. “You must fasten it yourself,” he said.

I held it, looking down at it in the dim light. It was just a strip of linen, a piece of cloth! Yet the power it conveyed! This was what Alexander had worn, not a crown like other rulers, but this.

I took the cloth, positioned it across my forehead, then tied the ends in a knot at the back of my neck.

“It is done, Your Majesty,” the priest said.

The cloth lay wide and heavy across my forehead, like no other cloth I had ever felt.

The ceremony was repeated for Ptolemy.

“Now turn to Serapis and say, ‘We accept the state to which you have called us; we pray to be worthy of your favor.’ ”

Did the god acknowledge us? O Isis, only you know that. Do the gods listen to every word? Or are they careless sometimes, bored, preoccupied?

We were back out on the loggia of the temple, the bright day hurting our eyes, blinding us to the screaming crowds below. The wind lifted our garments a little, as if giving us a blessing as it passed.

I was Queen. I wore the sacred diadem, and the day, the people, the city, and Egypt itself were mine—to cherish and to protect.

“O my people!” I cried. “Let us rejoice together! And let me always be worthy of your love, and be granted the wisdom to preserve Egypt for you!”

Our crowning at Memphis was another thing altogether. For the second time in my life I was taken in a boat down the Nile—how different now! The barge was a royal one, with a gilded lotus flower at its bow, and banks of oars—not a little cabin-boat. The riverbanks were lined with the curious; everyone had left the fields. Only the donkeys remained, tied to their wheels. These people were all smiling, and there was no edge to their voices, only the lilt of delight. Ptolemy and I stood on the deck and waved at them, seeing them slide by behind the reeds and bulrushes.

We passed the pyramids, and I felt as though I were taking possession of them. All Egypt was mine, all the monuments and the sands and the Nile itself. I could barely speak for emotion.

Memphis was not far from the pyramids, and the landing stage was decorated for our arrival, hung with banners and garlands of lotus. Date palms lined the road, their dusty branches meeting overhead to make a canopy for us; people climbed them and shook the branches, making a rustle of welcome. Through their branches I could glimpse the limestone walls surrounding the inner palace and temples that had given Memphis its early title, “City of the White Wall.”

Here the Pharaohs had had their coronations, and here Alexander had come to be crowned ruler of Egypt. His successors have done likewise, paying obeisance to the old forms, the old gods.

Before Alexandria, Memphis had been the largest and most important city of Egypt. Here the Pharaoh dwelt, and here was the place where the mysteries of Osiris were enacted, the holy of holies for the Egyptian. Today we were to be initiated into those mysteries by the high priest of Ptah, who was clad in a long linen gown with a panther’s skin across his shoulders. The ceremony was in Egyptian, and I was proud that I could understand all of it—the only one of my family ever to have done so.

In the dim light of the inner temple, we received the symbols of a Pharaoh: the golden crook, the flail, the scepter, robes of linen from Lower Egypt, and ceremonial leather garments. Upon our heads were placed the
uraeus
of pure gold, Egypt’s guardian serpent.

I grasped the handles of the crook and flail, circling them firmly with my fingers, feeling them almost welded to my hands. I vowed never to release or relinquish them until death made me relax my grip. Until then, they were mine—and I was theirs.

Afterward we had to perform the special rites of a Pharaoh. Dressed in ceremonial robes, we had to yoke the sacred Apis bull and lead him through the streets. This was to show our people that we were physically strong, and could be warriors; at the same time we had to chant a refrain promising never to be cruel to anyone beneath our sway, as the bull was beneath his yoke.

At your temple, O Isis, we took more vows. Do you remember that day? The day I bound myself to you by solemn oaths? We promised the priest that we would not interfere with the calendar, neither adding nor subtracting days, nor changing feast days, but allow the three hundred sixty-five days to complete their round as instituted. We also swore that we would protect the land and the water given to our charge.

Then the Memphis diadems were brought out, and we were crowned Pharaohs of Upper and Lower Egypt. They no longer used the heavy, hatlike double crown of the old kingdom, but had adopted the diadem. The cloth had been woven of flax grown in a field sacred to Ptah.

This was my true wedding day, my wedding to that which, if it lay within my power, would live forever: Egypt. I have saved my diadems from those ceremonies, and the gowns. My four marriages to earthly men have not survived, because nothing that is human can last. But Egypt…

The ceremonies over, all the rites observed, I set about taking power. The Regency Council tried to obstruct me, in the name of their protégé, Ptolemy XIII. They insisted I marry him forthwith. I demurred. Too many ceremonies, I said, are confusing. People enjoy ceremonies, but they should be doled out like candies, lest the appetite become cloyed. For now, the lavish public funeral of the King, followed by the coronation procession and citywide banquets, was enough.