The Memoirs of Cleopatra (147 page)

My duties were not over. I had thought they were, with the departure of the Romans. But no. Those of us who are living do not have our obligations and involvements end as neatly as those who have chosen death. Life drags out, drags on, and continues making intermittent, unexpected demands on our loyalties.

Human decency and respect constrained me to follow the royal children and watch over them in Rome, if only from a distance. I seemed doomed to continue ministering to the Queen long beyond what I had imagined when I gave my promise.

I followed them to Rome, arriving in the heat of the summer. The children were all lodged together with the long-suffering Octavia. I could see them when I walked on the Palatine at sunset. They looked content enough as they played games on the grounds with their half-siblings, Antony’s other children. Octavia presided over a household of some nine children now, including hers and Fulvia’s as well as the Egyptian ones. Octavian’s only child, Julia, must have been there often as well, meaning the ages ranged from the nineteen-year-old Marcella to little Philadelphos, age six. I did not make myself known to them, thinking it was better that way, but I hovered on the edges of their lives, spying from the path outside their house.

Octavian had dallied, making his way slowly overland. It was not until March that he returned, and then he set about planning the details of his Triumph—or, rather, Triumphs, for there were to be three of them, on three successive days. He chose the month that was called Sextilis, the month that Alexandria had fallen. He would parade through the streets on the very day that the Queen’s funeral procession had wound through Alexandria. He liked things to be neat like that.

In the meantime, while awaiting his arrival, the city busied itself thinking of honors for their master, and deeds to please him. The Senate passed a resolution condemning Antony, declaring the day he had been born to be cursed, and forbade anyone to use the names
Marcus
and
Antonius
together. His name on all monuments was to be erased, as if he had not existed. They declared the day that Alexandria had fallen to be a supremely lucky day in the calendar, and even proposed that henceforth all Alexandrians must celebrate it as the start of a new era, the first day of a refigured calendar. They proposed that Octavian be granted tribunician power for life, and that he was to be prayed for at all banquets, public and private, and have libations poured to him.

Then our old friend Plancus, he of the blue body-paint and timely desertion, created a new name and title for G. Julius Caesar Octavianus,
divi filius
: Augustus, the Revered One. It hinted at godhood, but not so blatantly that it would offend old-line Republicans. It was satisfyingly vague but majestical nonetheless. Octavian was most pleased, and allowed it to be bestowed upon his laureled head. He had now been transformed into Imperator Caesar Augustus, leaving any common-sounding names, which might betray his origins, behind him.

Like Caesar, he must have a month named after him. It was assumed that—like Caesar—he would choose his birth month, which in his case was September. But no. He chose Sextilis, his great victory month, for his memorial. Henceforth it was to be known as August.

And so, on the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth of August, the Triumphal processions would rumble through the streets. They were rumored to be even more lavish than Caesar’s. Horace and Vergil had both written laudatory verses in commemoration. Bizarre African animals were to be shown for the first time to Rome. No one living must ever forget these celebrations.

How to describe them? As briefly and plainly as possible—I am not here to laud Octavian. It is true that I will never forget them, but for personal reasons.

The first, commemorating the victory over the Illyrians, was a modest affair. There was a parade of prisoners, with three chieftains as figurehead enemies, and the recaptured standards lost by Gabinius years earlier, and banners proclaiming the defeat of the Pannonians, Dalmations, Iapydes, and some Germanic and Gallic tribes. The Vestal Virgins came out of the city to meet the Triumphal chariot and escort it into Rome, and the senators walked alongside the soldiers behind the chariot.

The second, celebrating the naval victory of Actium, was more lavish. Adroitly, no Romans were featured, but only the client kings—half of whom had deserted before the battle was even fought! Ah, the genius of rewriting history! Poor Adiatorix of Galatia and Alexander of Emesa were marched out, men who had barely figured in the fighting. Agrippa was awarded a blue banner for his achievement, and it was announced that henceforth the victory of Actium would be celebrated with sacred games every four years, a sort of rival Olympics. Beaks of the captured ships, from “fours” to “tens,” would be mounted on a platform as a memorial in the Forum.

And now we come to the Alexandrian Triumph, the last and the grandest. The same array of Vestal Virgins and senators and soldiers made up the parade, but they were dwarfed by the prizes exhibited. A hippopotamus and a rhinoceros plodded along the Via Sacra. Lines of Nubians embellished the Forum, providing exotic prisoners. Carts groaning with booty swayed along the stones. I said that Octavian did not take anything from Alexandria, but of course he had helped himself to the treasury, which he had come so far to get. The amount of gold transferred to Rome had the effect of immediately lowering interest rates there from twelve percent to four.

A representation of the Nile itself, complete with all seven mouths, rolled past, followed by flat wagons displaying Egyptian statues, snatched from the temples.

At last Octavian himself appeared in his chariot, being saluted as the conqueror of the world, wearing the crown, rather than having it merely held over his head by a slave. And then…O shame! Walking behind the chariot, in chains, were Selene and Alexander, with little Philadelphos between them, followed by a lurid, huge depiction of their mother, snakes twined around her arms.

She looked fierce, her eyes blazing, her fists clenched. Was she supposed to be dying? She was stretched on her couch, but not limply. She radiated power and purpose. Was it to depict her as the rapacious enemy who had posed such a threat to Rome? Whatever it was, it caused the crowd to cry out, to cheer. Were they applauding her or rejoicing? Possibly both. The snakes suggested Isis as well as her death. It was not unworthy of her. So she had eluded Octavian’s victory parade, and this was his way of saluting her for it: the enemy larger than life.

Beside the picture an actor walked, reciting some of Horace’s poem about Actium:

As the parade concluded, Octavian dismounted from the chariot and motioned to the children. Now was when prisoners were taken off to a prison cell to be strangled while the victor gave solemn thanks at the Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus. But Octavian took Antony and Cleopatra’s children with him to mount the steps up to the Temple. Thereafter they vanished back into his household.

There were yet two ceremonies to be observed, tacked onto the end of the Triumph. The doors to the Temple of Janus were formally closed, pronouncing an end to war. And Octavian made his way to Caesar’s temple, there to dedicate a statue of Victory and present Egyptian spoils.

Then it was over, and the general celebrations could begin—the eating, drinking, dancing. I shall not describe it; all crowd celebrations are the same. But I pushed my way through the mob to reach Caesar’s Temple of Venus Genetrix in his Forum. I had to see if…it would be surprising if…but Octavian was a surprising man, I grant him that.

And he surprised me now—pleasantly. For standing where Caesar had placed it seventeen years ago was the gold statue of Cleopatra as goddess and consort. The enemy in the Forum still reigned supreme and honored in this house of Caesar; so revered was Caesar that no one dared attack the statue. Or perhaps it was more than that; perhaps the Romans, who admire courage and a resolute foe above everything else, secretly wished to honor their greatest adversary and keep her where, over the years, they could pay her homage.

And now I address you again, my friend, my Queen. Strange how death does not stop us from talking to our departed ones. Or, rather, there are stages we go through: At first, when the gulf is recent and therefore not so wide, we chatter freely, feeling them to be just behind us. Then something happens—grief, gazing on the tomb, seeing the empty seat—that creates a thick wall between us. Then time itself, such a fluid thing, dissolves the barrier and we are back where we started, close again.

Such has happened to me, in regards to you. And once that separation had vanished, I was able to set out to complete the journey that you entrusted to me.

Oh yes, the scrolls are bulky and heavy. They require a stout trunk to house them. I have all ten of them—twenty, actually, since you insisted on copies going to the Kandake. You always knew that we must help chance to triumph, hence an extra set is prudent.

It was good to leave Alexandria; you were right about that. My medical practice has exploded beyond what I can manage, as I have become monstrously famous—or notorious—as the Queen’s physician. They credit me with the asps, with which, of course, I had nothing to do, and with miraculously saving Mardian, which also was not my doing but his luck in being bitten last, and being so bulky. The notoriety is a nuisance, and keeps me from the anonymity I prize. So a lengthy excursion to Meroe is most welcome, and refreshing.

Passing through the canal, then down the Nile, I am retracing our childhood excursion of so long ago. Egypt never changes: the same palms, the same mud-brick houses, the same pyramids. It is good to remind myself of that. Here, beyond Memphis, I question whether they even know that Octavian is the new “Pharaoh.”

Yes, he has embraced this identity. He is posing as your heir—isn’t that amusing? By taking in Alexander, Selene, and Philadelphos, and rearing them in his Roman household, he pretends to continuity of the line. I understand carvers are busy in temples depicting him in Pharaonic crown, sacrificing to Osiris and Horus. But I do not plan to stop and look at them.

Egypt, Egypt, eternal Egypt…always unique. The new “Pharaoh” has declared it a special province, one that no prominent Roman may even visit without express permission. It is to be maintained as a gigantic park, Octavian’s own playground. Cornelius Gallus will oversee it, but he is not its governor. It has no governor.

Timeless eddies on the river, sandbanks with crocodiles, temples, sand, papyrus reeds, and the wide bosom of the Nile reaching down into Africa. It is easy to forget everything else, and let time swirl away.

I will push on past Philae, going all the way to Meroe. There has lately been some trouble around the First Cataract between the Nubians and the Romans, and I think it safer to make my way south first. I must confess that I plan to question the physicians of Meroe and take back samples of any medicinal plants they may have, and thus I am anxious to get there.

I have arrived. It has taken me four months! Months in which to read your account of your own journey here, past all the cataracts. It is not something lightly undertaken. Now the city looms before me, and the banks are lined with the curious. I can only hope that the Kandake is still well, and reigns. Odd how we think distance can confer longevity as well.

She has received me. She lives, although arthritically, and moves her bulk in great majesty through her palace. She was rhapsodical about you, recalling your visit to her so many years ago.

“But I warned her about the Romans,” she said, wagging her finger. “I told her to stay away from them, and to make an alliance with me instead.” She was seated on a wide-legged bench, with the proffered chest of scrolls at her feet.

“I think it was they who could not stay away from her,” I said. And it was true.

“I told her I would avenge her when the Romans—whom she insisted on trafficking with!—let her down. And I have.” She nodded solemnly. “I have.” She pointed to her left eye, which was blind. “I have surrendered my eye to the Romans.”

When I looked puzzled, she continued, “They thought to take Philae along with the rest of Egypt! Our holy precinct, and the estates south of the cataract! They declared it a protectorate, and even put their filthy statues of Octavian in the temples! I could not allow it. No, I could not. It was not to be borne.” She rose, slowly, like a mountain coming to its feet. “I will show you what we did!”

Like an island that miraculously moves through the sea, the Kandake floated through the vast halls of her palace and led me to the forecourt of a temple in the royal enclosure. She gave some commands in Meroitic to her attendants, who scurried away and then returned with shovels to start digging.

“I led my own bowmen on a raid to the temple, while the rest of my army attacked Philae itself, Aswan, and the Elephantine Island, and routed the Romans there. In the fighting my eye was injured, and later I lost the sight in it.” She seemed to accept it as a badge of honor. “But I can see well enough with the remaining one!” She turned it fiercely on me.

“Oh, we scattered them and ran them off,” she continued. “But that was not enough. No. We needed to do
this
.” She pointed to the hole that was being dug before the temple, and to a roundish green object just coming into view deep in it.

As the men continued to dig, the object revealed itself to be a bronze head, which emerged from the sand like a waterlogged body floating to the surface. The workmen pulled it out and held it up, where it stared balefully at us, sand streaming off it.

It was a huge head of Octavian, the eyes looking sadly at us, starkly white against the green tarnish of the bronze. They must have been made of alabaster, but the effect was startling.

“We decapitated his statue, the one he had boldly set up inside the holy quarters. Then we brought it back here and did a ritual desecration on it, burying it in front of the temple to our victory.”

The primitive fierceness of the gesture was unnerving. I felt myself to be in a very alien place indeed. Octavian’s severed head kept looking at me.

“Now your Queen can rest in peace,” she said. “She has been avenged.” The Kandake lifted her chin proudly.

“Yes, indeed,” I agreed. It seemed imprudent not to.

I have no doubt that your scrolls will be safe in her keeping.

And now to Philae, the final leg of the journey, where I shall discharge my solemn promise and complete my last duty to you. Then indeed you may rest, knowing all things are finished according to your wishes.

The Romans are still smarting from their thrashing at the hands of the Nubians, and are planning reprisals. But for now they are busy repairing the damage. I see the toppled statue of Octavian, its neck sawed through, lying on its side near the forecourt of the great Temple of Isis.

But I wish to think no more of Octavian or anything beyond this little island, with its exquisite temple, its sanctuary to Isis. White, small enough to be perfect, lying before me, I want to take possession of it. This is a Ptolemaic achievement, the marriage between Egypt and a great dynasty that became the country it conquered. Your ancestor Ptolemy V is carved on the walls, your father Ptolemy XII adorns the pylons guarding the inner sanctuary. And inside, in the sheltering dark, is the great statue of your goddess-mother, Isis. There I will leave the legacy you entrusted to me, to entrust to her. I will also leave my own, the pitiful addendum. This is where it belongs, the story drawn out to its conclusion.

All this temple is yours. In some recess, invisible to me, is the chamber where you stood when you united yourself with Caesar. You linger here, remaining just beyond the annihilating grip of Rome.

The old priest has accepted the scrolls without question. He showed me the hollow in the pedestal of the great statue of Isis, where sacred relics are kept. Reverently he has placed the ten scrolls there. He awaits this final one, but he is patient. Oh, very, very patient. I can well believe he has been here since the first Ptolemy.

Then he shows me his treasure: a statue of you, carved of tamarisk. It is life-size, and the voluptuous curves and colors of the wood give it such warmth that for a moment I can believe it is you, there, before me. It gives me both joy and pain to behold it.

He tells me he is covering it with sheets of gold, so that it may last for centuries, and you may be worshiped alongside Isis. Already you have many devotees who come here to pay homage.

It seems wrong, somehow, to cover the vitality of the wood, a living thing, with the stern eternity of gold. But just so are you transformed into a goddess, and only in that form can you endure, to soar into man’s imagination and reign forever.

He tells me that Philae is a Greek corruption of the ancient Egyptian
pilak
, meaning “the end.” The island was once the end of Egypt, the end of our comprehension of ourselves. So it is your end, the final resting place of your thoughts and deeds and life, guarded by gods, saved from destruction. You will never die, folded here in the embrace of Isis.

At last I believe that, and surrender you with joy.

FINIS