The Memoirs of Cleopatra (84 page)

Was this the same Antony who had sworn eternal love, and written the distraught letter? There he was, trying to please Octavian again.
He takes on the strongest nature that’s nearest him
. His words dismissed me as nothing but a breeder, a field to be sown by his Dionysian seed. Of course, that was to please the two Octs—Octavian and Octavia.

I had never answered the letter from Antony. Was this his revenge?

But I knew Antony was not a vengeful man. If anything, he was the opposite.

He had to part from Octavian soon! His wits and judgment were being subverted. But of course, wherever he went he would take along a piece of Octavian. I had planted an astrologer in his household, but Octavian had done better than that; he had put a partisan in his very bed—Octavian’s loyal and obedient sister.

Octavian. The world was not large enough to encompass us both. Nor could we share Antony.

My eyes strayed to the corner of the chamber, where a spear and a helmet of Antony’s leaned against the wall. They were articles we had exchanged when we dressed in fantasy. He had forgotten them, left them behind when he sailed off for Tyre. They had served as a visible reminder of him, and I thought to present them to Alexander someday as a legacy from his father, just as I would give Caesarion the pendant from his.

Now they just looked dusty and forsaken. He had not missed them; or if he had, he was too proud to ask for them to be returned. I walked over to them and touched them. Is there anything more out of place than the trappings of battle in a peacetime chamber? I should put them away.

Oh, Antony. I would rather be the one to go than the one to stay behind—like these castoff weapons, I thought.

I would rule alone. It was my allotted fate. With one hand I touched again the spear, with the other I touched the pendant, which I had put back on again: remnants of the men who had given me my heirs.

I had always wanted to visit Athens. Now I was once again envious of Antony to be stationed there, far from Octavian’s yapping and the Roman mobs, free to do what he liked in such a great city. From what Olympos said, it would appear that Antony found it congenial, and the Athenians appreciated him as well.

Now that he was closer, and in the Greek sphere, I found that my thoughts were pulled to him often. His absence was not like that of Caesar’s, whose void seemed to fill all the earth, as well as my own life. And the absence caused by death is so absolute, so remorseless, that I was forced to turn away from it toward the living. Antony’s absence was the lack of a fillip to life, a collapsing of an added dimension. Real life went on unharmed, with no gaps, but curiously flat. In my hunger, I reminded myself that no one ever died from lack of seasoning, and that bland food was just as nourishing for the body as spiced.

“Olympos is returning!” I told Caesarion. “Have you written your verses yet?”

He had promised to compose some welcoming verses. I told him if he could manage both to write them in Greek and translate them into Egyptian, I would order an image of him as a grown Pharaoh to be carved on the Temple of Dendera, far up the Nile.

“Yes, but I’m not pleased with them,” he said. He showed me the paper where he had written them. “The words are so
ordinary
! I want to use special ones!”

I looked over his composition, finding it very well done for an eight-year-old. “You would do well to remember what your father said about that. His writings were renowned for their clarity and style. He said, ‘Avoid the rare and unusual word like a helmsman the rocks.’ In other words, steer clear of it. I think he would approve of this verse.” I handed it back to him. “I know Olympos will appreciate it. He has been gone a long time—over six months. Studying medicine.” And spying, I thought.

“What’s he learned? Can he sew heads back on if they’re cut off?”

I laughed. “I don’t think anyone can do that.” Otherwise someone would have stuck Cicero’s back on, and he would still be fulminating about the Republic.

Just then the twins came in. They were walking now, not very steadily, but every day they improved. Caesarion did not look pleased. “Oh, it’s
them
.” He snatched his paper and held it up over his head, lest they try to grab it. He stood on tiptoe and whispered into my ear, “When I asked for a brother or sister, I didn’t think they would be so
boring
. They don’t do anything, except cry and tear things up.”

“Give them time,” I said. “Someday you will be friends. They will catch up to you.”

“Never.” He sidestepped as one of them reached out chubby fingers to tug on his tunic. Selene fell flat on her face and started wailing. “You see?” He looked disdainful and left the room. “What a nuisance!”

Olympos would be surprised at how they had changed since he left. They had grown fast, and were no longer smaller than others their age. They both had golden curls that made them look angelic, but that was misleading. Children, especially pretty ones, can be tyrants.

Olympos was back, looking rested and yet happy to return. He had lingered in Athens almost to the danger-point for travel, but said he was so beguiled by the mellow sunshine in the city it was hard to realize winter was coming.

In our private chambers, Caesarion recited his memorized welcome verses, then read them off in halting Egyptian. The twins excited themselves so much they went into a frenzy of jumping and yelling, and even Kasu the monkey started climbing on the curtains and leaping from chair to chair.

“Pandemonium!” said Olympos. “Where is the classical ideal of restraint and order? This is positively Dionysian.” He leaned forward to kiss my cheek, then applauded Caesarion’s literary efforts. Finally he bent down to look carefully at the twins.

“They seem to be thriving,” he said. “They must be eating ambrosia, the food of the gods, to shoot up so. If Antony saw them, he would be proud.”
But of course he won’t
, I could almost read his thoughts in the tight line of his lips.
Your parting must be final, after his insults
.

“You are too protective of me,” I said, answering his thoughts rather than his words. But that is how it is between old friends. “I can fend for myself.” I drew him aside, when I could divert the children. “What was the last news you heard before you set sail?”

“No real news,” he said. “Antony and Octavia will spend the winter in Athens, while he organizes the east for his ventures. All is quiet. It is not known when he plans to launch the massive attack on Parthia. It would seem difficult to ready everything by next spring, since an enormous army has to be equipped. Oh, and I brought you this. I thought you would want to see it.” He took my hand and slowly and deliberately pressed a coin into it. “A new issue.”

I opened my palm and stared at its bright beauty. It was an aureus, a gold coin, with the heads of Antony and Octavia. So he was minting money with his wife’s head on it! It made me angry, as Olympos meant it to.

As if to cover up his blatant provocation, he then produced another coin. “I thought you might find this amusing.” He held it between his thumb and forefinger, turning it around.

“Well, give it to me.” I took it and saw that it was a denarius showing Sextus’s father Pompey with a dolphin and trident on one side, and a war galley under sail on the other.

“What does this mean?” I asked. It seemed silly.

“Sextus is now claiming that he’s the son of Neptune; he’s blurring his real father, with his sea command, into the divine one. He takes it seriously enough, and so do the mobs in Rome. They cheered like crazy when a statue of Neptune was carted around at the races, in company with the other gods; Antony and Octavian had it removed, and they almost rioted. Sextus has even started costuming himself in a blue cloak in honor of his ‘father.’ ”

“He sounds like a clown,” I said. How could anyone pay attention to this?

“Oh yes, everyone is a god these days—or the son of one. I wonder who I should claim?”

“Asclepius, of course,” I said.

“He isn’t grand enough—he started life as a mortal.”

“Well, you have to start somewhere,” I said, wishing to end this. I was happy to have Olympos back, but I wanted to be alone to glower at the coins.

After he was gone, I stared at the profiles. Pompey’s was certainly a recognizable likeness, but I thought Antony’s face looked stretched and flat, as if he had been ill and lost weight. As for Octavia—her profile was behind his, and all it showed was a straight nose and well-formed lips. I thought it looked vaguely familiar, but it might not have really looked like her, if the likeness of Antony was any guide.

So he was proceeding as if this were the only life he had ever wanted, as if he was born to be all the things he now was: Octavia’s husband, Octavian’s brother-in-law, an exemplary citizen of the patrician intellectual offerings of Athens. Olympos said he had settled into a round of attending lectures, readings, council meetings, and the like, all with his seemly wife in tow. Had his spirits really been extinguished under all that domestic propriety? It would be as sad as the majestic, exotic wild beasts I had seen—tigers, panthers, pythons—turned into broken amusements in cages.

I put the coin into a box, where it would be safe, and where I wouldn’t see it.