The Murder of Cleopatra (4 page)

Then, I returned to Giza to visit the Great Pyramid, built by King Sneferu's son Khufu, also known as Cheops. The son outdid his father, building an even larger and more spectacular pyramid. I paid my admission price and entered the site, now being trampled by a number of tourists, though not as many as I would have expected to see.

The Great Pyramid is, well, great. What can one say about a structure that took twenty-two years to build and used around 2,300,000 limestone blocks that each weighed an average of 2.5 tons, with some weighing sixteen tons? Sadly, the beautiful, smooth, white limestone no longer covers the pyramid, as it was stolen to be used in constructing the modern-day Cairo. The massive stones are exposed, and one can see just how huge each one is. I entered the door to the sloping pathway to the burial chamber, this time climbing up inside the pyramid. Again, after a very long time, I reached the center. The room was simple and empty, with the exception of a massive stone box that had no top (into which the coffin would be placed). But the feeling of being in such an isolated and secret place built so long ago, with its smooth interior, its perfect dimensions, was amazing. Those guidebooks that advised me not to bother with the uncomfortable
ascent into the tomb because it wasn't worth the trouble were dead wrong.

As I sat inside what would become my favorite burial chamber, deep inside the Great Pyramid in Giza, I envisioned what we've been told happened twenty centuries ago in a room supposedly just like this one. This square vault was so deep inside Cheops's magnificent structure, I felt I had truly crawled back in time to the cusp of the millennium. There was nothing painted on these walls of the room, nothing of beauty to be seen (the unadorned oddity of this interior room in the Great Pyramid has yet to be satisfactorily explained by historians). I felt as if I were alone in the center of Cleopatra's last days, a landscape barren of hope for the embattled queen. Although the stark room in which I sat was built many years before the birth of Cleopatra, the inside of this tomb would not be so different from one the last pharaoh would find herself ensconced, should she be laid to rest in proper Macedonian or Egyptian tradition. Wherever and whenever the queen's body was put to rest, it would be in a similar simple, fully sealed room with just enough space to fit a platform topped with a big stone box in which to secrete the casket. Around the platform, riches would be piled to travel with her into the afterworld. The walls would be adorned with colorful paintings, as likely would the narrow entranceway leading from the outside into the burial vault. It is a small, simple cubicle, not roomy and elaborate living quarters.

It is here that I needed to start my return trek into pharaonic times to pick up where I left off from my last trip to Egypt with the Atlantic crew, to dig even deeper into the mystery of Cleopatra's death.

I reviewed what I had learned from my visits to the various tombs and from the study of history leading up to the death of Cleopatra, purportedly taking place inside a tomb room like the one in which I was now sitting. In reality, Cleopatra's tomb would have looked more like a Macedonian tomb than an Egyptian one (the small subterranean alabaster tomb in Alexandria that may or may not have been the burial chamber of Alexander the Great would be a good representation
of such a tomb); however, the burial vault inside would be very much the same. But, whether the origin of Cleopatra's mausoleum architecture was Macedonian or Egyptian, the one thing I noted for sure in all the tombs I visited was that
none
of them seemed a convenient place to store the
entire
Ptolemaic treasury or to burn up all the wealth of the pharaohs, as Cleopatra supposedly told Octavian she was planning to do. With the lack of much air in these places, I doubt a fire would burn terribly well or long, nor would hanging out for an extended period of time with the door shut be tolerable; it is terribly hot, dark, and airless in these underground or interior burial chambers. Burial tombs are nothing like the structures Plutarch describes.

Now that she had a tomb and monument built surpassingly lofty and beautiful, which she had erected near the temple of Isis, collected there the most valuable of the royal treasures, gold, silver, emeralds, pearls, ebony, ivory, and cinnamon; and besides all this she put there great quantities of torch-wood and tow, so that Caesar was anxious about the reason, and fearing lest the woman might become desperate and burn up and destroy this wealth.
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Furthermore, none of these tombs appeared to be on the ground floor of large, square, aboveground buildings, as Cleopatra's mausoleum was described in the ancient texts. The other thing I learned after visiting tomb after tomb is that the construction was solid; no shoddy work or flimsy materials were used here. These tombs were intended to keep out all the elements.

The writings of Plutarch oddly describe the interior of the tomb as similar to that of a room in the royal palace or a large interior room of a grand temple. Indeed, in many paintings depicting Cleopatra in her mausoleum, we see a velvet bed upon which Cleopatra is draped and, around her, the decorations of a fine sitting room or a throne room. Yet, in each of the tombs I visited, no such comfortable ambience was present. The rooms weren't even large enough to accommodate more than the coffin and the ruler's selected possessions.

She begged Caesar that she might be permitted to pour libations for Antony; and when the request was granted, she had herself carried to the tomb, and embracing the urn which held his ashes, in company with the women usually about her.

After such lamentations, she wreathed and kissed the urn, and then ordered a bath to be prepared for herself. After her bath, she reclined at table and was making a sumptuous meal.
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Tombs have one thing in common: they are secure vaults. In the Valley of the Kings where one can actually see colorful artwork adorning the walls of the entranceways and the tombs themselves, there is still no question that this is a final destination. First, there is the long crippled-over or hands-and-knees crawl down, down, down, or up, up, up—inching along inside the tight tunnel walls, so encroaching that many visitors simply refuse to make the attempt. There is an odd feeling of air escaping from your chest as you make your way down the shaft, even though your brain is telling you that this is a tourist venue, that you will arrive shortly at your goal and be perfectly fine.

When you get there, finally, finally, you can stand up. You have entered the resting place of a god. And you feel alone, even with others. The weight of the earth above, or the massive stones above, below, and on all sides, causes an uncomfortable feeling of entrapment. This
is
a grave, albeit a slightly larger one than most of our bodies will ever reside within. In the middle of each room is a stone platform, with a stone outer casket placed on top of it. This, then, is it. A body encased in stone, upon stone, within stone. It is stifling and eternal and inescapable. This is no place to linger, to hide in, to bargain from within. It is no hotel room with furniture and bath and dining facilities. It is simply a storage unit for someone no longer needing to see the light or expend energy. It would not have been Cleopatra's choice of a hiding place or a holdout. Yet this is where the ancient texts claim Cleopatra spent her last days and chose to end her life.

The final moments of the last Egyptian pharaoh are the most
famous in all history, barring that of Jesus Christ's crucifixion at Golgotha outside of Jerusalem. Those last minutes of the great queen Cleopatra's life have been reenacted for centuries on stage in Shakespeare's famed play,
Antony and Cleopatra
. We have watched, mesmerized, as the beautiful pharaoh clutches the hissing snake, mouth wide open, fangs visible, and then presses it to her breast. We shudder as we hear her gasp loudly for breath, her throat muscles contracting in a vicious spasm, moaning as excruciating pain surges through her being.

Then, tears came to our eyes as the actress playing Cleopatra collapsed to the floor, artistically posing herself in as attractive a heap as she could muster for a lifeless body on display. It is a scene not easily forgotten.

As reported by Plutarch:

After such lamentations, she wreathed and kissed the urn, and then ordered a bath to be prepared for herself. After her bath, she reclined at table and was making a sumptuous meal. And there came a man from the country carrying a basket; and when the guards asked him what he was bringing there, he opened the basket, took away the leaves, and showed them that the dish inside was full of figs. The guards were amazed at the great size and beauty of the figs, whereupon the man smiled and asked them to take some; so they felt no mistrust and bade him take them in. After her meal, however, Cleopatra took a tablet which was already written upon and sealed, and sent it to Caesar, and then, sending away all the rest of the company except her two faithful women, she closed the doors.

But Caesar opened the tablet, and when he found there lamentations and supplications of one who begged that he would bury her with Antony, he quickly knew what had happened. At first he was minded to go himself and give aid; then he ordered messengers to go with all speed and investigate. But the mischief had been swift. For though his messengers came on the run and found the guards as yet aware of nothing, when they opened the doors they found Cleopatra lying dead upon a golden couch, arrayed in royal state. And of her two women, the one called Iras was dying
at her feet, while Charmion, already tottering and heavy-handed, was trying to arrange the diadem which encircled the queen's brow. Then somebody said in anger: “A fine deed, this, Charmion!” “It is indeed most fine,” she said, “and befitting the descendant of so many kings.” Not a word more did she speak, but fell there by the side of the couch.

It is said that the asp was brought with those figs and leaves and lay hidden beneath them, for thus Cleopatra had given orders, that the reptile might fasten itself upon her body without her being aware of it. But when she took away some of the figs and saw it, she said: “There it is, you see,” and baring her arm she held it out for the bite. But others say that the asp was kept carefully shut up in a water jar, and that while Cleopatra was stirring it up and irritating it with a golden distaff it sprang and fastened itself upon her arm. But the truth of the matter no one knows; for it was also said that she carried about poison in a hollow comb and kept the comb hidden in her hair; and yet neither spot nor other sign of poison broke out upon her body. Moreover, not even was the reptile seen within the chamber, though people said they saw some traces of it near the sea, where the chamber looked out upon it with its windows. And some also say that Cleopatra's arm was seen to have two slight and indistinct punctures; and this Caesar also seems to have believed. For in his triumph an image of Cleopatra herself with the asp clinging to her was carried in the procession. These, then, are the various accounts of what happened.
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And from Cassius Dio:

No one knows clearly in what way she perished, for the only marks on her body were slight pricks on the arm. Some say she applied to herself an asp which had been brought in to her in a water-jar, or perhaps hidden in some flowers. Others declare that she had smeared a pin, with which she was wont to fasten her hair, with some poison possessed of such a property that in ordinary circumstances it would not injure the body at all, but if it came into contact with even a drop of blood would destroy the body very quietly and painlessly;
and that previous to this time she had worn it in her hair as usual, but now had made a slight scratch on her arm and had dipped the pin in the blood. In this or in some very similar way she perished, and her two handmaidens with her. As for the eunuch, he had of his own accord delivered himself up to the serpents at the very time of Cleopatra's arrest, and after being bitten by them had leaped into a coffin already prepared for him. When Caesar heard of Cleopatra's death, he was astounded, and not only viewed her body but also made use of drugs and Psylli in the hope that she might revive. These Psylli are males, for there is no woman born in their tribe, and they have the power to suck out any poison of any reptile, if use is made of them immediately, before the victim dies; and they are not harmed themselves when bitten by any such creature.
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And from Suetonius:

Cleopatra he greatly desired to lead as a captive in his triumphal procession and even had Psylli brought to her who were to suck out the venomous liquid—it was believed that her death was caused by the bite of an asp. He honoured them both with a joint burial, giving orders that the tomb which they themselves had started to build be completed.
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Through the writings of Plutarch, Cassius Dio, and Suetonius, the ancient historians who narrated the tales of ancient Egypt and Rome, I reconstruct the final episode of Cleopatra's life and visualize the scene inside the tomb where the figures of Cleopatra and her handmaidens lay still and unmoving on the cool marble floor. Yet, unlike Shakespeare, who used his stories to create an entertaining show, I choose to examine their accounts as a forensic investigator, using logic and science to determine what is true and what is not, piecing together the past until I have as truthful a picture of the events as possible.

From the corner of Cheops's burial chamber, I envision the scene.

The tomb is now empty save the bodies of the three women. The guards, the physician, and the snake charmers, purportedly sent to save the queen, have all left the mausoleum to report back to Octavian. From then until the moment the cleanup crew arrives to take care of the deceased, the crime scene will not change. It is this particular event I must examine before it is permanently erased, the evidence eliminated, and the tomb sealed for all time.

Cleopatra and Antony will disappear into the sands along with the building that encases them, leaving only fragments of evidence strewn about the region. The stories of their lives and deaths will undergo many modifications, and even this scene in the tomb is a questionable rendition. But by doing my best with it, examining the known evidence, both physical and behavioral, I can put together what really happened to Cleopatra and all those who had traveled the treacherous road through history with her.