The Memoirs of Cleopatra
Chapter 100 : "I am intimately involved in all these movements," I said. "Since I bor

"I am intimately involved in all these movements," I said. "Since I bore Caesar's child fifteen years ago, I am part of Roman politics, like it or not."

"I don't don't like it!" he returned. like it!" he returned.

I was taken aback--not at his sentiments, but at his honesty. "There are days I don't like it, either," I said.

Still Antony's speech had not returned. Both Consuls turned to him, waiting.

"Imperator," said Sosius, "tell us . . . what shall we do?"

"I don't know," Antony finally said. He looked perplexed. "Wherever shall we put all these senators?"

"You revered the Senate so," I reminded him. "Now you shall have them on your hands!" Perhaps it was cruel of me, but I was upset as well. Everything was so messy--and Octavian so full of surprises.

They arrived within a few days, spilling off the boats, making their way up the harbor road and into the main part of town, clutching their belongings.

How odd they looked, away from Rome! Transported to another setting, they lost all their formidable qualities and just seemed like any other foreigners.

We found lodging for them only by straining the hospitality of the Ephesians to the limit.

Octavian had promptly appointed two of his men--Valerius Messalla and Cornelius Cinna--to fill the vacant posts of Consul. The ranks had closed behind us. Our Consuls were deposed. Our entire party was in exile. There was only one way to get back--fight, defeat Octavian, and return to Rome in triumph. At last it had come to this. I had been waiting twelve years since Caesar's death to see his true heir recognized, his false one driven from the throne. For throne it was: the Roman throne, created by Caesar, destined for his son.

The forces gathered in Ephesus. Antony now had eight squadrons of sixty s.h.i.+ps each, with forty support s.h.i.+ps and five scouts per squadron--almost five hundred s.h.i.+ps. He also counted another three hundred transport and supply vessels. Altogether our fleet numbered eight hundred--a staggering size. For the first time since Alexander, all the sea power in the east lay at one man's command.

Canidius had brought the sixteen legions from Armenia, and seven more were drawn from Macedonia. The client kings all over the east had pledged their troops: Archelaus of Cappadocia, Amyntas of Galatia, Tarcondimotus of the Ama.n.u.s, Mithridates of Commagene, Deiotarus of Paphlagonia, Rhoemetalces and Sadalas of Thrace, Bocchus of Mauretania, Herod of Judaea, Malchus of Nabataea, and the King of Media. These totaled some twenty-five thousand men, in addition to the seventy-five thousand legionaries.

Did I neglect to mention that I was supporting all this? Yes, the treasury of Egypt was covering all the expenses of maintaining this army, as well as the navy--some twenty thousand talents in all. A great deal, considering that it cost about fifty talents to maintain a legion in the field for a year. It was also more than my father's entire original debt to Rome. So much had Egypt prospered in the years of my reign that what had been an enormous and impossible debt to him was lying at my fingertips, ready for disposal.

I was underwriting all the expense--carrying this army on my back--or, rather, on my treasury's back. And yet the Romans dared to order me to depart! The insolence of Romans never failed to stun me. Without me, there would be no army, no provisions, no housing for them, no bread and wine. . . .

Yet they tried to persuade Antony to dismiss me!

Ahen.o.barbus started it, muttering that "all would be well if Cleopatra would depart to Egypt." Others took up the chorus, saying that my presence was damaging Antony's cause. Just how, they did not specify! All this, while eating my bread!

Antony ignored the murmurs. Later they got louder, but during that spring they were still soft enough to be pa.s.sed over.

We decided to do something Alexander had done: hold a festival of music, drama, and poetry prior to going to war. It was a very Greek thing to do; no Roman would think of it. Yet were we not fighting to preserve our different way of life?

We gave orders for everyone to a.s.semble on the island of Samos, which lies just off the wide Bay of Ephesus.

Chapter 70.

The marble seats of the theater glowed violet in the twilight, like other night creatures that give off light at dawn or dusk: fireflies, will-o'-the-wisps, glowworms, the s.h.i.+ning wake of a s.h.i.+p in moonlight. They climbed up the hill--a gentle slope, this, at Samos--empty of patrons, patiently waiting for the audience they knew must come.

The flat stones of the stage, empty as well, invited me to walk upon them. I did so, in slow, measured footsteps, undergoing transformations of character every few paces. I was Medea, my hands red with blood, I was Antigone, guiding her blind father, I was the virgin prophetess Ca.s.sandra. In the moments when I pretended, I could feel something change inside me. Had there been rows of faces looking at me, I could have convinced them, too, that I was someone else.

What an odd power and freedom, I thought--to pretend to be someone else, someone who may not have ever existed at all, or is long dead. In some G.o.dlike way, it makes me--briefly, oh, so briefly--the bestower of life on the lifeless. The infuser of warm breath and blood to the shades.

And why limit myself only to other womanly incarnations? Why not be Oedipus himself, or Achilles--or anyone I fancied? The imagination in full force can know no bounds, and the biggest difference between me and these people was not in being a man or a woman but in existing at all.

Silence. No audience, and therefore no rebirth for the dead heroes. At least not tonight. I would have willed them to appear, but the only mortal disguise they could use was the body of an actor, with an audience to see him.

Acting is the only art that one cannot do alone, I realized, and still call oneself an artist. There can be secret poets, secret painters, secret musicians, but no secret, solitary actors. An actor without an audience is lacking an essential element.

"Alone?" Antony asked in a loud whisper.

I felt embarra.s.sed. How long had he been watching? Had he guessed what I was doing? I had to smile at my own conceit: that my enactments were so good he would have immediately known which character I mimicked. And in the fading light, too.

I whirled around. I did not see him anywhere, and the seats looked as empty as ever. Now even the purple glow was fading out, ebbing away, as the night robbed everything of color.

"Rehearsing?" Now the voice seemed to come from a different place. But I was surrounded by emptiness.

"Where are you?" I whispered, and the perfect setting magnified it so it could be heard all around.

"Everywhere," came back the answer. "You cannot escape me."

"Then come and show yourself." I waited, sure a rustle or a movement would point him out to me. But in the gloom I saw nothing.

A light, warm wind was flowing down the hillside, bringing the scent of new meadow gra.s.s and thyme with it. Spring on an eastern Greek island was the nearest we could come while alive to actually wandering in the Elysian fields.

A slender crescent moon hung low in the sky, hovering over the fields. Where was Antony? We needed to walk hand-in-hand across the warm scented expanses.

"Who would you most like to be?" Now the teasing voice seemed to come from a different place. "Answer me that, and I shall grant it, in person."

"There is no one else I would rather be all the time," I said, realizing the rare pleasure of that. "But I suppose, just for tonight, I would like to be one of the G.o.ddesses of the gentle breeze, so I could fly and stream over the island, wherever I wished."

There, now I had played the game. He must now fulfill the promise.

He emerged from behind the altar of Dionysus, which stood near the middle of the stage, peeking up over its top like a schoolboy. I was astonished-- how had he hidden there without my seeing him? "Sometimes what you seek is very near to hand," he said, stepping out.

"If one cannot see it, it does little good," I said. "Now, can you teach me to fly?"

"Dionysus could, in the guise of wine," he said. "And we have invited all the members of the Dionysian actors guild to come to Samos and perform--so we shall all fly."

I laughed. "A tricky answer." The wind whispered in my ears. "Oh, Antony--this festival is most solemn and portentous. The ancient Greek way of going out to war--when war was a ritual and a contest rather than a science--holding games, drama, music, all to placate the G.o.ds . . . perhaps we shouldn't have done it." The sacred character of it--had that been lost, forgotten, so that all the world would see was revelry? We were too much a.s.sociated with that as it was. Yet to forsake the old ways entirely seemed insulting to the very G.o.ds we wished to aid us. As if we cared more about what Octavian and Horace thought than Zeus himself. . . . "They will ridicule us in Rome," I said.

He shrugged. "We won't hear them." Now he walked around the stage. "Here is where our thoughts will be--with this reenactment of the mighty deeds done by G.o.ds and heroes. May we be worthy of them." Suddenly his voice took on that oratorical tone meant for more than just me. He was addressing an invisible audience--a past one, and one yet to come. "These deeds must not be forgotten. We are re-creating our ancestors in our own lives--they dream the state we are in. When we live, they live too. They dance in the sunlight once more, feel the radiance that makes life sweet."

His voice made me s.h.i.+ver. To call back the dead, grant them life through us . . . yes, drama was perhaps the most frightening act we could perform, and the most generous.

"Will the senators understand this?" I asked. "And the client kings, who have no part in Greek thought?"

"You concern yourself overmuch with that. At the least, they will be entertained. And they will doubtless find it more pleasant than the Roman way of opening a war--which always seems to start not with a play, but with taxes!"

I laughed. Yes, the Romans labored under that burden--money troubles. Octavian was about to launch a tax drive that was bound to make him odious. He was going to demand a quarter of a person's income to finance the army. Romans, who were used to receiving tribute from provinces to pay-their government rather than doing it themselves, were in for a shock.

From somewhere in the night I heard music--drums, flutes, lyres--and voices singing a refrain.

"They are practicing," said Antony. "The Dionysian songs will fill the island."

The sweet and haunting melodies hung over us in the warm air.

"It is ghosts singing," I said.

"Ghosts sighing," he said.

We stood together listening.

Finally I took his hand. "Let us walk. There is a path here in the field. . . ."

It wound its way toward a ruin, whose roof had long since vanished and whose weathered pillars were missing their capitals. Tall weeds and shrubs bordered the path, and reached out to clutch at our clothes. But from the rise we could see the flat sea and the small distance separating Samos from the mainland. It was called the Seven Stadia Channel, which meant it was no bigger than the expanse of water between the Pharos and the mainland of Alexandria proper. Yet an island had a special feel to it, if it was properly an island.

I wondered, idly, when an island stopped feeling like an island . . . when you could walk to it in low tide? When a mole was built connecting it to the mainland? The Pharos didn't feel like an island any longer, and neither did Tyre. Once-invincible Tyre . . . joined to the mainland by Alexander in his siege.

Alexander . . . yes, he would understand what we did here on Samos. He would be present tomorrow.

For more than twenty days the island rang with celebrations, as the leaders of our forces all gathered for the blessing, drenched in wine, food, song, and drama. The client kings had brought oxen from each of their cities to be sacrificed, and in a special ceremony just for them--for the rulers of Cappadocia, Cilicia, Mauretania, Paphlagonia, Commagene, Thrace, Galatia-- Antony reminded them, in his ringing voice, of the prophecy of the east's rising against Rome, shearing her hair and lowering her. "The woman who shears the hair, the Widow, stands here beside me, the Queen of Egypt. And we fight together in the name of her son's inheritance. It is not your lands or territory that will be lessened, but Rome will fall to his lot."

There was a deep murmur of approval and desire. This was their moment, the moment the east had been seeking for over a hundred years. What Mithridates had failed to do, we would: deliver the east from its stooped humiliation.

Day after day the hills resounded with our celebrations. "What will they do to celebrate the victory, when they went to such expense of festivity for its opening?" people were asking--the question we meant them to ask. Let our friends and foes know we would hold nothing back: that here we dedicated our entire beings, our treasury, our army, our navy, our creative forces to the supreme test.

In May we went to Athens, after ferrying the army over to southern Greece.

Greece. A Roman civil war was to be decided in Greece, for the third time in only seventeen years. For the third time the thin, hard Greek soil would soak up the blood of Romans fighting for dominance in their homeland.

I had been profoundly affected by each of these battles. The first had brought Caesar into my life, the second, Antony. Now it was the fate of my children that would be decided by the forthcoming clash. Would they receive their inheritance, secured by Antony's victory, or lose everything, be banished into the nameless void outside history?

There could be no mistakes in this campaign. Pompey had lost against Caesar because he had not pursued his initial rout, and his strategy was not flexible enough; Brutus and Ca.s.sius killed themselves after misreading signals from their own camp. It was not lost on me that the losers in both previous clashes had been the Romans who stood their ground in Greece; the winners had been the Romans who invaded from the west. Yes, there must be no mistakes.

We had nineteen Roman legions dedicated to the war effort. Another eleven were standing guard in Egypt, Syria, Cyrenaica, Bithynia, and Macedonia.

So Greece would be the battlefield. But what part of Greece? North, south? Middle? Where should the troops be deployed?

We had gone round and round on this vital question, in consultation with some of the senators, as well as our generals, late at night after the revelers had gone to bed. After the entertainment, that was when the real work-- and the real decisions--were tackled.. And it would continue in Athens.

All my life I had wanted to go to Athens. As a child I had been taught about the glorious font of all our cultural history, the mother of all Greek-speaking and Greek-educated people. Then my father had spent time there after having been driven off his throne, and I used to wish myself there with him. After that, it seemed that no matter what age I was, there was something in Athens to appeal to it: the architecture, the art, the scholars, the schools of oratory and philosophy, the shrines, the witty salons. Athens was a place it was impossible to outgrow.

Because I was Macedonian, and Greek-educated, Athens had always been my my place of spiritual pilgrimage. But then it had begun to acquire the dark coloration of a.s.sociation with my enemies. Brutus had pranced about there, posing under the statues of his idols, the ancient "tyrannicides." The Athenians had even hailed him as a liberator when he fled there after Caesar's a.s.sa.s.sination, and raised a statue of his own to him. Cicero had made himself at home there, where they lauded him almost as much as he lauded himself. And then--it was where Antony had pa.s.sed most of his married life with Octavia. place of spiritual pilgrimage. But then it had begun to acquire the dark coloration of a.s.sociation with my enemies. Brutus had pranced about there, posing under the statues of his idols, the ancient "tyrannicides." The Athenians had even hailed him as a liberator when he fled there after Caesar's a.s.sa.s.sination, and raised a statue of his own to him. Cicero had made himself at home there, where they lauded him almost as much as he lauded himself. And then--it was where Antony had pa.s.sed most of his married life with Octavia.

And, oh! the Athenians had outdone themselves in honoring Octavia, giving her this t.i.tle or other, putting up inscriptions. . . . Thus Athens had become her her city, spoiling it for me. So that now, when I came to it at last, it had already been appropriated by my enemies and rivals. city, spoiling it for me. So that now, when I came to it at last, it had already been appropriated by my enemies and rivals.

Antony seemed happily oblivious of all this. As we made our way up the broad, welcoming avenue, lined with cheering crowds, our carriage pa.s.sed right under a plaque honoring Octavia as "G.o.ddess of good works" and "Athena Polias." I stared at it, going rigid with the actuality of seeing it. I clutched at his arm and muttered, "Look!"

He swung his head around. "What?"

"That plaque!" I did not want to point at it, as others would see me.

"What plaque?"

By now we were past it. I let go of his arm. "Nothing." But I made up my mind that now he must formally divorce her. Now. Now.

There had been gentle hints on the subject among the senators and commanders during some of our meetings--but not in the right direction. They had reminded Antony that the breach with Octavian was not irreparable; after all, Antony was still married to his sister. Ahen.o.barbus all but came out and said he wished Antony would go back to her, so there would not be a war. But even he had not dared to go quite that far--at least in front of me.

I couldn't bear it any longer. For five years--five years!--I had bowed to all the political arguments about the wisdom of keeping up the formal ties with Octavia. I had indulged Antony's sad excuses about her impending motherhood, her use as a weapon against him, her delicate feelings.

None of those arguments would serve any longer. They were stale and irrelevant, and all the cautionary reasons for keeping up the pretense were shattered by the pain it caused me to see the mementos of her all over the city.

We were housed in . . . not a palace, since the Greeks did not have kings, but what might as well have been one. I have observed that where there are no kings, wealthy citizens live like them, so that instead of one palace, there are dozens.

Antony looked supremely contented as he padded up and down our bedroom, as if he were trying it on for size. He was wearing what I called his "oriental potentate" gown--red silk, encrusted with gold thread and pearls, with enormous sleeves. Decorated slippers flapped on his feet.

If he did not wish to be called a degenerate oriental, I thought, he ought to abandon this costume. But I said nothing; tonight was not the night to provoke him on lesser matters when I needed to confront the biggest one.

The acropolis, crowned by the Parthenon, was visible from our window, and the just-full moon gave life to its still whiteness. Antony had stopped pacing and was staring at it.

I came and stood beside him. The legendary Parthenon at last... last... all my life I had viewed the white Lighthouse of Alexandria from my window, and now another white marble wonder was there to fill my eyes. But then, unbidden, came the picture of Antony cavorting as Bacchus on the very slopes of the acropolis in his wild celebration a few years ago. And of Antony being "betrothed" to the G.o.ddess Athena in her annual ceremony in the Parthenon. This city was his in a way it could never be mine. I was just the visitor-come-lately, the outsider. all my life I had viewed the white Lighthouse of Alexandria from my window, and now another white marble wonder was there to fill my eyes. But then, unbidden, came the picture of Antony cavorting as Bacchus on the very slopes of the acropolis in his wild celebration a few years ago. And of Antony being "betrothed" to the G.o.ddess Athena in her annual ceremony in the Parthenon. This city was his in a way it could never be mine. I was just the visitor-come-lately, the outsider.

I would not spoil this moment with mention of Octavia. Let him look at the Parthenon as long as he wished, and I would stand silently beside him. But when he turned . . .

"Antony, the time has come," I said. I hoped my voice sounded gentle and persuasive, not shrewish. But even as I blurted out the words, I berated myself for being so blunt. I should be subtle, beguiling, but my own feelings were too strong to be disguised.

He looked at me expectantly. He thought something good was coming; he imagined I had lured some exotic entertainment to the chamber, or had ordered dishes of Athenian delicacies to be sent up. "Yes?" he said eagerly.

I took his arm and leaned my head against his shoulder. "You must divorce Octavia," I whispered.

"What?" he said. Frowning, he turned me to face him. "Why do you say that?"

Because I cannot bear it anymore. I cannot bear my ambiguous position in the eyes of the world, cannot bear sharing you. And on the eve of a war, all things must be made clear and tidy, all debts settled. I dropped my eyes demurely. "Because--you have postponed it long enough. It is confusing our friends and allies. It is hindering our cause." There--was that political-sounding enough for him? I dropped my eyes demurely. "Because--you have postponed it long enough. It is confusing our friends and allies. It is hindering our cause." There--was that political-sounding enough for him?

"I don't know what you mean," he said stubbornly.

This was going to be difficult, then. I hated that.

"Your marriage was a political one, meant to unite you and Octavian. It failed to do that. You are on the brink of war. The Triumvirate has expired. Marriages made for political reasons must be terminated when the politics have changed. That is the Roman way, is it not? Octavian himself has made, and discarded, many matrimonial ties. There was the s.e.xtus connection, another connection with you--remember the Claudia marriage?--and the betrothal of little Julia to your Antyllus. All snapped in a second. Only you you"--O dear Isis! keep that tone from my voice--"persist in your old political marriage. Now you should, as befits an honorable man, end it."

"It still serves a purpose," he said.

"What purpose?" I could hear my voice rising.

"It still provides an excuse for certain Romans to adhere to my cause. As long as I retain my formal marriage to Octavia, it gives the lie to Octavian's attempts to paint me as un-Roman."