Pharaoh
“Imagine the convenience of a calendar that actually matched the days of the year,” he said, his left elbow propped on the cool white sheets of their bed as Kleopatra fed him a slice of papaya with her fingers. She thought of his own daughter, Julia, and how she used to feed Pompey this way, and how odious it had seemed to the adolescent Kleopatra before womanly passions had taken hold of her. She regretted her harsh judgment of Caesar’s daughter, who had probably been as much in love with the much older Pompey as Kleopatra was with Caesar.
Caesar took in the terrain along the Nile, never tiring of its diversity. Rows of new crops freshly planted revealed the rich black soil on one side of the river; on the other side, so much sand. Flat huts of sunbaked clay and straw interrupted the monotony of green. Sugarcane crops and other willowy foliage covered the banks, along with tall bamboo shoots and communities of palm trees short and tall. On the fertile land, a small flock grazed lazily, ignoring the late afternoon sun. Midday, a strong arid wind whipped up the heat, slapping it against the skin like punishment, but Caesar didn’t mind. “So preferable to the cold,” he said. “Once you’ve spent a winter buried in the Alpine snow foraging for food, it’s hard to complain over heat.”
From Luxor they had sailed to Edfu, known as the killing place, where Horus-falcon-god, hawk-god, son of Osiris the god of gods- slew Seth to avenge the murder of his father. There, he cut his wicked uncle into sixteen small pieces. “Merciless,” was Caesar’s comment.
They had stopped at the temple of Horus at Edfu, where Kleopatra was particularly friendly with the priests, and where she insisted on purchasing a huge vat of the famous and delicate jasmine perfume made by the temple workers as a gift for Caesar’s wife. Caesar liked the black granite statue of Horus, with one eye the sun and the other the moon. “God always sleeps with one eye open,” said a priest, and Caesar replied that he understood why; that he, too, had developed the same habit out of necessity. At the end of their visit, the High Priest stood on the temple platform where he traditionally made his predictions. Silver robes shimmering in the setting sun, he announced that the child born to the Roman general and the queen of Egypt would be a great man, a man who united the old and the sacred-Egypt-with the new and the mighty-Rome. And then he reminded his audience that sacred might was greater than military might-“In the event that I am ignorant of that fact,” Caesar whispered to the queen. The priest ended with a prayer to the god for peace among nations “so that the boots of foreign soldiers do not mar the crops gifted to the people of Egypt by the Divinity,” and Caesar almost laughed out loud.
As they sailed south from Edfu, the green on the eastern bank of the Nile gave way to desert. The heat thickened and mountains dug into the desert floor like an animal’s claws. Kleopatra wanted to come this far into southern Egypt to show Caesar the outer reaches of her country. She herself had never ventured so far into her kingdom, close to the Nubian lands of dark-skinned people who played soft-sounding musical instruments that used to so please her father. She wanted to show Caesar the double temple at Kom Ombo built by her ancestors for Horus the Elder and Sobek, the crocodile-god. Her father had been in awe of the temple, and had further decorated it, building a great gate opening into the courtyard.
The temple’s columns shot from the courtyard like ancient stone trees, as tall and solemn as any in Egypt, but capped with fluted Corinthian elegance. Kleopatra asked to see the tributes to her father inside, the ones of which he was most proud. They entered the great hall with dual passageways into the temples. Mighty vultures painted in bright colors took flight across the ceiling. On one wall, King Ptolemy Auletes was seen bringing offerings to Sobek, who had the body of a tall man and the head of a crocodile; on the other wall, Horus performed purification rites over the king. Most magnificent was the wall painting of the king with a host of Egyptian deities: Sobek; Sekhmet, the lioness-goddess; Horus; Isis; and Thoth, the ibis-headed god of wisdom and writing.
“A good likeness of your father?” Caesar asked.
“Perhaps when he was a young man, and slightly less heavy than in his old age,” she said wryly. “I do not believe he could have been more than forty years older and one hundred pounds heavier than this when the painting was made.”
“And what is the difference between the elder Horus and the younger?” Caesar asked.
“The elder is the falcon, the healer god. Worshippers suffering from disease and ailments make the pilgrimage to this temple. The younger Horus is the son of Isis and Osiris. They are the same god. Perhaps one needs a Greek or Egyptian mind to understand the complexity.” These days, the two of them laughed together at her slights on the Roman mind.
“I shall let that pass,” he said, “in honor of your father and the beauty that he created here. One feels haunted by the spirits of two great civilizations.”
“This is what my father did to rebuild the support of his people,” she said. “My father always said that the gods are good to those who honor them, and that the people honor those who honor their gods. He was right. And this is what I shall do in Alexandria as soon as I return. When you come back to me, you shall marvel at the things I’ve built in your honor.”
“How clever you are for just a slip of a young girl,” he said.
“I allow your patronization only because you are the greatest man on earth,” she whispered to him, standing on her tiptoes and brushing his cheek with her lips. Then she blushed, wondering if she should have shown such affection to a foreign man in the chilly and solemn atmosphere of the temple.
“If Your Majesty bathes in donkey’s milk, she will never age or lose her beauty.” The wife of the priest at the precinct of Aswan looked grave and sincere.
“Is that your own secret for eternal beauty?” the queen asked, looking for wrinkles in the grandmother’s skin and finding none. The dark eyebrows were stern crescents over eyes like midnight sky, and the woman’s lips were still crimson and plump like those of someone half her age.
“Oh yes, Mother Egypt. I shall procure you a large vessel of it to take back to your palace in the north, for I am sure the donkeys there are not fed on as rich a grain as we give them here.”
Mother Egypt. She had never been called such a thing, and yet she liked the sound of it. A title that indelibly linked her with the country and its land and people. She would like to be mother to Egypt, to feed and nurture and care for it along with its truest benefactor, the Nile.
“I would be most grateful to you,” Kleopatra said, and then dismissed her company. She invited the important ladies of every community they visited to spend one hour with her in the afternoons, taking light refreshments in the shaded garden atop the boat away from the sun. But she was weary of small talk now and returned to her cabin where Caesar was alone, stalking the room like a trapped cat with no sense of mission or destination.
Caesar was pressing to return to Alexandria; in fact, he just that morning insisted upon sailing back swiftly. He had received disturbing dispatches about the state of things in Rome. Harsh weather on the seas had cut off all correspondence for several months, but now a pile of old letters filled with disastrous news had been heaped into his lap, rushed from Alexandria by a swift vessel that had easily caught up with their leisurely cruise. Last night he had paced their chamber instead of engaging in his usual long conversation with Sosigenes under the stars. Today he was in considerably foul humor. A cloud of cynicism had descended upon him once more, and he no longer took pleasure in either Kleopatra or any of the delights she provided for him on their tour. His food went untouched except for a little wine that he drank to settle his nerves. The lines on his face had reappeared and he looked thin and tense.
“I dare not hope it is leaving me that is causing this sudden consternation.” She could take the awful transformation no longer. He kept his dispatches close to the breast and did not share the contents with her. She wondered if they contained messages from or about his wife, Calpurnia, the daughter of his friend Piso. Perhaps Piso him
self had heard of the affair between Caesar and the queen and had written to chastise him.
“I have lingered too long in your company, madam, and my enemies have taken advantage of it.”
“It is merely ten days since the last battle was fought,” she protested.
How dare the world intrude upon their pleasures? And especially at this time, when Kleopatra had never felt so alive. She did not understand why women sequestered themselves during pregnancy, acting as if they had been taken by a mysterious illness. She felt as if the child inside her was giving her energy; as if she were now more than herself, the combined force of the two beings in one body. She felt vigorous and strong and invincible. And if the women in her service cautioned her about overexertion, she attributed it to a failing of theirs, not to the condition itself. Perhaps she was not a mere woman after all. She had so longed for a female confidante during this time, one who faced pregnancy with the same fearlessness that she felt inside. She missed Mohama. Surely the desert girl would have been just like her, if not more vigorous, had she lived to bear a child. They would have been like two Amazons together, carrying warrior children into a world that awaited their majesty
But apparently pregnancy did not so affect the sire. Caesar looked glumly at her.
“I’ve spent the last twelve years expanding the borders of Rome beyond the wildest dreams of its most ambitious men, putting money into their pockets, slaves into their households, beautiful foreign women into their beds, and yet it is never enough.”
“What is it, my darling? Won’t you confide in me? Just this once? I can’t stand to see you so upset. I’ve put my life and my future and my heart into your hands, and it frightens me to see you this way. I worry that you are out of love with me, that Egypt has finally bored you, that I am out of trickery to keep you here, and that is why you are going.”
She did not like to hear herself make these vulnerable declarations, but she had grown so close to him in the last weeks. They had called a halt to their rivalry and had slid gracefully into the idylls of love. She would have to work hard to suppress the tender feeling that she’d grown so accustomed to showing him to dissemble for him again.
“If you must know, King Pharnaces, the monstrous son of Mithridates of Pontus, has taken it upon himself to seize a good amount of Anatolia. I am the commander of the legions in closest vicinity and so I must go.” Caesar added, muttering to himself, “He shall never be sorrier than when he meets me.”
“It is merely duty that sours you so?”
“The sons of Pompey have regrouped in Africa and are planning a rebellion against me. From Anatolia, I must make haste to Africa before they can sail to Italy. I did not count on them being such a menace. Why won’t they simply accept reality?”
“I see.”
“Perhaps I can send negotiators. But I doubt it.”
The boyish look of a few days past was long gone. His voice, even his eyes, were impatient. “In Rome, my supporters as well as my enemies are so deeply in debt that they are murdering one another in the streets. No one can tell if Antony is trying to put the rebellion down or encourage it. Apparently he has claimed Pompey’s estate with no intention of paying for it. Or so Cicero says, the old troublemaker. Who knows who is telling the truth. I must soon return to Rome before there is no Rome to return to. I am sorry. I do not wish to leave you. I have- enjoyed myself.”
It seemed so hard for him to say those few words. Not because the expression of emotion was difficult, but because he seemed astonished that he had been swept into the joys of their passions. And yet she knew, not by his words, but by his attentions over the past weeks, that he regretted taking leave of her, of her country.
“All the gods are with you, General, and now, even the old gods of Egypt, especially the crocodile whom you so lavishly fed.”
He gave her a faint smile and held out his arms.
She moved into his chest, turning her face to the side so that she might hear the slow steady drum of his heart. “We will never lose one another. I am sure of that. The gods won’t allow it. Nor will I.”
He backed away from her, taking her chin into his hand. How did a military man keep his hands so soft? The hand that had brought death to so many now firmly cradled her face. “The surety of youth is so different in tenor than the surety of age. I cannot explain it, quite. One is based on calculation from experience, the other on will and hope.”
“And who is to say which is stronger and more accurate?”
“No, I believe you, Kleopatra. I believe we are inextricably bound.”
Alexandria: the 5th year of Kleopatra’s reign
To: Kleopatra VII, Queen of Egypt
From: Gaius Julius Caesar, Dictator of Rome
(Dispatched from the city of Athens)
My dear Kleopatra,
How delightful to hear from you so soon after my departure. Your letter caught up with me in Antioch. Your messengers are devoted and determined men. You have pleased Caesar greatly with the commencement of construction of the monument in my name and my honor. I shall look forward to being greeted by its majesty when I next sail into the Great Harbor.
First, some business between us. I have rewarded Antipater for his support in the war against your brothers army by sanctioning his government in Judaea and by exonerating that territory from its yearly taxes. I would like you to demonstrate some gratitude as well by lessening the taxes on your own Jewish population for a period of one year. This was the suggestion of Antipater, and I trust you shall see fit to implement it. You must follow the example of Caesar and reward those who demonstrate loyalty, particularly at a cost to themselves.
The nuisance King Pharnaces has been put down. In brief I came, I saw, I conquered. He contributed to the expediency of my victory by directing his char-ioteers and foot soldiers to attack my legions uphill. Such arrogance. We demonstrated no mercy, for he had slaughtered the Roman soldiers he had defeated, and some, he castrated to indicate his scorn. For those who merit it, however, Caesar retains the quality of mercy. I have made visits to more than one of Pompeys allies in Syria and neighboring territories and I have pardoned them for little more than modest sums of money pledged to show their loyalty. By their own volition the people of these territories heaped upon me the wreaths of gold customarily offered the victor. From Marcus Brutus, who is to me as a rebellious son who necessarily takes opposition against his father, I demanded nothing, though he caused me grief by his allegiance to those who made themselves my enemies. He requested I give audience to Gaius Cassius who gleefully had aligned with Pompey, and whom I neither like nor trust, but whom I pardoned at the urging of Brutus.
And now I make haste for Rome via Athens to assess conditions in the capital. My detractors have accused me of staying too long in your country. I reclaimed Anatolia in four hours, so it is inconceivable to them why it took eight months to make peace in Egypt. After all that I have done for my country, I am begrudged one week of rest after eight months of siege and battle.
I trust you are well and that you will keep me apprised of your condition.
Yours, C. Julius Caesar
To: Gaius Julius Caesar,
Dictator of RomeFrom: Kleopatra VII,
Queen of Egypt
My dear General,
Please be advised that I have implemented the favor you requested to the Jewish citizens of Alexandria, for which they have expressed much gratitude, and for which the rest of the city remains resentful. I trust the bitterness will not endure. The Alexandrian Jews are grateful at a distance that you have allowed the rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem and have excluded their temples from the ordinances against assembly, for they are a deeply religious people as you know and any intrusion upon the ritualistic worship of their terrible and singular god causes them great consternation. They stand alone as the one culture that has remained untouched by the customs of the native people and the Hellenes alike.
I am pleased to announce the birth of our son. He has his
parents’ determination and aggression, for he came into the world very quickly, so quickly that I have wondered if my womb was not a hospitable place. Perhaps he sensed the intensity with which I have missed his father, and he could not wait to escape the dreadful feelings of my longing. I know that men are rarely interested in the details of labor, but you are the rare kind of man. I gave birth in the Egyptian way, sitting in a special chair that the midwives say makes the baby come faster, under a great canopy decorated with lovely, fragrant garlands and holy amulets of all kinds. To keep my good cheer, Charmion brought in a statue of the dwarf-god, Bes, and whenever I felt pain, I looked at his big triangle ears and laughing eyes.
I have named your son Ptolemy XV Caesar so that he might carry the identity of both his parents, but the Greeks in Alexandria have already dubbed him Caesarion, or Little Caesar, which I suppose is appropriate enough. They seem to say it with more affection than disparagement, and I take this as a sign of growing acceptance for our union. He has his fathers height, for the midwives said they have never seen a baby so long. His fingers and toes are thin and elegant. I believe he has inherited the lengthy neck of Venus that runs through your family. His skin is ruddy like many of his Macedonian ancestors, his hair is rather dark, and his eyes are the ubiquitous blue of infancy. I am told by his astrologer that they will change to the gray tones of Alexanders. And why should our son not carry Alexanders eyes into the future? He will surely bring to fruition the vision of his ancestor.
The astrologers foresee a pensive character, slightly withdrawn in nature, but an expansive thinker and an intellectual. His constitution is strong, and he will contract none of the childhood diseases. They foresee tumult in his sixteenth year, but peace thereafter in his life. I imagine him to grow up thoughtful, perhaps truly the first of Platos Philosopher Kings. He will study with the scholars here at the Mouseion, as did his mother and all his ancestors before him. Then we shall send him to Greece to study military strategy. Much of this he shall learn, however, from reading his fathers written accounts of battle.