Syria: the 10th year of Kleopatra’s reign
Kleopatra let the great palm leaves offer a rhythmic respite from the deadening August air along the Syrian river. The barge moved slowly, as if its prow must slice the heat itself to navigate the way. She closed her eyes against wisps of hot breeze that escaped into her garments, cooling her skin. Sweat would not do, not at this crucial time when she must appear to be above such mortal vulnerabilities. A goddess, Charmion had insisted, does not perspire. At the last moment, as they were leaving Alexandria, packing the treasures, the gold and silver plate, the gilded couches, the jewels, the great trunks of costumes designed and sewn in a hurry by dozens of Royal Seamstresses, Charmion had had the brilliant idea to include the Cupids-twenty boys under the age of twelve, armed with palmetto leaves as tall as themselves and painted in bright and variegated colors, with which they fanned the heat away from the queen.
Preparations had been hasty but meticulous. She had waited a very long time for this moment when she would again meet the man who had emerged victorious from the struggle over the power relinquished in death by Caesar.
Rome’s civil war was finally over. Cassius and Brutus had met Antony and Octavian in a final confrontation at Philippi in Thrace, where Antony commanded the army and Octavian showed his true character. A novice in battle-and a coward as well, Kleopatra suspected-he was chased out of his camp by the enemy, and barely made it to the safety of Antony’s encampment. There he feigned illness so that he would not have to engage in any confrontations.
Antony led the army to an overwhelming victory against the assassins, and both Brutus and Cassius committed suicide. Antony, in the manner of Caesar, draped his own purple cloak over Brutus’s body and gave him a proper burial. But before the body could be interred, Octavian had its head severed and sent to Rome to throw at the foot of one of Caesar’s statues. Upon hearing of her husband’s disgrace, and perhaps in anticipation of the humiliation she would incur upon Octavian’s return to Rome, Porcia, Brutus’s wife, also committed suicide. Kleopatra was saddened to hear of Porcia’s death, but also believed that she was not wrong in her estimation of Octavian’s character. It was reported to Kleopatra that Octavian had played cruel games with his political prisoners at Philippi, forcing a father and son to choose which of them would die, making them draw straws for their lives. The father sacrificed himself for his son, but the son, distraught at seeing his father die, committed suicide. Antony and most of the men, it was said, were sickened by Octavian’s twisted behavior.
Kleopatra could not understand why Antony, after leading his army to so clear a victory, did not claim the entire empire for his own; why he continued to share power with Octavian and Lepidus. Octavian’s character was apparent, and Lepidus was not a leader of men. She wondered if Antony’s sense of loyalty worked to his detriment, and she hoped that when they met, she would be able to mine his thoughts and discover his motives. He had always seemed to her a straightforward man. Or did he only appear to be that way?
It was a more formidable Antony Kleopatra would face in the Syrian city of Tarsus: He had taken as his portion of the empire Macedonia, Greece, Asia, and the kingdoms of Asia Minor, and Syria, leaving Octavian Italy and Lepidus Africa. Then he had traveled to Ephesus, where he summoned the leaders of all his nations and instituted extraordinary financial and trade policies that would enable the territories to prosper despite the large amounts of money and resources extracted by Brutus and Cassius. For his leadership, Antony was deified by the people of Ephesus, who called him the New Dionysus, the same title that had been held by Kleopatra’s father. The Ephesians proclaimed him God Manifest, son of Ares and Aphrodite, and Savior of all mankind. He was also called the Giver of Joy, for his good nature and goodwill, and for his love not only of his soldiers, but of all people. He appreciated their cultures, attended their theaters and lectures, engaged in dialogue with their philosophers and scientists, and praised and patronized their poets. Thus, Kleopatra could not help but to notice, while Octavian went back to Rome calling himself son of the Divine Julius, Antony went to the east and became a god himself.
Now, with his prestige beyond compare, Kleopatra was sure that Antony was turning his energies to completing Caesar’s great mission of conquering the Parthian empire, of settling the vast half of the eastern world for Rome, and toward Kleopatra and the role she would play in his plans.
In the eyes of the world, he had taken Caesar’s place, and so she must acknowledge that. She must impress him in a manner larger and more grand than she had done with Caesar. Antony did not possess Caesar’s nonchalance, but delighted in worldly things. She would dazzle him, demonstrate to him everything she might offer with her alliance- including herself. She had not forgotten his insinuations; in fact, in the absence of any sexual companionship, they had become part of her daily reverie.
Antony was married, true-and not to a passive political pawn like Calpurnia. Fulvia was beautiful and brilliant and had shown forceful political sway. Her likeness was stamped into Antony’s coinage, and as far as Kleopatra could tell, no living Roman woman had ever before had that honor. The Roman senators said snidely of Fulvia that her ambition was to rule those who ruled. Finally, Kleopatra thought, she had a formidable rival. And yet was she? A Roman woman who could hold no official role in her government? Whose fortune, no matter how vast, was safeguarded by male relatives? Who had virtually no legal rights? Fulvia could not cast a vote in her country, while Kleopatra’s very word was law in hers. Let Antony experience a woman of real power. Then would he be so satisfied with his wife?
Julius Caesar had seen the possibilities in a union between himself and the queen of Egypt, and Kleopatra was certain that Antony, a quick study, had already calculated what union with her was worth. Had the three of them not made their secret alliance while Caesar was alive? Antony’s ambitious plans were made obvious in every move he made, and Kleopatra had been following those moves carefully. In the eastern territories of Rome’s empire he had issued coins with images of himself as the sun god, whom the entire Graeco-Egyptian world worshipped as the ultimate Divine Ruler, so that each hand that passed the coins spread news of his ascension. The golden rays that haloed his head, the eagle of Zeus at his feet-looking ever so much like the Ptolemaic eagle, Kleopatra thought-told the whole world that as the new god came east, he would bring to the people all the riches that man and nature might offer.
But crucial to the distribution of those promised blessings was access to the riches of Egypt. And to procure those riches, this new beneficent god would have to position himself with that country’s queen. Let him come, thought Kleopatra. I look forward to the negotiation.
For almost three years, Kleopatra had not been touched by the hand of a man except for the tiny one of her five-year-old son when he reached out for her. Archimedes had remained in Alexandria to advise and serve her, but he refused to come to her bed. Knowing his pride, she had withheld the invitation for months on end while she mourned the loss of Caesar, both personal and political. She had attended with a widow’s restraint to her son and to her duties of state, casting aside all human emotions and focusing entirely on the good of her people. She had brought brilliant physicians in from all over the world to administer to those with the plague; she had made a trip down the Nile with engineers to redirect waters to dying crops; she had redistributed the grain crop so that the people in provinces whose harvest yielded nothing did not starve. She had staved off the demands of Caesar’s murderers while attempting to send aid to Antony and his allies. And she had sat in meeting after meeting with Archimedes, more aware every day that she was staring into his mournful brown eyes for some sign of, if not forgiveness, then understanding, watching the curve of his beautiful lips as he spoke, wishing to put her arms around him and make amends for the suffering she had caused him. But as soon as she confessed her feelings-one year after Caesar’s death-he stopped her flow of lovely words.
“Kleopatra.” He held up one admonishi
ng finger as if to shush her. “It is over. I lost you once, and I will not risk repeating the episode. I cannot be your king, and I refuse to be your plaything.”
“But Cousin, I can marry no one. My brothers are dead, and any choice I make at this juncture is fraught with political implications. As you told me once so many years ago, if we cannot be married, then why can we not be together as a man and a woman should? Why must we deny ourselves that pleasure? That love?”
But he looked at her stony-faced and said without a trace of humor, “You can command many things of me, Kleopatra, but even you cannot command my penis to rise.”
After that, she left him alone, hearing the rumors of his exploits with the women of Alexandria, who were most anxious to experience this beautiful man rumored to have once been the lover of the queen.
“Many women are paying for what you did to him,” Charmion admonished. Not that Charmion wished for Kleopatra to have chosen Archimedes over Caesar. She wished that Kleopatra had never entered into the affair with Archimedes at all. Kleopatra sighed. She supposed that she must allow Fate this episode of irony. She had, after all, broken his heart.
Though Kleopatra was making her way to the most important political negotiation of her life, the scent of sensuality hung in the air. It had arrived with Antony’s first letters, delivered by Quintus Dellius, a scholarly man who was nonetheless a hedonist of infamous pluralistic sexual tastes. Antony’s choice in messenger was not lost on the queen. He might have had any somber diplomat deliver his demands, but he sent Dellius, whose every sentence was laced with sexual overtones. “The Imperator would delight in your presence at Tarsus. He wishes to share in the same favor you so graciously and wisely showed to Caesar. Unlike Caesar, he is a man in his prime, and able to return that favor tenfold.”
Kleopatra accepted the offer to meet with Antony in Syria, and then sent his messenger to the Alexandrian brothels, from which he did not emerge for one week. He would return to Antony intoxicated and confident that the queen of Egypt was, so to speak, in Antony’s pocket.
Then she made him wait. She was scheduled to appear immediately, but she did not like the idea that anyone, even Antony, could summon her. If she rushed off to meet him, she would be playing right into his hand. He would have her alliance, her resources for his war on the Parthians, access to her army and her navy, and her body-for she was certain he would demand to take Caesar’s place in her bed. And she would have-what? The privilege of giving him all those things. So she waited and she made preparations to meet him on terms that were her own. He may have been proclaimed the New Dionysus by the people of Asia Minor, but she was unimpressed. Her own father had held that title for most of his life, and he did not have to win a war to earn it. She had been consorting with gods-on-earth all her life. She herself was the earthly representative of Isis and Aphrodite, and the lover of the mortal man who was descended from Mother Venus. Not to mention the mother of his son. She would go to this New Dionysus, but not as a beggar holding out her hand for the favor of Rome, all the while opening her legs for him. She would to go him as his equal. If he was Dionysus, then let him negotiate with Aphrodite, the Greek Venus, the Mother of All Life and Creation. The significance would escape no one. Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Syrians, all who saw her would know that she, living incarnation of Lady Isis, had come to meet with the conquering god-Osiris to the Egyptians, Dionysus to the Greeks, Bacchus to the Romans-in a sacred union not only of nations, but of man and woman, of god and goddess, to spread peace and beneficence over the earth.
“It shall be the greatest event the world has seen,” she told Charmion as they hastily sketched the costumes for the dressmakers. As she made her plans, she felt herself shed the widow’s sadness, along with the constant pain she endured from Archimedes’ rejection and from his renowned conquests of other women. For the first time since Caesar’s murder, she felt truly alive.
In a month’s time, she orchestrated the entire spectacle. The Royal Barge, dormant and in storage since her Nile cruise with Caesar, was refitted with a golden stern, the oars dipped in silver, and new sails made, not in traditional nautical white, but in deep, royal purple.
“I want my vessel to be a celebration of light,” she told her engineers. “By day, it should capture the power of the sun with gold and silver and reflect it back to the people, and by night, I wish to dazzle every eye with my lamplight.” She could take no chances on her hour of arrival. If the sun was already set, she would not grope her way up the river in darkness, but sail into the port at Tarsus like fire in motion. The light must seem as if it was the sacred illumination of the gods. For it must be made plain that when Antony and Kleopatra reveled together, it was a divine celebration of peace and cooperation not only between two nations, but between all nations and all peoples. It must be emphasized and understood that the gods themselves sanctioned, indeed arranged and orchestrated, this alliance-that the union of Aphrodite and Dionysus on earth would bring security and prosperity to all those who honored it.
She lay now on her chaise of golden fabric like the goddess in repose. Her body was draped in folds of white linen woven with tiny shimmering metallic threads. Her hair was simple, pulled into a knot at the neck as the goddess was always depicted, with curls escaping at the temples, framing her face. She wore a giant amethyst upon her ring finger, the stone of the god Dionysus. On her right hand she wore her mother’s ring, the ring of the Bacchant depicting the god in revelry-the same revelry in which she and the New Dionysus would soon engage. About her neck hung a long strand of pearls the size of marbles. Iras had pinned smaller white and black pearls into her hair in straight rows that clustered in a net, keeping tight her coiffure. Her appearance was paramount, for not only was she meeting a man who was as susceptible as any on earth to the charms of a woman’s beauty, but the insecurity left by Archimedes’ refusal to rejoin her as a lover stabbed at her like a secret wound.
Was she no longer desirable? She did not think that was the case when she examined herself in the mirror. She was as fit as she had been before she gave birth to Little Caesar. In the last months, her appetite had come back, and she had regained her womanliness. Now it had merely ripened into an elegant sensuality. Despite the responsibilities that kept her up late into the night and awoke her before the sun every morning, her face was unlined. When she regarded herself now, she no longer saw the shining enthusiasm of her youth, but an expression well-defined by wisdom and experience. Iras had raved over her appearance as he helped her dress, but she took little comfort in the praise of a eunuch whose tastes were exclusively directed toward those of his own sex. She knew that as a queen she must not rely upon the opinion of others but rest in the knowledge of her own charms and abilities. Ah well, all that would be tested now.
The sun was beginning to sink into the river’s mossy waters when the captain informed her that they were not half an hour away from the port. She had sent messengers ahead to spread the word through Tarsus-and eventually, of course, to Antony himself-that Aphrodite had come to mingle with Dionysus for the good of all of Asia, and apparently, the message had been heard. Townspeople were running down the banks, pointing to the spectacular vision of the queen of Egypt afloat on the river Cydnus, looking for all the world like the goddess of love. Her attending women were draped in glorious white and stationed at the rudders and oars as if the Graces themselves were piloting the vessel. Below, the real work was done, but Kleopatra had wanted it to appear that her barge was powered solely by Divine Energy. From giant smoldering vats, the sweet scent of jasmine perfumed the river’s air, as if the barge floated in a heavenly effluvium.
The late afternoon light was lazy enough to warrant illuminating the lamps. One by one, the women dipped their torches into the fire, lighting up the geometric festival of circles and squares that Kleopatra had designed. In the center of the design was something that should please Antony-the Nemean lion, the symbol of his astrological birth sign and the symbol of Herakles, the god he claimed
as his direct ancestor. Kleopatra could hear the chatter of the people as the lights were lit. She was certain that never had they seen such a lavish sight, and she hoped that word would spread to the Imperator hastily, while the lights were at the height of their fire and she was at the height of her appearance. Her makeup was impeccable, her dress without wrinkles, her breath sweet, her hair undisturbed by the breeze. Her women were still fresh and lovely. She wished that she knew of a god of timing, for that was the deity to whom she should direct her prayers at this moment. Instead, she closed her eyes and spoke silently and swiftly to Isis, the goddess to whom Fate bowed.
She opened her eyes as the crew was dropping anchor at Tarsus. A large crowd had gathered about the docks. By their dress, she recognized both Syrians and Romans of all classes, some bedecked in the robes of government, others in workers’ tunics. It seemed that rich and poor alike had come to see her arrival. She saw the uniforms of Roman soldiers, the lavish robes of wealthy merchants, the bright linen dresses of Syrian women, but she did not see the Imperator. Was he angry at her for the delay? Was there a chance he had moved on in his tour of the eastern provinces? Had she staged this entire drama in futility? There would be no recovering from such a blunder.
Kleopatra tried to maintain the mien of a goddess while her stomach churned. She smiled, waving gracefully, if languidly, at the people who stood awestruck before the golden vessel, which glimmered wildly against the still, dusky sky. The river reflected the lights, making a pool of luminescence around the boat. Where is he? she asked herself again and again, searching every face on the dock while trying to appear detached. Finally, she saw Quintus Dellius slinking toward her, swishing his hips from side to side like water in a moving goblet. He threw out his arms to the ladies-in-waiting, who helped him board the vessel.