Pharaoh
But Kleopatra, not content producing one bastard to challenge Octavian’s claims to power, had now given Antony not one son but two. Antony already had two other sons, Antyllus and the younger Antonius, the big handsome motherless boys who lived in Antony’s Roman mansion with Octavia. Why should the gods gift him with two more? Unless it was not the work of the gods at all but of her, the bold queen who claimed to be Isis on earth. It was no accident that the senate had to squash the worship of Isis every so often. The goddess made women crazy. They prayed to her to fulfill their every desire; to fulfill wishes that their husbands, sons, and lords of government would not give them. Things that decent honest women did not need and should not want. Things to which the sterner Roman gods would turn a deaf ear.
I am Isis. I control Fate. Destiny bows to me. That is what those women chanted in her temples. Any right-thinking person could see how that would not do.
Octavian turned his attention to the animal games. The sun was high, beating a relentless heat into the canopy under which he sat with Livia. At his signal, the leopards were released into the Circus. What trouble it was to procure wild animals for these spectacles. It cost a fortune to have the beasts hunted and captured in Africa, caged, fed, and shipped all the way to Rome. Those who could handle the creatures were rare, and often did not last. A lost hand, a mangled foot, and alas, their careers were over. Octavian sighed. No wonder Caesar had grown weary of the details of administration. How tedious it must have been for a man of war. Yet Caesar had stressed the importance of celebration; in fact, it was Caesar who got the idea to take the gladiatorial games out of the realm of ceremony for the dead and make them events of celebration and triumph. Himself, he did not care for the spectacle. Caesar preferred spending his time with intellectuals and artists, but he assured Octavian that the games were a necessary vice. He had been right; the people were wild for it. In some quarters, women were demanding to attend along with their husbands. Octavian would discourage that. He did not think it proper. Women had no control over their passions if given the least opportunity for error. If chanting to a goddess incited wildness in females, what would the spilling of so much blood make those creatures do?
Octavian turned his thoughts from the passions of women to the passions of the one whom he considered the worst example of her sex. Oh, she paraded herself through Antony’s territories as if she were already empress. Little did she know how effectively Octavian had begun to interfere with her plans. After Antony’s disaster at Phraaspa, Octavian made a mournful little speech to the senate. Poor Antony! he cried. How can we rescue our great man from this wicked woman? He is so bewitched by her that he put off his campaign for months and months so that he might lie in her arms! He preferred to face the white death of an Armenian winter rather than lose a moment in his lover’s bed. Then, after his setback at Phraaspa, instead of waiting through the winter and attacking in the spring, he called for her, so anxious to once again be near her that he summoned her to Leuce Come! He could not even wait to travel all the way back to Alexandria to see her once more. Pray for him, senators! Pray for the expedient return of his senses!
Octavian was quite pleased with the effects of his speech. Soon all Rome was bemoaning Antony’s Fate, contrasting his adulterous days in Kleopatra’s luxurious bed to the restraint and fidelity practiced by Octavian with his sedate but beloved Livia.
Despite Octavian’s efforts, Antony and Kleopatra quickly rebounded. Kleopatra had taken Antony back to Alexandria, nursed his wounded ego, and rebuilt his forces. In the spring, she escorted him-rode with him as if she were his co-commander! another Fulvia!-into Syria, and then left him to invade Armenia. Then she spent the summer strutting about the globe with an entourage, he was told, of hundreds of Greeks and Egyptians, whom she feted lavishly along the way, giving money and jewels and granting all sort of promises and favors to all whom she visited. She went to all the cities established by Seleucus, reminding everyone that her ancestor, Ptolemy, was a commander and a successor of Alexander. Apamaea, Emesa, Damascus. She left no city untouched by her presence and decadent largesse. Finally, she went to Judaea, where she tried to bully Herod. She had stolen his most productive farmlands, and practically landlocked him. Then she demanded-demanded!- that he appoint his brother-in-law High Priest. It seemed that Herod’s mother-in-law, Alexandra, was a dictator in the style of Kleopatra, and the two were friends. So when one dictator proposed to the other that her son be made high priest, it was done. Herod had secretly written to Octavian for advice in the matter, and Octavian had given a curt response: If you have no recourse, appoint the boy to the post, and then have him killed. Fear nothing, not even the wrath of Kleopatra. Plans are being made for her demise. And young Herod had swiftly taken Octavian’s wise advice and had the High Priest-a boy of seventeen- mysteriously drowned shortly thereafter.
Still, Antony prevailed. Even though Octavian had been secretly negotiating with the king of Armenia to prevent Antony’s successful invasion of that country, Antony took both Armenia and Media, imprisoned the royal Armenian family, and dragged them back to Alexandria, where they remained his captives. From his new headquarters, Antony sent triumphant messages back to Rome. He had claimed Media and Armenia for the empire, and Octavian was forced to hold these very games in his honor. But Antony had made one enormous mistake. Instead of returning to Rome-and how could he, really, when he still had the vast expanse of Parthia yet to subdue?-he staged his triumphal parade in Alexandria. When Octavian realized the gift Antony had given him, he was elated. Oh, he would host all the games Antony wished in his honor. There would be no limit to how many wild beasts would lose their lives today in Antony’s name. But he would also point out to Antony’s supporters in Rome that the Imperator had celebrated his triumph not on Roman soil for the Roman people, but in Alexandria-for Kleopatra. Was that not a direct signal of their sinister ambitions? He had mentioned this idea already to a select few, and he saw the slow outrage break out over their faces. Kleopatra had succeeded in making Antony a traitor. Praise the gods! Antony was still a hero in the Roman mind, a great man who could not be attacked directly. But Kleopatra was another story.
They were on some kind of deluded high, the two of them, but slowly, surely, he would bring them down. He had almost succeeded when Antony sent Octavia marching back to Rome in disgrace. Antony had rejected her meager offer of assistance-which Octavian had so prayed for him to do-and he had petitioned to divorce her. Octavian seized the moment, and despite his sister’s protests, insisted that she play the part he wrote for her, the bereaved and humiliated matron.
Octavian made a great public show of demanding that Octavia leave Antony’s house, but he quickly realized that he had made a tactical error, that he could make much more use of dragging out her humiliation. So he convinced her to publicly repudiate his orders and insist before as many senators as he could gather that she would remain true to Antony, her lawful husband. After all, he was the father of her two baby girls, and he had charged her with the care of his two sons. It had been a marvelous scene.
No, Octavia had said, I will not leave those motherless boys! Octavian had to encourage her to go on; her lip quaked and her eyes fluttered and he did not know if she was capable of finishing the performance. Then she pulled herself up to her full height and said, My husband has a weakness for women. But I pray to the gods that he will regain his composure, leave the bed of the queen, and return to his true Roman wife. Little tears fell from her eyes, and all the men lowered their heads in deference to her pain. Then they began to rouse themselves against Antony, and against the wicked woman who had tempted him away from this noble Roman girl.
Was there any more precious treasure than a sister’s love?
Many of the senators sent strong letters to Antony demanding that he break his alliance with Kleopatra, but Octavian knew that he would not. Why should he, when she had so much of the world’s gold in her treasury; when most of the earth’s grain came from her shores? When she
was constructing a navy for Antony that could defy the fleet of Jason? Instead, Antony sent long replies to his supporters explaining his position: The queen was one of Rome’s fiercest and most important allies, and crucial to the eastern campaigns. He invited all of them to come to Alexandria where they might see for themselves how useful the queen was to his enterprises. Octavian did not successfully intercept all of those letters, but enough of them so that many of Antony’s staunchest defenders were left without any reply from him whatsoever. Soon their puzzlement turned to anger. It was not a complete victory, not yet, but it was enough for the moment.
Octavian sent a tiny prayer up to Apollo, thanking him that he was made of a chillier flesh than Antony. In the early days of their alliance, Antony had rushed to claim the territories of the east, and Octavian had allowed it. He didn’t mind if Antony wanted to be heir to all Rome’s failed campaigns in Parthia. He knew that any victory in that savage place would also be fraught with horror. Caesar had told him that. Sometimes Octavian wondered if Caesar hadn’t walked into his own assassination just to avoid being killed in disgrace with Parthian arrows and having his head passed around like poor old dead Marcus Crassus. So Octavian was pleased when Antony insisted that he resume the cause in Parthia. Octavian would wait and watch from home, where he could control the flow of information in and out of the city, as well as the number of troops recruited on Italian soil and sent to Antony.
Octavian realized that all eyes at the games were waiting upon him. It was time for him to signal the commencement of his favorite part of these events, the pitting of different animals against each other. Animals that would never encounter one another in their own environments were thrown into confusion at the strange sight of a foreign beast, and then their survival instincts would manifest themselves with a vengeance. What went on in their animal brains? he wondered. What wondrous intuition must they draw upon to defend themselves against the strange pursuer? It was never boring.
A crocodile was released into the Circus. The animal seemed slightly stunned at his freedom. His great claws were perfectly still, almost as if he were already dead. The crowd was eerily silent. Lulled by the quiet, the animal began to creep across the grassy surface into a patch of sunlight. Slowly, as if in a dream, the sun lit up his body inch by inch, turning his craggy brown skin a shimmering gold. Finally he stood fully illuminated, looking about as if he were all set to enjoy an afternoon in the sun. But the poor ignorant fellow had no idea of what was coming. Two trainers on horseback rode into the Circus holding by metal chains a great lion, pale brown like a fawn but with a head larger than a bear. The beast pulled fiercely against his leashes, his angry roar filling the arena. The crocodile did not react. The trainers gave the signal, releasing the lion into the center of the Circus, and quickly rode out of the arena. For a long time, neither animal moved, and Octavian wondered if the lion was going to lie in the sun with the crocodile and go to sleep. Then gladiators would have to come into the ring and taunt them into action. If they wouldn’t fight each other, the men would have to incite them by throwing raw meat into the ring for them to duel over. If that did not do the trick, the gladiators would have to come in and slay them with their tridents, or hack them to death with axes. But a gladiator with a weapon inevitably was the victor over a beast. It was just not as entertaining.
The crowd grew restless and began taunting the lion, who started prowling nervously. This will simply be no fun, Octavian thought. The lion, so large, so fast, so revered, will surely make a fast meal of this reptile. The lion was so clearly agitated by the noise of the crowd that he began to roar back, an angry retort to their contempt. He seemed insulted by their jeers, shaking his head at them, baring his feral teeth in their direction. Oh, he was a formidable creature. The crocodile, on the other hand, refused to move. Slowly, however, his tail wiggled ever so slightly, almost like a snake. The lion, disturbed by the slight motion, hurled himself upon the creature, and Octavian’s heart leapt. Finally, some action, even if it was to be short-lived and, in the end, so unevenly matched. The lion fell upon the crocodile with a vengeance, so that all that could be seen of the reptile was his tail. He is done for now, Octavian thought. But then the lion threw back his head. The crocodile had the beast’s neck in his great gaping jaws, the lion’s hot red blood spilling out onto the green grass, almost making a crimson watershed over the reptile. The crocodile-could he weigh half of what the lion weighed?-threw the big cat over on his back. Tightening his jaw, he crushed the lion’s throat, and the poor beast died gagging on his own blood.
The crowd went crazy. Rarely had a lion been defeated in the ring. Octavian must find the clever fellow who thought of pitting those two mismatched creatures against each other and reward him. It was so rare to be treated to a surprise at the games.
Alexandria: the 17th year of Kleopatra’s reign
To Kleopatra, this was the crowning moment of her dreams and ambitions, the achievement of all that she had begun to put into motion with Julius Caesar so many years ago. She hosted the Declaration of the Eastern Empire in the giant hall of the Gymnasium. It had been only days since Antony had marched into Alexandria in his triumphal parade after his conquest of Armenia. But for Kleopatra, that triumph was merely the beginning.The purpose of the Declaration was to demonstrate to the people of Egypt the wisdom of their queen in her alliance with the Roman general and the Roman dictator before him. Kleopatra had always known that she was acting on behalf of her nation in aligning with the Romans, but her subjects hadn’t always agreed. Her father had been chased out of his country for his patronage of Rome. Now she could show them how she had elevated Egypt and all its inhabitants by this association.
At the ceremony of the Declaration, Antony and Kleopatra sat high upon golden thrones on solid silver platforms, flanked by their children, with the exception of Antyllus, who had been sent back to Rome to resume his studies. They displayed themselves as Aphrodite and Dionysus once more, and with a massive portion of the Alexandrian community looking on, Antony gifted Kleopatra and the children with the territories of their ancestors that had been chiseled away from the vast empire of the earlier Ptolemies.
“By all the powers invested in me as Imperator of Rome and General of the Eastern forces of the Empire, I declare Kleopatra VII Ptolemy Queen of Kings and Queen of her Sons who are Kings.” Antony was an orator by nature and by inheritance; his grandfather had been one of Rome’s most renowned speakers. His voice rang through the hall, reverberating in the cavernous hollow of the massive ceiling. He possessed all the authority of a god, she thought, and that was how the people responded to him. Everyone stood and repeated Kleopatra’s new title so joyously that it sounded like a song written especially for the occasion: “All hail Mother Egypt, the Lady of the Two Lands, and ruler of the island of Cyprus and Koile Syria. Queen of Kings! Queen of Kings!”
Kleopatra went through the ceremony slightly dizzy and distracted. She assumed a demeanor of solemn dignity for her subjects, but in her mind, she was watching all the pieces of the puzzle she had dreamed of assembling begin to come together. Caesarion, thirteen years old and in a particularly gangly phase under his purple ceremonial robes, was crowned King of Kings. “Come forward, son of Caesar,” Antony exclaimed. The boy bowed to his stepfather as Antony placed the golden crown upon his head, wiping the strands of the stringy hair he had inherited from Caesar away from his eyes as he raised his head. Alexander Helios, “my son,” Antony was careful to say, was proclaimed king of Armenia and Media and all the eastern regions of Parthia. Kleopatra Selene, “my daughter,” was made queen of Cyrene. Just six years old, the twins were very tall for their age and solemnly accepted their new imperial titles, bowing and waving just as Kleopatra had instructed them to do. They were dressed in the costumes of the regions they had just been granted and were flanked by soldiers in uniforms from those lands. Ptolemy Philadelphus, not even three years old, won the hearts of the crowd in his bright purple cloak and tiny golden diadem, wearing a
very small replica of the Macedonian boots seen on the feet of Alexander on all his statues throughout the town. He was named king of Syria, Phoenicia, and Cilicia, his bright eyes glittering as his name was chanted, aware only of the fact that much of this pomp was for himself, and delighting in it. And with that proclamation, the picture was complete, and every inch of the ancestral empire of the Ptolemies was restored to Kleopatra, their rightful descendant, and secured now for her descendants. Not only had she restored the greatness of Egypt’s most glorious days, she also now controlled much of the former empire of Seleucus, companion of Alexander and friend to Ptolemy I. She had succeeded beyond the dreams and achievements of each and every Ptolemy who had come before her.
She thought of her father, so long dead now, his jolly disposition and his good health eviscerated by the tyranny and greed of Rome, which had lost him the goodwill of his people. He had made her queen on her eighteenth birthday, had believed in her loyalty and her abilities, and had elevated her above all women. She promised him on his deathbed that she would always honor the meaning behind her name, glory to her father, and on this day she delivered the ultimate evidence of her vow. The single element that prevented her joy from being complete was his absence. But honoring one’s ancestors was as important in the eyes of the gods as honoring the living. Honor aside, she missed him and longed to hear the lilting melodies of his flute in her court. Was ever a king such an artist? Since his death, no musician could please her. He was mocked by Rome for his artistic ways and for his fervent patronage of the god Dionysus, just as Antony was mocked in his own country now for demonstrating his love of the ways of the people of Egypt and the eastern territories he governed. Her father was fat and effeminate while Antony was muscled and manly, but she had not realized until this very moment how many similarities they shared, including the willingness to acknowledge her capabilities and govern with her.