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And the river gods of Egypt, perhaps not expected by Father Neptune to appear on the broad expanses of his kingdom, proved powerful enough to keep the fleet sailing unerringly for the mouth of the Cydnus River. Or perhaps Father Neptune, a properly Roman god, had concluded a contract with his Egyptian brethren. Whatever the reason, on the tenth day of May the fleet congregated seaward of the Cydnus bar. Not a good time to cross, with the swollen stream resisting entry; now the oarsmen would earn their wages! The passage was clearly marked with painted piles; between them barges worked indefatigably to dredge the sand and mud. No ship of the fleet was deep-drafted, especially tubby Philopator, built for river voyaging. Even so, Cleopatra ordered her fleet in ahead of her, wanting Dellius to have time to tell Antony she was here.
He found Antony bored and restless, but still sober.
‘Well?’ Antony demanded, glaring up at Dellius. One big hand gestured at the desk top, awash in scrolls and papers. ‘Look at this! And all of it’s either bills or bad news! Did you succeed? Is Cleopatra coming?’
‘Cleopatra is here, Antonius. I traveled aboard her fleet, even now being assigned moorings downriver. Twenty triremes, all naval – no trade opportunities, I’m afraid.’
His chair scraped; Antony got up and went to the window, his movement making Dellius realize anew how graceful some big men could be. ‘Where is she? I hope you told the city harbor master to assign her the choicest moorings.’
‘Yes, but it’s going to take some time. Her ship is as long as three Greek war galleys of olden times, so it can’t exactly be slipped in between two merchantmen already tied up. The harbor master has to shift seven of them – he’s not happy, but he’ll do it. I spoke in your name.’
‘A ship big enough to house a titan, eh? When am I going to see it?’ Antony asked, scowling.
‘Tomorrow morning, about an hour after dawn.’ Dellius gave a contented sigh. ‘She came without a murmur, and in huge state. I think she wishes to impress you.’
‘Then I’ll make sure she doesn’t. Presumptuous sow!’
Which was why, as the sun nudged up over the trees east of Tarsus, Antony rode a drab horse to the far bank of Cydnus, a drab cloak wrapped about him, and no one in attendance. To see the enemy first is an advantage; soldiering with Caesar had taught him that. Oh, the air smells sweet! What am I doing in a sacked city when there are marches to be made, battles to be fought? he asked himself, knowing the answer. I am still here to see if the Queen of Egypt was going to answer my summons. And that other presumptuous sow, Glaphyra, is beginning to nag me in a way that Eastern women have perfected: sweetly, tearfully, larded with sighs and whimpers. Oh, for Fulvia! When she nags, a man knows he’s being nagged – growl, snarl, roar! Nor does she mind a cuff over the ear – provided a man doesn’t mind five nails raked down his chest in retaliation.
Ah, there was a good spot! He turned sideways and slid off the horse, making for a flat rock raised several feet above the bank. Sitting on it, he would have a perfect view of Cleopatra’s ship sailing up the Cydnus to its moorings. He wasn’t more than fifty paces from the river’s channel; this was so near the edge that he could see a small bright bird nesting in the eaves of a warehouse alongside the quay.
Philopator came crawling up the river at the speed of a man walking at a fast clip, setting Antony agape long before it drew level with him. For what he could see was a figurehead amid a misty, golden halo; a brown-skinned man wearing a white kilt, a collar and belt of gold and gems, and a huge headdress of red and white. His bare feet skimmed the wavelets breaking on either side of the beak, and in his right hand he brandished a golden spear. Figureheads were known, but not so massive or so much a part of the prow. This man – some king of old? – was the ship, and he bore it behind him like a billowing cloak.
Everything seemed gold; the ship was gilded from the water line up to the very top of the mast, and what wasn’t gold was painted in peacock blues and peacock greens, shimmering with a powdering of gold. The roofs of the buildings on deck were of faïence tiles in vivid blues and greens, and a whole arcade of lotus-headed columns marched down the deck. Even the oars were gold! And gems glittered everywhere! This ship alone was worth ten thousand gold talents!
Perfumes wafted, lyres and pipes sounded, a choir sang, all invisibly sourced; beautiful girls in gauzy gowns threw flowers from golden baskets; many beautiful little boys in peacock kilts hung laughing in the snow-white shrouds. The swelling sail, spread to help the oarsmen battle the current, was whiter than white, embroidered to display two entwined beast heads – a hooded serpent and a vulture – and a strange eye dripping a long black tear.
Peacock feathers had been clustered everywhere, but nowhere more lushly than about a tall gold dais in front of the mast. On a throne sat a woman clad in a dress of peacock feathers, her head burdened with the same red and white crown as the figurehead man wore. Her shoulders sparkled with the jewels in a wide gold collar, and a broad girdle of the same kind was cinched about her waist. Crossed on her breast she carried a shepherd’s crook and a flail in gold worked with lapis blue. Her face was made up so heavily that it was quite impossible to see what she looked like; its expression was perfect impassivity.
The ship passed him by closely enough to see how wide it was, and how wonderfully made; the deck was paved in green and blue faïence tiles to match the roofs. A peacock ship, a peacock queen. Well, thought Antony, inexplicably angered, she will see who is cock of the walk in Tarsus!
He took the bridge to the city at a gallop, tumbled off the horse at the door to the governor’s palace and strode in shouting for his servants.
‘Toga and lictors, now!’
So when the Queen sent her chamberlain, the eunuch Philo, to inform Marcus Antonius that she had arrived, Philo was told that Marcus Antonius was in the agora hearing cases on behalf of the fiscus, and could not see Her Majesty until the morrow.
Such had actually been Antony’s intention for days; it had been formally posted on the tribunal in the agora, so when he took his place on the tribunal he saw what he had expected – a hundred litigants, at least that many advocates, several hundred spectators and several dozen vendors of drinks, snacks, nibbles, parasols and fans. Even in May, Tarsus was hot. For that reason his court was shaded by a crimson awning that said SPQR on fringed flaps every few feet around its margins. Atop the stone tribunal sat Antony himself on his ivory curule chair, with twelve crimson-clad lictors to either side of him and Lucilius at a table stacked with scrolls. The most novel actor in this drama was a hoary centurion who stood in one corner of the tribunal; he wore a shirt of gold scales, golden greaves, a chest loaded with phalerae, armillae and torcs, and a gold helmet whose scarlet horsehair ruff spread sideways like a fan. But the chest loaded with decorations for valorous deeds wasn’t what cowed this audience. It was the Gallic longsword the centurion held between his hands, its tip resting on the ground. It reminded the citizens of Tarsus that Marcus Antonius owned imperium maius, and could execute anyone for anything. If he took it into his head to issue an execution order, then this centurion would carry it out on the spot. Not that Antony had any intention of executing a fly or a spider; Easterners were used to being ruled by people who executed as capriciously as regularly, so why disillusion them?
Some of the cases were interesting, some entertaining as well. Antony waded through them with the efficiency and detachment that all Romans seemed to possess, be they members of the proletariat or the aristocracy. A people who understood law, method, routine, discipline, though Antony was less dowered with these essentially Roman qualities than most. Even so, he attacked his task with vigor, and sometimes venom. A sudden stir in the crowd threw a litigant off balance just as he reached the point whereat he would pass his case over to the highly paid advocate at his side; Mark Antony turned his head, frowning.
The crowd had parted, sighing in awe, to permit the passage of a small procession led by a nut-brown, shaven-headed man in a white dress, a fortune in gold chains around his neck. Behind him walked Philo the chamberlain in linen of blues and greens, face painted delicately, body glittering with jewels. But they were as nothing compared to the conveyance behind them: a spacious litter of gold, its roof of faïence tiles, nodding plumes of peacock feathers at its cornerposts. It was carried by eight huge men as black as grapes, with the same purple tint to their skins. They wore peacock kilts, collars and bracelets of gold, and flaring gold nemes headdresses.
Queen Cleopatra waited until the bearers gently set her litter down, then, without waiting for assistance in alighting, she slid lithely out of it and approached the steps of the Roman tribunal.
‘Marcus Antonius, you summoned me to Tarsus. I am here,’ she said in a clear, carrying voice.
‘Your name is not on my roster of cases for today, madam! You will have to apply to my secretary, but I assure you that I will see that your name is first on my list in the morning,’ said Antony with the courtesy due to a monarch, but no deference.
Inside, she was boiling. How dared this clodhopper of a Roman treat her like anyone else! She had come to the agora to show him up as the boor he was, display her immense clout and authority to the Tarsians, who would appreciate her position and not think too well of Antony for metaphorically spitting on her. He wasn’t in the Roman forum now, these weren’t Roman businessmen (all of them had quit the area as unprofitable). These were people akin to her Alexandrian people, sensitive to the prerogatives and rights of monarchs. Mind being pushed aside for the Queen of Egypt? No, they would preen at the distinction! They had all visited the wharf to marvel at Philopator, and had come to the agora fully expecting to find their cases postponed. No doubt Antony thought they would esteem his democratic principles in seeing them first, but that was not how an Eastern cerebral apparatus worked. They were shocked and disturbed, disapproving. What she was doing in standing so humbly at the foot of his tribunal was demonstrating to the Tarsians how arrogant the Romans were.
‘Thank you, Marcus Antonius,’ she said. ‘If perhaps you have no plans for dinner, you might join me on my ship this evening? Shall we say, at twilight? It is more comfortable to dine after the heat has gone out of the air.’
He stared down at her, a spark of anger in his eyes; somehow she had put him in the wrong, he could see it in the faces of the crowd, fawning and bowing, keeping their distance from the royal personage. In Rome, she would have been mobbed, but here? Never, it seemed. Curse the woman!
‘I have no plans for dinner,’ he said curtly. ‘You may expect to see me at twilight.’
‘I will send my litter for you, Imperator Antonius. Please feel free to bring Quintus Dellius, Lucius Poplicola, the brothers Saxa, Marcus Barbatius and fifty-five more of your friends.’
Cleopatra hopped nimbly into her litter; the bearers picked up its poles and turned it around, for it was not a mere couch, it had a head and a foot to enable its occupant to be properly seen.
‘Proceed, Melanthus,’ said Antony to the litigant who the Queen’s arrival had stopped in mid-sentence.
The rattled Melanthus turned helplessly to his highly paid advocate, arms spread wide in bewilderment. Whereupon the man showed his competence by taking up the case as if no interruption had occurred.
It took his servants a while to find a tunic clean enough for Antony to wear to dinner on a ship; togas were too bulky to dine in, and had to be shed. Nor were boots (his preferred footwear) convenient; too much lacing and unlacing. Oh, for a crown of valor to wear upon his head! Caesar had worn his oak leaves for all public occasions, but only extreme valor in combat as a young man had earned him the privilege. Like Pompey the Great, Antony had never won a crown, brave though he had always been.
The litter was waiting. Pretending all this was great fun, Antony climbed in and ordered the bevy of friends, laughing and joking, to walk around the litter. The conveyance was admired, but not as much as the bearers, a fascinating rarity; even in the busiest, most varied slave markets, black men did not come up for sale. In Italia they were so rare that sculptors seized upon them, but those were women and children, and rarely pure-blooded like Cleopatra’s bearers. The beauty of their skins, the handsomeness of their faces, the dignity of their carriage were marveled at. What a stir they would create in Rome! Though, thought Antony, no doubt she had them with her when she had lived in Rome. I just never saw them.
The gangplank, he noted, was gold save for its railings, of the rarest citrus wood, and the faïence deck was strewn with rose petals oozing a faint perfume when trodden upon. Every pedestal that held a golden vase of peacock feathers or a priceless work of art was chryselephantine – delicately carved ivory inlaid with gold. Beautiful girls whose supple limbs showed through tissue-fine robes ushered them down the deck between the columns to a pair of great gold doors wrought in bas relief by some master; inside was a huge room with shutters opened wide to let in every breeze, its walls of citrus wood and marquetry in gorgeous, complex designs, its floor a foot deep in rose petals.
She’s taunting me! thought Antony. Taunting me!
Cleopatra was waiting, dressed now in filmy layers of gauze that shaded from dark amber underneath to palest straw on top. The style was neither Greek nor Roman nor Asian, but something of her own, waisted, flared in the skirts, the bodice fitting her closely to show small breasts beneath; her thin little arms were softened by billowing sleeves that ended at the elbows to allow room for bracelets up her forearms. Around her neck she wore a gold chain from which dangled, enclosed in a cage of finest golden wire, a single pearl the size and color of a strawberry. Antony’s gaze was drawn to it immediately; he gasped, eyes going to her face in astonishment.
‘I know that bauble,’ he said.
‘Yes, I suppose you do. Caesar gave it to Servilia many years ago to bribe her when he broke off Brutus’s engagement to his daughter. But Julia died, and then Brutus died, and Servilia lost all her money in the civil war. Old Faberius Margarita valued it at six million sesterces, but when she came to sell it, she asked ten million. Silly woman! I would have paid twenty million to get it. But the ten million wasn’t enough to get her out of debt, I heard. Brutus and Cassius lost the war, so that took care of one side of her fortune, and Vatia and Lepidus bled her dry, which took care of the other side.’ Cleopatra spoke with amusement.
‘It’s true that she’s Atticus’s pensioner these days.’
‘And Caesar’s wife committed suicide, I hear.’
‘Calpurnia? Well, her father, Piso, wanted to marry her to some mushroom willing to pay a fortune for the privilege of bedding Caesar’s widow, but she wouldn’t do it. Piso and his new wife made her life a misery, and she hated having to move out of the Domus Publica. She opened her veins.’
‘Poor woman. I always liked her. I liked Servilia too, for that matter. The ones I loathed were the wives of the New Men.’
‘Cicero’s Terentia, Pedius’s Valeria Messala, Hirtius’s Fabia. I can understand that,’ said Antony with a grin.
While they talked the girls were leading the fascinated group Antony had brought with him to their respective couches; when it was done, Cleopatra herself took his arm and led him to the couch at the bottom of the U, and placed him in the locus consularis. ‘Do you mind if we have no third companion on our couch?’ she asked.
‘Not at all.’
No sooner was he settled than the first course came in: such an array of dainties that several noted gourmands among his party clapped their hands in delight. Tiny birds designed to be eaten bones and all, eggs stuffed with indescribable pastes, shrimps grilled, shrimps steamed, shrimps skewered and broiled with giant capers and mushrooms, oysters and scallops brought at the gallop from the coast; a hundred other equally delectable dishes meant to be eaten with the fingers. Then came the main course, whole lambs roasted on the spit, capons, pheasants, baby crocodile meat (it was superb, enthused the gourmands), stews and braises flavored in new ways, and whole roast peacocks arranged on golden dishes with all their feathers replaced in exact order and their tails fanned.
‘Hortensius served the first roast peacock at a banquet in Rome,’ Antony said, and laughed. ‘Caesar said it tasted like an old army boot, except that the boot was tenderer.’
Cleopatra chuckled. ‘He would! Give Caesar a mess of dried peas or chickpeas or lentils cooked with a knuckle of salted pork and he was happy. Not a food-fancier!’
‘Once he dipped his bread in rancid oil and never noticed.’
‘But you, Marcus Antonius, appreciate good food.’
‘Yes, sometimes.’
‘The wine is Chian. You shouldn’t drink it watered.’
‘I intend to stay sober, madam.’
‘And why is that?’
‘Because a man dealing with you needs his wits.’
‘I take that as a compliment.’
‘Age hasn’t improved your looks,’ he said as the sweetmeats came in, apparently indifferent to how any woman might take this news about her appearance.
‘My charms were never in my looks,’ she said, unruffled. ‘To Caesar, what appealed were my voice, my intelligence and my royal status. Especially he liked the fact that I picked up languages as easily as he did. He taught me Latin, I taught him demotic and classical Egyptian.’
‘Your Latin is impeccable.’
‘So was Caesar’s. That’s why mine is.’
‘You didn’t bring his son.’
‘Caesarion is Pharaoh. I left him behind to rule.’
‘At five?’
‘Nearly six, going on sixty. A wonderful boy. I trust that you intend to keep your promise and present him to the Senate as Caesar’s heir in Egypt. He must have undisputed tenure of his throne, which means that Octavianus must be made to see that he is no threat to Rome. Just a good client-king of half-Roman blood that can be of no benefit to him in Rome. Caesarion’s fate lies in Egypt, and Octavianus must be made to realize that.’
‘I agree, but the time isn’t ripe to bring Caesarion to Rome for ratification of our treaties with Egypt. There’s trouble in Italia, and I can’t interfere with whatever Octavianus does to solve those troubles. He inherited Italia as part of our agreement at Philippi – all I want from the place are troops.’
‘As a Roman, don’t you feel a certain responsibility for what is happening in Italia, Antonius?’ she asked, brow pleated. ‘Is it prudent and politic to leave Italia suffering so much from famine and economic differences between the businessmen, the landowners and the veteran soldiers? Ought not you, Octavianus and Lepidus have remained in Italia and solved its problems first? Octavianus is a mere boy, he can’t possibly have the wisdom or the experience to succeed. Why not help him instead of hindering him?’ She gave a gritty laugh and thumped her bolster. ‘None of this is to my advantage, but I keep thinking of the mess Caesar left behind in Alexandria, and of how I had to get all its citizens cooperating instead of warring class against class. I failed because I didn’t see that social wars are disastrous. Caesar left me the advice, but I wasn’t clever enough to use it. But if it were to happen again, I would know how to deal with it. And what I see happening in Italia is a variation upon my own struggle. Forget your differences with Octavianus and Lepidus, work together!’
‘I would rather,’ Antony said between his teeth, ‘be dead than give that posturing boy one iota of help!’
‘The people are more important than one posturing boy.’
‘No, they’re not! I’m hoping Italia will starve, and I’ll do whatever I can to speed the process up. That’s why I tolerate Sextus Pompeius and his admirals. They make it impossible for Octavianus to feed Italia, and the less taxes the businessmen pay, the less money Octavianus has to buy land to settle the veterans. With the landowners stirring the pot, Octavianus will cook.’
‘Rome has built an empire on the people of Italia from north of the Padus River all the way to the tip of Bruttium. Hasn’t it occurred to you that in insisting that you be able to recruit troops in Italia, you’re actually saying that no other place can produce such excellent soldiers? But if the country starves, they too will starve.’
‘No, they won’t,’ Antony said instantly. ‘The famine only drives them to re-enlist. It’s a help.’
‘Not to the women who bear the boys who will grow up into those excellent soldiers.’
‘They get paid, they send money home. The ones who starve are useless – Greek freedmen and old women.’
Mentally exhausted, Cleopatra lay back and closed her eyes. Of the emotions that lead to murder she had intimate knowledge; her father had strangled his own daughter to shore up his throne, and would have killed her had not Cha’em and Tach’a hidden her in Memphis as a growing child. But the very idea of deliberately drawing down famine and disease upon her people was utterly foreign to her. These feuding, passionate men possessed a ruthlessness that seemed to have no bounds – no wonder Caesar had died at their hands. Their own personal and familial prestige was more important than whole nations, and in that they were closer to Mithridates the Great than they would have cared to hear. If it meant that an enemy of the family would perish, they would walk over a sea of dead. They still practiced the politics of a tiny city-state, having no concept, it seemed to her, that the tiny city-state had turned into the most powerful military and commercial machine in history. Alexander the Great had conquered more, but on his death it vanished as smoke does into a wide sky; the Romans conquered a bit here and a bit there, but gave what they had conquered to an idea named Rome, for the greater glory of that idea. And yet they could not see that Italia mattered more than personal feuds. Caesar used to say it to her all the time: that Italia and Rome were the same entity. But Marcus Antonius would not have agreed.
However, she was a little closer to understanding what kind of man Marcus Antonius was. Ah, but too tired to prolong this evening! There would have to be more dinners, and if her cooks went insane dreaming up new dishes, then so be it.
‘Pray excuse me, Antonius. I am for bed. Stay as long as you like. Philo will look after you.’
Next moment, she was gone. Frowning, Antony debated whether to go or stay, and decided to go. Tomorrow evening he would give a banquet for her. Odd little thing! Like one of those girls who starved themselves just at the age when they should be eating. Though they were anemic, weakly creatures, and Cleopatra was very tough. I wonder, he thought in sudden amusement, how Octavianus is coping with Fulvia’s daughter by Clodius? Now there’s a starved girl! No more meat on her than a gnat.
Cleopatra’s invitation to a second dinner that evening came as Antony was setting out the following day for the courts, where he knew the Queen would not present herself again. His friends were so full of the wonders of that banquet that he cut his breakfast of bread and honey short, arrived at the agora before any of the litigants had expected him. Part of him was still fulminating at the direction in which she had led the more serious conversation, and they had not broached the subject of whether she had sided with Cassius. That would keep a day or two, he supposed, but it did not augur well that clearly she was not intimidated.
When he returned to the governor’s palace to bathe and shave in preparation for the evening’s festivities aboard Philopator, he found Glaphyra lying in wait for him.
‘Was I not asked last night?’ she demanded in a thin voice.
‘You were not asked.’
‘And am I asked this evening?’
‘No.’
‘Ought I perhaps send the Queen a little note to inform her that I am of royal blood, and your guest here in Tarsus? If I did, she would surely extend her invitation to include me.’
‘You could, Glaphyra,’ said Antony, suddenly feeling jovial, ‘but it wouldn’t get you anywhere. Pack your things. I’m sending you back to Comana tomorrow at dawn.’
The tears cascaded like silent rain.
‘Oh, cease the waterworks, woman!’ Antony cried. ‘You will get what you want, but not yet. Continue the waterworks, and you might get nothing.’
Only on the third evening at the third dinner aboard Philopator did Antony mention Cassius. How her cooks managed to keep on presenting novelties eluded him, but his friends were lost in an ecstasy of edibles that left them little time to watch what the couple on the lectus medius were doing. Certainly not making any amatory advances to each other and, with that speculation dead in the water, the sight of those gorgeous girls was far more thrilling – though some guests made a greater fuss of the little boys.
‘You had better come to the governor’s palace for dinner on the morrow,’ said Antony, who had eaten well on each of the three occasions, but not made a glutton of himself. ‘Give your cooks a well-deserved rest.’
‘If you like,’ she said indifferently; she picked at food, took a sparrow’s portions.
‘But before you honor my quarters with your royal presence, Your Majesty, I think we’d better clear up the matter of that aid you gave Gaius Cassius.’
‘Aid? What aid?’
‘Don’t you call four good Roman legions aid?’
‘My dear Marcus Antonius,’ she drawled wearily, ‘those four legions marched north in the charge of Aulus Allienus, who I was led to believe was a legate of Publius Dolabella’s, the then legal governor of Syria. As Alexandria was threatened by plague as well as famine, I was glad to hand the four legions Caesar left there to Allienus. If he decided to change sides after he had crossed the border into Syria, that cannot be laid at my door. The fleet I sent you and Octavianus was wrecked in a storm, but you’ll find no records of fleets donated to Gaius Cassius, anymore than he got money from me, or grain from me, or other troops from me. I do admit that my viceroy on Cyprus, Serapion, did send aid to Brutus and Cassius, but I am happy to see Serapion executed. He acted without orders from me, which makes him a traitor to Egypt. If you do not execute him, I certainly will on my way home.’
‘Humph,’ Antony grunted, scowling. He knew everything she said was true, but that was not his problem; his problem was how to twist what she said to make it look like lies. ‘I can produce slaves willing to testify that Serapion acted under your orders.’
‘Freely, or under torture?’ she asked coolly.
‘Freely.’
‘For a minute fraction of the gold you hunger for more than Midas did. Come, Antonius, let us be frank! I am here because your fabulous East is bankrupt thanks to a Roman civil war, and suddenly Egypt looks like a huge goose capable of laying huge golden eggs. Well, disabuse yourself!’ she snapped. ‘Egypt’s gold belongs to Egypt, which enjoys Friend and Ally of the Roman People status, and has never broken trust. If you want Egypt’s gold, you’ll have to wrest it from me by force, at the head of an army. And even then you’ll be disappointed. Dellius’s pathetic little list of treasures to be found in Alexandria is but one golden egg in a mighty pile of them. And that pile is so well concealed that you will never find it. Nor will you torture it out of me or my priests, who are the only ones who know whereabouts it is.’
