Cleopatra’s Daughter

she asked Gallia nervously.

“How old are you?” Gallia asked me.

“I turn twelve in January,” I replied.

Gallia stepped forward. “Almost twelve. Still, just a little bird.” No one had ever called me a “little bird,” and when I straightened indignantly, Gallia laughed. “No, it is good that you are so small.”

“We want you both to appear as young as possible tonight,” Octavia said, busying herself with Gallia’s basket. She took out vials of antimony and saffron, piling them on the long table along with hairnets and pins with ruby tips.

Not understanding, I looked at both women. “Why?”

“So that no one feels threatened by you,” Gallia said simply. She lit a fire in the brazier and plunged a metal rod into the burning charcoal.

“Do you wish to wear your diadem tonight?” she asked.

I touched the thin band of pearls in my hair, remembering the time my mother had given it to me. “Yes.”

“And your pearl necklace?”

“Of course.”

“Then they will stay. But the rest must go.”

I stood and slowly removed my chiton and loincloth. I was not yet so developed as to need a breastband. Then Gallia pointed me to the steaming bath.

“Inside. Do not wet your hair. It will never dry in time to curl it.”

“But I already have curls.”

“These will be smaller.”

I stepped into the bath as I was told, and let Gallia rub lavender oil into my back.

“Look at this, Domina!” Gallia turned to Octavia. “You can see the bones. What do they feed her in Alexandria?”

“She has been on a ship for weeks,” Octavia reminded her, “and has lost nearly every member of her family.”

“Domina will feed you well here,” she promised, motioning for me to stand. Then she started drying me with a long white linen cloth.

I didn’t reply, knowing that if I did I would only cry. From her basket, Gallia produced a silk tunic of the deepest green. I lifted my arms obediently. She slipped the tunic over my head and fastened it at the shoulders with golden pins. When Octavia passed her a belt of light olive, Gallia held it in front of her and frowned.

“Under the breasts, at the hips, or at the waist?” she considered.

The women studied me, and now I really felt like Gallia’s bird, being preened for a life in a cage.

“At the waist,” Gallia decided herself. “It’s simple.” She tied the sash above my hips, then slipped a pair of leather sandals on my feet. On my neck, she fastened a golden necklace with a disc that was hidden by my mother’s pearls. She didn’t have to tell me that it was a bulla. I had seen Roman children in Alexandria wearing the same protective amulet.

“What about her hair?” Octavia worried.

Gallia took the metal rod from the brazier and held it in front of me by its cool end. “Do you know what this is?”

We had them in Alexandria. “A hot iron,” I said.

“Yes. A calamistrum. If you will remove your diadem….”

I followed her instructions and seated myself on one of the chairs. When Gallia was finished, Octavia said eagerly, “Now her eyes.”

I had powdered the lids carefully with malachite, and lined them with antimony as Charmion had taught me. But Gallia wiped my eye makeup away with a cloth, and when she didn’t make any motion to replace it, I protested. “But I’ve never gone anywhere without paint.”

Gallia passed a look to Octavia. “Domina,” she said to me, “that is not proper in Rome.”

“But I wore it every day on the ship.”

“That was at sea. You must not look like a lupa in front of Caesar’s guests.”

“A what?”

“You know”—she gestured—“one of those women.”

“A whore,” Alexander said from behind us, and Octavia gasped. “Sorry,” he said quickly. But I knew that he wasn’t. He was smiling, and Gallia nodded at him.

“You look very handsome, Domine.”

I turned. “Handsome? You look like you’re wearing a bedsheet. How will you walk? It’s ridiculous.” I spoke in Parthian, but Alexander replied in Latin.

“It’s a toga praetexta. And,” he added indignantly, “it’s what Marcellus is wearing.” A red stripe ran along its border, but the material wasn’t nearly as beautiful as that of my tunic. Just then he noticed my red sandals, and whistled. “A Roman princess.” I glared at him, but he ignored my anger. “So nothing for your eyes, then?”

“We want to remind Rome that she is a girl,” Gallia repeated, “not a woman in some dirty lupanar.”

“That will do,” Octavia said sternly, and I imagined that a lupanar was a place where women sold their sexual favors.

But Gallia only smiled. “He asked.”

I went to Alexander and touched the golden disc at his throat. “So we really are Romans now,” I said darkly. My brother avoided my gaze. Then Marcellus appeared behind him, smiling in a way that made me forget we were prisoners masquerading as citizens. His freshly washed hair curled at the nape of his neck, and the color contrasted with the darkness of his skin.

“You’re a goddess in emerald, Selene. This must be the work of Gallia. She could stop Apollo in his chariot, if she wanted.”

“Very pretty, Domine.”

Octavia looked from my brother to me. “Are they ready?”

Gallia nodded. “They are as Roman now as Romulus himself.”

Alexander risked a glance at me. We followed Gallia through the halls and out to the portico, where Octavia’s youngest daughters sat patiently in the shade. I couldn’t recall ever sitting patiently anywhere as a child, but these children were all sweetness and gold. Like their mother, I thought, and stopped myself from thinking of my own mother lying cold in her sarcophagus next to my father.

As we followed the cobbled road to Caesar’s villa, Gallia explained, “When we reach the triclinium, a slave will ask you to take off your sandals.”

“To wash our feet?” Alexander asked.

“Yes. And then you’ll enter the chamber. A nomenclator will announce your arrival, and all of us will be taken to our assigned couches.”

“Romans eat on couches?” I asked.

“Don’t Egyptians?”

“No. We eat at tables. With chairs and stools.”

“Oh, there will be tables,” Gallia said easily. “But not stools, and chairs are only for old men.”

“But then how do we eat?” Alexander worried.

“While reclining.” Gallia saw our expressions and explained, “There will be a dozen tables with couches around them. Caesar’s couch is always at the back, and the place of honor is opposite the empty side of his table. Whoever sits there at Caesar’s right is his most important guest.”

“Which tonight,” Octavia predicted, “will be the both of you.”

“But we don’t know what to do!” I exclaimed.

“Oh, it’s nothing,” Marcellus promised. “Just recline on your left elbow, then eat with your right hand. And if they serve the Trojan pig,” he warned mischievously, “don’t eat it.”

“Marcellus!” Octavia said sharply.

“It’s true! Remember Pollio’s dinner party?”