Roma.The novel of ancient Rome

protocol. But Caesar is much too busy. And there are so few people in the city I can trust.”

“But you’ve met many people since you arrived. All the best people come to the dinner parties here at your villa.”

“Yes, and they all go away utterly charmed by the queen of Egypt-or pretending to be so, to curry favor with Caesar. Occasionally, I receive word of their true reaction. That fellow Cicero, for example. To my face, the famous advocate was all smiles and flattery. Behind my back, he wrote a letter to a friend, complaining that he could hardly stand to be in the same room with me.”

“How do you know this?”

She shrugged. “One didn’t survive as a princess in Alexandria without learning how to discover the truth. Frankly, I don’t see why Caesar allows that man to keep his head. Didn’t Cicero oppose him in the civil war and fight for Pompeius?”

“Yes. Brutus opposed him, as well, but after Pharsalus, Caesar forgave them both. Caesar is famous for his clemency.”

The queen narrowed her eyes. “I suppose, operating in a republic, clemency was a tool of statecraft. Caesar will learn new ways to deal with his enemies when he finally puts the last vestiges of this primitive form of government behind him.”

“Primitive?” Lucius drew back his shoulders. More than ever he wished he had worn his toga; it gave a man a sense of authority. “Roma is much, much older than Alexandria. And I believe the Roman Republic predates the establishment of your dynasty by almost two hundred years.”

“Perhaps. But when my ancestor Ptolemy inherited control of Egypt from Alexander, he assumed the title, the royal insignia, and the divine status of the Pharaohs who preceded him. Their dynasties can be traced back thousands of years, to the very beginning of time. By comparison, the civilization of the Romans is very young; infantile, in fact. The great pyramids were built many centuries before the Greeks laid siege to Troy, and Roma was founded hundreds of years after Troy fell.”

She frowned. “The other day I hosted a group of Roman scholars, to discuss the holdings of the Library of Alexandria. We fell to talking about the origins of Roma, and they put forward a very novel theory. They said that a Trojan warrior, Aeneas, escaped the sack of the city, sailed to the shores of Italy, and settled near the Tiber, and thus the blood of Troy survives in the Romans. But when I asked for evidence, they had none. I have to wonder whether your scholars are taking a bit of license when they speak of this link between Roma and Troy.”

“There are those,” admitted Lucius, “who say that historians invent the past.”

Cleopatra smiled. “I would rather invent the future.”

She strolled to a place which afforded a better view of the water. Downriver, tiny in the distance, figures could be seen lounging on the bank. “We know so little of our ancestors, really, even we who can name them going back many generations. I suppose the Pinarii are an ancient family?”

“There was a Pinarius in Roma when Hercules appeared and killed the monster Cacus. And the Julii must be just as ancient. Caesar says the line was begun by a union with Venus.”

“Which makes Caesar almost as divine as myself. He certainly behaves like a god.” She smiled, then frowned. “While they are on earth, the gods do great things; but after they leave the earth, they fall as silent as dead mortals. I frequently pray to the first Ptolemy, who was most certainly a god; I speak, but he never speaks back. He fought beside Alexander, bathed beside him, ate beside him. There are a thousand questions I would like to ask him-What did Alexander’s laughter sound like? Did he snore? What did he smell like? — but to those questions there are no answers, and there never will be. The dead are all dust. The past is as unknowable as the future. When Caesar and I are dust, will men of the future know only our names, and nothing else about us?”

Lucius could think of nothing to say. He had never heard a woman, or a man for that matter, speak in such a fashion. Even Caesar tended to ruminate more about troop movements than about matters of eternity.

Cleopatra smiled. “It’s curious that I’m so young, and Caesar is so old-more than twice my age-while the relative ages of our kingdoms are reversed. Egypt is like a mature queen, wealthy, worldly, covered with jewels, sophisticated to her fingertips. Roma is a brawny, brash, brawling upstart. The two need not be at odds. In some ways they’re natural allies, as Caesar and I are natural allies.”

“Is that what you are? Allies?”

“To conquer Parthia, Caesar will need the assistance of Egypt.”

“But surely there’s more between you than that.” Watching her graceful movements, listening to her speak, Lucius had begun to see the attraction Cleopatra must hold for Caesar. He had also glimpsed the qualities that must have been so repellent to a man like Cicero, who believed in the staid, silent, matronly virtues of Roman womanhood.

For the first time, it seemed possible to Lucius, even likely, that Caesar intended to divorce his Roman wife. Caesar had a viable excuse: Calpurnia had failed to give him a son. If the king of Roma married the queen of Egypt, would Parthia be a gift to their son? What would become of Caesar’s other heirs?

A childish squeal erupted from the far side of the garden. Two handmaidens appeared, looking slightly chagrinned. Between them stood a tiny boy with upraised arms. The women held him by his hands, or more precisely restrained him, for he was eager to break from them and run to his mother.

Cleopatra laughed and clapped her hands. “Come to me, Caesarion!”

The child ran toward her. A few times Lucius thought he would fall, but Caesarion remained upright for the entire distance. He threw himself against his mother and clutched her legs, then looked up at Lucius shyly. He seemed no different from any other child.

“How old is he?” said Lucius.

“Three years.”

“He looks big for his age.”

“Good. He needs to grow up fast.” The queen gestured to the handmaidens, who came to fetch Caesarion and then set about amusing him in the garden. “Now you must excuse me, Lucius Pinarius. Caesar will call on me later today, after his pronouncement to the Senate. I must prepare myself. I’m glad you came to visit. You and I should know one another better.”

Lucius headed back to the city.

He chose a path that led him through the Grove of the Furies. The secluded holy place was deserted and quiet except for the distant singing of revelers along the riverbank. Passing by the altar, Lucius recalled the story of Gaius Gracchus and the terrible fate he had met in this very spot, chased to ground by his enemies and killed by a trusted slave, who then slew himself. Lucius’s great-great-grandfather had been a friend of Gaius Gracchus, or so Lucius had been told; of the two men’s actual dealings with one another, Lucius knew nothing.

He recalled something that Cleopatra had said: We know so little of our ancestors, really, even we who can name them going back many generations. It was true. What did Lucius know about those who had come before him? He knew their names, from the lists kept by his family of marriages and offspring, and from the official records that listed the magistrates of the Republic. About some of them he had heard an anecdote or two, although the details often differed depending upon who told the story. In the vestibule of his father’s house there were wax images of some of the ancestors, so that Lucius had an idea of what they had looked like. But of the men and women themselves-their dreams and passions, their failures and triumphs-he knew virtually nothing. His ancestors were strangers to him.

Until the previous night, he had not even known of the terrible sacrifice made by his grandparents to save Caesar’s life. How much more did he not know? The magnitude of this ignorance overwhelmed him-so many lives, so full of incident and feeling, lost to his knowledge completely and forever. What had Cleopatra said? The past is as unknowable as the future. He suddenly perceived his existence as a tiny point illuminated by the thinnest crack of light-the now-poised between two infinities of darkness-before and after.

He left the grove, crossed the bridge, and wandered across the Forum Boarium. Close by the Temple of Hercules stood the Ara Maxima, the most ancient altar in all of Roma, dedicated to Hercules, who had saved the people from Cacus. Had there really been a Hercules and a Cacus, a hero and a monster? So the priests declared, and the historians agreed; so the monument attested. If the story was true, there had been a Pinarius among the Romans even then, and the Pinarii, up until the early days of the Republic, had been assigned the sacred duty of maintaining the Ara Maxima and celebrating the Feast of Hercules. They had shared this duty with a family called