into the streets of Alexandria and send the citizens cowering to their hovels.' 'What did Cleopatra say?' I do not know, why, after a pause, I had asked the question.
'She said, sir, that there was nothing left remarkable beneath the visiting moon.'
'Do you remember, Agrippa, how he spoke of Brutus? 'This was the noblest Roman of them all.' Those were his words. They angered me then, for I could not share his opinion of Brutus. But now? Why do I feel like that? Why do I feel like a man who has shot a splendid bird, an eagle, or brought down a noble stag? I had no choice, yet half my heart is torn. He was my brother and my rival, my separated love, my friend and companion in countless fields; and now, a body for crows to pick at. Was it destiny tore us apart, were our stars irreconcilable? Where's the Queen of Egypt?'
'She takes refuge still in the Mausoleum, but has sent to know your will.'
'Agrippa,' I said, 'fetch her to me. You at least will be proof against her charms.' How would she come?
'Like a right royal bitch,' Agrippa said. 'You never saw the like. I have attended theatres in many cities, but I never saw an actress like the Queen. You'd better be on your guard, lest she seduce you too. It would make a notable haul, wouldn't it? First Himself, then Antony and then you, Octavian. And she's capable of it. Don't fool yourself otherwise.' She was simply attired, in mourning white, her hair loose; and she wore no jewels. She looked older than her age, with little crevices of lines running from the corners of her eyes and mouth. Only the eyes themselves contradicted this impression. Almond-coloured and rather large, they sparkled with an unquenchable vivacity. When she spoke her voice was deeper and harsher than I remembered it as being. Her manner was composed and confident.
She began with compliments. Her dead lord had spoken much of the nobility of my character. The war between us had been unfortunate, the result of a concatenation of circumstance and misunderstanding. She understood of course that I had been angered by Antony's abandonment of my sister, and his preference for her. But where the God Eros struck, mortals were powerless. Egypt had no quarrel with Rome, and indeed Egypt was sensible that its prosperity depended on the strength and vigour of Rome. She had been taught that early, by none other than my father.
So far, she had spoken as if to persuade me by reason. Though I was of course aware of the depths of her hypocrisy, I still felt the charm of her manner and personality and the strength of her intellect working on my mind and imagination. Now, having introduced Julius' name, she paused.
'Everything I know I learned from your great and most noble father,' she said. 'He was my teacher and master as well as my lover. His presence was intoxicating. He came on me with the freshness of a spring morning, and I blossomed like a summer flower in his Sun's rays. You, Caesar, are, I see now, his most worthy heir, the inheritor of his genius and his vision. He told me he saw Egypt as the garden and granary of Rome, and I as its gardener and farmer. An unromantic role for a young girl, you may say, but he told me that with a laugh, and I found him as convincing as he was irresistible. Caesar, I have erred in opposing you, and my error rested in my willingness to be guided by my dead lord. Antony was a great man, and a noble man, and there is no shame in my memory of him. But there is regret. Regret, because my love for Antony led me to stray from Caesar's precepts, and to follow Antony in his mad ambition which led to war against Caesar's heir. Only now that Antony's splendour can no longer dazzle me, do I see the error of my ways. And so, Caesar, I have come to lay Egypt at your royal and conquering feet, to throw myself on your generous mercy, to remind your father's son of what I meant to your father and to pray that we may together resume the work, the great work of harmony between Rome and Egypt on which we embarked, Caesar and I. For, most noble General, I say this to you: Rome and Egypt are bound together as Egypt is wedded to the Nile and Rome to the Middle Sea; and I am Egypt and you, most puissant General, are Rome'; and, saying this, she threw her head back in proud self-assertion, and sank to her knees before me. What a performance.
I felt her power, her quite remarkable seductiveness. It was like listening to the deepest most desirable temptation; it held promises of bliss and power. I understood how Antony had found himself caught like a beast in a net. I looked away.
'Great Queen,' I said, 'your words touch me. I too loved Antony and regret the separation of our ways. I too revere the memory of my father, and I recognize that Egypt and Rome are bound together. But this great war has displaced much, and this is not the moment to make any speedy decision on the nature of the future relationship between our countries. I shall ponder all you have said. Rest assured that you will be treated in a manner worthy of your great name and nature, and that your fate will not be less than your deserts.'
Her face grew pale. She quivered a moment, then, very slowly and now unwaveringly, rose to her feet. The audience was over.
I gave orders that she be escorted to the Palace, and kept there with due honour, but under secure guard.
'She shall appear in my Triumph,' I said to Agrippa, 'in chains, that Rome may be relieved of its long anxiety. And then we shall see what should be done.' A letter was brought me from Livia: Do not forget that the Queen is a woman and you honour yourself in treating her with honour and moderation. But I should be nervous and unhappy my dear, if you expose yourself to her charms. Her reputation frightens me… Octavia wrote: No woman, and no man either, has done me more bitter wrong than Cleopatra. And yet I find I pity her. To have dared so much and to have lost so completely stops my heart. I rejoice in your victory, brother, but I mourn Antony as the father of my children… What do you plan to do with his children by the Queen? I shudder to think of their significance. Cleopatra's fate was not of course my only concern, hardly even the chief one. The most urgent was the treatment of Egypt itself. I decided it was too rich and too important to be left in its semi-independent state; Julius had surely blundered in deciding so. Egypt must become a Roman province, for the food supply of Rome itself depended on its harvests. Moreover, I thought it best to keep it, for the time being at least, under my direct control. I therefore appointed Cornelius Gallus, a man in whom I reposed infinite trust, as its governor.
Antony's legions had all laid down their arms. Some I incorporated into my own army, but it was obvious that with the triumphal end of the Civil Wars, it would be both possible and desirable to reduce the military establishment, and so I began to plan for the demobilization and settlement in colonies of the greater number of Antony's men. This work of reduction and resettlement was to dominate the next three years, and I may fairly but modestly claim that in its performance I met with a success that none of the great generals of the Republic had equalled, not even Pompey.
Among those who tried to resist and were captured were Antyllus, Antony's son by Fulvia, and the boy called Caesarion, who had been proclaimed Julius' son by Cleopatra. Antyllus behaved shamefully, having to be dragged from the Temple of the Divine Julius, screaming for mercy. He tried indeed to cling to my father's image and the soldiers had to prise his fingers off it. Caesarion was captured by a cavalry patrol and accepted his fate with a dignity that did credit to his putative paternity. I ordered both to be put to death; they were too obvious foci for disaffection to make it possible to spare their lives.
Cleopatra cheated my intentions. Fearing the mockery of the Roman crowd, realizing that her plea to be treated as a reigning Queen and confirmed in office had failed, she contrived to have a little snake, called an asp, smuggled to her bedchamber in a basket of figs. She then applied it to her breast. They say she did so lovingly and smiled as the poison worked. I could not be sorry, for, though she would have made a splendid show in my Triumph, I knew that I would have been unable to condemn her to death afterwards (as custom decrees) and that indeed Livia would not permit me to do so. Her continued presence could only be an embarrassment, and, on reflection, I was glad she had removed herself.
I gave orders that she be buried beside Antony, and that their mausoleum be completed. May I be paid like honour by those I have wronged when my time comes!
I was eager to leave Egypt, for its vice and corruption continued to disgust me, and I felt evil in the air. Only the pink delicacy of early mornings before the extreme heat of the day, when the Nile shimmered in awakening light, gave me any pleasure. But there is that in Egypt that can demean a man, and I felt both fear and loathing of the brooding presence of its ancient and obscene gods.
Before leaving however, I fulfilled a last ambition. I ordered the sarcophagus which contains the mummified body of the Great Alexander to be removed from its Mausoleum in Alexandria, and gazed in wonder on the face of the most noble and brilliant of men, whose achievements none has matched, whose glory it is hard even to imagine. Its features were serene and beautiful. I crowned the head with a golden diadem and strewed the trunk with roses, violets and sweet-scented lemon-flowers.
They asked me afterwards if I would now like to view the Mausoleum of the Ptolemies, and asked it with that
