Antony and Cleopatra

‘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.’