Cleopatra the Great (22 page)

Yet all this meant far more than simply ensuring Cleopatra a safe delivery. The unborn child's role as the future Horus would have been particularly significant at Edfu, where Horus the ‘Great God' was believed to have had ‘his being before the ancestors', and whose rites were celebrated immediately after the main daily ceremony in all temples. The ancestors' presence at coronations, jubilees, harvest rites and sacred marriages also raises the intriguing possibility that the main purpose of Cleopatra's long cruise south with Caesar was largely to visit Edfu, where their sacred union, followed by protection rites for an heir to guarantee divine continuity, was central to Cleopatra's dynastic plans.

Although it is not known whether the couple ventured any further south, where the steep sandstone cliffs reaching down to the river made the Nile difficult to navigate, they may well have continued, albeit with a smaller naval escort, since one of Caesar's Roman biographers was adamant that they ‘would have sailed together in her state barge nearly to Ethiopia had his soldiers consented to follow him'. In her attempts to alleviate the serious famine ravaging her kingdom Cleopatra would surely have wanted to continue south towards the legendary source of the Nile as previous Ptolemies had done, both to invoke the annual flood and to keep an eye on a border region vital to Egypt's security. There was an important military base at Pa-Sebek, ‘the land of Sobek', the crocodile god known to the Greeks as Ombos (Kom Ombo). Its beautiful temple, built on a promontory on the Nile, had been a favourite with Cleopatra's father, whose monumental gateway gave direct access from the river.

Perhaps Auletes' daughter and unborn grandchild passed through with Caesar, viewing the progress on wall scenes showing Cleopatra solo before the gods, or the temple crocodiles in their stone pool with its elaborate system of fountains. The people of Ombos, like the Fayumis, regarded the creatures as divine and treated them with great respect. Yet at a time when such animal cults had become emotive symbols of regional status, stage-managed fights between neighbouring temples were a form of worship: rival supporters travelled to away matches to get drunk and taunt their rivals. Since the people of Edfu and Dendera regarded the crocodile as evil, their visits to Ombos could sometimes get out of hand, and when the Dendera crowd became increasingly drunk on one visit the mood is said to have turned nasty; spurred on by religious hatred, the Ombites began a fist-fight ending in a murder, the man's body torn to pieces as ‘the victorious crowd, gnawing his bones, ate all of him' in an apparent act of ritual cannibalism.

Most Nile journeys ended at the ancient trading post of Swenet, the Ptolemaic Syene (modern Aswan), which was a magnet for scholars. Eratosthenes had come here from Alexandria to calculate the circumference of the earth from the angles of shadows, since at midsummer the sun cast no shadow at noon. Other researchers had come to study the Nile floods and investigate Egyptian beliefs that the ram-headed creator god Khnum sent forth the annual flood from his cave beneath the large island in the middle of the Nile. Caesar's own desire to discover the true source of the flood must have made this a place of great interest for him, and studying the island's well-built Nilometer, he may have quizzed the priests about the new theories concerning rains further south as he had discussed with one of the Memphis clergy. He may also have accompanied Cleopatra on her state visit to the island's red granite temple of Khnum, built by the first Ptolemy on behalf of Alexander's son Alexander IV, and where the visit of her grandfather Chickpea was commemorated on a large red granite stela. The temple complex also housed Khnum's sacred rams, whose vigorous powers of fertility were preserved at death when each was mummified and buried within the island where Khnum himself resided. Their powers would have combined with those of Cleopatra as she presumably celebrated a version of the annual Festival of Inundation as her grandfather is known to have done. Perhaps this was followed by a visit to the island's temple of Isis housing the goddess' oracle, whose priests are likely to have sought royal assurance that their privileges would not be reduced in the face of the crown's growing support for Isis' main cult centre only a little way south at Philae.

Founded by the last native dynasty, so only a few centuries rather than millennia old, Philae had certainly been the destination for the first Cleopatra, who came with her husband in 186
BC
to celebrate both a military victory and the birth of her son. Now it was the likely end point for Cleopatra and Caesar's own journey, using a smaller vessel to negotiate the narrow channels dug out of the river's rocky outcrops (known as cataracts). Philae's gleaming temple on the ‘Island from the time of Ra' would then have appeared to rise up from the waters before them.

No doubt greeted by its priests as Living Isis, ‘Queen of the South', Cleopatra is likely to have adopted the multi-horned crown of Geb to emphasise continuity with her great predecessor Arsinoe II, portrayed in Philae's relief scenes in the same crown she in turn had borrowed from Hatshepsut in a reassuring continuity of female monarchs combining with Isis to become ‘Mistress of Life, as she dispenses life. Men live by the command of her soul'. In further scenes bestowing the milk of life to her infant son Horus in the temple's Mammisi, Isis received myrrh, jewels and even a sacred gazelle from Ptolemy Physkon and his two wives Cleopatras II and III. The same rulers had provided Philae with its library, perfume laboratory, three granite shrines for Isis' statues and a pair of stone obelisks, behind which the first great pylon gateway once more featured the huge figures of Cleopatra's father Auletes smiting Egypt's enemies.

Auletes had also created a beautiful temple for Osiris on the nearby island of Biga, the ‘pure mound', where local tradition claimed he was actually buried surrounded by a sacred grove of trees. Here the clergy sang their daily dirges and poured their libations of milk, sacred to Isis whose cult statue was regularly ferried over from Philae to lead her husband's funerary rites. Pilgrims from as far afield as Italy collected the sacred waters Lourdes-style to use in Isis' worship back home. Many threw gold coins into the waters or brought rich offerings, and as the crown diverted large amounts of their own wealth into Isis' sacred coffers neighbouring temples fought a losing battle to retain their traditional spheres of influence against the powerful priests of Philae.

With the imminent motherhood of Living Isis destined to create a new golden age in which they would surely play a key role, the Philae priesthood commemorated the time when their goddess appeared amongst them with a golden figure that would be venerated and cherished for centuries to come. As she sailed down the Nile Cleopatra had been worshipped as the most powerful deity incarnate, and the impact of some two million people paying heartfelt homage to his partner clearly made a lasting impression on Caesar, who was already contemplating the way in which his own divinity might be used to bring Rome even more completely under his sole control.

Following the couple's return to Alexandria after their cruise south, Caesar began preparations for his return to Rome where Pompeius' sons were still at large and their supporters growing in strength. Although his failure to return immediately after the Alexandrian War was criticised by those in Rome who blamed his protracted stay on Cleopatra, accused of ensnaring the noble Roman with her feminine wiles, factors beyond even his control had been at play, from the onslaught of the Alexandrians to the onset of unfavourable coastal winds which made sailing hazardous for several months, and all of which he described himself in his own accounts. Caesar had therefore used the winter and spring of 48-47
BC
to maximise support in the East, replacing an uncooperative regime with a loyal ally and guaranteeing himself a potential heir, a steady cash flow and a reliable source of grain for the people of Rome, whose backing would be vital if he was to push his policies through the Senate.

To ensure Cleopatra's safety and maintain her position, he left three legions in Alexandria under the reliable command of his favourite freedman, Rufio. Their presence would also demonstrate to his critics back in Rome that he had made Egypt a Roman protectorate. Not only that, it would offset any suggestion of seizing the country and simply making it a province, something which Caesar would certainly have done had he not been romantically involved with its persuasive monarch.

Although theoretically Cleopatra still ruled alongside her remaining half-brother Ptolemy XIV and had the twelve-year-old firmly under her control, her half-sister Arsinoe IV was still causing problems. By declaring herself monarch in Cleopatra's place when the Alexandrians were besieging the palace she had committed a treasonable act which Cleopatra would not forget. Yet, rather than imprison her in Alexandria as a focus of potential resistance, or risk the backlash that her execution would cause, it was decided that Caesar should take Arsinoe back to Rome as his prisoner.

Having presumably said their farewells in private, the heavily pregnant monarch in her golden carrying chair must have accompanied him in procession the short distance from the palace to the Great Harbour keen to demonstrate their alliance in the full glare of the Alexandrian public. Perhaps they clasped each other's right hands in the formal gesture of farewell, as Caesar finally boarded ship and left Egypt. The occasion surely affected Cleopatra. Since him had given her her throne, her heir and indeed her life, she decided to create a suitably impressive monument to honour him — the Caesar-eum which in Greek was ‘Kaisaros Epibaterios', ‘Embarking Caesar', hinting at its inspiration.

Sailing out of Alexandria's Great Harbour past the palaces, the Pharos and the colossus of Isis, Caesar did not go straight back to Rome. Needing to shore up Jewish support for his forthcoming struggles against Pompeius' sons, he sailed along the coast to Acre to reward Pompeius' former supporters Antipatros and Hyrcanus for their valuable help in the Alexandrian War. As Rome's representative, he confirmed their regime, excused them all tribute, allowed them to rebuild Jerusalem and gave them the port of Joppa (Jaffa) which Cleopatra had wanted herself as part of her plans to regain the Ptolemies' former territories. Caesar had instead restored Cyprus to her, and the revenues from that island allowed her to relax the heavy taxes she had been forced to impose at the beginning of her reign in order to keep Egypt afloat.

With the economy gaining ground and Roman troops available for military support if needed, Cleopatra was in an increasingly secure position as she finally prepared to give birth to her first child on 23 June 47
BC
. Yet a pharaoh in labour was no everyday occurrence. Her own life and that of her successor were of such paramount importance to the future of the country that the birth would have been accompanied by every form of protection that the gods of Egypt and the rest of the ancient world could bestow. Isis the Great Mother was repeatedly invoked along with Hathor — her classical equivalents Greek Aphrodite and Caesar's own ancestor the Roman Venus. Artemis was another vital member of the divine birth team. As the ‘Reliever of the birth pangs of women' and revered as Artemis ‘Polymastica' (meaning ‘the Many Breasted'), Artemis had left her own great temple in Ephesus to attend Alexander's birth in Macedonia. She was linked to the Greek goddess Eileithyia, and portrayed like Isis with a torch to help mother and child in the darkness. The combined Artemis-Eileithyia declared, ‘I have brought forth the new-born baby at the tenth orbit of the moon — fit light for the deed that is consummated'.

Given the child's paternity, the polytheistic Egyptians may well have invoked the Roman deities associated with childbirth, from Alemona who guarded the foetus to Partula who presided over the birth itself. And given the presence of Caesar's troops within the palace quarter, it seems likely that at least one of their number would have performed the ancient, albeit bizarre, rite in which a light cavalry spear which had already been used to kill in battle would be thrown over the house in which the birth was taking place in order to ease the delivery. Known as the ‘hasta caelibaris' or ‘celibate spear', it was thought to have magical powers over life and death, although its purpose was the very opposite of that of the Roman spears which had rained down around the palace only six months before.

The highest echelons of the Egyptian priesthood, including Cleopatra's closest advisers, would have gathered within the palace. Incense-fuelled rites and prayers would have featured religious personnel wearing the mask of Bes, god of childbirth. According to the third-century
BC
legend of Alexander, Nectanebo II wore the mask of Zeus-Ammon when impregnating Alexander's mother Olympias. Still there nine months later, he attended her labour with a divining dish, assorted wax figurines and all his inherent powers as a pharaoh of Egypt to achieve the most auspicious time for his son's birth by ‘measuring the courses of the heavenly bodies; he urged her not to hurry in giving birth. At the same time he jumbled up the cosmic elements by the use of his magic powers, discovered what lay hidden in them and said to her “woman, contain yourself and struggle against the pressure of Nature”' in order that Alexander would be born at exactly the most propitious moment.

Although this description comes from a work of fiction, it nevertheless hints at the kind of rites which may have been employed when Cleopatra gave birth to a child regarded as Alexander's descendant, although the kind of esoteric rites long employed in Egyptian medical practice had been refined and improved by the medical schools of Alexandria. Specialist obstetricians, some of whom were female, were available to the wealthy. Details of the obstetric treatments available from those trained in Alexandria's enlightened schools were preserved in the second-century
AD
works of Soranus of Ephesus. He was the most famous gynaecologist until modern times, and during Europe's Middle Ages his works were consulted widely. Soranus'
Gynaecology
covered everything from pregnancy and labour to childhood illnesses, even listing the qualities required in a good midwife who must be literate with her wits about her . . . sound of limb, robust and according to some endowed of long slim fingers and short nails. . . . She will be unperturbed, unafraid in danger and able to state clearly the reasons for her measures, bringing reassurance to her patients and be sympathetic. . . . She must also keep her hands soft, abstaining from wool working which would make them hard, and she must acquire softness by means of ointments if it is not present naturally.'

Trained in gynaecology and obstetrics, some midwives were clearly authorities in their own right and wrote on the subject, while the Greek doctor Galen (c.
AD
129-210) dedicated his
On the Anatomy of the Uterus
to a midwife. Later Arabic sources claimed that Galen had even been taught by a female gynaecologist named Cleopatra, and although Galen himself certainly recommended treatments advocated by ‘Cleopatra', this most likely referred to his use of medical knowledge obtained by those working under the patronage of the monarch to whom they dedicated their work. Nevertheless, Jewish Talmudic texts claimed that Cleopatra VII was actually involved in medical experiments to determine the stages of development of the foetus, no doubt reflecting her tremendous interest in matters concerning her own all-important fertility. Certainly Alexandrian-based Herophilus had identified the ovaries and Fallopian tubes by the early third century
BC
; and even though the actual process of ovulation and conception remained relatively mysterious, Soranus' descriptions of the female anatomy were sufficiently accurate to have been based on the dissection of human corpses made possible by the Ptolemies' patronage.

Prior to this, the Egyptians had thought the uterus responded to external forces; after the Egyptian god Seth, murderer of Osiris, had threatened Isis and her unborn child during her pregnancy, his name was used in spells to scare the uterus into submission. Presumably influenced by his time with the priests and doctors of Heliopolis, the Greek philosopher Plato likewise believed that the uterus had its own ‘animal-like existence'; even Hippocrates, known as the father of medicine, referred to the ‘wandering womb' which caused ‘hysteria', a specifically female condition to be treated by internal fumigation.

Challenging these earlier ideas, those trained at Alexandria realised that hysteria was based on some form of seizure of the senses, in most cases brought on by recurring miscarriage and premature birth which was the lot of many women in antiquity. Demonstrating a most admirable bedside manner, Soranus therefore recommended laying the patient in a warm room, gently rocking her and massaging her lower body with sweet olive oil, although therapeutic massage had been used in pregnancy in Egypt since at least 1500
BC
.

Having identified the three stages in caring for pregnant women, Soranus stated that to preserve the ‘injected seed' the woman must avoid stress, shocks, heavy lifting and falling, together with drunkenness, drug taking and malnutrition. Doing everything possible ‘to appease the soul', he also noticed that some women developed unusual food cravings for charcoal, earth and unripe fruit, and although he advised a careful diet to build up strength for the birth, he warned that ‘one must not pay attention to the popular saying that it is necessary to provide food for two organisms'. In addition to gentle exercise and frequent relaxing baths, he recommended alleviating discomfort by using a broad linen bandage ‘if the bulk of the abdomen is hanging down under its weight'. All this is excellent advice still followed today.

In preparation for the birth, which invariably took place in the home, the woman would ideally call on the services of a midwife, several attendants and a physician, who in the case of Cleopatra was probably her personal physician Olympus. Perhaps also assisted by her two devoted maids, Charmion and Eiras, she would have bathed, tied up her hair and fastened protective amulets around her neck, forehead or arm in the same way that Isis had prepared for the birth of Horus by ‘fastening an amulet about herself. Soranus himself had no time for such superstition. He nevertheless acknowledged the comforting placebo effect, advising fellow practitioners that ‘one should not forbid their use, for even if the amulet has no direct effect, still through hope it will possibly make the patient more cheerful'.

Certainly amulets were still popular in Ptolemaic times, many made of haemetite or bloodstone which was believed to prevent excessive blood loss. They featured images of Isis, the knife-wielding hippopotamus goddess Taweret or the ram-headed Khnum, ‘god of the House of Birth who opens the vagina', but the most popular of all was Bes, ‘greatest god of the womb of women', whose mass-produced amulets manufactured at the Dendera temple were available for pilgrims to take home. If used with the spell to ‘bring down the womb or placenta to be said four times over a dwarf of clay tied to the woman's head', it was guaranteed that the ‘good dwarf himself would attend the birth to combat all dangers. The renowned potency of Egyptian-made birth amulets presumably explains their distribution across the ancient world. One example featured multiple images of Bes and Isis together with a uterus and a key to symbolise its unlocking; it was embellished by a Greek invocation to Seth and the triplicate writing of Jahweh, the one god of the Jews, in a potent blend of Egyptian, Greek and Semitic beliefs familiar in Cleopatra's Alexandria — yet in this case found as far afield as a Roman villa in Hertfordshire.

With the woman suitably protected by a host of unseen forces, the initial stage of labour took place in bed. Then, when the midwife had confirmed that the dilation was sufficiently large, the woman would be required to get out of bed and, supported by the midwife's assistants, take her position on a birthing chair. This replaced the somewhat rudimentary birth bricks upon which Egyptian women had traditionally squatted. With handles at the sides to grip and a back against which to push, an open front gave access to the midwife crouching before the woman, though Soranus advised that she ‘should beware of fixing her gaze steadfastedly on the genitals of the labouring woman, lest being ashamed, her body becomes contracted'. After the woman had been encouraged to ‘make every effort to expel the child', the baby eventually slid out into the midwife's hands. Her assistants were on hand with ‘warm water in order to cleanse all parts; sea sponges for sponging off; pieces of wool in order for a woman's parts to be covered; bandages to swaddle the new born; a pillow to place the newborn infant below the woman until the afterbirth has also been taken care of; and things to smell, such as pennyroyal, apple and quince'.

Certainly painkillers had long been available for the wealthy, from a decoction of henbane
(Hyoscyamus)
, a mild narcotic of the belladonna family, to the opium juice or ‘poppy tears' obtained from the heads of poppies
(Papaver somniferum)
, known to the Greek botanist Dioscorides. The root of the white mandrake boiled in water was also used to make a draught to be drunk ‘before surgical operations and punctures to produce anesthesia', and it also seems that cannabis
(Cannabis sativa)
was available. Recommended in ancient Egyptian medical texts in connection with treatments for ‘mothers and children', cannabis was also used by the Assyrians, Greeks and Romans, its use in obstetrics due to its ‘remarkable power to increase the force of uterine contractions, concomitant with a significant reduction of labour pain'. Quite likely available for Cleopatra to inhale in order to alleviate her first birth, cannabis had certainly been used to ease the excruciating labour of a fourteen-year-old in fourth-century
AD
Jerusalem. Although her attempts to deliver a full-term foetus through her immature pelvis had ruptured her cervix and caused a fatal haemmorrage; the carbonised drug was found in her burial.