Daughters of the Nile (24 page)

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IN
the days following, Juba brokers a private agreement between the emperor and Agrippa. The emperor’s wayward general agrees never to celebrate a Triumphal parade. In so doing, Agrippa vows to decline the honor that would make him a veritable king for a day, even if his soldiers should hail him as imperator after a victory on the field of battle, even if the Senate should vote one for him. With this vow, the general agrees to support the idea that
all
Roman generals are, in some sense, merely legates of the
Princeps
, the First Citizen.

In exchange, the admiral is given large swaths of property in the East including the Thracian Chersonese. Agrippa is also given
proconsular imperium
, so that he may never be outranked wherever he travels. Moreover, he is granted the unusual
tribunician
powers that make him a colleague of the emperor for the next five years. And while Agrippa is extorting these favors from the emperor, his wife gives birth to a little boy named Lucius Vipsanius Agrippa.

It is a name the baby does not keep long because the emperor adopts
both
of Julia’s sons under the laws of Rome.

Six years ago, the whole city was in a near state of insurrection at the idea that the emperor intended his nephew Marcellus to take the part of political heir. I remember the riots. I remember how I feared the whole mob would turn against the emperor’s family, then come for me and mine. Those dissenting voices are strangely silent now. The adoption of little Gaius and Lucius is a far more obvious danger, an unsubtle dynastic move, and yet there is nary a protest.

Perhaps we are all willing to pay any price for the peace we begged of the gods.

As reward for his service, my husband is given a small fleet of warships with which to guard against piracy. He is also named
patronus coloniae
over the Roman settlements in our kingdom. There will be no question now of any disgruntled Roman appealing our rulings to the emperor. With Agrippa ready to start off for the East and the emperor’s legions in Germanic Gaul, my husband is now the foremost authority in the West.

That is all very well for Juba, but I have my own ambitions. I have my own calling. On the night the emperor’s astronomers present to him a bronze device used to predict the movement of the stars, I find Augustus in the room dedicated to his ancestors.

“I did my part,” I tell him, with the masks of the
Julii
there to witness it. “Now I want permission to celebrate my goddess in my kingdom.”

Watching the gears turn in the device, Augustus asks, “You give nothing freely, do you?”

“You allow Isis worship in Egypt,” I argue. “There is no reason to forbid it in Mauretania.”

“
You
are the reason. In Egypt, there is no more queen. There is no pharaoh. The priesthood is beholden to me. But in
your
kingdom, they will look to
you
for a savior.”

“Have I not delivered those who worship me into your hands? You have allowed Herod to rebuild a temple and his people do not recognize you as
their
messiah. Let me build a temple for Isis in Mauretania, where my Berbers will honor Rome too.”

“I won’t pay for an Iseum. Not a copper coin.”

“I’m not asking you to pay. I am asking you to make peace with Isis as you wish her to make peace throughout the empire. Give me your blessing and I’ll return to Mauretania and trouble you no more.”

“There is nowhere I am untroubled by you, Cleopatra Selene,” he says, lifting his head so that our eyes meet. “There is no hour in any day that I do not resent the way you have been torn from me.”

I swallow in the face of what seems to be earnest emotion. “It cannot be otherwise, Caesar. We begged the gods for peace and paid their price. We have shaped a new world and must be content.”

“I am not content,” Augustus says, pinning me with an intent stare. “I will never be content and neither will you.”

“I
am
content, Caesar.”

“You are lying. You are lying either to me or to yourself, Selene. But I will allow you to return to Mauretania with Juba. I will allow you to build your temple. So long as you are mindful always, in both matters—in all matters—that you are mine.”

PART TWO

THE GROWING

Fifteen

IOL-CAESARIA, THE KINGDOM OF MAURETANIA

AUTUMN 17
B.C.

WE
make harbor just before the autumn rains begin to fall. The rains are welcome in our kingdom, but late, and I cannot help but think it is my fault for staying away so long in Rome. This land needs me. If I had performed the proper rituals for the god of the river, I could have made the rain come sooner. But I did not and now the farmers are in a frenzy to get their seeds into the earth for the winter sowing.

The sharecroppers hurriedly sow barley. The shepherds make ready to slaughter their fatted calves. The vintners rush to make their wine and turn the remaining grapes into raisins. And I have an overripe matter of my own to attend to; I dare not wait another moment to begin my temple lest the emperor change his mind about allowing it.

Calling my advisers to the tiered benches in our council chamber, where they may lounge beneath linen draperies and potted cherry trees that I have brought with me from Rome, I say, “I intend to build a great Iseum in honor of my goddess. Can we afford it?”

This question should go to my husband’s master of the treasury, but it’s my freedwoman who manages our monopolies, and my own riches. And so I do not like Chryssa’s hesitation when she rises from her seat to address me. “That depends, Majesty. Will we take donations from the wealthy Isiacs who have come to your city to be free of persecution or will the temple be dedicated in your name alone? How big will the Iseum be? Will the walls be made of brick or stone?”

“Questions for an architect,” I say.

“That will cost us too depending on the architect’s skill and reputation.”

“I will have only the best for Isis,” I insist.

With a severity matched only by the tight braids that make up her elegant coiffure, my freedwoman says, “You will not have the best. The best architects in the empire are in the employ of Augustus or they work for Agrippa.”

Tugging at my pearl earring in irritation, I say, “Surely not
all
of them.”

She spreads her hands in helplessness, so that her gauzy blue shawl billows from her arms like the wings of my goddess. “We’ve sent agents to recruit the talented ones in the East. But they are easily wooed away by King Herod, who pays them a ransom.”

It is not the money, I think. Talented architects and craftsmen would flock to a true Ptolemaic queen. But they have begun to think of me simply as the wife of a Berber. It is difficult to face the diminishing reputation of my dynasty . . .

From the corner where he has been idly plucking at the strings on my
kithara
harp, Crinagoras says, “Have you considered a Roman architect, Majesty?”

I scowl, because every Roman architect in Mauretania is otherwise occupied with roads, markets, warehouses, public baths, city walls, and the king’s gladiatorial arena. I want to say that there is no Roman who could build a worthy temple to my goddess because although they are genius builders, they lack for artistry in their souls. But have I not just declared myself Roman? “Who do you recommend?”

My poet replies, “I rather like Publius Antius Amphio. He is shamelessly ambitious. Arrogant too.”

Chryssa winces at the suggestion. “The amphitheater builder? Majesty, he is a greedy whoremonger. He is more prideful than most of his kind. Resentful too. On more than one occasion, I’ve heard him speak disparagingly of your Berber subjects.”

“I’ve heard you do the same, Chryssa,” Crinagoras taunts my freedwoman, plucking at another string. “But you married one, didn’t you?”

To prevent them from bickering, I ask, “Well, what do we know of this Publius Antius Amphio?”

“He
is
a greedy whoremonger,” Crinagoras confirms. “But he believes baths and walls and useful buildings are too humble for his talents . . . he won’t be difficult to manipulate into accepting the project for a fee that will not bankrupt the crown.”

“Why must we manipulate him into it?”

Crinagoras snorts. “Because you want an artist, Majesty. And as the greatest artist in your employ, trust me when I say that you must appeal to vanity.”

To that end, I give my court poet permission to put out two rumors. The first, that I am seeking a Greek architect to oversee the construction of a grand Iseum, not believing any of the Romans up to the task. And the second, that I have specifically rejected Publius Antius Amphio because I do not approve of the work he has done on the amphitheater.

Two weeks later, Amphio seeks an audience with me and haughtily submits a sketch for my perusal. The design isn’t what I envisioned—not exactly anyway—but it
is
ambitious. I approve of the Egyptian influences. I’m pleased by the central lotus altar and
ankh
panel above the door, but my experience forces me to ask, “How would a building of this size, with this footprint, support a heavy dome?”

The Roman architect approaches me without permission, positioning himself at my elbow and rudely pointing over my shoulder. He stinks of stale perfume, as if he has just come from a brothel. “It will not be that heavy, Majesty. Look at the next sketch. See this honeycomb of recessed panels? It is a coffered concrete dome with a central window to the sky. Like the Pantheon.”

I’ve seen the majesty of the Pantheon. It is a grand structure and my goddess deserves something as grand. Perhaps Amphio is the man to give it to her. “Do you worship Isis?”

The Roman looks down at me over a crooked, hawkish nose. “You take me for an Isiac? I am no woman or slave or prostitute.”

Fighting back irritation, I ask, “What god do you worship, then?”

“I worship the forms of nature. Mathematical ratios. The sacred cohesion of sand and lime and stone.”

I begin to see why he must pay women to spend time in his company—and it is not because of his nose. “So are you a Pythagorean or a Cynic?”

“Neither. I am not a philosopher. I am not a priest. I am a builder. I will build you a temple that brings mortals to their knees, but do not ask me to hold with mummery and witchery and superstition.”

I dismiss him without further consideration.

This temple is to be my greatest work. It is to save the belief in Isis that has sustained wretched people in their darkest hours. I cannot entrust something so sacred into the hands of a man so profane.

There must be someone else. I will find someone else.