The Woman of Andros and The Ides of March (23 page)

[
Here the narrative was interrupted, and we return to Asinius Pollio’s letter.
]

At this moment the Dictator arose and murmuring, ‘Continue, my friend,’ began to cross the room. Catullus repeated, ‘You may well imagine,’ but had scarcely said the words when Caesar fell to the floor in a convulsion of the Sacred Malady. In his writhing he tore the bandages from his side and the floor was soon streaked with his blood. I had been present before at these seizures. I made a ball of the folds of his robe and placed it between his teeth. I directed Catullus to help me straighten his body and Clodia to bring all the robes she could find to warm him. Soon his babbling ceased and he fell into a deep sleep. We watched beside him for a time, then placed him in his litter and the poet and I accompanied him to his home.

Such were the events of Clodia’s twice-interrupted dinner. Both my friends were to die within the year. The poet who had seen that greatness humbled in insanity wrote no more stinging epigrams against him. My master never alluded to his illness, but on several occasions he reminded me of the ‘happy occasion’ when we dined with Clodia and Catullus.

Dawn has come as I have dictated these words. My pain has been forgotten or has abated, and I have acquitted myself of a debt which I have been owing my friends.

The reader is reminded that the documents in each Book begin at an earlier date than those in the preceding Book, traverse the time already covered, and continue on to a later date.

Anonymous Letter [
written by Servilia, mother of M. Junius Brutus
] to Caesar’s wife.

[
August 17.
]

M
adam, it is not likely that the Dictator has yet informed you that the Queen of Egypt will soon arrive in Rome for an extended visit. Should you wish confirmation of this fact you have only to visit your villa on the Janiculan Hill. On the farther slope you will find workmen engaged in constructing an Egyptian temple and in elevating obelisks.

It is important that your attention be called to this visit and to its political dangers, for it is the subject of laughter around the world that you are completely inadequate to the high place you occupy and that your understanding of the political situation of Rome is no better than that of a child.

Cleopatra, madam, is the mother of a son by your husband. The boy’s name is Caesarion. The Queen has kept him hidden from the eyes of her court, but continually spreads about the rumour that he is of divine intelligence and great beauty. The truth on very good authority, however, is that he is an idiot and that although he has passed his third birthday he is unable to talk and is scarcely able to walk.

The Queen’s sole aim in coming to Rome is to legitimise her son and to establish his succession to the mastery of the world. The plan is preposterous, but there are no limits to the ambition of Cleopatra. Her skill at intrigue and her ruthlessness – which did not stop short of the assassination of her uncle and of her brother-husband – and her ascendancy over your husband’s lust are sufficient to bring confusion to the world even though she cannot dominate it.

This is not the first time that you have been publicly insulted by your husband’s ostentatious adulteries. That his infatuation should blind him to the danger this woman brings to the public order is but another evidence of the senility which has begun to be apparent in his administration.

There is little you can do, madam, either to safeguard the State or to defend the dignity of your position. You should be informed, however, that the women of the aristocracy of Rome will refuse to be presented to this Egyptian criminal and will make no appearance at her court. Should you show a similar firmness you will be making some first steps in regaining the respect of the City which you have lost through your selection of friends and through the thoughtlessness of your conversation – a thoughtlessness which even your extreme youth cannot excuse.

Caesar’s Journal – Letter to Lucius Mamilius Turrinus on the Island of Capri.

[
About August 18.
]

942. [
On Cleopatra and her visit to Rome.
]

Last year the Queen of Egypt began requesting permission to pay a visit to Rome. I finally granted it and have offered her for residence my villa across the river. She will stay at least a year in Italy. The whole matter is still a secret and will not be announced to the City until the very eve of her arrival. She is now approaching Carthage and should be here in about a month.

I confess that I look forward to this visit with much pleasure and not only for the reason which first leaps to the mind. She was a remarkable girl. Even at twenty she knew the loading capacity of each of the major wharves of the Nile; she could receive a deputation from Ethiopia and refuse all of its requests and make the refusals appear to be benefits. I have heard her scream at her ministers’ stupidity during a discussion of the royal tax on ivory and she was not only right, but right with a wealth of detailed and ordered information. Indeed, she is one of the few persons I have known who have a genius for administration. She will have become a still more remarkable woman. Conversation, conversation will be a pleasure again. I shall be flattered, understood and flattered, in a realm where few are capable of understanding my achievements. What questions she asks! There are few pleasures equal to that of imparting to a voracious learner the knowledge that one has grown old and weary in acquiring. Conversation will be a pleasure again. Oh, oh, oh, I have sat holding that catlike bundle on my lap, drumming my fingers on ten brown toes and heard a soft voice from my shoulder asking me how to prevent banking houses from discouraging the industry of the people and what are the just wages of a chief of police relative to those of the governor of a city. Everyone in our world, my Lucius, everyone is lazy in mind except you, Cleopatra, this Catullus, and myself.

And yet she is lying, intriguing, intemperate, indifferent to the essential well-being of her people, and a lighthearted murderess. I have been receiving a series of anonymous letters warning me of her propensity to murder. I have no doubt that the lady is not long separated from a beautifully wrought cabinet of poisons; but I know also that at her table I need no taster. The prime object of her every thought is Egypt and I am its first security. If I should die, her country would fall a prey to my successors – patriots without practical judgment or administrators without imagination – and this she knows well. Egypt will never recover its greatness; but Egypt, for what it is, lives by me. I am a better ruler over Egypt than Cleopatra; but she shall learn much. During her stay in Rome I shall open her eyes to things that no Egyptian ruler has ever conceived of.

946. [
Again, on Cleopatra and her visit to Rome.
]

Cleopatra can never do a thing without pomp. She asked to be permitted to bring a court of two hundred and a household of a thousand, including a large royal guard. I have cut down these numbers to a court of thirty and a retinue of two hundred, and have told her that the Republic will undertake the responsibility of guarding her person and her party. I have directed, also, that outside of her palace grounds – my villa has already been renamed the Palace of Amenhotep – she may not employ the insignia of royalty except on the two occasions of her official welcome on the Capitoline Hill and of her official leave-taking.

She informed me that I was to appoint twenty ladies of the highest birth, headed by my wife and my aunt, to constitute for her a company of honour for the illustration of her court. I replied that the women of Rome are free to enter into whatever engagements of this kind they may wish to and I sent her a form of invitation which she might forward to them.

This did not please her. She replied that the extent of her domains, which are more than six times as large as Italy, her divine descent – which she now traces back, in the greatest detail through two thousand years to the Sun – entitle her to such a court and that it is unbecoming that she
request
the ladies of Rome to attend her receptions and routs. The matter rests there.

I have had a part in the formation of these swelling claims. When I first met her, she was proud to state that there was not one drop of Egyptian blood in her veins. This was obviously untrue; descent in the royal house to which she belongs had always been confused by substitutions and adoptions; the effects of consanguineous marriage having been fortunately mitigated by impotence on the part of the Kings and gallantry on the part of the Queens, and by the fact that the beauty of Egyptian women far surpassed that of the descendants of the Macedonian mountain brigands. Moreover, Cleopatra at that time, apart from participation in a limited number of traditional functions, had not deigned to interest herself in the customs of the ancient country over which she ruled. She had never seen the pyramids, nor such temples on the Nile as were farther removed than an afternoon’s journey from her palace at Alexandria. I advised her to make public the fact that her mother’s mother was not only an Egyptian but the true heir of the Pharaohs. I persuaded her to wear Egyptian costume at least half of the time and I took her on a journey to view the monuments of a civilisation that dwarfed, by Hercules, the woven huts of her Macedonian ancestors. My instructions succeeded beyond my reckoning. She is now the true Pharaoh and the living incorporation of the Goddess Isis. All the documents of her court are in hieroglyphs to which she appends, in condescension, a Greek or Latin translation.

All this is as it should be. The adherence of a people is not acquired merely by governing them to their best interests. We rulers must spend a large part of our time capturing their imaginations. In the minds of the people, Fate is an ever-watching force, operating by magic and always malevolent. To counter its action we rulers must be not only wise but supernatural, for in their eyes human wisdom is helpless before magic. We must be at once the father they knew in their infancy who guarded them against evil men and the priest who guarded them against evil spirits.

Perhaps I have forgotten to tell you also that I directed that she may bring in her train no child under five years, neither hers nor one belonging to any member of her company.

Cleopatra, in Alexandria, to her Ambassador at Rome.

[
August 20
.]

Cleopatra, the Everliving Isis, Child of the Sun, Chosen of Ptah, Queen of Egypt, Cyrenaica, and Arabia, Empress of the Upper and Lower Nile, Queen of Ethiopia, etc., etc., to her Faithful Minister.

Benediction and Favour

The Queen departs from Alexandria on the morrow for Carthage.

On this journey she will present herself to her subjects at Parastonium and Cyrene. She will rest at Carthage awaiting your word as to the most suitable time for her arrival in Rome.

You are directed to send to her at Carthage the following information:

A list of the Lay Directresses of the Mysteries of the Good Goddess, and

A list of the votaries of Hesta – both lists with notes as to their family relationships, earlier marriages,
etc.

A list of the personal associates of the Dictator, men and women, particularly those whom he visits or who are visitors to his house for other than official reasons.

A list of the confidential servants in the Dictator’s house, with their length of service, previous employment, and such details concerning their private lives as you can discover. This study is to be continued by you at all times and the Queen wishes to see further information when she arrives in Italy.

A list of the children, living or dead, who at any time have been attributed to the Dictator, together with their supposed mothers and all relevant information.

An account of the previous visits of all Queens to Rome, together with precedents of etiquette, ceremonial, official receptions, gifts,
etc.

The Queen trusts that you have not been negligent in insuring that her apartments will be sufficiently warmed.

Pompeia to Clodia at Baiae.

[
August 24
.]

Dearest Mousie:

The invitation to dinner has just arrived and I’m saving it until my husband comes home at dark. I am writing this letter in haste to return by your messenger.

What I have to say is very
very confidential
and I hope you’ll destroy it the minute you’ve read it.

This is the secret: a
person
from the banks of the Nile is going to spend a long visit in the City. There are certain aspects of that visit that I do not
deign
to consider or discuss, particularly as the
political
aspects are of far greater importance and danger than the personal ones. I hope it will never be said of me that I regarded my
personal
life as of the slightest importance compared to the world-wide considerations which are inextricably bound up with the situation I occupy. I am not sure whether you know that this person has a son whom she
claims
to be of very high Roman blood indeed. On that claim she bases hopes and ambitions for the future greatness of her country which are, of course, preposterous.

A Certain Person is, for
reasons,
completely blind to these dangers, and I have no choice but to be doubly clear-sighted. It may be that on two official occasions I must permit this Egyptian criminal to be presented to me. I shall indicate by my manner that I consider her presence an impertinence and I shall be watchful for an opportunity to humiliate her publicly and if possible to force her to return to her own country. I shall, of course, refuse to put my foot into the residence which has been loaned to her.

Do write me your thoughts on this matter. My cousin will be returning here from Naples soon after you receive this. Please send word by him.

Postscript: Everybody knows that she killed her uncle and her husband, and that her brother was her husband which is an Egyptian custom and is an example of what we may expect.