Perspectives in Propaganda: Cleopatra VII

The Official Record of the Fall of Egypt’s Last Queen

She was not much changed since we had last met. She was still a slight woman, though a little thicker around the middle. Her hair was mostly as black as could be, but now there were strands of grey interwoven. I assume she wore wigs to cover this during public viewing hours.

I surveyed the room.

The bed was unmade. The sheets were rumpled, as though recently occupied. Beside the bed stood a heavy night-table, carved from mahogany and edged in gold. Upon it sat an uneaten breakfast displayed on a solid gold serving tray. The shades were drawn, blocking most of the light and barring the salty-sweet ocean breeze from freshening the room.

There was something else.

A well-lit desk in as disorderly a condition as the bed: Papers, scrolls, pens, a half-eaten hunk of bread next to a pomegranate fruit, and several empty ink-wells. And, naturally, her seals.

My eyes snapped back to her face.

She wore no emotion, betrayed nothing of her thoughts. But I knew she had noticed that I had noticed. To whom was she writing?

She was dressed in a sleeping shift and a short-sleeved silk bed-robe with subtle gold embroidery in a simple looping pattern around the end of the sleeve. There were pearls in her ears and jewel-inlaid sandals upon her feet, but otherwise she was unadorned. Her hair was matted and uncombed; she wore no cosmetic or perfume.

So…she had strength enough to compose letters and to see over the numbers in the exchequer…But, not enough to receive another official in state! I had provided her with her wardrobe, her cosmetics, wigs, and her jewels; with her diadems and certain of her insignia (not her seals- how had she found those?); with her women, even her eunuch! All to see to her utmost comfort, to help her feel less a prisoner in what was so recently her palace.

Instead she made mischief, seeking to extradite herself somehow. A wasted effort on a useless venture.

“Cease menacing yourself.”

Her chin came up. Queens are generally unaccustomed to being commanded.

“See to it that you eat, bathe, and quit harming yourself.” I gestured to the open welts and bruises across her chest and arms.

“See my grief manifest!” She beat a fist across her chest. “And these,” she drew her sleeve back, though it was short enough to see the dark, black-purple across her wrists, “are where your men roughly handled me, Queen of Egypt!” She snorted. “Though not any longer in your estimation, I fear. I am widowed, dethroned and told nothing of my children, their well-being- all in the same day.”

The Greek slave-girl went to her queen. “The noble, and gracious, Imperator,” she looked up and into my eyes, “speaks true. You must eat!”

The Nubian was at her queen’s opposite shoulder, nodding her agreement with downcast eyes.

Yes, yes, it was decided. She must eat. Meanwhile I had pressing matters to attend to.

“As you know, it can be a treacherous voyage to Rome. You will need your full strength.”

“Lest I expire before the time of your well-earned triumph! Lest you be forced to dip into your new-found treasury to commission a half-way passable wax replica! Believe me; I know.”

How she goaded me. To say such a thing, so surely to be repeated against me. In truth, I hadn’t just yet decided what I was going to do with her. Naturally, she would accompany our entourage back to Italy. It was customary treatment of enemies to Rome, but would she remain our enemy? That would be up to her.

Meanwhile, I would meet her challenge.

I fixed my eyes to hers, and held her in a deep stare. I looked hard, attempting to find that which so captivated great Roman men before me. That which made men mad, left them to blindly cast away reason. I failed to find it.

“Indeed so, Cleopatra.” I hissed her name through cold lips. It was so low a whisper that only she could be sure of what was said.

Her throat bobbed despite her efforts.

“It is a matter of days,” I said, to her, and now to all of our audience. “Make yourselves ready. I will suffer no delays for lack of planning.”

She nodded solemnly. “As you will it. My people will be ready…” Then her face changed. Her eyes went wild. “But what of Selene?! Alexander?! Where are-”

“They are comfortable, rest assured. Philodelphus, as well,” I added. For all her pestering over her bastard, the pretended son of Caesar (every Roman knows Caesar could father no children!) she only now asked after her litter by Antony! And forgot the youngest, at that.

“May I see them?”

“You may.”

I would grant that request, but only under the chaperone of an armed Roman guard…or six.

I did not wish to make nice with the Egyptian queen as a form of afternoon pastime. There were finance reports to overlook, soldiers to rally, dispatches to sign and send. I had not yet visited the Tomb of Alexander or the famed library. I was finished here, as far as I knew.

I nodded to my men who nodded back at me. “We take our leave of you, most excellent Cleopatra. Well met.”

These were our last words.

I turned abruptly and withdrew from her apartments. My general’s cloak, deep plum, swirled in triumph behind me, like the flag representing a new order.

I would not see her alive again.

I received a letter from her the very same evening of our fateful audience. I was not alarmed by her letters, for she sent several every day since I had arrived. I was weary as I read, but nothing hinted at what she was about to do. She was asking permission to hold a customary funeral banquet in honor of her late husband. This would be in accordance with the Egyptian rites and traditions; which she, though Greek, had always felt duty-bound to observe, as the incarnation of Isis herself. In fact, it had come to be that she fully embraced these rites as her own.

Such grim practices, I thought at the time. No wonder these Easterners lost wars; they lived as though they were already dead so that any victory gained while alive was of no great importance to them. Ultimately, it would be very politic of me to grant this minor favor to her.

Dare anyone say I was merciless toward her! I granted very nearly every of her requests. By whose authority did she have access to her notes and state documents? Mine, of course. Who saw to it there was plenty of food and wine to fortify her body? She chose not to partake. Who allowed her companions to stay with her, for solace and comfort? Who granted her many hours to spend with her small children?

Benevolent Imperator, indeed.

Days later another letter came into my hand. We were set to sail for Rome two days hence. I broke the seal on the scroll, royal, but not complete for I had confiscated the other and she could no longer send any official documents without it. On this day I had no premonition. There are no premonitions fit for the dread Cleopatra. Truly she was capable of anything, never failing to surprise.

This letter was peculiar, even for her. I noticed there was no preamble. None of the requisite obeisance and lengthy introductions. The Egyptian queen was fond of these. They allowed her to celebrate her divine, royal heritage, while keeping the reader on the lookout for the first actual word of import. In any case, all I saw here were names and figures corresponding to them. Some of them were dated, for years ahead in the future. Odd. Yet, it was written in her own hand.

How strange…

Then I knew.

I jumped to my feet, fumbled for my cloak and called to my men: “We must go to the queen’s tomb. Immediately.”

It was a short walk. We were there in minutes. A path was cleared through the crowd, already gathering for news spreads like plague in Alexandrian palaces. I entered.

My eyes adjusted to the darkness and I was guided by torch-bearers to the grave tableau.

She was at the farthest end of the antechamber, dead. I approached her unflinchingly. There is nothing to fear of a dead enemy. I bent over her so that we were nose to nose. Her eyes were closed, which I’ll admit was a blessing. Her lips were pulled back in a serene, radiant smile. Had she been pleased with herself, then? Perhaps I was, too.

She lay atop the lid of her own elaborate coffin, dressed in her finest gown and jewels. Her arms were folded across her chest, her hands holding her insignia, like the pharaohs of old. She looked truly a prince.

“No Rome for Cleopatra,” I told her. “Cleopatra shall remain in Alexandria.”

It was better, after all- for her, and for Rome. Especially for Rome. Experience had taught us that no matter who was involved, or where the scenes played out, Cleopatra only served to divide men and country.

“The queen’s physician!”

A slender man, who appeared neither young nor old, was making his way through the assembly. I took a step back and observed him as he handled her body. Her bent her elbows, fingers, and examined her skin by pressing and poking, especially around her throat. He opened her gown to feel her chest and stomach. Lastly he stuck his index finger into her mouth and why? I could never have known. Medicine in Alexandria was experimental at times. All the while this man kept his expression professionally blank.

“The queen is dead.” He was apologetic when he finally spoke, wringing his hands anxiously, with eyes that looked everywhere except at me.

“Dead?” I repeated. “Quite so.”

I had heard this physician was a sensible man. Perhaps he felt I would descend my great “wrath” upon him now that Cleopatra was beyond any and all ministrations. Well, save for embalming…but why should I? He had been left out of her grand design. Possibly because the queen intuited he would never help her take her own life. I could not fault a man for such ignorance.

How was it done? Poison. By the bite of an Egyptian cobra, whose venom is said to secure immortality; favor from the gods.

I learned all I needed to know from her fat eunuch. Not there, of course, within the tomb, having quit that charnel house immediately following the physician’s prognosis. I learned all of this later, after interviewing her remaining attendants, including both the eunuch and physician themselves.

She had planned this carefully, going even so far as to procure the cobras before I even entered Egypt. On the evening we seized Alexandria, Cleopatra was apprehended in her mausoleum. She meant then to take her own life, but, in her confusion and grief over Antony’s own suicide, she failed to act quickly enough.

My men went in and out, back and forth through the mausoleum, between the fall of Alexandria and Cleopatra’s eventual suicide. Yet, they always over-looked this inconspicuous basket of figs in a darkened corner concealing lethal vermin. At some point after we talked she must have remembered them, hiding them there weeks ago. Naturally they may have slipped away, but possibly they hadn’t gone far. That is how she managed it all.

Cleopatra had been bitten first; on her hand. The poison of an asp is not a quick death. She had time to banter with her slave-girls, check her reflection in a glass, set herself atop her coffin and pose. Both girls were willing to volunteer an arm to die with their beloved mistress. A third girl was instructed to carry the note to the palace- only after the queen’s last breath.

The eunuch was also bitten. They suppose his enormous bulk and the diluted poison (the snake is less venomous after several strikes) saved his poor, wretched life. As I saw it, there was no more place for this queen’s eunuch in public life. He would no longer hold his esteemed position within the palace. Still, there was no reason or purpose for taking his life either. He was entitled to a generous pension and I left him to most of it. The physician, being clever, handsome, and knowledgeable, would never want for employment; but the eunuch? To have fallen from so tall a mountaintop only to live to be useless to every survivor…he would find much to contemplate during his exile in Thebes, the ancient Egyptian capital, as he waited out his remaining years.

I settled matters in an orderly fashion and returned to Rome, where we held our triumph in spite of the queen’s absence. Some say it was cruel to display the children during the parade, to have them walk in the triumph of a Roman conqueror over their own natural parents.

Perhaps so…I leave this to philosophers. It was an absolute political necessity. And also the way we have always done things. I followed protocol. The children- Selene, Alexander, Philodelphus- were raised by my sister, in her household by the Forum; alongside her own brood by- well, how shall one put it? Their father…we no longer speak his name, and it is best when one abides one’s own laws.

Now I am an old man. Not that old; not too old to remember; but old enough to know that any day now I will begin to forget. I have been given many years, and I have spent them wisely. I have been blessed by the Fates in my fortunes. I have held Rome, the best it can be held, for many years. My entire life has been lived in devotion to Mother Rome. All things I have done have been with her well-being foremost in my mind.

I have seen much of the world, and much more of the seas. Yet, Egypt was truly our greatest hour. It was time now to put this story to paper, and clear up the confusion surrounding the Queen of Egypt’s death. Years have passed; tales have grown out of proportion. Now they say she was nude and clasped the snake to her bosom. Not so, not so, but people are fanciful and like a pretty, naked woman to imagine.

No man since Alexander the Great had Egypt until she was beneath my boot. I met Cleopatra when I was an untried adolescent. She came to Rome with her bastard son, to put him upon my uncle. She left Rome in disgrace after my uncle was murdered, for he wrote me as his heir instead, not her own pretended “son of Caesar”.

It is true that while she was in Rome, as my uncle’s guest, Julius Caesar had a statue of her placed in our family temple. What motivated him? Politics? Personal passion? In her youth Cleopatra was very beautiful…in a foreign sort of way. In any case he had it declared inviolate. The people so respected him that they obeyed and dared not desecrate it, although most Romans deeply reviled her and would have had fair cause. But, the great Julius Caesar had spoken, and, besides, the statue is a lovely example of Roman craftsmanship. It stands even now, as intact as if it were placed only yesterday.

Unlike flesh and blood, hers now dust and bone, of no concern to anyone. The people have mostly forgotten Cleopatra. The people are at liberty now to look toward their futures. The youths learn her name, when they learn the fall of Egypt as history in their lessons, plain and simple. I, personally, am not at liberty to forget.

I was he who had the fortitude to pursue this serpent to its lair and I was he who held the sword to her neck. The serpent for which my uncle placed a statue, to sit among our family for ages. How easily deceived even great men could be by a beautiful, perfumed, clever enemy. My uncle was, to his detriment, a trusting man and his appetite for women was renowned. Ultimately this is why he was undone.

She held no sway over me. I was the last Roman to look upon the Egyptian queen, and I saw her then in her most serene majesty.

Thus perish enemies to Rome.

Gaius Julius Caesar Octavinus Augustus



She set the manuscript on his work desk. Augustus invited her to sit. He poured a goblet of wine for his wife and a splash more for himself. The hour was late, the sun nearly set. The fire snapped.

He tried not to sound too eager. “What did you think?”

She smiled. He was pleased to see that it appeared genuine. Few people were honest with him these days. “I liked it very much. Very entertaining, to learn so much I had never known. Like the eunuch…did he really receive his pension?”

Augustus nodded.

“There is another thing, what about what the attendant said? The slave girl, as she was dying? How did it go…? ‘As befits a queen and a queen of Egypt too’. Why did you leave that out? It is a lovely phrase.”

He shook his head impatiently. “I cannot prove it was actually said. Most likely it was, but I only wanted to represent the facts as I could prove them.”

“I see.” Livia drank of her cup. She continued to eye him, her smile now so wide it looked like a death mask. “The facts…”

Now his impatience was turning to anger. “What? Your point, my lady?”

“Oh, the facts! Now,” She looked around. They were absolutely alone. “Tell me what really happened.”

The bulging eyes of the queen…her tattered robe…the attendants on the floor, their cups overturned next to them. Yes, poison. But not an asp. Two men brought the wine in the morning, as they always did, but laced with a little something extra. Something to help matters along in a timely fashion for the queen would not cooperate. She would not take her own life. He had given her ample opportunity. She was plotting, scheming, even still! With the overlord of Rome sleeping in her chambers right next door. She was determined to live, despite it all. She thought she would somehow make it to Nubia, far south of Egypt. If she did not drink they were instructed to smother her. Fortunately she did drink.

These same men came later with changes of clothes and dressed the queen, her slaves, and put them into the mausoleum. He had gone to her tomb at night, and had seen her lying there, but he had seen what was meant to be seen by all, the next day. Seen especially his fellow Romans. The two men who had aided and abetted in the murder of the queen promptly had their throats slit, by none other than Augustus Caesar himself, and were disposed of. They were not true Romans, after all. They were tagalongs from somewhere off the coast. The “discovery” of her suicide was planned for later that afternoon. In the meantime, he thanked her eunuch for his service in intercepting letters and providing him with valuable information about Cleopatra’s plans. He took his money and promised to leave Alexandria immediately. Meanwhile there was the physician to consider. He was very well-renowned and fooling him would not be a simple task…

Cobras! Yes, of course. Cobras…

“Well?”

He laughed heartily. “Livia, my sweet! You are ever suspicious. You are a wise woman, but sometimes you are so cynical. Everything that happened is written before you.” He managed a few more chuckles. The sweat was collecting around his neck, and prayed she didn’t notice. She was so infuriatingly observant.

“Truly, then?”

He gave her a loving smile. “Truly.”

“Truly?”

He nodded, glaring at her.

She stood up. “If you insist.”