Steven Saylor - The judgement of Caesar

I shed no tears for young Ptolemy. I had seen him murder men in cold blood; he was anything but innocent. But a victim he was, of those even more ruthless than himself, and the horror of his end filled me with a kind of awe, as had the death of Pompey. History and legend conspire to convince us that there are men who rise above the common lot of hu-mankind, who are set apart from the rest of us by birth or achievement or the favor of the gods; but no man, regardless of his pretensions to greatness, is immune from death, and the death of the so-called great is often more squalid and terrifying than the deaths of their most humble subjects. I thought of the young king and the strange, short life he had led, so full of violence and betrayal and thwarted dreams, and I felt a twinge of pity.

When Caesar returned to Alexandria, news of the king's demise preceded him. Abandoning all resistance, the Alexandrians threw down their weapons and opened the Canopic Gate to Caesar and his retinue. The people put on the tattered clothing of suppliants. Their priests made sacrifices in the temples to appease the wrath of the gods. But Caesar was not wrathful. He forbade his men to make any show of hostility and turned his march through the city into a joyous procession. When he arrived at the royal precinct, the men he had left to garrison the palace received him with ecstatic cheering. Cleopatra strode out to greet him. She had not been seen in public for quite some time, and it appeared to me, despite the loose gown she wore, that she had grown considerably larger around the middle. In lieu of her brother's head, Caesar presented her wibroke the seal, unrolled theth the captured crown. Leaving her own diadem in place, she also fitted the crown of her brother on her brow, so that the vulture's head and the rearing cobra were side-by-side. The Alexandrians, even those who previously had cursed and spat at the mention of her name, erupted in a thunderous cheer and hailed her as their goddess-queen. The battle at the Nile took place late in the month of Martius, five days before the kalends of Aprilis (by the old calendar); it was on that very day that I finally received a letter from my daughter Diana in Rome.

Throughout the war, I had been trapped along with the Roman forces inside the palace precinct. I had Rupa and the boys for company, and Meto, when he could take time from attending Caesar. But I had grown increasingly homesick for Rome.

To assuage that homesickness, I had regularly written long letters to Diana, apprising her of all that had happened since her mother and I left Rome, except for the one detail that I could not bear to commit to a letter: the loss of Bethesda. I told her of my reconciliation with Meto, of my meetings with the king and queen of Egypt, and of Rupa and the boys and our curious visit to the Tomb of Alexander. Trade in the harbor had come to a standstill, but Caesar did occasionally dispatch a ship to carry messages, and Meto inserted my letters in the consul's official packets. Whether they ever reached Diana, I had no way of knowing, since no letters had yet arrived from her-until the day of the battle on the Nile, when a ship from Rome sailed into the harbor and a little later a messenger knocked upon my door and pressed a sealed roll of parchment into my hand.

I broke the seal, unrolled the scrap of parchment, and read: Dearest Father and Mother,

I've written many letters to you, but your own letters give no sign that you've received them, so I never know quite what to say. At the risk of repeating myself, know that all is well here in Rome. Eco and his family seem to be thriving; I think Eco is working in some capacity for Marc Antony, who is in charge of the city in Caesar's absence, but Eco is so secretive about his work (taking after his father!) that I cannot really tell what he does, though it must be lucrative. Davus and I are looking after the house in your absence. Little Aulus is happy but misses having his grandpapa to tell him stories and his grandmama to tuck him in at night.

But now the real news: The new baby has come! She was delivered on the nones of March-an easy birth-and we have decided to call her Little Bethesda, perhaps simply Beth for short, which I hope will please her grandmother. She is happy, healthy, and very loud! She looks like you, Papa. (I can hear you muttering, "Poor child!" but don't, for she is very pretty.)

We long for you to return home. Your letters say nothing of Mother's search for a cure in the Nile, so we are very anxious to learn about that.

Write soon and let me know that you received this letter. All love to you both, and to Meto, and to Rupa and Androcles and Mopsus. All good fortune to Caesar, that the fighting may soon be over and you can all return to Rome! Neptune bless the ship that brings you this letter, and the ship that brings you back to us! When I finished reading the letter, Mopsus asked me if I wept for joy or sadness. I could not tell him which. Diana's new motherhood was very much on my mind when, a few days after Caesar's triumphant return, an official announcement went forth that Queen Cleopatra was expecting a baby. According to Meto, Caesar had no doubt that the child was his. In mid-Aprilis, having settled affairs in Alexandria, the prospective parents set out on a leisurely tour up the Nile, aglow with the triumph of their union and attended by every luxury. I recalled that Ptolemy had proposed just such a journey to Caesar. Instead, Ptolemy had died in the Nile, and it was Ptolemy's sister who showed Caesar the splendid temples and shrines along the river and the source of Egypt's greatness.

With the end of the war came peace. Alexandria opened its gates and its harbors. Rupa and the boys and I were free to move about as we wished.

For a few days I wandered about the city, thinking I should see the sights and revisit familiar places before I left, for at my time of life it seemed very unlikely that I would ever return. But the sights and sounds of Alexandria gave me no joy. I asked Meto to arrange a place for me and my charges at the first opportunity on one of Caesar's transport ships sailing to Rome.

Meto did as I asked. On the day before we were set to leave Alexandria, I took Rupa with me and strolled down the Canopic Way, determined at least to have a look inside the temple of Serapis before I left. As we passed by market stalls and public squares and splashing fountains, I fell to musing on the compromises forced upon us by the struggle for survival. In the end, Caesar had chosen Cleopatra, but more because of her brother's default than because of her own virtues. Cleopatra had deceived Caesar, and would have seen Meto executed without experiencing the least qualm of guilt. Caesar had been less than honest with the queen; and what of his relationship with Meto, whom he had imprisoned and threatened with death? I pictured the three of them locked in a circle of deceit, each confronted by the others' betrayals, yet determined, for the sake of expediency, to look the other way. Something about their hardheaded pragmatism left me thoroughly dissatisfied, but who was I to judge them? My rejection of Meto, when I felt betrayed and deceived by him, had brought me only misery, and in the end I recanted, as if I had been the one at fault. As long as things went relatively smoothly, was it wiser to overlook petty treacheries and deceits and disappointments and simply get on with the business of living? What good ever came of issuing ultimatums and passing judgment on others? Thus do we learn to compromise with each other and with our own expectations in an imperfect world.

Such were the thoughts spinning in my head when I saw, across a marketplace, the old priestess who had counseled Bethesda at the temple of Osiris on the Nile.

The market was vast and crowded with people; goods were beginning to flow back into Alexandria, and the populace, in the giddy mood that follows a war, were eager to spend their money. Amid the teeming throng, at a considerable distance, I caught only a fleeting glimpse of the woman; it was only after she moved out of sight that I realized who she was.