Colleen McCullough - Antony and Cleopatra

He found Antony bored and restless, but still sober.

‘Well?’ Antony demanded, glaring up at Dellius. One big hand gestured at the desk top, awash in scrolls and papers. ‘Look at this! And all of it’s either bills or bad news! Did you succeed? Is Cleopatra coming?’

‘Cleopatra is here, Antonius. I traveled aboard her fleet, even now being assigned moorings downriver. Twenty triremes, all naval – no trade opportunities, I’m afraid.’

His chair scraped; Antony got up and went to the window, his movement making Dellius realize anew how graceful some big men could be. ‘Where is she? I hope you told the city harbor master to assign her the choicest moorings.’

‘Yes, but it’s going to take some time. Her ship is as long as three Greek war galleys of olden times, so it can’t exactly be slipped in between two merchantmen already tied up. The harbor master has to shift seven of them – he’s not happy, but he’ll do it. I spoke in your name.’

‘A ship big enough to house a titan, eh? When am I going to see it?’ Antony asked, scowling.

‘Tomorrow morning, about an hour after dawn.’ Dellius gave a contented sigh. ‘She came without a murmur, and in huge state. I think she wishes to impress you.’

‘Then I’ll make sure she doesn’t. Presumptuous sow!’

Which was why, as the sun nudged up over the trees east of Tarsus, Antony rode a drab horse to the far bank of Cydnus, a drab cloak wrapped about him, and no one in attendance. To see the enemy first is an advantage; soldiering with Caesar had taught him that. Oh, the air smells sweet! What am I doing in a sacked city when there are marches to be made, battles to be fought? he asked himself, knowing the answer. I am still here to see if the Queen of Egypt was going to answer my summons. And that other presumptuous sow, Glaphyra, is beginning to nag me in a way that Eastern women have perfected: sweetly, tearfully, larded with sighs and whimpers. Oh, for Fulvia! When she nags, a man knows he’s being nagged – growl, snarl, roar! Nor does she mind a cuff over the ear – provided a man doesn’t mind five nails raked down his chest in retaliation.

Ah, there was a good spot! He turned sideways and slid off the horse, making for a flat rock raised several feet above the bank. Sitting on it, he would have a perfect view of Cleopatra’s ship sailing up the Cydnus to its moorings. He wasn’t more than fifty paces from the river’s channel; this was so near the edge that he could see a small bright bird nesting in the eaves of a warehouse alongside the quay.

Philopator came crawling up the river at the speed of a man walking at a fast clip, setting Antony agape long before it drew level with him. For what he could see was a figurehead amid a misty, golden halo; a brown-skinned man wearing a white kilt, a collar and belt of gold and gems, and a huge headdress of red and white. His bare feet skimmed the wavelets breaking on either side of the beak, and in his right hand he brandished a golden spear. Figureheads were known, but not so massive or so much a part of the prow. This man – some king of old? – was the ship, and he bore it behind him like a billowing cloak.

Everything seemed gold; the ship was gilded from the water line up to the very top of the mast, and what wasn’t gold was painted in peacock blues and peacock greens, shimmering with a powdering of gold. The roofs of the buildings on deck were of faïence tiles in vivid blues and greens, and a whole arcade of lotus-headed columns marched down the deck. Even the oars were gold! And gems glittered everywhere! This ship alone was worth ten thousand gold talents!

Perfumes wafted, lyres and pipes sounded, a choir sang, all invisibly sourced; beautiful girls in gauzy gowns threw flowers from golden baskets; many beautiful little boys in peacock kilts hung laughing in the snow-white shrouds. The swelling sail, spread to help the oarsmen battle the current, was whiter than white, embroidered to display two entwined beast heads – a hooded serpent and a vulture – and a strange eye dripping a long black tear.

Peacock feathers had been clustered everywhere, but nowhere more lushly than about a tall gold dais in front of the mast. On a throne sat a woman clad in a dress of peacock feathers, her head burdened with the same red and white crown as the figurehead man wore. Her shoulders sparkled with the jewels in a wide gold collar, and a broad girdle of the same kind was cinched about her waist. Crossed on her breast she carried a shepherd’s crook and a flail in gold worked with lapis blue. Her face was made up so heavily that it was quite impossible to see what she looked like; its expression was perfect impassivity.

The ship passed him by closely enough to see how wide it was, and how wonderfully made; the deck was paved in green and blue faïence tiles to match the roofs. A peacock ship, a peacock queen. Well, thought Antony, inexplicably angered, she will see who is cock of the walk in Tarsus!

He took the bridge to the city at a gallop, tumbled off the horse at the door to the governor’s palace and strode in shouting for his servants.

‘Toga and lictors, now! ’

So when the Queen sent her chamberlain, the eunuch Philo, to inform Marcus Antonius that she had arrived, Philo was told that Marcus Antonius was in the agora hearing cases on behalf of the fiscus , and could not see Her Majesty until the morrow.

Such had actually been Antony’s intention for days; it had been formally posted on the tribunal in the agora, so when he took his place on the tribunal he saw what he had expected – a hundred litigants, at least that many advocates, several hundred spectators and several dozen vendors of drinks, snacks, nibbles, parasols and fans. Even in May, Tarsus was hot. For that reason his court was shaded by a crimson awning that said SPQR on fringed flaps every few feet around its margins. Atop the stone tribunal sat Antony himself on his ivory curule chair, with twelve crimson-clad lictors to either side of him and Lucilius at a table stacked with scrolls. The most novel actor in this drama was a hoary centurion who stood in one corner of the tribunal; he wore a shirt of gold scales, golden greaves, a chest loaded with phalerae, armillae and torcs, and a gold helmet whose scarlet horsehair ruff spread sideways like a fan. But the chest loaded with decorations for valorous deeds wasn’t what cowed this audience. It was the Gallic longsword the centurion held between his hands, its tip resting on the ground. It reminded the citizens of Tarsus that Marcus Antonius owned imperium maius , and could execute anyone for anything. If he took it into his head to issue an execution order, then this centurion would carry it out on the spot. Not that Antony had any intention of executing a fly or a spider; Easterners were used to being ruled by people who executed as capriciously as regularly, so why disillusion them?

Some of the cases were interesting, some entertaining as well. Antony waded through them with the efficiency and detachment that all Romans seemed to possess, be they members of the proletariat or the aristocracy. A people who understood law, method, routine, discipline, though Antony was less dowered with these essentially Roman qualities than most. Even so, he attacked his task with vigor, and sometimes venom. A sudden stir in the crowd threw a litigant off balance just as he reached the point whereat he would pass his case over to the highly paid advocate at his side; Mark Antony turned his head, frowning.

The crowd had parted, sighing in awe, to permit the passage of a small procession led by a nut-brown, shaven-headed man in a white dress, a fortune in gold chains around his neck. Behind him walked Philo the chamberlain in linen of blues and greens, face painted delicately, body glittering with jewels. But they were as nothing compared to the conveyance behind them: a spacious litter of gold, its roof of faïence tiles, nodding plumes of peacock feathers at its cornerposts. It was carried by eight huge men as black as grapes, with the same purple tint to their skins. They wore peacock kilts, collars and bracelets of gold, and flaring gold nemes headdresses.