Colleen McCullough - 6. The October Horse - A Novel of Caesar and Cleopatra

"So we are alone," said Cleopatra, pulling him out of his chair and down beside her on a couch. "Am I doing well? I'm spending my money as you directed the poor are being fed and the rubble cleared away. Every common builder has been contracted to erect ordinary houses. There is money enough to start the public building too because I've taken my own funds from the treasure vaults for that." The big yellow eyes glowed. "You are right, it is the way to be loved. Every day I set out with Apollodorus on my donkey to see the people, comfort them. Does this win your favor? Am I ruling in a more enlightened way?" "Yes, but you have a long way to go. When you tell me that you've enfranchised all your people, you'll be there. You have a natural autocracy, but you're not observant enough. Take the Jews, for example. They're quarrelsome, but they have ability. Treat them with respect, always be good to them. In hard times they'll be your greatest support." "Yes, yes," she said impatiently, tired of seriousness. "I have something else I want to talk about, my love." His eyes crinkled at their corners. "Indeed?" "Yes, indeed. I know what we're going to do with our two months, Caesar." "If the winds were with me, I'd go to Rome." "Well, they're not, so we're going to sail down Nilus to the First Cataract." She patted her belly. "Pharaoh must show the people that she is fruitful." He frowned. "I agree that Pharaoh must, but I ought to stay here on Our Sea and try to keep abreast of events elsewhere." "I refuse to listen!" she cried. "I don't care about events around Your Sea! You and I are setting out on Ptolemy Philopator's barge to see the real Egypt Egypt of Nilus!" "I dislike being pushed, Cleopatra." "It's for your health, you stupid man! Hapd'efan'e says you need a proper rest, not a continuation of duty. And what greater rest can there be than a a cruise? Please, I beg of you, grant me this! Caesar, a woman needs memories of an idyll with her beloved! We've had no idyll, and while ever you think of yourself as Caesar Dictator, we can't. Please! Please?"

4

Ptolemy Philopator, the fourth of those who bore the first name of Ptolemy, hadn't been one of the more vigorous sovereigns of his house; he left Egypt only two tangible legacies: the two biggest ships ever built. One was seagoing and measured 426 feet in length and 60 feet in the beam. It had six banks of oars and forty men to each bank. The other was a river barge, shallower in the draft and having but two banks of oars, ten men to each oar, and measured 350 feet in length and 40 feet in the beam. Philopator's river barge had been put away in a ship shed on the riverbank not far above Memphis, lovingly cared for during the hundred and sixty years since its construction wetted and oiled, polished, constantly repaired, and used whenever Pharaoh sailed the river. The Nilus Philopator, as Cleopatra called it, contained huge rooms, baths, an arcade of columns on the deck to join the stern and bow reception rooms, one for audiences, the other for banquets. Below deck and above the oar banks were Pharaoh's private quarters and accommodation for a multitude of servants. Cooking on board was limited to a screened-off area of braziers; the preparation of full meals was done ashore, for the great vessel cruised along at about the same speed as a marching legionary, and scores of servants followed it on the east bank; the west bank was the realm of the dead and of temples. It was inlaid with gold, electrum, ivory, exquisite marquetry and the finest cabinet woods from all over the world, including citrus wood from the Atlas Mountains of the most wonderful grain Caesar had ever seen no small opinion, when wealthy Romans had made the collection of citrus wood an art. Pedestals were made of chryselephantine a mixture of gold and ivory the statuary was Praxiteles, Myron, even Phidias, there were paintings by Zeuxis and Parrhasius, Pausias and Nicias, and tapestries of such richness that they vied with the paintings for reality of detail. The rugs which lay everywhere were Persian, the draperies of transparent linen dyed whatever colors were appropriate for the room. Finally, old friend Crassus, thought Caesar, I believe your tales of the incredible wealth of Egypt. What a pity you can't be here to see this! A ship for a god on earth. Progress down the river was by Tyrian purple sail, for the wind in Egypt always blew from the north; then, returning, oar power was assisted by the strong river current, flowing north to Our Sea. Not that he ever saw the oarsmen, had no idea what race they were, how they were treated; oarsmen everywhere were free men with professional status, but Egypt wasn't a place of free men. Every evening before sunset the Nilus Philopator tied up to the east bank at some royal wharf no other riverboat was allowed to contaminate. He had thought to be bored, but he never was. River traffic was constant and colorful, hundreds of lateen-sailed dhows plying cargoes of food, goods brought overland from the Red Sea ports, great earthenware jars of pumpkin, saffron, sesame and linseed oils, boxes of dates, live animals, the floating shops of bumboats. All of it ruthlessly supervised by the swifter ships of the river police, who were everywhere. It was easier to understand the phenomenon of the Cubits now he sailed Nilus, for the banks were seventeen feet high at their lowest, thirty-two feet high at their tallest; if the river didn't rise higher than the lowest banks, flooding wasn't possible, yet if it rose higher than the tallest banks, the water poured over the valley in an uncontrollable spate, washed away villages, ruined the seed grain, took far too long to recede. The colors were dramatic, sky and river a flawless blue, the distant cliffs that denoted the beginning of the desert plateau all shades from pale straw to deep crimson; the vegetation of the valley itself was every green imaginable. At this time of year, mid-winter by the seasons, the floodwaters of the Inundation had fully receded and the crops were sprouting like sheets of lush, rippling grass, hurtling on toward the earing and harvesting of spring. Caesar had imagined that no trees grew, but saw in surprise that there were whole groves of trees, sometimes small forests the fruiting persea, a local sycamore, black-thorn, oak, figs and that palms of all kinds grew besides the famous date. At about the place where the southern half of Upper Egypt became the northern half of Upper Egypt, Nilus gave off an anabranch that ran north to Lake Moeris and formed the land of Ta-she, rich enough to grow two crops of wheat and barley a year; an early Ptolemy had dug a big canal from the lake back to Nilus, so that the water continued to flow. Everything throughout the thousand-mile length of Egyptian Nilus was irrigated; Cleopatra explained that even when Nilus failed to inundate, the people of the valley could manage to feed themselves by irrigating; it was Alexandria caused the famines three million mouths to feed, more mouths than in the whole of Nilus's length. The cliffs and the desert plateau were the Red Land; the valley, with its deep, dark, perpetually replenished soil, was the Black Land. There were innumerable temples on both banks, all built on the same vast lines: a series of massive pylons connected by lintels above gateways; walls; courtyards; more pylons and gates farther in; always leading to the Holy of Holies, a small room where light was artificially guided in to appear magical, and there in it stood some beast-headed Egyptian god, or perhaps a statue of one of the great pharaohs, usually Rameses II, a famous builder. The temples were often faced with statues of a pharaoh, and the pylons were always joined by avenues of sphinxes, ram-headed, lion-headed, human-headed. All were covered in two-dimensional pictures of people, plants, animals, and painted in every color; the Egyptians loved color. "Most of the Ptolemies have built, repaired or finished our temples," said Cleopatra as they wandered the wonderful maze of Abydos. "Even my father Auletes built extensively he wanted so badly to be pharaoh! You see, when Cambyses of Persia invaded Egypt five hundred years ago, he considered the temples and the pyramid tombs sacrilegious, and mutilated them, sometimes quite destroyed them. So there's plenty of work for us Ptolemies, who were the first after the true Egyptians to care. I've laid the foundations of a new temple to Hathor, but I want our son to join me as its builder. He's going to be the greatest temple builder in Egypt's entire history." "Why, when the Ptolemies are so Hellenized, have they built exactly as the old Egyptians did? You even use the hieroglyphs instead of writing in Greek." "Probably because most of us have been Pharaoh, and certainly because the priests are so rooted in antiquity. They provide the architects, sculptors and painters, sometimes even in Alexandria. But wait until you see the temple of Isis at Philae! There we did slightly Hellenize which is why, I think, it's generally held to be the most beautiful temple complex in all Egypt."