Julius Caesar (29 page)

The sight of a Roman consul, preceded by men bearing the fasces signifying Roman power, and followed by Roman soldiers, was immediately and openly resented by one of the most volatile crowds in the world. The people of Alexandria were notorious for their inflammable nature, comprising, as Edward Gibbon wrote “a various mixture of nations, [they] united the vanity and inconsistency of the Greeks with the superstition of the Egyptians.” They saw in this display of formal Roman power an intention on the part of Caesar to take over the sovereignty of their country. In the turmoil that arose, the victor of Pharsalus nonchalantly moved into the royal palace. Ptolemy XIII and his sister Cleopatra VII were still encamped against each other at Pelusium and the only royal occupants of the palace were two children, their brother and sister. It is unlikely that Caesar intended to stay long in Egypt, but he certainly did not mean to leave until the country had paid its debts and, now that he saw its confused state, until some order had been restored in its government.

The eunuch Pothinus, possibly the cleverest of Ptolemy’s three guardians, was the only one at that time in Alexandria. He was also the minister of finance, so it was natural that he was the first with whom Caesar had any dealings. Their dissension over money matters was inevitable, and Pothinus was quick to send a message for Ptolemy to return to Alexandria, while Caesar, at the same time, was sending separate messages to both Ptolemy and his sister Cleopatra requesting them to come and see him so that he could sort out the affairs of their kingdom. As consul in 59 he had had their father restored as King, and as current consul it was his duty to see that the Flute-Player’s descendants ruled Egypt in amity. This is Caesar’s own version of things in his account of the civil war. What he does not say, of course, is that he hoped to complete the long-postponed dream of seizing Egypt for Rome, at the same time laying his hands on all the money that he needed.

Pothinus meanwhile was doing everything that he could to make the stay of Caesar and his troops as uncomfortable as possible and, according to Plutarch,

he openly was intolerable in his affronts to Caesar, both by his words and actions. For when Caesar’s soldiers had musty and unwholesome grain measured out to them, Pothinus told them that they must be content with it, since they were fed at another’s cost. He ordered that his table should be served with wooden and earthen dishes, and said that Caesar had carried off all the gold and silver plate, under pretense of arrears of debt. For the present King’s father owed Caesar one thousand seven hundred and fifty myriads of money; Caesar had formerly remitted to his children the rest, but thought fit to demand the thousand myriads at that time, to maintain his army. Pothinus told him that he had better go now and attend to his other affairs of greater consequence…

Young Ptolemy XIII returned to Alexandria, but there was as yet no sign of Cleopatra. She could not make her way down to the city through the Egyptian army which was facing her own, for Achillas the general would certainly have had her killed. Caesar told Ptolemy (which in effect meant Pothinus) that his army must be disbanded and withdrawn from the frontier. There was a formal refusal to obey the Roman’s wishes, and Pothinus secretly sent to Achillas and told him to bring his army down to the city. Caesar had only a few thousand troops and Pothinus calculated that he could easily overcome them; Caesar could be killed like Pompey, and the war could then be carried on against Cleopatra. His plans were completely upset by the courage and quick wits of Cleopatra herself who, raised in the Byzantine intricacies and stony cruelties of the Ptolemaic court, realized that only her presence in Alexandria could block Pothinus and her brother. Conversant with all the gossip of the Mediterranean world, she knew too that Caesar was susceptible to women.

Secretly embarking in a ship at Pelusium, she set sail for Alexandria and arrived off the city at nightfall. She then had herself taken ashore in a small boat by a Sicilian friend, Apollodorus, who rowed to the royal quay just below the walls of the palace. The Queen, wrapped in a roll of bedding or carpet which Apollodorus tied together with cord, was carried on his shoulder into the palace, Apollodorus replying to any questions from Caesar’s soldiers that he was one of the palace servants. A man carrying a bundle over his shoulder would not have surprised them, for in the East it is not uncommon for a man to carry all his worldly possessions in his bedroll or a carpet. The famous meeting of Caesar and Cleopatra has been described and portrayed so often that the full point of it has been lost—Cleopatra’s incredible courage in venturing right into the heartland of her enemies. Pothinus, her brother, and all his court were determined on her death, while the Romans and even Caesar himself might, for all she knew, have been brought over to their side. “This ruse of hers,” says Plutarch, “is said to have opened the way to Caesar’s heart,” while Dio Cassius writes that “he was spellbound the moment he set eyes on her and she opened her mouth to speak.” What Caesar will have appreciated above all was that here—like himself—was another real gambler.

29

Alexandrian Affairs

THE war that was to follow in Alexandria, a war almost as complex, dangerous and strange as the city in which it was fought, was sparked off by the love affair between Caesar and Cleopatra. It is probable (indeed, knowing Caesar, it is more than probable) that the two became lovers on that first night. Caesar was 52 and Cleopatra 21, but the discrepancy in ages was easily outweighed by the similarity of their temperaments. Whatever else, Cleopatra was certainly no political virgin, for her whole life had been passed in the murderous intricacies of the Ptolemaic court, and she was typical of her family in her desire for power. Caesar might be old enough to be her father, but she knew that it was only through this Roman that she could maintain her kingdom and her place as its ruler. Caesar was the most powerful man in the world, and for that she must love him. She was determined to be Queen of Egypt and she had only one weapon that her brother, backed by his advisers, did not have—her sex. Caesar for his part could have had all the lovers he wanted, but an agreeable young woman who was also the Queen of Egypt and whose restoration to the throne could clearly help him financially was indeed a present from his ancestress Aphrodite. She was also a witty and amusing companion, inheriting the intellectual capacities of some of the early Ptolemies. Plutarch remarked that “she easily turned her tongue to any language that she wished.” She was a fluent and expressive Latin speaker, spoke Athenian Attic (the best Greek) and also knew the language of her people as well as those of the Ethiopians, Jews, Arabs and Syrians, Medes and Parthians, while “her royal predecessors had not even bothered to learn the Egyptian language…” Dio Cassius said of her that “her delightful manner of speaking was such that she captured all who listened to her,” while Plutarch commented:

To know her was to be touched with an irresistible charm. Her form, coupled with the persuasiveness of her conversation, and her delightful style of behavior—all these produced a blend of magic. Her delightful way of speaking was such as to win the heart. Her voice was like a lyre…

Cleopatra’s presence in the palace was revealed to Ptolemy XIII and his minister Pothinus the following morning, when Caesar summoned the young King to his apartments. Devastated at the sight of his sister lounging comfortably at ease in the presence of the Roman general and consul, their immediate thought was that Caesar must have heard Cleopatra’s side of the case and decided in her favor. He merely said that he was determined to stop this war between brother and sister and see that the will of their father was carried out, that his son and daughter should conjointly rule the kingdom. On hearing this the young King flew into a violent rage and rushed from the room. He ran to his friends and then, dashing the crown from his head in full view of the crowd, cried out that he was betrayed. The Roman guards, seeing a mob gathering at the gates of the palace, dragged the young King back inside, an act which aroused the indignation of the Alexandrians even further. The word swiftly went round that the exiled Cleopatra had returned and was in the company of Caesar—and that the Roman would use her to take over the kingdom from their rightful ruler Ptolemy XIII. But for the presence of the Roman legionaries on guard, the palace would have been invaded by the Alexandria mob.

Caesar realized that something must be done to calm the situation and called a meeting of all the people in which, speaking in his fluent Greek—the international language of that cosmopolitan capital—he read out to them the will of Ptolemy the Flute-Player. This specifically stated that Ptolemy XIII and Cleopatra VII should jointly rule Egypt. As he pointed out to the assembled throng, he was only doing what was incumbent upon him as representative of the Roman people to see that their late King’s wishes were respected. The young Ptolemy, still trembling with rage, and Cleopatra, smiling with satisfaction, were officially reconciled in the presence of their subjects.

Nevertheless Caesar was in a very awkward position, in a hostile city with, he had no doubt, the Egyptian army marching down from Pelusium against him, while he had only a few thousand legionaries to hand. He must temporize, and he did so now by declaring that the island of Cyprus was restored to Egypt, and would be jointly ruled by the two other children, Ptolemy XIV and his sister Arsinoe. This did a great deal to allay the fears and suspicions of the people—although not, of course, among those who saw themselves deprived of their power and position. Naturally Caesar had no intention of fulfilling this promise to give back to Ptolemaic control the important and rich island which Rome had acquired only ten years before. It would have been immensely resented in Rome and would, even with the senate as demoralized as it was, have caused more trouble than he could have handled. But he had already sent a message to Calvinus in Asia to send two legions to Egypt, and he counted on their arrival before the situation worsened drastically.

His enemies will have been well aware that Caesar only had troops enough to man the palace and its surrounds and that he must have sent for reinforcements, but Achillas and his army were expected down from Pelusium before any help for Caesar could arrive. In the meantime Pothinus continued with his opposition to the Roman presence and, in that palace of murder and intrigue, was undoubtedly plotting the Ro-man’s death, either by poison or the sword. Although outwardly nonchalant Caesar was careful about his security, but his relationship with Cleopatra undoubtedly delayed him in a situation from which he could, at that moment, have easily escaped. As sovereign master of the Roman world he could enjoy all the flattery he wished but, at the age of fifty-two, he cannot have been insensible to the charms of a physically attractive and highly intelligent young woman whose political aims so far as Egypt was concerned roughly coincided with his own.

Achillas with the army now arrived in Alexandria, and shortly afterward the investment of the palace quarters began. At that time the Egyptian army consisted of about 20,000 men and some 2,000 cavalry. It was a heterogeneous collection: legionaries left behind from the time when a Roman army of occupation had been imposed on the country to maintain Ptolemy the Flute-Player on his throne, slaves and criminals from all parts of the eastern Mediterranean, as well as Greek mercenaries. Although no match for Caesar’s battle-hardened legionaries, they outnumbered his troops by five to one and, backed as they were by a whole city which now rose to drive him out, constituted a formidable force if properly handled. Shortly after their arrival, determined to rid the palace of at least one source of disaffection, Caesar had the eunuch Pothinus executed for treachery.

Throughout “The Alexandrian War,” as it came to be called, Caesar and his legionaries held the palace and its complex of buildings together with its valuable hostages, the Flute-Player’s four children, between whom no love was lost. The first major worry arose when the freshwater canals that fed the palace complex were either dammed or fouled with seawater. Adept at sieges and at depriving his opponents of water, he now found himself in that very unenviable position. However, not to be daunted, and well aware that veins of fresh water are often to be found on limestone headlands, he set his troops digging in the palace grounds. Water was soon discovered, and his legionaries were comforted by the knowledge that their leader’s cleverness equaled his known bravery. Quite early in the course of the war, Cleopatra’s younger half-sister Arsinoe managed to escape from the palace in company with her tutor, the eunuch Ganymedes, another court intriguer of the same stamp as the dead Pothinus. Arsinoe now took the place of Ptolemy XIII, still a prisoner in the palace, as the center of the popular revolt to evict the Romans, and shortly afterward, Achillas, whose protégé was Ptolemy, was murdered at the instigation of Ganymedes and Arsinoe. With the young girl as his figurehead, the eunuch tutor now became the leader of the revolt.

The war in Alexandria, although it was petty compared with those other wars and battlefields in which Caesar was engaged, was nevertheless a highly dangerous one, and in its small circumference he is seen at his best as a man of action and infinite resource. Ganymedes now not only mounted a land attack on the palace quarter but threatened the seaward side by bringing up a large part of the Egyptian fleet: a grave threat to Caesar’s communications as he was expecting troops from Asia Minor by sea. Making one of those lightning attacks which were the hallmark of so many of his successes, he managed to capture the Egyptian fleet and set it on fire. The flames spread to the quayside and, in the general conflagration and confusion, part of the world-famous library of Alexandria went up in flames. Antony would make some amends for this some years later by giving the great library of Pergamum to Cleopatra.