Roma.The novel of ancient Rome - Saylor Steven (книги онлайн полные версии бесплатно .TXT) 📗
The boy frowned. “And when she lured Antonius to join her, you sided with the emperor to fight against them?”
“No. Not in the beginning. At the start of the war between them, I fought for Antonius.”
“For Antonius? With Cleopatra? Against the emperor?” The boy was incredulous.
“Antonius was my friend. He was my protector when I was very young, in the perilous days after Caesar was murdered. He had always been loyal to Caesar; I felt obliged to be loyal to him. So I served under him at Philippi, and I remained in his service afterward, even when another civil war broke out and the emperor declared him the enemy of Roma. Antonius posted me to the city of Cyrene, to watch his west flank. Do you know where Cyrene is?”
The boy frowned. “Not exactly.”
“It’s on the Libyan coast, west of Alexandria, which was Cleopatra’s capital. If she and Antonius had won, my boy, Alexandria-not Roma-would have become the capital of the world. Roma might have become nothing more than a provincial backwater.”
“Impossible!”
“Yes, you’re right. I once heard the Divine Julius himself declare that the gods chose Roma to rule the world; how could I forget? But back in those heady days, when I was young and Antonius and Cleopatra were riding the serpent’s tail, anything seemed possible. Anything!” He sighed. “At any event, there I was in Cyrene. I was to be Antonius’s watchdog should his enemies attempt to sail toward Egypt hugging the Libyan coastline. In the meantime, while I watched and waited and drilled my soldiers, I minted coins for Antonius to pay his debts. War is expensive! That reminds me, I have a silver denarius for you, one of the coins I minted for Antonius.” Lucius reached into his toga. “They’re rather rare these days. Many of them were melted down and recast with the image of the emperor.”
The boy accepted the heavy coin and gazed at it with great interest. “I recognize Victory, bare-breasted in profile with her wings behind her and carrying a wreath…but there’s something else I can’t make out…”
“A palm frond,” says Lucius. “Palms grow wild along the Nile.”
The boy turned the coin over. “But who is this fellow, with the flowing beard?”
“None other than the king of gods, Jupiter.”
“But he has ram’s horns!”
“That’s because this is Jupiter Ammon, his Egyptian manifestation, who is called Zeus Ammon by the Alexandrians, who speak Greek. Alexander the Great worshiped Zeus Ammon. So did his general Ptolemy, who inherited Egypt. It was Ptolemy who founded the dynasty that ruled Egypt for almost three hundred years, until the royal house ended with Cleopatra.”
“And…she was not a whore?” The boy remained dubious.
“Her enemies in Roma alleged that she was, while she lived. Everyone seems to believe so now, long after she’s dead. But Caesar didn’t think so. Nor did Antonius. Cleopatra considered herself the manifestation of the goddess Isis. A woman tends to take procreation rather seriously when she thinks that carnal union might result in a god or goddess springing out of her womb!”
“Whatever she was, she lost everything, didn’t she, and she took down Antonius along with her?”
Lucius nodded. “Antonius and Cleopatra gathered a great navy and sailed off to Greece, to meet the Emperor in battle. I stayed behind in Cyrene, and waited for news. The sea battle took place at Actium. The navy of the emperor, under the command of Marcus Agrippa, destroyed the navy of Antonius and Cleopatra. It was all over then, and everyone knew it. Antonius sent me a desperate message, saying he was coming to collect my troops.”
“And then what happened?”
Lucius’s face grew dark. “I killed the messengers. I sent word to Antonius that he would not be welcome in Cyrene. I finally came to my senses, you see. I saw that the gods had sided with the emperor, that they had sided with him all along, and only an ungodly man would continue to stand against him.”
The boy nodded gravely, as at the outcome of a moral tale, satisfied that his grandfather had at last seen reason. But the look on Lucius’s face was grim.
“Antonius and Cleopatra retreated to Alexandria, to await the end. Some say they spent those final months indulging in every possible vice, squeezing life for the last vestiges of pleasure. Perhaps that tale is only another slander against them, but to me it has the ring of truth. How those two loved to drink and carouse! Cleopatra also set about testing various poisons on her slaves, to determine which caused the least painful death. When the emperor and his legions arrived in Egypt, and all hope was gone, Antonius fell on his sword. But Cleopatra…”
“Yes, Grandfather? What happened to Cleopatra?” The boy studied his grandfather’s face. His eyes grew wide. “Were you there, Grandfather? Were you there in Alexandria when…?”
“Yes, I was there. Octavius-the emperor-insisted that I accompany him. He was determined to take Cleopatra alive. He wanted to bring her back to Roma and parade her in his triumph. But the queen had other plans.”
How much should he tell the boy? Certainly not all of the story. He had never told that to anyone…
Antonius was dead. Cleopatra’s army had vanished, like smoke on the wind. Occupied by Octavius’s forces, the city of Alexandria held its breath. The queen remained in the royal palace, holed up with two handmaidens in a sealed chamber that could be entered only by climbing a rope through a trapdoor from below. She could not flee, but nor could she be taken by force.
On a terrace of the palace with a splendid view of the harbor and the famous lighthouse, Lucius was summoned before Octavius. The commander dispensed with greetings and got straight to the point.
“You have a long association with the queen. She knows you, cousin. She trusts you.”
“Not anymore. I betrayed her.”
“Even so, you stand a better chance of coaxing her out of her lair than I do. I want Cleopatra alive, not dead. Go to her. Talk about Antonius and the good old days, and what might have been. Flatter her. Cajole her. When you’ve regained her trust, say whatever you have to say to convince her to surrender to me. Assure her that I intend to treat her with all the respect due to her rank and lineage. She will appear in my triumphal procession, but she will not be mistreated.”
“Is that the truth?”
Octavius laughed. “Of course not. I intend to see her completely broken and humiliated before she dies. Roma demands nothing less than the complete destruction of the Egyptian whore. She’ll be raped and beaten, kept in chains, starved, and tortured. When people see her crawling naked behind my chariot, they’ll wonder how such a wretched hag ever seduced a man like Antonius. Then she’ll be strangled in the Tullianum, but not before she sees the boy Caesarion killed before her eyes.”
“He’s only fourteen,” said Lucius.
“And he shall never be fifteen.”
Lucius had no choice. He agreed to act as Octavius’s emissary.
Through the trapdoor, in whispers, he negotiated with the queen’s handmaidens, Charmion and Iras. Cleopatra agreed to see him the following day, but only if he arrived alone, with no other Roman in sight.
The next day, Lucius arrived at the appointed time. He brought a gift for the queen. She had expressed a craving for figs. The basket that Lucius lifted up through the opening was full of plump, ripe figs nestled atop a bed of fig leaves. Iras accepted the basket. A little later, Charmion lowered a rope, and Lucius was allowed to climb up.
He had expected to find the three women cowering in a squalid little room, but the chamber was magnificent. Small openings high in the walls admitted beams of sunlight. The floor was black marble. The columns were red granite. The walls were painted in dazzling colors. Cleopatra sat on a magnificent throne in the shape of a vulture with its wings spread, ornamented with gold, silver, and lapis. She wore a cobra-headed diadem and a robe encrusted with jewels. Iras sat at her feet with the basket of figs.
