Cleopatra

by Claude Ferval

That was in the early autumn. Then came winter, with its fogs and storms; navigation was suspended and there was no further news from the battle-fields.

The sight of Alexandria, filled as that city was for her with memories and with forebodings, plunged her into endless reveries. There the brimming cup of joy had been handed her and she had drunk her fill. Often at sunset, when the magic purple light bathed the landscape, she would climb to one of the terraces looking toward the Bruchium and gaze upon the façades of shimmering gold. How lovely it was, stretched under the fiery sky, at the edge of the tawny beach; or lighted at night by the giant torches of its watch-towers! How much more beautiful it had grown in the decades since its founder had drawn the first plans and shaped its boundaries, which lay around it like the folds of a military cloak. The Queen of such a city might well be proud. In whichever direction she looked were many-coloured marbles, enamelled domes of porcelain, triumphal arches, façades exquisitely carved. On the crest of a small hill stood the Pantheon, called in jest the Cage of the Muses. It was here, according to ancient tradition which the Lagidæ held in deepest reverence, that poets, sculptors, musicians, and artists of all nations were accorded a warm welcome, always provided they had excelled in their art and were faithful worshippers of Apollo.

Here, in the middle of the colonnade, stood the famous Library—rich, even after the terrible fire, in the possession of seven hundred thousand volumes, and which held, among other precious treasures, the Septimus, that first translation of the Bible into Greek, made by seventy-two learned Egyptian Jews, under Ptolemy Philadelphus. Not far distant, as though to seek the fountain of spiritual nourishment, clustered the group of temples of Serapis. This centre of learning, home of history, philosophy, medicine, and mathematics, as well as guardian of previous manuscripts, was in very truth the light of the world. To-day, after two thousand years, we are indebted to it for the preservation of the life of Greek literature.

The instruction given there, the names of the savants who taught, the methods employed, the accuracy of the instruments, the very quality of the papyrus furnished the students, all these were so justly famous that wealthy people of all countries, Rome, Athens, even distant Asia, who had some especially gifted son desired to send him there, that he might bear the illustrious seal of having been a student at Alexandria.

Across the distance, to the wide avenues where chariots, litters, cavalcades were thronging the broad streets, Cleopatra was still gazing. She saw the circuses, the theatres; the gymnasium, with the crowd at its doors, reading the announcements; the stadium, with its circling race-course; she looked at the gigantic hippodrome, which twenty thousand spectators could barely fill; at the widely scattered temples which over-topped the houses, dominating the other buildings by their mysterious grandeur, and farther on, she saw, with a thrill of awe, the Soma, that mausoleum where, in a crystal sarcophagus, rested the repatriated body of her heroic ancestor.

Of these precious stones, of all this magnificence, the Queen reckoned the worth, and with a fearful pride asked herself: "Will all this be mine to-morrow?" Her mind revelled in the vastness of her heritage; she regarded the inexhaustible valley, watered by the divine river; she thought of the thirty thousand towns which from north to south reared their noble ramparts; of Bubastos, where the goddess of love reigned; of Memphis, sleeping at the base of her pyramids; of Thebes, the Holy City; of Hermonthis, called the glory of two heavens; of Edfu, rich in antique treasures. Farther on, she saw, in imagination, those southern regions which produce granite and spices; the legendary vineyards, where each cluster of grapes was so heavy that two men were needed to carry it to the wine-press. She went back to that enchanted island whose perfumed paths bore the traces of her footsteps, near to those of her lover. Her old-time confidence returned and she cried: "No, my Egypt! sacred land of Osiris and of Ra, you who fill the granaries of the earth and reverently protect your dead! Garden of palms and of vines! Shore where the holy ibis seeks cooling drink, never shall you be a slave!"

And Cleopatra was right. Success was in sight. A decisive victory had just been gained by Cæsar's avengers. Pirates, escaped from Naxos, had brought the good tidings. Brutus, then Cassius, had been defeated in the plains of Philippi, and each had taken his life with the blade which their treacherous hands had plunged in the blood of their benefactor; thus was justice done.

Cleopatra took fresh courage. New light came into her life, overshadowed since that fatal morning in March. Although still wrapped in mist, the future was no longer an opaque and indistinguishable mass of blackness. A certain harmony prevailed between it and the past. Rome emerged from the gloom. Freed from the conspirators, she might once more become a valuable ally.

Meanwhile, the Queen, faithful to the tradition of her ancestors, who had squandered fortunes in amusing the populace, ordered elaborate entertainments, beginning with religious ceremonies, accompanied by sacrifices. Was it not fitting to give thank-offerings to the gods who had just punished the hateful perpetrators of that deadly crime?

The people of Alexandria welcomed every opportunity for a festival. If their city was famous for its university, for the learned men who came there daily to give lectures, it was also a centre of dissipation; rich in every variety of entertainment, vibrating with the sheer joy of living. The enormous fortunes which were made there had produced unlimited luxury. For gaiety of all kinds, banquets, dances, races, theatres, orgies of love and wine, it was without a rival.