Cleopatra by Joyce Tyldesley

Author:Joyce Tyldesley [Tyldesley, Joyce]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9780786731633
Publisher: Basic Books
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

The west, it is a land of sleep,

Darkness weighs on the dwelling-place,

Those who are there sleep in their mummy-forms.

They wake not to see their brothers,

They see not their fathers, their mothers,

Their hearts forget their wives, their children …

Say to me ‘You are not far from water’.

Turn my face to the north wind at the edge of the water,

Perhaps my heart will then be cooled in its grief.6

In spite of her economic problems, Cleopatra found herself in a more secure position than ever before. With both her brothers dead, her sister in exile and their supporters removed, she had absolute power and no obvious rival to form a rallying point for dissidents. Her coruler was an infant who, although invaluable for propaganda purposes, posed no threat to her authority. Caesarion, Ptolemy Caesar Theos Philopator Philometor (‘the Father-Loving, Mother-Loving God’), was proclaimed king of Egypt in Alexandria in the summer of 44.

In the wider Mediterranean world things were far from peaceful. The second triumvirate of Caesar’s friend Mark Antony, his great-nephew and heir Octavian and his supporter Marcus Aemilius Lepidus had united in their determination to capture Caesar’s principal assassins, Brutus and Cassius. They were intent on public revenge and Egypt – still, in spite of her suffering, the richest land in the eastern Mediterranean – was expected to provide practical help. Meanwhile, Brutus and Cassius, having realised that they had few friends in Rome, were looking to the eastern provinces for support and they, too, expected Egypt to help. When Cassius occupied Syria and formed an alliance with the powerful king of Parthia (whose extensive territories covered much of modern Iran and Iraq), Cleopatra was forced to take sides. She hesitated as long as she could, then committed herself by returning the four Roman legions, stationed in Egypt by Caesar in 48, to the triumvirs’ general, Publius Cornelius Dolabella, who was now in Syria. As an acknowledgement of her support, or as payment for services rendered, the triumvirs officially recognised Caesarion as coruler of Egypt. This decision would, it was hoped, persuade Cleopatra, mother of Caesar’s natural son, to continue to support Octavian, Caesar’s legal heir.

Cassius had been able to intercept and subvert Cleopatra’s Roman troops. They had changed sides without putting up a fight and were now stationed with his own legions along Egypt’s north-eastern border. When Cassius appealed directly to Cleopatra for aid – surely a prelude to invasion – she pleaded famine, plague and a manpower shortage that would prevent her from taking any direct part in the war. Meanwhile, Serapion, strategos or governor of Cyprus, had unilaterally declared his support for Cassius and had supplied him with ships. It seems that Serapion was planning to depose Cleopatra in favour of Arsinoë IV, who, currently living in the temple of Artemis at Ephesus, had maintained close contact with Cyprus. When, in 42, Brutus summoned Cassius and his troops to Smyrna, the threat of invasion lifted and Cleopatra breathed a huge sigh of relief.

Now openly on the side of the triumvirs, Cleopatra raised a fleet and set sail to join Octavian and Antony in Greece.

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