A Friend of Cæsar: A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. by - (best ereader for manga TXT) 📖

"But I am not a common woman," responded Cleopatra, with emphasis. "I am ambitious, not to be led, but to lead. I must rule or I must die. I cannot love a master, only fear him. Why, because I was born a woman, must I give up all my royal aspirations to rise to a great place among princes, to build up a great empire in the East, to make Alexandria a capital with the power of Rome, the culture of Athens, the splendour of Babylon, all in one? It is because I have these hopes stirring in me that I may love no man, can love no man! Nothing shall stand in my way; nothing shall oppose me. Whoever thwarts my ambitions, the worse for him; let him die—all things must die, but not I, until I have won my power and glory!"

For once, at least, the queen's emotions had run away with her; she spoke hotly, passionately, as though tearing her words from the recesses of her throbbing heart. Her wonderful voice was keyed in half-bitter defiance. For the moment Cornelia was mistress, and not the queen.

"O queen," broke in the young Roman, "would you know how I feel toward you?"

Cleopatra looked at her with dilated eyes.

"I feel for you a very great sorrow. I know not whether you will or will not do as you wish—set your empire over the far East, a rival, friendly, I hope, to our Rome; but this I know, that with your glory, and with your renown among men for all time, you will go down to your grave with an empty heart. And I know not what may compensate for that."

Cleomenes was clearly a little disturbed at this turn to the conversation; but Cleopatra bowed her head on her hands. It was only for an instant. When she looked up once more there were tears in her eyes, which she made no effort to conceal. The look of high defiance had faded from her face.

"Think kindly of me, Lady Cornelia," she said; "I am but a wilful girl with many things to learn. Perhaps you yourself know that purple robes do not make a light heart."

"That I know well and sadly."

"Therefore," went on the queen, "if I forget myself, and half envy a cup of happiness that seems dashed from my lips, do not be over blameful."

"Never," responded the young Roman.

"Time advances," said the queen; "let us forget that any barriers shut us out from perfect bliss. Let us call in the Egyptian musicians; and cry out upon me if my looks grow sad!"

Whereat a whole section in the side of the room turned on a pivot, and there entered three native harpers and eight pretty Egyptian girls, in gauzy dresses, who danced in intricate figures, and juggled with balls; now with two, now with three, catching them with their hands crossed. Boys ran in and out and sprinkled kyphi[174] on the heads of the three feasters, and flung huge wreaths of flowers round their necks, and thrust lotus flowers in their hair. And all the time the girls sang sweetly.

The queen kept her guests very late.

"We of Alexandria," said she, "make little difference between night and day. Our city is a new Sybaris."

And all through the evening Cleopatra kept close to Cornelia, often with her hand upon her, as though extremely loath to let her go. At last the moon crept up into the heavens, and as the queen and her guests roved out of the heated banqueting hall into the cool gardens, the pale yellow light gently bathed the sweep of the city, which lay in full view of the palace terrace.

"All sleep," said Cleopatra, "all but ourselves. Let there be one more song, and then farewell!—but soon to meet again."

The chorus of maidens, which followed them, sang, in Greek, the hymn of Onomacritus:[175]—

"Heavenly Selene! goddess queen! that shed'st abroad the light!
Bull-horned moon! air-habiting! thou wanderer through the night!
Moon bearer of mighty torch! thou star-encircled maid!
Woman thou, yet male the same, still fresh and undecayed!
Thou that in thy steeds delightest, as they travel through the sky,
Clothed in brightness! mighty mother of the rapid years that fly;
Fruit dispenser! amber-visaged! melancholy, yet serene!
All beholding! sleep-enamour'd! still with trooping planets seen!
Quiet loving; who in pleasance and in plenty tak'st delight;
Joy diffusing! Fruit maturing! Sparkling ornament of night!
Swiftly pacing! ample-vested! star-bright! all divining maid!
Come benignant! come spontaneous! with starry sheen arrayed!
Sweetly shining! save us virgin, give thy holy suppliants aid!"

"Yes," said Cleopatra, passing her hand over her brow, "give us aid, either thou, O moon, or some other power, for we are full weak ourselves."

When the queen parted with her guests she put her arms around Cornelia's waist and kissed her on the forehead.

"I sent for you," said Cleopatra, "half intending to amuse myself with the boorishness and clumsy insolence which I conceived a noble Roman lady to possess. I have been punished. Promise to come to see me often, very often, or I shall call my body-guards and keep you prisoner. For I have very few friends."

While the chariot was bearing the two guests away, Cleomenes asked Cornelia what she thought of the queen.

"She is the most wonderful woman I have ever met," was her answer, enthusiastic and characteristically feminine. "I admire her. I am almost her slave."

The frequency of Cornelia's visits to the palace on following days seemed to prove that the admiration was not unreciprocated. Indeed, Monime and Berenice grew jealous of the queen for stealing their new friend from them.

The sentries were going their rounds; the camp-fires were burning low. Over on the western hills bounding the Thessalian plain-land lingered the last bars of light. It was oppressively warm, and man and beast were utterly fatigued. Quintus Drusus stripped off his armour, and flung himself on the turf inside his tattered leather tent. Vast had been the changes eighteen months of campaigning had made in him. He had fought in Italy, in Spain, in the long blockade of the Pompeians at Dyrrachium. He had learned the art of war in no gentle school. He had ceased even so much as to grumble inwardly at the hardships endured by the hard-pressed Cæsarian army. The campaign was not going well. Pompeius had broken through the blockade; and now the two armies had been executing tedious manoeuvres, fencing for a vantage-ground before joining pitched battle.

Drusus was exceedingly weary. The events of the past two years,—loves, hates, pleasures, perils, battles,—all coursed through his mind; the fairest and most hideous of things were blended into buzzing confusion; and out of that confusion came a dull consciousness that he, Quintus Drusus, was thoroughly weary of everything and anything—was heavy of heart, was consumed with hatred, was chafing against a hundred barriers of time, space, and circumstance, and was utterly impotent to contend against them.

The Imperator—how he loved and adored him! Through all the campaigning nothing could seem to break the strength of that nervous, agile, finely strung physique. Sleeping in carriages or litters; ever moving; dictating continually books and letters to a secretary if for an hour there was a halt; dictating even while on horseback, in fact, and composing two letters at the same time; riding the most ungovernable horses fearlessly and without a fall; galloping at full speed with his hands clasped behind his back,—these were the mere external traits that made him wonderful among men. Worthy of all praise was the discipline by which the Imperator had held his troops to him by bonds firmer than iron; neither noticing all petty transgressions, nor punishing according to a rigid rule; swift and sure to apprehend mutineers and deserters; certain to relax the tight bands of discipline after a hard-fought battle with the genial remark that "his soldiers fought none the worse for being well oiled "; ever treating the troops as comrades, and addressing them as "fellow-soldiers," as if they were but sharers with him in the honour of struggling for a single great end. Drusus had known him to ride one hundred miles a day in a light chariot without baggage, march continually at the head of his legions on foot, sharing their fatigues in the most malignant weather, swim a swollen river on a float of inflated skins, always travelling faster than the news of his coming might fly before him. Tireless, unsleeping, all providing, all accomplishing, omniscient,—this was what made Drusus look upon his general as a being raised up by the Fates, to go up and down the world, destroying here and building there. The immediate future might be sombre enough, with all the military advantages falling, one after another, into Pompeius's lap; but doubt the ultimate triumph of Cæsar? The young Livian would have as readily questioned his own existence.

Some one thrust back the flaps of the tent, and called inside into the darkness:—

"Are you here, Drusus?"

"I am," was the wearied answer. "Is that Antonius?"

"Yes. Come out. We may as well dispose of our cold puls before the moon rises, and while we can imagine it peacocks, Lucrine oysters, or what not."

"If sight were the only sense!" grumbled Drusus, as he pulled himself together by a considerable effort, and staggered to his feet.

Outside the tent Antonius was waiting with a helmet half full of the delectable viand, which the two friends proceeded to share together as equally as they might in the increasing darkness.

"You are over sober to-night," said Antonius, when this scarcely elaborate meal was nearly finished.

"Perpol!" replied Drusus, "have I been as a rule drunken of late? My throat hardly knows the feeling of good Falernian, it is so long since I have tasted any."

"I doubt if there is so much as a draught of posca[176] in the army," said Antonius, yawning. "I imagine that among our friends, the Pompeians, there is plenty, and more to spare. Mehercle, I feel that we must storm their camp just to get something worth drinking. But I would stake my best villa that you have not been so gloomy for mere lack of victuals, unless you have just joined the Pythagoreans, and have taken a vow not to eat fish or beans."

"I do not know that I am especially gloomy to-night," replied Drusus, a bit testily. "I know little whereon to make merry."

"The arrows of Amor," hinted Antonius, "sink deep in the soul, and the god is unfair; he shoots venomed darts; the poison ever makes the pain greater."

"I would you could endure your own troubles," retorted the other, "and let me care for mine!"

"Perpol, friend," replied Antonius, "don't be vexed! I see it is a case of your wanting little said on a sore point. Well, keep silent, I won't tease you. Doesn't Theognis declare:—

"'Caress me not with words, while far away
Thy heart is absent and thy feelings stray'?[177]

And doubtless you would reverse the saying and put 'my heart' for 'thy heart.' Forgive me."

But Drusus, now that the ice was broken, was glad to talk.

"Now, amice, I won't harbour any ill feeling. I know that you don't look at women the way I do. If you had ever fallen in love with one like Cornelia, it would have been different. As it is, you can only stare at me, and say to yourself, 'How strange a sensible fellow like Drusus should care for a girl from whom he has been parted for nearly two years!' That's why I doubt if your sympathy can be of any great solace to me."

"Well," said Antonius, washing down his puls with a draught of water from a second helmet at hand, "I can't say that I would be full of grief two years from the day my beloved Fulvia was taken from me. But there are women of many a sort. Some are vipers to sting your breast, some are playthings, some are—what shall I call them—goddesses? no, one may not kiss Juno; flowers? they fade too early; silver and gold? that is rubbish. I have no name for them. But believe me, Quintus, I have met this Cornelia of yours once or twice, and I believe that she is one of those women for whom my words grow weak."

"Then you can sympathize, can feel, for me," said Drusus, as he lay back with his head on the dark green sward.

"Yes, as a poor man who has always possessed nothing can feel for a rich merchant whose whole fortune is about to founder at sea. Do not spurn my feeble sort of pity. But do you know nothing of her, not a word, a sign? Is she alive or dead? Much less, does she still care for you?"

"Nothing!" answered Drusus, and the sense of vexation and helplessness choked his utterance. "She vanished out of sight at Baiæ, as a flash of lightning passes away in the sky. I cannot imagine the cause