Antony and Cleopatra. Colleen McCullough

had betrayed her, so what did it matter? And, greatest gift of all, he didn’t remind her of Caesar in any respect. What she had with Antony belonged to Antony. Different, too, to find that within moments of each climax he was ready for her again, and almost embarrassing to count the number of her own climaxes. Was she so starved? The answer, obviously, was yes. Cleopatra the monarch was once again a woman.

      Caesarion was thrilled that she had taken the great Marcus Antonius as her lover. In that respect he was not naive. ‘Will you marry him?’ he asked, dancing about in glee.

      ‘In time, perhaps,’ she said, profoundly relieved.

      ‘Why not now? He is the mightiest man in the world.’

      ‘Because it is too soon, my son. Let Antonius and I learn first if our love will bear the responsibilities of marriage.’

      As for Antony, he was bursting with pride. Cleopatra was not the first sovereign he had bedded, but she was by far the most important. And, he had discovered, her sexual attentions lay halfway between those of a professional whore and a dutiful Roman wife. Which suited him. When a man embarked upon a relationship destined to last for more than a night, he needed neither one nor the other, so Cleopatra was perfect.

      All of which may have accounted for his mood on the first evening when his mistress entertained him lavishly; the wine was superb and the water rather bitter, so why add water and spoil a great vintage? Antony let go of his good intentions without even realizing that he had, and got happily, hopelessly drunk.

      The Alexandrian guests, all Macedonians of the highest stratum, looked on bewildered at first, then suddenly seemed to decide that there was much to be said for dissipation. The Recorder, an awesome man of huge conceit, whooped and giggled his way through the first flagon, then seized a passing female servant of beauty and began to make love to her. Within moments he was joined by the other Alexandrians, who proved that they were any Roman’s equal when it came to participating in an orgy.

      To Cleopatra, watching fascinated (and sober), it was a lesson of a kind she had never expected to need to learn. Luckily Antony didn’t seem to notice that she didn’t join in the hilarities; he was too busy drinking. Perhaps because he also ate hugely, the wine didn’t reduce him to a helpless fool. In a discreet corner Sosigenes, somewhat more experienced in these matters than his queen, had placed chamber pots and bowls behind a screen where the guests could relieve themselves through any orifice, and also put out beakers of potions that rendered the next morning less painful.

      ‘Oh, I enjoyed myself!’ roared Antony the next morning, his rude health unimpaired. ‘Let’s do it again this afternoon!’

      And so began for Cleopatra two months and more of constant, remorseless revels. And the wilder the goings-on became, the more Antony enjoyed them and the better he thrived. Sosigenes had inherited the task of dreaming up novelties to vary the tenor of these sybaritic festivities, with the result that the ships docking in Alexandria disgorged musicians, dancers, acrobats, mimes, dwarfs, freaks and magicians from all over the eastern end of Our Sea.

      Antony adored practical jokes that sometimes verged on the cruel; he adored to fish; he adored to swim among naked girls; he adored to drive chariots, an activity forbidden to a nobleman in Rome; he adored hunting crocodile and hippopotamus; he adored pranks; he adored rude poetry; he adored pageants. His appetites were so enormous that he would roar that he was hungry a dozen times each day; Sosigenes hit on the bright idea of always having a full dinner ready to be served, together with vast quantities of the best wines. It was an instant success, and Antony, kissing him soundly, apostrophized the little philosopher as a prince of good fellows.

      There wasn’t much Alexandria could do to protest against fifty-odd drunken people running up and down the streets in torchlit dances, banging loudly on doors and skipping away with bellows of delighted laughter; some of these annoying people were the chief officials of the city, whose wives sat at home weeping and wondering why the Queen permitted it.

      The Queen permitted it because she had no choice, though her own participation in the capers was half-hearted. Once Antony dared her to drop Servilia’s six-million-sesterces pearl into a goblet of vinegar and drink it; he was of that school that believed pearls dissolved in vinegar. Knowing better, Cleopatra did as dared, though drinking the vinegar was beyond her. The pearl, quite unharmed, was around her neck the next day. And the fish pranks never stopped. Having no luck as a fisherman, Antony paid divers to go down and attach live fish to his line; he would pull up these flapping creatures and boast of his fishing skills until one day Cleopatra, tired of his bombast, had a diver attach a putrid fish to his line. But he took the joke in good part, for that was his nature.

      Caesarion watched the antics with amusement, though he never asked to go to the parties. When Antony was in the mood the pair of them would vanish on horseback to hunt crocodile or hippopotamus, leaving Cleopatra in anguish at the vision of her son mangled by massive trotters or long yellow teeth. But, give Antony his due, he protected the boy from danger, just gave him a wonderful time.

      ‘You like Antonius,’ she said to her son toward the end of January.

      ‘Yes, Mama, very much. He calls himself Neos Dionysus, but he is really Herakles. He can balance me on one hand, can you imagine that? And throw the discus half a furlong!’

      ‘I am not surprised,’ she said dryly.

      ‘Tomorrow we’re going to the hippodrome. I’m going to ride with him in his chariot – four horses abreast, the hardest!’

      ‘Chariot racing is not a seemly pastime.’

      ‘I know, but it’s such fun!’

      And what did one say to that?

      Her son had grown in leaps and bounds during the past two months; Sosigenes had been right. The company of men had freed him from that touch of preciousness she hadn’t noticed until he lost it. Now he swaggered about the palace trying to roar like Antony, gave very funny imitations of the Accountant in his cups, and looked forward to every day with a sparkle and a zest he had never before displayed. And he was strong, lithe, naturally good at warlike sports – cast a spear with deadly accuracy, shot arrows straight into the center of the target, used his gladius with the verve of a veteran legionary. Like his father, he could ride a horse bareback at full gallop with his hands behind his back.

      For herself, Cleopatra wondered how much longer she could tolerate Antony in revel mode; she was tired all the time, had bouts of nausea, and couldn’t be far from a chamber pot. All signs of pregnancy, albeit too early to be wearisome or noticeable. If Antony didn’t cease his gyrations soon, she would have to tell him that he must gyrate on his own. Strong she might be for a small woman, but pregnancy took a toll.

      Her dilemma solved itself early in February when the King of the Parthians invaded Syria.

      Orodes was an old man, long past war in person, and the intrigues natural to a succession of such magnitude taxed him. One of his ways of dealing with ambitious sons and factions was to find a war for the most aggressive among them, and what better war than against the Romans in Syria? The strongest of his sons was Pacorus, therefore to Pacorus must this war be given. And for once King Orodes had a loaded set of dice to throw; with Pacorus came Quintus Labienus who gave himself the nickname of Parthicus. He was the son of Caesar’s greatest marshal, Titus Labienus, and had chosen to flee to the court of Orodes rather than yield to his father’s conqueror. Internal strife at Seleuceia-on-Tigris had also brought forth a difference of opinion as to how the Romans could be defeated. In previous clashes, including the one that had resulted in the annihilation of Marcus Crassus’s army at Carrhae, the Parthians had relied heavily upon the horse archer, an unarmored peasant trained to retreat at the gallop and let fly a murderous rain of arrows over his horse’s rump as he twisted backward – the famous ‘Parthian shot’. When Crassus fell at Carrhae, the General in command of the Parthian army had been an effeminate, painted prince named the Surenas, who devised a way to ensure that his horse archers did not run out of arrows: he loaded trains of camels with spare arrows and got them to his men. Unfortunately his success was so marked that King Orodes suspected the Surenas would aim next for the throne, and had him executed.