Antony and Cleopatra. Colleen McCullough

Sisenes. I am Priest-king of Ma.’

      ‘Bit young to be a king, aren’t you?’

      ‘Better to be too young than too old, Marcus Antonius. Come into my house.’

      The visit started off with wary verbal fencing, at which King Archelaus Sisenes, even younger than Octavian, proved a match for Antony, whose good nature inclined him to admire a master of the art. As indeed he might have happily tolerated Octavian, had not Octavian been Caesar’s heir.

      But though the buildings were lovely and the landscaping good enough to please a Roman heart, an hour on the water clock was quite enough time to discover that whatever wealth Ma of Comana might once have possessed had vanished. With a ride of only fifty miles between them and the Cappadocian capital, Antony’s friends were fully prepared to set out at dawn of the following day to rejoin the legions and continue the march.

      ‘Will it offend you if my mother attends our dinner?’ the Priest-king asked, tone deferential. ‘And my young brothers?’

      ‘The more the merrier,’ said Antony, good manners to the fore. He had already found the answers to several vexed questions, but it would be prudent to see for himself what kind of family had produced this intelligent, precocious, fearless fellow.

      Archelaus Sisenes and his brothers were a handsome trio, with quick wits, a thorough knowledge of Greek literature and philosophy, and even a smattering of mathematics.

      None of which mattered the moment Glaphyra entered the room. Like all the Great Mother’s female acolytes, she had gone into service for the Goddess at thirteen, but not, like the rest of that year’s intake of pubescent virgins, to spread her mat inside the temple and offer her maidenhead to the first comer who fancied her. Glaphyra was royal, and chose her own mate where she wished. Her eye had lighted upon a visiting Roman senator, who sired Archelaus Sisenes without ever knowing that he had; she was all of fourteen when she bore the boy. The next son belonged to the King of Olba, descended from the archer Teucer, who fought with his brother Ajax at Troy; and the father of the third was a handsome nobody guiding a team of oxen in a caravan from Media. After that, Glaphyra hung up her girdle and devoted her energies to bringing up her boys. At this moment she was thirty-four and looked twenty-four.

      Though Poplicola wondered what drove her to appear for dinner when the guest of honor was a notorious philanderer, Glaphyra knew very well why. Lust did not enter the picture; she who belonged to the Great Mother had long ago abrogated lust as demeaning. No, she wanted more for her sons than a tiny priest-kingdom! She was after as much of Anatolia as she could get, and if Marcus Antonius was the kind of man gossip said he was, then he was her chance.

      Antony sucked in his breath audibly – what a beauty! Tall and lissome, long legs and magnificent breasts, and a face to rival Helen’s: lush red lips, skin as flawless as a rose petal, lustrous blue eyes between thick dark lashes, and absolutely straight flaxen hair that hung down her back like a sheet of hammered silver-gilt. Of jewels she wore none, probably because she had none to wear. Her blue, Greek-styled gown was plain wool.

      Poplicola and Dellius were shoved off the couch so quickly that they were hard put to land on their feet; one huge hand was already patting the space where they had reclined.

      ‘Here, with me, you gorgeous creature! What’s your name?’

      ‘Glaphyra,’ she said, kicking off her felt slippers and waiting until a servant pulled warm socks over her feet. Then she swung her body onto the couch, but far enough away from Antony to prevent his hugging her, which he showed every sign of wanting to do. Gossip was certainly right in saying that he wasn’t a subtle lover, if his greeting was anything to go by. Gorgeous creature, indeed! He thinks of women as conveniences; but I, resolved Glaphyra, must exert myself to become a more convenient convenience than his horse, his secretary or his chamber pot. And if he quickens me, I will offer to the Goddess for a girl. A girl of Antonius’s could marry the King of the Parthians – what an alliance! As well that we are taught to suck with our vaginas better than a fellatrix can with her mouth! I will enslave him.

      Thus it was that Antony lingered in Comana for the rest of winter, and when, early in March, he finally set out for Cilicia and Tarsus, he took Glaphyra with him. His ten thousand infantrymen hadn’t minded this unexpected furlough; Cappadocia was a land of women whose men had been slaughtered on some battlefield or carted off to slavery. As these legionaries could farm as well as they soldiered, they enjoyed the break. Originally Caesar had recruited them across the Padus River in Italian Gaul, and, apart from the higher altitude, Cappadocia wasn’t so very different to farm or graze. Behind them they left several thousand hybrid Romans in utero, properly prepared and planted land, and many thousands of grateful women.

      They descended a good Roman road between two towering ranges, plunging into vast aromatic forests of pine, larch, spruce, fir, the sound of roaring water perpetually in their ears; until at the pass of the Cilician Gates the road was so steep it was stepped at five-pace intervals. Going down, a comb of Hymettan honey; had they been going up, the fragrant air would have been polluted by splendid Latin obscenities. With the snow melting fast now, the headwaters of the Cydnus River boiled and tumbled like a huge swirling cauldron, but once through the Cilician Gates the road became easier and the nights warmer. They were dropping rapidly toward the coast of Our Sea.

      Tarsus, which lay on the Cydnus some twenty miles inland, came as a shock. Like Athens, Ephesus, Pergamum and Antioch, it was a city most Roman nobles knew, even if from a fleeting visit. A jewel of a place, hugely rich. But no more. Cassius had levied such a massive fine on Tarsus that, having melted down every gold or silver work of art, no matter how valuable, the Tarsians had been forced to sell the populace gradually into slavery, starting with the lowest born, and working their way inexorably upward. By the time that Cassius had grown tired of waiting and sailed off with the five hundred talents of gold that Tarsus had thus far managed to scrape together, only a few thousand free people were left out of what had been half a million. But not to enjoy their wealth; that had gone beyond recall.

      ‘By all the gods I hate Cassius!’ Antony cried, farther than ever from the riches he had expected. ‘If he did this to Tarsus, what did he do in Syria?’

      ‘Cheer up, Antonius,’ Dellius said. ‘All is not lost.’ By now he had supplanted Poplicola as Antony’s chief source of information, which was what he wanted. Let Poplicola have the joy of being Antony’s intimate! He, Quintus Dellius, was well content to be the man whose advice Antony esteemed and, right at this dark moment, he had some useful advice. ‘Tarsus is a big city, the center of all Cilician trade, but once Cassius hove in view, the whole of Cilicia Pedia stayed well away from Tarsus. Cilicia Pedia is rich and fertile, but no Roman governor has ever succeeded in taxing it. The region is run by brigands and renegade Arabs who get away with far more than Cassius ever did. Why not send your troops into Cilicia Pedia and see what’s to be found? You can stay here – put Barbatius in command.’

      Good counsel, and Antony knew it. Better by far to make the Cilicians bear the cost of victualling his troops than poor Tarsus, especially if there were bandit strongholds to be looted.

      ‘Sensible advice that I intend to take,’ Antony said, ‘but it won’t be anything like enough. Finally I understand why Caesar was determined to conquer the Parthians – there’s no real wealth to be had this side of Mesopotamia. Oh, curse Octavianus! He pinched Caesar’s war chest, the little worm! While I was in Bithynia, all the letters from Italia said he was dying in Brundisium, would never last ten miles on the Via Appia. And what do the stay-athome letters have to say here in Tarsus? Why, that he coughed and spluttered all the way to Rome, where he’s busy smarming up to the legion representatives. Commandeering the public land of every place that cheered for Brutus and Cassius when he isn’t bending his arse over a barrel for apes like Agrippa to bugger!’

      Get him off the subject of Octavian, thought Dellius, or he will forget sobriety and holler for unwatered wine. That snaky bitch Glaphyra doesn’t help – too busy working for her sons. So he clicked his tongue, a sound of sympathy, and eased Antony back onto the subject of where to get money in the bankrupt East.

      ‘There is an alternative to the