They were two remarkable youngsters, only a couple of years older than Ptolemy. What a difference! Ptolemy was incapable of deciding between two figs. I don’t exaggerate. One day he hurled himself to the floor in a tantrum of despair after his servants had removed the tray of figs he had been unable to select from, despite a whole morning’s pondering. But the sons of Bibulus were as decisive as lightning. While Ptolemy was prematurely jaded, these boys with their avid curiosity were interested in whatever was happening. If Ptolemy had difficulty in marshaling his thoughts on the simplest of topics, the boys applied their minds to any problem with astonishing effectiveness. Where Ptolemy was fat, they were needle-thin. If Ptolemy chortled with laughter at the scurrilous jokes of the eunuchs, the boys controlled themselves and brought smiles to the faces of others with their tales of life in Syria that poked fun at Romans and Seleucids alike. They confided to Olympus, my doctor, that their father’s surgeon was such a medical genius that he applied poultices to the humps of the first camels he saw. One of my cats, they nicknamed “Syrian-slayer” and when I asked why, they answered, “Syrians are so chickenhearted that even the mildest-mannered cat is enough to scare them all to death.”
I was happy to let them have Gabirius’s men, for they were only a nuisance to me. I acted alone at this point, because the Ruling Council of Ptolemy had not yet started to function, or rather dysfunction. It suited me to put distance between me and those soldiers. After staying with me and reaching this favorable conclusion, the sons of Bibulus went over to the barracks of the soldiers to give them their marching orders.
These troops of Gabirius, once legionaries but now mercenaries, felt no urge to go chasing Parthians. Married to Alexandrian women and made affluent by the outlandish generosity of my father, they had become habituated to a life of ease, to the facile, gossipy, unrivaled pleasures of Alexandria. Instead of being willing to appreciate the true caliber of Bibulus’s sons, and carrying out orders duly given them in the name of Rome, they turned treasonously on the two boys and without giving them a chance to defend themselves, murdered them.
That act was not merely military disobedience. It was a slap in the face of Cleopatra. I could not let it pass. The queen of Egypt herself had sent them the sons of Bibulus. The order was tantamount to a decree from me; the young men were my personal friends. The murder demanded that the throne of the Lagids pay them back in full for their cruelty and insubordination. I imprisoned the killers of the boys, two Romans rapidly gone to seed in easygoing Alexandria, as fat as Ptolemy himself, continually drunk, stinking of rotten meat, rendered so impotent by food and drink that the best they could do was to molest little girls, or fall asleep before they were buggered by handsome male dancers, the kinaidos. Egypt’s life of luxury and self-indulgence had returned these Romans to their cradles. These depraved creatures, sucking on alcohol instead of mother’s milk, had grown enraged at the fine spirits of these two youngsters and somewhere in their greasy softness had found enough energy to kill them. Pale from sleeping day and night, they grasped daggers in their puffy fists and slaughtered the two birdlike boys. In the words of Cleisthenes, the court poet:
Two baby birds were sleeping.
Two drunken thugs came creeping
And stabbed them in their nest.
Two daggers without feeling
Two guileless fates were sealing.
The worst had slain the best.
Tell me why, ye gods above,
Such metals felt no hint of love,
Though forged at Hate’s behest?
Alas! how could that cruel steel
No touch of tender mercy feel
For two such chicks at rest?
It was not up to Egypt to judge them. To do so would be to admit such scum belonged with us. To remove any doubt that they were Romans, I had them sent to Bibulus. Then the legionaries, I need hardly say, exploded with rage and accused me of being a “Roman lackey” because of my actions.
But I have wandered off topic again, led astray by the mention of Gabirius and his soldiers. Let me get back to the fury that was felt in Alexandria when the Ruling Council broadcast my support of Pompey. I had hoped to find a chance to ingratiate myself with Egypt when the sacred bull, Bakis, adored as the living soul of Ammon Ra, died in Hermonthis. I intended to take the new Bakis to the temple, to accompany it in person down the Nile, to attend the ceremony, and thereby win for myself some popularity with the people.
“The Queen, mistress of the Two Lands, the goddess who loves her father, rowed the boat of Ammon and took it to Hermonthis to place the bull, Bakis, in its temple.” So said the inscription in the chapel of Bakis. “The Queen Cleopatra is our monarch, she is our absolute sovereign, she holds dominion over Upper and Lower Egypt. The bull Bakis accompanied Isis as she rowed the Nile.”
My plan at first silenced the hostile talk against Cleopatra. The impressive royal barge traversed the Nile, inspiring confidence with its show of gold and purple. Ahead lay Thebes where the people adored me. But behind my back, Alexandria, spurred on by the Ruling Council, deposed me.
I ruled from Upper Egypt, preparing my land army with the same zeal and care I had earlier bestowed on my fleet. Alexandria had robbed me of the name of queen; now we would force it back into their mouths by a pincer-movement from land and sea.
The Ruling Council sent an ambassador to my court to sue for peace. Ptolemy, they claimed, wanted to fulfill the wishes of our father. They invited me to return to Alexandria, offering me a share of the throne they themselves had stolen from me, and protested their undying loyalty, complaining about the instability of the mob, as if they had not: stoked the fires of its rage.
We were divided in our opinions about how to react. It was an act of treasonous perfidy, a plan to lure me back and assassinate me, said the High Priest Psheneriptah, the Master of the Hunt, the Lord High Steward, and my doctor Olympus. My chief minister Protarcus and I thought otherwise. The fact was that the Ruling Council was scared; it had lost control of Egypt. For the second year in a row the harvest had been disastrous, hunger was fomenting rebellion in Alexandria, but not against Cleopatra — against the Lagids, the court, the merchants, the landowners, the craftsmen, and the Jews. Now they were faced with my pincer attack.
My decision overruled the High Priest. We undertook the return to Alexandria. On the royal boats would travel my court and my bodyguards. (These were not the four hundred Gauls that Antony would one day present me with.) The army would follow us by land to protect us against possible betrayal. With three hundred men, we figured, we could hold out until the rest of my troops reinforced us.
When our boats arrived at Heliopolis, at the delta of the Nile, spies informed me that we were walking into a trap, that the royal army was readying itself to attack us as we landed. The High Priest had been right. They intended to block any retreat to Pelusium, for the numerous cavalry of Ptolemy was on the point of attacking ours, while its rearguard was waiting for our boats. We landed safely and immediately fled on horseback, galloping through the night without sleeping, stopping only to change mounts and grab a mouthful of food, on toward Ascalon, the Philistine city we had protected from the ravenous greed of the king of Judaea. In its recent issue of coins, it declared its allegiance to me, placing the image of Cleopatra on both faces. Messenger pigeons flew off to warn my army of the impending arrival of Ptolemy’s troops and of our change of destination, and to advise our allies in Ascalon of our arrival.