The Murder of Cleopatra (6 page)

I was thankful I set out early to catch my train to Alexandria, the next stop on my quest to learn more about Queen Cleopatra and the world she occupied. Arriving at Ramses Station, I was immediately lost in a rabbit warren of construction, tunnels, and platforms.

“Alexandria?” I asked at the ticket counter. “Platform 3.” At Platform 3, I was told, “Alexandria, no. Platform 7.” At Platform 7, I was told, “No, Platform 6.” At Platform 6, I was told, “Platform 3!” After scurrying back and forth from wrong platform to wrong platform, I somehow ended up on the right one, just before the train was set to depart the station.

I settled gratefully into my seat and watched the city give way to the green delta, a pleasant change from the earth and cement tones of Cairo. I was heading west to Alexandria, the city that for centuries was the jewel of the Mediterranean established by Alexander the Great after his conquering of the country; before that moment, there was nothing to speak of at that location. The sleepy fishing village, Rhakotis, was not a place that caught the attention of the early pharaohs, those before the pharaohs became Macedonian. Barley fields made up acreage of flat land that bordered the sea, not a large congregation of people or temples. But then Alexander saw just how perfect a location the site would be to build a fabulous city—a crescent-shaped
shore that would make a fine, protected harbor, gentle sea breezes to cool the land in the summertime heat, fertile fields, limestone for building, the Nile just thirty miles to the east and a fresh coastal lagoon, Lake Mareotis, to the south. Until Alexandria was built, the large and important Egyptian cities were the capital, Memphis, at the apex of the Nile River (just south of present-day Cairo), and Thebes (as Luxor down in Upper Egypt was called back then).

The plan set down by Alexander was quite grand. The streets were laid out in a grid pattern in the Hellenistic tradition with two main and very wide thoroughfares that intersected, one from north to south, the other from east to west.

But, to get a true feeling of the grandeur of the city at the time of Cleopatra, we can do no better than to read the description given by Strabo, the great geographer who traveled to many places in his day, enough to not be overly impressed with a city if it was not worth his admiration. He was clearly taken with Alexandria.

The advantages of the city are of various kinds. The site is washed by two seas; on the north, by what is called the Egyptian Sea, and on the south, by the sea of the lake Mareia, which is also called Mareotis. This lake is filled by many canals from the Nile, both by those above and those at the sides, through which a greater quantity of merchandise is imported than by those communicating with the sea. Hence the harbour on the lake is richer than the maritime harbour. The exports by sea from Alexandria exceed the imports. This any person may ascertain, either at Alexandria or Dicaearchia, by watching the arrival and departure of the merchant vessels, and observing how much heavier or lighter their cargoes are when they depart or when they return.

In addition to the wealth derived from merchandise landed at the harbours on each side, on the sea and on the lake, its fine air is worthy of remark: this results from the city being on two sides surrounded by water, and from the favourable effects of the rise of the Nile. For other cities, situated near lakes, have, during the
heats of summer, a heavy and suffocating atmosphere, and lakes at their margins become swampy by the evaporation occasioned by the sun's heat. When a large quantity of moisture is exhaled from swamps, a noxious vapour rises, and is the cause of pestilential disorders. But at Alexandria, at the beginning of summer, the Nile, being full, fills the lake also, and leaves no marshy matter which is, likely to occasion malignant exhalations. At the same period, the Etesian winds blow from the north, over a large expanse of sea, and the Alexandrines in consequence pass their summer very pleasantly.

The shape of the site of the city is that of a chlarnys or military cloak. The sides, which determine the length, are surrounded by water, and are about thirty stadia in extent; but the isthmuses, which determine the breadth of the sides, are each of seven or eight stadia, bounded on one side by the sea, and on the other by the lake. The whole city is intersected by roads for the passage of horsemen and chariots. Two of these are very broad, exceeding a plethrum in breadth, and cut one another at right angles. It contains also very beautiful public grounds and royal palaces, which occupy a fourth or even a third part of its whole extent. For as each of the kings was desirous of adding some embellishment to the places dedicated to the public use, so, besides the buildings already existing, each of them erected a building at his own expense.

In the great harbour at the entrance, on the right hand, are the island and the Pharos tower; on the left are the reef of rocks and the promontory Lochias, with a palace upon it: at the entrance, on the left hand, are the inner palaces, which are continuous with those on the Lochias, and contain numerous painted apartments and groves. Below lies the artificial and close harbour, appropriated to the use of the kings; and Antirrhodus a small island, facing the artificial harbour, with a palace on it, and a small port. It was called Antirrhodus, a rival as it were of Rhodes.

Above this is the theatre, then the Poseidium, a kind of elbow projecting from the Emporium, as it is called, with a temple of Neptune upon it. To this Antony added a mound, projecting still further into the middle of the harbour, and built at the extremity a royal mansion, which he called Timoneion. This was his last act,
when, deserted by his partisans, he retired to Alexandria after his defeat at Actium, and intended, being forsaken by so many friends, to lead the [solitary] life of Timon for the rest of his days.

Next are the Caesarium, the Emporium, and the Apostaseis, or magazines: these are followed by docks, extending to the Heptastadion. This is the description of the great harbour.

Next after the Heptastadion is the harbour of Eunostus, and above this the artificial harbour, called Cibotus (or the Ark), which also has docks. At the bottom of this harbour is a navigable canal, extending to the lake Mareotis. Beyond the canal there still remains a small part of the city. Then follows the suburb Necropolis, in which are numerous gardens, burial-places, and buildings for carrying on the process of embalming the dead.

On this side the canal is the Sarapium and other ancient sacred places, which are now abandoned on account of the erection of the temples at Nicopolis; for [there are situated] an amphitheatre and a stadium, and there are celebrated quinquennial games; but the ancient rites and customs are neglected.

In short, the city of Alexandria abounds with public and sacred buildings. The most beautiful of the former is the Gymnasium, with porticos exceeding a stadium in extent. In the middle of it are the court of justice and groves. Here also is a Paneium, an artificial mound of the shape of a fir-cone, resembling a pile of rock, to the top of which there is an ascent by a spiral path. From the summit may be seen the whole city lying all around and beneath it.
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What a splendid city Alexandria must have been when Julius Caesar and Antony came to meet with Cleopatra. This cosmopolitan center at the time was the largest and most beautiful city on earth, far surpassing Rome, which was actually said to be quite a bedraggled city in those days. It is no wonder they fell in love with Alexandria as well as with Cleopatra and the riches she could share with them. A massive walled city overlooking the sea, filled with a bounty of magnificent buildings gleaming in the Mediterranean sunlight, the massive lighthouse of Pharos Island jutting out on the promontory of the harbor, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World,
dramatically welcoming ships and their merchants into the cultured metropolis, and, of course, Queen Cleopatra's beloved Caesareum, the grand temple she was building at the time of her death. And, of course, they would spend time at Cleopatra's palace and temples, and these must have been spectacular buildings as well. Although we have little on record as to how these Alexandrian structures looked and were decorated, we can get a bit of an idea from Philo of Alexandria, who spoke of the Caesarium he saw some eighty years after the death of Cleopatra:

[A] temple to Caesar, patron of sailors, situated on an eminence facing the harbours famed for their excellent moorings, huge and conspicuous, forming a precinct of vast breadth, embellished with porticoes, libraries, men's banqueting halls, groves, propylaea, spacious courts, open-air rooms, in short, everything which lavish expenditure could produce to beautify it.
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When I alighted from the train in Alexandria and made my way into the streets, none of this splendor remained. The city is rather drab, the buildings nondescript, and as I walked on toward the harbor it was difficult not to feel rather sad for the residents of the city and for the loss of such former glory. The demise of Alexandria took place in spurts, the buildings and statues and the greenery erased by fire, theft, purposeful removal of the memories by previous rulers, and lack of upkeep likely due to financial distress. During the 1950s, the expropriation of the property of the European businessmen and investors by Gamal Abdel Nasser when he nationalized the country resulted in a mass exodus of foreigners and the closing of the upscale eateries and hotels that lined the Corniche. In later years, Egyptian-born residents struggled to do business under Mubarak's regime and found it very difficult. As one restaurant owner explained to me, “When a tourist points to the picture of Hosni Mubarak on my wall and asks who that is, I tell him that is our President. When he asks who is standing next to him, I tell him that is his son . . . my business partner.” The highway-robbery tax imposed by Mubarak went
straight into the coffers of his son, which left business owners with a very difficult time running their enterprises, which in turn results in the remaining worn and uninviting restaurants on the harbor. As I walked about the city, I realized that unlike Rome and Athens or even other historic sites in Egypt, pretty much nothing is left of the grand buildings, just a wall here, Pompey's Pillar up on the hill that Strabo speaks of, a couple of Ptolemaic sphinxes, the catacombs and cisterns under the ground, and the Roman odium, a small theatre built in the fourth century CE. The remains of the rest of the Alexandrian Ptolemaic past lie in bits and pieces in museums or down at the bottom of the eastern harbor, where the ancient royal quarters once were situated on the promontory named Silsilah.

During my documentary work with Atlantic Productions, I was to scuba dive down to the bottom of the harbor, where there can be seen a variety of pieces of columns, a giant obelisk, a number of sphinxes and statues, ruins from the palace of Cleopatra discovered by underwater archeologist Franck Goddio.
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The videographer and I went to make a practice dive the day before we were to film, to make sure I was comfortable with my scuba maneuvers (which I was not since I had failed the mask test). We sank into the water, and after a few moments, I came up and waved at him and asked if he was filming anything.

“Film? I can't see my hand in front of my face in this polluted water.”

Apparently, we had hit a bad day, so we gave up and went off for dinner. I spent the rest of the night on the floor of my hotel bathroom, the only time in my travels I ever got horribly ill from either food or water or whatever was in the Mediterranean Sea that day. The next morning, the videographer was late arriving to join the team, and he came practically crawling down the stairs. Whatever I caught, he obviously did as well.

When it came to shooting the scuba segment, there was no way it was safe for me to go underwater in my nauseated state. So I donned the wetsuit, climbed down the ladder, threw water over myself, and
came up and excitedly spoke of the wonders I had seen. I felt a bit guilty over the charade, but movie crews take a bit of license with the setup of certain aspects of their programs. The British producer ended up being my body double, and she got the pleasure of viewing the underwater ruins.

Later, when my friends watched the documentary and they commented on my scuba-diving venture in Alexandria, I wryly commented that the backside of the woman they saw in the wetsuit hardly resembled my own.

As I sat in a café on the Corniche drinking my tea, with the vision of Cleopatra's Alexandria in my head, if nowhere in my sight, I could still feel just from my view of the harbor and the buildings lining the semicircular curve of the shore and the colorful fishing boats dotting the waters, that the city she was born into was a fitting place for the last pharaoh of Egypt. It was clear that from the time Alexander the Great envisioned the city he was laying out in 332 BCE to Cleopatra VII's birth in 69 BCE, a dozen and a half Ptolemies before her built the city up to near its zenith before she entered onto the scene. She was born into wealth and power and a world of greatness, and she made herself a star within it.

But exactly who was this Cleopatra, resident of the great city of Alexandria, who has fascinated so many through the years? Was she the emotionally fragile, beautiful siren who selfishly and impulsively lured men to their deaths as so many stories about her portray? Or was she an attractive, brilliant, and clever leader who methodically made political choices to continue her rule and save her kingdom? Was she a pure Egyptian or a pure Macedonian or a mix of the two physically and culturally? Did she resemble the image of the relief of Cleopatra on the backside of the Temple of Hathor in the Dendera temple complex (on the West Bank of the Nile, an hour's drive northeast from Luxor in Upper Egypt), which makes her look like a beautiful, statuesque Egyptian Isis—or did she look more like the hooked-nosed, quite-unattractive profile we see of her on the coins she herself released? Who was she really? What was she capable of? And what
line of action would she be most likely to pursue? Understanding the real Cleopatra makes a difference in understanding what behavior she would exhibit over her adult years as queen of Egypt and in the decisions she would make as the months, weeks, and days ticked away toward the end of the Ptolemaic Dynasty.