Cleopatra and Caesar

Transcript (PDF)

Alexandria and Rome
Presentation 5 of 14

Cleopatra and Caesar
Alexandria and Rome Wed Their Traditions
Presented by Roger Weir
Thursday, July 29, 1982

Transcript:

Well, let’s see I am not sure how not start on this. I guess the description of Caesar. Suetonius records that that physically Julius Caesar is said to have been tall, fair, and well built. With a rather broad face and keen dark brown eyes. His health was sound apart from sudden comas and a tendency to nightmares, which troubled him toward the end of his life. He was subject to seizures, semi epileptic seizures, built around a fearfulness rather than the physical incapacity. He twice had these fits while on campaign. He was something of a dandy. Always keeping his head carefully trimmed and shaved. And he'd been accused of having certain other hairy parts of his body depilated with tweezers. And he was very, very balding on top of his head so he would comb the thin hairs of his head forward over this balding. And he was a dandy. He wore very loose togas that had very broad purple stripes on them. And he employed a manicurist to doctor him up. So much so that the common statement in the Roman Senate was that he often looked more like a woman than a man because of all the care he took for his physique in his [inaudible] and so forth.

He was once pointed out to by Sulla when Caesar was a very young man and very aggressive and hoping to push his way to greatness. Sulla said, look out for this boy with the loose clothes. Sulla of course, wanted to co-opt Caesar by having him divorced his wife, Cornelia. And when Julius Caesar refused to do this, he was stripped of his first office, which was a minor priesthood, which he held. And Caesar as this young man having this world dictator on his back. Having singled him out as being the most likely replacement for him and his kind, began to flee and live from night to night in various houses throughout Rome. And eventually moved out of Rome and kept up this path, this sort of hounded-ness of his, which I think contributed greatly to his character at this time.

His frightfulness at being the sole exclusive object of a hunt by the emperor of the world, produced in him this over reactiveness that the only way in which he could be safe was to be entirely mobile and to not have any kind of permanent underpinnings that could be taken from him. And at the same time to include in his pattern of mobility larger and larger realms of authority and power. The ultimate purpose of which was to take over the world, the Roman Empire. His audacity at this scheming, this quality, singled him out very, very early. So that many times though he was an eloquent orator, a master of rhetorical speaking, he would be censored in the Senate for deliberately letting his voice rise to a high fever pitch. And for using this enormous, fine vocabulary of his to literally incite people to riot over issues. And in fact, that one time in his career when he was lending great sums of money just to anyone to try and buy their favor in their power. Certain individuals who would be so destitute and so unworthy, he would advise them to start a civil war. He would say, this is your only hope.

This pursuance as a young man by Sulla’s secret police finally ended up with him leaving the environs of Rome. And on his sojourn, he was captured by pirates and held for ransom. And the audacity of young Julius Caesar is exemplified in the stories told about him with the pirates that they wanted 20 talons, and he said, I'm worth 50. He argued with them every day. And gambled with them and threatened every single day that he would catch them, and he would crucify them all. And they of course admired this audacity, and I seem to be one of them. And when the 50 talons was paid Caesar hired gangs of hired mercenaries and went back, found the pirates and crucified them.

And this of course began to circulate as the legendary material around which Caesar's mobility seemed to find its nexus. He never had what we would call a political party behind him. He never had a coalition of invested authority. He always trusted to those that he could buy. Those that he could bribe. Those whose expectations were based on winning and the winning outcome of various intrude…intrigues.
His only real excellent relationships were with Cicero and with Pompey the Great. Cicero, of course we had last week, and you can review the tape on his character if you like. We find an interesting letter, which I read, from Caesar to Cicero and the title on it from Caesar imperator to Cicero imperator, which is telling. Because Cicero never held a military post except in 63 B.C., he was the council. But it was Caesar’s way of saying this is a correspondence between men of authority and power and not as private individuals. And of course, the contents of the letter where I expect to be in Rome on such and such a date, and I expect your help and your sagacity. And I have to leave now because my legions are on the move, and I must catch up with them. There are battles to be won. I'll see you there. That sort of a directiveness.

His mind was astonishing to the classical world because it was the first time since the character of Odysseus that a man of many minds had arisen to a position of prominence. And he had absolutely no single philosophic or religious belief system that underpinned him. He was exclusively an opportunist. And it makes a curiosity to the ancient world, but it also signals to us a certain crisis of consciousness in the Roman society of its times that it would produce such an individual. That in Cicero's own words, he was the most apt person to survive his time. And since he has been assassinated, no one is safe.

It was this personality that set up the prototype for his immediate successor, Mark Antony, who tried to live Caesar’s style of life. And even went so far, we'll see, to take his mistress Cleopatra to take his notion of, of a Roman commanding the world through intrigues.

But the template of Caesar's character influenced the whole family. And Julius Caesar is the first of what is historically known as the twelve Caesars. And the very next Caesar, Augustus of course, which we will get to next week, initiated the Roman empire with the Augustan Principate. And accomplished, in fact, one had simply been a scheme in the mind of Julius Caesar. And all of the other Caesars took for granted that through their blood, through the what we would call the gene, they had inherited all of these capacities that were present in Julius Caesar and exemplified to a final culmination in Augustus Caesar. And that without even trying they were masters of the world by this inherited characteristic.
The kickoff key to Julius Caesar having this world ambition was that as a young man serving in Spain with his first military command, he happened upon a bust of Alexander the Great in one of these temples in Spain. And it suddenly flashed on him then and there that by his age, Alexander had quote conquered the world, and he had done nothing. And he burst into tears and ranted at himself for not having accomplished anything. And from that date on, from that event on, he was consumed by this Pell Mell ambition to do something every minute of every day. And as long as he was being outrageous and ambitious and poking his Caesarian fingers into every aspect of life, he felt elegant and dignified and excellent. And whenever there would be an opportunity for him to go to an exponential rate of audacity, he would do it. So that he felt confident in some inner way that his life was turned.

Suetonius records of him. If you remember the conspiracy of Catiline which Cicero met head-on and nipped in the bud. When the Catalonians [inaudible] conspiracy came to light, the whole house with the sole exception of Caesar then [inaudible] to relax, he was a minor judge on the circuit.
The whole house, except for Caesar demanded the death penalty for Catiline and his associates. Caesar proposed merely that they should be imprisoned each in a different town and their estates confiscated. What was more he so brow-beat all of the other senators who had taken a sterner line.
You see, he set himself against the entire senate of the Rome. The young judge.
He so brow-beat those senators who took a sterner line by suggesting that the commons would conceive an enduring hatred for them if they persisted in this view that [inaudible] as council elect felt obliged to interpret his own proposal. Which however he could not bring himself to recast in a more liberal sense. Begging Caesar to not to misread it so savagely.
You see, he was pacing the floor of the Senate, and his voice was rising in great shrillness.

“And Caesar when he gained his point since many senators, including the council Cicero's own brother,” Quintus Cicero,
had been won over to his view by his eloquence and by his exactness of mind. His arguments. But Marcus Cato came in and kept the era irresolute senate in line. Caesar continued to block proceedings until a body of Roman knights serving as the defense force in the Senate threatened to kill him unless he stopped his violent shouting. They even unsheathed their swords and made messing moves against him. So much so,
as Suetonius says, “he was sufficiently impressed, not only to leave the Senate, but to keep away for the rest of the year.”

This is the character of the man. Absolutely maddening in his aggressive willingness to throw all on the line at the moment. And in fact, when we review his military career, the spectacular victories that he always managed were based on the notion that there are in fact no tomorrows and no reserves. Everything must be brought to bear on this particular occasion. And be brought to bear in the most exuberant daring kind of way possible. So that Caesar's reputation as a strategist was based on the same respect for patterning that his political personality was based on. That he was unpredictable. That his mobility was absolute. And that the only way in which to meet such a masterful conniving intelligence was head-on in one great confrontation. This of course became the rule of thumb in Rome about how to deal with Julius Caesar.

Caesar of course in sizing up his competition at Rome decided that Pompey the Great was the only military General who was sharp enough to really afford him difficulty in the field of battle. And that on the other hand, Cicero was the only raining intelligence in a position of authority by traditional experience and acts of achievement. So that between Cicero and Pompey, Julius Caesar wanted to keep himself suspended as a friend between the two. And because Cicero was unable to bring himself to join in the portioning out of what was becoming the Roman Empire, the last days of the Republic, Caesar characteristically enough chose the richest man in Rome, Crassus, who was like putty in his scheming hands. By whose wealth was proverbial and it could be brought him to you.

Caesar incidentally was in most of his young life tremendously in debt. Not because he spent money on himself, but because he habitually bribed anyone about anything anytime. He at one time was more than what we would call a million dollars in debt over a just a single electoral process. So that in order to bail himself out, he was being consumed by this weight of creditors. He finagled everything to get himself elected council. And to have given to him what he had chosen as the most fertile province to exploit, that of Gaul. Transalpine Gaul and Cisalpine Gaul, which today is France and also the lower parts of Germany.

So it was to this region that he sorts of made him, made up his mind to, to take in. I think the sum total figures that Roman historians gave was that in the nine years that he was fighting the Gallic Wars, he captured some 700,000 square miles of terrain. And he was the first to really defeat the German Army. Not only militarily, but psychologically in the field. Up until Caesar's time, the Celtic Saxon Army, which were really like enormous marauding bands, totally dedicated to their leaders. They would rather come back in a coffin then to come back defeated alive. And I think in Caesar's own words in his commentaries, we get a glimpse of the actions, which he initiated to defeat his enemies psychologically ahead of time and strategically by grandiose operations in the present. And backing it up, of course, with good solid military antics.

In his commentaries and they of course are world famous. Anybody who has Latin in any country usually starts off with [inaudible] is divided into three parts. In his commentaries on the Gallic War, he refers to himself in the third person. It's an imperious third person. He is always Caesar. And what he is recording is literally what we would think of it as God's will. He writes for instance,
Caesar when informed of these matters fearing the physical disposition of the Gauls, who are easily prompted to take up resolutions and much addicted to change. They were French, of course. Even then considered that nothing was to be entrusted to them. For it is the custom of that people to compel travelers to stop even against their inclination and inquire whether they have heard or may know respecting any matter. And in towns the common people throng around merchants and force them to state from what countries they come and what affairs they know there.
And so, Caesar was having spies everywhere. And being aware of their customs, he says,
Caesar being aware of their customs in order that he might not encounter a more formidable war set forward to arm his troops earlier in the year than he was accustomed to do. When he had arrived there, he discovered that those things which he had suspected would occur had taken place. The embassies had been sent to the Germans by some of the states and that they had been treated to leave the Rhine. And had been promised that all things which they desire to be provided by the Gauls.

Now, the Rhine River, enormously wide river, had formed a time out of mind and barricade of protection for those peoples and those tribes living North of the Rhine. And Caesar understanding this and finding that this was the key to the entire military strategy of the area, this whole enormous area of Northern France and so Southern Germany, decided that this was going to be an image, a symbol, synthesizing symbol of his power and some way he had to deal with the Rhine River.

So, he records that he had many successful skirmishes with the German troops. And of course he was successful in all accounts. And when they realized that he was unbeatable in the field, they fled across the Rhine to safety.
The German war being finished Caesar thought it experience…expedient for him to cross the Rhine for many reasons. Of which this was the most weighty, that since he saw the Germans were so easily urged to go into Gaul, he desired they should have their fears for their own territories. When they discovered that the army of the Roman people both could, and dared passed the Rhine. So many of the allies that he had said, well, we can build boats. It'll take some time. Caesar said no, this is not what I want. I don't want simply for the Roman armies to cross the Rhine on boats. I want us to go as the Imperial power of the world so that we will, instead of going by boat, we will build a bridge across the Rhine.

And it was an audacious idea, the fact that one could build a bridge across this enormous river. And so, Caesar himself designed the bridge. He designed a system of peers where the peers would be leaned at about five or six degrees. The right-hand one with the current and the left-hand was against the current at same time and evenly space. These enormous peers. He had [inaudible] trees felled. The end is sharpened. He had them battered down and in an incredible 10 days’ time Caesar had built this tremendous timber bridge across the Rhine. And of course, the spectacle of this incredible organizational power of Julius Caesar, vis-a-vis this great symbol of his intellectual and military acumen terrified the Germans. And the tribes began to acquiesce to the fact that perhaps this was a, a different era and a different individual has come to pass.

Caesar of course, wherever he conquered, made his usual exaction of monetary assessments against those that he conquered. So that he began to loom more and more as one of the richer individuals in the Roman power show. He also began to need Crassus’ lesson plans. And it became apparent finally to him that the only competitor in the field for a world dominion for him was Pompey the Great, beloved Roman General. Who had largely stayed in Asia. Was very popular with his troops, had won many Wars against the Parthians, the Armenians, the Syrians and so forth. And Pompey had very kindly stayed out of Rome. If you remember last week, I mentioned that he even agreed to disband his troops before coming into the city of Rome. And there've been some resolution passed to that intent.

Caesar at the end of his Gallic campaigns, after nine years of piling up an incredible string of successes. I think he had three reverses. One due to weather of his ships off Britain. He was the first Roman to go into Britain. And two times there were reverses in the field for a subordinate General. Not a bad record after nine years of solid warfare. But he was asked by the Senate to disband his troops before coming into Italian territory. And this, he realized, he could not do because he didn't have a political party behind him. He had no traditional authority. He was in fact invincible by virtue of having a well-trained series of legions whose pay incidentally was two or three times higher than any of the other legions in Rome.

In fact, in one grand motion once Julius Caesar paid off to his soldiers the equivalent of about 25 times their annual pay in one great triumphal gesture. The pay of Caesar's troops had been raised about 900 sestertius per year, which was double what it had been had. He wants gave more than 20,000 sestertius per soldier. It almost bankrupted Rome at the time. But it was Caesar's audacious way of saying these men will follow me wherever I go, because whatever I win, they will have a share. I don't need a political party. And I certainly don't need the Senate of Rome.

So camped in the Northern part of Italy, the Northern part of the Rubicon waiting for some sign. Suetonius records this,
As he stood in two minds, an apparition of superhuman size and beauty, was seen sitting on the riverbank playing a reed pipe, a party of shepherds gathered around to listen. And when some of Caesar's men broke ranks to do the same, the apparition snatched the trumpet from one of them ran down to the river, blew up under a blast and proceeded to cross over. Caesar explained, let us accept this sign from the Gods and follow where they beckon in vengeance on our double-dealing enemies. The die is cast.

And of course he led his army across the Rubicon. And as he crossed the river, of course, and got on the other side and had taken that fateful step of civil war. The Gallic Wars were over. This was the first act in the civil war. He ripped his tunic open to expose himself to the elements in the Gods that if he were wrong, maybe they killed him now. And of course, the troops noting that he stood very proud and bare chested all day while they crossed over, decided that this was the way to go. To meet Caesar, the Romans people and the Roman Senate. Remember SPQR stands for Senatus Populusque Romanus, the Senate and the people of Rome.

Both power factions in Rome turned to the only man in the world able to meet Caesar and that was Pompey. And Pompey the Great wonderful, dignified sort of the jovial individual decided to bring Caesar out of Italy into a battle at a place called Pharsalus. And Caesar taking up this call, met Pompey on the field of battle. And it was an interesting array. Pompey had decided on using his vast superior military knowledge of cavalry tactics, which had been refined since the days of Scipio Africanus and Hannibal to almost an exact science. And he noted that his cavalry was so superior to Caesars that he would use this as the whip on Caesars right flank to break the tie of the battle.

And Caesar not really having a cavalry right sized the situation up quite accurately, and secretly went among his legions. And what was the usual three lines of battle, he created a fourth line by taking one cohort out of each section of the legion and making a fourth line. And setting them the specific exclusive tasks to turn the cavalry when they would come around and do the flanking. And that's the third line, the triarii, were not to move in charge in the battle, but to hold themselves in reserve. Very uncharacteristic of Caesar. And he was going to time the movement of the third line coming into the line of battle with the fourth line driving against the cavalry of Pompey. Pompey trying to gain some advantage strategically had his front line not move. So that Caesar's first two lines moved about halfway across the battlefield. Not all the way as Pompey had hoped because they would be somewhat tired and exhausted. And they stopped about halfway at which moment Pompey began to feel that something was amiss in terms of timing. And by having the javelin thrown down and bringing his lines into contact began all of to prematurely sending the cavalry out. Hoping that by this grand sweep, he would crack the battle right away. And Caesar of course noting the timing perfectly, reinforced the battle line with the third line and the spare cohorts that had been sent there specific task, quickly rushed in gathered mass and broke the cavalry charge of Pompey. And proceeded to outflank and very soon Pompey’s army was defeated. The battle of Pharsalus, the first [inaudible] was totally over and Caesar was totally in command.

Pompey, being an old, dignified soldier retreated to his camp, which has been lavishly prepared for the victory. There were a wonderful tables set with gold urns and heaps of food. And Pompey sitting down in his tent to recuperate from this devastating defeat. Not even yet thinking to scheme for how he would gather his troops again to meet again, suddenly looked up and heard the shouts of Caesar's men in his very camp. Without rest, without any break whatsoever Caesar had pushed on. And Pompey literally physically have to get up on his own two feet and flee his own camp. He made his way across the Grecian part, the [inaudible] part of Greece to Larissa. He took a series of ships to Asia minor to Cyprus, and finally headed towards Alexandria. Thinking to himself that he would come back to this old bastion and regroup. Since he was well-known in Asia, Alexandra would be the right place for him to come. And wasn't Alexandria after all indebted to him and filled with the kindnesses that he had shown the Royal family. In fact, the two children of Ptolemy XIII, Cleopatra VII, our Cleopatra, and her brother Ptolemy XIV, weren't they knowing that Pompey was really the family friend. The dynastic friend. The great Roman who would protect them because no telling what would come if Caesar came. So, he made for Alexandria.

Unbelievable. The situation in Alexandria had reached a bifurcation of complete polarization. The machination between three individuals behind the young teenager, Ptolemy XIV, [inaudible] called Theodotus, the master of the palace guard and [inaudible] and [inaudible] who was one of the palace [inaudible], were manipulating this young teenage Ptolemy XIV. Urging him to pursue his sister who was somewhat older than him, Cleopatra. To assure himself of absolute power and of themselves thereby absolute mobility of purpose.

Cleopatra was an extraordinary individual though. I guess the hallmark of her intelligence was the fact that she alone of all of the Ptolemy learned the ancient language of Egypt. She learned to speak Hebrew. She learned to speak Syrian. She learned to speak Latin and Greek and about a dozen other languages. So that she was a marvel, as Plutarch says, because her voice was like one of the most miraculous instruments that you could think of. It could speak in almost any language with that cloying excellence sweetness of a beautiful woman. And that it was a marvel for men to be whole this small elegant preposterous girl who was able to converse with everybody.

She took the tack that she would well get her own army and fight her brother. So, she went to Syria. She raised troops and astounding everyone began to lay siege to the city of Pelusium which was the Egyptian city in near where Port Said is today on the road in from Gaza into the Nile Delta. And as fate would have it just as she was laying siege to Pelusium and her brother under the advisors with getting the loyal Egyptian army ready to combat her, Pompey arrived destitute of his army. Looking for [inaudible] arrived in Alexandria. Heard that all of this machinations were going on and in fact, he had written to the point of contention just further down the coast, about a hundred miles. So, he sailed [inaudible] remain into Pelusium and rounded the coast just at the time when the combatants were about to go into this final conflagration. Pompey sent a messenger ahead and the advisors of Ptolemy XIV began to plot, what shall we do? And finally decided under the ruling vote of Theodosius that dead men do not bite, therefore, we will kill Pompey. So, they found in among the mercenary refugees, one of his old lieutenants, a man named Servius. And they sent Servius and two other individuals out in a little boat to get Pompey.

Pompey in the meantime in his [inaudible] had begun to try to piece together the fact that he had many trustworthy legions all throughout the Roman world. Soldiers who had fought with him, who would stand with him. The Roman people still loved him. The Senate still would rather trust him than this incredible voracious lion, Julius Caesar. He had gotten his wife Cornelia. Picked her up, I think outside of [inaudible]. And she seeing this boat coming had a premonition and urged him not to go. And Pompey seizing this opportunity to make a fresh start by trust, decided that he would go with just two of his servants in the boat and see what faith would behold. And while they were rolling him ashore Servius turned on him just as Pompey was holding up a book to read and ran him through the sword. And not only that, but as he laid crouched with his Royal Roman robe over him, they stabbed him repeatedly and then cut his head off and held his head up. And Plutarch's says that the scream of his wife could be heard miles across the water.

Four days later, Julius Caesar in hot pursuit of Pompey arrived at the harbor of Alexandria and very quickly sized up the situation. All of the power was down at Pelusium fighting against each other. Pompey was dead. He was there in the harbor of Alexandria. He only had about 4,000 troops, but they were crack troops. So, he did what Julius Caesar would always do in that situation. He set himself up in the Royal Palace, fortified it and waited to see what other people would do.

Ptolemy XIV being a young teenager was absolutely astounded that this could be. How can the, how can this Roman be living here in my house? And bid it back to Alexandria just in time to be welcomed in by Julius Caesar and made comfortable and made a hostage. And so, Caesar said, look, your father, who was an alcoholic and a drunk. They called him [inaudible] the athlete or the [inaudible] because he was having a good time all the time in an athletic contest and so forth. He says here in his will that he leaves the entire Ptolemaic dynasty to the Roman people. And I happen to represent the Roman people. So, I will be glad to arbitrate this dispute of your family, between you and your sister.

So, he sent for Cleopatra. And of course, Cleopatra realized that she would be killed immediately. If she left her armed camp. There was no way that she could publicly come into Alexandria. She was the competitor. Little did they suspect that they were completely outclassed by someone lion like Julius Caesar. He already had all the cards, not just the aces. But she conceived of the fact that her forces were not strong enough to win against the siege of Pelusium. Not strong enough to win against her Empire. And so, she conceived of this grand design in her mind because she was an opportunity to have the highest caliber. Someone said to me, Julius Caesar. So, she decided that she would not only meet this individual, but she would control him. After all was, she not one of the most interesting ladies of the ancient world? Did she not have this tremendous background from all the Ptolemies? And in fact, wasn't Julius Caesar, exactly the kind of man that she understood very well.

So, she hit upon a plan that would have her brought into Julius Caesar in the most wonderful, outrageous way. She had one of her very large, huge servants row her in on a private boat at midnight to the Royal palace landing docks. And had herself rolled up in the bedding, sort of a rug. And this man carried it on his shoulder. A common sight apparently in that part of the world where individuals would just carry their bedding with them. And the huge servant said he was bringing it to one of the lieutenants of Julius Caesar and work with he'd be found. And he was given admittance and entrance. Who would suspect that rolled up in here was the Queen of Egypt. And came in and literally shook her out before the General. And Caesar of course was absolutely delighted, astounded and impressed at the way that she made her interests. All of the classical authorities say that they spent a very long first night discussing the will of her father and various other wills that circulating in [inaudible] at that time.

In the morning when Ptolemy VIV with sent for and came in before Caesar in his own palace and his own hereditary throne, who was sitting next to Julius Caesar by his sister. How did she get there? And how in fact was she seeming to be toying with the beautiful thinning locks of Gaius Julius Caesar? He immediately ran out of the room. And it is said my instant authority intuiting in a flash that his days were numbered. And they were.

Cleopatra VII had taken the tack that she would beat Rome with Romans. That it was the only conceivable way to go in the world that had developed. And no sense in just trying to stay put in Egypt. That wouldn't work. The great Alexandrian Empire was doomed to fall under Roman control. So why not then pull the great coup de grace of taking over the Roman empire with Romans and then having Alexandrian intelligence control it all. After all, had this not been done before? Was not the Empire of Alexander the Great and all of its potential passed on to the Ptolemies. And was she not the last great surviving inheritor of this.

Her machinations, of course, with Julius Caesar, very, very famous. And she loved the idea of going to Rome and participating in a triumph. And when she was in Rome, it was the unanimous hostility of ancient Roman critics that seemed to characterize her great success. She managed to alienate any observing witness at the time, by the fact that she just did not care for any of the old Republican virtues whatsoever. She had trust in Alexandrian cosmetics and a few other wilds of which she was the master.

All of this conniving seemed to be on the verge of success when Caesar's assassination put a sudden end to all of this. And the plans of Cleopatra seemed to be put back into the realm of legend until another Roman, Mark Antony, sent a letter requesting her to come to him camp in Syria. That he was in fact planning to take over the show himself and that he had heard that she's a very useful ally to have. And Cleopatra upon receiving the invitation realized that the dream was right, the man had been wrong, and the second time will work. And she prepared herself as only a woman at great skill can prepare.

And when she appeared before Mark Antony, instead of being carried in the rug, she came up the [inaudible] River on this enormous imperial barge. Great huge fans going before her. Enormous quantities of gold and silver serving pots. And she had loaded the barge with all the goodies to prepare what we would call very sumptuous banquets. Marc Antony had invited her to dine with him that first evening. And she instead said, I think you should dine with me. Here's the menu. And here's what we're going to have it on. And she out shown him tremendously. And as he sat to dine, he began to see that he has idea of Roman grandeur was rather paltry next to Alexandrian splendor. And the woman of twenty languages seemed unbelievably charming to him. And she falling deeply in love with the fact that Mark Antony seemed to be the right audacious man who would carry her dreams of victory all the way back to Rome.

Well, let's stop and have a break there and then we'll go on from there. Let’s leave it at that.

This is Caesar’s own description. Just excerpting, a few sentences of the Battle of Pharsalus.
When Caesar had approached near Pompey’s camp, he observed that his army was drawn up in the following manner. On the left wing, where the two legions delivered over by Caesar at the beginning of the dispute in compliance with the sense decree. One of which was called the first, the other, the third. Here Pompey commanded in person.
And then he goes on describing.

Once he has described the lines,
But our men when the signal was given rushed forward with their javelins ready to be launched. But perceiving that Pompey’s men did not run to meet their charge, having acquired experience by custom and being practiced in former battles. They have their own court repressed their speed and halted almost midway that they might not come up with the enemy when their strength was exhausted. And after a short respite they again renewed their course and through their javelins and instantly drew their swords.
These are the double edge cutting swords introduced by in the second Punic Wars time.

“Our cavalry did not withstand the charge of Pompey’s but get gave ground a little. Upon which Pompey’s horse pressed them more vigorously and began to file off in troops and flank our army. When Caesar perceived this,” always in the third person. The Regal third person.
When Caesar perceived this, he gave the signal to his fourth line, which he had formed of the six cohorts. They instantly rushed forward and charged Pompey’s horse with such fury that not a man of them stood. But all wheeling about not only quitted their posts, but galloped forward to seek a refuge in the highest mountains. By their retreat the archers and slingers began being left destitute and defenseless were all cut to pieces. At the same time Caesar ordered his third line to advance, which so then had not been engaged, but it kept their post. Thus, new and fresh troops having come to the assistance of the fatigued and others having made an attack on the rear, Pompey’s men were not able to maintain their ground but fled. [inaudible] deceived in his opinion that the victory as he is declared in his speech to his soldiers must have its beginning from those six cohorts, which he placed as the fourth line to oppose the horse.
So, in the wonderful clarity of Caesar’s language, we find his excellence of mind, which almost contrasts, but the variants of his character.

Cleopatra was very much aligned. And in fact, had a trained mind equal to that of Julius Caesar. She, for instance, had many of the leading scientific minds of her time as personal friends of hers. If you're taking notes, the great astronomer at the time, Sosigenes, was the one, in fact who worked with Julius Caesar to revise the calendar system. The Julian calendar was a revision of the old 355-day calendar to the 365 and then a leap year calendar. And so, Sosigenes was a personal and family friend of Cleopatra's.
Her physician, she had two. The one Olympus wrote a detailed chronology of the last couple of years of her life, which we do not have. It didn't survive antiquity. Rather it didn't survive the Holocaust of this disabling of antiquity. And [inaudible] was also another physician. [inaudible] was a mathematician. One of the most outstanding mathematical philosophers of his time. And in fact, the title also of a missing work but the title of it was The Canon of Cleopatra, even though it was a mathematical treatise.

So having friends and tutors of this caliber, having this tremendous mastery of languages and religious backgrounds. In fact, she styled herself increasingly as she matured. We have to remember that when she met Julia Caesar, she was just 20 or 21 years old. She died when she was 38. By the time she met Mark Antony, she was a mature woman, going on towards 30. Very capable, intellectually, emotionally, and so forth. And her capacity to understand large structures of events and their importance, very noted.

Her, her ability, I think to style herself as the new Isis puts our finger on the image, which perhaps we can understand her best. Isis by her time had become the single most potent Goddess figure in Alexandria and in Egypt. Had accrued to the image many other attributes of Goddesses that slowly became merged into the image. So that by the new Isis, she meant a really powerful jam-packed syncretistic God head figure. If, if you come to the lecture on Ptolemaic Alexandria on Saturday, I'll go into some of their religious developments that led to this. Sufficient to say that she was the inheritor of almost 300 years of religious sophistication and was in a position intellectually to understand what had been given to her. What had been developed. And she was as conscious of the religious and metaphysical blossoming as Caesar and Mark Antony were of the military and economic power blossoming.

She was in fact afraid of only one individual. And that individual was the nephew of Julius Caesar who became Augustus Caesar. Afraid of him in the sense that Octavian, and we'll get to Octavian next week following [inaudible], was a qualitatively different person from Julius Caesar or Mark Antony. I know that history often styles him what the black mark of having sold out his friends and [inaudible] at the end, Cicero. Sacrificed him if you remember last week to the demands of Mark Antony and the prescriptions of 43 B.C., when they drew up lists of people who had to be killed Cicero's name was at the top. And the particularly violent way in which he met death being pursued down this avenue that was lying with Cypress trees. And he being in one of these Palatines. And the sound of the footsteps on both sides of the trees and him looking out to see what was happening in his head being chopped off. And worse than that, his hands being chopped off. And worse than that these being taken into the podium of the Senate in Rome and placed them podium as a sign to show that the last strains of Republican trustworthiness were dead. That the Imperial designs had completely decapitated and handcuffed the watchdog of the Republic and thus the entire tradition. This often has held against Octavian. But actually, in fact, as we will see, he was qualitatively a different person from Antony and Julius Caesar. A much higher level of integration. A much more capacious, compassionate individual for understanding the true meaning of what he was participating in. Creating really.

There was a statement in one classical author. I cannot think of the name off the top of my head right now. But the statement was that the guardian spirit of Octavian was considered to be the strongest in antiquity. We, we often do not find an explication on this matter of guardian spirit until we get past the Hermetic syntheses of the second and third centuries A.D. When we get to Plotinus for instance, in The Aeneids and he has a section in there about our guardian spirit. That was [inaudible] religious idea about this time. And it wasn't Alexandrian idea.

And in fact, if one wants to go into it, I think I did a lecture here earlier this year. The Jewish wisdom literature of Alexandria in particularly Ben Sira and the book of The Wisdom of Solomon. One of them from 180 B.C. and the other from 50 B.C. taking these great religious insightful developments where they spiritual capacities of a person were in fact personified or identified as being an integrated astral figure, a guardian spirit. And Octavian’s was considered the strongest in antiquity. One that was simply inevitable to achieve world dominion.

Cleopatra feared him but loved Mark Antony. Truly loved him. And was willing to participate in all of the outrageous dashing escapades, which the lovable burly Mark Antony participated in all his life. For instance when they were living together in Alexandria, there were times that they would disguise themselves as common people and go out just the two of them alone and carouse in the streets of Alexandria disguised, just to have a lark. There were other times when they would have banquets that they would give and not satisfied with the sumptuousness, invite everyone back the next night and doing all over and even better. Having that kind of a sense of the ultimate grandeur of life.

In fact, they made a pact between themselves. Let’s see if I can find it Plutarch here. Read you a few sentences about their pact. The first pact, the Greek word was emimetobion. E-m-i-m-e-t-o-b-i-o-n. emimetobion, which was a pact that their life should be incomparable. That they would do everything they could for each other to make sure that their lives were the most incomparable lives that human beings could live. And that other those friends of theirs, associates of theirs could enter into this pact and participate in the grandest life conceivable. This was their idea of living.

It changed after the vicissitudes of battle began to show. Antony and Cleopatra were together on and off for about 14 years. And towards the end of it they changed the nature of the pact and the name of the pact. And the second one they called synaptoman. S-y-n-a-p-t-o-m-a-n. Synaptoman, which has Plutarch translates, signifying the order and agreement of those that will die together. In other words, the handwriting's on the wall. We are all doomed. We are going to die. We're going to die together. So, what we have is an even more sumptuous life than before, because there we were looking at life going on and now, we are seeing it with that ironic, tragic bitterness with it that we know that our time is very short. So, they signed this pact. They wrote these things out. And those around them participated in this. Sumptuous. Sumptuous.

Plutarch goes on to note that while this was happening characteristic of Cleopatra while she was [inaudible] her man and their friends in the grandest possible way, Cleopatra in the meantime was very careful in gathering all sorts of poisons together. She would experiment with herbal poisons, with various poisonous snakes and so forth. Trying experimentally to find what was the easiest way to die of poison. And finally came to the conclusion that the bite of the asp was the most humane easy way to endure a poisonous death. That with the bite of this snake, the asp, one suffered a little bit of a headache, but it was more like a heaviness at the head. One suffered a sense of gentle growing fatigue and a sleepiness. And then an end very, very quickly.

She then began commissioning to be built an enormous vault next to the temple of Isis in Alexandria. And in this enormous vault as it was being finished and constructed, she had moved there from all of the treasuries in Alexandria the sum total of all the valuable objects that the Ptolemy’s had gotten through 300 years of dynastic rule. Everything of great value and outstanding position. She began accruing in there. And then let leak this information to Augustus. And Augustus, of course, being after Empire realizing that this tremendous treasure could be lost if this young lady would set a fire to this place, began to send in treaties to her that perhaps they could talk. After all, hadn't she been a friend of his uncles? And really, he didn't hold it against her that she had drawn Mark Antony back into her clutches. I don't think Octavian says clutches.

It was particularly pointed because Mark Antony had had a hiatus in his relationship with Cleopatra. He had had several years where he had been welcomed into Augustus’ inner circle by the traditional path of Augustus giving his sister Octavia in marriage to Mark Antony. And Octavia was one of the most elegant noble ladies of world history. Absolute gem of a person. And she maintained all through this tremendous civil war that developed Marc Antony's house in Rome with all of the children. I think he had seven children by three wives. Plus, some of her children from a previous marriage. And was constantly sort of in the public mind, what was to our mind in the forties, the image of Eleanor Roosevelt. Somebody who was impeccably a fine lady who was doing the right thing all the time. And if you did anything against her, you must be the worst person in the world.

And Octavian of course kept this as his ace in the hole that the populous of Rome could instantly be brought to a boiling hate of a Marc Antony to his callous treatment of his wife Octavia and to all of their children here in this house. And that wasn't her brother justified on those grounds alone to go after.

Mark Antony of course realized that he probably could best Octavian in a field of battle. He was a very great General. A very great military mind. And he also had the tremendous resources economically of Egypt behind him. Octavian, on the other hand, after a generation of war the population of Rome began to be so decimated that after Augustus established the principate, they had to make a rule whereby men in their twenties and thirties could not leave Rome for several years. The population was very low.

And Octavian in order to raise finances for an army to oppose Mark Antony had to assess an overall immediate tax on every Roman citizen of 25%, which is almost unbearable. Almost unbearable. On the other hand, Mark Antony had literally the wealth of Asia at his command. He raised an army of some 120,000 men. He had a fleet of over 800 ships. And the confidence that on a field of battle, this young, rather sickly lad who had grown up, but still in all, he was no match for the great Mark Antony.

But Antony had this weakness for Cleopatra. He had the weakness of the sense of reinstating I think the old idea that had come from the early Ptolemies. And I'll go into it more on Saturday if you're interested. But Ptolemy Soter and his wife Berenice had been styled the savior Gods. The two of them, the pair. And their next generation, Philadelphus and his wife, second wife, Arsinoe II had been styled the brother God, the [inaudible]. And his son Euergetes and his wife had been styled the good doing God. So that there was a tradition all through the Ptolemaic dynasties that the man and the woman together form universal being who right to rule the whose efficacy out ruling was held in death. Not so much a polarity, but a complementarity between the two of them on the divine level.

And really this was exactly the kind of metaphysical thinking that would be very realistic to the new Isis. And of course, her devotion to Marc Antony was legitimate because she saw him as her consort. Her universal other half, which gave her the right in her time to manifest the old Ptolemaic power. The right to Empire because we exemplify the will of the Gods.

All this time though Mark Antony, as a military General, would be listening to Cleopatra's advice. And her advice was let’s fight a naval battle. We don't need a land battle. We have 800 ships. But the problem was many of those ships were built for display. They had 8 or 10 rows of oars. Very hard to maneuver in the water. But what was even more telling where they did not have trained crews. Antony had to send his lieutenants around to conscript farm boys and shopkeepers to man these ships. And if you've ever tried to row, you know that after an hour or so if you're not experienced, you're done.

Octavian had only 300 ships, but they were all maned by experience waterman, as they called them. And when he put to sea, he surprised Antony by a sudden move at a place called Actium. And Antony tried to decoy Augustus by having his ships all lined up as if about to sail out [inaudible]. And it stopped Augustus for a day or so. But very quick after that, the battle was taken on. Antony tried to take his land troops and put them onto the deck of the ships because he had so many of them, but it just decimated the army. And they being unused to being on board and Octavian pressing his advantage, pressing his advantage. And he was beaten.

And Augustus followed them to Egypt. And he landed first at Pelusium and then began marching his army across the Egypt, across the Delta. And all this while Antony and Cleopatra trying to figure some way to make it through. Antony had even built this tremendous mole or this pier out into the harbor of Alexandria. And built a little hut at end of this peninsula and he called it Timonium. But then this cynic in Athens called Timon. Shakespeare did a play Timon of Athens. This cynic who did not want to be around any kind of man. He thought that man was the worst beast in the world. And so, he lived a life of a hermit loneliness and cynic bitterness. So, Mark Antony built this Timonium, this building of Timon for him to live in. I think he was there for a few weeks. And finally, Cleopatra brought him back into the Palace.

And Antony meantime, finding himself more and more liable to rages because he had let slip through his fingers that which he so well could have done. Could have won and did not. And in these rages more and more Cleopatra finally sealed herself and two serving women into this tremendous vault with the treasure. And Mark Antony thinking that she had killed herself. Thinking that this was the old Egyptian tomb finally [inaudible] went into his quarters with a faithful servant named Eros who had been trained for years and years by Antony, that when he gave him the signal that he should take Antony's life. But the faithful servant Eros instead turned the sword on himself and killed himself in front of the master and fell to his feet. Plutarch says, Antony cried out, Eros you have shown me the better Roman way to go. And took his own sword but rather ineptly ran himself through. And lying on his couch beginning to drip and ooze with his life essence.

Word came that Cleopatra was in fact still alive. So, the faithful servants carried this battered body bleeding of Antony out across the Palace courtyards. Across the, the areas where the theaters were. Across the great street of [inaudible] up to the next to the theater, the temple of Isis. And Cleopatra and two of her serving ladies lowered some rope and things from an aperture up above. And with great travail raised this bleeding body of Mark Antony up the wall and in the air. And ancient historians said it must've been the most tragic sight of all to see this incredible weeping Queen of Egypt lifting her dying Prince consort up to their final resting place.

But she did not in fact die there. Augustus always ready with a strategy. Always thinking in terms of coming in one way or another decoyed Cleopatra out with a promise threat, both at the same time. Sort of a bittersweet technique that he was master of. That she had several children to care for. And in fact, she had children by his uncle, Julius Caesar. Particularly one Caesarian for whom this vast temple on the waterway of Alexandria had been built. Caesarian. And Augustus assured her that if she wanted Caesarian to have his portion of his heritage, she'd better remain alive to see that it was done.

And in this regard, she brought herself out and after several days of talking with Augustus. She was a mess by this time. Sort of a self-flagellation had produced ulcer sores on her body. And she was, had scratched herself into almost a tattered mess. And this once proud Queen of arcane Egypt was the sorrow for a sight. And Augustus of course, had her cleaned up as best as could be. But in talking with him, she asked permission to bury Mark Antony with honors, which he did. And then at the supper afterwards, she had a friend of her is bringing a basket of figs. And hidden under the leaves of the figs was an asp. So that in a very painless way, she would reach in for a fig and not even seeing it, not even having to look at it. The asp bit her and she died.

And this of course disappointed Augustus great greatly because he'd wanted her to be the central ornament of his triumph in Rome. So, he did what the Caesars would do thereafter. He made a gold statue of her with complete with the asp on her forearm. And this was the central object of his triumphal [inaudible] into Rome establishing the first world Empire.

Well, the figures of Cleopatra and Julius Caesar, and we'll get to Augusta more next week, are important to us because they [inaudible] the farthest stretches of fancy. Of human power grasping on the authoritative level. On the aggressive level.

And I think those of you who were here last year or was it two years ago when I did a lecture on the difference between aspiration and authority. That the Roman spirit works on aspiration and its guiding star is inspiration. And the material world works on hierarchical authority. And there's always the trying to fortify the demands of authority by seizing power and making the state of mind and consciousness that can utilize this power and authority. And seek to regiment in a blocky ordering way, a parceling out of reality, into individual human beings who are linked together by belief systems that have as there underpinning this agreed upon purpose that there must be authority. There must be someone in charge. And that opposed to the spiritual way of aspiration, where what is in charge is the universal process, which is on flowing. And we participate in its manifestations and focuses. But we do not have it. Nor do we buy any stress and imagination and [inaudible] to dominate it.

So, Caesar and Cleopatra really show us the prototypes of those authoritarians’ figures who were produced not by their own design, but by inevitable slide of history in the ancient world, which produced them. And the final culmination, the successful authoritarian figure who, and one human person would be Emperor of the world. And we'll see that individual next week and Augustus.
And it's important for us spiritually to be able to experience again, in some storytelling way, which I imagined these are, these lectures here, how that came about and what that amounted to. So that once having seen those images and those flowerings, the best that could be expected from that kind of a worldview. And then see that it held absolutely no stability whatsoever. That the very next generation unraveled it to that which we can hardly believe now, gives us an insight into the dead-end signs.

Santayana the great American philosopher responsible for that wonderful well quoted phrase. If we don't remember history, we are condemned to repeat it again and again and again. And for us, I think these Roman episodes are most enlightening.

Well, I hope that you're here for Ptolemaic Alexandria on Saturday. I’ve been working hard on that one. Thank you.

END OF RECORDING