A Friend of Caesar Part 53

"Forward! I will lead you against the enemy!"

No need of second command. The maniples rushed onward as though the men were runners in a race, not soldiers clothed in armour. Drusus flew down the ranks and swung the farthest cohorts into alignment with the others. There was not a moment to lose.

"Now, men, if ye be indeed soldiers of Caesar, at them!"

Drusus was astounded at the resonance of his own voice; a thousand others caught up the shout.

"_Venus victrix!_" And straight into the teeth of the galloping hosts charged the thin line of infantry.

The line was weak, its members strong. They were rural Italians, uncorrupted by city life, hardy, G.o.d-fearing peasants and sons of peasants, worthy descendants of the men who died in the legions at Cannae, or triumphed at the Metaurus. Steady as on a review the six cohorts bore down into action. And when they struck the great ma.s.s of hors.e.m.e.n they thrust their pila into the riders' eyes and prodded the steeds. The foremost cavalrymen drew rein; the horses reared. The squadrons were colliding and plunging. In an eye's twinkling their momentum had been checked.

"Charge! Charge!" Drusus sent the word tossing down along the cohorts, and the legionaries pressed forward. It was done. The whole splendid array of hors.e.m.e.n broke in rout; they went streaming back in disordered squadrons over the plain, each trooper striving to outride his fellow in the flight. Pompeius had launched his most deadly bolt, and it had failed.

Now was Drusus's chance. No further order had been given him; to pursue cavalry with infantry were folly; he needed no new commands.

The six cohorts followed his lead like machinery. The crash of battle dimmed his voice; the sight of his example led the legionaries on.

They fell on the Pompeian archers and slingers and dispersed them like smoke. They wheeled about as on a pivot and struck the enemy's left wing; struck the Pompeian fighting line from the rear, and crushed it betwixt the upper and nether millstone of themselves and the tenth legion. Drusus drove into the very foremost of the fight; it was no longer a press, it was flight, pursuit, slaughter, and he forced his horse over one enemy after another--transformed, transfigured as he was into a demon of destruction, while the delirium of battle gained upon him.

Drusus saw the figure of a horseman clothed, like Caesar, in a red general's cloak spurring away to the enemy's camp. He called to his men that Pompeius had taken panic and fled away; that the battle was won. He saw the third line of the Caesarians drive through the Pompeian centre and right as a plough cuts through the sandy field, and then spread terror, panic, rout--the battle became a ma.s.sacre.

So the Caesarians hunted their foes over the plain to the camp. And, though the sun on high rained down a pitiless heat, none faltered when the Imperator bade them use their favour with Fortune, and lose not a moment in storming the encampment. They a.s.sailed the ramparts. The Pompeian reserve cohorts stood against them like men; the Thracian and other auxiliary light troops sent down clouds of missiles--of what avail? There are times when mortal might can pa.s.s seas of fire and mountains of steel; and this was one of those moments. The Pompeians were swept from the ramparts by a pitiless shower of javelins. The panic still was upon them; standards of cohorts, eagles of legions, they threw them all away. They fled--fled casting behind s.h.i.+elds, helmets, swords, anything that hindered their running. The hills, the mountain tops, were their only safety. Their centurions and tribunes were foremost among the fugitives. And from these mountain crests they were to come down the next morning and surrender themselves prisoners to the conquerors--pet.i.tioners for their lives.

Not all were thus fated. For in the flight from the camp Domitius fell down from fatigue, and Marcus Antonius, whose hand knew no weariness, neither his heart remorse or mercy, slew him as a man would slay a snake. And so perished one of the evil spirits that hounded Pompeius to his death, the Roman oligarchy to its downfall.

Drusus sought far and wide for Lentulus and Lucius Ahen.o.barbus. The consular had fought on the most distant wing, and in the flight he and his mortal enemy did not meet. Neither did Drusus come upon the younger son of the slain Domitius. Fortune kept the two asunder. But slaying enough for one day the young Livian had wrought. He rode with Caesar through the splendid camp just captured. The flowers had been twined over the arbours under which the victory was to be celebrated; the plate was on the tables; choice viands and wines were ready; the floors of the tents were covered with fresh sods; over the pavilion of Lentulus Crus was a great shade of ivy. The victors rode out from the arbours toward the newly taken ramparts. There lay the dead, heaps upon heaps, the patrician dress proclaiming the proud lineage of the fallen; Claudii, Fabii, aemilii, Furii, Cornelii, Semp.r.o.nii, and a dozen more great _gentes_ were represented--scions of the most magnificent oligarchy the world has ever seen. And this was their end!

Caesar pa.s.sed his hand over his forehead and pressed his fingers upon his eyes.

"They would have it so," he said, in quiet sadness, to the little knot of officers around him. "After all that I had done for my country, I, Caius Caesar, would have been condemned by them like a criminal, if I had not appealed to my army."

And so ended that day and that battle. On the field and in the camp lay dead two hundred Caesarians and fifteen thousand Pompeians.

Twenty-four thousand prisoners had been taken, one hundred and eighty standards, nine eagles. As for the Magnus, he had stripped off his general's cloak and was riding with might and main for the seacoast, accompanied by thirty hors.e.m.e.n.

Chapter XXII

The End of the Magnus

I

The months had come and gone for Cornelia as well as for Quintus Drusus, albeit in a very different manner. The war was raging upon land and sea. The Pompeian fleet controlled all the water avenues; the Italian peninsula was held by the Caesarians. Cornelia wrote several times to old Mamercus at Praeneste, enclosing a letter which she begged him to forward to her lover wherever he might be. But no answer came.

Once she learned definitely that the s.h.i.+p had been captured. For the other times she could imagine the same catastrophe. Still she had her comfort. Rumours of battles, of sieges, and arduous campaigning drifted over the Mediterranean. Now it was that a few days more would see Caesar an outlaw without a man around him, and then Cornelia would believe none of it. Now it was that Pompeius was in sore straits, and then she was all credulity. Yet beside these tidings there were other stray bits of news very dear to her heart. Caesar, so it was said, possessed a young aide-de-camp of great valour and ability, one Quintus Drusus, and the Imperator was already entrusting him with posts of danger and of responsibility. He had behaved gallantly at Ilerda; he had won more laurels at the siege of Ma.s.silia. At Dyrrachium he had gained yet more credit. And on account of these tidings, it may easily be imagined that Cornelia was prepared to be very patient and to be willing to take the trying vicissitudes of her own life more lightly.

As a matter of fact, her own position at Alexandria had begun to grow complicated. First of all, Agias had made one day a discovery in the city which it was exceeding well for Artemisia was not postponed for a later occasion. Pratinas was in Alexandria. The young Greek had not been recognized when, as chance meetings will occur, he came across his one-time antagonist face to face on the street. He had no fears for himself. But Artemisia was no longer safe in the city. Cleomenes arranged that the girl should be sent to a villa, owned by the relatives of his late wife, some distance up the Nile. Artemisia would thus be parted from Agias, but she would be quite safe; and to secure that, any sacrifice of stolen looks and pretty coquetry was cheerfully accepted.

Soon after this unpleasant little discovery, a far more serious event occurred. Pothinus the eunuch, Achillas, the Egyptian commander of the army, and Theodotus, a "rhetoric teacher," whose real business was to spin, not words, but court intrigues, had plotted together to place the young King Ptolemaeus in sole power. The conspiracy ran its course.

There was a rising of the "Macedonian"[180] guard at the palace, a gathering of citizens in the squares of the capital, culminating in b.l.o.o.d.y riots and proclamations declaring the king vested with the only supreme power. Hot on the heels of this announcement it was bruited around the city that Cleopatra had escaped safely to Palestine, where, in due time, she would doubtless be collecting an army at the courts of Hyrca.n.u.s, the Jewish prince, and other Syrian potentates, to return and retake the crown.

[180] Macedonian it is needless to say was a mere name. The Graeco-Egyptian soldiery and citizen body of Alexandria probably had hardly a drop of Macedonian blood in their veins.

Alexandria was accustomed to such dynastic disruptions. The rioting over, the people were ready to go back to the paper and linen factories, and willing to call Ptolemaeus the "Son of Ra," or "King,"

until his sister should defeat him in battle. Cornelia grieved that Cleopatra should thus be forced into exile. She had grown more and more intimate with the queen. The first glamour of Cleopatra's presence had worn away. Cornelia saw her as a woman very beautiful, very wilful, gifted with every talent, yet utterly lacking that moral stability which would have been the crown of a perfect human organism.

The two women had grown more and more in friends.h.i.+p and intimacy; and when Cornelia studied in detail the dark, and often hideous, coils and twistings of the history of the h.e.l.lenistic royal families, the more vividly she realized that Cleopatra was the heiress of generations of legalized license,[181] of cultured sensuality, of veneered cruelty, and sheer blood-thirstiness. Therefore Cornelia had pitied, not blamed, the queen, and, now that misfortune had fallen upon her, was distressed for the plight of Cleopatra.

[181] As, for instance, the repeated wedlock of brothers and sisters among the Ptolemies.

That Cornelia had been an intimate of the queen was perfectly well known in Alexandria. In fact, Cleomenes himself was of sufficiently high rank to make any guest he might long entertain more or less of a public personage. Cornelia was a familiar sight to the crowds, as she drove daily on the streets and attended the theatre. Cleomenes began to entertain suspicions that the new government was not quite pleased to leave such a friend of Cleopatra's at liberty; and Agias took pains to discover that Pratinas was deep in the counsels of the virtual regent--Pothinus. But Cornelia scoffed at any suggestions that it might be safer to leave the city and join Artemisia in the retreat up the Nile. She had taken no part whatsoever in Egyptian politics, and she was incapable of a.s.sisting to restore Cleopatra. As for the possible influence of Pratinas in court, it seemed to her incredible that a man of his caliber could work her any injury, save by the dagger and poison cup. That an ign.o.ble intriguer of his type could influence the policy of state she refused to believe.

Thus it came to pa.s.s that Cornelia had only herself to thank, when the blow, such as it was, fell. The eunuch prime minister knew how to cover his actions with a velvet glove. One evening a splendidly uniformed division of Macedonian guard, led by one of the royal _somatophylakes_,[182] came with an empty chariot to the house of Cleomenes. The request they bore was signed with the royal seal, and was politeness itself. It overflowed with semi-Oriental compliment and laudation; but the purport was clear. On account of the great danger in the city to foreigners from riots--ran the gist of the letter--and the extremely disturbed condition of the times, the king was constrained to request Cornelia and Fabia to take up their residence in the palace, where they could receive proper protection and be provided for in a princely manner, as became their rank.

[182] Commanders of the body-guard.

Cornelia had enough wisdom to see that only by taking the letter for the intentions written on its face could she submit to the implied command without loss of dignity. She had much difficulty in persuading Fabia to yield; for the Vestal was for standing on her Roman prerogatives and giving way to nothing except sheer force. But Cleomenes added his word, that only harm would come from resistance; and the two Roman ladies accompanied the escort back to the palace. It was not pleasant to pa.s.s into the power of a creature like Pothinus, even though the smooth-faced eunuch received his unwilling guests with Oriental salaams and profuse requests to be allowed to humour their least desires. But the restraint, if such it can be called, could hardly take a less objectionable form. Monime and Berenice, as ladies whose father was known as a merchant prince of colourless politics, were allowed free access to their friends at the palace. Young Ptolemaeus, who was a dark-eyed and, at bottom, dark-hearted youth, completely under the thumb of Pothinus, exerted himself, after a fas.h.i.+on, to be agreeable to his visitors; but he was too unfavourable a contrast to his gifted sister to win much grace in Cornelia's eyes.

Agias, who was living with Cleomenes, nominally for the purpose of learning the latter's business, preparatory to becoming a partner on capital to come from his predatory cousin, as a matter of fact spent a great part of his time at the palace also, dancing attendance upon his Roman friends. Pratinas, indeed, was on hand, not really to distress them, but to vex by the mere knowledge of his presence. Cornelia met the Greek with a stony haughtiness that chilled all his professions of desire to serve her and to renew the acquaintance formed at Rome.

Agias had discovered that Pratinas had advised Pothinus to keep his hands on the ladies, especially on Cornelia, because whichever side of the Roman factions won, there were those who would reward suitably any who could deliver her over to them. From this Cornelia had to infer that the defeat of the Caesarians meant her own enthralment to her uncle and Lucius Ahen.o.barbus. Such a contingency she would not admit as possible. She was simply rendered far more anxious. Pratinas had given up seeking Drusus's life, it was clear; his interest in the matter had ended the very instant the chance to levy blackmail on Ahen.o.barbus had disappeared. Pratinas, in fact, Agias learned for her, was never weary ridiculing the Roman oligarchs, and professing his disgust with them; so Cornelia no longer had immediate cause to fear him, though she hated him none the less.

After all, Pratinas thrust himself little upon her. He had his own life to live, and it ran far apart from hers. Perhaps it was as well for Cornelia that she was forced to spend the winter and ensuing months in the ample purlieus of the palace. If living were but the gratification of sensuous indolence, if existence were but luxurious dozing and half-waking, then the palace of the Ptolemies were indeed an Elysium, with its soft-footed, silent, swift, intelligent Oriental servants; rooms where the eye grew weary of rare sculpture or fresco; books drawn from the greatest library in the world--the Museum close at hand; a broad view of the blue Mediterranean, ever changing and ever the same, and of the swarming harbour and the bustling city; and gardens upon gardens shut off from the outside by lofty walls--some great enclosures containing besides forests of rare trees a vast menagerie of wild beasts, whose roarings from their cages made one think the groves a tropical jungle; some gardens, dainty, secluded spots laid out in Egyptian fas.h.i.+on, under the shade of a few fine old sycamores, with a vineyard and a stone trellis-work in the midst, with arbours and little parks of exotic plants, a palm or two, and a tank where the half-tame water-fowl would plash among the lotus and papyrus plants. In such a nook as this Cornelia would sit and read all the day long, and put lotus flowers in her hair, look down into the water, and, Narcissus-like, fall in love with her own face, and tell herself that Drusus would be delighted that she had not grown ugly since he parted with her.

So pa.s.sed the winter and the spring and early summer months; and, however hot and parched might be the city under the burning sun, there was coolness and refreshment in the gardens of the palace.

With it all, however, Cornelia began to wax restive. It is no light thing to command one's self to remain quiet in Sybaritic ease. More and more she began to wish that this b.u.t.terfly existence, this pa.s.sive basking in the sun of indolent luxury, would come to an end. She commenced again to wish that she were a man, with the tongue of an orator, the sword of a soldier, able to sway senates and to lead legions. Pothinus finally discovered that he was having some difficulty in keeping his cage-bird contented. The eunuch had entertained great expectations of being able to win credit and favour with the conquerors among the Romans by delivering over Cornelia safe and sound either to Lentulus Crus or Quintus Drusus. Now he began to fear that Pratinas had advised him ill; that Cornelia and Fabia were incapable of intriguing in Cleopatra's favour, and by his "protection at the palace" he was only earning the enmity of his n.o.ble guests. But it was too late to retrace his steps, and he accordingly plied Cornelia with so many additional attentions, presents, and obsequious flatteries, that she grew heartily disgusted and repined even more over her present situation.

Bad news came, which added to her discomfort. Caesar had been driven from his lines at Dyrrachium. He had lost a great many men. If the Pompeian sources of information were to be believed, he was now really a negligible military factor, and the war was practically over. The tidings fell on Cornelia's soul like lead. She knew perfectly well that the defeat of the Caesarians would mean the death of Quintus Drusus. Her uncle and the Domitii, father and son, would be all powerful, and they never forgave an enmity. As for herself--but she did not think much thereon; if Drusus was slain or executed, she really had very little to live for, and there were many ways of getting out of the world. For the first time since the memorable night of the raid on Baiae, she went about with an aching heart. Fabia, too, suffered, but, older and wiser, comforted Cornelia not so much by what she might say, by way of extending hopes, as by the warm, silent contact of her pure, n.o.ble nature. Monime and Berenice were grieved that their friends were so sad, and used a thousand gentle arts to comfort them. Cornelia bore up more bravely because of the sympathy--she did not have to endure her burden alone, as at Rome and Baiae; but, nevertheless, for her the days crept slowly.

And then out of the gloom came the dazzling brightness. A Rhodian merchantman came speeding into the haven with news. "Is Caesar taken?"

cried the inquisitive crowd on the quay, as the vessel swung up to her mooring. "Is Pompeius not already here?" came back from the deck. And in a twinkling it was all over the city: in the Serapeium, in the Museum, under the colonnades, in the factories, in the palace.

"Pompeius's army has been destroyed. The Magnus barely escaped with his life. Lucius Domitius is slain. Caesar is master of the world!"

Never did the notes of the great water-organ of the palace sound so sweet in any ears as these words in those of the Roman ladies. They bore with complacency a piece of petty tyranny on the part of Pothinus, which at another time they would have found galling indeed.

Report had it that Cleopatra had gathered an army in Syria, and the eunuch, with his royal puppet, was going forth to the frontier town of Pelusium, to head the forces that should resist the invasion. Cornelia and Fabia were informed that they would accompany the royal party on its progress to the frontier. Pothinus clearly was beginning to fear the results of his "honourable entertainment," and did not care to have his guests out of his sight. It was vexatious to be thus at his mercy; but Cornelia was too joyous in soul, at that time, to bear the indignity heavily. They had to part with Monime and Berenice, but Agias went with them; and Cornelia sent off another letter to Italy, in renewed hope that the seas would be clear and it would find its way safely to Drusus.

Very luxurious was the progress of the royal party to Pelusium. The king, his escort, and his unwilling guests travelled slowly by water, in magnificent river barges that were fitted with every requisite or ornament that mind of man might ask or think. They crossed the Lake Mareotis, glided along one of the minor outlets of the delta until they reached the Bolbitinic branch of the Nile, then, by ca.n.a.ls and natural water-courses, worked their way across to Bubastis, and thence straight down the Pelusiac Nile to Pelusium. And thus it was Cornelia caught glimpses of that strange, un-h.e.l.lenized country that stretched away to the southward, tens and hundreds of miles, to Memphis and its pyramids, and Thebes and its temples--ancient, weird, wonderful; a civilization whereof everything was older than human thought might trace; a civilization that was almost like the stars, the same yesterday, to-day, and forever. Almost would Cornelia have been glad if the prows of the barges had been turned up the river, and she been enabled to behold with her own eyes the mighty piles of Cheops, Chephren, Mycerinus, Sesostris, Rhampsinitus, and a score of other Pharaohs whose deeds are recorded in stone imperishable. But the barges glided again northward, and Cornelia only occasionally caught some glimpse of a ma.s.sive temple, under whose huge propylons the priests had chanted their litanies to Pakht or Ptah for two thousand years, or pa.s.sed some boat gliding with its mourners to the necropolis, there to leave the mummy that was to await the judgment of Osiris. And down the long valley swept the hot winds from the realm of the Pygmies, and from those strange lakes and mountains whence issued the boundless river, which was the life-giver and mother of all the fertile country of Egypt.

Thus with a glimpse, all too short, of the "Black Land,"[183] as its native denizens called it, the royal party reached the half-h.e.l.lenized town of Pelusium, where the army was in waiting and a most splendid camp was ready for Ptolemaeus and his train. Cleopatra had not yet advanced. The journey was over, and the novelty of the luxurious quarters provided in the frontier fortress soon died away. Cornelia could only possess her soul in patience, and wonder how long it would be before a letter could reach Italy, and the answer return. Where was Drusus? Had aught befallen him in the great battle? Did he think of her? And so, hour by hour, she repeated her questions--and waited.

[183] "Black" because of the black fertile mud deposited by the inundation.

II

Cleopatra's forces had not reached proportions sufficient for her to risk an engagement, when a little squadron appeared before Pelusium bearing no less a person than Pompeius himself, who sent ash.o.r.e to demand, on the strength of former services to the late King Ptolemaeus Auletes, a safe asylum, and a.s.sistance to make fresh head against the Caesarians. There was a hurried convening of the council of Pothinus--a select company of eunuchs, amateur generals, intriguing rhetoricians.

The conference was long; access to its debates closely guarded. The issue could not be evaded; on the decision depended the reestablishment of the Pompeians in a new and firm stronghold, or their abandonment to further wanderings over the ocean. All Pelusium realized what was at stake, and the excitement ran high.

Cornelia beyond others was agitated by the report of the arrival of the Magnus. Rumour had it that Lucius Lentulus was close behind him.

If the council of Pothinus voted to receive the fugitives, her own position would be unhappy indeed. For a time at least she would fall into the power of her uncle and of Lucius Ahen.o.barbus. She was fully determined, if it was decided to harbour the Pompeians, to try to escape from the luxurious semi-captivity in which she was restrained.

She could escape across the frontier to the camp of Cleopatra, where she knew a friendly welcome was in waiting. Agias, ever resourceful, ever anxious to antic.i.p.ate the slightest wish on the part of the Roman ladies, actually began to bethink himself of the ways and means for a flight. When finally it was announced in the camp and city that Pompeius was to be received as a guest of the king, Cornelia was on the point of demanding of Agias immediate action toward escape.

"In a few days," were her words, "my uncle will be here; and I am undone, if not you also. There is not an hour to lose."