The Memoirs of Cleopatra by Margaret George Page B

Canopic branch of the Nile, Egypt’s finest, Father gulped it. Then, as the dancing began—for actors and musicians were sacred to the god, and inspired by him—Father seemed to go into a trance. He had put on the sacred ivy wreath, and now pulled out his flute and started playing melodies.
    “Dance! Dance!” he ordered everyone around him. The Egyptians obeyed, but the Romans looked on, appalled.
    “I said dance!” the King demanded. He waved his pipes toward one of the visiting Romans, an army engineer.
    “You! There! Demetrius! Dance!”
    Demetrius looked as though he had been ordered to jump into a malarial swamp. “I do not dance,” he said, and turned his back and walked away.
    “Come back here!” The King attempted to catch the fold of his tunic, but tripped instead, and his ivy wreath slipped over one eye. “Oh!”
    A group of Gabinius’s soldiers was snickering. I felt deep shame for my father. I knew he was merely engaging in the time-honored behavior of the Bacchanalia, but those rites had been banned in dignity-conscious Rome. To the Romans, this was just a comic, drunken spectacle.
    “So that’s why he’s nicknamed Auletes— the flute-player,” said a voice nearby. I saw it belonged to Marcus Antonius—or Marc Antony, as he was commonly called.
    “Yes, but the people of Alexandria gave him the name in affection,” I said stiffly. “ They understand about the rites of Dionysus.”
    “So I see.” He gestured around at the crowd.
    Here was another prissy, judgmental Roman—so proper, while imposing themselves on the rest of the world! I glared at him, until I saw that he himself was drinking from a silver goblet. “At least you don’t consider your lips too good to touch Egyptian wine,” I said. As I spoke, he held out his goblet for a costumed server to refill it.
    “Quite passably good,” he said, sipping it. “I’ve a great fondness for wine; I make it my business to test the vintage wherever I go. I’ve had Chian wine, Rhaetic, the undrinkable Coan and Rhodian, and the incomparable Pramnian.” He sounded like a father naming his children.
    “Is the Pramnian really all it is said to be?” I asked, as he seemed so happy to be talking about it.
    “Indeed. It is honey-sweet; they don’t squeeze it from the grapes of Lesbos, they let it ooze out of its own accord.”
    He really was quite relaxed and unpretentious; I found myself liking this Roman. He was handsome, too, in a bullish sort of way: thick neck, wide face, and a frame bulging with muscles.
    “Yes, I understand Dionysus,” he said, more to himself than to me. “I also like actors. In Rome I prefer them to the senators!”
    He broke off as the King came reeling through the crowd, chased by women dressed as Maenads, pursuing the god, shouting and laughing.
    “Dancing is considered immoral in Rome,” he said. “That is why Demetrius refused to dance. Please inform the King of that, when he’s—not the god any longer, but returns to himself.”
    How diplomatic of him to avoid saying when he’s sober again . I did like this young Roman, who seemed so very un-Roman.
     
    But he did not stay in Alexandria long; within a month he and Gabinius had departed, although the three legions were left behind to keep order. The one Roman who should have gone with them stayed—Rabirius, the infamous financier. He was determined to recoup his loan directly from the Egyptians, and forced the King to appoint him finance minister. Then he proceeded to extort huge sums from the populace. The Alexandrians, always with a mind of their own and virtually never subservient, drove him away. Father was lucky that they did not sweep him off the throne again in the process.
    In Rome, both Gabinius and Rabirius had to stand trial before the Senate: Gabinius for disregarding the sacred Sibylline oracle and the decree of the Senate, and Rabirius for serving in an administrative post under a foreign king. Gabinius was forced to go into exile, but