Hand of Isis (52 page)
Pharos—the Lighthouse of Alexandria, one of the wonders of the ancient world
philhellene—“lover of Greece,” a person who admires or adopts Hellenistic culture
Phoebe the Thracian—Charmian’s mother, bought as a slave in Histria on the Black Sea by Ptolemy Auletes’ agent because of her blond prettiness. She was originally from Vindobona, near modern-day Vienna.
Pollio, Ansinius—Roman general, born in 75 bce. He served with Caesar in Gaul and Hispania, and then supported the Triumvirs against the Conspirators. He refused to join Octavian and Agrippa at Actium, saying that he would not fight against Antonius, a stand that ended his military career. He then took charge of many of the books that had been looted from Alexandria and with them started Rome’s first public library. He also became the patron of Virgil before the Emperor Augustus did, and was a critic of the
Aeneid
as a work in progress. He died in 4 ce.
Pompeius Gnaeus—Oldest son of Pompeius Magnus, he proved to be of little worth as a general. Ultimately defeated by Caesar.
Pompeius Magnus (Pompey the Great)—Roman general who became the First Man of Rome, dominating Roman politics for a generation. Father of Gnaeus and Sextus Pompeius by his first wife, he later married Caesar’s daughter, Julia. Champion of the Senate in first part of the Roman Civil Wars.
Postumus, Rabirius—Roman banker, a client of Pompeius Magnus
Pothinus—chief counselor to Ptolemy Theodorus
Praaspa—a Parthian city, now in northwest Iran
praefectus—military rank, the commander of a cavalry ala
Ptolemy Auletes (Ptolemy XII)—Cleopatra’s father, who ruled Egypt from 80 bce to 51 bce. In their lifetimes, the Ptolemies were not known by number, but by epithet. Auletes means the “flute player,” either because he was known as a young man for playing that instrument, or possibly because his round cheeks looked like a blowing flutist. The son of Ptolemy X, he was married first to his half-sister, Tryphaena, and later to a second queen.
Ptolemy Caesarion (Ptolemy XIV)—Son of Cleopatra and Julius Caesar, he ruled as Pharaoh jointly with his mother from 44 bce to 30 bce.
Ptolemy Philadelphos (Ptolemy II)—Son of Ptolemy I and the second Pharaoh of the dynasty, he reigned from 285 bce to 246 bce. He is credited with building Pharos, the Lighthouse of Alexandria, one of the wonders of the ancient world.
Ptolemy Philadelphos—son of Cleopatra and Marcus Antonius. He was born in 36 bce and died sometime before 20 bce. It was suspected he was poisoned.
Ptolemy Soter (Ptolemy I, Son of Lagos)—the founder of the dynasty of the Ptolemies, ruling de facto from 323 bce, officially from 305 bce to 282 bce. He was one of Alexander the Great’s generals, and later became one of the greatest Pharaohs of Egypt.
Ptolemy Theodorus (Ptolemy XIII)—younger half-brother of Cleopatra, the oldest surviving son of Ptolemy Auletes
quinquereme—a galley with five banks of oars, usually a warship
Rhenus River—the Rhine
Royal Quarter—The section of Alexandria reserved for palaces and the dwellings of nobles, it also had a cemetery and its own dockyards.
Sais—city on the westernmost branch of the Nile
Saturnalia—the Roman winter solstice festival, celebrated December 17–23 with candles, gift-giving, and feasting
Sekhmet—Egyptian goddess of war, portrayed with the head of a lioness
Senate, Roman—the governing body of Rome, made up of 900 unelected wealthy and notable men who had been appointed to serve
Serapis—God of Harvest and of the Underworld, by the Hellenistic period Serapis had taken on many of the characteristics of Osiris, and is the husband of Isis.
Sheba—Charmian’s cat brought back with her from Bubastis
Sigismund—German bodyguard of Caesar’s, then of Marcus Antonius’, originally from the area of modern Koln on the Rhine
Soma—Alexander’s magnificent mausoleum in Alexandria. By the time of Cleopatra’s reign, it was one of the best-known tourist destinations in the ancient world.
Spartacus—a gladiator and slave who led a slave revolt in Italy from 73 bce to 71 bce
-spatha—the long, slightly curved sword used by cavalry Auxilliaries, longer than a gladius and intended for slashing instead of thrusting
Subura—slum neighborhood of Rome
Successor Kingdoms—Upon the death of Alexander the Great, his empire splintered into a number of Hellenistic states, called the Successor Kingdoms, of which Egypt is one.
Sulla (Lucius Cornelius Sulla Felix)—Roman dictator who lived from 138 bce to 78 bce, known for his ruthlessness and Machiavellian politics
Theocritus—tutor of Ptolemy Theodorus
Thoth—Egyptian God of Learning, seen as an ibis
tribune—Roman military rank given to men of good family, the lowest rank of “commissioned officer”
Triumph—a Roman civil and military procession to honor a victorious general for defeat of an enemy
Tryphaena—Ptolemy Auletes’ first wife, the mother of Cleopatra; also the name of Ptolemy Auletes’ oldest daughter, born in 80 bce
turma—the smallest cavalry unit, consisting of about 30 men
uraeus—the sacred serpent of Egypt, a rearing cobra worn on the front of the crown or sometimes alone on a circlet
Vercingetorix—Gaulish tribal leader who led the most successful resistance to Rome in Gaul. He was defeated at the Battle of Alesia and executed following Caesar’s Gallic Triumph.
While this list is by no means exhaustive, these are some of the books which have been especially helpful to me in writing
Hand of Isis
. I also especially recommend the online resources available at
www.neosalexandria.org
.
Adkins, Lesley, and Roy A. Adkins.
Handbook to Life in Ancient Rome
. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1994.
Chaveau, Michel.
Egypt in the Age of Cleopatra
. Paris: Hachette, 1997.
Cullen, John T.
A Walk in Ancient Rome
. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2005.
Dando-Collins, Stephen.
Cleopatra’s Kidnappers
. New York: John Wiley and Sons, 2006.
———.
Mark Antony’s Heroes
. New York: John Wiley and Sons, 2007.
Goddio, Franck, et al.
Alexandria: the Submerged Royal Quarter
. London: Periplus Ltd., 1998.
Grant, Michael.
Cleopatra
. New York: Barnes and Noble Books, 1995.
———.
From Alexander to Cleopatra: The Hellenistic World
. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1982.
Hughes-Hallett, Lucy.
Cleopatra: Histories, Dreams and Distortions
. London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 1990.
Kaufman, Cathy.
Cooking in Ancient Civilizations
. London: Greenwood Press, 2006.
Pollard, Justin, and Howard Reid.
The Rise and Fall of Alexandria, Birthplace of the Modern Mind
. New York: Viking, 2006.
Saunders, Nicholas J.
Alexander’s Tomb
. New York: Basic Books, 2006.
Sauneron, Serge.
The Priests of Ancient Egypt
. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2000.
Weeks, Kent R.
Valley of the Kings.
Vercelli, Italy: White Star SRL, 2001.
Witt, R. E.
Isis in the Ancient World
. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1997.
Hand of Isis
began with a challenge. In 2005, Tanja Kinkel challenged me to write a scene for her with Gaius Julius Caesar. This was quite a tall order, but the result was the scene in which Charmian confronts Caesar on the balcony while they are all his prisoners in Alexandria, when she is trying to find out what he wants. Tanja liked the scene quite a lot, and said something on the order of “There’s your next book!” Indeed it was, and I am deeply grateful to her for both the challenge and the encouragement!
There are many others without whom
Hand of Isis
would not have been written. I am especially grateful to Anne-Elisabeth Moutet, who amused me in the darkest moments with a great many crocodiles, and to Victoria Cahn, who did an amazingly fast continuity read-through when I no longer was certain what my own name was! I also would like to thank those who provided wonderful feedback and suggestions in the writing process: Lesley Arnold, Rachael Baylis, Gretchen Brinkerhoff, Katy Catlin, Mary Day, Danielle D’Onofrio, Phoebe Duncan, Claudia Gray, Mara Greengrass, Imogen Hardy, Courtney Jenkins, Nathan Jensen, Ann Kassos, Anna Kiwiel, Sharon Klug, Gretchen Lang, Wanda Lybarger, Gabrielle Lyons, Kathryn McCulley, Erin Simonich, Lena Strid, Jeff Tan, Casimira Walker-Smith, and Robert Waters.
I am also tremendously grateful to my editor, Devi Pillai, who was endlessly patient with my foibles, and my wonderful agent, Robin Rue.
I do not have words enough to express my appreciation to my partner, Amy, who managed to survive the writing of this book with grace and humor!
What is it that interested you in this period? Why did you decide to write a book set in the court of Cleopatra?
I admit I’m kind of warped on the subject! The 1960 movie
Cleopatra
is the first grown-up movie I remember seeing—on broadcast television with all the “good” parts taken out—when I was five. I was absolutely blown away, completely entranced! I wanted to go live there, and I started playing Egypt right away with my stuffed animals and my little sister. We had a stuffed raccoon we said was Mark Antony and another who was Julius Caesar. Ptolemy was a duck. Cleopatra was a somewhat stout koala bear, for reasons I can’t imagine. Octavian was a lean and hungry calico rabbit. So I’ve been obsessed with this period for a long time!
Even at the time, though, I remember thinking, “There are bits in the movie that aren’t quite right. There are things I’d do differently. The whole scene when Cleopatra is leaving Rome isn’t scary enough. And Mark Antony can’t be there . . .” So quite some years later I had to have a stab at the story myself.
How long did it take you to write
Hand of Isis?
Nine months. I really started in September 2007 and finished in June 2008, though I had begun the research about three months before that.
Do you find that real-life events are reflected in your books at all?
Not intentionally, in the sense of writing allegory. However, because my books are based on actual historical events there are often things that have remained constant or that continue to be true. For example, Marcus Antonius had a terrible time trying to conquer Parthia—and I think we can see from recent events in Iraq that it hasn’t gotten any easier to control that same territory. It was a difficult thing to do two thousand years ago, and it remains a difficult thing.
Do you use any of your personal experiences in
Hand of Isis?
Very much so! I worked in politics for fifteen years, principally in advocacy and event planning, and there is certainly a lot of what I learned evident in Charmian’s job! One of the things I initially thought fascinating about her as a character was her job—being personal assistant to a female head of state would be an amazing job to have, and to do events that were so memorable that everyone wrote about them and that their descriptions have a fabulous Hollywood feel to them two thousand years later—Charmian is like the patron saint of event planners! And because I know how to do it, I can see all of the work and tremendous creativity that must have gone into producing those kinds of events. I have amazing respect for it.
Why did you decide on Charmian as a narrator?
I very much wanted to tell the Egyptian side of the story. All of the original sources, every single one, were written by Cleopatra’s enemies. And even so she fascinates. I wanted to dig down and find her side of the story, told by a very partisan narrator, her sister.
One of your themes seems to be sacrifice. Could you elaborate on that a little?
Modern people are very uncomfortable with sacrifice. We view it as something negative most of the time. I think we’ve lost sight of the necessity for some people to give—not their lives, necessarily—but their time, their energy, and to give up what they want for the greater good. That’s something that does come up again and again in this book. Good people cannot always do what they want, because they have responsibilities, because there are consequences.
There are going to be people who blink at Charmian having a ménage à trois with Emrys and Dion. Why did you decide to do it this way?
I think we have the misperception that our idea of the nuclear family, based on the romantic relationship between husband and wife, is in some way universal, or has always been the only way families worked. We disregard the many cultures around the world where most people live in extended families; we disregard the modern nations that practice polygamy; and we disregard the trend in the First World for more and more people to remain unmarried. We also have forgotten that in the very recent past, in the last two hundred years, we’ve completely changed the character of marriage from something lifelong and irreversible based on an economic contract between families to a possibly temporary romantic relationship between two people.
In Charmian’s time, when most marriages were arranged for economic reasons, men were not expected to be in love with their wives and certainly not expected to be physically faithful. The Stoics were pretty much alone in saying that men should be celibate outside of marriage! Many men, like Emrys, had a wife and a lover both. The thing that’s a bit unusual about it is that Dion is very much taking on the role of the wife and Charmian that of the lover!
I think it takes some putting one’s head around that bisexuality is the male norm. Men are expected to like sex—with a partner of either gender. Dion is a little strange because he doesn’t sleep with women at all.
Do you have a soundtrack for this book? Are there songs that inspire you?
Absolutely! I think the song that encapsulates Charmian the best is Loreena McKennitt’s “Beneath a Phrygian Sky.” I have listened to that song over and over again, and I hear Charmian every time.
Another song I’ve listened to over and over for inspiration is Elton John’s “Candle in the Wind 1997,” the version he did for Princess Diana. I think the adulation, fascination, and grief for Princess Diana is the closest modern analogy to what people must have felt for Cleopatra—everyone’s daughter, mother, and fantasy, with crowds screaming her name as she worked the ropeline as though she were the avatar of a goddess. England’s Rose, Elton John calls her. And Diana was felt around the globe. I was recently in the state motor vehicles office waiting in line, and “Candle in the Wind 1997” came on the radio. The woman behind me, an older woman who certainly wasn’t English, started sniffling. I caught her eye sympathetically and she said, “She was something special, wasn’t she? And she loved those boys of hers. It’s a cruel thing to lose her, cruel for everybody.” That’s how people must have felt about Cleopatra. That’s how the legend began. Like Princess Diana, Cleopatra must have touched people’s hearts. Which is a difficult thing to write, but the song gave me a touchstone.
Did you have any issues unique to the time or place that made
Hand of Isis
harder to write?
I think one of my main problems, one that I struggled with constantly, was linguistic. Koine Greek is a very rich language, and often there are words for which there is no English equivalent. For example, we use the word “love” to mean a variety of things—the love of a mother for a child, the love between friends, the love between student and teacher, the love between lovers, and the love of mankind. In Koine they’re all different words. For example, when Charmian is talking about how she feels about Emrys and Dion, in English the word is “love.” But what she’d actually be saying is two different words: “eros” for Emrys, whom she loves as a romantic partner, and “philia” for Dion, whom she loves as a brother. It would be very clear what she meant. And I wound up tied in knots like that all of the time.
Who is your favorite character in
Hand of Isis?
I love them all dearly, but I admit that Dion holds a special place in my heart. I do adore him. I felt that Ashterah got a bad deal in
Black Ships,
and so it was good to give Dion room to grow and have an interesting life. And I just had to give him credit for the self-propelled scenery! Hero of Alexandria is officially the inventor, a generation later, but I think it was really Dion!
One of the fascinating things in
Hand of Isis
is the technology. How much of it is real?
All of it! One of the amazing things about Alexandria in this period is how very modern it is. If the pace of learning and technological growth had continued, it’s possible that Dion may have been right that they could have gone to the moon in a few centuries. There was a working model of a steamship, only in Egypt wood was so expensive that it was pointless to build one. The Antikythera Device was an analog computer that worked on gears and clockwork! Crude oil was already being refined into naptha, which today is best known as camp stove fuel. The aeliopile was a steam-powered jet engine. It is quite possible that if the Ptolemaic Dynasty had not fallen, and the Library and Museum had continued to be the first top-notch research facility in the world, that the year 500 ce would have seen telescopes and atmospheric flight rather than the decline of civilization into the Dark Ages.
What’s next for you?
I’m going back to the founding of Alexandria next—to the death of Alexander the Great and the first years of Ptolemaic Egypt. Want to come along?