Cleopatra: A Tale of Power and Influence| OKWAVE

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お願いします (11) In 48 BCE, while Cleopatra was away, Pompey came back to Egypt, this time fleeing from Julius Caesar. Since Pompey was Ptolemy's legal guardian, the general thought that the could count on the young king of Egypt to protect him. Instead, Ptolemy allowed his advisors to murder and behead the Roman general. (12) Caesar arrived in Alexandria four days later with 3,200 foot soldiers and 800 cavalrymen. After having Pompey's murderers executed, Caesar took over the royal palace and immediately began giving orders. This news reached Cleopatra in Syria, and she realized that control of Egypt hung in the balance. If power was changing hands, she did not intend to miss out. She smuggled herself back into Alexandria, passing though enemy lines rolled up in a carpet. She was delivered─in the carpet─to Caesar. Imagine his surprise when the carpet was unrolled, and there, before him, was the beautiful young queen of Egypt! (13) Caesar had summoned both Ptolemy and Cleopatra to appear before him. The next morning, when Ptolemy arrived at the palace, he discovered that Cleopatra had gotten there first. It soon became clear to 15-year-old Ptolemy that Caesar and Cleopatra had formed a close alliance. They had, in fact, become lovers. Ptolemy could easily see that Caesar would support Cleopatra's claim to the throne, not his. Shouting that he had been betrayed, Ptolemy stormed out into the streets of Alexandria and started to organize a mob against his sister. (14) Ptolemy gathered an army of 20,000 men. His troops surrounded Caesar, but the great Roman overcame them with his own troops and executed their general. The boy-king drowned in the Nile River while trying to escape.

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お願いします (6) Cleopatra went to the palace school with theother royal princes and princesses. She became fluent in nine languages and was the first member of her family who could speak Egyptian. Cleopatra had tremendous appeal. Even the Greek biographer Plutarch, who disapproved of her behavior, describes her in glowing terms: “The charm of her presence was irresistible, but there was an attraction in her person and conversation, together with a force of character, which showed in her every word and action. Everyone who met her fell under her spell.” (7) When Ptolemy died in 51 BCE, he left his kingdom to the 18-year-old Cleopatra. Even though she was old enough to rule, according to Egyptian law, she couldn't rule alone. Ptolemy's will set up joint rule by Cleopatra and her 12-year-old brother, Ptolemy X III. (8) According to Egyptian tradition, pharaohs married their siblings or children to keep sower within the royal family. Cleopatra had to marry a brother or a son, and this consort would be her official husband. It would be a marriage of politics, not love. Cleopatra had no sons when she came to the throne, so her first co-ruler was Ptolemy XIII. (9) Cleopatra and Ptolemy ruled together for several years, but Cleopatra wasn't very good at sharing. She left her brother's name out of official documents─on purpose─and had her own picture and name stamped on Egyptian coins. This didn't go over very well with Ptolemy. Nor did it please the court officials of Alexandria, the capital city. (10) Alexandria's officials decided that Ptolemy would be easier to control than Cleopatra. so they plotted to overthrow the strong-willed queen. Knowing that her life was in danger, Cleopatra escaped to Syria, where she raised an army to help her regain power.

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お願いします (22) Caesar then restored Cleopatra to her throne and defeated her brother in battle. On his way back to Rome, Caesar passed through Asia. There, he squashed a rebellion in Asia Minor (modern Turkey). In a letter to a friend, he made light of the victory. The letter had only three words: “Veni, vidi, vici.” (“I came, I saw, I conquered.”) Plutarch says that this brief message matched “the sharpness and speed of the battle itself.” Caesar's fans later made placards with these three words written on them, which they carried in his triumphal procession into Rome. (23) When Caesar returned to Rome, he was proclaimed dictator. Then he began the work of healing Rome's terrible war wounds. He gave 100 denarii to every citizen and pardoned his own enemies, even those who had supported Pompey against him, including Cicero and Brutus. (Caesar was especially fond of Brutus. In his youth, Caesar had been in love with Brutus's mother, and he always looked out for her son. Brutus did not return the favor.) (24) During four years of almost absolute power, Caesar passed many laws to control debt, reduce unemployment, and regulate traffic in Rome. He levied taxes on foreign imports to boost Rome's economy. He put unemployed Romans to work building a new Forum and a large public building named in his family's honor: the Basilica Julia. He planned the first public library and built embankments along the Tiber to protect the city against floods. He revised the old Roman calendar, replacing it with the one that we use today, beginning with January. (25) Julius Caesar was perhaps the most extraordinary of all ancient Romans─a senator, military leader, and dictator of Rome. But he was also a poet, a brilliant historian who wrote about his military victories, and the only orator of his day who could compete with Cicero. His personal charm brought him the loyalty of men and the love of women.

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お願いします (16) Pompey would have liked more time to train his troops; they were not as battle- ready as Caesar's army. When Caesar's troops entered Italy, Pompey's soldiers panicked and many deserted. Pompey gathered what troops he could and escaped from Rome just before Caesar arrived. Caesar had Pompey on the run. (17) Caesar entered Rome for the first time in nine years. He found the government in chaos. Again, he didn't hold back but set to work right away. He asked the Senate to join forces with him to avoid more bloodshed. He chose Mark Antony as his chief lieutenant─next in command. Then, delegating power to other trusted generals, Caesar himself set out for Greece. There he defeated Pompey's army in 48 BCE. (18) Plutarch reports that when Caesar saw the dead Romans lying on the field, he groaned and said: “They made this happen;they drove me to it.” (19) News of Caesar's victory was greeted back home with wild excitement. His popularity soared, and Rome elected him to a second consulship. (20) Meanwhile Pompey had escaped to Egypt, arriving in the midst of a civil war between 15-year-old King Ptolemy XIII and his older sister, Cleopatra VII. Ptolemy believed that Caesar would follow his rival to Egypt, and he was right. So he prepared a surprise for the general. Hoping to please Caesar and lure him to his side against Cleopatra, Ptolemy's advisors captured Pompey and cut off his head. Then they pickled it in brine. They expected Caesar to be delighted, but they were wrong. (21) When Caesar arrived in Egypt, Ptolemy presented Caesar with Pompey's pickled head─the head of the noble Roman who had been his rival but also his friend and former son-in-law. Disgusted and pained, Caesar turned away and wept. He commanded that Pompey's body be buried with honor. And he ordered the execution of the Egyptians who had murdered a great leader of the Roman people.

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お願いします (20) Antony was married, but he fell for Cleopatra like a fish taking the bait. He spent the winter with her in Alexandria. It seemed that she could get anything she wanted from him. He even began to wear Eastern clothes instead of the traditional Roman toga. sometimes, for fun, Antony and Cleopatra dressed as slaves or servants and roamed the streets playing pranks on anyone they met. According to Plutarch, the people of Alexandria were charmed at the sight of a Roman general behaving in such a silly way. “The Alexandrians...enjoyed taking part in these amusements.... They liked Antony personally and used to say that he put on his tragic mask for the Romans, but kept the comic one for them.” (21) Meanwhile, Caesar's heir, Octavian was still in Rome. He and Antony had been partners. They had defeated and killed Caesar's assassins and were now supposedly ruling the empire together. But when Antony's wife became involved in a civil war against Octavian, Antony had to leave Cleopatra and return to Rome to deal with the crisis. His wife became ill and died, leaving Antony free to marry again. He could have chosen Cleopatra, but he made a political marriage instead. He married Octavian's sister, Octavia─a beautiful, intelligent widow. She and Antony had a daughter. Back in Egypt, though, Cleopatra had already given birth to Antony's children, a twin boy and girl. (22) Even though Octavia was expecting their second child, Mark Antony suddenly went back to Alexandria...and Cleopatra, whom he married under Egyptian law. Octavian was furious. His sister had been rejected and shamed. He declared war against Antony and Cleopatra.

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お願いします (1) Ptolemy XII was pharaoh of Egypt, the wealthiest country in the Mediterranean world. Ptolemy loved to party─he was called “The Flute Player” because he was so fond of music. But Ptolemy was not just a playful fellow. He was also a troublesome one, so troublesome that his own people wanted him out. They booted him from power in 58 BCE and put his eldest daughter, Berenice, on the throne instead. (2) Ptolemy fought back. He traveled to Rome and bribed the general Ptolemy to support him against Berenice. Ptolemy took troops to Egypt, defeated Berenice's supporters, and returned the playboy king to his throne. In gratitude, Ptolemy named Ptolemy as legal guardian to his eldest son. Ptolemy then gave orders for Berenice to be beheaded. (3) Who was this man who ordered his own daughter's death? (4) Ptolemy XII was actually a Greek. His long-ago ancestor, the first Ptolemy, had served as a general under Alexander the Great, who, in 331 BCE, had conquered a huge empire─including Egypt. When Alexander died, his three top generals divided the empire among themselves. The one who chose Egypt made himself its king and called himself Ptolemy I. By the time Ptolemy XII came to the throne, his family had ruled Egypt for almost 250 years. But they still spoke Greek and considered themselves part of the Greek world. (5) Although Ptolemy had executed his eldest daughter, there was another whom he especially loved─a bright, lively girl named Cleopatra VII. The king seems to have found her the most interesting of all his children. He proclaimed her a goddess when she was about four years old.

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お願いします (26) In the end, he was killed at the height of the powers by men he thought were his friends. It was particularly sad that Brutus was among the assassins. According to Suetonius, Caesar, as he wasdying, turned to Brutus and said, “You too, my son?” (27) Brutus didn't feel guilty about betraying Caesar. He was proud of it. His ancestor was the Brutus who had expelled the last King, Tarquin the Proud, from Rome. Brutus issued a coin to celebrate the Ides of March as Caesar's assassination day. The coin shows the deadly daggers that had killed Caesar and the “cap of liberty” traditionally worn by slaves after they were freed. Brutus bragged that he had saved Rome from slavery. (28) But the murder of Julius Caesar did Rome no good. The city faced another 13 years of civil unrest and war. Assassination did help Caesar's reputation, though. In his will, Caesar left a gift of money to every Roman citizen. More that ever, he was the common man's hero, so admired that later rules of Rome adopted the name Caesar. (29) Brutus and his friends thought they were serving Rome and saving the Republic by killing a man who had become too powerful, a man they feared might make himself king. They were shortsighted. The Republic was already dying...almost dead. Rome would soon be dominated by a single ruler. That man would be Caesar's great-nephew and heir, Augustus Caesar.

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お願いします (31) When Octavian's messengers broke into the tomb, they found Cleopatra and one of her handmaidens already dead. The other servant was dying─like her mistress, poisoned by the asp. Octavian was angry to have lost his prize, but he admired the queen's courage and determination. (32) Plutarch writes that Octavian commanded that she be “buried with royal splendor and magnificence, and her body laid beside Antony's.” He then gave orders for Caesarion's execution. For Octavian, the great Julius Caesar could have only one heir─himself. (33) What gave Cleopatra such power? She wasn't the most beautiful woman the world has ever known, but she must have been fascinating Poets and historians, both Greek and Roman, described her as a goddess. Her fame continues. Countless plays, operas, and movies have been produced about her. William Shakespeare's play Antony and Cleopatra is still performed today all over the world. Cleopatra's dramatic death has been the subject of dozens of paintings. Yet no one knows what she really felt about her Roman loves. Did she truly care about Caesar or was he just a tool of her ambition? Did she fall in love with the handsome Mark Antony or did she use him in a desperate attempt to save the throne of Egypt? (34) These mysteries surround the Cleopatra of history. We may never know the answers.

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お願いします (27) Antony commanded his slaves to lift him up. Plutarch says that they carried Antony to the tomb, but even then, Cleopatra would not allow the doors to be opened, but she showed herself at a window and let down cords and ropes to the ground. The slaves fastened Antony to these and the queen pulled him up.... Cleopatra... laid him upon a bed... and smeared her face with his blood. She called him her lord and husband and commander. Antony died in the aims of the queen. (28) With Antony dead and Cleopatra defeated, Octavian was the undisputed ruler of the known world. Cleopatra tried to make him fall in love with her. He could have been her third great Roman─but he wasn't interested. Instead, Octavian planned to take Cleopatra, the last Ptolemaic ruler of Egypt, to Rome as his slave. (29) Rather than be humiliated, Cleopatra chose death. She tried to kill herself, but Octavian's guards caught and stopped her. However, in the end she succeeded with a trick. The queen humbly asked the conqueror to allow her to mourn Antony's death and to give his body a proper farewell. Octavian agreed. (30) Cleopatra ordered a bath to be made ready and when she had bathed, she put on her royal robes and ate a fancy meal. Soon an Egyptian peasant arrived with a basket of figs. The guard inspected it but didn't see the asp, a poisonous snake, hidden beneath the fruit. Cleopatra sent away all of her servants except two women whom she especially trusted and loved. These servants locked the doors of the tomb, obeying the queen's command. Cleopatra had planned to let the asp come upon her when she wasn't looking. But according to one story by Plutarch, as soon as she saw the snake, she grabbed it and pressed it onto her bare arm, inviting a fatal bite.

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お願いします (13) By 50 BCE, the Triumvirate had ended. Crassus had been killed in battle, and Pompey had become very jealous of Caesar's military success and his great popularity. Pompey had married Caesar's daughter, Julia, but when she died in childbirth, the bond between the two men was broken. Before Caesar returned from Gaul, Pompey sided wit the Senate to declare his former father-in-law an enemy of the State. The Senate demanded that Caesar give up his army and return to Rome. Knowing that he would be arrested if he obeyed, he refused. But now his life and career were at stake. Did he dare go back to Italy at all? (14) In January of 49 BCE, Caesar's forces were camped just north of the Rubicon, the river that marked the boundary between Gaul and Ital. As soon as Caesar heard the Senate's ruling, he slipped away from the camp with a few trusted men. It was night, and everyone else was feasting. No one noticed that he was missing. When he reached the banks of the Rubicon, he paused, thinking about his next step. After a moment, he declared, “The die is cast” and crossed the river. This was his way of saying that his mind was made up and wouldn't be changed. Now he was ready to meet his former ally, the great general Pompey, in battle. (15) Caesar was never one to stand around, waiting for someone else to do something. Decisive as always, he began his march right away. He set out in the dead of winter with a single legion of soldiers. He knew that by marching on Rome he would start a civil war. What he didn't know─and couldn't have known─was that this war would last for nearly two decades and destroy the Republic.

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お願いします (1)“When I was 18 years old…I raised an army and used it to bring freedom back to the Roman state. I spent my own money to do it…. Because of this, the Senate passed a special resolution to make me a senator.” These words were written by Julius Caesar's great-nephew: the first person to serve as a Roman general and member of the Senate while he was still a teenager. (2) Julius Caesar, who had no legitimate sons of his own, was especially fond of his sister's grandson, Gaius Octavius. When his sister Julia died, the dictator chose 12-year-old Octavius to deliver his grandmother's funeral oration. Five years later, in 46 BCE, Octavius rode with his great-uncle in his triumphal procession into Rome. The next year, the young man joined Caesar's military campaign in Spain. The dictator believed that someday his great-nephew would do great things for Rome. (3) After his victories in Spain, Caesar planned a war against the rebellious tribes of Illyria, a region across the Adriatic Sea. Putting young Octavius in charge, he sent the army to Illyria with instructions to wait for him there. Then Caesar returned to Rome to begin reforming the government─a big job. Caesar set to work with energy and determination. But his plans were foiled by the daggers of his enemies, when he was assassinated on the Idea of March. (4) Eighteen- year-old Octavius was in Illyria when he got news of his uncle's death. He made up his mind to return to Rome. While he was packing to leave, a second messenger came with the surprising news that, in his will, Caesar had adopted Octavius as his son and made him the heir to an enormous fortune. This news was sure to raise eyebrows─and perhaps some swords─in Rome.

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お願いします (23) In 31 BCE, Octavian's navy defeated Mark Antony in Greece. Morale sank among Antony's troops. Many soldiers deserted and joined Octavian. Supplies of food and water grew scarce for Antony's army. His forces suffered a fatal blow when Octavian crushed them in the Battle of Actium, a city on the western coast of Greece. Cleopatra, seeing the disaster from a distance, ordered her ships to return to Egypt. Antony saw her purple sails in retreat and ordered his sailors to follow. But Antony's ground forces continued to fight. They couldn't believe at first that their beloved leader had abandoned them. When they realized it was true, they simply laid down their weapons and surrendered. (24) The final battle between Antony and Octavian began near Alexandria on the first of August, 30 BCE. Antony ordered his fleet to attack, and his men obediently rowed toward the enemy ships. Then, instead of attacking, they saluted the enemy's leader: Octavian. Antony's cavalry deserted as well. Only the foot soldiers remained loyal to their general, but they were easily defeated. (25) Antony was infuriated that Cleopatra had ordered her troops to abandon the battle and return to Egypt. Plutarch writes that the defeated general “retreated into Alexandria, crying out in his rage that Cleopatra had betrayed him to the very men he had fought for her sake.” Cleopatra, fearing her lover's anger, hid in a huge, two-story tomb and sent a servant to tell Antony that she was dead. (26) When Antony heard the news, he was devastated. He said he had no reason to live. The war was lost and Cleopatra was dead. So he stabbed himself, by falling on his own sword. He was dying, but not yet dead, whenCleopatra's second messenger arrived, inviting Antony to come to her hiding place. The queen was alive after all. She had changed her mind and wanted to see Antony. But it was almost too late.

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お願いします (5) Although he was still an inexperienced teenager, Octavius was suddenly a public figure. He would soon be plunged into the cutthroat world of Roman politics. His mother and stepfather saw how dangerous this could be. They tried to persuade him to stay away from Rome. But Octavius was determined, and he set out to claim his inheritance. As a first step, he took his adoptive father's name and combined it with his own birth name. He became Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus. (6) Rome, meanwhile, was in the hands of Caesar's deputy, Mark Antony. He had seen the assassination and moved quickly to grab power. Octavian was not yet in Rome, so Antony delivered Caesar's funeral oration. His speech helped to persuade people that the dictator's assassins were the enemies of Rome. With lightning speed, Antony took over Caesar's money, property, and all of his official papers. (7) This was not what Caesar had wanted. In his will, he promised a generous gift of money to every Roman citizen. But Antony refused to honor the murdered hero's wish. (8) When Octavian reached Rome, he honored his great-uncle by giving his own money to the citizens. With the help of Cicero's speeches and with Caesar's veterans marching behind him, Octavian earned the support of the Senate. Not only was he elected to the Senate, he also became a consul─even though, according to Roman law, he was too young to hold these offices. Octavian bragged about it when he later wrote his memoirs.

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お願いします (6) On March 15, the day known in Rome as the Ides of March, Caesar went to a meeting of the Senate. As usual, he had no bodyguards. On the way, a soothsayer─a “truth teller” who can tall the future─stopped him with a warning: “Caesar, beware the Ides of March.” (The Romans called the middle day of the month the “Ides”; it usually fell on the 15th.) The dictator ignored him and walked on. But when he arrived at the meeting place, a group of senators─mostly old friends and men he had pardoned and promoted─surrounded him. They quickly closed in and, drawing their knives, began to stab him. Bleeding from 23 brutal wounds, Caesar fell and died at the base of a statue he had commissioned: a statue of Pompey─his rival and friend. (7) Who was this man who stirred such a powerful mix of love, admiration,fear, and hatred? (8) Julius Caesar was born into a noble family, but he always supported the rights of the common people. He was the plebeian's favorite politician. They believed that he understood and cared about their needs. He did, but he was no saint. He was practical, strong willed, and hungry for power. Street-smart, he made very few mistakes, and he knew how to take advantage of the mistakes of his enemies. (9) In 60 BCE, Julius Caesar wanted to become a consul, but he was broke. He had already spent everything he had (or could borrow) to pay for his political career up to that point. He needed money and he needed help. So he made a bargain with two other men who also needed something: Cicero's friend Pompey and Crassus, the richest man in Rome. The three formed the First Triumvirate.

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お願いします (1) In February of 44 BCE, the Roman Senate declared Julius Caesar dictator of Rome for life. According to the Greek writer Plutarch, the Senate also offered Caesar a crown, but he turned it down. Caesar knew how much Romans had hated the idea of kinds since the reign of Tarquin the Proud, 500 years before. (2) One month later, Julius Caesar was dead, murdered in the Senate. Why? This ancient coin may provide the answer. (3) On it, we see the face of Julius Caesar, a thin, handsome man with fine features, the perfect image of a noble Roman. Caesar himself had ordered the coin to be made, so it probably looks very much like him. He was the first living Roman to be depicted on a coin─by tradition, leaders and heroes received this honor only after their deaths. On the dictator's head is a laurel wreath, a symbol of victory. When Caesar's enemies was this coin, they began to question his plans. Did he intend to become Rome's king after all? Did he plan to set up a monarchy with his children and grandchildren ruling after him? This fear haunted many senators as they watched Caesar's power and popularity grow. (4) Soon after the coin appeared, a group of senators met to plot his murder. (5) In early March, people reported bizarre happenings: strange birds seen in the Forum and odd sounds heard there. Then, when Caesar was sacrificing to the gods, one of the animals was found to have no heart! Many believed that these happenings were omens─warnings of disasters to come.

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お願いします (17) Augustus Caesar, now the emperor of Rome, worked to reorganize the government and military. His greatest accomplishment was the creation of a system of government that lasted in Rome for five centuries: the Roman Empire. (18) Augustus created Rome's first police and fire brigade. He created a network of roads that connected the major cities of the empire, linking them all to Rome. He changed the way finance were handled and issued new gold and silver coins. He gave free food to the poor. He built the Forum of Augustus and decorated it with statues of his ancestors. He beautified the city and boasted of this accomplishment: “I found a city made of brick and left it a city of marble.” Augustus also sponsored artists and poets like Horace and Virgil, whose works glorified Rome─and, of course, himself. (19) Throughout his reign, Augustus never forgot that his great-uncle had been killed by jealous enemies who feared his power and popularity. Augustus pretended that his powers were all voluntarily given. He allowed freedom of speech and encouraged people to give him advice. But he was clever. He knew how to use power without seeming to seek or even treasure it. During his rule, magistrates were still elected to govern Rome. By sharing power with the magistrates, Augustus kept people from worrying that he was governing Rome alone. In fact, the soldiers were loyal to him and him alone─he paid their salaries and his treasury would pay their pensions. (20) The emperor's authority was so great that everyone left all the major decisions to him. But he was also very careful. Augustus kept a force of 4,500 soldiers to defend him. These soldiers, later called the Praetorian Guard, protected all of Italy. But some of them were always on hand to protect the emperor. To be on the safe side, the guards allowed only one senate at a time to approach the emperor, and they searched each man before he came close.

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お願いします (1) All Rome knew Lucretia for her beauty and goodness. No one doubted that she loved her husband and was faithful to him. In the eyes of the average Roman, this made her a perfect woman. But to Sextus. the king's ruthless son, Lucretia's goodness was a challenge. As the Roman historian Livy tells the tale, Sextus couldn't see such perfect devotion without wanting to destroy it. Sextus went to Lucretia's house when he knew that her husband was out of town. Because Sextus was a prince and also her husband's cousin, Lucretia and her servants welcomed him and served him dinner. They didn't suspect his cruel plan. (2) When everyone else was asleep, Sextus crept, sword in hand, into Lucretia's bedroom. He threatened to kill her and spread a rumor that she had been unfaithful to her husband, if she refused to do what he wanted. Lucretia was not afraid of death, but she didn't want to die with her husband thinking that she hadn't been faithful to him. So she obeyed Sextus―she felt that she had no choice. (3) The next morning, overcome with grief and shame, Lucretia sent messengers to her husband and her father. She asked them to come right away―something terrible had happened. The men came as quickly as they could. Lucretia's husband brought along his friend Brutus. When Lucretia saw them, she began to cry and told them what Sextus had done. According to Livy, she said,“Give me your right hand in faith that you will not allow the guilty to escape.” (4) Lucretia's husband and Brutus believed in Lucretia's innocence and promised to get even with Sextus. Brutus made this solemn promise.“By this blood, which was so pure...I swear before you, O gods, to chase out the king...with his criminal wife and all their children,...and never to tolerate kings in Rome evermore.”

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お願いします (21) Augustus was a hard-working emperor. He traveled to many of the provinces under his care, but he was sickly and didn't expect to live very long. After his military campaign in Spain, Augustus returned to Rome and, in 23 BCE, became quite illand began thinking about a successor to follow him as Rome's ruler. His first choice had been his nephew Marcellus, but Marcellus had died young─not long after he had married Julia, the emperor's only daughter. (22) Julia played the key role in her father's search for a successor. After Marcellus died, she had to marry again, to a man of her father's choice. For her next husband, Augustus chose his general Agrippa, his closet friend and advisor. Although Julia was much younger than Agrippa, she dutifully married him, and the couple had five children. Then Agrippa died. (23) Although Augustus adopted his young grandsons as his heirs, he still needed a husband for Julia to protect the boys in the event of his own death. So he forced his stepson Tiberius to divorce his wife, even though Tiberius loved her very deeply. (He used to follow his former wife on the streets, weeping.) The marriage between Julia and Tiberius was a disaster: Julia was unfaithful, and Tiberius went into exile on the Greek island of Rhodes. Augustus was forced to banish his own daughter from Rome for her crime of adultery. (24) Julia must have spilled many tears over her father's marriage choices for her─especially the last one. She hated Tiberius, and he felt the same way about her. Even so, she would never have questioned her father's right to select her husbands. This was a parent's duty, especially if dad happened to rule the Roman Empire.

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お願いします (25) In spite of his poor health, Augustus lived to be 76 years old and reigned for 41 years as emperor. In the last years of his life, he realized that he must choose a successor. But whom? His beloved grandsons had both died young. With only one logical choice left, Augustus summoned his stepson Tiberius to Rome. He named this gloomy man as his co-ruler and successor. (26) In 14 CE, Augustus took a last journey by sea. He caught a chill in the night air and became quite ill. He called Tiberius to his bedside and spoke with him for a long time in private. Then, on August 19, knowing that the end was near, he called for a mirror and had his hair carefully combed. The biographer Suetonius tells the story: “he summoned a group of friends and asked ‘Have I played my part in the comedy of life believably enough?’” Then he added lines from a play: If I have pleased you, kindly show Appreciation with a warm goodbye. (27) Augustus Caesar had played many roles well: the dutiful heir of Julius Caesar; the victor over Antony; the reformer of Roman government; the generous sponsor of literature and art;and, in his final years, the kindly father figure of Rome─providing food, entertainment, and security to his people. Near the end of his life, he remembered: “When I was 60 years old, the senate, the equestrians, and the whole people of Rome gave me the title of Father of my Country and decreed that this should be inscribed in the porch of my house.” (28) When Augustus died, all Italy mourned, and the Senate proclaimed him a god. His rule marked a turning point in history. In his lifetime, the Roman Republic came to an end. but he rescued the Roman state by turning it into a system ruled by emperors─a form of government that survived for another 500 years. In an age in which many rules were called “saviors” and “gods,” Augustus Caesar truly deserved to be called the savior of the Roman people.

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お願いします (10) The Triumvirate was a political deal. Each member gained something from it. Crassus had arranged for his wealthy friends to collect taxes in the provinces─Rome's possessions beyond the Italian peninsula. This was a profitable position because tax collectors kept some of the money for themselves. Joining the alliance of power let Crassus protect these moneymaking deals. Pompey joined to make sure that his soldiers stayed loyal to him. As a member of the Triumvirate, he could guarantee that they would be rewarded for their service. (11) Caesar got what he wanted, too. He not only became consul, but the next year he became governor of Gaul (France), a province about the size of Texas. There, Caesar established himself as a major power. He spent almost ten years conquering Gaul, pitting his loyal, well-trained army against the Gatuls, who were mostly independent tribes fighting among themselves. Beginning in 58 BCE, Caesar and his troops moved through the region and overcame it, bit by bit. In the process, Rome built roads, captured over a million prisoners, and took huge amounts of money and treasure from the native people. (12) Caesar's success in Gaul made him rich and even more ambitious. This worried his rivals and enemies in Rome. They knew that he favored the Gracchi Brothers' plan for taking land from the rich and giving it to the poor. This made him even less popular with the aristocrats.

Cleopatra: A Tale of Power and Influence

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お礼 2013/06/07 22:11

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