Queen Cleopatra had a problem. Her birthday was coming up in
a week’s time and a host of presents had already arrived at her palace in
Alexandria. She knew that most of them would be from Mark Antony, who was away fighting
various battles, and she also knew that it would be a pity to spoil the
surprise by opening them early.
On the other hand, she was curious and excited beyond
measure, knowing that the love of her life was always both generous and
original in his present giving. Last year he had excelled himself with the
do-it-yourself pyramid-building kit, consisting of all the stones individually
wrapped, together with at least three slaves per stone to do the actual shifting
and lifting. Shouting at the slaves counted as do-it-yourself as far as the
average Egyptian monarch at that time was concerned.
But this year there was one box that excited her curiosity
more than any other. Like most of Mark Antony’s presents it had come courtesy
of the Nile delivery service, and it always amazed her just how much spare
papyrus the people at Nile would cram into all their crates whatever the size
of the object within. One year she had received a crate that was an exact cubit
cube that contained an exquisite lapis lazuli jewel in the shape of a scarab
that fitted into the palm of her hand. She sent all the spare papyri to the
Alexandria Library in case they could put them to any use.
But she was sure that this box now in front of her was
making a noise. She had given Mark Antony a few hints along the lines of giving
the palace a complete makeover – maybe a fresh coat of paint, a new set of
hieroglyphic inscriptions and the occasional pot-plant on a stand for the room
corners. Could this crate possibly contain some sort of water feature, and
could it be leaking? That was the best guess she could arrive at, given that it
sounded like water escaping through a small hole. It was definitely a hiss.
So that was her dilemma – should she open the box or not?
She hated to spoil the birthday surprise but on the other hand if water was
hissing out of a crack it would soon make a mess all over the floor. The
decision was made. She opened the box.
It turned out to be the last decision she ever made, and it
was easily her worst of many. As soon as it was free, a huge cobra snake sprang
from the box and fixed its jaws in her neck. The venom did its work quickly and
Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt, was no more.
A Few Weeks Before
Mark Antony was having a very busy day. One problem with
fighting battles, apart from the distinct possibility of getting yourself
killed in the process, was all the planning they entailed. Orders had to be
sent to all quarters to make sure that the various aquiliferae, signiferae,
optii, and tesserariae were in place and doing their jobs properly. He was so
glad that he had learned plenty of Latin at school so that he knew what he
meant even if nobody else did, and his cases agreed whether or not his
underlings did so.
One added complication this time was Cleopatra’s impending
birthday. It would be very bad form to forget, and at least he was sure that
Nile would deliver everything he ordered on time. If only he could use them to
order victory in battle – presumably the troops sent by Nile would have to
fight their way out of a papyrus bag before they fought anyone else.
At least he knew what to order from Nile, given the broad
hints that Cleo had been dropping for months past. He had a mental list of
everything, from several gallons of magnolia paint to all the various houseplants.
Being a Roman, he obviously knew them all by their Latin names, but he had to
assume that the people at Nile might not and thus dictated his orders to his
scribe accordingly.
He therefore had to translate Pennisetum setaceum to
fountain grass and Chlorophytum comosum to spider plant. It did not come
naturally to him, but it would be terrible to get this sort of thing wrong.
The scribe was having an awful time. As messengers flew in
and out of the office, bringing news of troop movements and equipment shortages
that had to be sorted out yesterday, he was being given orders by his boss that
had to be written out in double quick time. Almost as soon as he started on one
message he had to break off and grab a new piece of papyrus to scribble away at
another one.
It also did not help that the messages seemed to alternate
between instructions to a Praefectus Cohortis relating to troop displacements and
to the Nile delivery service for a maidenhair fern to be sent to Queen
Cleopatra.
And that was where things came unstuck. The scribe had only
just started on a Nile order for an aspidistra when Mark Antony barked out that
he was to drop that and write out an urgent requisition for extra dolabrae to
be used for digging trenches. Thus it was that when the postal clerk arrived to
collect the completed messages he left with one that was far from complete.
Unfortunately, the scribe had only written the first three letters of the word
aspidistra, and the result was what did for Queen Cleopatra – according to William
Shakespeare, anyway.
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