Cleopatra: Arsinoe’s Curse

By Lorraine Blundell

TWO ROYAL SISTERS ONE THRONE

A CURSE DOWN THE AGES

 

Murder on the temple steps. A scarlet stain on the pristine white marble with an imprint that seeps blood down the centuries. A curse that will not die and a forgotten myth whispered through the dusty veil of history.

Lovers Antony and Cleopatra should have had the world at their feet. Instead, they were harassed to their deaths by a series of major disasters. Their tomb was never found. Where is it?

This is their story. From the sculpted sand dunes of exotic Alexandria, its royal palace, temples and conspiracies to the glories of mighty Rome and the dangerous secrets of Ephesus.

Could so many major disasters have been just bad luck or was there a malevolent hand at work, pulling them forever closer to death and the end of their dreams of empire?

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Oct 29, 2021
• ISBN: 9781665594189

Lorraine Blundell

Lorraine Blundell (Parsons) was born in Brisbane, Australia. She lives in Melbourne and has a daughter, Jenni, and a son, Steve. Lorraine graduated from the University of Queensland with a Bachelor of Arts Degree majoring in English and History. She holds a teaching qualification in Drama from Trinity College, London. She trained as a classical singer at the Queensland State Conservatorium of Music, Brisbane. Spanning that period she sang professionally on television as a solo vocalist, regularly performing on channels BTQ7 and QTQ9 Brisbane as well as nationally on HSV7 Melbourne. Lorraine is an experienced performer in amateur musical theatre productions. Her interests are singing, ancient history and archaeology.

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© 2021 Lorraine Blundell. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 10/27/2021

ISBN: 978-1-6655-9419-6 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6655-9418-9 (e)

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

CONTENTS

Author’s Note

With Thanks

Characters

Part I

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Part II

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Part III

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Part IV

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Part V

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Epilogue

Alexandria

A Glimpse Into The Future

The Author

Historical Notes

Glossary

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AUTHOR’S NOTE

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Cleopatra’s obsessive fear of her sister Arsinoe was so great that it set in motion catastrophic events that scandalized the Roman Empire. They are surprisingly little known, but Cleopatra: Arsinoe’s Curse is based on these real incidents and places. The Temple of Artemis really existed and at the time was known as one of the wonders of the ancient world.

Arsinoe’s tomb has been found exactly where expected.

Cleopatra’s has not. Why?

Step inside her mind and enter her world.

There is one place that could be a real possibility.

For Jenni and Steve

WITH THANKS

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Thank you to my daughter, Jenni, for so much encouragement over many years. By now I’m sure you know the historical detail in my novels as well as I do.

Thanks also to my niece, Michelle, for your support always so generously given. You have made proof reading so much easier.

Professor Miles Prince

Dr Harold Cashmore

Alicia Snowdon

Kate Borchers

CHARACTERS

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*Cleopatra VII, Queen of Egypt

*Ptolemy XIII & XIV, Brothers of Cleopatra and Arsinoe

*Caesarion, Son of Cleopatra and Julius Caesar

*Charmion, Cleopatra’s favourite handmaiden

*Iras, Cleopatra’s handmaiden

*Achillas, Commander of the troops

*Mardian, Eunuch, Advisor, Singer

*Pothinus, 1st Minister & tutor to royals

*Arsinoe IV, Half-sister to Cleopatra, Princess/Queen of Egypt

Amunet, Arsinoe’s favourite handmaiden

*Ganymedes, Arsinoe’s tutor

Father Kyrios, High Priest Temple of Artemis (Ephesus)

Klymene, Head priestess, Temple of Artemis

Sirius, Amunet’s husband

Petros, servant, Temple of Artemis

*Julius Caesar, Roman Consul, General

*Marcus Antonius, General, Autocrator of the East

*Lepidus, Member of the Triumvirate

*Brutus, Roman Consul & General

*Cassius, Roman Consul & General

*Octavian, Adopted Son of Julius Caesar, Senator

*Marcus Agrippa, General to Octavian

*Calpurnius Lucius Piso, Calpurnia’s father, Consul

*Cicero, Roman senator and orator

*Centurion Herennius, carried out his death sentence

*Servilia, Caesar’s mistress

Livia, her maid

*Calpurnia, Caesar’s wife

*Octavia, Octavian’s sister & Marc Antony’s wife

Despina, her maid

*Fulvia, Wife of Marc Antony, friend of Servilia

*Atia, Mother of Octavian

Claudia, Vestal Virgin

*Herod, Tetrarch of Judaea

*Serapion, Governor of Cyprus

Minor Characters include:

Basi, Egyptian Guard

Alexandrian conspirators

High Priest, Temple of Amun, Heracleion

Basilia, Seer

*Historical character

PART I

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I will not be triumphed over.

Cleopatra

1

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EPHESUS

41 BC

Anatolia

(Turkey)

The Temple of Artemis

D awn arrived bringing with it a sky streaked with red and a golden sun struggling to flood the earth with its warming light once more. A sense of foreboding hung in the air. The spectacular Temple of Artemis was blessed with a stunning view of the sea. With its impressive, marble entry steps and gleaming colonnades it stood where it seemingly always had. This was an ancient place of worship to the goddess Artemis and a refuge for those seeking protection from any who would harm them.

Desecration of the temple and those who sheltered within was unthinkable. On this day, the temple held its breath.

Inside, the High Priest stood at the door of a young woman who’d lived under his care for so long. His expression was strained and he wrung his hands with anxiety.

‘My Lady, Arsinoe, please open the door. You have been ordered to accompany me to the steps of the temple.’

‘If I leave, they will kill me!’ she pleaded with him as her face appeared in the slit of the slightly opened door.

‘Please don’t make me go,’ she implored, aware of what awaited her.

His eyes met hers with pity.

‘My Lady, I cannot help you,’ he told her gently. ‘The order has been signed personally by Governor Marcus Antonius. As you know, he has ultimate power over all of us. I cannot risk other innocent lives. If you do not go the soldiers will kill everyone here.’

Arsinoe’s eyes filled with tears. Then, as if in acceptance, she lifted her chin and turned towards her destiny.

‘Courage, my daughter,’ the High Priest whispered to her.

Together, they made their way slowly towards the temple entrance. They made an unusual couple, the wizened old man and the exotic young woman.

Roman soldiers stood waiting at the bottom of the temple steps, unmoving, as shafts of early morning sunlight fell across them. The High Priest made one final attempt to avert the tragedy which was sure to follow.

‘This is a place of peace protected by the goddess, Artemis. You have no right to interfere here,’ he challenged the soldier who stood before him at the temple’s entry.

‘I follow the governor’s orders,’ the centurion responded stiffly. ‘The religious rules must make way.’

Defeated, the High Priest drew back behind Arsinoe to stand with the priests and priestesses of Artemis, their faces etched with grief.

Arsinoe stood at the top of the steps facing the centurion. Those gathered on this morning were as if set in a tableau frozen in time.

‘You will wait until I have prayed to the goddess,’ she demanded as she turned and walked slowly to a side shrine where she sank to her knees.

Arsinoe had faced death once before after Caesar’s victory Triumph in Rome and beaten it. Now, however, she knew that her time had run out. She prayed that when her heart was weighed by Anubis on the scales at the moment of reckoning following the great voyage of the soul after death, her deeds would not be found wanting.

Arsinoe rose, head held high. Using every ounce of courage she possessed, she walked slowly back to the top step.

The centurion came towards her.

She looked into his eyes and her voice pure and clear rang out over those assembled.

I curse my whore of a sister. May she know only sorrow and lie forgotten through Eternity!

Quickly, the centurion moved forward and sank the gladius into her heart. She lost her life assassinated by a Roman soldier.

Arsinoe fell onto the steps her long black hair fanning out around her. The pristine marble was stained crimson with her blood.

The centurion turned and quickly walked away.

‘Accelerata!’ he ordered, having descended the steps. The soldiers departed in formation, leaving no sign of their presence but the dead body of Egypt’s royal princess, her white chiton already weeping blood.

The temple’s priestesses wailed in unison. Arsinoe had been much loved by everyone who’d known her. They ran to her, gently lifting her and carrying her body back inside the temple.

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A flash of gold, shiny and jewelled. Black hair flying into his face. Blood seeping onto the pristine, white marble. The stickiness clung to his hands and smeared his arms. Still, he could not wash them clean and Arsinoe’s voice rang in his ears. Her courage shamed him.

The centurion woke in a cold sweat. His head pounded and he groaned as the reality of the morning before jolted him back to the reality of a new day.

He was an honourable man who had done his duty, one that should have been given to an assassin. He’d committed the deed rather than delegating it to any of his men, now the memory would haunt him forever.

What he did not know, was that a curse had been born that would change the course of history.

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The city of Ephesus was unnaturally quiet as the time of Arsinoe’s burial procession drew near. Small, pure white clouds hung in a pink sky. There were those watching who called them the tears of the gods.

At the top of steep Curetes street, near the rectangular Temple of Isis in the upper agora, stood a large mausoleum with a stele decorated with hieroglyphs at its entrance. The marble mausoleum had been built on the orders of Marc Antony to proclaim Arsinoe’s death.

It took the shape of the Lighthouse of Alexandria and was the most prominent in Ephesus. He hoped that the monument would be enough to satisfy Cleopatra.

Sacrificial rites were carried out in the Temple of Isis by the priests, as many who had known her stood silently outside, weeping. Arsinoe’s body was washed, anointed with myrrh and dressed in a white chiton. A snake amulet adorned her arm and she wore the perfume of the lotus flower. The jangle of sistrums filled the air.

Candles flickered in the temple and inside the quiet, cool interior of the mausoleum. Her body was taken inside by the priests and she was laid to rest. The centurion who had executed her attended to pay his respects. ‘May you know peace,’ he murmured sadly.

Arsinoe was gone.

Silence.

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Several months later Antony and Cleopatra visited Ephesus. There was no crowd of cheering spectators awaiting their arrival. They walked up deserted Curetes Street and stopped to study the tall Egyptian style mausoleum at the top.

Cleopatra glanced questioningly at Antony.

He nodded. ‘I have done as you asked.’

‘Finally, she is dead. I am rid of her!’ Cleopatra glowed with pleasure.

‘She was your sister,’ he frowned.

‘That means nothing.’ Cleopatra dismissed his words with a wave of her hand.

Hardened soldier though he was, Antony shuddered at her coldness and her tinkling laughter.

He shrugged.

Together they walked away.

Cleopatra was wrong.

Arsinoe’s Curse would tear their world apart.

2

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EGYPT

15 Years Earlier

Alexandria

Antirhodos

The Royal Palace

N ight fell, its blackness enveloping the large palace that stood within Alexandria’s royal domain. It was isolated, except for the exquisite, sacred Temple of Isis standing adjacent to it on the promontory of Lochias which was open to the sea. The palace was surrounded by vast gardens and located only steps from the water. The soft swish of the waves could be heard as they washed onto the shore.

Guards stood watch impassively, standing back into the shadows created by flares that cast pools of light in the darkness. Out in the harbour, the city’s famed lighthouse shone forth its beam across the water.

Light from oil lamps flickered in Arsinoe’s bedchamber from deep within the palace as she kept a lonely vigil, savouring the peace and stillness.

From her window, she gazed up at stars like tiny peepholes punched into the velvety blackness of the vault of the sky and sighed.

When I’m lonely I can look up at the stars, she consoled herself. It seemed like small compensation, though. Except for her father, Arsinoe had no one in whom to confide. Her stepsister, Cleopatra, despised her and they fought constantly, much to the consternation of those tasked with their oversight.

Arsinoe shuddered as she considered the events of that day. She was fortunate to be still alive, she was sure. The incident then had shaken her badly. It had all begun innocently enough but soon escalated out of control. She knew that she hadn’t been completely blameless in what had occurred, but Cleopatra’s reaction had been totally unnecessary.

They’d been arguing over an amulet.

Give it back! Cleopatra raged at Arsinoe as she picked up the gold amulet and ran. Arsinoe’s feet darted over the marble palace floor as she headed towards the garden. Games such as this between two children had been played for as long as anyone could remember.

But this was no game.

Arsinoe was well ahead of her sister until the unthinkable happened. She slipped and fell. Cleopatra was quickly upon her. Dragging her younger sister forcefully to her feet, she wrenched the amulet from her hand and propelled her over to the nearby fountain.

‘You’ll pay for this!’ she shrieked. ‘You worthless, little nothing.’

As Arsinoe shrank from her, Cleopatra tightened her grip, pushing her sister’s face into the water in the fountain. Arsinoe struggled and spluttered but couldn’t loosen her sister’s hold on her. It wasn’t long before she gasped for breath, but instead, gulped water.

‘Let her go!’ Charmion’s voice intruded sharply as she forcibly pulled Cleopatra away. The young woman served as her maid and had often intervened between the two children.

Nothing was ever said to the King or Queen about the amulet incident. It was, however, only one of many altercations still to come both verbal and physical.

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The next morning after she’d eaten, Arsinoe was dressed by her maid then she wandered outside to the garden. It was still early and only the guards could be seen sternly guarding the front of the palace and the side entrances.

‘It’s still cold outside,’ her maid warned. ‘Here, put on your blue cloak.’

Arsinoe’s favourite place, some distance from the palace, was a hidden, sheltered alcove with a stone bench facing a pond. She loved the ease with which the water lilies floated so effortlessly on top of the water, their pretty pink and deep blue flowers contrasting with the lush green of the immaculately groomed grass surrounding the water.

They were her favourite flower.

She put her hand down and trailed her fingers through the water’s coolness. She’d always loved the smooth feeling as the water passed through them.

Nearby, the sea could be seen where it flowed into the private royal harbour. Sometimes it seemed wild and at others, as today, deceptively calm. Arsinoe shuddered. She’d always been afraid of it as she was unable to swim.

This place was her refuge of peace and serenity where she let her imagination roam free. She was a quiet girl whose inner strength would become more obvious as she grew older. Emotionally, she felt things deeply.

‘Dreaming again, little one?’ her favourite guard, Abasi, asked as he came to sit beside her. ‘My feet hurt. I’ve been standing for too long.’

‘Do you like guarding the palace?’ Arsinoe asked curiously as she smiled at him.

‘Of course. That way I can keep all of you safe!’ Abasi grinned. ‘Now I’d better go before I’m missed.’ He waved at her over his shoulder as he strolled back to the side palace entrance nearest the garden.

Soon after, Arsinoe left and hurried inside. It would not be wise to annoy her father’s short-tempered wife. That was how young Arsinoe thought of her. She did not consider the woman to be her mother.

Arsinoe had heard the whispers that circulated in the court that her mother had been a concubine. She was said by some to have been an Egyptian woman who had caught the eye of Pharaoh Ptolemy Auletes, at a time when his wife had already borne many children and was tired and worn out from carrying out her duty.

Pharaoh’s daughters were so unalike in both looks and temperament that the whispers were given credibility with very good reason. It didn’t worry Arsinoe. She knew that she was a royal princess and nothing could alter that. As long as she had her father, she felt secure in her position.

Then, unwanted thoughts of a recent event returned to her mind.

She hesitated as she approached the palace.

Arsinoe had known for some time that she wasn’t her father’s favourite. One thing that really rankled had occurred not long past. Both girls had been sitting with him in the otherwise empty music room where he spent much of his time each day playing his flute.

‘Cleopatra, come closer,’ Ptolemy had invited. ‘Sit there, at my feet.’

‘Yes, father.’

‘I have something for you.’

Cleopatra gasped as her father handed her a gold ring with a large ruby set into it. She kissed his cheek.

‘You might as well have this now, child,’ he told her indulgently. ‘Sometimes things happen that we don’t expect.’

‘Thank you, father.’

Arsinoe frowned. She’d rarely seen a serious expression on her father’s face and wondered what his words meant.

Cleopatra returned to sit on the cushions beside her. The ring, which was too big, sat precariously on her finger as she directed a sly smile at Arsinoe. Soon after, they left the room.

Pushing this unsettling memory from her mind, Arsinoe entered the palace hallway leading to the banquet room. There a vast number of dishes had been laid out to tempt the family and those who’d been invited to attend. Hastily, she sat down thinking to escape notice, until she saw the Queen frowning across at her.

Arsinoe quickly looked away, as she reached for a succulent piece of fish fresh from the sea. When she looked up again, it was to see her stepsister sitting beside their father looking up adoringly at him.

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Ptolemy X11 was not the dignified version of a pharaoh that might have been expected. Instead, he was a figure of derision who played his flute at public festivals and acted like a fool. Egyptians were used to his unpredictable behaviour and simply shook their heads.

He also insisted on owning his own personal zoo with animals imported from other countries, an extravagance he could not afford. The cost of simply feeding and maintaining them was crippling.

When overseas dignitaries visited, he proudly gave them a tour to where the zoo was located at the far end of the palace grounds, explaining how he’d managed to get this or that animal.

‘Listen to that lion roar, it was a present from Rome,’ he’d lie.

They obligingly uttered compliments