(The words that follow are my version of historical truth, it is true that Cleopatra 'Queen of Kings and the Living Isis' bore twin children to Marc Anthony. These children of hers were Aleksander Helios ( lord of the sun) and Cleopatra Selene (mistress of the moon). When the vengeful Roman's invaded Egypt and destroyed the Pharos Lighthouse and the Great Library of Alexandria, she commited suicide and her children were taken to Rome to be part of Octavius's victory parade. The young Aleksander Helios ran away and history bears no further record of him. Cleopatra Selene however went on to become absolute monarch of Muaritianna and wife to a son of Julius Caesar. Her face appears on coins and she single handedly moved the centre of Isis worship to Muaritianna by building the world's largest temple to her great goddess. History records that Octavius favoured Selene and she was a favourite of the people of Rome and all it's provinces. This was largely due to the spread of the Isis cult. In these pre- christian days worship of Isis had spread to almost all parts of the known world, shades of Isis were celebrated in all the great goddess worshipping regions. Now the cool thing was that in texts found in Isis temples dated years before Selene's birth, her birth was prophesized and she was meant to be a great liberator of her people and a warrior for Isis. Cleopatra even dedicated her infant daughter to Isis following the letter of the prophecy. The records and monuments sill stand in Egypt today. All documents around Selene note some common things: she was a warrior princess with fearsome fighting skills, she worshipped Isis all her days and She single handedly revived and kept the cult of Isis alive in the face of advancing monotheist religions like (Christianity and Islam). She dissappeared during a sea voyage and was survived by her son.
Whether she was the favoured of Isis or had the magical powers Isis was noted for is unknown but I found her real life story so fascinating I made a myth just for her! )
Selene Isis of the House of Ptolemy was tired. Her back muscles roared with fire, her arms ran slick with gore, great gouts of blood anointed her armor, yet she still braced herself for more. Just a fortnight past she had been a resident of Alexandria, greatest of ancient cities. A princess, the daughter of Cleopatra herself. Selene was a priestess of Isis Most High, like her mother before her,. Promised to the goddess from the day of birth, her mother had prophesized that Selene would change the fate of the world. She had walked the paths of the seven mysteries. She had read from the millions of scrolls gathered in the Great Library of Aleksandria, and studied at the feet of great thinkers from around the known world, who had gathered about her enlightened mother like moths to a flame. She still remembered the late night discussions where her mother would discuss the spirit of discovery, of growth and research that she wished to cultivate in her Egypt. Selene could still see the wonder on the faces of sailors who came to the port of Aleksandria, and thanked the Gods for the Wonder of the Pharos Light House. She had been revered amongst the Egyptian people as the a living embodiment of Isis, The All Mother.
Today she was a prisoner of Rome . She had been brought over the seas in the dark underbelly of Roman vessels still clad in her blood stained mourning robes. She had been paraded through the Roman Streets as a sign of Octavian's victory over the 'serpent' Queen Cleopatra. She had been beaten bloody for not bowing and starved for her insolence. The had delighted in laying the lash on the 'heathen'. She could still picture that Roman Armor on the streets of her home. The dying men who were left to rot in streets, with out the proper burial rights. The shrieks as women were raped. The 'heathen' bled but she did not cry out for what could compare to watching Aleksandria burn.
She remembered the Emperor Octavian's boastful speech at the forum, 'He had not taken even a cup out of darkest Egypt' but her mothers famed pearls hung on his wife's neck and her golden bracelets wend around his wrists. The Romans had risked the curse of Isis herself by daring to rob the tombs of Aleksandria's dead. Though even more than the loss of their treasures, more than the torture of watching the great library burn, Selene felt the loss of Isis. For even as the soldiers dragged her away, she felt Isis slip away from her. For all her days, Selene had walked with Isis, she had known the bliss of a deep personal relationship with Isis, she had felt the warmth of the goddess radiate from her like living thing. The familiar warmth of the Heka, source of all her magickal power and evidence of her connection to the Great Goddess was gone. The comfortable ease of having Isis's spirit touch her own, was gone. She felt like an empty cup and in the space where the Goddess had been, Selene spilled anger. Anger for her family, anger for her people, anger for her Aleksandria and anger for all Egypt.
When the Roman soldiers had brought her to the great arena of gladiators, They brought her to die. The General announced her as 'the illegitimate daughter of the whore of Egypt Cleopatra'. Selene had not known the purpose this great space, her mother had would have been horrified at this killing for sport, in front of baying crowds driven wild with blood lust. Isis was the All Mother even the animals which died here for sport were part of her great circle. Such senseless death was unthinkable in Egypt. The Rows upon rows of Roman Citizens had jeered and spat at her as the soldiers had shoved her roughly in the arena. The women had gasped at the protection tattoos that flowed down her arms, the beads of lapis bound in her hair and the sigil of the Wadjet eye on her neck that marked her a priestess. Selene had borne it all, her head held high as if the double crowns of Egypt sat upon it, her steady Nile green gaze on the emperor in his golden box. She remembered her mothers last words to her the same words writ over the doors to Isis's temple: 'Daughter, Thou art a Queen of Kings!'. Selene knew that to each Roman eye watching, She was Egypt and Egypt did not bow! They had first pitted her against a Nubian slave girl. Selene watched the emperor sit forward waiting for her blood to spill to the sand. Drawing her sword from its belt, she offered the Nubian women, the salute of the honorable death. Egypt would not die today.
The first fight was swift, Selene trained in the killing arts of all the five peoples, used force with deadly precision. The house of Ptolemy did not raise frightened cosseted women, Selene was descended from a line of Queens who had led armies into battle. Inside her lay the Fury of Cleopatra's defeat of the Hysops , her victory over the Nubians, her triumphs over the Pathans, her mothers fury boiled in her blood. After Selene's first kill, came the Gladiators, trained to murder. Selene swung her blade like a deadly whirl wind. Destruction followed the deadly swing of her beaded hair. She cut a bloody swathe in the wall of muscled destroyers. Her sword slashing through muscle, crushing through bones, as she hamstrung a large Mediterranean looking giant. She grabbed his double edged kitana, with a blade in each hand, she brought forth floods of blood staining the arena red. Selene felt glorious, in the full roar of battle, each strike of her fatal blades, a strike into the heart of Rome. In the full flight of her battle frenzy, Selene could no longer hear the crowd of gladiator arena regulars, the Romans were silent. Selene was killing like a battle born goddess, the rabble was silent. She looked like a thing out their worst nightmares, a woman killing like an instinctual predator, their women were possessions things to be traded in marriage for wealth and position, Selene was nothing they recognized as female. Selene not hear the silence of the rabble, she did not hear the king order in the animals, the sound of her own heartbeat drummed in her head and though her hands were slick with blood, she never loosened her hands on the cross guards. And as the caged beasts were set free, she thrust her swords heavenward, the arena thundered with her cry: for Isis!
As the last echoes of Selene's cry echoed through the packed arena, Octavian understood why her mother had conquered Caesar and disarmed Mark Antony, she had been like her daughter: unshakable and without fear. Selene stood unmoved as the tide of every beast the African plain had to offer stormed toward her. She regretted that they would die, but she know she must kill or be killed. With a roar of her own, she launched herself across the arena. As she ran Selene felt something she had missed in all the long darkness of Rome. She felt Isis, in the soft scent of sandalwood that danced in the air, in the warmth that rolled in her veins. Isis walked with her again, the same yet, something was infinitely different. Selene felt the familiar warmth of her magick gather in her belly, hotter that before, ferocious like the flames of a smith forge.
Selene was bent double in pain, the gathering of Hekka laid her low. The animals drew closer still. The silent Roman crowd was almost disappointed, they wanted the bloody and fury of her battle fever. The animals were almost upon her now, but Selene saw naught.
Her bowed body still slumped in the sand but her spirit stood in a space she did not know. Before her she saw the green waters of the Inundated Nile, she saw the millions of incandescent sparks as the life-bearing sunshine touched the waters that seemed to swirl before her. She saw the life that teemed in the Nile, the cold slide of alligators, The multitudes of crystal scaled fish, the hippopotami that yawned on her banks, the leaping antelope that drank on her banks, at peace with the desert lions garlanded in pale gold manes. She felt the frisson of joy that swept through Egypt at the fertility, at the life that was unleashed. Then the picture changed she saw the crops wither on the stalk, the dry salt caked mud of the riverbanks grow white with dehydration, the animals weakened fall to sword and claw, eventually the people grew gaunt and died
, not only the diverse people of Egypt but she saw the great emperors of Rome, unable to feed their massive empire, Egypt the breadbasket of Rome was finally spent.
(Selene's storry will reach completion next week!)
