The Last of the Pharaohs (6 of 6 [Conclusion])*

By Pueros

Chapter VI – Afterlives

‘Among the happy advantages of the city, the greatest is the fact that this is the only place in all Egypt which is by nature well situated with reference to both things, both to commerce by sea, on account of the good harbours, and to commerce by land, because the river easily conveys and brings together everything into a place so situated, the greatest emporium in the inhabited world.’

- Strabo (writing about Alexandria in 25 BC)

(Torture chamber, former royal palace, Alexandria, Egypt, September 30 BC)

“You can have the pleasure of stripping our young sacred Pharaoh naked,” the evil, ugly, middle-aged torturer advised his contrastingly handsome but equally wicked 18 year-old nephew, “before washing his grimy body, as we want a clean surface to torment. Afterwards, bend him, face forwards and legs wide apart, over the stone table, chaining him in place in that posture so that we can fuck his undoubtedly virgin regal anus. I’m sure that one of our many cruel implements will also encourage him to entertain our own, more human tools of torment with his mouth later before, when we’re thoroughly satisfied for now, we revert to more serious business. Then, we’ll see whether the boy’s veins run with Ichor, the colourless blood of the gods, or whether he instead possesses the common human red variety.”

“Should I grease him?” the nephew asked in response. “Dear boy,” his uncle replied with an air of exasperation, “we’re torturers not caring lovers. What do you think the answer is?”

The apprentice blushed in embarrassment at his display of stupidity. “Sorry Uncle,” he replied before being cheered by beginning to tear the rich but simple and light, and now also grubby, tunic off Caesarion’s sublime body.

The young King’s form was too weak to struggle much, after a week spent alone, uncomfortably cramped and poorly fed in the stifling hold of a confiscated river barque, chosen by Agrippa for its speed. The vessel was also aided in its rapid, highly secret passage to Alexandria by the downstream current, which was still particularly strong in the wake of the annual flood.

On arrival in the Egyptian capital, the doomed, unwilling passenger was smuggled into the former royal palace. The Romans knew that it was essential that word did not spread that the last of the Pharaohs was captive and being tortured, as the population would surely rise and riot.

The application of heavy, confining manacles to Caesarion’s hands and feet had also assisted the young King’s immobilisation. As these fetters had initially been introduced to the boy’s lithe limbs at his wedding feast seven days previously, they had already created very red and sore wrists and ankles.

Consequently, Caesarion, despite his proud wish to do so, could offer little resistance in response to the eager shredding of his outer garment. The boy was soon standing, shivering with both cold and fright, in the dark, dank and cool chamber, surrounded by petrifying torture devices, dressed only in his skimpy loincloth underwear. However, the small comfort of this last cover was not to last long, as the keen apprentice quickly accomplished his initial task to strip his young Pharaoh naked.

“Hmmm,” the apprentice declared, as Caesarion’s private parts were revealed. “Hmmm,” the 18 year-old repeated, with even greater audibility, when he then cupped his young King’s smooth balls in one hand, whilst rubbing the other up and down the silky surface of the boy’s lustrous buttocks.

Caesarion, already acutely humiliated by such demeaning sacrilege to the earthly form of a royal divinity, began to feel even more deeply ashamed when his cock started to rise in tandem with such abashing manual attention. His debasement was only intensified when the apprentice said “Look, Uncle, our young Pharaoh’s enjoying my fondling. Do you think he’s really a whore rather than a King or god?”

The older torturer, who had been busying himself with enlivening the coals in his two braziers and placing various irons and clamps in them for later use, glanced at Caesarion. He observed that the boy’s eyes were closed, perhaps in shame but also possibly in incongruous ecstasy, with his regal cock rapidly lengthening and rising through the horizontal to the vertical, until its slender, visibly throbbing shape pointed upwards towards his cute navel.

The man laughed at the sight and suggested “Like mother, like son. I bet he cums whilst we rape him, despite the undoubted intense mental and physical pain that he’ll surely endure!”

Meanwhile, Caesarion, intensely abashed at his display of arousal, as well as terrified of his overall predicament, decided that his only possible defence against what was to come was to try to play on his tormentors’ patriotic and religious beliefs, although he actually doubted that they possessed any. The young King did so not for his own sake particularly but rather because he wanted somehow to escape this place to plead for the lives of those who had supported him, including Ahmose and her parents, about whose fates he had been refused information.

“Please, Sirs,” Caesarion began to beg, which was itself a desperate humiliation for a Pharaoh and Lagid, “do not do this. I am your Pharaoh, son of Amon, whom we Greeks associate with Zeus. Think of what the gods will do to you in your afterlives for such awful abuse of, and treachery towards, your divine King!”

These words actually caused the apprentice momentarily to have second thoughts about what he was doing, as he did not fancy spending eternity in purgatory. However, his uncle helped the 18 year-old to dismiss his doubts when he announced “As far as I’m concerned, I’m a Roman subject now. I also serve them and believe in their pantheon of gods, where I don’t believe you have any place. I’m sure that Jupiter and his colleagues will reward both me and my assistant for own efforts in the cause of their people!”

“Traitors!” Caesarion could not prevent himself declaring with conviction. “You’ll pay for that,” the older torturer commented before now ordering his nephew impatiently to “Clean and position the boy whore as I’ve told you!”

Despite Caesarion’s feeble struggles, the taller, more muscular, unfettered and recently better accommodated and fed apprentice soon rubbed, with a damp, soapy cloth, the accumulated grime of the past week from his young King’s divine body. The 18 year-old then quickly positioned the naked and still degradingly erect regal 17 year-old in the requisite pose, shackled lengthways and immovably over the large, cool, polished but stained surface of the stone table. The latter edifice was plinth-like, with many firmly embedded strong metal rings around the outside vertical faces, which permitted a variety of bondage positions, and a slightly convex top surface, with runnels along the edges, presumably to help blood to run easily away.

Caesarion’s ankles were now chained wide apart to rings embedded at the bottom edges of one of the stone structure’s narrower vertical sides, whilst his wrists were connected to similarly sturdy metal hoops on opposite perimeters of the upper horizontal surface. The boy was now so positioned that he was tautly bent over the cool edifice, with almost no room for movement.

Caesarion’s beautiful face was forced against the upper horizontal surface, where he now realised, from close observation, that the inherent staining had resulted from much spilt blood, presumably shed here by many poor victims over many years. The boy King’s completely hairless bottom was also nicely presented for impending sodomy.

Caesarion’s pink virgin sphincter was clearly viewable, apparently blinking rapidly in line with his terrified heartbeat. The boy’s resolutely throbbing cock and nicely low-hanging smooth twin ball sacs were also still pleasantly visible, pressing against the vertical stone, with his penis vibrating in tandem with the regular opening and closing of his anal opening’s circular muscle.

The torturer, annoyed at being accused of being a traitor, advanced to stand immediately behind the helpless Caesarion. The man now held a hammer in his hand.

Caesarion’s whole body then tensed as he felt the heavy, cold, metal surface of the head of the hammer introduced gently to his left genital sac, before beginning to press the testicle present further towards the stone surface on which his smooth scrotum rested. “I’ll be cutting your sexual organs off later with my shears,” the torturer advised, “but I’m wondering if I should crush your balls now. Just one hard blow against each should do the job, unless of course you want to apologise for insulting me!”

(Audience hall, former royal palace, Alexandria, Egypt, same time)

Octavian, who was oblivious to the recapture of Caesarion, and the boy’s presence nearby in the dark dank bowels of the palace, was receiving petitioners from the local Greek elite, all of whom had been carefully screened by his officials for worthiness, as well as assassination weapons. He sat, rather uncomfortably because he did not yet consider himself to be either a King or Emperor, on Cleopatra’s gilded throne, which was shaded from the sunlight streaming in from the large open windows by purple awnings.

The next man seeking either justice or favour was announced by Octavian’s secretary as “Suti, a High Priest of Amon!” The new sole ruler of the known civilised world immediately thought it odd that a Greek should hold such a position.

(Torture chamber, former royal palace, Alexandria, Egypt, same time)

It was now not just Caesarion’s penis that vibrated but also his whole body, despite the humiliating tight confines imposed by his chains. However, the boy King’s form shamefully shook not with chill nor horror, but with unwanted ecstasy, as he entered orgasm and an intermittent but plentiful white stream of regal sperm began to erupt from his uncut cockhead to form a little waterfall gushing to the paved floor below. Some semen fell directly whilst other spurts formed a stream along the vertical stone surface against which the lower half of his delectable 17 year-old frame was forcibly resting.

“Ha,” declared the torturer to his nephew, “I told you he was a whore like his mother. He couldn’t waited to be fucked to cum. Well, what do I need an apology from such a harlot for, as obviously insults from such a slut are valueless. I’ll therefore reserve the pleasure of hammering his balls to mush until later. Let’s go ahead with our original plan of ruining our young Pharaoh’s anal virginity whilst he’s still otherwise unharmed. After all, we want his feelings dominated by the shameful and painful intrusion of our own large cocks filling him to the hilt, before impregnating him with our seed, and not by even more agonising activity, at least for now!”

Shortly afterwards, Caesarion, now almost traumatised by his own body’s mortifyingly unruly response to his predicament, felt the torturer’s large cockhead begin to press against his virgin sphincter. The young King had managed an early glance at the eagerly disrobing man’s huge, already fully erect and engorged penis, happily drooling precum. The boy thought that, given his own relatively diminutive frame, his small, circular, pink anal muscle must surely guard an orifice that had to be too small to accommodate the full length and girth of this monstrous human appendage and tool of carnal torture.

Caesarion was tempted to beg for mercy, as the torturer’s cock pressed on remorselessly, whilst the man’s strong hands held his rape victim’s hips tightly, even though the lithe upper thighs had nowhere else to go. The middle-aged Greek was seeking to brush aside the weak defences of the boy’s sphincter to deprive the last of the Pharaohs of the virginity of his rectum. However, a mixture of pride, recognition that the sodomiser would ignore such entreaties and increasing anal anguish made the young King bite his lip instead.

Unfortunately, such fortitude could only be momentary, as Caesarion’s anal gateway was overcome by brute force and a massive intruder began to force its way into the previously unconquered royal domains beyond. The young boy King’s rosy lips were now wide apart, as he could not prevent himself from screaming shrilly, with the agonised cacophony resounding round the torture chamber, as so many similar shrieks from other poor victims had done before for various reasons.

Meanwhile, more copious sperm flowed incongruously from Caesarion’s own still-rigid cock, causing the watching and intrigued apprentice to confirm, whilst he rubbed his own exposed penis, “Royal whore!”

(Torture chamber, former royal palace, Alexandria, Egypt, many hours later)

Many hours after the torturer had penetrated Caesarion’s anal defence, the blunt but nevertheless genitally deadly serrated blades of dirty shears engulfed young, vulnerable, male sexual organs.

“Please no!” the youthful, already comprehensively tortured and damaged victim begged but to no avail, as a loud crunching accompanied the agonising severance of his masculinity, which was soon displayed, bloody and dangling from fingers holding the cockhead, before his horrified, tearful eyes.

(Royal necropolis, Alexandria, Egypt, a few days later)

Most of the people of Alexandria were in deep mourning. Men had stopped shaving, whilst the women wore their hair down. The official word, that young Ptolemy XV Caesar, the last of the Pharaohs had been killed resisting the custody of the Romans, had spread like wildfire. However, the populace was not to be given the 70 days of reflection that was customary in ancient times, during which period the King’s body would pass through the lengthy mummification process. In line with more modern practice, the regal remains had been burned on a pyre in a secluded palace courtyard before his ashes had been placed in the ornate porphyry urn commissioned for the purpose by Agrippa.

The official cortege, comprising the royal catafalque with the large urn on top, a troop of Egyptian cavalry and many local dignitaries walking solemnly, had left the palace, eventually to proceed along the broad north to south Mareotic Street to the royal necropolis. This park was located to the northeast of this avenue’s junction with the west to east Canopic Way.

As the cortege proceeded slowly, the street and the flat roofs and balconies of its inherent buildings were thronged on either side by silent sullen crowds. They had come to pay their respects to the last of the Pharaohs, who was proceeding to his heavenly afterlife and whom most had heard would have made an excellent King if given the chance. Many people carried the sacred objects of their families in reverence and to receive blessing from the last son of Amon.

The provision of a small troop of protective Egyptian cavalry had been a deliberate action of the Romans, who knew that they were now less popular amongst the local population than ever before. However, Octavian and his advisers hoped that, by providing appropriate funeral honours for the deceased King, damaging rioting could be prevented and relationships subsequently improved from this nadir.

Octavian, as he discreetly observed, from a palace window high above, the cortege leave the regal residence, commented to Agrippa “Well, there for all to see goes the last of the Pharaohs, and now it doesn’t matter if he was the son of Julius Caesar. Surely, he will no longer be a threat to the Empire or to my position.” “I hope you’re right,” his best friend and general ruefully remarked.

Later, at the royal necropolis, many thousands witnessed the internment of the porphyry urn, containing the regal remains, in the newest mausoleum, which had also considerately been commissioned by Agrippa. Amongst their number was Sesse, who had once sworn to watch this moment and then commit suicide in order to be able to join his young former master, King, god, cause and lover in the afterlife.

(Northern England, almost 2032 years later, August 2002)

Dr. Peter Barry collected his 15 year-old nephew, Christopher, and the boy’s similarly aged best friend, Jack, up from the local regional airport. “Enjoy your holiday in the USA?” the university lecturer in history asked of the two very pretty boys, who both came from very wealthy families, as otherwise attendance at their prestigious public school could not be afforded.

Dr. Barry’s sister had been lucky enough to marry a young go-ahead entrepreneur, who had then advanced to the status of international businessman and multi-millionaire. The delightful, unpretentious Christopher was the sole product to date of this happy, prosperous union.

“Yes, thank you, Uncle Peter,” Chris answered, “but we’re now both glad to be here with you before we have to return to boarding school, instead of moving on to the Bahamas for a couple of weeks with my parents. I also think that we’ve left the USA just in time. The media’s completely dominated by the impending start of the American Football season. Many Yanks believe that it’s the best sport in the world but both Jack and I think it’s for sissies. After all, when we play Rugby Union, from which their game was derived, we don’t wear helmets and all that stupid body armour!”

Dr. Barry could not help but smile, even though he had many American friends who were so serious about their rather parochial sports that they would take such comments as both a national and personal insult. However, he then tried to rectify the matter on behalf of his chums across the Atlantic by remarking “Did you know that the USA are the current Olympic Rugby Union champions?”

“I didn’t know that Rugby Union was an Olympic sport,” an incredulous Chris replied. “It was in 1924,” informed the boy’s mischievous uncle with a broad smile.

Dr. Barry, now driving his car towards his hometown, then turned his attention to Jack, whom he had never met previously. “Did you enjoy your stay in the States,” Chris’ uncle enquired of the boy possessing the unusual combination for his race of golden hair, blue eyes and light brown skin.

“Yes, Sir,” responded Jack politely, “I was very pleased to be invited, in return for Chris spending the earlier part of the summer holidays with me and my family in my own country. However, like my schoolfriend, I too am now pleased to be here for a couple of weeks with you.”

“I doubt that either of you are especially glad to be with me,” Dr. Barry commented whilst still grinning, “or to be experiencing the scenery and weather where I live. I suggest that you’re pleased to be here because I have season tickets for Chris’ favourite soccer team and you both want to see the likes of Michael Owen in action!”

“Yes, Jack is a ‘Red’ like me but don’t underestimate yourself, Uncle Peter,” Chris retorted with equal good humour, “as your company and where you take us to, apart from splendid trips to a certain great soccer club, are always worth experiencing. However, watching Michael Owen is definitely a pleasant bonus!”

Returning to Jack, Dr. Barry remarked “You have an unusual name for someone of your nationality. Where does it derive from, if I may be so bold as to ask? I’d also like to request that you call me ‘Peter’ from now on as opposed to ‘Sir’. You’re not at school now but still on holiday!”

“OK, Sir, sorry I mean Peter,” Chris’ best friend replied before advising “Jack is actually my school nickname, which is an acronym of my three forenames and surname.” The very pretty 15 year-old then appraised Dr. Barry of his first and last appellations, which were perfectly in tune with his ethnicity.

“What do the A and C stand for?” Dr. Barry then enquired, not unreasonably. Jack, who was accustomed to such questioning and had long since overcome the embarrassment caused by his two middle names, candidly answered the academic, whilst simultaneously expecting imminent chortling to emerge from the man’s lips. However, Chris’ uncle was both too polite and too intrigued to display anything other than a returned smile.

“Where on earth,” Dr. Barry then asked, “did they come from? Are your parents history enthusiasts like me?”

“No, Sir, sorry I mean Peter,” Jack responded, “the names have been borne by my paternal forebears for as long as history records. They stem from a silly family legend.”

“Oh,” declared Dr. Barry, “I love legends. Please tell me about it, and I’ll introduce you both to Michael Owen personally.”

“How can you do that?” a suddenly excited Chris interrupted.

“I’ll tell you how if Jack tells me his legend!” the boy’s uncle retorted mischievously.

(Torture chamber, former royal palace, Alexandria, Egypt, almost 2032 years previously, 30 BC)

Many hours before a certain set of young genitalia were severed excruciatingly from their owner’s youthful body, and a few days before a certain state funeral took place, the heavy metal door of the torture chamber opened. The craftsman, whose place of work this awful room represented, had just thrust his immense cock all the way into Caesarion’s agonised and now bloody and torn rectum.

The intensely excited torturer turned his head in annoyance to see who was interrupting the first of the many pleasures he expected to gain from his royal victim over the next day. He saw a 33 year-old man, attired in a white tunic with purple edgings, examining the scene, his face exhibiting clear but suppressed anger.

“What do you think you’re doing to my royal cousin?” the unexpected arrival asked.

(Audience hall, former royal palace, Alexandria, Egypt, shortly before)

Octavian had consulted with Agrippa in the palace’s large and ornate audience hall, now devoid of all other occupants, other than an older man, dressed in the relatively simple costume of an Egyptian High Priest. The huge chamber had been cleared as soon as the petitioner had mentioned his subject matter, discreetly without giving too much away to those overhearing his conversation with the most powerful man in the world.

“Octavianus,” Agrippa declared desperately, “you shouldn’t see him.”

“Because you think that I’ll go wobbly at the knees at the thought of still having him subsequently killed?” his friend retorted.

Agrippa was unusually stumped for an answer because it should have been “Yes!” However, Octavian replied for him by saying “I thought so, and you also may be correct and not just because of my personal sensitivities and the fact that Ganymedes, also known as Suti here, is blackmailing me. Apparently, he has his priestly colleagues positioned all over Alexandria, poised to spread word, unless their High Priest later emerges from the palace alive to deter them, that the last of the Pharaohs is imprisoned and being questioned here. Such news would undoubtedly lead to major disturbances, which I’m sure we could suppress but only after much bloodshed. The subsequent death of the young bastard in our custody would also, I’m sure, provoke worse, not just here but possibly in Rome too. After all, the boy is the son of….”

Octavian left the last comment unfinished. However, he continued “In other words, disclosure of the young bastard’s capture alive and presence now in the palace could be politically very damaging, although probably not fatally so.”

“I can kill the young bastard immediately,” Agrippa announced eagerly, whilst gripping the hilt of his unsheathed sword, “along with this High Priest here, and then quickly round up his colleagues before they can do too much verbal harm.” “I’m sure you could,” Octavian replied, “but Ganymedes here has actually petitioned me at the right moment.”

“You see, Agrippa,” Octavian explained, “I’ve won the civil war and now I want to win the peace peacefully. I’m sick of internecine bloodshed and familial slaughter. There has to be a better way for a truly great leader to maintain authority over an Empire other than by fear and eliminating all potential rivals. I’ve heard good stories about Caesarion, which Ganymedes assures me are true, and so perhaps it’s time to meet him to judge for myself.”

Agrippa knew that his policy of securing Caesarion’s demise was in trouble when he heard his friend describe the boy not by the appellation of ‘bastard’ but by his nickname. “But Octavianus,” an alarmed general spluttered in response, “he represents too much potential trouble, even if he personally does not intend to be. Others could use him to undermine you, as he is after all….”

Agrippa curtailed his remark, just as Octavian had done previously. However, his friend insisted “Go on, complete what you were going to say.” The general therefore did so by declaring “He is after all the genuine son of Julius Caesar!”

“Precisely,” Octavian replied, “and my adoptive father must be cursing me in the afterlife for condemning his son to torture and death without ever meeting him to decide whether the boy truly represents a danger to the Empire and me and so deserves such an end. Julius Caesar, being a statesman, will understand the necessity for his offspring’s demise only if that judgement has been judiciously made by myself alone.”

“For the sake of my own eternal soul,” Octavian concluded with firmness, “I cannot allow matters to proceed without first meeting the boy and questioning him with words rather than implements of torture. However, I assure you that, if I do judge him to be a danger to Rome and myself, you may still have him strangled.”

Agrippa felt that he could not continue to protest, especially as his friend had invoked the issue of his adoptive father and the welfare of his own soul in the afterlife. The agnostic general therefore simply hoped that Caesarion would condemn himself to death by what he had to say to his second cousin.

(Audience hall, former royal palace, Alexandria, Egypt, shortly afterwards)

“I’m sorry, cousin,” Octavian announced, “that our first meeting occurred in such degrading circumstances for you. Nothing beyond normal questioning under torture should have happened whilst you were in the custody of my forces. I can assure you that the pair of men concerned are paying severely for their depraved actions at this very moment!”

In fact, some of the more brutal Roman legionaries were happily practising use of the torturer’s own devices on both the middle-aged Greek and his younger nephew.

“I hope, cousin, that the bathing facilities with which you have just been provided,” Octavian declared with genuine concern, “along with the various salves and fresh attire have assisted you to recover sufficiently from your ordeal to converse with me.”

The most powerful man in the world then heard gruff grumpy sounds emerging from the direction of Agrippa, who was deeply unhappy that his friend was now showing concern towards the young royal bastard, as well as terming the boy ‘cousin’. However, the general knew that he would now be unable to deflect his friend from the path on which he had set out.

“Cousin,” Octavian now advised bluntly, “Ganymedes here informs me that all you really want to do to is disappear into obscurity to save Egypt from further strife. I believe that he mentioned India as a possible destination. The High Priest apparently suggested to you that such action, by securing your own safety from us evil pursuing Romans, would fulfil vows to complete a mission ordered by your mother, as well as secure vengeance for the death on the cross of a close friend. Your continued existence in this world, in the face of your enemy’s best efforts to eliminate you, would satisfy both pledges. However, my own wisest counsellor tells me that you should still die because you pose too great a threat to both the Empire and myself as a result of your lineage. What’s your opinion?”

“What Ganymedes kindly suggests is true but I suppose, looking from your adviser’s perspective, I might agree with him,” Caesarion reflected with remarkable confidence and honesty, as was his characteristic custom. The young King had happily recovered sufficiently from his brief but traumatising experience in the torture chamber to be able to talk intelligently with Octavian. The regal 17 year-old had previously heard that his relative had publicly disparaged his supposed paternity and was pleased to learn, from the use of the term ‘cousin’, that these insults were not to be pursued in private. Julius Caesar’s heir had obviously furtively accepted the true identity of the boy’s father.

“Your adviser,” Caesarion continued, “would correctly want to err on the side of caution for, after all, much is at stake and what is my life worth compared to the peaceful consolidation of your position as master of the Roman Empire. Yes, I think that, if I was him, I too should be counselling that I should die.”

A grunt of approval, tinged with admiration, now emerged from the direction of the adviser concerned, Agrippa, who was beginning to appreciate that the tales about the boy’s bravery, wisdom and worthiness might be true. Nevertheless, this attitude did not distract the general from his view that the young King had to die.

“However,” Caesarion suggested, “I do not see why such a fate should apply to those who have helped me. After all, they were only displaying courageous loyalty to their King, which, if they were your supporters, I am sure you would admire. Please, cousin, do what you want with me but spare those arrested for aiding me. They deserve praise and reward for their stance not torture and death and I am sure that, if I let it be know to them that it was my wish, they would become quiescent and compliant towards the new regime after my demise.”

Octavian looked questioningly at Agrippa. “The people to whom he’s referring,” the general advised, “comprise the nationalists we’ve arrested in Alexandria for helping him when he was here, and whose names Rhodon gave us. They also include the 11 Greek ephebes and Egyptian boy, girl and two adults captured with him in the peasant village on the banks of the Nile.”

“We could be merciful,” Agrippa then reluctantly conceded, “to those arrested in Alexandria. However, the others know that we caught their King alive and this knowledge would therefore make it too dangerous for them to live if you decided that the boy could not, which even he suggests is the best course of action.”

“Please, cousin,” Caesarion interrupted, “perhaps I could recommend a solution to this dilemma. Please let me kill myself. It can then be truthfully said that I committed suicide in custody and there would be no need to have my friends murdered. I should even be happy to do so in front of witnesses so that no one could subsequently suggest that I was murdered. For example, I could publicly throw myself off a palace balustrade, seemingly to avoid further captivity.”

“That’s an excellent idea,” Agrippa eagerly jumped in to contribute further to the debate, “if, Octavianus, you want to grant the boy’s request to be merciful to his friends. I don’t suppose that, in the circumstances, such clemency would do any harm. In fact, it could only improve your local standing.”

“No,” Octavian responded, finally deciding upon Caesarion’s fate, “as, in line with ancient Egyptian custom, I believe that the last of the Pharaohs should be accompanied to his afterlife, and who better to fulfil the role than his friends.”

The most powerful man in the world then looked directly into Caesarion’s alarmed light blue eyes and announced “I’m sorry, cousin, but I’m going to have to have you all killed!”

(Royal palace, Cirta, capital of the north African Kingdom of Numidia, almost 5 years later, July, 25 BC)

The pretty but permanently melancholy 11 year-old boy sat on the palace balcony, surveying the surrounding city with his morose eyes. Meanwhile, his older brother was inside playing with friends, whilst the 15 year-old twin sister was elsewhere with her new 25 year-old husband, King Juba II of Numidia. The latter had once, when a 4 year-old, been paraded through Rome as a war trophy by Julius Caesar, as Princess Arsinoe, Cleopatra’s doomed sister, had been at a similar time.

Fortunately, the Numidian prince had since experienced a better fate than the Egyptian princess and been sent to claim to his rightful throne by his Roman hosts. However, before leaving for home from safe and comfortable enforced exile in Rome in 26 BC, he had been married to a suitable Romanised girl of appropriately excellent pedigree.

A 21 year-old man approached the sullen 11 year-old boy on the balcony. The latter youngster was yet again praying to the gods that he might one day be rejoined in the afterlife with his beloved, deceased older half-brother, whose deeply hurtful loss he had never stopped grieving. On this occasion, he was pleading with Isis, of whom his late mother had claimed to be the living personification.

“Hello, Ptolemy Philadelphus,” said a gentle voice from behind the 11 year-old boy.

The boy’s slim shoulders suddenly tensed and he slowly began to look behind him, whilst experiencing a strange mix of fear and exultation, as he believed that he knew the vocal tones. The 11 year-old’s eyes then became transfixed by the form behind him, which he did indeed immediately recognise despite the time gap since last viewing the handsome frame.

Just as the boy had once uttered previously, when a 6 year-old in the royal palace in Alexandria on observing the same shape, Ptolemy Philadelphus now squealed in delight. The 11 year-old then leapt to his feet and ran to his unexpected visitor to continue the hug that had been so rudely interrupted 5 years before.

As Ptolemy Philadelphus advanced, he joyously exclaimed “Thank you Isis”, just as Sesse had once done after viewing the same person and as he was diving naked into the Canopic Canal.

“Caesarion!” Ptolemy Philadelphus then continued to squeal over and over again in utter delight, apparently no longer able to say anything else, as he clutched his beloved older half-brother and whilst seemingly determined this time never to let go. After all, the last time he had lost his fraternal grip, his hero had proceeded to jump from a precipitous balcony, after which he had never seen him again until this day. He had later been told that, although his oldest sibling had somehow survived the fall, the last of the Pharaohs had subsequently committed suicide.

(Royal necropolis, Alexandria, Egypt, almost 5 years previously, 30 BC)

Sesse walked away from the sad scene of Ptolemy XV Caesar’s funerary rights to proceed south along Mareotic Street towards the eponymous southern gate and the docks and lake beyond. However, no thoughts of personal suicide overwhelmed his mind. Instead, the pretty 14 year-old’s brave heart was full of joy.

Caesarion’s death, plus those of 11 Greek ephebes and 4 Egyptians, had been faked. The young King had agreed to Octavian’s suggestion that he should go into distant exile with his friends, never to return to the Roman Empire and whilst everyone else presumed him dead. The agreement was solemnised by a sacred vow presided over by Ganymedes, who also excused, in his priestly role, the sacrilege of entombing the ashes of a nullified torturer’s apprentice in the royal necropolis.

After Sesse had reported the funerary scene to Caesarion and his friends on the Ephebeian training barge, once more moored secretly along the Canopic Canal, this time carefully guarded by Roman soldiers trusted to keep their mouths shut, the vessel had again set off for the Nile. The greatest emporium in the world, according to Strabo, the city of Alexandria, was literally giving away for free possibly its most valuable living export ever.

Speedy progress was assisted by the 12 ephebes, led by Timotheos and including the last of the Pharaohs, regularly plying the twelve oars. The young Greeks had been happy to sacrifice their futures with their own families, who thought them all dead, to share that of their young King.

Royal Egyptian regalia were no longer secreted below decks. What was flammable had been burnt with the torturer’s apprentice, whilst that of jewels and precious metal had been broken up or melted down to boost Octavian’s local treasury. Nevertheless, Caesarion had been allowed by his second cousin to keep his 100 talents of gold to help him start his new life in India. However, as far as the young King was concerned, there was more precious cargo on the barge, for the mummy of his beloved Ay had been retrieved from Alexandria’s catacombs to accompany him into exile.

On board the barge, besides Ay’s remains and the very much still alive Sesse, were Ahmose, the King’s Great Wife and her parents, who would now have to share Caesarion’s secret banishment, a scenario that was not displeasing to them as they could stay close to their adopted daughter. Also embarking upon the journey were Rhodon and his family, for whom Egypt was now too dangerous. Everyone else on the vessel had followed their young King’s line and bore the tutor no grudge for his recent betrayal, appreciating that, in similar circumstances, with their own wife and children threatened with terrible torture, they would probably have perpetrated the same.

Ganymedes was present on the barge too, obtaining a lift back to the renewed obscurity of his riverside temple, from where he had thankfully rushed to Alexandria as soon as he had learnt about Caesarion’s arrest. The eunuch felt that he was too old to accompany his young King on his adventure but volunteered Heribor to provide the party with continued religious counsel. The very handsome 15 year-old was delighted to accept the challenge.

Meanwhile, Caesarion’s marriage to Ahmose was finally consummated in the thatched hut that denoted the only private shelter on the barge’s upper deck. The potency of the boy’s pharaonic seed later became quickly apparent when the King’s Great Wife began to show signs of pregnancy.

After dropping Ganymedes off, amidst many tearful farewells, and collecting the priestling, Heribor, the barge headed further south down the currently sedate Canopic branch of the green flat Nile delta. Progress through checkpoints was aided by a pass marked with Octavian’s own seal and a discreetly accompanying Roman boat, manned by men charged with seeing the party safely off Egyptian soil and returning the Ephebeian vessel to Alexandria.

The barge eventually passed the original destination, Babylon, and entered the now single broad river valley to pass many other towns and cities until they arrived in Syene, where their river transport was exchanged for ships of the desert, camels. These animals would take the royal party across the easterly wastes on a well-used caravan trail, interspersed with life-saving wells, to the seaport of Berenice, on the Arabian Gulf [modern-day Red Sea]. This town was named after one of Caesarion’s Queenly ancestors, the wife of the first Ptolemy.

From Berenice, some more of Caesarion’s gold talents paid for passage to India. The party was fortunately just in time to benefit from the tail of the summer monsoon winds, which enabled sailing southeast to their new destinies much easier. They were also fortunate in their choice of ultimate destination, a small northwest coastal Kingdom on the vast subcontinent, where the elderly childless local ruler welcomed such interesting guests with open arms.

The Indian King’s own forebears had come across Alexandrer the Great over 300 years previously and so he was intrigued to be confidentially told that the leader of his guests was a descendent of that revered conqueror. The local monarch had also heard of Julius Caesar and was therefore delighted to be acting as host to his son, who had begun occasionally to wear his father’s purple cloak, gifted to him by Ganymedes.

The Indian King eventually became so enchanted by the pleasant Caesarion, who displayed compassion and wisdom beyond his tender years, and already possessed his own bouncing baby son, that he decided to make the last of the Egyptian Pharaohs his own heir, in lieu of any better local candidates. However, the boy believed that, after delivering his friends to safety and comfort, he still had another mission to fulfil. He had to locate, without breaking his oath to Octavian, his beloved younger half-brothers and sister to see if they too were safe and happy, or wanted to join him.

In 26 BC, Timotheos and some other older ephebes undertook the initial research by returning to the fringes of the Roman Empire, without actually standing on Imperial territory. They travelled to the tiny independent Kingdom of Judaea, from where they commissioned agents quietly to discover the whereabouts and welfare of the twins, Alexander Helios and Cleopatra Selene, and younger sibling, Ptolemy Philadephus.

On receiving the eventual news, Caesarion himself, accompanied by Timotheos and Sesse, set out to track down his brothers and sister, reluctantly leaving behind, in the care of her parents, Ahmose, who was expecting her third child. The search of the last of the Pharaohs for his younger siblings was assisted by the fact that he could travel through Judaea, and across the Mediterranean to Numidia, a client Kingdom of Rome but nominally independent, without breaking his oath to Octavian by stepping on land that formed an official part of the Roman Empire.

Caesarion had learnt that on her marriage in Rome to King Juba II of Numidia, the girl’s adoptive mother, Octavia, second wife of Mark Antony and sister of Octavian, had persuaded her Imperial brother to grant the new African Queen custody of her own male siblings.

On Caesarion’s own eventual arrival in Numidia, King Juba II welcomed his brother-in-law in secret, being sympathetic to the young man’s cause from his own experiences of exile and separation from home and family, as well as by being married to his half-sister. He also knew that his wife’s young brothers, Alexander Helios and Ptolemy Philadelphus, were unhappy and restless in his obscure country, despite his best efforts to continue their good upbringing and find a role in life for them. Perhaps, he hoped, the last of the Pharaohs might offer a solution to this problem, which might otherwise ultimately lead to unfortunate dynastic trouble when the siblings became older.

Happily, King Juba’s hopes proved well founded because the two boys returned with Caesarion to India, after a lachrymose departure from their sister. They were to enjoy happy and glorious living afterlives in the east, whilst never returning or being heard about in the western world of the time again.

Meanwhile, Cleopatra Selene had three children by her husband, Ptolemy and Drusilla of Mauretania, and another daughter, called Cleopatra. Octavian was to flourish too. He brought peace and prosperity to his Empire, which he was to rule alone and very astutely for 44 years. He was awarded the honorific title of ‘Princeps’ and name of ‘Augustus’ by a grateful Senate, becoming in the process the first of the Roman Emperors.

(Northern England, almost 2032 years later, August 2002)

“Well, Peter,” Jagannath Kesri, or Jack, began, “my middle names are embarrassingly Alexander Caesar because there’s a ridiculous legend in my family that my paternal line is directly descended from Caesarion, son of Julius Caesar and Cleopatra and also supposedly a descendant of Alexander the Great. The last of the Pharaohs was supposed to have taken up secret exile in my country, India. There, aided by excellent courtiers he had brought from Egypt, who intermarried with the local population, he inherited a small Kingdom to become a highly successful regional ruler, turning his domain into an expanded, powerful, prosperous state. His brothers were supposedly great generals, and men named Timotheos, Sesse, Heribor and Rhodon respectively a renowned admiral, vizier, High priest and teacher. Their names are still revered in the particular part of my homeland where I live, and where my grandfather and his male ancestors were once Maharajas.”

“We’ve since given up such titles,” Jack continued, “as befits living in the world’s largest democracy. We’ve also given over our former palace to the state to aid tourism and live somewhere more modest.” However, given that the boy’s family could still afford to send the very pleasant 15 year-old to one of England’s top public schools, Dr. Barry did not believe that the new familial residence would be overly modest.

“The only supposed proof we have of all this, Peter,” Jack advised, “is a carefully preserved tatty purple cloak, which was once said to have been owned by Julius Caesar himself. The whole thing’s stupid isn’t it? I wouldn’t mind so much if I not only didn’t have to carry my embarrassing middle names to my afterlife but also am expected to pass them on to my own eldest son!”

(Northern England, a week later, August 2002)

Chris and Jack cooed in awe as they obtained Michael Owen’s autograph from the great soccer star himself.

“I told you that I could deliver,” Dr. Barry commented to the two delighted and delightful boys, after the trio had waited in the pouring rain for two hours in the players’ car park for the soccer star to finish his session at his club’s training ground.

Later, dried and tummies full with decent food at his home, Dr. Barry suggested to his young guests that they come and look at a picture in a history book he was reading. The illustration depicted an engraving on an ancient Egyptian temple, depicting a woman and a boy.

“Look closely at the boy,” Dr. Barry suggested. It then took a couple of minutes for Chris to survey both the picture and his best friend before declaring “Well, Uncle Peter, despite the stylisation, the subject resembles Jack almost precisely. Who is he?”

“Well,” Dr. Barry answered, “the woman is Queen Cleopatra VII of Egypt and the boy is King Ptolemy XV Caesar, also known as Caesarion, the last of the Pharaohs, who was about 15 years old at the time.”

“Perhaps,” suggested an astonished Jack, “I should revise my attitude towards both my middle names and my ancestry!”

(Northern England, almost a year later, July 2003)

Having conducted part-time research on his subject for almost a year, Dr. Barry decided that, as well as writing an academic paper, he would put his findings into apparently fictional form. There was, after all, a certain story archive to which he regularly contributed and where at least some of the readership might welcome such a tale!

THE END

of

‘THE LAST OF THE PHARAOHS’

by Pueros