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By Laura (Riding) Jackson
With a foreword and afterword 1939; Sun and Moon Press, 1995 |
This study of ancient history was first published in 1939, shortly after Riding's Collected Poems. Riding rewrites history, employing factual accuracy to reconceive what the history books have left out, foregrounding what male-dominated societies have left to the background and imagination. And what we perceive in Riding's recounting is that women of these periods were major forces of history, not simply passive receivers of the attentions of great men but the stimulus and cause of events.
Edwin Muir wrote of Lives of Wives upon its original publication: "The great virtue of this book is that it sees life in a pattern, and war, murder, sudden death and 'the domestic hearth of life' as part of the pattern; it sees life historically, that is to say, and at the same time from a vantage above history."
Foreword
by Laura (Riding) Jackson
Modern history really begins with the founding of the Persian Empire. The first emphatic punctuation in history after this is the time of Alexander and Aristotle; and the next after that is the time of Herod the Great.
In the language of Daniel: ancient times were of gold and silver; the age of Cyrus the Persian was of brass; the age of Alexander, of iron, later mixed with clay. And then came the stone which broke into pieces this images of many metals: unhewn stone, li ke that of the altar of burnt-offerings at Jerusalem.
I have called my version of these three crucial ages preceding the Christian Era Lives of Wives because the principal male characters are here written of as husbands rather than as heroes.
Excerpt
by Laura (Riding) Jackson
In the conflict between Caesar and Pompey, Antipater, Hyrcanus's vizier, had supported Pompey: Caesar's victory was a great surprise to the whole world. Pompey had long been regarded as the leading Roman of his time. Perhaps this was because his campaigns were in the East and therefore seemed grander achievements than Caesar's works in Gaul; moreover, Caesar's ways were simple and soldierly, while Pompey delighted in the hero's part. At Rome the senatorial party had been pro-Pompey, and when the war betwe en Pompey and Caesar started and Caesar marched from Gaul into Italy, Pompey had all the resources of the state at his command. But the senatorial party was itself unpopular throughout Italy, and with the army. Town after town received Caesar with jubilat ion; soldiers who were called upon to join Pompey's forces deserted to Caesar. Pompey was forced to withdraw to Greece--his wife Cornelia he sent for safety to Lesbos. The final battle between Caesar and Pompey took place on the plain of Pharsalia in Thes saly, in August 48. Pompey, defeated, went first to Lesbos, to fetch Cornelia and his young son. His plan was to take refuge in Egypt and wait there until his friends should have collected a fresh army. It was now that Antipater dissociated himself from P ompey, refusing to let him enter Judaea.
Cornelia, Pompey's wife, was a beautiful and learned woman. On the journey from Lesbos to Alexandria she tried to dissuade him from his resolution to face Caesar again. 'Let us settle quietly in Alexandria and devote ourselves to study and the education o f our son. The great library of the Ptolemies is there, and scholars from all over the world visit this place: we could hold ourselves fortunate in substituting the society of the wise for that of the great.' But Pompey was too distracted with rage at his defeat to be soothed by this argument. He sent a ship ahead to announce his arrival, reminding the advisers of the boy-king (Cleopatra's brother, Cleopatra having just been deprived of her share in the rule) how he had helped his father to regain his thr one. The Egyptians resolved not to meddle in the dispute between Pompey and Caesar. As Pompey's ship neared the port they sent a boat out to meet him, as if in friendship. Pompey went down into it with a few attendants, understanding that further boats wo uld be sent for his wife and son and the rest of his suite. When he rose to step on shore he was stabbed from behind; and Cornelia saw him fall.
Caesar, arriving in Egypt in pursuit of Pompey, was shown the head of his vanquished enemy. They had once been friends, and Pompey's first wife was Caesar's daughter Julia, now dead. Caesar wept. Pompey's only fault had been that he believed himself desti ned to greatness, and lived his triumphs as if they were prophetic of still more glorious ones. 'Yet is my way better?' Caesar asked himself, thinking how he accepted his triumphs coldly, suspicious of what might come next. 'Who is not a worse man than hi s fellow?' He had the body of Pompey decently burned and carried the ashes to Rome with him, where he gave them to Cornelia.
It has already been told how Caesar, soon after his arrival in Egypt, became involved in Cleopatra's dispute with her brother. This little war in Egypt gave Antipater his first chance of showing friendship to Caesar: by helping the Roman reinforcements to reach Caesar quickly. In the course of the siege of Alexandria the royal library was partially burned, and the loss of so many valuable manuscripts distressed Cleopatra. The library had been begun by the first Ptolemy and increased by each of his success ors, growing to hundreds of thousands of volumes. We shall see how Mark Antony consoled Cleopatra for this loss.