Usem, the Psylli, is drawn from classical history. He belongs to a tribe referenced both in Plutarch (brought to examine Cleopatra after her death) and in Herodotus, and his tribe is famous both for their relationship with serpents, and for going to war against the Western Wind. In classical sources, the tribe loses the war, and is buried beneath sand dunes. However, their reappearance later, in Cleopatra’s time, intrigued me, so…

Chrysate, the witch of Thessaly, is a creature drawn from my nightmare imagination as well as from a variety of classical sources (including Medea, who by tradition is from Thessaly, and certainly did some famous child-sacrifice. The ingredients and procedure for Chrysate’s youth spell are taken from Ovid’s Medea), as are many of her spells, though there is no historic link to Augustus. The price for drawing down the moon really is a sacrificed child, or one of the witch’s own eyes.

Auðr, the seiðkona, is based in Norse history and mythology (see stories of Freya and the Norns, as well as many tales more historically based, about the völva and seiðkona —two words for the same kind of sorceress and seer) as are her distaff, and her powers over fate and memory. I was also inspired by the Germanic tribe of the Cimbri and their female seers, gray-haired women dressed in white, who accompanied the men into battle. The Cimbri were known to the Romans as early as the second century B.C. as a “piratical and warlike folk,” and written about by Strabo. Though the lands north of England, in this book the birthplace of Auðr, were unknown to the Augustan-era Romans, and filed under “Oceanus,” I couldn’t resist bringing my seiðkona into the fray.

In A.D. 365, there was an undersea earthquake and major tsunami that caused many of the buildings in Alexandria, including Cleopatra’s Palace, to slide deep beneath the harbor. By the eighth century, further earthquakes (though Alexandria is not on any known fault line) had destroyed much of the ancient city. At the time of this writing, the buildings of Cleopatra’s Palace have been discovered, but archaeologists (and other interested parties) have long been searching for Antony and Cleopatra’s tomb, thus far without success.

One of the few confirmed images of Cleopatra extant today is in Egypt at the Temple of Dendera, commissioned by Cleopatra, but completed by Octavian after her death. On its facade, a life-size image of the queen exists. In it, she travels with her son, Caesarion, to deliver an offering to Isis. Her son is accompanied by a small figure representing his ka.

Cleopatra, on the other hand, travels alone, unaccompanied by her soul.

Really.

—MDH, November 2010

Seattle, Washington

Acknowledgments

Every writer has a Greek chorus of advisors, drinking partners, brainstormers, barnraisers, and ghosts, and mine may well be even larger than most. After my last book, someone published a review of my acknowledgments, claiming (I kid you not) that I was “too thankful” to too many people. Bullshit. When it comes to making a living off imaginary worlds, there is no such thing as being too thankful. Libations and sacrifices to: