Part 4

At the close of the winter he undertook a brief campaign into Syria against Antiochus of Commagene, and soon after returned to Athens, where he remained two years. In 36, a new difficulty occurring between him and Octavius on the subject of the naval expedition against the pirates, in which he had refused to second the latter, civil war again became imminent. Antony planned a descent upon Italy, with three hundred vessels; Octavius, on his side, collected his legions; if blood did not yet flow, swords were half unsheathed. In the hope of preventing this unnatural war, Octavia entreated Antony to take her with him into Italy. The port of Brundusium having refused entrance to Antony’s fleet, his vessels moored before Tarentum. Informed of this, Octavius was leading his troops by forced marches against that city. Octavia desired to land alone. She went to meet Octavius on the way to Venosa; passing through the outposts and sentinels, she approached her brother, who was attended by Agrippa and Mecænas. She warmly pleaded the cause of Antony, and especially conjured Octavius not to reduce her from the happiest of women to the most miserable. “At this moment,” said she, “the eyes of the world are upon me, the wife of one of the rulers of Rome, and the sister of the other. Should the counsel of wrath prevail, should war be declared, it may be doubtful to which of you two Fate may give the victory, but it is certain to whichever it inclines I shall be in grief and desolation.” The ambitious Octavius was already coveting universal dominion, but he was a temporizer. He yielded to the prayers of Octavia, and for the second time this woman, who was the good genius of Antony, maintained the peace of the Roman world. The two triumvirs met on the shores of the Gulf of Tarentum, and after having lavished on each other various marks of affection they agreed to renew the triumvirate for five years. Octavius gave Antony two legions to reënforce his army of the East, and in return Antony gave up one hundred triremes with brazen rostra and twenty Liburnian galleys for his Mediterranean fleet. These were the vessels that were to conquer at Actium! From Tarentum, Octavia returned alone to Rome with the two children she had borne to Antony; he himself embarked for Asia Minor, whither he was summoned by the war with the Parthians. The pair agreed to meet again, the expedition over, either at Athens or at Rome, when Antony hoped to receive the honors of a triumph.

From the winter of 39 to the summer of 36 B. C., for three long years, Cleopatra remained thus parted from Antony. She was queen of Egypt and Cyprus, she had borne one son to Cæsar and two to Antony, she possessed immense revenues and treasures inexhaustible, but she suffered in her pride and in her love from the desertion of the triumvir. Cleopatra at twenty years of age had in all probability not loved Cæsar, who was over fifty. She loved Antony. In fact, though she had at first given herself to the triumvir through policy, yet she soon felt for this rough soldier, handsome with the beauty of Hercules, master of the East, surrounded by glory and power, the same passion that she had inspired in him. If, indeed, the ancient authors do not state in words that Cleopatra loved Antony, the scenes which they depict can scarcely permit a doubt of it. There is a logic of circumstances. With his martial air, his lofty stature and broad chest, his mane of black hair and eyes of gloom, his aquiline nose and harshly cut features, Antony certainly possessed manly attractions. His first wife, Fulvia, loved him passionately; his second wife, Octavia, loved him supremely; the haughty Cleopatra gave him love for love. Besides, Shakspeare tells us this, and the word of this great painter of the human heart, of this marvelously comprehensive genius, may well make up for the silence on this point of a Dion Cassius or a Paul Orose.

Great as might have been the suffering of this other Dido, one can scarcely imagine her enveloped in habiliments of woe and sighing in the retirement of her palace. In all probability Cleopatra continued her gay life of pompous show, giving to pleasure all the time that was left from official ceremonies, public audiences and other duties of the government, and her conferences with architects and engineers.[8] The Typhonium, at Denderah, dates from the reign of Cleopatra. As is shown by its cartouches, she also labored at the great temple of Denderah, at those of Edfou, Heminthis, and Coptos, as well as at the monuments of Thebes situated on the left bank of the Nile. At Alexandria, besides the Cæsarium, which it appears was begun by Cleopatra, she had many fine buildings erected; but as with many other more ancient palaces and temples, there remains of them not a vestige on that surface which the ruins of centuries have in so many places raised to a height of fully ten meters.

Did the queen seek to play the indifferent by leaving Antony without tidings, or, as Plutarch insinuates and Shakspeare declares, did she, during these three years, overwhelm him with dolorous appeals and burning messages of love? According to Josephus, her voluptuous temperament was ever leading her into transient amours. Besides Cneius Pompey, Cæsar, Dellius, Antony, and Herod, king of the Jews, the five lovers who are accredited or attributed to her, the queen of Egypt had many flirtations and anonymous entanglements. Is this calumny? It is rather a slander. Be this as it may, the accusation is no proof that Cleopatra no longer loved Antony. These riddles of the heart and the senses are, after all, no enigma.

As for Antony, it seems that he had indeed forgotten Cleopatra. Not only during the three years that he had passed with Octavia at Athens and Rome; not only on his return from the expedition against Antiochus of Commagene had he not visited Egypt, but even on his way from Tarentum to Laodicea he had not touched at Alexandria, which was almost directly in his course. He sailed straight for Syria. By a singular fatality, scarcely had he set foot in Asia when he felt his passion rekindle with the utmost violence. He established himself at Laodicea, and at once despatched his friend Fonteius Capito into Egypt to conduct Cleopatra to Syria. The queen, enchanted, had no thought of delaying her departure in order to make herself the more desired, as she had done five years before. She embarked at once, and was received at Laodicea by her lover with transports of joy. To prove otherwise than by caresses his unspeakable happiness at seeing her again, he gave her, not jewels, but kingdoms: Chalcedon, Phœnicia, Cœolo-Syria, a great part of Cilicia, Genesereth in Judea, noted for its balm, and Nabathae in Arabia. Antony had no right to dispose of these territories, which belonged to the _Roman people_; but mad with pride as much as with love he declared that “The glory of Rome was displayed much less in her conquests and possessions than in the gifts she bestowed.”[9]

A few days after they were again compelled to part, with the promise, however, of meeting again in the spring at Alexandria. Antony passed with his army into Armenia; Cleopatra returned to Egypt, passing through Apamea, Damascus, and Petrea. She desired to settle with the kings of Judea and Arabia the amount of the tribute which these rulers were to pay yearly for the portions of territory which Antony had bestowed. The king of Arabia promised three hundred talents (sixteen hundred and sixty thousand francs); the tribute of the king of the Jews was greater. This king was Herod, whom the protection of Antony had a few years before placed on the throne. He went to Damascus to meet Cleopatra. According to Josephus, Herod, who was remarkably handsome, repulsed the shameless advances of the queen, even proposing to put her to death whilst she was in his power in order to deliver Antony from her fatal influence; but his counselors dissuaded him from this crime, telling him that from that moment he would incur the terrible vengeance of Antony.

Cleopatra had not been long in Alexandria when she received a message from Antony, dated at Leucocoma, a city on the seaboard of Syria. He entreated her to join him at once with money, stores, and clothing for his soldiers, who were destitute of everything. The war had been unsuccessful. By his too eager desire to rejoin Cleopatra in the spring, Antony had compromised the success of the campaign. When he reached Armenia, after a forced march of eight thousand stadia, he should have gone into winter quarters and not opened the campaign till the spring, with troops rested and refreshed, and at a favorable season. Too impatient to submit to this long delay, he entered Upper Media, and that his march might be more rapid he left behind all his siege machinery under the guard of one detachment. Chariots, towers, catapults, battering-rams eighty feet long—all were destroyed by the Parthian cavalry. Through the want of these batteries Antony failed in the attack on the city of Phraata. Threatened by an overwhelming force, he was compelled to retreat. It was midwinter, the legionaries had to march through the snow amid freezing squalls. Every morning many were found frozen to death. Provisions failed, they lost their way, and the formidable Parthian cavalry harassed the exhausted columns. In this terrible retreat, the remembrance of which may have occurred to Napoleon before crossing the Niemen, Antony recovered his energy and his qualities as a general; insensible to fatigue and hunger he was everywhere present; he was both imperator and centurion. Ever at the point where danger threatened most, in twenty-seven days he fought eighteen battles. Victor at night, the next day the struggle was renewed against fresh and ever-increasing forces. When Antony reached the coast of Syria his army was reduced from seventy thousand to thirty-eight thousand men. More fortunate than Crassus, however, the Romans brought back their eagles.

Cleopatra in vain used all despatch; she did not reach Antony as soon as he had hoped, and his impatience became agony. He imagined that the queen would not comply with the appeal of a conquered man. Overcome by despair he fell into a sort of stupor. Then he sought distraction in drinking, but the pleasures of the table, of which he had been so utterly deprived during the campaign of Media, had no power to relieve his anxiety. At the very height of an orgy he would suddenly rise from the table, leave his companions, and hasten to the seashore, where he would remain whole hours with his eyes fixed on the horizon in the direction whence he expected Cleopatra to appear.

At length the long-desired queen arrived with provisions and clothing, and about two hundred and forty talents of silver. The paying of the legionaries,[10] the reorganization of the army, and the collection of contributions compelled Antony to remain some time longer at Leucocoma, and Cleopatra remained with him. Meanwhile, the news of the disastrous expedition having reached Rome, Octavia, still devoted to her husband despite the efforts of Octavius, who had had the cruelty to inform her of the reunion of Antony and Cleopatra, determined to embark for Asia. She entreated Octavius to furnish her with ships, soldiers, and money. Report had informed Octavius of the renewed passion of Antony. He yielded to the request of Octavia in the hope that the insulting reception she was likely to receive from her husband might detach her from him forever and rouse the indignation of the Romans. Not to risk a meeting with Cleopatra, Octavia landed at Athens, whence she sent word to Antony of her arrival. But the triumvir would not dismiss his mistress; he wrote to Octavia to remain at Athens, offering her as a pretext his intention of undertaking a new expedition against the Parthians. In fact, the king of Media, incessantly a prey to these wild hordes, had proposed to Antony an alliance against them. Without resenting Antony’s refusal to receive her, of which refusal she did not deceive herself as to the cause, Octavia wrote again to Antony. This letter contained no reproaches; the young wife asked the triumvir simply whither she should send the reënforcements and the munitions she had brought for him. These included, besides military clothing and arms, machines of war and a large amount of money, three thousand chosen men as splendidly armed as the prætorian cohorts. Octavia had sacrificed a portion of her private fortune to add this quota to the supplies. Niger was charged with the delivery of this letter. Often interviewed by Antony, who held him in great esteem, he mildly pointed out the wrongs of Octavia, reminded him of the rare virtues of this admirable woman, and exhorted him in the name of his own interests so seriously involved, and of his renown so sadly compromised, to abandon Cleopatra.

Much shaken, Antony hesitated. He thought he would go to Media. By this means he could send Cleopatra back to Egypt, leave Octavia in Greece, and delay, until his return from the campaign, the decision which he could not resolve now to make; but Cleopatra, with the penetration of a woman who loves, read the heart of Antony. She saw herself a second time in danger of losing her lover; moreover, she had the advantage over Octavia of being near Antony. She redoubled her smiles and caresses, purposely exaggerating the passion already very warm and unfeigned which possessed her. Then, at the first broaching of his departure for Media, she pretended a mortal sorrow. She would neither eat nor sleep, she passed her days and nights in tears; her pale face, her haggard features and sunken eyes, her stony look and pallid lips struck all who approached her. Her women, her friends, the intimates of the triumvir whom she had won over by her flatteries and promises, reproached Antony with his want of feeling. They accused him of allowing to die of grief the most adorable of women, who breathed only for him. “Octavia,” said they, “is bound to you merely by her brother’s interest; she enjoys all the advantages of a wife’s title, while Cleopatra, the queen of so many peoples, is called only the mistress of Antony, ἐρω.μένην Ἀντωνíου. She refuses not this name, she does not feel humiliated by it—she glories in it: her sole bliss, her only ambition, is to live with thee!” Antony yielded, overcome by such speeches and by the fear that Cleopatra, who possessed his whole heart, and whom only his reason urged him to resist, would die of grief or take poison. He therefore postponed his expedition into Media, and returned with Cleopatra to Alexandria, where they resumed the “Life Inimitable.”

At the commencement of the year 34, Antony joined his legions in Asia. In a few days he defeated the Armenians, made prisoner the king and all his family, and reduced the country to subjection. After this glorious campaign Antony was to enjoy a triumph at Rome, but through love and devotion to Cleopatra, whom he wished to share his honors, the ceremony was given at Alexandria. For the first time a Roman received the reward of a triumph outside of Rome. It was an insult to the city, which thus seemed discrowned; it was an offense to the senate and the people, from whom alone the honor of a triumph could be received.

This scandalous triumph was of the utmost magnificence. Through Alexandria, decorated with the richest ornaments and massed with flowers, filed to the sound of horns and trumpets, the legionaries, the auxiliary cavalry, the priests, the censer-bearers, and the deputies from different cities, wearing crowns of gold, chariots filled with trophies, and thousands of captives. Before the triumphal chariot, drawn by four white horses, walked the king Artavasdes, his wife, and two sons, bound in chains of gold. When the chariot arrived before Cleopatra, who, seated on a throne of gold and ivory, presided at the triumph, Antony stayed his quadriga, and presented to the queen his royal captives. After the procession and the sacrifices, he gave a mammoth banquet to the citizens of Alexandria. Enormous tables were spread in the gardens of the palace and in the public squares. The feast over, Antony seated Cleopatra on her throne of gold and ivory [chryselephantine], and placed himself on a similar one; the trumpets sounded, the soldiers presented arms, and the whole people collected in crowds around the two lovers. Then Antony proclaimed that from that time Cleopatra should be called the Queen of Kings, and her son, Cæsarion, the heir of Julius, the divine, the King of Kings; and he renewed to them the sovereignty of Egypt and Cyprus. Next he publicly settled the state of the three children borne him by Cleopatra. He gave to the eldest, Alexander, called by him Helios, Armenia, Media, and the country of the Parthians; to his twin-sister Cleopatra, whom he called Selene, the kingdom of Lybia; to Ptolemy, Phœnicia, Syria, and Cilicia. At each proclamation of the triumvir, heralds repeated his words and the trumpets sounded. The same day the youthful (infant) sovereigns were presented by Antony to the army and the people. Alexander appeared in the robes of the Mede with the cidaris (sash) of the kings of Persia, and a platoon of Armenians as a guard of honor. Ptolemy had an escort of Macedonian mercenaries armed with lances eighteen feet long; he wore the long purple mantle, the sandals embroidered with gold, and the crown of precious stones of the successors of Alexander.

Cleopatra had already set the example of such masquerades. Two years before, on her return from Laodicea, when Antony had added to her dominions Phœnicia, Chalcedon, Cœlo-Syria and many other countries she had opened a new era and had assumed the name of the New Isis, or New Goddess. It was in the narrow garment of Isis, and on her head the covering of Isis (the golden horns, between which rested the vulture head), with the lotoform scepter in her hand, that she presided at public ceremonies or gave state audiences.

Submissive to these caprices Antony allowed himself to be represented in paintings and groups of statuary under the figures of Osiris and Bacchus, seated beside Cleopatra Isis and Cleopatra Selene. It seemed that bewitched by his mistress he renounced his country for her. He accepted the office of grand-gymnasiarch of Alexandria. He commanded that the effigy of the Egyptian queen should be engraved on the back of his imperial coins; he even dared to inscribe the name of Cleopatra on the shields of his legionaries. He permitted, by a shameless inversion of parts, that the queen should go about Alexandria seated in a curule chair, whilst he, carrying a scimeter and wearing a purple robe with jeweled clasps, accompanied her on foot surrounded by Egyptian officers and the base troop of eunuchs.

VI.

By deposing Lepidus, Octavius had changed the triumvirate into a duumvirate, and the empire became divided between himself and Antony. But the domination of the East satisfied the pride of Antony no better than the domination of the West sufficed for the ambition of Octavius. Though twice deferred, the civil war remained inevitable. In his extreme caution, Octavius would still have delayed it; in his folly, Antony precipitated it. He despised Octavius as a general; his flatterers and his soldiers, who adored him, predicted victory to his arms; Cleopatra, who retained the angry recollection of the insolent reception by the Romans, burned to avenge it, and confiding in the sword of Antony, she already swore “By the justice which she would soon dispense at the Capitol.”[11]

Antony began by overwhelming Octavius with reproaches and dark threats. His clients, who were numerous in Rome, his friends, his emissaries sent from Egypt, made themselves busy in enhancing with the people his grievances, real and supposed. Octavius, said they, has robbed Sextus Pompey of Sicily without dividing the spoils with his colleague: he has not even restored the hundred and twenty triremes borrowed for that war; he has deposed Lepidus and retained for himself alone the provinces, the legions, and the ships of war that had been assigned to that triumvir; he has distributed to his own soldiers nearly all the public lands of Italy, without keeping any for the veterans of Antony. Every act of the government of Octavius was criticized and incriminated. The people were reminded that he was crushing Italy under the weight of taxes; he was accused of aiming at sovereign power. They even went the length of saying that the true heir of Cæsar was not Octavius, his nephew, but Cæsar’s own son Cæsarion, and that a second will of the Dictator would some day be forthcoming. According to Dion Cassius, Antony, by his formal recognition of Cæsarion as the legitimate son of Cæsar, had raised to a climax the uneasiness and anger of Octavius.

Meanwhile Octavius bided his time; his preparations for war were not complete, and Antony was still popular in Rome, where he maintained very many clients, protected by Octavia his wife. She, in spite of the insult inflicted by Antony, was still wholly devoted to him; in vain, on her return from Greece, had Octavius besought her to forget her husband and to quit his dwelling; she had utterly refused to do so. She continued to reside in that famous mansion, once the property of the great Pompey, there educating with equal care and tenderness her own children by Antony and those of his first wife. The clients of Antony and the friends he sent from Alexandria were sure of finding support and assistance from Octavia; she even obtained favors for them from Octavius, irritated though he might be; finally she incessantly assumed in his presence the defense of Antony, excusing both faults and follies, and declaring that it was a hateful thing for two great emperors to incite Romans to slay each other, the one to avenge personal wrongs, the other for the love of a foreign woman.

Octavius, who took for his motto: “That which is well done is done quickly enough,” _sat celeriter feri quidquid fiat satis bene_, appeared to give way to the prayers of Octavia; but if he made no haste to declare war he was preparing it slowly, and preparing also public opinion. He made the most of Antony’s disgraceful life in Egypt—his enslavement by Cleopatra. It was said in the senate, in the army, among the people, “Antony is no longer a Roman; he is the slave of the queen of Egypt, the incestuous daughter of the Lagidæ: his country is Alexandria and thither he would transfer the capital of the empire; his gods are Knouph with the ram’s head, Ra of the vulture beak, the dog-headed Anubis—latrans Anubis; his counselors are the eunuch Mardion, Charmion, and Iras, the tire-woman of that Cleopatra on whom he has promised to bestow Rome.” These idle tales inspired the Romans with a sentiment of horror which still survives in the verses of the poets of that period: “Among our eagles,” says Horace, “the sun beholds, O infamy, the base standard of an Egyptian woman.... Romans sold to a woman blush not to bear arms for her.... In the intoxication of her success and the madness of her hopes, this monster—_monstrum illud_—dreams the fall of the Capitol, and is preparing with her troops of despicable slaves and eunuchs the funeral rites of the empire.” “Thus,” writes Propertius, “this royal prostitute—_meretrix regina_—eternal disgrace of the blood of Philip, would force the Tiber to endure the menaces of the Nile, and thrust aside the Roman trumpets to make way for the shrieking sistra (Egyptian timbrels).”[12]