after his last interview with her brother, the fickle triumvir abruptly
quitted a wife who was too good for him, and returned to the fascinating
presence of the Egyptian Queen, whom he had not seen for three years.
From this time forth he made no attempt to break the silken chain of her
enchantments. During the next summer, indeed, he attempted a new
Parthian campaign. But his advance was made with reckless indifference
to the safety of his troops. Provisions failed; disease broke out; and
after great suffering he was forced to seek safety by a precipitate
retreat into the Armenian mountains. In the next year he contented
himself with a campaign in Armenia, to punish the King of that country
for alleged treachery in the last campaign. The King fell into his
hands; and with this trophy Antony returned to Alexandria, where the
Romans were disgusted to see the streets of a Graeco-Egyptian town
honored by a mimicry of a Roman triumph.
For the next three years he surrendered himself absolutely to the will
of the enchantress. To this period belong those tales of luxurious
indulgence which are known to every reader. The brave soldier, who in
the perils of war could shake off all luxurious habits and could rival
the commonest man in the cheerfulness with which he underwent every
hardship, was seen no more. He sunk into an indolent voluptuary, pleased
by childish amusements. At one time he would lounge in a boat at a
fishing party, and laugh when he drew up pieces of salt fish which by
the Queen's order had been attached to his hook by divers. At another
time she wagered that she would consume ten million sesterces at one
meal, and won her wager by dissolving in vinegar a pearl of unknown
value. While Cleopatra bore the character of the goddess Isis, her lover
appeared as Osiris. Her head was placed conjointly with his own on the
coins which he issued as a Roman magistrate. He disposed of the kingdoms
and principalities of the East by his sole word. By his influence Herod,
son of Antipater, the Idumæan minister of Hyrcanus, the late sovereign
of Judea, was made king to the exclusion of the rightful heir. Polemo,
his own son by Cleopatra, was invested with the sceptre of Armenia.
Encouraged by the absolute submission of her lover, Cleopatra fixed her
eye upon the Capitol, and dreamed of winning by means of Antony that
imperial crown which she had vainly sought from Cæsar.
While Antony was engaged in voluptuous dalliance, Octavian was
resolutely pursuing the work of consolidating his power in the West. His
patience, his industry, his attention to business, his affability, were
winning golden opinions and rapidly obliterating all memory of the
bloody work by which he had risen to power. He had won little glory in
war; but so long as the corn fleets arrived daily from Sicily and
Africa, the populace cared little whether the victory had been won by
Octavian or by his generals. In Agrippa he possessed a consummate
captain, in Maecenas a wise and temperate minister. It is much to his
credit that he never showed any jealousy of the men to whom he owed so
much. He flattered the people with the hope that he would, when Antony
had fulfilled his mission of recovering the standards of Crassus, engage
him to join in putting an end to their sovereign power and restoring
constitutional liberty.
In point of fidelity to his marriage vows Octavian was little better
than Antony. He renounced his marriage with Clodia, the daughter of
Fulvia, when her mother attempted to raise Italy against him. He
divorced Scribonia, when it no longer suited him to court the favor of
her kinsman. To replace this second wife, he forcibly took away Livia
from her husband, T. Claudius Nero, though she was at that time pregnant
of her second son. But in this and other less pardonable immoralities
there was nothing to shock the feelings of Romans.
But Octavian never suffered pleasure to divert him from business. If he
could not be a successful general, he resolved at least to show that he
could be a hardy soldier. While Antony in his Egyptian palace was
neglecting the Parthian War, his rival led his legions in more than one
dangerous campaign against the barbarous Dalmatians and Pannonians, who
had been for some time infesting the province of Illyricum. In the year
B.C. 33 he announced that the limits of the empire had been extended
northward to the banks of the Save.
Octavian now began to feel that any appearance of friendship with Antony
was a source of weakness rather than of strength at Rome.
Misunderstandings had already broken out. Antony complained that
Octavian had given him no share in the provinces wrested from Sext.
Pompeius and Lepidus. Octavian retorted by accusing his colleague of
appropriating Egypt and Armenia, and of increasing Cleopatra's power at
the expense of the Roman Empire. Popular indignation rose to its height
when Plancus and Titius, who had been admitted to Antony's confidence,
passed over to Octavian, and disclosed the contents of their master's
will. In that document Antony ordered that his body should be buried at
Alexandria, in the mausoleum of Cleopatra. Men began to fancy that
Cleopatra had already planted her throne upon the Capitol. These
suspicions were sedulously encouraged by Octavian.
Before the close of B.C. 32, Octavian, by the authority of the senate,
declared war nominally against Cleopatra. Antony, roused from his sleep
by reports from Rome, passed over to Athens, issuing orders everywhere
to levy men and collect ships for the impending struggle. At Athens he
received news of the declaration of war, and replied by divorcing
Octavia. His fleet was ordered to assemble at Corcyra; and his legions
in the early spring prepared to pour into Epirus. He established his
head-quarters at Patræ on the Corinthian Gulf.
But Antony, though his fleet was superior to that of Octavian, allowed
Agrippa to sweep the Ionian Sea, and to take possession of Methone, in
Messenia, as a station for a flying squadron to intercept Antony's
communications with the East, nay, even to occupy Corcyra, which had
been destined for his own place of rendezvous. Antony's fleet now
anchored in the waters of the Ambracian Gulf, while his legions encamped
on a spot of land which forms the northern horn of that spacious inlet.
But the place chosen for the camp was unhealthy; and in the heats of
early summer his army suffered greatly from disease. Agrippa lay close
at hand watching his opportunity. In the course of the spring Octavian
joined him in person.
Early in the season Antony had repaired from Patræ to his army, so as to
be ready either to cross over into Italy or to meet the enemy if they
attempted to land in Epirus. At first he showed something of his old
military spirit, and the soldiers, who always loved his military
frankness, warmed into enthusiasm; but his chief officers, won by
Octavian or disgusted by the influence of Cleopatra, deserted him in
such numbers that he knew not whom to trust, and gave up all thoughts of
maintaining the contest with energy. Urged by Cleopatra, he resolved to
carry off his fleet and abandon the army. All preparations were made in
secret, and the great fleet put to sea on the 28th of August. For the
four following days there was a strong gale from the south. Neither
could Antony escape nor could Octavian put to sea against him from
Corcyra. On the 2d of September, however, the wind fell, and Octavian's
light vessels, by using their oars, easily came up with the unwieldy
galleys of the eastern fleet. A battle was now inevitable.
Antony's ships were like impregnable fortresses to the assault of the
slight vessels of Octavian; and, though they lay nearly motionless in
the calm sea, little impression was made upon them. But about noon a
breeze sprung up from the west; and Cleopatra, followed by sixty
Egyptian ships, made sail in a southerly direction. Antony immediately
sprang from his ship-of-war into a light galley and followed. Deserted
by their commander, the captains of Antony's ships continued to resist
desperately; nor was it till the greater part of them were set on fire
that the contest was decided. Before evening closed, the whole fleet was
destroyed; most of the men and all the treasure on board perished. A few
days after, when the shameful flight of Antony was made known to his
army, all his legions went over to the conqueror.
It was not for eleven months after the battle of Actium that Octavian
entered the open gates of Alexandria. He had been employed in the
interval in founding the city of Nicopolis to celebrate his victory on
the northern horn of the Ambracian Gulf, in rewarding his soldiers, and
settling the affairs of the provinces of the East. In the winter he
returned to Italy, and it was midsummer, B.C. 30, before he arrived in
Egypt.
When Antony and Cleopatra arrived off Alexandria they put a bold face
upon the matter. Some time passed before the real state of the case was
known; but it soon became plain that Egypt was at the mercy of the
conqueror. The Queen formed all kinds of wild designs. One was to
transport the ships that she had saved across the Isthmus of Suez and
seek refuge in some distant land where the name of Rome was yet unknown.
Some ships were actually drawn across, but they were destroyed by the
Arabs, and the plan was abandoned. She now flattered herself that her
powers of fascination, proved so potent over Cæsar and Antony, might
subdue Octavian. Secret messages passed between the conqueror and the
Queen; nor were Octavian's answers such as to banish hope.
Antony, full of repentance and despair, shut himself up in Pharos, and
there remained in gloomy isolation.
In July, B.C. 30, Octavian appeared before Pelusium. The place was
surrendered without a blow. Yet, at the approach of the conqueror,
Antony put himself at the head of a division of cavalry and gained some
advantage. But on his return to Alexandria he found that Cleopatra had
given up all her ships; and no more opposition was offered. On the 1st
of August (Sextilis, as it was then called) Octavian entered the open
gates of Alexandria. Both Antony and Cleopatra sought to win him.
Antony's messengers the conqueror refused to see; but he still used fair
words to Cleopatra. The Queen had shut herself up in a sort of mausoleum
built to receive her body after death, which was not approachable by any
door; and it was given out that she was really dead. All the tenderness
of old times revived in Antony's heart. He stabbed himself, and in a
dying state ordered himself to be laid by the side of Cleopatra. The
Queen, touched by pity, ordered her expiring lover to be drawn up by
cords into her retreat, and bathed his temples with her tears.
After he had breathed his last, she consented to see Octavian. Her
penetration soon told her that she had nothing to hope from him. She saw
that his fair words were only intended to prevent her from desperate
acts and reserve her for the degradation of his triumph. This impression
was confirmed when all instruments by which death could be inflicted
were found to have been removed from her apartments. But she was not to
be so baffled. She pretended all submission; but when the ministers of
Octavian came to carry her away, they found her lying dead upon her
couch, attended by her faithful waiting-women, Iras and Charmion. The
manner of her death was never ascertained; popular belief ascribed it to
the bite of an asp which had been conveyed to her in a basket of fruit.
Thus died Antony and Cleopatra. Antony was by nature a genial,
open-hearted Roman, a good soldier, quick, resolute, and vigorous, but
reckless and self-indulgent, devoid alike of prudence and of principle.
The corruptions of the age, the seductions of power, and the evil
influence of Cleopatra paralyzed a nature capable of better things. We
know him chiefly through the exaggerated assaults of Cicero in his
_Philippic_, and the narratives of writers devoted to Octavian. But
after all deductions for partial representation, enough remains to show
that Antony had all the faults of Cæsar, with little of his redeeming
greatness.
Cleopatra was an extraordinary person. At her death she was but
thirty-eight years of age. Her power rested not so much on actual beauty
as on her fascinating manners and her extreme readiness of wit. In her
follies there was a certain magnificence which excites even a dull
imagination. We may estimate the real power of her mental qualities by
observing the impression her character made upon the Roman poets of the
time. No meditated praises could have borne such testimony to her
greatness as the lofty strain in which Horace celebrates her fall and
congratulates the Roman world on its escape from the ruin which she was
threatening to the Capitol.
Octavian dated the years of his imperial monarchy from the day of the
battle of Actium. But it was not till two years after (the summer of
B.C. 29) that he established himself in Rome as ruler of the Roman
world. Then he celebrated three magnificent triumphs, after the example
of his uncle the great dictator, for his victories in Dalmatia, at
Actium, and in Egypt. At the same time the temple of Janus was
closed--notwithstanding that border wars still continued in Gaul and
Spain--for the first time since the year B.C. 235. All men drew breath
more freely, and all except the soldiery looked forward to a time of
tranquillity. Liberty and independence were forgotten words. After the
terrible disorders of the last century, the general cry was for quiet at
any price. Octavian was a person admirably fitted to fulfil these
aspirations. His uncle Julius was too fond of active exertion to play
such a part well. Octavian never shone in war, while his vigilant and
patient mind was well fitted for the discharge of business. He avoided
shocking popular feeling by assuming any title savoring of royalty; but
he enjoyed by universal consent an authority more than regal.
GERMANS UNDER ARMINIUS REVOLT AGAINST ROME
A.D. 9
SIR EDWARD SHEPHERD CREASY
(The German race was beginning to make itself felt to a greater extent
than hitherto in its efforts for freedom from the Roman rule. Research
shows that from the earliest days there were two distinct peoples under
this designation of _German_--the northern or Scandinavian, and the
southern, being more truly the German. Both consisted of numerous
tribes, the Romans giving separate names to each: from this arose the
generic titles of _Franks, Bavarians, Alamanni_, and the rest.
They were great fighters and, as a natural sequence, mighty hunters.
When warfare did not occupy their attention, hunting, feasting, and
drinking took its place. Tacitus writes: "To drink continuously, night
and day, was no shame for them." Their chief beverage was barley beer,
though, in the South, wine was used to some extent.
Rome had garrisons throughout the whole land, and the fortunes of the
Germans were at a low ebb. Freedom seemed stifled forever when Arminius
led his forces against the Roman hosts in the forest of Teutoburgium.
Rightly does Creasy rate this important battle so highly, for it meant
the final uplifting of the Teuton, and with him the English-speaking
races of a later time.)
To a truly illustrious Frenchman, whose reverses as a minister can never
obscure his achievements in the world of letters, we are indebted for
the most profound and most eloquent estimate that we possess of the
importance of the Germanic element in European civilization, and of the
extent to which the human race is indebted to those brave warriors who
long were the unconquered antagonists, and finally became the
conquerors, of imperial Rome.
Twenty-three eventful years have passed away since M. Guizot[82]
delivered from the chair of modern history, at Paris, his course of
lectures on the history of civilization in Europe. During those years
the spirit of earnest inquiry into the germs and primary developments of
existing institutions has become more and more active and universal, and
the merited celebrity of M. Guizot's work has proportionally increased.
Its admirable analysis of the complex political and social organizations
of which the modern civilized world is made up must have led thousands
to trace with keener interest the great crises of times past, by which
the characteristics of the present were determined. The narrative of one
of these great crises, of the epoch A.D. 9, when Germany took up arms
for her independence against Roman invasion, has for us this special
attraction--that it forms part of our own national history. Had Arminius
been supine or unsuccessful, our Germanic ancestors would have been
enslaved or exterminated in their original seats along the Eider and the
Elbe. This island would never have borne the name of England, and "we,
this great English nation, whose race and language are now overrunning
the earth, from one end of it to the other," would have been utterly cut
off from existence.
[Footnote 82: Guizot was minister of foreign affairs, and later (1848)
prime minister, under Louis Philippe.]
Arnold may, indeed, go too far in holding that we are wholly unconnected
in race with the Romans and Britons who inhabited this country before
the coming over of the Saxons; that, "nationally speaking, the history
of Cæsar's invasion has no more to do with us than the natural history
of the animals which then inhabited our forests." There seems ample
evidence to prove that the Romanized Celts whom our Teutonic forefathers
found here influenced materially the character of our nation. But the
main stream of our people was, and is, Germanic. Our language alone
decisively proves this. Arminius is far more truly one of our national
heroes than Caractacus; and it was our own primeval fatherland that the
brave German rescued when he slaughtered the Roman legions, eighteen
centuries ago, in the marshy glens between the Lippe and the Ems.
Dark and disheartening, even to heroic spirits, must have seemed the
prospects of Germany when Arminius planned the general rising of his
countrymen against Rome. Half the land was occupied by Roman garrisons;
and, what was worse, many of the Germans seemed patiently acquiescent in
their state of bondage. The braver portion, whose patriotism could be
relied on, was ill-armed and undisciplined, while the enemy's troops
consisted of veterans in the highest state of equipment and training,
familiarized with victory and commanded by officers of proved skill and
valor. The resources of Rome seemed boundless; her tenacity of purpose
was believed to be invincible. There was no hope of foreign sympathy or
aid; for "the self-governing powers that had filled the Old World had
bent one after another before the rising power of Rome, and had
vanished. The earth seemed left void of independent nations."
The German chieftain knew well the gigantic power of the oppressor.
Arminius was no rude savage, fighting out of mere animal instinct or in
ignorance of the might of his adversary. He was familiar with the Roman
language and civilization; he had served in the Roman armies; he had
been admitted to the Roman citizenship, and raised to the rank of the
equestrian order. It was part of the subtle policy of Rome to confer
rank and privileges on the youth of the leading families in the nations
which she wished to enslave. Among other young German chieftains,
Arminius and his brother, who were the heads of the noblest house in the
tribe of the Cherusci, had been selected as fit objects for the exercise
of this insidious system. Roman refinements and dignities succeeded in
denationalizing the brother, who assumed the Roman name of Flavius, and
adhered to Rome throughout all her wars against his country. Arminius
remained unbought by honors or wealth, uncorrupted by refinement or
luxury. He aspired to and obtained from Roman enmity a higher title than
ever could have been given him by Roman favor. It is in the page of
Rome's greatest historian that his name has come down to us with the
proud addition of "_Liberator hand dubie Germaniae_."
Often must the young chieftain, while meditating the exploit which has
thus immortalized him, have anxiously revolved in his mind the fate of
the many great men who had been crushed in the attempt which he was
about to renew--the attempt to stay the chariot wheels of triumphant
Rome. Could he hope to succeed where Hannibal and Mithradates had
perished? What had been the doom of Viriathus? and what warning against
vain valor was written on the desolate site where Numantia once had
flourished? Nor was a caution wanting in scenes nearer home and more
recent times. The Gauls had fruitlessly struggled for eight years
against Cæsar; and the gallant Vercingetorix, who in the last year of
the war had roused all his countrymen to insurrection, who had cut off
Roman detachments, and brought Cæsar himself to the extreme of peril at
Alesia--he, too, had finally succumbed, had been led captive in Cæsar's
triumph, and had then been butchered in cold blood in a Roman dungeon.
It was true that Rome was no longer the great military republic which
for so many ages had shattered the kingdoms of the world. Her system of
government was changed, and, after a century of revolution and civil
war, she had placed herself under the despotism of a single ruler. But
the discipline of her troops was yet unimpaired and her warlike spirit
seemed unabated. The first year of the empire had been signalized by
conquests as valuable as any gained by the republic in a corresponding
period. It is a great fallacy--though apparently sanctioned by great
authorities--to suppose that the foreign policy pursued by Augustus was
pacific; he certainly recommended such a policy to his successors
(_incertum metu an per invidiam_: Tac., _Ann_., i. 11), but he himself,
until Arminius broke his spirit, had followed a very different course.
Besides his Spanish wars, his generals, in a series of generally
aggressive campaigns, had extended the Roman frontier from the Alps to
the Danube, and had reduced into subjection the large and important
countries that now form the territories of all Austria south of that
river, and of East Switzerland, Lower Wuertemberg, Bavaria, the
Valtelline, and the Tyrol.
While the progress of the Roman arms thus pressed the Germans from the
south, still more formidable inroads had been made by the imperial
legions on the west. Roman armies, moving from the province of Gaul,
established a chain of fortresses along the right as well as the left
bank of the Rhine, and, in a series of victorious campaigns, advanced
their eagles as far as the Elbe, which now seemed added to the list of
vassal rivers, to the Nile, the Rhine, the Rhone, the Danube, the Tagus,
the Seine, and many more, that acknowledged the supremacy of the Tiber.
Roman fleets also, sailing from the harbors of Gaul along the German
coasts and up the estuaries, coöperated with the land forces of the
empire, and seemed to display, even more decisively than her armies, her
overwhelming superiority over the rude Germanic tribes. Throughout the
territory thus invaded the Romans had with their usual military skill
established fortified posts; and a powerful army of occupation was kept
on foot, ready to move instantly on any spot where a popular outbreak
might be attempted.
Vast, however, and admirably organized as the fabric of Roman power
appeared on the frontiers and in the provinces, there was rottenness at
the core. In Rome's unceasing hostilities with foreign foes, and still
more in her long series of desolating civil wars, the free middle
classes of Italy had almost wholly disappeared. Above the position which
they had occupied, an oligarchy of wealth had reared itself; beneath
that position a degraded mass of poverty and misery was fermenting.
Slaves; the chance sweepings of every conquered country; shoals of
Africans, Sardinians, Asiatics, Illyrians, and others made up the bulk
of the population of the Italian peninsula.