THE ALLIANCE BETWEEN CLEOPATRA AND ANTONY.
Determined to win the fickle Antony back to her cause and that of her
son, Cleopatra set sail from Alexandria, and, passing between Cyprus
and the coast of Syria, at length one morning entered the mouth of the
Cydnus in Cilicia, and made her way up to the city of Tarsus which was
situated on the banks of the river in the shadow of the wooded slopes
of the Taurus mountains. The city was famous both for its maritime
commerce and for its school of oratory. The ships of Tarshish (_i.e._,
Tarsus) had been renowned since ancient days, and upon these vessels
the rhetoricians travelled far and wide, carrying the methods of their
_alma mater_ throughout the known world. Julius Cæsar and Cato may be
named as two of the pupils of this school who have played their parts
in the foregoing pages;[83] and now Antony, the foremost Roman of this
period, was honouring Tarsus itself with his presence. The city stood
some miles back from the sea, and it was late afternoon before its
buildings and busy docks were observed by the Egyptians, sheltering
against the slopes of the mountains. As the fleet sailed up the Cydnus,
the people of the neighbourhood swarmed down to the water’s edge to
watch its stately progress; and the excitement was intense when it
was seen that the Queen’s vessel was fitted and decked out in the
most extravagant manner. Near the city the river widens into a quiet
lake, and here in the roads, where lay the world-renowned merchant
vessels, Cleopatra’s ships probably came to anchor, while the quays and
embankments were crowded with the townsfolk who had gathered to witness
the Queen’s arrival.
On hearing of her approach Antony had seated himself upon the public
tribunal in the market-place, expecting that she would land at once and
come to pay her respects to him in official manner. But Cleopatra had
no intention of playing a part which might in any way be interpreted as
that of a vassal or suppliant; and she therefore seems to have remained
on board her ship at a distance from the shore, as though in no haste
to meet Antony.
Meanwhile reports began to spread of the magnificence of the Queen’s
vessels, and it was said that preparations were being made on board
for the reception of the Triumvir. The crowds surrounding the tribunal
thereupon hurried from the market-place to join those upon the quays,
and soon Antony was left alone with his retinue. There he sat waiting
for some time, till, losing patience, he sent a message to the Queen
inviting her to dine with him. To this she replied by asking him to
bring the Roman and local magnates to dine with her instead; and
Antony, not wishing to stand upon ceremony with his old friend, at
once accepted the invitation. At dusk, therefore, Cleopatra appears to
have ordered her vessel to be brought across the lake to the city, and
to be moored at the crowded quay, where already Antony was waiting
to come on board; and the burly Roman, always a lover of theatrical
display, must then have been entertained by a spectacle more stirring
than any he had known before.
Across the water, in which the last light of the sunset was reflected,
the royal galley was rowed by banks of silver-mounted oars, the great
purple sails hanging idly in the still air of evening. The vessel was
steered by two oar-like rudders, controlled by helmsmen who stood in
the stern of the ship under a shelter constructed in the form of an
enormous elephant’s head of shining gold, the trunk raised aloft.[84]
Around the helmsmen a number of beautiful slave-women were grouped
in the guise of sea-nymphs and graces; and near them a company of
musicians played a melody upon their flutes, pipes, and harps, for
which the slow-moving oars seemed to beat the time. Cleopatra herself,
decked in the loose, shimmering robes of the goddess Venus, lay under
an awning bespangled with gold, while boys dressed as Cupids stood on
either side of her couch, fanning her with the coloured ostrich plumes
of the Egyptian court. Before the royal canopy brazen censers stood
upon delicate pedestals, sending forth fragrant clouds of exquisitely
prepared Egyptian incense, the marvellous odour of which was wafted to
the shore ere yet the vessel had come to its moorings.[85]
At last, as the light of day began to fade, the royal galley was moored
to the crowded quay, and Antony stepped on board, followed by the
chief officers of his staff and by the local celebrities of Tarsus. His
meeting with the Queen appears to have been of the most cordial nature,
for the manner of her approach must have made it impossible for him at
that moment to censure her conduct. Moreover, the splendid allurements
of the scene in which they met, the enchantment of the twilight, the
enticement of her beauty, the delicacy of the music blending with the
ripple of the water, the intoxication of the incense and the priceless
perfumes, must have stirred his imagination and driven from his mind
all thought of reproach. Nor could he have found much opportunity for
serious conversation with her, for presently the company was led down
to the banqueting-saloon where a dinner of the utmost magnificence was
served. Twelve triple couches, covered with embroideries and furnished
with cushions, were set around the room, before each of which stood a
table whereon rested golden dishes inlaid with precious stones, and
drinking goblets of exquisite workmanship. The walls of the saloon were
hung with embroideries worked in purple and gold, and the floor was
strewn with flowers. Antony could not refrain from exclaiming at the
splendour of the entertainment, whereupon Cleopatra declared that it
was not worthy of comment; and, there and then, she made him a present
of everything used at the banquet--dishes, drinking-vessels, couches,
embroideries, and all else in the saloon. Returning once more to the
deck, the elated guests, now made more impressionable by the effects
of Egyptian wine, were amazed to find themselves standing beneath a
marvellous kaleidoscope of lanterns, hung in squares and circles from
a forest of branches interlaced above their heads, and in these almost
magical surroundings they enjoyed the enlivening company of the
fascinating young Queen until the wine-jars were emptied and the lamps
had burnt low.
From the shore the figures of the revellers, moving to and fro amidst
this galaxy of lights to the happy strains of the music, must have
appeared to be actors in some divine masque; and it was freely stated,
as though it had been fact, that Venus had come down to earth to feast
with Dionysos (Antony) for the common good of Asia. Cleopatra, as we
have already seen, had been identified with Venus during the time when
she lived in Rome; and in Egypt she was always deified. And thus the
character in which she presented herself at Tarsus was not assumed, as
is generally supposed, simply for the purpose of creating a charming
picture, but it was her wish actually to be received as a goddess, that
Antony might behold in her the divine Queen of Egypt whom the great
Cæsar himself had accepted and honoured as an incarnation of Venus. It
must be remembered that at this period men were very prone to identify
prominent persons with popular divinities. Julia, the daughter of
Octavian, was in like manner identified with Venus Genetrix by the
inhabitants of certain cities. We have seen how Cæsar seems to have
been named Lupercus, and how Antony was called Dionysos (Bacchus);
and it will be remembered how, at Lystra, Paul and Barnabas were
saluted as Hermes and Zeus. In the many known cases, such as these,
the people actually credited the identification; and though a little
thought probably checked a continuance of such a belief, at the time
there seemed to be no cause for doubt that these divinities had made
themselves manifest on earth. The crowds who stood on the banks of the
Cydnus that night must therefore have really believed themselves to be
peeping at an entertainment provided by a manifestation of a popular
goddess for the amusement of an incarnation of a favourite god.
It would appear that Antony invited Cleopatra to sup with him on the
following evening, but the Queen seems to have urged him and his suite
again to feast with her. This second banquet was so far more splendid
than the first that, according to Plutarch, the entertainment already
described seemed by comparison to be contemptible. When the guests
departed, not only did she give to each one the couch upon which he
had lain, and the goblets which had been set before him, but she also
presented the chief guests with litters, and with slaves to carry them,
and Ethiopian boys to bear torches in front of them; while for the
lesser guests she provided horses adorned with golden trappings, which
they were bidden to keep as mementos of the banquet.
On the next night Cleopatra at last deigned to dine with Antony, who
had exhausted the resources of Tarsus in his desire to provide a
feast which should equal in magnificence those given by the Queen;
but in this he failed, and he was the first to make a jest of his
unsuccess and of the poverty of his wits. The Queen’s entertainments
had been marked by that brilliancy of conversation and atmosphere of
refinement which in past years had so appealed to the intelligence
of the great Dictator; but Antony’s banquet, on the contrary, was
notable for the coarseness of the wit and for what Plutarch describes
as a sort of rustic awkwardness. Cleopatra, however, was equal to the
occasion, and speedily adjusted her conduct to suit that of her burly
host. “Perceiving that his raillery was broad and gross, and that it
savoured more of the soldier than of the courtier, she rejoined in the
same taste, and fell at once into that manner, without any sort of
reluctance or reserve.”[86] Thus she soon succeeded in captivating this
powerful Roman, and in making him her most devoted friend and ally.
There was something irresistible in the excitement of her presence: for
the daintiness of her person, the vivacity of her character, and the
enchantment of her voice, were, so to speak, enhanced by the audacity
of her treatment of the broad subjects introduced in conversation.
Antony had sent for her to censure her for a supposed negligence of
his interests; but speedily he was led to realise that he himself, and
not the Queen, had deviated from the course upon which they had agreed
in Rome. It was he who, by his association with Octavian, had appeared
to desert what Cleopatra believed to be the genuine Cæsarian cause;
whereas, on the other hand, the Queen was able to show that she had
refrained from sending aid to the Triumvirate simply because she could
not decide in what manner the welfare of her son, the little Cæsar, was
to be promoted by such an action. Under the spell of her attraction
Antony, who in the Dictator’s lifetime had never been permitted to
receive in his heart the full force of her charming attack, now fell an
easy victim to her strategy, and declared himself ready to carry out
her wishes in all things.
On the fourth night of her visit to Tarsus, Cleopatra entertained the
Roman officers at another banquet; and on this occasion she caused the
floor of the saloon to be strewn with roses to the depth of nearly
two feet, the flowers being held in a solid formation by nets which
were tightly spread over them and fastened to the surrounding walls,
the guests thus walking to their couches upon a perfumed mattress of
blooms, the cost of which, for the one room, was some £250.
In this prodigious manner the next few days were spent. The Queen
made every possible effort to display to Antony her wealth and power,
in order that she might obtain his consent to some form of alliance
between them which should be directed against Octavian. Her one desire
now was to effect a break between these two leaders, to set them at one
another’s throats, and then, by lending Antony her support, to secure
the overthrow of Octavian, Cæsar’s nephew, and the triumph of Cæsarion,
Cæsar’s son. For this purpose it was absolutely necessary to reveal
the extent of her wealth, and to exhibit the limitless stream of her
resources. She therefore seems to have shown a mild disdain for the
Roman general’s efforts to entertain her, and at his banquets she seems
to have conveyed to him the disquieting impression that she was smiling
at his attempted magnificence, and was even puzzled by his inability to
give to his feasts that fairy aspect which characterised her own.
Her attitude caused Antony some uneasiness, and at length it seems
that he asked the Queen directly what more could be done to add to
the splendour of his table. During the course of the conversation
which ensued he appears to have told her how much an entertainment of
the kind cost him; whereupon she replied that she herself could with
ease expend the equivalent of a hundred and fifty thousand pounds
sterling upon a single meal. Antony promptly denied it, declaring that
such a thing was impossible; and the Queen thereupon offered him a
wager that she would do so on the next day. This was accepted, and a
certain Plancus was invited to decide it. Antony does not appear to
have recollected that in time past Clodius, the son of the comedian
Æsop, was wont to mingle melted pearls with his food, that the cost of
his meals might be interestingly enormous;[87] for he would then have
realised that Cleopatra intended to employ some such device to win her
wager, and he would perhaps have restrained her.
To the next day’s banquet the Roman looked forward with some
excitement; and he must have been at once elated and disappointed when
he found the display to be not much above the ordinary. At the end of
the meal he calculated with Plancus the expenses of the various dishes,
and estimated the value of the golden plates and goblets. He then
turned to the Queen, telling her that the total amount did not nearly
reach the figure named in the wager.
“Wait,” said Cleopatra. “This is only a beginning. I shall now try
whether I cannot spend the stipulated sum upon myself.”
A signal was given to the attendant slaves, who brought a table to her,
upon which a single cup containing a little vinegar was set. She was
wearing in her ears at the time two enormous pearls, the value of each
of which was more than half the amount named in the wager; and one of
these she rapidly detached, throwing it into the vinegar, wherein it
soon disintegrated. The vinegar and some seventy-five thousand pounds
having then trickled down her royal throat, she prepared to destroy the
second pearl in like manner; but Plancus intervened, and declared the
wager won, while Antony, no doubt, pondered not without gloom upon the
ways of women.
It has generally been thought that the Queen’s extravagance was to be
attributed to her vain desire to impress Antony with the fact of her
personal wealth. But, as we have seen, there was certainly a strong
political reason for her actions; and there is no need to suppose that
she was actuated by vanity. Indeed, the display of her wealth does not
appear to have been on any occasion as ostentatious as one might gather
from the Greek authors, whose writings suggest that they attributed
to her a boastful profligacy in financial matters which could only
be described as bad form. It would seem rather that the instances of
her prodigality recorded here were all characterised in appearance by
a subtle show of unaffected simplicity and ingenuousness, a sort of
breath-taking audacity, while in quality they were largely political
and speculative.
It is very important for the reader to understand the attitude of
Cleopatra at this time, and to divest his mind of the views usually
accepted in regard to the Queen’s alliance with Antony; and therefore
I must repeat that it was Cleopatra’s desire at Tarsus to arouse the
interest of Antony in the possibilities of Egypt as the basis of an
attempt upon Rome. She wished to lead him, as I have said, to put
faith in the limitless wealth that might flow down the Nile to fill
the coffers which should be his, were he to lead an army to claim the
throne for herself as Cæsar’s wife, and for her son as Cæsar’s flesh
and blood. Here was the man who could conquer for her the empire which
she had lost by the premature death of the great Dictator. It was
necessary to make him understand the advantages of partnership with
her, and hence it became needful for her to display to him the untold
wealth that she could command. There was no particular vanity in her
actions, nor real wastefulness: she was playing a great game, and the
stakes were high. A few golden goblets, a melted pearl or two, were
not an excessive price to pay for the partisanship of Antony. Her son
Cæsarion was too young to fight his own battles, and she herself could
not lead an army. Antony’s championship therefore had to be obtained,
and there was no way of enlisting his sympathies so sure as that of
revealing to him the boundless riches which she could bring to his aid.
Let him have practical demonstration of the wealth of hidden Africa
and mysterious Asia at her command, and he would surely not shun an
enterprise which should make Cæsar’s friend, Cæsar’s wife, and Cæsar’s
son the three sovereigns of the world. She would show him the gold
of Ethiopia and of Nubia; she would turn his attention to the great
trade-routes to India; and she would remind him of the advantageous
possibilities which the great Dictator had seen in an alliance with
her. In this manner she would again win his support, as she believed
she had already done in Rome; and thus through him the ambitious
schemes of Julius Cæsar might at last be put into execution.
There were, however, one or two outstanding matters which required
immediate attention. The Princess Arsinoe, who had walked the streets
of Rome in Cæsar’s Triumph and had been released after that event, was
now residing either at Miletus or Ephesus,[88] where she had received
sanctuary amongst the priests and priestesses attached to the temple of
Artemis. The High Priest treated her kindly, and even honoured her as
a queen, a fact which suggests that he had definitely placed himself
upon her side in her feud with Cleopatra. She seems to have been a
daring and ambitious woman, who, throughout her short life, struggled
vainly to obtain the throne of Egypt for herself; and now it would
appear that she was once more scheming to oust her sister, just as she
had schemed in the Alexandrian Palace in the days when Ganymedes was
her chamberlain.
It will be remembered that the Dictator had given the throne of
Cyprus to Arsinoe and her brother, but it does not seem that this
gift had ever been ratified, though no doubt the Princess attempted
to style herself Queen of that island. It may be that she had come
to some terms with Cassius and Brutus by offering them aid in their
war with Antony if they would assist her in her endeavours to obtain
the Egyptian throne; and it is possible that the Egyptian Viceroy of
Cyprus, Serapion, was involved in this arrangement when he handed
over his fleet to Cassius, as has been recorded in the last chapter.
At all events, Cleopatra was now able to obtain Antony’s consent to
the execution both of Arsinoe and of Serapion. A number of men were
despatched, therefore, with orders to put her to death, and these
entering the temple while Arsinoe was serving in the sanctuary, killed
her at the steps of the altar. The High Priest was indicted apparently
on the charge of conspiracy, and it was only with great difficulty that
the priesthood managed to obtain his pardon. Serapion, however, could
not claim indulgence on account of his calling, and he was speedily
arrested and slain.
Having thus rid herself of one serious menace to her throne, Cleopatra
persuaded Antony to assist her to remove from her mind another cause
for deep anxiety. It will be remembered that when Cæsar defeated the
Egyptian army in the south of the Delta in March B.C. 47, the young
King Ptolemy XIV. was drowned in the rout, his body being said to have
been recognised by his golden corselet. Now, however, a man who claimed
to be none other than this unfortunate monarch was trying to obtain
a following, and possibly had put himself in correspondence with his
supposed sister Arsinoe. The pretender was residing at this time in
Phœnicia, a fact which suggests that he had also been in communication
with Serapion, who at the time of his arrest was likewise travelling in
that country. Antony therefore consented to the arrest and execution of
this pseudo-monarch, and in a few weeks’ time he was quietly despatched.
Historians are inclined to see in the deaths of these three
conspirators an instance of Cleopatra’s cruelty and vindictiveness; and
one finds them described as victims of her insatiable ambition, the
killing of Arsinoe being named as the darkest stain upon the Queen’s
black reputation. I cannot see, however, in what manner a menace to her
throne of this kind could have been removed, save by the ejection of
the makers of the trouble from the earthly sphere of their activities.
The death of Arsinoe, like that of Thomas à Beckett, is rendered ugly
by the fact that it took place at the steps of a sacred altar; but,
remembering the period in which these events occurred, the executions
are not to be censured too severely, for what goodly king or queen of
former days has not thus removed by death all pretenders to the throne?
Cleopatra’s visit to Tarsus does not seem to have been prolonged
beyond a few weeks, but when at length she returned to Alexandria, she
must have felt that her short residence with Antony had raised her
prestige once more to the loftiest heights. Not only had she used his
dictatorial power to sweep her two rivals and their presumed accomplice
from the face of the earth, not only had she struck the terror of her
power into the heart of the powerful High Priest of Artemis who, in
the distant Ægean, had merely harboured a pretender to Egypt’s throne,
but she had actually won the full support of Antony once more, and had
extracted from him a promise to pay her a visit at Alexandria in order
that he might see with his own eyes the wealth which Egypt could offer.
For the first time, therefore, since the death of Cæsar, her prospects
seemed once more to be brilliant; and it must have been with a light
heart that she sailed across the Mediterranean once more towards her
own splendid city.