THE PREPARATIONS OF CLEOPATRA AND ANTONY FOR THE OVERTHROW OF OCTAVIAN.
When Cleopatra carried Antony back to Alexandria to recuperate after
his exertions, it seems to me that she spoke to him very directly in
regard to his future plans. She seems to have pointed out to him that
Roman attempts to conquer Parthia always ended in failure, and that
it was a sheer waste of money, men, and time to endeavour to obtain
possession of a country so vast and having such limitless resources.
Wars of this kind exhausted their funds and gave them nothing in
return. Would it not be much better, therefore, at once to concentrate
all their energies upon the overthrow of Octavian and the capture
of Rome? Antony had proved his popularity with his men and their
confidence in him and his powers as a leader, for he had performed with
ultimate success that most difficult feat of generalship--an orderly
retreat. Surely, therefore, it would be wise to expend no further
portion of their not unlimited means upon their eastern schemes, but
to concentrate their full attention first upon Italy. The Parthians,
after all, had been turned out of Armenia and Syria, and they might now
be left severely alone within their own country until that day when
Antony would march against them, in accordance with the prophecies of
the Sibylline Books, as King of Rome. Cleopatra had never favoured the
Parthian expedition, though she had helped to finance it as being part
of Julius Cæsar’s original design; and she had accepted as reasonable
the argument put forward by Antony, that if successful it would enhance
enormously his prestige and ensure his acceptance as a popular hero in
Rome. The war, however, had been disastrous, and it would be better now
to abandon the whole scheme than to risk a further catastrophe. Antony,
fagged out and suffering from the effects of his severe drinking-bout,
appears to have acquiesced in these arguments; and it seems that he
arrived in Alexandria with the intention of recuperating his resources
for a year or two in view of his coming quarrel with Octavian. In Syria
he had received news of the events which had occurred in Rome during
his absence at the wars. Octavian had at last defeated Sextus Pompeius,
who had fled to Mytilene; and Lepidus, the third Triumvir, had retired
into private life, leaving his province of Africa in Octavian’s hands.
His rival, therefore, now held the West in complete subjection, and it
was not unlikely that he himself would presently pick a quarrel with
Antony.
The comforts of the Alexandrian Palace, and the pleasures of
Cleopatra’s brilliant society, must have come to Antony as an
entrancing change after the rigours of his campaign; and the remainder
of the winter, no doubt, slipped by in happy ease. The stern affairs of
life, however, seem to have checked any repetition of the frivolities
of his earlier stay in the Egyptian capital; and we now hear nothing
of the Inimitable Livers or of their prodigious entertainments.
Antony wrote a long letter to Rome, giving a more or less glowing
account of the war, and stating that in many respects it had been
very successful. Early in the new year, B.C. 35, Sextus Pompeius
attempted to open negotiations with the Egyptian court; but the envoys
whom he sent to Alexandria failed to secure any favourable response.
Antony, on the other hand, learnt from them that Sextus was engaged
in a secret correspondence with the Parthians, and was attempting to
corrupt Domitius Ahenobarbus, his lieutenant in Asia. Thereupon he and
Cleopatra determined to capture this buccaneering son of the great
Pompey and to put him to death. The order was carried out by a certain
Titius, who effected the arrest in Phrygia; and Sextus was executed in
Miletus shortly afterwards. This action was likely to be extremely ill
received in Rome, for the outlaw, in the manner of a Robin Hood, had
always been immensely popular; and for this reason Antony never seems
to have admitted his responsibility for it, the order being generally
said to have been signed by his lieutenant, Plancus.
Shortly after this the whole course of events was suddenly altered
by the arrival in Alexandria of no less a personage than the King
of Pontus, who, it will be remembered, had been captured by the
Parthians[99] at the outset of Antony’s late campaign, and had been
held prisoner by the King of Media. The latter now sent him to Egypt
with the news that the lately allied kingdoms of Media and Parthia
had come to blows; and the King of Media proposed that Antony should
help him to overthrow his rival. This announcement caused the greatest
upheaval in Cleopatra’s palace. Here was an unexpected opportunity to
conquer the terrible Parthians with comparative ease; for Media had
always been their powerful ally, and the Roman arms had come to grief
on former occasions in Median territory. Cleopatra, however, fearing
the duplicity of these eastern monarchs, and having set her heart on
the immediate overthrow of Octavian, whose power was now so distinctly
on the increase, tried to dissuade her husband from this second
campaign, and begged him to take no further risks in that direction.
As a tentative measure Antony sent a despatch to Artavasdes, the King
of Armenia, who had deserted him after his defeat in Media, ordering
him to come to Alexandria without delay, presumably to discuss the
situation. Artavasdes, however, showed no desire to place himself in
the hands of his overlord whom he had thus betrayed, and preferred to
seek safety, if necessary, in his own hills or to throw in his lot with
the Parthians.
Antony was deaf to Cleopatra’s advice; and at length accepting the
proposal conveyed by the King of Pontus, he prepared to set out at once
for the north-east. Thereupon Cleopatra made up her mind to accompany
him; and in the late spring they set out together for Syria. No sooner
had they arrived in that country, however, than Antony received the
disconcerting news that his Roman wife Octavia was on her way to join
him once more, and proposed to meet him in Greece. It appears that
her brother Octavian had chosen this means of bringing his quarrel
with Antony to an issue; for if she were not well received he would
have just cause for denouncing her errant husband as a deserter; and
in order to show how justly he himself was dealing he despatched
with Octavia two thousand legionaries and some munitions of war. As
a matter of fact the legionaries served actually as a bodyguard for
Octavia,[100] while their ultimate presentation to Antony was to be
regarded partly as a payment for the number of his ships which had
been destroyed in Octavian’s war against Sextus, and partly as a sort
of formal present from one autocrat to another. Antony at once sent a
letter to Octavia telling her to remain at Athens, as he was going to
Media; and in reply to this Octavia despatched a family friend, named
Niger, to ask Antony what she should do with the troops and supplies.
Niger had the hardihood to speak openly in regard to Octavia’s
treatment, and to praise her very highly for her noble and quiet
bearing in her great distress; but Antony was in no mood to listen to
him, and sent him about his business with no satisfactory reply. At the
same time he appears to have been very sorry for Octavia, and there can
be little doubt that, had such a thing been possible, he would have
liked to see her for a short time, if only to save her from the added
insult of his present attitude. He was an irresponsible boy in these
matters, and so long as everybody was happy he really did not care very
deeply which woman he lived with, though he was now, it would seem,
extremely devoted to Cleopatra, and very dependent upon her lively
society.
The Queen, of course, was considerably alarmed by this new development,
for she could not be sure whether Antony would stand by the solemn
compact he had made with her at Antioch, or whether he would once
more prove a fickle friend. She realised very clearly that the insult
offered to Octavia would precipitate the war between East and West,
and she seems to have felt even more strongly than before that Antony
would be ill advised at this critical juncture to enter into any
further Parthian complication. To her mind it was absolutely essential
that she should carry him safely back to Alexandria, where he would be,
on the one hand, well out of reach of Octavia, and, on the other, far
removed from the temptation of pursuing his Oriental schemes. Antony,
however, was as eager to be at his old enemy once more as a beaten boy
might have been to revenge himself upon his rival; and the thought
of giving up this opportunity for vengeance in order to prepare for
an immediate fight with Octavian was extremely distasteful to him.
Everything now seemed to be favourable for a successful invasion of
Parthia. Not only had he the support of the King of Media, but the
fickle King of Armenia had thought it wise at the last moment to make
his peace with Antony, and the new agreement was to be sealed by the
betrothal of his daughter to Antony’s little son Alexander Helios.
Cleopatra, however, did not care so much about the conquest of Parthia
as she did for the overthrow of her son’s rival, who seemed to have
usurped the estate which ought to have passed from the great Cæsar to
Cæsarion and herself; and she endeavoured now, with every art at her
disposal, to prevent Antony taking any further risk in the East, and
to urge his return to Alexandria. “She feigned to be dying of love
for Antony,” says Plutarch, “bringing her body down by slender diet.
When he entered the room she fixed her eyes upon him in adoration,
and when he left she seemed to languish and half faint away. She took
great pains that he should see her in tears, and, as soon as he noticed
it, she hastily dried them and turned away, as if it were her wish
that he should know nothing of it. Meanwhile Cleopatra’s agents were
not slow to forward her design, upbraiding Antony with his unfeeling
hard-hearted nature for thus letting a woman perish whose soul depended
upon him and him alone. Octavia, it was true, was his wife; but
Cleopatra, the sovereign queen of many nations, had been contented with
the name of his mistress,[101] and if she were bereaved of him she
would not survive the loss.”
In this manner she prevailed upon him at last to give up the proposed
war; nor must we censure her too severely for her piece of acting. She
was playing a desperate game at this time. She had persuaded Antony to
turn his back upon Octavia in a manner which could but be final; and
yet immediately after this, as though oblivious to the consequences of
his action, he was eager to go off to Persia at a time when Octavian
would probably attempt to declare him an enemy of the Roman people. Of
course, in reality the Queen was no more deeply in love with Antony
than he with her; but he was absolutely essential to the realisation
of her hopes, and the necessity of a speedy trial of strength with
Octavian became daily more urgent. For this he must prepare by a quiet
collecting of funds and munitions, and all other projects must be given
up.
Very reluctantly, therefore, Antony returned to Alexandria, and
there he spent the winter of B.C. 35-34 in soberly governing his
vast possessions. In the following spring, however, he determined to
secure Armenia and Media for his own ends; and when he transferred
his headquarters to Syria for the summer season[102] he again sent
word to King Artavasdes to meet him in order to discuss the affairs
of Parthia. The Armenian king, however, seems to have been intriguing
against Antony during the winter; and now he declined to place himself
in Roman hands lest he might suffer the consequence of his duplicity.
Thereupon Antony advanced rapidly into Armenia, took the King prisoner,
seized his treasure, pillaged his lands, and declared the country to be
henceforth a Roman province. The loot obtained in this rapid campaign
was very great. The legionaries seized upon every object of value which
they observed: and they even plundered the ancient temple of Anaitis in
Acilisene, laying hands on the statue of the goddess which was made of
pure gold, and pounding it into pieces for purposes of division.
On his return to Syria Antony entered into negotiations with the King
of Media, the result of which was that the Median Princess Iotapa
was married to the little Alexander Helios, whose betrothal to the
King of Armenia’s daughter had, of course, terminated with the late
war. As we shall presently see, it is probable that the King of Media
had consented to make the youthful couple his heirs to the throne of
Media, for it would seem that he had no son; and thus Antony is seen
to have once more put into practice his jesting scheme of founding
royal dynasties of his own flesh and blood in many lands. Antony then
returned to Alexandria, well satisfied with his summer’s work, but
“with his thoughts,” as Plutarch says, “now taken up with the coming
civil war.” Octavia had returned to Rome, and had made no secret of
her ill-treatment. Her brother, therefore, told her to leave Antony’s
house, thus to show her resentment against him; but she would not do
this, nor did she permit Octavian to make war upon her husband on
her account, for, she declared, it would be intolerable to have it
said that two women, herself and Cleopatra, had been the cause of
such a terrific contest. Nevertheless, there was little chance of the
quarrel being patched up; and Antony must have realised now the wisdom
of Cleopatra’s objection to an expensive and exhausting campaign in
Parthia.
On his return to Alexandria in the autumn of B.C. 34, Antony set
the Roman world agog by celebrating his triumph over Armenia in the
Egyptian capital. Never before had a Roman General held a formal
Triumph outside Rome; and Antony’s action appeared to be a definite
proclamation that Alexandria had become the rival, if not the
successor, of Rome as the capital of the world. It will be remembered
that Julius Cæsar had talked of removing the seat of government from
Rome to Alexandria; and now it seemed that Antony had transferred
the capital, at any rate of the Eastern Empire, to that city, and
was regarding it as his home. Alexandria was certainly far more
conveniently situated than Rome for the government of the world. It
must be remembered that the barbaric western countries--the unexplored
Germania, the newly conquered Gallia, the insignificant Britannia, the
wild Hispania, and others--were not of nearly such value as were the
civilised eastern provinces; and thus Rome stood on the far western
outskirts of the important dominions she governed. From Alexandria a
march of 600 or 800 miles brought one to Antioch or to Tarsus; whereas
Rome was nearly three times as far from these great centres. The
southern Peloponnesus was, by way of Crete, considerably nearer to
Alexandria than it was to Rome by way of Brundisium. Ephesus and other
cities of Asia Minor could be reached more quickly by land or sea from
Egypt than they could from Rome. Rhodes, Lycia, Bithynia, Galatia,
Pamphylia, Cilicia, Cappadocia, Pontus, Armenia, Commagene, Crete,
Cyprus, and many other great and important lands, were all closer to
Alexandria than to Rome; while Thrace and Byzantium, by the land or
sea route, were about equidistant from either capital. As a city, too,
Alexandria was far more magnificent, more cultivated, more healthy,
more wealthy in trade, and more “go-ahead” than Rome. Thus there was
really very good ground for supposing that Antony, by holding his
Triumph here, was proclaiming a definite transference of his home and
of the seat of government; and one may imagine the anxiety which it
caused in Italy.
The Triumph was a particularly gorgeous ceremony. At the head of the
procession there seems to have marched a body of Roman legionaries,
whose shields were inscribed with the large C which is said to have
stood for “Cleopatra,” but which, with equal probability, may have
stood for “Cæsar,” that is to say, for the legitimate Cæsarian cause.
Antony rode in the customary chariot drawn by four white horses, and
before him walked the unfortunate King Artavasdes loaded with golden
chains, together with his queen and their sons. Behind the chariot
walked a long procession of Armenian captives, and after these came the
usual cars loaded with the spoils of war. Then followed a number of
municipal deputations drawn from vassal cities, each carrying a golden
crown or chaplet which had been voted to Antony in commemoration of
his conquest. Roman legionaries, Egyptian troops, and several eastern
contingents, brought up the rear.
The procession seems to have set out in the sunshine of the morning
from the Royal Palace on the Lochias Promontory, and to have skirted
the harbour as far as the temple of Neptune. It then travelled probably
through the Forum, past the stately buildings and luxuriant gardens of
the Regia, and so out into the Street of Canopus at about the point
where the great mound of the Paneum rose up against the blue sky, its
ascending pathway packed with spectators. Turning now to the west, the
procession moved slowly along this broad paved street, the colonnades
on either side being massed with sightseers. On the right-hand side
the walls of the Sema, or Royal Mausoleum, were passed, where lay the
bones of Alexander the Great; and on the left the long porticos of
the Gymnasium and the Law Courts formed a shaded stand for hundreds
of people of the upper classes. On the other side of the road the
colonnades and windows of the Museum were crowded, I suppose, with the
professors and students who had come with their families to witness
the spectacle. Some distance farther along, the procession turned to
the south, and proceeded along the broad Street of Serapis, at the end
of which, on high ground, stood the splendid building of the Serapeum.
Here Cleopatra and her court, together with the high functionaries of
Alexandria, were gathered, while the priests and priestesses of Serapis
were massed on either side of the street and upon the broad steps which
led up to the porticos of the temple. At this point Antony dismounted
from his chariot; and probably amidst the shouts of the spectators and
the shaking of hundreds of systra, he ascended to the temple to offer
the prescribed sacrifice to Serapis, as in Rome he would have done
to Jupiter Capitolinus. This accomplished he returned to the court
in front of the sacred building, where a platform had been erected,
the sides of which were plated with silver. On this platform, upon a
throne of gold, sat Cleopatra, clad in the robes of Isis or Venus; and
to her feet Antony now led the royal captives of Armenia, all hot and
dusty from their long walk, and dejected by the continuous booing and
jeering of the crowds through which they had passed. Artavasdes was no
barbarian: he was a refined and cultured man, to whose sensitive nature
the ordeal must have been most terrible. He was something of a poet,
and in his time had written plays and tragedies not without merit. He
was now told to abase himself before Cleopatra, and to salute her as
a goddess; but this he totally refused to do, and, in spite of some
rough handling by his guards, he persisted in standing upright before
her and in addressing her simply by her name. In Rome it was customary
at the conclusion of a Triumph to put to death the royal captives
who had been exhibited in the procession; and now that he had openly
insulted the Queen of Egypt he could not have expected to see another
sun rise. Antony and Cleopatra, however, appear to have been touched
at his dignified attitude; and neither he nor his family were
harmed. Instead, they were treated with some show of honour,[103] and
thereafter were held as state prisoners in the Egyptian capital.
[Illustration:
_British Museum._] [_Photograph by Macbeth._
ANTONIA, THE DAUGHTER OF ANTONY.]
The Triumph ended, a vast banquet was given to all the inhabitants of
Alexandria; and late in the afternoon a second ceremony was held in the
grounds of the Gymnasium. Here again a silver-covered platform had been
erected, upon which two large and four smaller thrones of gold had been
set up; and, when the company was assembled, Antony, Cleopatra, and her
children took their seats upon them. Certain formalities having been
observed, Antony arose to address the crowd; and, after referring no
doubt to his victories, he proceeded to confer upon the Queen and her
offspring a series of startling honours. He appears to have proclaimed
Cleopatra sovereign of Egypt, and of the dominions which he had
bestowed upon her at Antioch nearly three years previously. He named
Cæsarion, the son of Julius Cæsar, co-regent with his mother, and gave
him the mighty title of King of Kings.[104] Cæsarion was now thirteen
and a half years of age; and since, as Suetonius remarks, he resembled
his father, the great Dictator, in a remarkable manner, Antony’s
feelings must have been strangely complicated as he now conferred upon
him these vast honours. To Alexander Helios, his own child, Antony next
gave the kingdom of Armenia; the kingdom of Media, presumably after the
death of the reigning monarch, whose daughter had just been married to
him; and ultimately the kingdom of Parthia, provided that it had been
conquered. This seems to have been arranged by treaty with the King of
Media in the previous summer,[105] the agreement probably being that,
on the death of that monarch, Alexander Helios and the Median heiress,
Iotapa, should ascend the amalgamated thrones of Armenia, Media, and
Parthia, Antony promising in return to assist in the conquest of
the last-named country. The boy was now six years of age, and his
chubby little figure had been dressed for the occasion in Median or
Armenian costume. Upon his head he wore the high, stiff tiara of these
countries, from the back of which depended a flap of cloth covering his
neck; his body was clothed in a sleeved tunic, over which was worn a
flowing cloak, thrown over one shoulder and hanging in graceful folds
at the back; and his legs were covered by the long, loosely-fitting
trousers worn very generally throughout Persia. To Cleopatra Selene,
Alexander’s twin-sister, Antony gave Cyrenaica, Libya, and as much of
the north-African coast as was in his gift; and finally he proclaimed
the small Ptolemy King of Phœnicia, northern Syria, and Cilicia. This
little boy, only two years of age, had been dressed up for the occasion
in Macedonian costume, and wore the national mantle, the boots, and
the cap encircled with the diadem, in the manner made customary by
the successors of Alexander. At the end of this surprising ceremony
the children, having saluted their parents, were each surrounded by a
bodyguard composed of men belonging to the nations over whom they were
to rule; and at last all returned in state to the Palace as the sun set
behind the Harbour of the Happy Return.
In celebration of the occasion coins were struck bearing the
inscription _Cleopatræ reginæ regum filiorum regum_--“Of Cleopatra
the Queen, and of the Kings the children of Kings.” Antony perhaps
also caused a bronze statue to be made, representing his son Alexander
Helios dressed in the royal costume of his new kingdom, for a figure
has recently been discovered which appears to represent the boy in this
manner. He then wrote an account of the whole affair to the Senate in
Rome, together with a report on his Armenian war; and in a covering
letter he told his agents to obtain a formal ratification of the
changes which he had made in the distribution of the thrones in his
dominions. The news was received in Italy with astonishment, and in
official circles the greatest exasperation was felt. Antony’s agents
very wisely decided not to read the despatches to the Senate; but
Octavian insisted, and after much wrangling their contents were at last
publicly declared. Stories at once began to circulate in which Antony
figured as a kind of Oriental Sultan, living at Alexandria a life of
voluptuous degeneracy. He was declared to be constantly drunken; and,
since no such charge could be brought against Cleopatra, the Queen was
said to keep sober by means of a magical ring of amethyst, which had
the virtue of dispelling the fumes of wine from the head of the wearer.
There can, indeed, be little doubt that Antony was very intemperate
at this period. He was worried to distraction by the approach of the
great war with Octavian; and he must have felt that his popularity in
Rome was now very much at stake. While waiting for events to shape
themselves, therefore, he attempted to free his mind from its anxieties
by heavy drinking; but in so doing, it would seem from subsequent
events, he began to lose the place in Cleopatra’s esteem which he
had formerly held. She herself did not ever drink much wine, if we
may judge from the fact, just now quoted, that she was at all times
notably sober; and she must have watched with increasing uneasiness the
dissolute habits of the man upon whom she was obliged to rely for the
fulfilment of her ambitions.
The fact that he was ceasing to be a Roman, and was daily becoming
more like an Oriental potentate, did not trouble her so much. It
differentiated him, of course, from the great Dictator, whose memory
became more dear to her as she contrasted his activities with Antony’s
growing laziness; but all her life she had been accustomed to the
ways of Eastern monarchs, and she could not have been much shocked
at her husband’s new method of life, except in so far as it modified
his abilities as an active leader of men. Now that the quarrel with
Octavian was coming to a head, her throne and her very existence
depended on Antony’s ability to inspire and to command; and I dare say
a limited adoption of the manners of the East made him more agreeable
to the people with whom he had to deal. “Cleopatra,” says the violently
partisan Florus, “asked of the drunken general as the price of her love
the Roman Empire, and Antony promised it to her, as though Romans were
easier to conquer than Parthians.... Forgetting his country, his name,
his toga, and the insignia of his office, he had degenerated wholly,
in thought, feeling, and dress, into that monster of whom we know. In
his hand was a golden sceptre, at his side a scimitar; his purple robes
were clasped with great jewels; and he wore a diadem upon his head so
that he might be a King to match the Queen he loved.”
The Palace at Alexandria had been much embellished and decorated
during recent years; and it was now a fitting setting for the
ponderous movements of this burly monarch of the East. Lucan tells
us how sumptuous a place the royal home had come to be. The ceilings
were fretted and inlaid, and gold-foil hid the rafters. The walls and
pillars were mainly made of fine marble, but a considerable amount
of purple porphyry[106] and agate were used in the decoration. The
flooring of some of the halls was of onyx or alabaster; ebony was
used as freely as common wood; and ivory was to be seen on all sides.
The doors were ornamented with tortoise-shells brought from India and
studded with emeralds. The couches and chairs were encrusted with gems;
much of the furniture was shining with jasper and carnelian; and there
were many priceless tables of carved ivory. The coverings were bright
with Tyrian dye, shining with spangled gold, or fiery with cochineal.
About the halls walked slaves, chosen for their good looks. Some were
dark-skinned, others were white; some had the crisp black hair of the
Ethiopians; others the golden or flaxen locks of Gaul and Germania.
Pliny tells us that Antony bought two boys for £800 each, and that they
were supposed to be twins, but that actually they came from different
countries. Of Cleopatra, Lucan writes: “She breathes heavily beneath
the weight of her ornaments; and her white breasts shine through the
Sidonian fabric which, wrought in close texture by the sley of the
Chinese, the needle of the workmen of the Nile has separated, loosening
the warp by stretching out the web.” The newly-developed trade with
India had filled the Palace with the luxurious fabrics of the Orient;
and the Greek, or even Egyptian, character of the materials and objects
in daily use was beginning to be lost in the medley of heterogenous
articles drawn from all parts of the world.
Amidst these theatrical surroundings Antony acted, with a kind of
childish extravagance, the part of the half-divine Autocrator of the
East. When he was sober his mind must have been full of cares and
anxieties; but on the many occasions when he was somewhat intoxicated
he behaved himself in the manner of an overgrown boy. He delighted
in the general recognition of his identity with Bacchus or Dionysos;
and he loved to hear himself spoken of as the new “Liber Pater.” In
the festivals of that deity he was driven through the streets of
Alexandria in a car constructed like that traditionally used by the
bibulous god; a golden crown upon his head, often poised, it would
seem, at a peculiar angle, garlands of ivy tossed about his shoulders,
buskins on his feet, and the thyrsus in his hand. In this manner he was
trundled along the stately Street of Canopus, surrounded by leaping
women and prancing men, the crowds on either side of the road shouting
and yelling their merry salutations to him. A temple in his honour
was begun in the Regia at Alexandria, just to the west of the Forum;
but this was not completed until some years afterwards, when it was
converted into a shrine in honour of Octavian, and was known as the
Cæsareum. On one occasion he assigned the part of the sea-god Glaucus
to his friend Plancus, who forthwith danced about at a banquet, naked
and painted blue, a chaplet of sea-weed upon his head and a fish-tail
tied from his waist.
Antony had never troubled himself much in regard to his dignity; and
now, in the character of the jolly ruler of the East, he was quite
unmindful of his appearance in the eyes of serious men. Often he was
to be seen walking on foot by the side of Cleopatra’s chariot, talking
to the eunuchs and servants who followed in her train. He caused the
Queen to give him the post of Superintendent of the Games,--a position
which was not considered to be particularly honourable. It is apparent
that her company had become very essential to him, and much notice
was taken of the fact that he now accompanied her wherever she went.
He rode through the streets at her side, conducted the official and
religious ceremonies for her, or sat by her when she was trying cases
in the public tribunal. Sometimes when he himself was alone upon
the judicial bench, looking out of the window in the midst of some
intricate judgment and by chance seeing Cleopatra’s chariot passing by
across the square, he would without explanation start up from his seat,
run over to her, and walk back to the Palace at her side, leaving the
magistrate, police, and prisoners in open-mouthed astonishment.
We hear nothing in regard to Antony’s relations with his children, and
it is difficult to picture him as he appeared in the family circle. His
stepson Cæsarion, his two sons Alexander and Ptolemy, and his daughter
Cleopatra, were all at this time residing in the Palace; and moreover
his son by Fulvia, Antyllus, a boy somewhat younger than Cæsarion, had
now come to live with him in Alexandria. It is probable that he was an
affectionate and indulgent father; and there must have been many happy
scenes enacted in the royal nurseries, which, could they have been
recorded, would have gone far to correct the popular estimate of the
nature of Antony’s home-life with Cleopatra. The Queen was his legal
wife;[107] and in contemplating the extravagances and eccentricities
of his behaviour at Alexandria, we must not lose sight of the obvious
fact that his life at this period had also its domestic aspect. He
did not admit to himself that his union with Cleopatra was in any way
scandalous; and writing to Octavian in the following year he seems to
be quite surprised that his family life should be regarded as infamous.
“Is it because I live in intimate relations with a Queen?” he asks.
“_She is my wife._ Is this a new thing with me? Have I not acted so for
these nine years?” Indeed, as compared with Octavian’s private life,
the family circle at Alexandria, in spite of Antony’s buffoonery and
heavy drinking, was by no means wholly shameful. In Rome Octavian was
at this time employing his friends to search the town for women to
amuse him, and these agents, acting on his orders, are related to have
kidnapped respectable girls, and to have torn their clothes from them,
as did the common slave-dealers, in order to ascertain whether they
were fit presents for their vile master. We hear no such stories in
regard to the jovial Antony.
A characteristic tale is told by Plutarch which illustrates the
open-handed opulence of the Alexandrian court at this time. A certain
Philotas, while dining with Antony’s son Antyllus, shut the mouth of a
rather noisy comrade by a very absurd syllogism, which made everybody
laugh. Antyllus was so delighted that he promptly made a present of a
sideboard covered with valuable plate to the embarrassed Philotas, who,
of course, refused it, not imagining that a youth of that age could
dispose in this light manner of such costly objects. Having returned
to his house, however, a friend presently arrived, bringing the plate
to him; and on his still objecting to receive it, “What ails the man?”
said the bearer of the gift. “Don’t you know that he who gives you this
is Antony’s son, who is free to give it even if it were all gold?”
Thus the winter of B.C. 34-33 passed, and in the spring of 33 Antony
set out for his summer quarters in Syria. He desired to cement the
agreement with the King of Media, in order to guard himself against a
Parthian attack while engaged in the coming war with Octavian; and for
this purpose he determined to proceed at once to the borders of that
country. Cleopatra, therefore, did not accompany him; and in this fact
we may perhaps see an indication of some loss of interest on her part,
due to her growing disrespect for him. Passing through Syria he went
north-eastwards into Armenia, and there he seems to have effected a
meeting with the King of Media. To him he now gave a large portion of
Greater Armenia, and to the King of Pontus he handed over the territory
known as Lesser Armenia. The little Median princess, Iotapa, who had
been married to the young Alexander Helios, was placed in the care of
Antony with the idea that she should be educated at Alexandria. With
her the King sent Antony a present of the eagles captured from his
army at the time when the siege-train was lost in B.C. 36; and he also
presented him with a regiment of the famous mounted archers who had
wrought so much havoc on the Roman lines in the late campaign, while
in return for these men Antony sent a detachment of legionaries to the
Median capital.
The Parthian danger being thus circumvented by this extremely
important and far-reaching compact with Media, Antony set out for
Egypt with the idea of spending the winter there once more.[108] He
took with him the little Princess Iotapa, and in the early autumn he
reached Alexandria. His news in regard to Media must have been very
satisfactory to Cleopatra, and Iotapa thenceforth became the companion
of the royal children in the Palace. But the news which he had to
relate in connection with Octavian was of the worst, and Cleopatra
must have asked him in astonishment how he could think of spending the
winter quietly in Alexandria in view of the imminence of war. In the
first place, the Triumvirate[109] came to an end at the close of the
year, and it seemed likely that Octavian would bring matters to an
issue on that date. Then Octavian had attacked him violently in the
Senate, and excited the public mind against his rival; and Antony,
hearing of this while in Armenia, wrote to him an obscene letter, much
too disgusting to quote here. To this Octavian replied in like manner.
Antony then charged him with acting unfairly, firstly, by not dividing
the spoils captured from Sextus Pompeius; secondly, by not returning
the ships which had been lent to him for the Pompeian war; thirdly,
by not sharing the province of Africa taken over after the retirement
of Lepidus; and lastly, that he had parcelled out almost all the free
land in Italy amongst his own soldiers, thus leaving none for Antony’s
legionaries. Octavian had replied that he would divide all the spoils
of war as soon as Antony gave him a share in Armenia and Egypt, while
in regard to the lands given as rewards to his legionaries, Antony’s
troops could hardly want them, since, no doubt, by now they had all
Media and Parthia to share amongst themselves. This reference to Egypt,
as though it were a province of Rome instead of an independent kingdom,
must have been deeply annoying to Cleopatra; but, on the other hand,
it was pleasant to hear that Octavian had abused Antony for living
immorally with the Queen, and that Antony had replied by stating
emphatically that she was his legal wife.
The war, thus, was now on the eve of breaking out, and Cleopatra must
have been in a fever of excitement. Antony’s vague and casual behaviour
seems, therefore, to have annoyed her very considerably; and it was not
until he had decided to take up his winter quarters at Ephesus instead
of in Egypt that harmony was restored. Once aroused, he acted with
energy. He sent messengers in all directions to gather in his forces;
and he eagerly helped Cleopatra to make her warlike preparations in
her own country. In a few weeks the arrangements were complete, and
Antony and Cleopatra set out for Ephesus early in the winter of B.C.
33, at the head of a huge assemblage of naval and military armaments
and munitions. The people of Alexandria must have realised that their
Queen was going forth upon the most marvellous adventure. Only a few
years ago they had lain prone under the heel of Italy, expecting at
any moment to be deprived of their independent existence. Now, thanks
to the skill, the tact, and the charm of their divine Queen, their
incarnate Isis-Aphrodite, they were privileged to witness the departure
of the ships, the hosts, and the captains of Egypt for the conquest of
mighty Rome. They had heard Cleopatra swear to seat herself and her son
Cæsarion in the Capitol; and there could have been few in the cheering
crowds whose hearts did not swell with pride at the thought of the
glorious future which awaited their country and their royal house.