ACTIUM
_Altera iam teritur bellis civilibus aetas._
_Sævis Liburnis, scilicet invidens,_
_privata deduci superbo_
_non humilis mulier triumpho._
[Sidenote: The early manhood of Augustus and its fruits.]
When Sextus fled from Sicily Cæsar was about to complete his 27th year.
It was nearly nine years since, while little more than a boy, he had
first boldly asserted himself in opposition to men more than twice his
own age, and had forced those who had been statesmen before he was born
to regard him as their champion or respect him as their master. Since
that time he had had little rest from grave anxieties or war. At Mutina,
Philippi, Perusia, and in Sicily, he had tasted danger and disaster as
well as victory; and had more than once been in imminent hazard. These
fatigues had been made more trying by frequent illness, apparently
arising from a sluggish liver, to which he had been subject from boyhood.
Through all he had been supported by an indomitable persistence and a
passionate resolve to avenge his adoptive father, all the more formidable
perhaps in a character naturally cold and self-contained. As he went on
there gradually awoke in him a nobler ambition, that of restoring and
directing the distracted state. Neither now nor afterwards do the more
vulgar attributes of supreme power—wealth, luxury, and adulation—seem to
have had charms for him. He felt the governing power in him, he believed
in his “genius,” what we might call his “mission,” and the difficulties
of a divided rule became more and more clear to him. From this time,
therefore, he used every means which wise statesmanship or crafty policy
could suggest to rid himself of the remaining partner in the Triumvirate,
and to gain a free hand in the work of restoration which he had already
begun.
[Sidenote: Marriage with Livia, B.C. 38.]
In private life he had taken a step which was the source of a lifelong
happiness to him. The political marriage with Scribonia in B.C. 40,
contracted with the idea of conciliating Sextus Pompeius, had been ended
by divorce on the very day of the birth of his only daughter Iulia.
The reason alleged was her disagreeable disposition; but, besides the
change in the political situation, there was another reason of a more
personal nature. The peace of Misenum had permitted many partisans of
Brutus, Cassius, or Lucius Antonius, who had fled to Sextus Pompeius,
to return to Rome. Among others came Tiberius Nero,[191] with his young
wife, Livia Drusilla. Unless statues and coins are more than usually
false, she was possessed of rare beauty. In B.C. 38 she was twenty years
old, and had one son (the future Emperor Tiberius) now in his fourth
year, and was within three months of the birth of her second son Drusus.
Even to the lax notions of divorce and re-marriage then current this
seemed somewhat scandalous. A year was held to be the necessary interval
for a woman between one marriage and another. But the object of this
convention was to prevent ambiguity as to the paternity of children; and
when Cæsar consulted the pontifices, they told him that, if there was no
doubt as to the paternity of the child with which Livia was pregnant,
the marriage might lawfully take place at once. No opposition seems to
have been made by Livia’s husband, who was at least twenty years her
senior.[192] He acted as a father in giving her to her new husband, and
entertained the bridal pair at a banquet. The marriage was so prompt
that a favourite page of Livia’s, seeing her take her place on the same
dinner couch as Cæsar, whispered to his mistress that she had made a
mistake, for her husband was on the other couch. On the birth of Drusus,
Cæsar sent the infant to its father, thus complying with the conditions
of the pontifices. That the two men should have been on good terms
is not incredible in view of the prevailing sentiment as to divorce.
We find Cicero, for instance, writing effusively to Dolabella almost
directly after he had compelled his daughter to divorce him for gross
misconduct, and there are other instances. At any rate Tiberius Nero, on
his death-bed in B.C. 33, left the guardianship of his sons to Cæsar; and
in spite of such a beginning the marriage proved permanently happy. Cæsar
was devoted to Livia to the day of his death; his last conscious act was
to kiss her lips.[193]
[Sidenote: Honours voted to Cæsar.]
The victory in Sicily left him supreme in the West, and he at once
devoted himself to the re-establishment of order and prosperity. The
relief to Italy and Rome was immense; for with Pompeius master of the
sea the city was always in danger of famine, and the Italian coast of
devastation. This feeling of relief found expression in the proceedings
of the Senate, which now began those votes of special honours and powers
to Cæsar, which in the course of the next ten or twelve years gradually
clothed him with every attribute of supremacy in the state. On his return
from Sicily he was decreed an ovation, as after Philippi,[194] as well
as statues and a triumphal arch. On the day of the victory over Pompeius
(2nd of September), there were to be _feriæ_ and _supplicationes_ for
ever; he and his wife and family were to be feasted on the Capitol;
and he was to have the perpetual right of wearing the laurel wreath of
victory. He refused the office of Pontifex Maximus, as long as Lepidus
lived, but he accepted the privileges of the tribuneship—the personal
sanctity which put any one injuring or molesting him under a curse, and
the right of sitting with the tribunes in the Senate. This it seems
gave him practically the full _tribunicia potestas_ within the city.
But it was a novel measure, and its full consequences were not perhaps
foreseen.[195] He had twice before wished to be elected tribune, but his
“patriciate” stood in his way. This was meant as a kind of compromise,
and it furnishes the keynote to his later plans for absorbing the powers
of the republican offices.
[Sidenote: Measures of conciliation and restoration.]
[Sidenote: The wars for security of frontiers.]
Cæsar’s chief difficulties now came from the large military forces of
which he found himself possessed, either by his own enlistment or from
that of the various defeated leaders. To disband them was neither safe in
view of possible complications with Antony, nor possible without finding
large sums of money or great tracts of unoccupied land with which to
reward the men; whereas his object now was to put an end to confiscation,
fines, and unusual imposts, and to bring back confidence and security.
After suppressing more than one incipient mutiny, he contrived to secure
enough land for those who had served their full time, partly by purchases
from Capua, where there was still a good deal of unassigned land. He
repaid the colony by granting it revenues from lands at Cnossus in
Crete, which had become _ager publicus_ on the defeat of the pirates, and
on some of which a Roman colony was not long afterwards established.[196]
Some of the men, again, who had been most clamorous and mutinous he sent
to Gaul as a _supplementum_ to colonies already existing, or to found
new colonies.[197] He was thus able to make remission of taxation, as
well as of arrears due from the lists of forfeiture published by the
triumvirs. His enemies said that his object was to throw the odium of
their original imposition upon Antony and Lepidus; or to make a merit of
necessity, since in most cases it would have been impossible to collect
the money. These motives may have had a share in his policy, but he
doubtless also wished to restore confidence and cause an oblivion of
the miseries of the civil wars. For the soldiers who remained various
other employments were found. The weakness of the central government had
long been shewn by the existence of marauding bands in various parts
of Italy. The civil wars had aggravated the evil, till travelling had
become dangerous almost everywhere, and even the streets of Rome were
unsafe. Cæsar now organised a police force of soldiers under Sabinus
Cotta to patrol the city and Italy, and within a few months the evil
was much mitigated.[198] Besides this, Statilius Taurus was sent with
an army to restore order in the two African provinces—Proconsularis and
Numidia.[199] Another expedition was sent against the Salassi, inhabiting
the modern Val d’Aosta, who had for two years been holding out against
Antistius Vetus. He had driven them into their mountain fastnesses; but
when he left the district they once more descended and expelled the Roman
garrisons. The war was entrusted to Valerius Messalla, who reduced them
at least to temporary submission (B.C. 35-34).[200] Another similar war
was that against the Iapydes, living in what is now Croatia, who in their
marauding expeditions had come as far as Aquileia and plundered Roman
colonies. To this Cæsar went in person. He destroyed their capital,
Metulum, on the Colapis (mod. _Kolpa_), after a desperate resistance, in
the course of which he was somewhat severely injured by the fall of a
bridge. The rest of the country then submitted.[201] The Iapydes had no
doubt provoked the attack. But that does not seem to be the case with the
Pannonians, whom Cæsar proceeded to invade. They were a mixed Illyrian
and Celtic tribe, dwelling in forests and detached villages without great
towns, and appear to have lived peaceably. But Cæsar resolved to take
their one important town, Siscia, at the junction of the Kolpa and Save,
partly as a convenient magazine in wars against the Daci, and partly for
the mere object of keeping his army employed and paid at the expense
of a conquered country. The siege of the town lasted thirty days, and
after its fall he returned to Rome, leaving Fufius Geminus to continue
the campaign. So again in the spring of B.C. 34 Agrippa was sent against
the Dalmatians, and when later in the season he was joined by Cæsar
in person, their chief towns were taken and burnt; and this people,
who since their defeat of Gabinius in B.C. 44-43, had been practically
independent, had again to submit and pay tribute, with ten years’
arrears, and restore the standards taken from Gabinius. Their submission
was followed by that of other tribes, and by the middle of B.C. 33, the
whole of Illyricum was restored to obedience.
These were the sort of successes to make a man popular at Rome; for they
were not costly in blood or treasure, and they affected the interests
of a large number of merchants and men of business. Nor was this all.
One of his legates, Statilius Taurus, was so successful in Africa, and
another, C. Norbanus, in Spain, that both were decreed triumphs in B.C.
34, and in the same year Mauretania was made a Roman province. Cæsar had
declined a triumph after the Pannonian war, but accepted honours for
Octavia and Livia, who were exempted from the _tutela_, to which all
women were subject; and during these two years his name was becoming
associated with success and with the expansion of the Empire and of trade.
[Sidenote: Improvements in the city.]
This was accompanied by restorations and improvements in the city
calculated to appeal still more strongly to popular imagination. In B.C.
33 Agrippa as ædile reformed the water supply of Rome, constructing 700
basins, 500 fountains, and repairing the aqueducts.[202] He also cleansed
the cloacæ, adorned the circus, distributed oil and salt free, and opened
the baths gratis throughout his year of office, besides throwing among
the spectators at the theatre _tesseræ_ (tickets) entitling the holders
to valuable presents. Cæsar himself, who was consul for a few months at
the beginning of B.C. 33, erected the Porticus Octaviæ, named in honour
of his sister, with the spoils of the Illyrian and Pannonian wars,[203]
and began the building of the temple of Apollo and the two libraries, on
the site bought for a house on the Palatine before B.C. 36, when that of
Hortensius had been granted to him by the Senate,[204] and while he was
still living in the house of Calvus near the Forum.
[Sidenote: The contrast of Antony’s career.]
[Sidenote: The Parthians.]
These successes in the Western provinces, combined with such costly
improvements in the city, impressed (as it was intended that they should)
the minds of the people in Rome with the feeling that Cæsar’s name was
the best guarantee for the era of peace and prosperity which seemed
at last to be succeeding the ruin and horror of civil war. In strong
contrast—carefully emphasized by Cæsar and his friends—were the military
expeditions in the East, and the extravagance of Antony’s infatuation for
Cleopatra in Egypt. In B.C. 40 he had been roused from the intoxication
of love and revelry in Alexandria to find Syria in the hands of the
Parthian Pacorus, son of Orodes, and of Labienus, son of the old legate
of Iulius, who had joined the enemy after the battle of Philippi. They
had defeated and killed his legate, Decidius Saxa, and taken possession
of the province. It is true that next year, B.C. 39, P. Ventidius drove
away Labienus, and in B.C. 38 defeated the Parthians and killed Pacorus.
But Antony was jealous of Ventidius, deposed him from his command, and
went in person to besiege the remains of the Parthian army in Samosata,
where they had been received by Antiochus, king of Commagene. He failed
to take the town, and though in his despatch he took all the credit of
previous successes, the truth was well known in Rome. After his failure
at Samosata he made somewhat inglorious terms with Antiochus, and going
off to meet Cæsar at Tarentum left C. Sosius in charge of Syria. Sosius
put down an insurrection in Judæa and established Herod as king (B.C.
38-7). But in B.C. 36 Antony suffered severe reverses in an expedition
against Phraates, who had just succeeded his father Orodes as king of
Parthia. One success, however, in the course of an inglorious campaign
enabled him to send home laurelled despatches, the real value of which
Cæsar and his friends took care should be known. In B.C. 35 he began
carving out a kingdom for his elder son by Cleopatra, and making
preparations for an expedition against the king of Armenia, whom he
accused of failing in his duty of supporting him in the previous year.
Having first made a treaty of friendship with the king of Media, in B.C.
34 he invaded Armenia, and getting possession of the person of the king
by an act of treachery which shocked Roman sentiment—not very scrupulous
in such matters—he brought him in silver chains to Alexandria.
[Sidenote: Cleopatra.]
Thus Antony’s career as an administrator and defender of the Empire
was rightly or wrongly looked upon as comparing unfavourably with that
of Cæsar. But still more shocking to Roman feeling was his position in
Cleopatra’s court. Though the moral standard at Rome was far from high,
it was rigid in regard to certain details. Just as a valid marriage
could only be contracted with a woman who was a _civis_, so for a man
in high position to live openly with a foreign mistress, however high
her rank, was peculiarly scandalous. The beloved Emperor Titus, a
hundred years later, had to give way to this sentiment and dismiss his
Idumæan mistress. But that a Roman imperator should not only have such a
connection with a “barbarous” queen, but should act as her officer and
courtier; that she should have a bodyguard of Roman soldiers; should give
the watchword to them as their sovereign; and should even employ them to
deal with what in one sense or another was Roman territory—this seemed an
outrage of the worst kind. In a poem written it seems while the campaign
at Actium was still undecided, but when rumours of Antony’s defeat were
reaching Rome, Horace well expresses the disgust with which the position
conceded to Cleopatra by Antony’s fondness was regarded:
False, false the tale our grandsons will declare—
That Romans to a woman fealty sware;
Shouldered their pikes; presented arms; and did
Whate’er her wrinkled eunuchs deigned to bid:
Or that among our Roman flags were seen
The gauzy curtains of her palanquin.”[205]
Antony himself made no concealment as to the queen’s connection with
the army. After his disastrous expedition of B.C. 36-5, Cleopatra
supplied him with money, and he told his men when paying them that
they were receiving it from her. The connection also involved a breach
with Cæsar. Their friendship—always doubtful—had been patched up from
time to time by formal reconciliations; in B.C. 43 after Mutina; in
B.C. 40 at Brundisium; and in B.C. 37 at Tarentum. For a time Antony
had found great pleasure in the society of Octavia, with whom he lived
for a time at Athens. But after the meeting at Tarentum he left Octavia
with her brother on his return to the East, and soon fell again under
Cleopatra’s spell, who, though not beautiful, fascinated him by her art
and infinite variety. When in B.C. 35 Octavia, trying to effect another
reconciliation, went to Athens, taking money and soldiers for him from
her brother, Antony accepted the gifts, but sent her word that she was
to return to Rome. Cæsar would have had her repudiate him at once, but
she seems to have been sincerely attached to him, and to have shrunk
from the idea of an insult to herself being made an occasion of civil
war. She persisted in living in his town house, and in bringing up with
liberality, not only her own children by him, but also Antony’s children
by Fulvia.
[Sidenote: Final breach between Cæsar and Antony.]
But after his return from the Armenian expedition (B.C. 34) Antony became
still more infatuated with Cleopatra. He publicly gave her the title of
“Queen of Queens,” and her eldest son the name of Cæsarion and “King
of Kings”; while to his two sons and daughter by Cleopatra he assigned
kingdoms in Syria, Armenia, Libya, and Cyrene. He had the assurance to
write to the Senate asking for the confirmation of these _acta_. When
his two friends, C. Sosius and Cn. Domitius Ahenobarbus entered on their
consulship (1st of January, B.C. 32), they resolved to suppress this
despatch, in spite of Cæsar’s wishes; but they communicated to the Senate
his message that the second period of the Triumvirate having expired
(on the last day of B.C. 33), he had no desire for its renewal. He did
not, however, lay down his imperium, and the object of this declaration
was to embroil Cæsar with the Senate, should he wish to retain his
extraordinary powers. Ahenobarbus, indeed, had had enough of civil war
and wished to take no step likely to bring it about. But Sosius made
an elaborate speech in praise of Antony, and attacking, or at least
depreciating, Cæsar; and was only prevented from bringing in a motion
in Antony’s favour by the intervention of a tribune. A few days after
this Cæsar (who had not been present on the 1st of January) summoned the
Senate, and delivered a speech from the consular bench, which though
studiously moderate as regards himself, was very outspoken as regards
Sosius and Antony. No one ventured to reply, and the Senate was dismissed
with the assurance that Cæsar would produce proofs of what he had said
about Antony. The two consuls, without taking any farther step, left
Rome privately and joined Antony in Alexandria. They were followed by a
considerable number of Senators, Cæsar giving out that they went with his
full consent, and declaring that others might go if they chose.
[Sidenote: The grievances of either side.]
[Sidenote: War proclaimed against Cleopatra, B.C. 32.]
This was a division of the governing body similar to that of B.C. 49-8,
and it was evident that a civil war was imminent. Sentiment was by no
means all on one side at Rome, as is proved by the numbers of the Senate
who crossed to Antony. Party feeling, in fact, was so keen that the very
boys in the streets divided themselves into Cæsarians and Antonians;[206]
and both leaders shewed great eagerness by arguments and declarations to
put themselves in the right. Antony’s grievances against Cæsar were:
(1) that he deprived Lepidus of Africa without consulting him; (2) that
he had not shared with him the countries formerly controlled by Sextus
Pompeius; (3) that he enrolled soldiers in Italy without sending him
the contingents due by their agreement. Cæsar’s against Antony were
that he was occupying Egypt (not a Roman province) without authority;
had executed Sextus Pompeius, whom he (Cæsar) had wished to spare; had
disgraced the Roman name by his conduct to the king of Armenia, by his
connection with Cleopatra, and by bestowing kingdoms on his children by
her; and, lastly, had wronged him by acknowledging Cæsarion as a son of
Iulius Cæsar. Letters and messages were interchanged for some months on
these and other points, both trying to justify themselves. Antony, in
one letter at least, preserved by Suetonius, ridicules in the coarsest
terms what he regards as Cæsar’s hypocritical or prudish objection to his
connection with the queen. But at length Cæsar found means to discredit
Antony in the eyes of the Senators, and to convince them that they must
prevent an invasion of Italy by a proclamation of war against Cleopatra,
which would be understood to be against Antony. He did this by using two
of Antony’s officers who had quarrelled with him and returned to Rome—M.
Titius and L. Munatius Plancus. The latter, Cicero’s correspondent,
the governor of Celtic Gaul in B.C. 44, and consul in B.C. 42, had
joined Antony in Alexandria as his _legatus_, and had been much in his
confidence. He is held up to scorn by contemporary writers as a monster
of fickleness and an ingrained traitor, and his thus turning upon Antony
was regarded with much contempt even by the Cæsarians. The story he and
his companion had to tell, however, served Cæsar’s turn. They brought
word that, on hearing of his speech in the Senate, Antony had publicly
divorced Octavia in the presence of the Senators, and had announced that
he intended to undertake a war against him. They also told how Antony
styled Cleopatra his queen and sovereign, gave her a bodyguard of Roman
soldiers, with her name on their shields; how he escorted her to the
forum and sat by her side on the seat of justice; how, when she rode
in her chair he walked on foot by her side among the eunuchs; how he
called the general’s quarters or prætorium “the Palace,” wore an Egyptian
scimitar and a robe embroidered with gold, and sat on a gilded chair;
and how some religious mummeries had been played, in which he took the
part of Osiris, she of the Moon and Isis. The Roman world believed that
Antony was bewitched by Cleopatra; and the serious consequences likely to
ensue were made more manifest by his will, of which Augustus got either
a copy or an account of its contents from Plancus, and read it publicly
from the Rostra. In it Antony affirmed the legitimacy of Cæsarion, gave
enormous legacies to his children by Cleopatra, and ordered his body to
be buried with that of the queen’s in the royal mausoleum. Altogether
people began to believe the report that he meant to hand over the Empire,
even Rome itself, to Cleopatra, and to transfer the seat of government to
Alexandria. There was one of those outbursts of feeling which carries all
before it. Even those who had been neutral, or inclined to be suspicious
of Cæsar, turned violently against Antony. He was deposed from the
consulship for B.C. 31, to which he had been elected, and declared to be
divested of imperium. It seems probable that he was not at first declared
a _hostis_,[207] but war was voted against Cleopatra. It was enough
for his enemies that he should be found fighting with the Egyptians
against Rome; and the vote was well understood to include him. Cæsar was
appointed to proclaim the war with all the _Fetial_ ceremonies, and the
Senate assumed the _sagum_.[208]
Both sides were now making preparations in earnest. Cæsar could draw
forces from Italy, Gaul, Spain, Illyricum, Sardinia, Sicily, and other
islands. Antony relied on Asia, the parts about Thrace, Greece and
Macedonia, Egypt, Cyrene, and the islands of the Ægean, besides a large
number of client kings who had owed their position to him.[209] He
silenced their scruples, when gathered at Samos, by pointing out that
they would not be formally at war with Rome, and promising that within
two months of the victory he would lay down his imperium and remit all
power to the Senate and people. Nor did he confine his exertions to
the East. Agents were sent to cities in Italy carrying money, though
Cæsar—who kept himself well informed—frustrated this attempt for the most
part.
[Sidenote: Antony approaches Italy.]
From Samos Antony removed his headquarters to Athens, whence in the
winter of B.C. 32 he started to invade Italy. But at Corcyra he
got intelligence of an advanced squadron of Cæsar’s fleet near the
Acroceraunian promontory, and thinking that Cæsar was there in full
force, he decided to put off hostilities till the spring, by which time
he expected to be joined by the forces of the client kings. He himself
wintered at Patræ, distributing his forces so as to guard various points
in Greece. He scornfully rejected Cæsar’s proposal for an interview, on
the ground that there was no one to decide between them, if either broke
the terms upon which they might agree. The proposal was probably not
seriously meant. It was only another means of putting Antony in the wrong.
[Sidenote: B.C. 31, Con., C. Octavius Cæsar, Val. Messala. The beginning
of hostilities.]
Nothing, however, was done before the end of the year, a storm having
frustrated an attempt of Cæsar’s to surprise some of the enemy’s ships
at Corcyra. In the early spring the first move was made by Agrippa,
who swooped down upon Methone in Messenia, killed Bogovas, late king
of Mauretania, and harassed the shores of Greece by other descents, in
order to divert Antony’s attention; who was now with his main fleet in
the Ambracian gulf, having secured the narrow entrance to it by towers
on either side, and with ships stationed between. His camp was close to
the temple of Apollo, on the south side of the strait. The successes of
Agrippa encouraged Cæsar to move. He landed troops in Ceraunia, making
his own headquarters at the “Sweet Haven,” at the mouth of the Cocytus,
and sent a detachment by land round the Ambracian sea to threaten
Antony’s camp. Having failed to entice the fleet from the Ambracian
gulf, or to tempt the men to abandon Antony, he seized the high ground
overlooking the strait, and opposite Actium, where he entrenched himself,
on the ground on which he afterwards built Nicopolis. The summer months,
however, were wearing away without any decisive blow being struck by
either side, and the delay was irksome to both. Rome was in a state of
simmering revolt owing to distress and heavy taxes, a discontent which
found expression in the conspiracy of Lepidus, son of the ex-triumvir.
It was promptly suppressed, indeed, and Lepidus was sent over to Cæsar
to receive his condemnation; but, nevertheless, Mæcenas, who was in
charge of Rome, found that he had no sinecure. To Antony, again, delay
meant discontent among his Eastern followers, tottering loyalty, and
probable abandonment. Above all, Cleopatra was in a highly nervous state,
and was urging a return to Egypt. At last on the 31st of August, a
cavalry engagement going against Antony, she became clamorous; and after
long deliberation, Antony determined to follow her advice. He ordered
his ships to be prepared for battle, but with the secret intention of
avoiding a fight and sailing away to Alexandria.[210]
[Sidenote: Battle of Actium, Sept. 3, B.C. 31.]
Cæsar was kept informed of this, and resolved to prevent it. His idea
was to allow the Antonian fleet to issue out and begin their course,
and then to fall upon their rear. But Agrippa thought that the superior
sailing powers of the Antonian fleet would render this impossible, and
urged an attack as soon as the ships cleared the straits. There had
been rough weather for four days, but on the 3rd of September there was
a calm,[211] or only some surf from the preceding storms; and when the
trumpet rang out for the start Antony’s huge vessels, furnished with
towers and filled with armed men, began streaming out of the straits.
They did not at first show any signs of standing out to sea. The ships
took up a close order and waited to be attacked. There was a brief pause
on Cæsar’s side. He or Agrippa hesitated to attack these great galleons
with their smaller craft. But before long an order was issued to the
vessels on the extremities of Cæsar’s fleet to exert their utmost powers
in rowing in order to get round Antony’s two wings. To avoid this danger
Antony was forced against his will to order an attack.
The battle raged all the afternoon without decisive result; though the
smallness of Cæsar’s vessels proved in many points a decided advantage.
They could be rowed close up to bigger ships and be rowed away again
when a shower of javelins had been poured in upon the enemy. Antony’s
men returned the volleys and used grappling irons of great weight. If
these irons caught one of the smaller ships they were doubtless very
effective; but if the cast missed they either seriously damaged their own
ship, or caused so much confusion and delay that an opportunity was given
to the enemy to pour in fresh volleys of darts. At length Cleopatra,
whose ships were on the southern fringe of the fleet, could bear the
suspense no longer. She gave the signal for retreat, and a favourable
breeze springing up, the Egyptian ships were soon fading out of sight.
Antony thinking that this was the result of a panic, and that the day
was lost, hastened after the retiring squadron. The example of their
leader was followed by many of the crews, who lightening their ships by
throwing overboard the wooden towers and war tackle, fled with sails full
spread. But others still maintained the struggle, and it was not until
Cæsar’s men began throwing lighted brands upon the enemy’s ships that the
rout became general. Even then the work was not over, for Cæsar spent
the whole night on board endeavouring to rescue men from the burning
ships.[212]
[Sidenote: The finale of the civil war in Egypt, B.C. 31-30.]
Antony got clear off from pursuit, but his camp on land was easily taken,
and his army was intercepted while trying to retreat into Macedonia. For
the most part the men took service in Cæsar’s legions, the veterans being
disbanded without pensions. Antony, however, was followed to Egypt by
many of his adherents of rank, and still thought himself strong enough
to make terms with Cæsar. But he could no longer hope for aid from the
client kings. They all hastened to make their peace with Cæsar, or were
captured and punished. Even Cleopatra was secretly prepared to betray him.
With the exception of one visit to Brundisium of seven days, to suppress
the mutiny of some discontented veterans, Cæsar spent the winter at
Samos and Athens, collecting an army and navy destined to deprive Egypt
permanently of its independence. Cleopatra had indeed tried to brave it
out. She returned to Alexandria with her prows decked with flowers and
her pipers playing a triumphant tune. The people are not likely to have
been deceived, but there was no sign of revolt. She was able to seize
the property of those whose fidelity she suspected, and even put to
death the captive king of Armenia to gratify her ally the king of Media.
Messages were sent to the kings who had been allied with Antony, and for
some gladiators whom he had in training at Trapezus. The gladiators
started but were intercepted, and no help came from the client kings.
A still worse disappointment awaited him in Cyrene, over which he had
placed L. Pinarius Scarpus with four legions. When, leaving Cleopatra
at Parætonium, he went to take over these legions, Pinarius refused to
receive him and even put his messengers to death, and shortly afterwards
handed over his province and army to Cæsar’s legate, Cornelius Gallus.
This was an unmistakable sign that Antony’s day of influence was over.
Cleopatra returned to Alexandria and made secret preparations for
retiring into Asia, as far as Iberia (_Georgia_) if necessary, though
still keeping up appearances and sending in every direction for aid.
Cleopatra’s son Cæsarion and Antony’s son by Fulvia (Antyllus) were
declared of man’s estate and capable of governing, and messages were
despatched to Cæsar proposing that Antony should retire to Athens as a
_privatus_, and that Cleopatra should abdicate in favour of Cæsarion.
The queen also, without Antony’s knowledge, sent Cæsar a gold sceptre
and crown. He made no reply to Antony, but answered in threatening terms
to Cleopatra, while sending his freedman Thyrsus to give her privately a
reassuring message. Antony suspected the purport of Thyrsus’s mission,
and with a last ebullition of his old swaggering humour had him flogged,
and sent back with the message, that if Cæsar felt aggrieved he might
put his freedman Hipparchus (who had joined Cæsar) to the torture in
revenge. But things went from bad to worse with him. News came that
the gladiators had been impounded, that his own legatus in Syria (Q.
Didius) had bidden the Arabs burn the ships which he had prepared for his
flight in the Red Sea, and that the only two client kings who had seemed
inclined to stand by him—those of Cilicia and Galatia—had fallen off. He
therefore tried once more to open communications with Cæsar. He sent him
as a prisoner one of the assassins of Iulius, whom he had protected and
employed, P. Turullius, and a considerable sum of money by the hands
of his son Antyllus. Cæsar put Turullius to death and took the money,
but returned no answer to Antony, though he again sent a private message
to Cleopatra. Presently Antony was informed that Gallus had arrived at
Parætonium with the four legions taken over from Pinarius; and believing
that even now his personal influence was sufficient to win back the men,
he hurried thither, accompanied by the remains of his fleet coasting
along to guard him. But this only led to farther disaster. The soldiers
refused to listen to him; and when his ships entered the harbour the
chains were made fast across the mouth and they were trapped. On land he
now found himself between two hostile forces; for Cæsar with Cleopatra’s
connivance had landed at Pelusium and was marching on Alexandria, and
Gallus was attacking him from Parætonium. He once more executed one
of those rapid movements for which he was famous. Hastening back to
Alexandria he flung his cavalry upon Cæsar’s vanguard when tired with its
march. But the success of this movement encouraged him to make a general
attack, in which he was decisively beaten. His last resource, the ships
still remaining in the harbour of Alexandria, failed him. Acting under
Cleopatra’s orders the captains refused to receive him. The queen, it is
said, had shut herself up in the Tomb-house or Ptolemæum, hoping to drive
Antony to despair and suicide, as the only solution of the difficulty. If
that was indeed her motive, she was both successful and repentant. Antony
stabbed himself, and begged to be carried to the Tomb-house, where he
died in her arms.
[Sidenote: Death of Cleopatra.]
Cæsar was now eager to secure Cleopatra’s person. He sent Gallus to her
with soothing messages, which he delivered to her at the porch. But while
he was speaking with her C. Proculeius entered by a window, seized the
queen, and conveyed her to the Palace, where she was allowed her usual
attendants and all the paraphernalia of royalty. Of the two accounts of
Cæsar’s interview with her the more picturesque one is given by the
usually prosaic Dio. He found her looking charming in her mourning,
surrounded by likenesses of various kinds of the great Iulius, and in
the bosom of her dress a packet of letters received from him. On his
entrance she rose with a blush and greeted him as her lord and master.
She pleaded that Iulius had always honoured her and acknowledged her as
queen. She read affectionate passages from his letters, which she kissed
passionately with tears streaming from her eyes, being at the same time
careful to put respectful admiration and affection for Cæsar himself into
her looks and the tone of her voice. Cæsar quite appreciated the drama
thus played for his behoof, but feigned unconsciousness, keeping his
eyes fixed on the ground and saying nothing but: “Courage, madam! Do not
be alarmed, for no harm will happen to you.” He said no word, however,
as to her retention of royal power, nor did his voice betray the least
tenderness. In an agony of disappointment she flung herself at his feet
and besought him by the memory of his father to allow her to die and
share Antony’s tomb. Cæsar made no reply except once more to bid her not
be alarmed; but he gave orders that though allowed her usual attendants
she was to be closely watched. Cleopatra understood only too well that
the intention was to take her to Rome that she might adorn the victor’s
triumph. But in order to secure greater freedom she feigned submission
and to be busied in collecting presents to take to Livia. Having thus
diminished the vigilance of Epaphroditus and her other guards, she some
days afterwards made a parade of writing a letter to Cæsar, which she
induced Epaphroditus to convey. When he returned, however, he found
the queen, decked in royal robes, lying dead with two of her waiting
women dead or dying by her side. “No one knows for certain,” says Dio,
“how she died. Some say that a venomous snake was conveyed to her in a
water-vessel or in some flowers. Others that the long pin with which
she fastened her hair had a poisoned point, with which she pricked her
arm.” Plutarch, with a like expression of doubt, says that the snake was
conveyed in a basket of figs; and that on receiving the letter brought
by Epaphroditus Cæsar understood her purpose and hurried to the Palace
to prevent it, and even summoned some of the mysterious Psylli—snake
charmers and curers—to suck out the poison.[213] But in spite of his
disappointment, he admired her spirit and gave her a royal funeral.
Perhaps after all he felt relieved of a difficulty. According to Plutarch
she had shown him that she was not to be easily managed. At the end of
her conversation with Cæsar, he says, she handed him a schedule of the
royal treasures. But when one of her stewards or treasurers remarked
that she was keeping back certain sums, the enraged queen sprang up,
clutched his hair, and beat his face with her fists. When Cæsar smiled
and tried to pacify her, she exclaimed: “A pretty thing, Cæsar, that you
should visit and address me with honour in my fallen state, and that one
of my own slaves should malign me! If I have set apart certain women’s
ornaments, it was not for myself, but for Octavia and Livia, that they
might soften your heart to me.”
It would be pleasanter if the death of Cleopatra and the confiscation of
her treasury were the end of the story. But the executions of the two
poor boys, Cæsarion and Antyllus, were acts of cold-blooded cruelty.
The former, who could not have been more than sixteen, had been sent by
his mother with a large supply of money to Æthiopia, but was betrayed
by his _pædagogus_, overtaken by Cæsar’s soldiers, and put to death.
The young Antonius (or Antyllus) begged hard for his life, and fled for
safety to the _heroum_ of the divine Iulius, constructed by Cleopatra,
but was dragged away and killed. He could at most have been no more
than fourteen, and had in childhood been betrothed to Cæsar’s infant
daughter, Iulia. Perhaps the pretensions of Cæsarion to the paternity of
Cæsar, and his acknowledgment as heir to the throne of Egypt, made his
death inevitable; but the extreme youth of Antyllus and his helplessness
might have pleaded for him. The rest of Antony’s children were protected
by Octavia, and brought up as became their rank.
It is impossible not to feel some sympathy for Antony, who had thus flung
away fame and life for a woman’s love. But it was doubtless a happy thing
for the world that the direction of affairs fell to the cautious Augustus
rather than to him. He had some attractive qualities, but no virtues.
Boundless self-indulgence in a ruler more than outweighs good-nature or
liberality. It brings more suffering to subjects than the occasional
gratification caused by the latter qualities can compensate. His scheme
for erecting a series of semi-independent kingdoms in the East would
almost certainly have been the cause of endless troubles. He was not more
than fifty-three at his death, but there were signs of a great decay of
energy and activity. The people thought of him—
“As of a Prince whose manhood was all gone,
And molten down in mere uxoriousness.”
And undoubtedly, if instead of spending a winter in Samos in luxury and
riot and part of another at Athens in much the same way, he had begun his
attack on Cæsar a year earlier, the result might have been different. But
he let the occasion slip and found, as others have done, that the head of
Time is bald at the back.
[Illustration: Obv.: Head of Augustus. Rev.: The Sphinx.
Obv.: Heads of Augustus and Agrippa. Rev.: Crocodile and Palm. _Colonia
Nemausi_ (Nismes).
Obv.: Head of Augustus. Rev.: Triumphal Arch, celebrating the
reconstruction of the roads.
Obv.: Head of Drusus. Rev.: The Trophy of Arms taken from the Germans.
Obv.: Head of Livia. Rev.: Head of Julia.
_To face page 130._]