against Antiochus of Commagene, and soon after returned to Athens,
where he remained two years. In 36, a new difficulty occurring between
him and Octavius on the subject of the naval expedition against the
pirates, in which he had refused to second the latter, civil war
again became imminent. Antony planned a descent upon Italy, with three
hundred vessels; Octavius, on his side, collected his legions; if
blood did not yet flow, swords were half unsheathed. In the hope of
preventing this unnatural war, Octavia entreated Antony to take her
with him into Italy. The port of Brundusium having refused entrance to
Antony’s fleet, his vessels moored before Tarentum. Informed of this,
Octavius was leading his troops by forced marches against that city.
Octavia desired to land alone. She went to meet Octavius on the way to
Venosa; passing through the outposts and sentinels, she approached her
brother, who was attended by Agrippa and Mecænas. She warmly pleaded
the cause of Antony, and especially conjured Octavius not to reduce her
from the happiest of women to the most miserable. “At this moment,”
said she, “the eyes of the world are upon me, the wife of one of the
rulers of Rome, and the sister of the other. Should the counsel of
wrath prevail, should war be declared, it may be doubtful to which of
you two Fate may give the victory, but it is certain to whichever it
inclines I shall be in grief and desolation.” The ambitious Octavius
was already coveting universal dominion, but he was a temporizer. He
yielded to the prayers of Octavia, and for the second time this woman,
who was the good genius of Antony, maintained the peace of the Roman
world. The two triumvirs met on the shores of the Gulf of Tarentum, and
after having lavished on each other various marks of affection they
agreed to renew the triumvirate for five years. Octavius gave Antony
two legions to reënforce his army of the East, and in return Antony
gave up one hundred triremes with brazen rostra and twenty Liburnian
galleys for his Mediterranean fleet. These were the vessels that were
to conquer at Actium! From Tarentum, Octavia returned alone to Rome
with the two children she had borne to Antony; he himself embarked for
Asia Minor, whither he was summoned by the war with the Parthians. The
pair agreed to meet again, the expedition over, either at Athens or at
Rome, when Antony hoped to receive the honors of a triumph.
From the winter of 39 to the summer of 36 B. C., for three long years,
Cleopatra remained thus parted from Antony. She was queen of Egypt and
Cyprus, she had borne one son to Cæsar and two to Antony, she possessed
immense revenues and treasures inexhaustible, but she suffered in her
pride and in her love from the desertion of the triumvir. Cleopatra
at twenty years of age had in all probability not loved Cæsar, who
was over fifty. She loved Antony. In fact, though she had at first
given herself to the triumvir through policy, yet she soon felt for
this rough soldier, handsome with the beauty of Hercules, master of
the East, surrounded by glory and power, the same passion that she
had inspired in him. If, indeed, the ancient authors do not state in
words that Cleopatra loved Antony, the scenes which they depict can
scarcely permit a doubt of it. There is a logic of circumstances. With
his martial air, his lofty stature and broad chest, his mane of black
hair and eyes of gloom, his aquiline nose and harshly cut features,
Antony certainly possessed manly attractions. His first wife, Fulvia,
loved him passionately; his second wife, Octavia, loved him supremely;
the haughty Cleopatra gave him love for love. Besides, Shakspeare tells
us this, and the word of this great painter of the human heart, of this
marvelously comprehensive genius, may well make up for the silence on
this point of a Dion Cassius or a Paul Orose.
Great as might have been the suffering of this other Dido, one can
scarcely imagine her enveloped in habiliments of woe and sighing in
the retirement of her palace. In all probability Cleopatra continued
her gay life of pompous show, giving to pleasure all the time that was
left from official ceremonies, public audiences and other duties of the
government, and her conferences with architects and engineers.[8] The
Typhonium, at Denderah, dates from the reign of Cleopatra. As is shown
by its cartouches, she also labored at the great temple of Denderah, at
those of Edfou, Heminthis, and Coptos, as well as at the monuments of
Thebes situated on the left bank of the Nile. At Alexandria, besides
the Cæsarium, which it appears was begun by Cleopatra, she had many
fine buildings erected; but as with many other more ancient palaces and
temples, there remains of them not a vestige on that surface which the
ruins of centuries have in so many places raised to a height of fully
ten meters.
Did the queen seek to play the indifferent by leaving Antony without
tidings, or, as Plutarch insinuates and Shakspeare declares, did
she, during these three years, overwhelm him with dolorous appeals
and burning messages of love? According to Josephus, her voluptuous
temperament was ever leading her into transient amours. Besides Cneius
Pompey, Cæsar, Dellius, Antony, and Herod, king of the Jews, the five
lovers who are accredited or attributed to her, the queen of Egypt had
many flirtations and anonymous entanglements. Is this calumny? It is
rather a slander. Be this as it may, the accusation is no proof that
Cleopatra no longer loved Antony. These riddles of the heart and the
senses are, after all, no enigma.
As for Antony, it seems that he had indeed forgotten Cleopatra.
Not only during the three years that he had passed with Octavia at
Athens and Rome; not only on his return from the expedition against
Antiochus of Commagene had he not visited Egypt, but even on his way
from Tarentum to Laodicea he had not touched at Alexandria, which
was almost directly in his course. He sailed straight for Syria. By
a singular fatality, scarcely had he set foot in Asia when he felt
his passion rekindle with the utmost violence. He established himself
at Laodicea, and at once despatched his friend Fonteius Capito into
Egypt to conduct Cleopatra to Syria. The queen, enchanted, had no
thought of delaying her departure in order to make herself the more
desired, as she had done five years before. She embarked at once, and
was received at Laodicea by her lover with transports of joy. To prove
otherwise than by caresses his unspeakable happiness at seeing her
again, he gave her, not jewels, but kingdoms: Chalcedon, Phœnicia,
Cœolo-Syria, a great part of Cilicia, Genesereth in Judea, noted for
its balm, and Nabathae in Arabia. Antony had no right to dispose of
these territories, which belonged to the _Roman people_; but mad with
pride as much as with love he declared that “The glory of Rome was
displayed much less in her conquests and possessions than in the gifts
she bestowed.”[9]
A few days after they were again compelled to part, with the promise,
however, of meeting again in the spring at Alexandria. Antony passed
with his army into Armenia; Cleopatra returned to Egypt, passing
through Apamea, Damascus, and Petrea. She desired to settle with the
kings of Judea and Arabia the amount of the tribute which these rulers
were to pay yearly for the portions of territory which Antony had
bestowed. The king of Arabia promised three hundred talents (sixteen
hundred and sixty thousand francs); the tribute of the king of the Jews
was greater. This king was Herod, whom the protection of Antony had
a few years before placed on the throne. He went to Damascus to meet
Cleopatra. According to Josephus, Herod, who was remarkably handsome,
repulsed the shameless advances of the queen, even proposing to put
her to death whilst she was in his power in order to deliver Antony
from her fatal influence; but his counselors dissuaded him from this
crime, telling him that from that moment he would incur the terrible
vengeance of Antony.
Cleopatra had not been long in Alexandria when she received a message
from Antony, dated at Leucocoma, a city on the seaboard of Syria. He
entreated her to join him at once with money, stores, and clothing
for his soldiers, who were destitute of everything. The war had been
unsuccessful. By his too eager desire to rejoin Cleopatra in the
spring, Antony had compromised the success of the campaign. When he
reached Armenia, after a forced march of eight thousand stadia, he
should have gone into winter quarters and not opened the campaign
till the spring, with troops rested and refreshed, and at a favorable
season. Too impatient to submit to this long delay, he entered Upper
Media, and that his march might be more rapid he left behind all his
siege machinery under the guard of one detachment. Chariots, towers,
catapults, battering-rams eighty feet long—all were destroyed by the
Parthian cavalry. Through the want of these batteries Antony failed
in the attack on the city of Phraata. Threatened by an overwhelming
force, he was compelled to retreat. It was midwinter, the legionaries
had to march through the snow amid freezing squalls. Every morning many
were found frozen to death. Provisions failed, they lost their way,
and the formidable Parthian cavalry harassed the exhausted columns.
In this terrible retreat, the remembrance of which may have occurred
to Napoleon before crossing the Niemen, Antony recovered his energy
and his qualities as a general; insensible to fatigue and hunger he
was everywhere present; he was both imperator and centurion. Ever
at the point where danger threatened most, in twenty-seven days he
fought eighteen battles. Victor at night, the next day the struggle
was renewed against fresh and ever-increasing forces. When Antony
reached the coast of Syria his army was reduced from seventy thousand
to thirty-eight thousand men. More fortunate than Crassus, however, the
Romans brought back their eagles.
Cleopatra in vain used all despatch; she did not reach Antony as soon
as he had hoped, and his impatience became agony. He imagined that the
queen would not comply with the appeal of a conquered man. Overcome
by despair he fell into a sort of stupor. Then he sought distraction
in drinking, but the pleasures of the table, of which he had been so
utterly deprived during the campaign of Media, had no power to relieve
his anxiety. At the very height of an orgy he would suddenly rise from
the table, leave his companions, and hasten to the seashore, where he
would remain whole hours with his eyes fixed on the horizon in the
direction whence he expected Cleopatra to appear.
At length the long-desired queen arrived with provisions and clothing,
and about two hundred and forty talents of silver. The paying of the
legionaries,[10] the reorganization of the army, and the collection
of contributions compelled Antony to remain some time longer at
Leucocoma, and Cleopatra remained with him. Meanwhile, the news of the
disastrous expedition having reached Rome, Octavia, still devoted to
her husband despite the efforts of Octavius, who had had the cruelty to
inform her of the reunion of Antony and Cleopatra, determined to embark
for Asia. She entreated Octavius to furnish her with ships, soldiers,
and money. Report had informed Octavius of the renewed passion of
Antony. He yielded to the request of Octavia in the hope that the
insulting reception she was likely to receive from her husband might
detach her from him forever and rouse the indignation of the Romans.
Not to risk a meeting with Cleopatra, Octavia landed at Athens, whence
she sent word to Antony of her arrival. But the triumvir would not
dismiss his mistress; he wrote to Octavia to remain at Athens, offering
her as a pretext his intention of undertaking a new expedition against
the Parthians. In fact, the king of Media, incessantly a prey to these
wild hordes, had proposed to Antony an alliance against them. Without
resenting Antony’s refusal to receive her, of which refusal she did
not deceive herself as to the cause, Octavia wrote again to Antony.
This letter contained no reproaches; the young wife asked the triumvir
simply whither she should send the reënforcements and the munitions
she had brought for him. These included, besides military clothing
and arms, machines of war and a large amount of money, three thousand
chosen men as splendidly armed as the prætorian cohorts. Octavia had
sacrificed a portion of her private fortune to add this quota to the
supplies. Niger was charged with the delivery of this letter. Often
interviewed by Antony, who held him in great esteem, he mildly pointed
out the wrongs of Octavia, reminded him of the rare virtues of this
admirable woman, and exhorted him in the name of his own interests so
seriously involved, and of his renown so sadly compromised, to abandon
Cleopatra.
Much shaken, Antony hesitated. He thought he would go to Media. By
this means he could send Cleopatra back to Egypt, leave Octavia in
Greece, and delay, until his return from the campaign, the decision
which he could not resolve now to make; but Cleopatra, with the
penetration of a woman who loves, read the heart of Antony. She saw
herself a second time in danger of losing her lover; moreover, she had
the advantage over Octavia of being near Antony. She redoubled her
smiles and caresses, purposely exaggerating the passion already very
warm and unfeigned which possessed her. Then, at the first broaching
of his departure for Media, she pretended a mortal sorrow. She would
neither eat nor sleep, she passed her days and nights in tears; her
pale face, her haggard features and sunken eyes, her stony look and
pallid lips struck all who approached her. Her women, her friends, the
intimates of the triumvir whom she had won over by her flatteries and
promises, reproached Antony with his want of feeling. They accused him
of allowing to die of grief the most adorable of women, who breathed
only for him. “Octavia,” said they, “is bound to you merely by her
brother’s interest; she enjoys all the advantages of a wife’s title,
while Cleopatra, the queen of so many peoples, is called only the
mistress of Antony, ἐρω.μένην Ἀντωνíου. She refuses not this name,
she does not feel humiliated by it—she glories in it: her sole bliss,
her only ambition, is to live with thee!” Antony yielded, overcome by
such speeches and by the fear that Cleopatra, who possessed his whole
heart, and whom only his reason urged him to resist, would die of grief
or take poison. He therefore postponed his expedition into Media, and
returned with Cleopatra to Alexandria, where they resumed the “Life
Inimitable.”
At the commencement of the year 34, Antony joined his legions in Asia.
In a few days he defeated the Armenians, made prisoner the king and all
his family, and reduced the country to subjection. After this glorious
campaign Antony was to enjoy a triumph at Rome, but through love and
devotion to Cleopatra, whom he wished to share his honors, the ceremony
was given at Alexandria. For the first time a Roman received the reward
of a triumph outside of Rome. It was an insult to the city, which thus
seemed discrowned; it was an offense to the senate and the people, from
whom alone the honor of a triumph could be received.
This scandalous triumph was of the utmost magnificence. Through
Alexandria, decorated with the richest ornaments and massed with
flowers, filed to the sound of horns and trumpets, the legionaries, the
auxiliary cavalry, the priests, the censer-bearers, and the deputies
from different cities, wearing crowns of gold, chariots filled with
trophies, and thousands of captives. Before the triumphal chariot,
drawn by four white horses, walked the king Artavasdes, his wife, and
two sons, bound in chains of gold. When the chariot arrived before
Cleopatra, who, seated on a throne of gold and ivory, presided at the
triumph, Antony stayed his quadriga, and presented to the queen his
royal captives. After the procession and the sacrifices, he gave a
mammoth banquet to the citizens of Alexandria. Enormous tables were
spread in the gardens of the palace and in the public squares. The
feast over, Antony seated Cleopatra on her throne of gold and ivory
[chryselephantine], and placed himself on a similar one; the trumpets
sounded, the soldiers presented arms, and the whole people collected
in crowds around the two lovers. Then Antony proclaimed that from
that time Cleopatra should be called the Queen of Kings, and her son,
Cæsarion, the heir of Julius, the divine, the King of Kings; and he
renewed to them the sovereignty of Egypt and Cyprus. Next he publicly
settled the state of the three children borne him by Cleopatra. He gave
to the eldest, Alexander, called by him Helios, Armenia, Media, and the
country of the Parthians; to his twin-sister Cleopatra, whom he called
Selene, the kingdom of Lybia; to Ptolemy, Phœnicia, Syria, and Cilicia.
At each proclamation of the triumvir, heralds repeated his words and
the trumpets sounded. The same day the youthful (infant) sovereigns
were presented by Antony to the army and the people. Alexander appeared
in the robes of the Mede with the cidaris (sash) of the kings of
Persia, and a platoon of Armenians as a guard of honor. Ptolemy had an
escort of Macedonian mercenaries armed with lances eighteen feet long;
he wore the long purple mantle, the sandals embroidered with gold, and
the crown of precious stones of the successors of Alexander.
Cleopatra had already set the example of such masquerades. Two years
before, on her return from Laodicea, when Antony had added to her
dominions Phœnicia, Chalcedon, Cœlo-Syria and many other countries she
had opened a new era and had assumed the name of the New Isis, or New
Goddess. It was in the narrow garment of Isis, and on her head the
covering of Isis (the golden horns, between which rested the vulture
head), with the lotoform scepter in her hand, that she presided at
public ceremonies or gave state audiences.
Submissive to these caprices Antony allowed himself to be represented
in paintings and groups of statuary under the figures of Osiris and
Bacchus, seated beside Cleopatra Isis and Cleopatra Selene. It seemed
that bewitched by his mistress he renounced his country for her. He
accepted the office of grand-gymnasiarch of Alexandria. He commanded
that the effigy of the Egyptian queen should be engraved on the back of
his imperial coins; he even dared to inscribe the name of Cleopatra on
the shields of his legionaries. He permitted, by a shameless inversion
of parts, that the queen should go about Alexandria seated in a curule
chair, whilst he, carrying a scimeter and wearing a purple robe with
jeweled clasps, accompanied her on foot surrounded by Egyptian officers
and the base troop of eunuchs.
[Illustration]
VI.
By deposing Lepidus, Octavius had changed the triumvirate into a
duumvirate, and the empire became divided between himself and Antony.
But the domination of the East satisfied the pride of Antony no
better than the domination of the West sufficed for the ambition of
Octavius. Though twice deferred, the civil war remained inevitable.
In his extreme caution, Octavius would still have delayed it; in his
folly, Antony precipitated it. He despised Octavius as a general; his
flatterers and his soldiers, who adored him, predicted victory to his
arms; Cleopatra, who retained the angry recollection of the insolent
reception by the Romans, burned to avenge it, and confiding in the
sword of Antony, she already swore “By the justice which she would soon
dispense at the Capitol.”[11]
Antony began by overwhelming Octavius with reproaches and dark threats.
His clients, who were numerous in Rome, his friends, his emissaries
sent from Egypt, made themselves busy in enhancing with the people his
grievances, real and supposed. Octavius, said they, has robbed Sextus
Pompey of Sicily without dividing the spoils with his colleague: he
has not even restored the hundred and twenty triremes borrowed for
that war; he has deposed Lepidus and retained for himself alone the
provinces, the legions, and the ships of war that had been assigned
to that triumvir; he has distributed to his own soldiers nearly all
the public lands of Italy, without keeping any for the veterans of
Antony. Every act of the government of Octavius was criticized and
incriminated. The people were reminded that he was crushing Italy under
the weight of taxes; he was accused of aiming at sovereign power.
They even went the length of saying that the true heir of Cæsar was
not Octavius, his nephew, but Cæsar’s own son Cæsarion, and that a
second will of the Dictator would some day be forthcoming. According
to Dion Cassius, Antony, by his formal recognition of Cæsarion as the
legitimate son of Cæsar, had raised to a climax the uneasiness and
anger of Octavius.
Meanwhile Octavius bided his time; his preparations for war were not
complete, and Antony was still popular in Rome, where he maintained
very many clients, protected by Octavia his wife. She, in spite of
the insult inflicted by Antony, was still wholly devoted to him; in
vain, on her return from Greece, had Octavius besought her to forget
her husband and to quit his dwelling; she had utterly refused to do
so. She continued to reside in that famous mansion, once the property
of the great Pompey, there educating with equal care and tenderness
her own children by Antony and those of his first wife. The clients of
Antony and the friends he sent from Alexandria were sure of finding
support and assistance from Octavia; she even obtained favors for them
from Octavius, irritated though he might be; finally she incessantly
assumed in his presence the defense of Antony, excusing both faults
and follies, and declaring that it was a hateful thing for two great
emperors to incite Romans to slay each other, the one to avenge
personal wrongs, the other for the love of a foreign woman.
Octavius, who took for his motto: “That which is well done is done
quickly enough,” _sat celeriter feri quidquid fiat satis bene_,
appeared to give way to the prayers of Octavia; but if he made no
haste to declare war he was preparing it slowly, and preparing also
public opinion. He made the most of Antony’s disgraceful life in
Egypt—his enslavement by Cleopatra. It was said in the senate, in the
army, among the people, “Antony is no longer a Roman; he is the slave
of the queen of Egypt, the incestuous daughter of the Lagidæ: his
country is Alexandria and thither he would transfer the capital of the
empire; his gods are Knouph with the ram’s head, Ra of the vulture
beak, the dog-headed Anubis—latrans Anubis; his counselors are the
eunuch Mardion, Charmion, and Iras, the tire-woman of that Cleopatra
on whom he has promised to bestow Rome.” These idle tales inspired the
Romans with a sentiment of horror which still survives in the verses
of the poets of that period: “Among our eagles,” says Horace, “the sun
beholds, O infamy, the base standard of an Egyptian woman.... Romans
sold to a woman blush not to bear arms for her.... In the intoxication
of her success and the madness of her hopes, this monster—_monstrum
illud_—dreams the fall of the Capitol, and is preparing with her
troops of despicable slaves and eunuchs the funeral rites of the
empire.” “Thus,” writes Propertius, “this royal prostitute—_meretrix
regina_—eternal disgrace of the blood of Philip, would force the Tiber
to endure the menaces of the Nile, and thrust aside the Roman trumpets
to make way for the shrieking sistra (Egyptian timbrels).”[12]
Domitius Ænobarbus and C. Sossius were elected consuls 32 B. C. Both
were partisans of Antony, and made vain attempts to save him by
unmasking Octavius to the senate, but the majority declared against
them. Dreading the anger of the implacable Perusian lover of justice
they went into exile with several of the senators. They could not at
once join Antony, who was in Armenia, negotiating the marriage of his
very youthful son, Alexander, with Jotapa, daughter of the king of
Media. They announced to him by letter that Octavius was hastening
his preparations, and that immediate hostilities might be expected.
Antony, like a good general, determined, in order to get the start of
his enemy, to carry the war into Italy. He immediately sent Canidius
with sixteen legions to the sea-coast of Asia Minor, and himself
proceeded to Ephesus, where all his allies were directed to unite
their contingents. Cleopatra was the first to arrive, with two hundred
vessels of from three to ten banks of oars, and a war subsidy of twenty
thousand talents (one hundred thousand francs).