Egyptian waters, this money in the treasury of the Lagidæ, and
Cleopatra herself in Alexandria. This bewitching but fatal being
brought to the Roman camp her gorgeous licentiousness and her unbridled
desire of pleasure. At Ephesus where she landed, at Samos whither they
afterwards proceeded, the mad follies of Alexandria were renewed. The
constant arrivals of kings, governors, deputations from cities bringing
to Antony troops and vessels served as a pretext for magnificent feasts
and innumerable dramatic representations. A thousand comedians and
rope-dancers were collected, and whilst the whole world, says Plutarch,
echoed with the noise of arms and the groans of men, at Samos nothing
was heard but laughter and the music of flutes and citharæ. Time passed
quickly in these pleasures, and there was not an hour to lose if the
offensive were to be taken. Until then the friends and captains of
Antony, Dellius, Marcus Silanus, Titius, Plancus, all equally yielding
to the seductions of Cleopatra, had made no effort to separate their
leader from this fatal woman. Now the great game was to be played, and
in this game they staked, as it were, their lives against the dominion
of the world. They appealed to Antony. Ænobarbus, the only one of the
Antonites who had never hailed Cleopatra as queen, was spokesman, and
declared plainly that the Egyptian must be sent back to Alexandria till
the close of the war. Antony promised to send her. Unfortunately for
him, Cleopatra heard of this proceeding. Now less than ever would she
leave Antony alone, exposed to the final appeals of Octavia her former
successful rival; she knew too well the vacillating mind and weak soul
of Antony. Would he have strength to refuse a reconciliation so much
desired in the camp as well as at Rome, which would consolidate its
threatened power and secure peace to the empire? Cleopatra won over
Canidius, after Ænobarbus the most noted captain of the army of the
East; and by dint of prayers, coquetry, and money, it is said, she
persuaded him to espouse her cause. He represented to Antony that it
was neither just nor wise to send away an ally who furnished to the war
supplies so considerable; that he would thus alienate the Egyptians,
whose ships formed the main strength of the fleet. He added that
Cleopatra was, in the council, inferior to none of the kings who were
to fight under the orders of Antony; she, who had so long governed
alone so great an empire, and who, since they had been associated
together, had acquired still greater experience in affairs. He talked
against reason, but he spoke in accordance with the heart of Antony,
and Cleopatra remained with the army.
Meanwhile the friends that still remained to Antony in Rome despatched
one of their number, Geminius, to make a last attempt to free him from
his mistress. Geminius for days tried in vain to see Antony alone.
Cleopatra, who suspected the Roman of working in the interests of
Octavia, never left her lover for an instant. At length, at the close
of a supper, Antony, half-drunk, called upon Geminius to declare
instantly the object of his coming. “The matters of which I have to
speak,” replied Geminius angrily, “cannot be discussed after drinking;
but what I can tell you as well drunk as sober is that all would be
well if Cleopatra returned to Egypt.” In a rage, the queen exclaimed:
“You do well to speak before the torture compels it.” Antony was no
less enraged. The next day Geminius, feeling by no means in safety,
reëmbarked for Italy.
The vindictive Egyptian also bore malice against the friends of Antony
who had joined with Ænobarbus to procure her departure. Sarcasms,
offenses, insults, and ill offices were all employed by her so
effectually that Silanus, Dellius (her former lover, it is said), and
Plancus and Titius, both persons of consular dignity, abandoned the
party of Antony.
As much to revenge themselves on their former leader as to conciliate
their new master, Plancus and Titius on their return to Rome revealed
to Octavius certain clauses in the will of Antony, the divulging of
which would complete his ruin in the minds of the people. Antony,
recognizing Cæsarion as the son of Cæsar, was dividing the Roman East
among his other children and the queen of Egypt, and willed that even
should he die in Rome, his body should be transported to Alexandria and
delivered to Cleopatra. The two officers added that they were positive
as to these dispositions, as, at the desire of Antony, they themselves
had read the will, had affixed their seal, and had deposited it in
the college of the Vestals. Octavius demanded the will. The Vestals
declared that they would not give it up, but that if he would come and
take it himself they could not prevent him. Octavius felt no scruple in
doing so; he took the will and read it before the Senate. The Conscript
Fathers, it must be confessed, were no less indignant at the violation
of the will of Antony than at the contents of the document itself.
Octavius, however, had the excuse of acting for the good of the people.
The skillful and patient politician was about to attain his end. He
procured also a _senatus-consultum_ (a judgment of the Senate), by
which Antony was deposed from the consular dignity, and the same day,
January 1, 31 B. C., he declared war, not on Antony, but on the queen
of Egypt. This was a last tribute to public opinion—Cæsar would not
risk the odium of arming Roman against Roman.
He knew well that Antony would not desert Cleopatra, and therefore by
conducting his legions against the detested Egyptian, he would throw on
Antony the responsibility of the civil war.
Antony and Cleopatra passed at Athens the autumn of 32 and part of
the winter of 31 B. C. Whilst their soldiers were exhausting all
the cities of Greece by enormous requisitions, and completing their
crews by means of the press-gang, dragging sons from their mothers,
and husbands from their wives, the lovers continued to lead their gay
life. Spectacles, public games, interminable feasts, and mad orgies
incessantly succeeded each other. Jealous of the memory which Octavia
had left in Athens, where her beauty was still talked of, Cleopatra
would fain have effaced it by her pomp, her flatteries, and her
largesses to the people. The Athenians, setting little value on honors,
even now somewhat obsolete, which it was in their power to bestow,
determined to offer Cleopatra the “Freedom of the City,” and decreed
that a statue should be erected to her. The decree was presented to
her by deputies, among whom figured Antony as an Athenian citizen. The
document was read to the queen, after which her virtues and merits
were eulogized in an eloquent address. The vanity of Cleopatra was
gratified, but her hatred unappeased. She exacted from Antony his
repudiation of Octavia, and that from Athens itself, that city where
the couple had spent three happy years, he should send to Rome his
command for her to depart from his house. Octavia quitted it, clad in
mourning and weeping, and leading with her the two children of Antony.
The unhappy woman loved him still.[13]
[Illustration]
VII.
Antony had not abandoned his original design of preventing the
combining of the forces of Octavius by carrying the war into Italy; but
he had lost much time. In the spring of 31 B. C., his army and fleet
being concentrated at Actium, at the mouth of the Gulf of Ambracia, he
was preparing to join them when he learned that some Roman vessels were
coasting the shores of Epirus. It was but the vanguard of Agrippa’s
fleet, but the presence of this vanguard showed that the preparations
of Octavius were in a very advanced state, if not complete. The time
for surprising him was past. Antony decided, before forming new plans,
to wait till the Romans should have defined their plan of the campaign.
The fleet and the army, therefore, remained at Actium, but as the place
was unwholesome and a stay there wearisome, Antony went to Patras with
Cleopatra. Early in August he received the important news that the
Roman fleet had just anchored off the coast of Epirus, that the troops
were landing, and that Octavius was already at Toryne. Antony at once
set out for Actium, much excited and very ill pleased that the enemy so
quickly and so easily had taken up its position. Cleopatra jested with
his uneasiness: “What a misfortune,” said she, “that Octavius should be
sitting upon a dipper!”—in Greek Toryne means a dipper.
The army of Antony, consisting of nineteen legions and twelve
thousand cavalry, and numerous auxiliaries, Cilicians, Paphlagonians,
Cappadocians, Jews, Medes, Arabs, amounted to one hundred and ten
thousand men. His fleet numbered nearly five hundred vessels of three,
five, eight, and ten banks of oars. These last, built in Egypt, were
veritable floating fortresses, surmounted with towers and furnished
with powerful war-engines. Octavius had eighty thousand foot soldiers
recruited in Italy, Sicily, Spain, and Gaul, ten thousand horse, and
but two hundred and fifty vessels, triremes with rostra and light
Liburnian galleys in about equal numbers. If the land forces were about
of equal effective strength the disproportion between the naval forces
was immense; but the ships of Octavius made up for their inferiority of
numbers by their superiority of manœuvring, and the excellence of their
crews, who had all been with Agrippa during the long Sicilian war. On
the contrary, Antony’s sailors were comparatively few, and most of them
were going into battle for the first time; his heavy ships were clumsy
in their evolutions,—as the hyperbolical Florus expressed it: “The sea
groaned under their weight, and the wind exhausted itself in moving
them.”
The army of Antony occupied the northern point of Acarnania, with a
strong detachment on the coast of Epirus, which was directly opposite.
Firmly entrenched within defenses raised during the winter, he
commanded the narrow passage into the Gulf of Ambracia in which his
fleet was moored. Octavius had pitched his camp in Epirus, at a short
distance from the advanced posts of Antony. Antony held an excellent
position for defense, which enabled him to resist successfully the
attacks of the Romans: for the Pass of Actium could not be forced; but
he was blockaded on the side of the sea whence almost all his stores
and munitions must reach him.
For several days the two armies were face to face. Octavius, desirous
to engage, endeavored by every feint to draw his adversary into action
either on land or sea. Antony, uneasy, anxious, hesitating, could
not decide what step to take. He embarked the greater portion of his
troops and transferred them to the coast of Epirus, as if to attack the
Roman camp; then he changed his mind and recrossed into Acarnania. The
officers of Antony, auguring ill of the manœuvring qualities of his
huge vessels, and, at the same time, full of confidence in the valor
of the legionaries, counseled him to fight the battle on land. This
was also the desire of the army. At a review he was accosted by an old
centurion all seamed with scars: “Oh, Emperor, dost thou distrust these
wounds and this sword, that thou puttest thy hope in rotten wood? Let
the men of Egypt and Phœnicia fight on the sea, but to us, give us
the land where we are used to hold our own, and where we know how to
conquer or to die.” But Antony was disturbed by sinister omens. In many
places his statues and those of Cleopatra had been struck by lightning;
at Alba a marble statue, erected in honor of the triumvir, had been
found covered with sweat. “A sign still more alarming,” says Plutarch,
“some swallows, having built their nests under the stern of the
_Antoniad_, Cleopatra’s flagship, other swallows came, drove the first
away, and killed their young ones.” Frequent defeats in the skirmishes
around Actium, the desertion of Domitius Ænobarbus, who suddenly passed
over to the enemy, the defection of two of the allied kings, who, with
their forces, abandoned the army, confirmed these evil omens in the
superstitious soul of Antony. He suspected everything and everybody—his
fortune, his soldiers, his friends, Cleopatra herself. Seeing her sad,
discouraged, a prey to gloomy thoughts—for she, too, dwelt on the omens
of the swallows of the _Antoniad_ and the shattered statues—he fancied
that she wished to poison him, that by this crime she might secure the
favor of Octavius. For days he would take neither food nor drink that
she had not first tasted. Out of pity for her lover, Cleopatra lent
herself willingly to this caprice. One night, however, at the close of
the supper, she took a rose from her crown and lightly dipped it into
a cup of wine which she handed smilingly to Antony. He put it to his
lips, when she arrested his hand and gave the poisoned wine to a slave
to drink, who immediately fell to the floor writhing in mortal agony.
“O Antony!” exclaimed Cleopatra, “what a woman you suspect. See now
that neither means nor opportunities to slay you would fail me if I
could live without you!”
The anxiety and depression reached the army, encamped in an unwholesome
situation, and with reduced supplies. One day, Canidius himself,
hitherto so eager for battle, counseled the abandonment of the
fleet, and to carry the war into Thrace, where Dikome, king of the
Getæ, promised to send reënforcements. But what need was there of
reënforcements, since they were already superior in numbers to the
enemy? Cleopatra offered another opinion, if no less shameful, at any
rate more sensible. Flight against flight, it would be better to go to
Egypt than to Thrace. She proposed to leave part of the army in Greece,
to garrison the fortified towns; to embark the rest, and set sail for
Egypt, passing through the fleet of Octavius. After fresh hesitation,
Antony adopted this plan, though assuredly it was bitter to flee from
an army whose leader he despised. All tends to the belief, besides,
that Antony hoped to destroy the Roman fleet in the naval engagement
that must ensue on issuing from the narrow passage of Actium. If he
gained the victory he would be able to regain his position and attack
the demoralized army of Octavius; if the victory remained doubtful—for
with so powerful a fleet he could not admit the supposition of a
defeat—he would sail for Egypt. The retreat would be but a last
resource.
Desertion and disease had greatly reduced the crews of the galleys.
Antony decided to burn one hundred and forty of them in order to fill
up with their crews the remainder of the fleet. Twenty-two thousand
legionaries, auxiliaries, and slingers were put on board the ships.
Not to discourage the soldiers and sailors, it was concealed from
them that these preparations for battle were indeed preparations for
retreat. The secret was so well kept, that it was a surprise to the
pilots when they received orders to carry the sails with them. They
recollected that in battle the vessels were worked with oars only.
Antony had it reported that the sails were carried the better to pursue
the enemy after the victory.
On the morning of September 2d the vessels of Antony formed in four
grand divisions, crossed the channel of Actium, and, issuing thence,
were disposed in battle array opposite the fleet of Octavius, who was
awaiting them at eight or ten stadia from the land. On the side of
Antony, he himself, with Publicola, commanded the right wing; Marcus
Justus and Marcus Octavius the center, and Cœlius the left wing.
Cleopatra commanded the reserve with sixty Egyptian vessels. On the
side of the Romans, Octavius commanded the right wing, Agrippa the
left, and Arruntius the center. About noon the battle began. The troops
on land, who were under arms and motionless near the shore, saw not,
as is usual in sea-fights, the galleys rush at each other seeking to
strike with their rostra or beaks of steel. On account of their slow
rate of speed, the heavy vessels of Antony could not strike with that
impetuosity which gives force to the shock, and the light galleys of
the Romans feared to break their rostra against those enormous ships,
constructed of strong beams joined with iron. The battle was like a
succession of sieges, a combat of moving citadels with moving towers.
Three or four Roman galleys would unite to attack one of Antony’s
vessels, so huge, says Virgil, that they looked like the Cyclades
sailing on the waters. The soldiers cast grappling-irons, fired burning
arrows on the decks, attached fire-ships to the keels, and rushed to
board them, while the powerful batteries placed at the summit of the
towers of the beleaguered ship showered down on the assailants a hail
of stones and arrows. At the very first the Roman right wing, commanded
by Octavius, gave way before the attack of the division under Cœlius.
At the other extremity Agrippa, having designed a movement to surround
Antony and Publicola, these turned on their right and thus uncovered
the center of the line of battle. The swift Liburnian galleys improved
the opportunity to attack the vessels of the two Marcuses, in the rear
of which was the reserve under Cleopatra. Success and reverse went
hand in hand; the two sides fought with equal fury, and the victory
was doubtful, but the nervousness of Cleopatra was to be the ruin of
Antony’s cause. For hours she had suffered a fever of agony. From the
deck of the _Antoniad_ she anxiously watched the movements of the
fleets. In the beginning she had hoped for victory; now, terrified by
the clamor and tumult, her only desire was to escape. She awaited with
ever-increasing impatience the signal for retreat. Suddenly she noticed
the right wing moving towards the coast of Epirus, the left putting to
sea, and the center, which protected her, attacked, separated, broken,
penetrated by the Roman Liburnians. Then, “pale with her approaching
death”—_pallens morte futura_—listening only to her terror, she ordered
the sails to be hoisted, and with her sixty vessels she passed through
the midst of the combatants and fled towards the open sea. In the midst
of the battle Antony perceived the motion of the Egyptian squadron, and
recognized the _Antoniad_ by its purple sails; Cleopatra was fleeing,
robbing him at the decisive moment of his powerful reserve; but the
queen could not order the retreat, he alone could give the signal
for that. There is some mistake—a feint, perhaps a panic. Antony in
his turn hoists the sails of his galley, and rushes in the wake of
Cleopatra. He will bring back the Egyptian vessels and restore the
chances of the battle. But before overtaking the _Antoniad_ the unhappy
man has time to think. Cleopatra has deserted him either through
cowardice or treason; he can bring back to Actium neither her nor her
fleet. Next he thinks he will return to the combat, which is now only a
rout, to die with his soldiers—to _die_ without seeing Cleopatra once
more! he cannot do it. A fatal power drags him after this woman. He
reaches the _Antoniad_, but then he is overcome with his disgrace. He
refuses to see the queen. He seats himself on the prow of the vessel,
his head on his hands, and remains thus for three days and three nights.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
VIII.
The Egyptian fleet and some other vessels which had followed the
fugitives put into the port of Cænopolis, near Cape Tenarum. Often
repulsed by the obstinate silence of Antony, Cleopatra’s women finally
succeeded in bringing about an interview between the lovers. They
supped and passed the night together. O, wretched human weakness!
Some of his friends who had escaped from Actium brought them news. The
fleet had made an obstinate resistance, but all the vessels which were
not sunk or burned were now in possession of Octavius. The army still
maintained its position, and appeared to be faithful. Antony at once
sent messengers and despatched Canidius with orders to recall those
troops, and himself embarked for Cyrenaica, where he still had several
legions. One of his vessels bore his jewels, his valuables, and all the
services of gold and silver which he had used at his entertainments of
the kings, his allies. Before departing from Cænopolis, Antony divided
all this wealth among a few of his friends, whom he constrained to
seek an asylum in Greece, refusing to allow them any longer to follow
his fatal fortunes. When parting from them he talked in the kindest
manner, seeking to console them and regarding their tears with a sad
but kindly smile.
Cleopatra had sailed from Greece some days before Antony. She was in
haste to return to Egypt, fearing that the news of the disaster of
Actium might provoke a revolution. To mislead the people for a few
days, and thus gain time to take her measures, she entered the port of
Alexandria with all the parade of a triumph. Her ships, their prows
adorned with crowns, resounded with the songs of victory and the music
of flutes and sistra. No sooner was she reinstalled in the palace than
she put to death many whose intrigues she feared. These executions,
which benefited the royal treasury, for death involved the confiscation
of the wealth of the real or pretended guilty, delivered Cleopatra
from all fear of an immediate revolution, but she none the less felt
a mortal terror about the future. She still suffered from the horror
of Actium;—at times haunted by the idea of suicide, she contemplated a
death as pompous as had been her life, and she erected at the extremity
of Cape Lochias an immense tomb, in which to consume herself and her
treasures. At other times she thought of flight, and by her orders a
number of her largest ships were transported with great reënforcements
of men, engines, and beasts of burden across the isthmus to the Red
Sea. She had a vision of embarking with all her wealth for some unknown
country of Asia or Africa, there to renew her existence of lust and
pleasure.
Antony soon returned to Alexandria. He was in a state of gloomy
discouragement; his army in Acarnania, deserted by Canidius, who had
taken flight, had surrendered to Octavius after a week of hesitation;
in Cyrenaica he could not even obtain a meeting with his lieutenant
Scarpus, who, having taken sides with the Cæsarians, had threatened
his life; Herod, his creature, whom he had made king of the Jews, had
offered his allegiance to the conqueror of Actium; defection on all
sides with his allies as with his legions. Antony reached the point
of doubting even Cleopatra; he would scarcely see her. Exasperated
at the cruelty of the gods, and still more so at the perfidy of men,
he resolved to pass in solitude the wretched days that his enemies
might yet permit him to live. The story of Timon, the misanthrope of
Athens, which he had heard in happier days, recurred to his memory,
and, determined to live like Timon, he settled in the barren mole
of Poseidon, and busied himself there in erecting a tower which he
intended to call the Timonion.
Cleopatra yielded less submissively to fate. Attacked in the crisis of
danger by a fainting courage to which Antony was an utter stranger, the
immediate danger past she recovered all her powers. With her exalted
imagination she could not despair either wholly or even for very long.
She learned that the vessels she had had transported to the Red Sea had
been burned by the Arabs, and thus her flight prevented. She at once
prepared for determined resistance. Whilst Antony was losing his time
playing the misanthrope, the queen raised fresh forces, furnished new
vessels, formed new alliances, repaired the fortifications of Pelusium
and Alexandria, distributed arms to the people, and to encourage the
Alexandrians to the determined defense of their city, she inscribed the
name of her son, Cæsarion, in the rolls of the militia. Antony could
not but admire the courage and energy of Cleopatra, and, entreated
by his friends besides being weary of his solitude, he resumed his
residence at the palace. The queen received him as in the happy days of
his return from Cilicia or Armenia. They again enjoyed with the friends
of the last hour banquets, festivals, orgies—only “The Inimitables”
changed their appellation, and called themselves “The Inseparables in
Death”: οἱ συναποθανουμéνοι.
The choice of this funereal name, assumed as much from resignation as
bravado, sufficiently reveals the state of mind of the lovers. Antony,
it seems, had lost all hope; Cleopatra still hoped, but with intervals
of gloomy discouragement. At such times she would descend to the crypts
of the palace, near the prisons of the condemned; slaves would drag
them, a few at a time, from their cells to test on them the effects of
different poisons. Cleopatra watched with a curiosity, more painful
even than cruel, the dying agonies of the victims. The experiments were
frequently repeated, for the queen could not discover the poison of her
dreams—a poison that slays instantly without pain and without shock.
She noticed that violent poisons killed swiftly but with frightful
torture, and that less active ones inflicted lingering agonies;
then she studied the bites of serpents, and after new experiments
she discovered that the venom of an Egyptian viper, called in Greek
“Aspis,” caused neither convulsion nor any painful sensation, and led
by a constantly increasing drowsiness to a gentle death, like a sleep.
As for Antony, like Cato and Brutus, he had his sword.