CLEOPATRA AND ANTONY.
How far Cleopatra was influenced, in her determination to espouse the
cause of Antony rather than that of Brutus and Cassius, in the civil war
described in the last chapter, by gratitude to Cæsar, and how far, on the
other hand, by personal interest in Antony, the reader must judge.
Cleopatra had seen Antony, it will be recollected, some years before,
during his visit to Egypt, when she was a young girl. She was doubtless
well acquainted with his character. It was a character peculiarly fitted,
in some respects, to captivate the imagination of a woman so ardent, and
impulsive, and bold as Cleopatra was fast becoming.
Antony had, in fact, made himself an object of universal interest
throughout the world, by his wild and eccentric manners and reckless
conduct, and by the very extraordinary vicissitudes which had marked his
career. In moral character he was as utterly abandoned and depraved as it
was possible to be. In early life, as has already been stated, he plunged
into such a course of dissipation and extravagance that he became utterly
and hopelessly ruined; or, rather, he would have been so, had he not, by
the influence of that magic power of fascination which such characters
often possess, succeeded in gaining a great ascendency over a young man of
immense fortune, named Curio, who for a time upheld him by becoming surety
for his debts. This resource, however, soon failed, and Antony was
compelled to abandon Rome, and to live for some years as a fugitive and
exile, in dissolute wretchedness and want. During all the subsequent
vicissitudes through which he passed in the course of his career, the same
habits of lavish expenditure continued, whenever he had funds at his
command. This trait in his character took the form sometimes of a noble
generosity. In his campaigns, the plunder which he acquired he usually
divided among his soldiers, reserving nothing for himself. This made his
men enthusiastically devoted to him, and led them to consider his
prodigality as a virtue, even when they did not themselves derive any
direct advantage from it. A thousand stories were always in circulation in
camp of acts on his part illustrating his reckless disregard of the value
of money, some ludicrous, and all eccentric and strange.
In his personal habits, too, he was as different as possible from other
men. He prided himself on being descended from Hercules, and he affected a
style of dress and a general air and manner in accordance with the savage
character of this his pretended ancestor. His features were sharp, his
nose was arched and prominent, and he wore his hair and beard very
long--as long, in fact, as he could make them grow. These peculiarities
imparted to his countenance a very wild and ferocious expression. He
adopted a style of dress, too, which, judged of with reference to the
prevailing fashions of the time, gave to his whole appearance a rough,
savage, and reckless air. His manner and demeanor corresponded with his
dress and appearance. He lived in habits of the most unreserved
familiarity with his soldiers. He associated freely with them, ate and
drank with them in the open air, and joined in their noisy mirth and rude
and boisterous hilarity. His commanding powers of mind, and the desperate
recklessness of his courage, enabled him to do all this without danger.
These qualities inspired in the minds of the soldiers a feeling of
profound respect for their commander; and this good opinion he was
enabled to retain, notwithstanding such habits of familiarity with his
inferiors as would have been fatal to the influence of an ordinary man.
In the most prosperous portion of Antony's career--for example, during the
period immediately preceding the death of Cæsar--he addicted himself to
vicious indulgences of the most open, public, and shameless character. He
had around him a sort of court, formed of jesters, tumblers, mountebanks,
play-actors, and other similar characters of the lowest and most
disreputable class. Many of these companions were singing and dancing
girls, very beautiful, and very highly accomplished in the arts of their
respective professions, but all totally corrupt and depraved. Public
sentiment, even in that age and nation, strongly condemned this conduct.
The people were pagans, it is true, but it is a mistake to suppose that
the formation of a moral sentiment in the community against such vices as
these is a work which Christianity alone can perform. There is a law of
nature, in the form of an instinct universal in the race, imperiously
enjoining that the connection of the sexes shall consist of the union of
one man with one woman, and that woman his wife, and very sternly
prohibiting every other. So that there has probably never been a community
in the world so corrupt, that a man could practice in it such vices as
those of Antony, without not only violating his own sense of right and
wrong, but also bringing upon himself the general condemnation of those
around him.
Still, the world are prone to be very tolerant in respect to the vices of
the great. Such exalted personages as Antony seem to be judged by a
different standard from common men. Even in the countries where those who
occupy high stations of trust or of power are actually selected, for the
purpose of being placed there, by the voices of their fellow-men, all
inquiry into the personal character of a candidate is often suppressed,
such inquiry being condemned as wholly irrelevant and improper, and they
who succeed in attaining to power enjoy immunities in their elevation
which are denied to common men.
But, notwithstanding the influence of Antony's rank and power in shielding
him from public censure, he carried his excesses to such an extreme that
his conduct was very loudly and very generally condemned. He would spend
all the night in carousals, and then, the next day, would appear in
public, staggering in the streets. Sometimes he would enter the tribunals
for the transaction of business when he was so intoxicated that it would
be necessary for friends to come to his assistance to conduct him away. In
some of his journeys in the neighborhood of Rome, he would take a troop of
companions with him of the worst possible character, and travel with them
openly and without shame. There was a certain actress, named Cytheride,
whom he made his companion on one such occasion. She was borne upon a
litter in his train, and he carried about with him a vast collection of
gold and silver plate, and of splendid table furniture, together with an
endless supply of luxurious articles of food and of wine, to provide for
the entertainments and banquets which he was to celebrate with her on the
journey. He would sometimes stop by the road side, pitch his tents,
establish his kitchens, set his cooks at work to prepare a feast, spread
his tables, and make a sumptuous banquet of the most costly, complete, and
ceremonious character--all to make men wonder at the abundance and
perfection of the means of luxury which he could carry with him wherever
he might go. In fact, he always seemed to feel a special pleasure in doing
strange and extraordinary things in order to excite surprise. Once on a
journey he had lions harnessed to his carts to draw his baggage, in order
to create a sensation.
Notwithstanding the heedlessness with which Antony abandoned himself to
these luxurious pleasures when at Rome, no man could endure exposure and
hardship better when in camp or on the field. In fact, he rushed with as
much headlong precipitation into difficulty and danger when abroad, as
into expense and dissipation when at home. During his contests with
Octavius and Lepidus, after Cæsar's death, he once had occasion to pass
the Alps, which, with his customary recklessness, he attempted to traverse
without any proper supplies of stores or means of transportation. He was
reduced, on the passage, together with the troops under his command, to
the most extreme destitution and distress. They had to feed on roots and
herbs, and finally on the bark of trees; and they barely preserved
themselves, by these means, from actual starvation. Antony seemed,
however, to care nothing for all this, but pressed on through the
difficulty and danger, manifesting the same daring and determined
unconcern to the end. In the same campaign he found himself at one time
reduced to extreme destitution in respect to men. His troops had been
gradually wasted away until his situation had become very desperate. He
conceived, under these circumstances, the most extraordinary idea of going
over alone to the camp of Lepidus and enticing away his rival's troops
from under the very eyes of their commander. This bold design was
successfully executed. Antony advanced alone, clothed in wretched
garments, and with his matted hair and beard hanging about his breast and
shoulders, up to Lepidus's lines. The men, who knew him well, received him
with acclamations; and pitying the sad condition to which they saw that he
was reduced, began to listen to what he had to say. Lepidus, who could not
attack him, since he and Antony were not at that time in open hostility to
each other, but were only rival commanders in the same army, ordered the
trumpeters to sound, in order to make a noise which should prevent the
words of Antony from being heard. This interrupted the negotiation; but
the men immediately disguised two of their number in female apparel, and
sent them to Antony to make arrangements with him for putting themselves
under his command, and offering, at the same time, to murder Lepidus, if
he would but speak the word. Antony charged them to do Lepidus no injury.
He, however, went over and took possession of the camp, and assumed the
command of the army. He treated Lepidus himself, personally, with extreme
politeness, and retained him as a subordinate under his command.
Not far from the time of Cæsar's death, Antony was married. The name of
the lady was Fulvia. She was a widow at the time of her marriage with
Antony, and was a woman of very marked and decided character. She had led
a wild and irregular life previous to this time, but she conceived a very
strong attachment to her new husband, and devoted herself to him from the
time of her marriage with the most constant fidelity. She soon acquired a
very great ascendency over him, and was the means of effecting a very
considerable reform in his conduct and character. She was an ambitious and
aspiring woman, and made many very efficient and successful efforts to
promote the elevation and aggrandizement of her husband. She appeared,
also, to take a great pride and pleasure in exercising over him, herself,
a great personal control. She succeeded in these attempts in a manner that
surprised every body. It seemed astonishing to all mankind that such a
tiger as he had been could be subdued by any human power. Nor was it by
gentleness and mildness that Fulvia gained such power over her husband.
She was of a very stern and masculine character, and she seems to have
mastered Antony by surpassing him in the use of his own weapons. In fact,
instead of attempting to soothe and mollify him, she reduced him, it
seems, to the necessity of resorting to various contrivances to soften and
propitiate her. Once, for example, on his return from a campaign in which
he had been exposed to great dangers, he disguised himself and came home
at night in the garb of a courier bearing dispatches. He caused himself to
be ushered, muffled and disguised as he was, into Fulvia's apartments,
where he handed her some pretended letters, which, he said, were from her
husband; and while Fulvia was opening them in great excitement and
trepidation, he threw off his disguise, and revealed himself to her by
clasping her in his arms and kissing her in the midst of her amazement.
Antony's marriage with Fulvia, besides being the means of reforming his
morals in some degree, softened and civilized him in respect to his
manners. His dress and appearance now assumed a different character. In
fact, his political elevation after Cæsar's death soon became very
exalted, and the various democratic arts by which he had sought to raise
himself to it, being now no longer necessary, were, as usual in such
cases, gradually discarded. He lived in great style and splendor when at
Rome, and when absent from home, on his military campaigns, he began to
exhibit the same pomp and parade in his equipage and in his arrangements
as were usual in the camps of other Roman generals.
After the battle of Philippi, described in the last chapter, Antony--who,
with all his faults, was sometimes a very generous foe--as soon as the
tidings of Brutus's death were brought to him, repaired immediately to the
spot, and appeared to be quite shocked and concerned at the sight of the
body. He took off his own military cloak or mantle--which was a very
magnificent and costly garment, being enriched with many expensive
ornaments--and spread it over the corpse. He then gave directions to one
of the officers of his household to make arrangements for funeral
ceremonies of a very imposing character, as a testimony of his respect for
the memory of the deceased. In these ceremonies it was the duty of the
officer to have burned the military cloak which Antony had appropriated to
the purpose of a pall, with the body. He did not, however, do so. The
cloak being very valuable, he reserved it; and he withheld, also, a
considerable part of the money which had been given him for the expenses
of the funeral. He supposed that Antony would probably not inquire very
closely into the details of the arrangements made for the funeral of his
most inveterate enemy. Antony, however, did inquire into them, and when he
learned what the officer had done, he ordered him to be killed.
The various political changes which occurred, and the movements which took
place among the several armies after the battle of Philippi, can not be
here detailed. It is sufficient to say that Antony proceeded to the
eastward through Asia Minor, and in the course of the following year came
into Cilicia. From this place he sent a messenger to Egypt to Cleopatra,
summoning her to appear before him. There were charges, he said, against
her, of having aided Cassius and Brutus in the late war instead of
rendering assistance to him. Whether there really were any such charges,
or whether they were only fabricated by Antony as pretexts for seeing
Cleopatra, the fame of whose beauty was very widely extended, does not
certainly appear. However this may be, he sent to summon the queen to come
to him. The name of the messenger whom Antony dispatched on this errand
was Dellius. Fulvia, Antony's wife, was not with him at this time. She had
been left behind at Rome.
Dellius proceeded to Egypt and appeared at Cleopatra's court. The queen
was at this time about twenty-eight years old, but more beautiful, as was
said, than ever before. Dellius was very much struck with her beauty, and
with a certain fascination in her voice and conversation, of which her
ancient biographers often speak as one of the most irresistible of her
charms. He told her that she need have no fear of Antony. It was of no
consequence, he said, what charges there might be against her. She would
find that, in a very few days after she had entered into Antony's
presence, she would be in great favor. She might rely, in fact, he said,
on gaining, very speedily, an unbounded ascendency over the general. He
advised her, therefore, to proceed to Cilicia without fear, and to present
herself before Antony in as much pomp and magnificence as she could
command. He would answer, he said, for the result.
Cleopatra determined to follow this advice. In fact, her ardent and
impulsive imagination was fired with the idea of making, a second time,
the conquest of the greatest general and highest potentate in the world.
She began immediately to make provision for the voyage. She employed all
the resources of her kingdom in procuring for herself the most magnificent
means of display, such as expensive and splendid dresses, rich services of
plate, ornaments of precious stones and of gold, and presents in great
variety and of the most costly description for Antony. She appointed,
also, a numerous retinue of attendants to accompany her, and, in a word,
made all the arrangements complete for an expedition of the most imposing
and magnificent character. While these preparations were going forward,
she received new and frequent communications from Antony, urging her to
hasten her departure; but she paid very little attention to them. It was
evident that she felt quite independent, and was intending to take her own
time.
At length, however, all was ready, and Cleopatra set sail. She crossed the
Mediterranean Sea, and entered the mouth of the River Cydnus. Antony was
at Tarsus, a city upon the Cydnus, a small distance above its mouth. When
Cleopatra's fleet had entered the river, she embarked on board a most
magnificent barge which she had constructed for the occasion, and had
brought with her across the sea. This barge was the most magnificent and
highly-ornamented vessel that had ever been built. It was adorned with
carvings and decorations of the finest workmanship, and elaborately
gilded. The sails were of purple, and the oars were inlaid and tipped with
silver. Upon the deck of this barge Queen Cleopatra appeared, under a
canopy of cloth of gold. She was dressed very magnificently in the costume
in which Venus, the goddess of Beauty, was then generally represented. She
was surrounded by a company of beautiful boys, who attended upon her in
the form of Cupids, and fanned her with their wings, and by a group of
young girls representing the Nymphs and the Graces. There was a band of
musicians stationed upon the deck. This music guided the oarsmen, as they
kept time to it in their rowing; and, soft as the melody was, the strains
were heard far and wide over the water and along the shores, as the
beautiful vessel advanced on its way. The performers were provided with
flutes, lyres, viols, and all the other instruments customarily used in
those times to produce music of a gentle and voluptuous kind.
In fact, the whole spectacle seemed like a vision of enchantment. Tidings
of the approach of the barge spread rapidly around, and the people of the
country came down in crowds to the shores of the river to gaze upon it in
admiration as it glided slowly along. At the time of its arrival at
Tarsus, Antony was engaged in giving a public audience at some tribunal in
his palace, but every body ran to see Cleopatra and the barge, and the
great triumvir was left consequently alone, or, at least, with only a few
official attendants near him. Cleopatra, on arriving at the city, landed,
and began to pitch her tents on the shores. Antony sent a messenger to bid
her welcome, and to invite her to come and sup with him. She declined the
invitation, saying that it was more proper that he should come and sup
with her. She would accordingly expect him to come, she said, and her
tents would be ready at the proper hour. Antony complied with her
proposal, and came to her entertainment. He was received with a
magnificence and splendor which amazed him. The tents and pavilions where
the entertainment was made were illuminated with an immense number of
lamps. These lamps were arranged in a very ingenious and beautiful manner,
so as to produce an illumination of the most surprising brilliancy and
beauty. The immense number and variety, too, of the meats and wines, and
of the vessels of gold and silver, with which the tables were loaded, and
the magnificence and splendor of the dresses worn by Cleopatra and her
attendants, combined to render the whole scene one of bewildering
enchantment.
[Illustration: THE ENTERTAINMENTS AT TARSUS.]
The next day, Antony invited Cleopatra to come and return his visit; but,
though he made every possible effort to provide a banquet as sumptuous and
as sumptuously served as hers, he failed entirely in this attempt, and
acknowledged himself completely outdone. Antony was, moreover, at these
interviews, perfectly fascinated with Cleopatra's charms. Her beauty, her
wit, her thousand accomplishments, and, above all, the tact, and
adroitness, and self-possession which she displayed in assuming at once
so boldly, and carrying out so adroitly, the idea of her social
superiority over him, that he yielded his heart almost immediately to her
undisputed sway.
The first use which Cleopatra made of her power was to ask Antony, for her
sake, to order her sister Arsinoë to be slain. Arsinoë had gone, it will
be recollected, to Rome, to grace Cæsar's triumph there, and had afterward
retired to Asia, where she was now living an exile. Cleopatra, either from
a sentiment of past revenge, or else from some apprehensions of future
danger, now desired that her sister should die. Antony readily acceded to
her request. He sent an officer in search of the unhappy princess. The
officer slew her where he found her, within the precincts of a temple to
which she had fled, supposing it a sanctuary which no degree of hostility,
however extreme, would have dared to violate.
Cleopatra remained at Tarsus for some time, revolving in an incessant
round of gayety and pleasure, and living in habits of unrestrained
intimacy with Antony. She was accustomed to spend whole days and nights
with him in feasting and revelry. The immense magnificence of these
entertainments, especially on Cleopatra's part, were the wonder of the
world. She seems to have taken special pleasure in exciting Antony's
surprise by the display of her wealth and the boundless extravagance in
which she indulged. At one of her banquets, Antony was expressing his
astonishment at the vast number of gold cups, enriched with jewels, that
were displayed on all sides. "Oh," said she, "they are nothing; if you
like them, you shall have them all." So saying, she ordered her servants
to carry them to Antony's house. The next day she invited Antony again,
with a large number of the chief officers of his army and court. The table
was spread with a new service of gold and silver vessels, more extensive
and splendid than that of the preceding day; and at the close of the
supper, when the company was about to depart, Cleopatra distributed all
these treasures among the guests that had been present at the
entertainment. At another of these feasts, she carried her ostentation and
display to the astonishing extreme of taking off from one of her ear-rings
a pearl of immense value and dissolving it in a cup of vinegar,[8] which
she afterward made into a drink, such as was customarily used in those
days, and then drank it. She was proceeding to do the same with the other
pearl, when some of the company arrested the proceeding, and took the
remaining pearl away.
In the mean time, while Antony was thus wasting his time in luxury and
pleasure with Cleopatra, his public duties were neglected, and every thing
was getting into confusion. Fulvia remained in Italy. Her position and her
character gave her a commanding political influence, and she exerted
herself in a very energetic manner to sustain, in that quarter of the
world, the interests of her husband's cause. She was surrounded with
difficulties and dangers, the details of which can not, however, be here
particularly described. She wrote continually to Antony, urgently
entreating him to come to Rome, and displaying in her letters all those
marks of agitation and distress which a wife would naturally feel under
the circumstances in which she was placed. The thought that her husband
had been so completely drawn away from her by the guilty arts of such a
woman, and led by her to abandon his wife and his family, and leave in
neglect and confusion concerns of such momentous magnitude as those which
demanded his attention at home, produced an excitement in her mind
bordering upon phrensy. Antony was at length so far influenced by the
urgency of the case that he determined to return. He broke up his quarters
at Tarsus and moved south toward Tyre, which was a great naval port and
station in those days. Cleopatra went with him. They were to separate at
Tyre. She was to embark there for Egypt, and he for Rome.
At least that was Antony's plan, but it was not Cleopatra's. She had
determined that Antony should go with her to Alexandria. As might have
been expected, when the time came for the decision, the woman gained the
day. Her flatteries, her arts, her caresses, her tears, prevailed. After a
brief struggle between the sentiment of love on the one hand and those of
ambition and of duty combined on the other, Antony gave up the contest.
Abandoning every thing else, he surrendered himself wholly to Cleopatra's
control, and went with her to Alexandria. He spent the winter there,
giving himself up with her to every species of sensual indulgence that the
most remorseless license could tolerate, and the most unbounded wealth
procure.
There seemed, in fact, to be no bounds to the extravagance and infatuation
which Antony displayed during the winter in Alexandria. Cleopatra devoted
herself to him incessantly, day and night, filling up every moment of time
with some new form of pleasure, in order that he might have no time to
think of his absent wife, or to listen to the reproaches of his
conscience. Antony, on his part, surrendered himself a willing victim to
these wiles, and entered with all his heart into the thousand plans of
gayety and merry-making which Cleopatra devised. They had each a separate
establishment in the city, which was maintained at an enormous cost, and
they made a regular arrangement by which each was the guest of the other
on alternate days. These visits were spent in games, sports, spectacles,
feasting, drinking, and in every species of riot, irregularity, and
excess.
A curious instance is afforded of the accidental manner in which
intelligence in respect to the scenes and incidents of private life in
those ancient days is sometimes obtained, in a circumstance which occurred
at this time at Antony's court. It seems that there was a young medical
student at Alexandria that winter, named Philotas, who happened, in some
way or other, to have formed an acquaintance with one of Antony's
domestics, a cook. Under the guidance of this cook, Philotas went one day
into the palace to see what was to be seen. The cook took his friend into
the kitchens, where, to Philotas's great surprise, he saw, among an
infinite number and variety of other preparations, eight wild boars
roasting before the fires, some being more and some less advanced in the
process. Philotas asked what great company was to dine there that day. The
cook smiled at this question, and replied that there was to be no company
at all, other than Antony's ordinary party. "But," said the cook, in
explanation, "we are obliged always to prepare several suppers, and to
have them ready in succession at different hours, for no one can tell at
what time they will order the entertainment to be served. Sometimes, when
the supper has been actually carried in, Antony and Cleopatra will get
engaged in some new turn of their diversions, and conclude not to sit down
just then to the table, and so we have to take the supper away, and
presently bring in another."
Antony had a son with him at Alexandria at this time, the child of his
wife Fulvia. The name of the son, as well as that of the father, was
Antony. He was old enough to feel some sense of shame at his father's
dereliction from duty, and to manifest some respectful regard for the
rights and the honor of his mother. Instead of this, however, he imitated
his father's example, and, in his own way, was as reckless and as
extravagant as he. The same Philotas who is above referred to was, after a
time, appointed to some office or other in the young Antony's household,
so that he was accustomed to sit at his table and share in his convivial
enjoyments. He relates that once, while they were feasting together, there
was a guest present, a physician, who was a very vain and conceited man,
and so talkative that no one else had any opportunity to speak. All the
pleasure of conversation was spoiled by his excessive garrulity. Philotas,
however, at length puzzled him so completely with a question of logic--of
a kind similar to those often discussed with great interest in ancient
days--as to silence him for a time; and young Antony was so much delighted
with this feat, that he gave Philotas all the gold and silver plate that
there was upon the table, and sent all the articles home to him, after the
entertainment was over, telling him to put his mark and stamp upon them,
and lock them up.
The question with which Philotas puzzled the self-conceited physician was
this. It must be premised, however, that in those days it was considered
that cold water in an intermittent fever was extremely dangerous, except
in some peculiar cases, and in those the effect was good. Philotas then
argued as follows: "In cases of a certain kind it is best to give water to
a patient in an ague. All cases of ague are cases of a certain kind.
Therefore it is best in all cases to give the patient water." Philotas
having propounded his argument in this way, challenged the physician to
point out the fallacy of it; and while the physician sat perplexed and
puzzled in his attempts to unravel the intricacy of it, the company
enjoyed a temporary respite from his excessive loquacity.
Philotas adds, in his account of this affair, that he sent the gold and
silver plate back to young Antony again, being afraid to keep them. Antony
said that perhaps it was as well that this should be done, since many of
the vessels were of great value on account of their rare and antique
workmanship, and his father might possibly miss them and wish to know what
had become of them.
As there were no limits, on the one hand, to the loftiness and grandeur
of the pleasures to which Antony and Cleopatra addicted themselves, so
there were none to the low and debasing tendencies which characterized
them on the other. Sometimes, at midnight, after having been spending many
hours in mirth and revelry in the palace, Antony would disguise himself in
the dress of a slave, and sally forth into the streets, excited with wine,
in search of adventures. In many cases, Cleopatra herself, similarly
disguised, would go out with him. On these excursions Antony would take
pleasure in involving himself in all sorts of difficulties and dangers--in
street riots, drunken brawls, and desperate quarrels with the
populace--all for Cleopatra's amusement and his own. Stories of these
adventures would circulate afterward among the people, some of whom would
admire the free and jovial character of their eccentric visitor, and
others would despise him as a prince degrading himself to the level of a
brute.
Some of the amusements and pleasures which Antony and Cleopatra pursued
were innocent in themselves, though wholly unworthy to be made the serious
business of life by personages on whom such exalted duties rightfully
devolved. They made various excursions upon the Nile, and arranged
parties of pleasure to go out on the water in the harbor, and to various
rural retreats in the environs of the city. Once they went out on a
fishing-party, in boats, in the port. Antony was unsuccessful; and feeling
chagrined that Cleopatra should witness his ill luck, he made a secret
arrangement with some of the fishermen to dive down, where they could do
so unobserved, and fasten fishes to his hook under the water. By this plan
he caught very large and fine fish very fast. Cleopatra, however, was too
wary to be easily deceived by such a stratagem as this. She observed the
maneuver, but pretended not to observe it; she expressed, on the other
hand, the greatest surprise and delight at Antony's good luck, and the
extraordinary skill which it indicated.
The next day she wished to go a fishing again, and a party was accordingly
made as on the day before. She had, however, secretly instructed another
fisherman to procure a dried and salted fish from the market, and,
watching his opportunity, to get down into the water under the boats and
attach it to the hook, before Antony's divers could get there. This plan
succeeded, and Antony, in the midst of a large and gay party that were
looking on, pulled out an excellent fish, cured and dried, such as was
known to every one as an imported article, bought in the market. It was a
fish of a kind that was brought originally from Asia Minor. The boats, and
the water all around them, resounded with the shouts of merriment and
laughter which this incident occasioned.
* * * * *
In the mean time, while Antony was thus spending his time in low and
ignoble pursuits and in guilty pleasures at Alexandria, his wife Fulvia,
after exhausting all other means of inducing her husband to return to her,
became desperate, and took measures for fomenting an open war, which she
thought would compel him to return. The extraordinary energy, influence,
and talent which Fulvia possessed, enabled her to do this in an effectual
manner. She organized an army, formed a camp, placed herself at the head
of the troops, and sent such tidings to Antony of the dangers which
threatened his cause as greatly alarmed him. At the same time news came of
great disasters in Asia Minor, and of alarming insurrections among the
provinces which had been committed to his charge there. Antony saw that he
must arouse himself from the spell which had enchanted him and break away
from Cleopatra, or that he would be wholly and irretrievably ruined. He
made, accordingly, a desperate effort to get free. He bade the queen
farewell, embarked hastily in a fleet of galleys, and sailed away to Tyre,
leaving Cleopatra in her palace, vexed, disappointed, and chagrined.