Chapter XXVII: The Last Days of the Republic (2)

The hopeless state of the republican, or rather the senatorial party was such that almost all hastened to make submission to the conquerors; those whose sturdy spirit still disdained submission resorted to Sext. Pompeius in Sicily. Octavian, still suffering from ill health, was anxious to return to Italy; but before he parted from Antony, they agreed to a second distribution of the provinces of the empire. Antony was to have the eastern world; Octavian the western provinces. To Lepidus, who was not consulted in this second division, Africa alone was left. Sext. Pompeius remained in possession of Sicily.

Antony at once proceeded to make a tour through western Asia, in order to exact money from its unfortunate people. About midsummer (41 B.C.) he arrived at Tarsus, and here he received a visit which determined the future course of his life and influenced Roman history for the next ten years.

ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA

[Sidenote: [41 B.C.]]

Antony had visited Alexandria fourteen years before, and had been smitten by the charms of Cleopatra, then a girl of fifteen. She became Cæsar’s paramour, and from the time of the dictator’s death Antony had never seen her. She now came to meet him in Cilicia. The galley which carried her up the Cydnus was of more than oriental gorgeousness; the sails of purple; oars of silver, moving to the sound of music; the raised poop burnished with gold. There she lay upon a splendid couch, shaded by a spangled canopy; her attire was that of Venus, around her flitted attendant Cupids and Graces. At the news of her approach to Tarsus, the triumvir found his tribunal deserted by the people. She invited him to her ship, and he complied. From that moment he was her slave. He accompanied her to Alexandria, exchanged the Roman garb for the Græco-Egyptian costume of the court, and lent his power to the queen to execute all her caprices.

Meanwhile, Octavian was not without his difficulties. He was so ill at Brundusium that his death was reported at Rome. The veterans, eager for their promised rewards, were on the eve of mutiny. In a short time Octavian was sufficiently recovered to show himself. But he could find no other means of satisfying the greedy soldiery than by a confiscation of lands more sweeping than that which followed the proscription of Sulla. The towns of Cisalpine Gaul were accused of favouring Dec. Brutus, and saw nearly all their lands handed over to new possessors. The young poet Virgil lost his little patrimony, but was reinstated at the instance of Pollio and Mæcenas, and showed his gratitude in his first _Eclogue_. Other parts of Italy also suffered--Apulia, for example, as we learn from Horace’s friend Ofella, who became the tenant of the estate which had formerly been his own.

But these violent measures deferred rather than obviated the difficulty. The expulsion of so many persons threw thousands loose upon society, ripe for any crime. Many of the veterans were ready to join any new leader who promised them booty. Such a leader was at hand.

Fulvia, wife of Antony, was a woman of fierce passions and ambitious spirit. She had not been invited to follow her husband to the East. She saw that in his absence imperial power would fall into the hands of Octavian. Lucius, brother of Mark Antony, was consul for the year, and at her instigation he raised his standard at Præneste. But L. Antonius knew not how to use his strength; and young Agrippa, to whom Octavian intrusted the command, obliged Antonius and Fulvia to retire northwards and shut themselves up in Perusia. Their store of provisions was so small that it sufficed only for the soldiery. Early in the next year Perusia surrendered, on condition that the lives of the leaders should be spared. The town was sacked; the conduct of L. Antonius alienated all Italy from his brother.

ANTONY MEETS WITH REVERSES

While his wife, his brother, and his friends were quitting Italy in confusion, the arms of Antony suffered a still heavier blow in the eastern provinces which were under his special government. After the battle of Philippi, Q. Labienus, son of Cæsar’s old lieutenant Titus, sought refuge at the court of Orodes, king of Parthia. Encouraged by the proffered aid of a Roman officer, Pacorus the king’s son led a formidable army into Syria. Antony’s lieutenant was entirely routed; and while Pacorus with one army poured into Palestine and Phœnicia, Q. Labienus with another broke into Cilicia. Here he found no opposition; and, overrunning all Asia Minor even to the Ionian Sea, he assumed the name of Parthicus, as if he had been a Roman conqueror of the people whom he served.

These complicated disasters roused Antony from his lethargy. He sailed to Tyre, intending to take the field against the Parthians; but the season was too far advanced, and he therefore crossed the Ægean to Athens, where he found Fulvia and his brother, accompanied by Pollio, Plancus, and others, all discontented with Octavian’s government. Octavian was absent in Gaul, and their representation of the state of Italy encouraged him to make another attempt. Late in the year (41 B.C.) Antony formed a league with Sext. Pompeius; and while that chief blockaded Thurii and Consentia, Antony assailed Brundusium. Agrippa was preparing to meet this new combination; and a fresh civil war was imminent. But the soldiery was weary of war; both armies compelled their leaders to make pacific overtures, and the new year was ushered in by a general peace, which was rendered easier by the death of Fulvia. Antony and Octavian renewed their professions of amity, and entered Rome together in joint ovation to celebrate the restoration of peace. They now made a third division of the provinces, by which Scodra (Scutari) in Illyricum was fixed as the boundary of the west and east. Lepidus was still left in possession of Africa. It was further agreed that Octavian was to drive Sext. Pompeius, lately the ally of Antony, out of Sicily; while Antony renewed his pledges to recover the standards of Crassus from the Parthians. The new compact was sealed by the marriage of Antony with Octavia, his colleague’s sister, a virtuous and beautiful lady, worthy of a better consort. These auspicious events were celebrated by the lofty verse of Virgil’s _Fourth Eclogue_, styled _The Pollio_.

[Sidenote: [41-39 B.C.]]

Sext. Pompeius had reason to complain. By the Peace of Brundusium he was abandoned by his late friend to Octavian. He was not a man to brook ungenerous treatment. Of late years his possession of Sicily had given him command of the Roman corn market. During the winter which followed the Peace of Brundusium (40-39 B.C.), Sextus blockaded Italy so closely that Rome was threatened with a positive dearth. Riots arose; the triumvirs were pelted with stones in the Forum; and they deemed it prudent to temporise by inviting Pompeius to enter their league. He met them at Misenum, and the two chiefs went on board his ship to settle the terms of alliance. It is said that one of his chief officers, a Greek named Menas or Menodorus, suggested to him the expediency of putting to sea with the great prize, and then making his own terms. Sextus rejected the advice with the characteristic words: “You should have done it without asking me.” It was agreed that Sicily, Sardinia, and Corsica should be given up to his absolute rule, and that Achaia should be added to his portion; so that the Roman world was now partitioned amongst four--Octavian, Antony, Lepidus, and Sext. Pompeius. On their return the triumvirs were received with vociferous applause.

(From a bust in the Capitol)]

Before winter, Antony sailed for Athens in company with Octavia, and for the time seems to have banished Cleopatra from his thoughts. But he disgusted all true Romans by assuming the attributes of Grecian gods, and indulging in Grecian orgies.

[Sidenote: [39-36 B.C.]]

He found the state of things in the East greatly changed since his departure. He had commissioned P. Ventidius Bassus, an officer who had followed Fulvia from Italy, to hold the Parthians in check till his return. Ventidius was son of a Picenian nobleman of Asculum, who had been brought to Rome as a captive in the Social War. In his youth he had been a contractor to supply mules for the use of the Roman commissariat. But in the civil wars which followed, men of military talent easily rose to command; and such was the lot of Ventidius. While Antony was absent in Italy, he drove Q. Labienus into the defiles of Taurus, and here that adventurer was defeated and slain. The conqueror then marched rapidly into Syria, and forced Pacorus also to withdraw to the eastern bank of the Euphrates.

In the following year (38 B.C.) he repelled a fresh invasion of the Parthians, and defeated them in three battles. In the last of these engagements Pacorus himself was slain on the fifteenth anniversary of the death of Crassus. Antony found Ventidius laying siege to Samosata, and displaced him, only to abandon the siege and return to Athens. Ventidius repaired to Rome, where he was honoured with a well-deserved triumph. He had left it as a mule jobber; he returned with the laurel round his brows. He was the first, and almost the last, Roman general who could claim such a distinction for victory over the Parthians.

The alliance with Sext. Pompeius was not intended to last, and it did not last. Antony refused to put him in possession of Achaia; and to avenge himself for this breach of faith Pompeius again began to intercept the Italian corn fleets. Fresh discontent appeared at Rome; and Octavian equipped a second fleet to sail against the naval chief; but after two battles of doubtful result the fleet was destroyed by a storm, and Sextus was again left in undisputed mastery of the sea. Octavian, however, was never daunted by reverses, and he gave his favourite Agrippa full powers to conduct the war against Pompeius. This able commander set about his work with that resolution that marked a man determined not to fail. As a harbour for his fleet he executed a plan of the great Cæsar--namely, to make a good and secure harbour on the coast of Latium, which then, as now, offered no shelter to ships. For this purpose he cut a passage through the narrow necks of land which separated Lake Lucrinus from the sea and Lake Avernus from Lake Lucrinus, and faced the outer barrier with stone. This was the famous Julian Port. In the whole of the two years 38 and 37 B.C., Agrippa was occupied in this work and in preparing a sufficient force of ships. Every dockyard in Italy was called into requisition. A large body of slaves were set free that they might be trained to serve as rowers.

On the 1st of July, 36 B.C., the fleet put to sea. Octavian himself, with one division, purposed to attack the northern coast of Sicily, while a second squadron was assembled at Tarentum for the purpose of assailing the eastern side. Lepidus, with a third fleet from Africa, was to assault Lilybæum. But the winds were again adverse; and, though Lepidus effected a landing on the southern coast, Octavian’s two fleets were driven back to Italy with great damage. But the injured ships were refitted, and Agrippa was sent westward towards Panormus, while Octavian himself kept guard near Messana. Off Mylæ, a place famous for having witnessed the first naval victory of the Romans, Agrippa encountered the fleet of Sext. Pompeius; but Sextus, with the larger portion of his ships, gave Agrippa the slip, and sailing eastward fell suddenly upon Octavian’s squadron off Tauromenium. A desperate conflict followed, which ended in the complete triumph of Sextus, and Octavian escaped to Italy with a few ships only. But Agrippa was soon upon the traces of the enemy. On the 3d of September, Sextus was obliged once more to accept battle near the Straits of Messana, and suffered an irretrievable defeat. His troops on land were attacked and dispersed by an army which had been landed on the eastern coast by the indefatigable Octavian; and Sextus sailed off to Lesbos, where he had found refuge as a boy during the campaign of Pharsalia, to seek protection from the jealousy of Antony.

Lepidus had assisted in the campaign; but after the departure of Sextus he openly declared himself independent of his brother triumvirs. Octavian, with prompt and prudent boldness, entered the camp of Lepidus in person with a few attendants. The soldiers deserted in crowds, and in a few hours Lepidus was fain to sue for pardon, where he had hoped to rule. He was treated with contemptuous indifference. Africa was taken from him; but he was allowed to live and die at Rome in quiet enjoyment of the chief pontificate.

It was fortunate for Octavian that during this campaign Antony was on friendly terms with him. In 37 B.C. the ruler of the East again visited Italy, and a meeting between the two chiefs was arranged at Tarentum. The five years for which the triumvirs were originally appointed were now fast expiring; and it was settled that their authority should be renewed by the subservient senate and people for a second period of the same duration. They parted good friends; and Octavian undertook his campaign against Sext. Pompeius without fear from Antony. This was proved by the fate of the fugitive. From Lesbos Sextus passed over to Asia, where he was taken prisoner by Antony’s lieutenants, and put to death.

Hitherto Octavia had retained her influence over Antony. But presently, after his last interview with her brother, the fickle triumvir abruptly quitted a wife who was too good for him, and returned to the fascinating presence of the Egyptian queen, whom he had not seen for three years. From this time forth he made no attempt to break the silken chain of her enchantments. During the next summer, indeed, he attempted a new Parthian campaign.[b] It has been described by Florus as follows:

“Such was the excessive vanity of the man, that being desirous from a love of distinction, to have Araxes and Euphrates read under his statues, he suddenly quitted Syria and made an inroad on the Parthians, and that without any cause or reason, or even pretended proclamation of war, as if it were among a general’s accomplishments to surprise people by stealth. The Parthians, who, besides having confidence in their arms, are crafty and subtle, pretended to be alarmed, and to retreat across the plains. Antony, as if already victorious, instantly pursued, when a body of the enemy, not very numerous, rushed suddenly forth like a storm of rain upon the Romans, who, as it was evening, were tired with the day’s march. Discharging their arrows from all sides, they overwhelmed two legions.

“But this was nothing in comparison with the destruction that would have met them on the following day, had not the mercy of the gods interposed. One of the Romans who had survived the overthrow of Crassus, rode up to the camp in a Parthian dress, and having saluted the soldiers in Latin, and thus gained credit with them, told them of the danger which threatened them; saying that the king would soon come up with all his forces; that they ought therefore to retreat and take shelter in the mountains; and that possibly, even if they did so, enemies would not be wanting. In consequence, a smaller number of enemies overtook them than had been intended. Overtake them, however, they did; and the rest of the army would have been destroyed, had not the soldiers, while the arrows were falling on them like hail, fortunately sunk down, as if they had been taught, upon their knees, holding up their shields above their heads, and making it appear as if they were killed. The Parthians then refrained from shooting.

“When the Romans afterwards rose up, the proceeding appeared so like a miracle, that one of the barbarians exclaimed: ‘Go! and fare ye well, Romans; fame deservedly speaks of you as the conquerors of nations, since you have escaped death from the arrows of the Parthians.’ After this, there was no less endured from want of water, than at the hands of the enemy. The country, in the first place, was deadly from its drought; the river, too, with its brackish and bitter water, was more deadly to some; and besides, even good water was pernicious to many, being drunk greedily when they were in a weak condition. Subsequently the heat of Armenia, the snows of Cappadocia, and the sudden change in climate from one to the other, was as destructive as a pestilence. Scarce the third part, therefore, of sixteen legions being left, the excellent general, begging death from time to time, at the hands of a gladiator of his, escaped at last into Syria, where, by some unaccountable perversion of mind, he grew considerably more presuming than before, as if he had conquered because he had escaped.”[e]

[Sidenote: [36-35 B.C.]]

In the next year he contented himself with a campaign in Armenia, to punish the king of that country for alleged treachery in the last campaign. The king fell into his hands; and with this trophy Antony returned to Alexandria, where the Romans were disgusted to see the streets of a Græco-Egyptian town honoured by a mimicry of a Roman triumph. For the next three years he surrendered himself absolutely to the will of the enchantress.[135]

To this period belong those tales of luxurious indulgence which are known to every reader. The brave soldier who in the perils of war could shake off all luxurious habits, and could rival the commonest man in the cheerfulness with which he underwent every hardship, was seen no more. He sank into an indolent voluptuary, pleased by childish amusements. At one time he would lounge in a boat at a fishing party, and laugh when he drew up pieces of salt fish, which by the queen’s order had been attached to his hook by divers. At another time she wagered that she would consume ten million sesterces at one meal, and won her wager by dissolving in vinegar a pearl of unknown value. While Cleopatra bore the character of the goddess Isis, her lover appeared as Osiris. Her head was placed conjointly with his own on the coins which he issued as a Roman magistrate. He disposed of the kingdoms and principalities of the East by his sole word. By his influence Herod, son of Antipater, the Idumæan minister of Hyrcanus, the late sovereign of Judea, was made king to the exclusion of the rightful heir. Polemon, his own son by Cleopatra, was invested with the sceptre of Armenia. Encouraged by the absolute submission of her lover, Cleopatra fixed her eye upon the Capitol, and dreamed of winning by means of Antony that imperial crown which she had vainly sought from Cæsar.

[Sidenote: [35-32 B.C.]]

While Antony was engaged in voluptuous dalliance, Octavian was resolutely pursuing the work of consolidating his power in the west. His patience, his industry, his attention to business, his affability, were winning golden opinions and rapidly obliterating all memory of the bloody work by which he had risen to power. He had won little glory in war; but so long as the corn fleets arrived duly from Sicily and Africa, the populace cared little whether the victory had been won by Octavian or by his generals. In Agrippa he possessed a consummate captain, in Mæcenas a wise and temperate minister. It is much to his credit that he never showed any jealousy of the men to whom he owed so much. He flattered the people with the hope that he would, when Antony had fulfilled his mission of recovering the standards of Crassus, engage him to join in putting an end to their sovereign power and restoring constitutional liberty. In point of fidelity to his marriage vows Octavian was little better than Antony. He renounced his marriage with Clodia, the daughter of Fulvia, when her mother attempted to raise Italy against him. He divorced Scribonia, when it no longer suited him to court the favour of her kinsman. To replace this second wife, he forcibly took away Livia from her husband, Ti. Claudius Nero, though she was at that time pregnant of her second son. But in this and other less pardonable immoralities there was nothing to shock the feelings of Romans.

OCTAVIAN AGAINST ANTONY; THE BATTLE OF ACTIUM

But Octavian never suffered pleasure to divert him from business. If he could not be a successful general, he resolved at least to show that he could be a hardy soldier. While Antony in his Egyptian palace was neglecting the Parthian War, his rival led his legions in more than one dangerous campaign against the barbarous Dalmatians and Pannonians, who had been for some time infesting the province of Illyricum. In the year 33 B.C. he announced that the limits of the empire had been extended northward to the banks of the Savus.

Octavian now began to feel that any appearance of friendship with Antony was a source of weakness rather than of strength at Rome. Misunderstandings had already broken out. Antony complained that Octavian had given him no share in the provinces wrested from Sext. Pompeius and Lepidus. Octavian retorted by accusing his colleague of appropriating Egypt and Armenia, and of increasing Cleopatra’s power at the expense of the Roman Empire. Popular indignation rose to its height when Plancus and Titius, who had been admitted to Antony’s confidence, passed over to Octavian, and disclosed the contents of their master’s will. In that document Antony ordered that his body should be buried at Alexandria, in the mausoleum of Cleopatra. Men began to fancy that Cleopatra had already planted her throne upon the Capitol. These suspicions were sedulously encouraged by Octavian.

Before the close of 32 B.C., Octavian, by the authority of the senate, declared war nominally against Cleopatra. Antony, roused from his sleep by reports from Rome, passed over to Athens, issuing orders everywhere to levy men and collect ships for the impending struggle. At Athens he received news of the declaration of war, and replied by divorcing Octavia. His fleet was ordered to assemble at Corcyra; and his legions in the early spring prepared to pour into Epirus. He established his headquarters at Patræ on the Corinthian Gulf.

But Antony, though his fleet was superior to that of Octavian, allowed Agrippa to sweep the Ionian Sea, and to take possession of Methone, in Messenia, as a station for a flying squadron to intercept Antony’s communications with the East, nay even to occupy Corcyra, which had been destined for his own place of rendezvous. Antony’s fleet now anchored in the waters of the Ambracian Gulf, while his legions encamped on a spot of land which forms the northern horn of that spacious inlet. But the place chosen for the camp was unhealthful; and in the heats of early summer his army suffered greatly from disease. Agrippa lay close at hand watching his opportunity. In the course of the spring Octavian joined him in person.

[Sidenote: [31-30 B.C.]]

Early in the season Antony had repaired from Patræ to his army, so as to be ready either to cross over into Italy or to meet the enemy if they attempted to land in Epirus. At first he showed something of his old military spirit, and the soldiers, who always loved his military frankness, warmed into enthusiasm; but his chief officers, won by Octavian or disgusted by the influence of Cleopatra, deserted him in such numbers that he knew not whom to trust, and gave up all thoughts of maintaining the contest with energy. Urged by Cleopatra, he resolved to carry off his fleet and abandon the army. All preparations were made in secret, and the great fleet put to sea on the 28th of August. For the four following days there was a strong gale from the south. Neither could Antony escape, nor could Octavian put to sea against him from Corcyra. On the 2nd of September, however, the wind fell, and Octavian’s light vessels, by using their oars, easily came up with the unwieldy galleys of the eastern fleet. A battle was now seen to be inevitable.

Antony’s ships were like impregnable fortresses to the assault of the slight vessels of Octavian; and, though they lay nearly motionless in the calm sea, little impression was made upon them. But about noon a breeze sprang up from the west; and Cleopatra, followed by sixty Egyptian ships, made sail in a southerly direction. Antony immediately sprang from his ship of war into a light galley and followed. Deserted by their commander, the captains of Antony’s ships continued to resist desperately; nor was it till the greater part of them were set on fire that the contest was decided. Before evening closed the whole fleet was destroyed; most of the men and all the treasure on board perished. A few days after, when the shameful flight of Antony was made known to his army, all his legions went over to the conqueror.

DEATH OF ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA

[Sidenote: [30-29 B.C.]]

It was not for eleven months after the battle of Actium that Octavian entered the open gates of Alexandria. He had been employed in the interval in founding the city of Nicopolis to celebrate his victory on the northern horn of the Ambracian Gulf, in rewarding his soldiers, and settling the affairs of the provinces of the East. In the winter he returned to Italy, and it was midsummer, 30 B.C., before he arrived in Egypt.

When Antony and Cleopatra arrived off Alexandria they put a bold face upon the matter. Some time passed before the real state of the case was known; but it soon became plain that Egypt was at the mercy of the conqueror. The queen formed all kinds of wild designs. One was to transport the ships that she had saved across the Isthmus of Suez and seek refuge in some distant land where the name of Rome was yet unknown. Some ships were actually drawn across, but they were destroyed by the Arabs, and the plan was abandoned. She now flattered herself that her powers of fascination, proved so potent over Cæsar and Antony, might subdue Octavian. Secret messages passed between the conqueror and the queen; nor were Octavian’s answers such as to banish hope.

Antony, full of repentance and despair, shut himself up in Pharos, and there remained in gloomy isolation.

In July, 30 B.C., Octavian appeared before Pelusium. The place was surrendered without a blow. Yet, at the approach of the conqueror, Antony put himself at the head of a division of cavalry, and gained some advantage. But on his return to Alexandria he found that Cleopatra had given up all her ships; and no more opposition was offered. On the 1st of August (Sextilis as it was then called) Octavian entered the open gates of Alexandria. Both Antony and Cleopatra sought to win him. Antony’s messengers the conqueror refused to see; but he still used fair words to Cleopatra. The queen had shut herself up in a sort of mausoleum built to receive her body after death, which was not approachable by any door; and it was given out that she was really dead. All the tenderness of old times revived in Antony’s heart. He stabbed himself, and in a dying state ordered himself to be laid by the side of Cleopatra.

The queen touched by pity, ordered her expiring lover to be drawn up by cords into her retreat, and bathed his temples with her tears. After he had breathed his last, she consented to see Octavian. Her penetration soon told her that she had nothing to hope from him. She saw that his fair words were only intended to prevent her from desperate acts, and reserve her for the degradation of his triumph. This impression was confirmed when all instruments by which death could be inflicted were found to have been removed from her apartments. But she was not to be so baffled. She pretended all submission; but when the ministers of Octavian came to carry her away, they found her lying dead upon her couch, attended by her faithful waiting-women, Iras and Charmion. The manner of her death was never ascertained; popular belief ascribed it to the bite of an asp, which had been conveyed to her in a basket of fruit.

Cleopatra was an extraordinary person. At her death she was but thirty-eight years of age. Her power rested not so much on actual beauty as on her fascinating manners and her extreme readiness of wit. In her follies there was a certain magnificence, which excites even a dull imagination. We may estimate the real power of her mental qualities by observing the impression her character made upon the Roman poets of the time. No meditated praises could have borne such testimony to her greatness as the lofty strain in which Horace celebrates her fall, and congratulates the Roman world on its escape from the ruin which she was threatening to the Capitol.

Octavian dated the years of his imperial monarchy from the day of the battle of Actium. But it was not till two years after (the summer of 29 B.C.) that he established himself in Rome as ruler of the Roman world. Then he celebrated three magnificent triumphs, after the example of his uncle the great dictator, for his victories in Dalmatia, at Actium, and in Egypt. At the same time the temple of Janus was closed (notwithstanding that border wars still continued in Gaul and Spain) for the first time since the year 235 B.C. All men drew breath more freely, and all except the soldiery looked forward to a time of tranquillity. Liberty and independence were forgotten words. After the terrible disorders of the last century, the general cry was for quiet at any price. Octavian was a person admirably fitted to fulfil these aspirations. His uncle Julius was too fond of active exertion to play such a part well. Octavian never shone in war, while his vigilant and patient mind was well fitted for the discharge of business. He avoided shocking popular feeling by assuming any title savouring of royalty; but he enjoyed by universal consent an authority more than regal.[b]

AN ESTIMATE OF THE PERSONALITY OF ANTONY

We cannot well take leave of the fallen Antony without a few words of characterisation: “He was,” says Liddell, “by nature a genial, open-hearted Roman, a good soldier, quick, resolute, and vigorous, but reckless and self-indulgent, devoid alike of prudence and of principle. The corruptions of the age, the seductions of power, and the evil influence of Cleopatra, paralysed a nature capable of better things. We know him chiefly through the exaggerated assaults of Cicero in his _Philippics_, and the narratives of writers devoted to Octavian. But after all deductions for partial representation, enough remains to show that Antony had all the faults of Cæsar, with little of his redeeming greatness.”[b] This is scant praise. A more sympathetic estimate is that of Gardthausen who, eloquently summarising the heroic qualities of Antony’s character, sees in him a type of man rare in antiquity. Here is his characterisation:

Antony’s chivalrous bearing and the chivalrous bent of his mind contributed to his success in a manner highly impressive in a character of the antique ages. These can boast of few characters that may be called chivalrous, at the most an occasional Homeric hero, the princely leader of a national army, such as Alexander the Great, Pyrrhus, and Demetrius, the counterfeit presentment to Plutarch’s Antonius; possibly chivalrous standards of life may have been spread among the Greek mercenaries. The chivalrous warrior was a man who was ready at any moment to pledge his person and mindful of the ups and downs of battle to treat his opponent as he himself would be treated were their situations reversed. The small republics of antiquity were not fit soil to nourish such a character as this. The ancients were not soldiers before everything else, their ideals were sought in another region.

Chivalrous as he was, he was ready to credit others with a similar disposition; and his confidence was seldom misplaced. At the head of five ships he defied the warnings of those about him and sailed against the whole fleet of Domitius Ahenobarbus with chivalrous recklessness; he accepted an invitation from Sextus Pompeius the admiral to eat with him on board his vessel; a word would have sufficed to effect his imprisonment or his murder; but this word was never spoken, for his unquestioning reliance on the pledged honour of his foe had disarmed that foe. Where he was deceived, however, as for example later on by that same Domitius Ahenobarbus who went over to the enemy before the battle of Actium, Antony had enough generosity of mind to send over to him into the enemy’s camp his possessions and his slaves. To Sextus Pompeius later on he showed admirable forbearance in Asia Minor and shrank as long as it was possible from believing in the treachery of a man who had stood by his side first as ally and then as supplicant for protection. Even when fate was against him, he assumed the same chivalrous spirit in his foe that he himself would have manifested had the circumstances been reversed. So for instance after the battle of Actium he challenged Cæsar to personal combat although the acceptance of the challenge by his opponent, who was everything rather than chivalrous, was on the face of it very improbable.

As the knight for his lady so Antony in an official despatch declared his constant readiness to die for Cleopatra, and on receiving news of her death he said again that now his last reason for living had fallen away. Even in death he was consoled with the thought that it was as a Roman of Romans that he had been subdued.

In conclusion “chivalrous” is the term that I would apply to that exaggerated sensibility of honour which could not reconcile itself to giving the command for an absolutely indispensable retreat after the Median campaign and so charged a field officer under him with the burden of issuing that command.

To talk of the personal bravery of Antony, which his foes too recognised, were superfluous; like his Herculean frame, it was part of his birthright, not a thing acquired with years through the steady energy of his will. He was equally at home with his men whether on the field of battle or in the young men’s wrestling ring. He was most in his element however at the head of his trusty horsemen, when after a mad ride he could flash unexpected upon the enemy like lightning, reduce them to nothing or take them captive. As an instance of this, take the brilliant cavalry engagement with Servilius in lower Italy and the last victory he won over Cæsar’s horsemen at the hippodrome before Alexandria. His pride was then at the height of its ascension when he could come before Cleopatra as the knight before his lady to demand as the reward of victory, a kiss for himself, for the bravest of his horsemen a golden suit of armour.

Perhaps the foreign trait of faithlessness in him was just a symptom of that sultanic nature which very quickly developed itself in Antony as in many other Romans who ruled the East. Bountiful he had always been even before he possessed anything to give away, but in the East this bounty soon acquired a far more splendid play. In public he felt himself king of kings, bestowing on Monæses the Parthian refugee as the king of the Persians once bestowed on Themistocles, three towns, constantly making a new map of the East and giving provinces to his Egyptian queen, granting Polemon little Armenia as the reward for an embassy, giving his actors the town of Priene, in return for a good luncheon, making his cook as rich as a wealthy Magnesian. We can best see what sort of task he set his cook from a story that was whispered in Plutarch’s circle. At every time in the day the cook had to be in a position to serve a complete luncheon immediately. Eight wild boars were turning on the spit at the same time, because at a given moment one had to be ready roasted to be set instantly upon the table, and in this way all the preparations necessary for a luncheon for not more than twelve persons were conducted. Plutarch’s characteristic anecdote is a proof at once of the costliness of Antony’s court and the irregularity of his mode of life. If the preparation of one daily meal involved such expenditure we hardly need to reckon the crazy wagers with Cleopatra to arrive at an explanation of the immense sums raised and squandered by Antony in the East. His example set the standard for his own people; his eldest son Antyllus was yet a boy when he gave a doctor such a sum for a paradox in medical language that the man did not believe his ears.

But this extravagant expenditure was not all; it belonged to some extent to the maintenance of a sultan, and impressed the eastern imagination. The effect of the East upon the character of Antony was damaging in that it robbed him of requisite elasticity. There are characters that only reach their full altitude under circumstances of prosperity, and in the absence of these wither and fall away as the flower that lacks sunlight; others again will nowhere prove so defective as when exposed to a succession of good fortune; their better self slides out of sight until it is again summoned into activity by dire need which alone can spur them to heroical endeavour. Antony’s was of the latter kind; he required pressure from outside to recover his elasticity and bring out his resources to the full. In the noise and pother of battle, in the dire need of retreat after the defeat of Mutina and the Median campaign he did great deeds, but with the termination of the danger, the activity which it had called forth came also to an end; he sank into Eastern torpidity from which nothing could rouse him. Political questions ceased to exist for him, whole months passed in which not even the current business of administration was despatched.

Labienus might overwhelm Syria and Asia with Parthian horsemen and drive back the Romans upon the islands; at the same time one ugly despatch after another might come from Italy whither he was urged to go and lend succour by his wife, his brother, his legates who struggled vainly with Cæsar’s power; but nothing availed to tear him away from his idle indulgences at Alexandria. At the very crisis of the rupture when all the peoples of the ancient world were arming themselves either for or against him, he withdrew to Samos to live a life of pleasure undisturbed by the clash of arms.

Here are examples enough to prove how he regarded his high place in the world, to what use he in reality put it for the pursuit of his private love affairs, how he accepted the privileges without recognising the responsibilities of his position.

He entirely lacked a sense of responsibility as a prince--the reproach weighs only too heavily upon him--and in a similar way, so little patriotic spirit for Rome survived in him during his life in the East, that he did not want even to leave his ashes to his fatherland. We miss in his indolent nature all joy in business and in those creative strokes that he still made every few years; he followed the impulses of the moment without reflecting what would be their ultimate consequences; this habit grew so natural to him that he followed it at Actium and plunged himself and his followers in ruin.

Paradoxical as it may sound, Antony was no more a genuine commander than a genuine statesman. As a subordinate officer of the dictator he won well-earned encomium. Once in the position of dictator himself and the difference, the great difference, is evident.

Certainly the victory at Philippi was exclusively due to him, but Cæsar’s party owed Philippi to the tactics, not to the strategy of Antony. He had to take battle upon ground chosen by the enemy, and had to thank his own bravery and his legions for victory. From this time forward, as the ancients have already contended, Antony only conquered through his subordinate officers, while, by himself, he was beaten. The honour of a triumph to which the subordinate officers could, strictly speaking, make no claims, was accorded to them, although with a less generous spirit than his colleague Cæsar showed; only in cases of immoderate success was his suspicion aroused and then he was led to thrust aside officers of too conspicuous good fortune like Ventidius. He alone must be made responsible for the disastrous issue of the Medo-Parthian campaign. The conception was wrong, the execution defective, in as much as the best time was over before he commenced operations. Before the last crisis of the war he again let the auspicious moment slip past him.

Instead of making rapid use of the advantage assured to him by the well-filled condition of his military exchequer and the forward condition of his armaments, instead of hurling his force upon Italy which could well have been overpowered in view of the scarcity of money and the deep disaffection that prevailed, he again frittered away the best time with Cleopatra in Samos and at last was compelled to postpone the decisive action, much to his own disadvantage, until the next year, thus losing the advantage in readiness of equipment which he had had over his opponent. Finally one may ask, did ever a general, who deserved the name of general, prematurely pronounce a battle to be lost, in which not only supremacy and life but the destiny of a whole world was at stake? But Antony loved to treat serious issues lightly and trifles as if they were of supreme importance.

In his relations to women his sensual sultanic nature and his chivalrous character unite. We need not here concern ourselves with the foul love stories of his youth. His enemy Cicero speaks frequently of Antony’s men and women friends and also of others about whom it is uncertain whether they should be classed with the former or with the latter. Antony was always regardless of his reputation; he well knew that in this direction he had nothing left to spoil. We will not here intrude upon his innumerable liaisons with beautiful dancers, distinguished Roman ladies and eastern princesses. Cleopatra alone could claim, at all events in their last years, to exercise her dominion over him undivided with any other wife or mistress. This dominion was so absolute and so enduring that in the days of the ancients it was thought impossible to explain it by natural means and recourse was had to the superstition of a magic potion.

Could we have seen Antony on foot with a bevy of eunuchs following the litter of his mistress at the entry into some Egyptian town, we might have concluded him to be a knight doing homage to his lady’s honour. Mediæval worship of women is absolutely foreign to antiquity; but Antony based his descent on Hercules, who after his twelve Labours became a slave of Omphale, and laid aside club and crossbow to help his lady at the spinning-wheel. Antony followed the example of his great ancestor and paid obedience in effeminate sloth where it was within his power and his duty to be sovereign. The sacrifices he made to his lady are without a parallel in the history of the world; and Cleopatra’s thanks were, to betray him first at Actium and then at his death in Alexandria. In a word one may sum up the verdict in the language of the ancients: Nature had intended Mark Antony for a Deuteragonist, chance and misfortune made him Protagonist. But Shakespeare says: “His taints and honours waged equal with him.”[f]

FOOTNOTES

[131] This story is however rendered somewhat doubtful by the manner in which Cinna is mentioned in Virgil’s Ninth Eclogue, which was certainly written in or after the year 40 B.C.

[132] Pedius was son of Cæsar’s second sister, Julia minor, and therefore first cousin (once removed) to Octavius.

[133] He had divorced Tullia, the orator’s daughter, before he left Italy.

[134] [Velleius Paterculus[d] thus contrasts Brutus and Cassius:

“Such was the end assigned by fortune to the party of Marcus Brutus, who was then in his thirty-seventh year, and whose mind had been incorrupt till the day which obscured all his virtues by the rashness of one act. Cassius was as much the better commander, as Brutus was the better man. Of the two, you would rather have Brutus for a friend; as an enemy, you would stand more in dread of Cassius. In the one there was greater ability, in the other greater virtue. Had they been successful, it would have been as much for the interest of the state to have had Brutus for its ruler rather than Cassius, as it was to have Cæsar rather than Antony.”]

[135] [Says Florus[e]: “The madness of Antony, which could not be allayed by ambition, was at last exterminated by luxury and licentiousness. The Egyptian woman demanded of the drunken general, as the price of her favours, nothing less than the Roman Empire. This Antony promised her; as though the Romans had been easier to conquer than the Parthians.”]

(In the British Museum)]