THE LIFE AND TIMES OF MARC ANTHONY

CHAPTER XVII

The Enforced Renewal of the Triumvirate,

and Antony’s Departure for the East, and Reunion with Cleopatra.

Upon Antony’s arrival at Athens he received the most welcome news in regard to the struggle with the Parthians. Not in vain had he devoted weeks and months of his time to the organization of a trustworthy Roman expeditionary force; nor had he been mistaken in his choice of a general. The doughty old Ventidius Bassus had led his army, in the spring of 39 BC, through Thrace and across the Hellespont into Bithynia, whence, in the summer, he had marched southwards through Galatia; and at this the Parthians under Labienus, who were still in occupation of the southern coast of Asia Minor, had hastily withdrawn into Cilicia, near me Syrian frontier.

Sometime in September Ventidius had come to grips with Labienus amongst the Taurus Mountains and had utterly defeated him. The Parthians had fled into northern Syria and thence eastwards to the Euphrates; whilst Labienus had escaped in disguise into Cilicia, but shortly afterwards had been captured and executed as a traitor—a Roman in command of Rome’s enemies. Thereupon the other Parthian armies in Syria had also withdrawn to the Euphrates, all Syria and Palestine being once more opened to the Romans, the siege of Tyre raised, and the highroad to Egypt re­established. Thus, in one brilliant campaign, the invaders had been entirely cleared out of Antony’s eastern empire, Antony was elated, and ordered public feasts and thanksgivings to be celebrated throughout Greece and Asia Minor. In Athens itself he caused great festivities to be held; and at the races and games he astonished everybody by discarding the dress and circumstance of a military ruler and by acting, himself, as steward, appearing in the square-cut gown and white attic shoes of that office. Moreover, so thoroughly did he perform the steward's duties that whenever he considered the two champions in any combat to have fought long enough he entered the ring, took them by the scruff of the neck, and separated, them, his own exceptional strength abling him to do so with loudly applauded ease.

Having sent orders to Ventidius to remain in Cilicia, probably at Tarsus, during the winter, and having promised to join him there in the spring, he settled down to reorganize the eastern empire and particularly to give his attention to the improvement of conditions in Greece. So greatly was he beloved that on all sides the people revived the legend that he was Bacchus or Dionysus come to earth; but it should be pointed out that in doing so they were not identifying him merely, or even at all, with the rollicking and tipsy god of wine, but rather with that gentle and benevolent spirit of goodness and happiness which was this deity’s most widely recognized aspect. In this connection I think it will be as well to remind the reader that a few generations later, when the story of the beautiful life of Christ was spread throughout these parts, the people at once identified Him with Dionysus; and, in fact, the date of our Christian Epiphany January 6th is none other than the date of the great Dionysian festival. Evidently there must have been some exceptional qualities of sweetness in Antony’s disposition, or, at any rate, in the side of his character shown to the Greeks, which thus caused them to associate him in their minds with that same deity to whom they afterwards found a resemblance in Jesus of Nazareth.

A curious story, by the way is related by Dion Cassius’s that at the great festival of Athena, the patron goddess of Athens, when it was customary to celebrate her mystical betrothal, the Athenians invited Antony to play the male role in his aspect as the incarnate Dionysus, and that he agreed to do so, insisting, however, that his celestial bride should bring him a dowry, or, in other words, that Athens should make him a handsome present for his services on the occasion.

This winter in Athens marks a considerable change in Antony’s political views, or, rather, it marks the putting into execution of a policy which had perhaps been developing in his mind ever since he had come under the influence of Queen Cleopatra in Alexandria. Like Caesar, Antony had been a democrat, but, again like Caesar, he had begun to consider the possibility of converting his popularly sanctioned autocracy into actual monarchy. In his dreams of the expansion of Roman power into the Orient he had realized the disadvantages of holding his authority simply from the Senate in Rome for a limited number of years; and he had begun to feel that his interests could not well be developed by a system under which he himself was a temporary ruler served by governors of provinces and other magistrates appointed for short periods. Something more permanent was required.

Here in the eastern empire many of the provinces were accustomed, or had been in the recent past, to the idea of monarchy, and even the Roman mind, he believed, was almost ripe for the acceptance of a king, although expressed opinion was still opposed to such a thought. The two Consulships of earlier days provided a now unwieldy form of government, and, in fact, their power had already been destroyed by the superimposing of his and Octavian’s joint autocracy. It had once been suggested that Caesar should be actual king outside Italy; and Antony saw no reason why that permanent position of regal authority should not ultimately of his. In the meantime, he felt that he should be supported not by temporary provincial governors but by petty kings each at the head of a local government made strong by the removal of the exigencies of frequent change; and in pursuit of this policy he now decided to play the part of King-maker upon the grand scale.

The country of Pontus, at the north-east comer of Asia Minor, had been without a monarch since the death, in 47 BC, of Pharnaces, the successor of that Mithridates who had fought against Rome, as recorded earlier in this book; and now Antony restored the monarchy, giving the crown to Darius, the son of Pharnaces. The mountainous land of Pisidia, just to the west of Cilicia, had never fully admitted Roman authority; and here Antony established a certain Amyntas as king. Upon the empty throne of the neighboring territory of Lycaonia he placed an officer named Polemo, who had taken an active part in the defeat of the Parthians: he was the son of Zeno, a famous orator of Laodicea. At about the same time he recognized as King of Judea that afterwards celebrated Herod who was still alive at the time of the birth of Christ and who figures in the Gospel story. He also gave his patronage to the kings of Thrace, Galatia, Cappadocia, Paphlagonia, Upper Cilicia and elsewhere, who had all been expecting extinction by Rome rather than support, being the last left of the dynasts; and of course he confirmed Cleopatra in her sovereignty of Egypt.

Antony himself, meanwhile, was unquestionably adopting an attitude towards life and a manner of living which were those of a Hellenized potentate rather than of a Roman magistrate. The transformation in his person is noticed by some of the ancient writers, and, indeed, they are inclined to exaggerate it in order to present a picture of him in keeping with the tradition, which later grew up, of his having ultimately become a typical oriental; but actually the change was slight, though noticeable, and was, I fancy, no more than that which we might observe today in a man of northern race who had taken up his abode in a Latin land—an Englishman or American living in Paris, for example.

In many respects he was following a course already pursued by Caesar. Conventional and conservative Romans—men of Cicero’s or Cato’s stamp—had always regarded Caesar as a dangerous man, one who had broken with traditional Roman habits, and had become somewhat foreign in his ideas; and the case of Antony was very similar, with this addition, that he was rather fond of theatrical display, enjoyed dressing the part, liked a splash of color. His entertainments were sumptuous; wine, women, and song were to be found wherever he went; and his house was always open to actors and actresses, dancers and musicians, artists and men of letters—clever and talented people of all kinds, in fact—to whom he played the host with prodigal generosity. Yet he did not lose the common touch, and almost to the end was adored by his soldiers and by the masses, the secret of his popularity being his unbounded sympathy, his easy manners, his simplicity, and just that democratic attitude which the stiff-necked Roman aristocrat believed to be incompatible with the maintenance of prestige.

The beginning of the year 38 BC brought Antony an astounding piece of news from the metropolis. Octavian had divorced his wife Scribonia upon the very day on which she had borne him a daughter, Julia. He said he was quite tired out by her peevishness; but there were two more palpable reasons for the separation. In the first place he wished to sever his connection with the family of Sextus Pompeius, against whom he had made up his mind to launch an attack at the first possible opportunity; and Scribonia, it will be remembered, was the sister of Sextus’s father-in-law, and had been married to him to create an alliance between the Pompeian and Caesarian houses. In the second place he had fallen in love with another man’s wife.

This lady was the beautiful and talented Livia, daughter of the republican Livius Drusus who, it will be recalled, had committed suicide in his tent after Philippi. She was the wife of Tiberius Claudius Nero, an important person of ancient lineage who had taken up arms with Lucius and Fulvia against Octavian, had later tied to Sextus Pompeius, and thence to Antony, and had been one of the exiles rehabilitated by the terms of the treaty of Misenum. To her husband she had borne one son, who was named Tiberius, and ultimately became Emperor of Rome. Octavian had fallen in love with her some time ago; and now, when she was going to have a child in about three months time, either by him or by her husband, a divorce was arranged so that she might marry her lover. The husband, apparently, was quite agreeable to the arrangement, and not only attended the wedding and formally handed Livia over to Octavian, but also gave her a dowry as though he had been her father.

It is to be supposed that Octavian believed Livia’s unborn baby to be his, for it is difficult, otherwise, to understand for what reason he married her thus in haste when she was in this condition; yet no such explanation was put forward by ancient writers, and when, in the spring, the child was born and proved to be a boy, Octavian named him Claudius Drusus Nero, and sent him with his compliments to Livia’s former husband, at the same time placing it on record that the latter was the infant’s father. Yet gossip seems to have implied that Octavian was the real parent; for the remark was widely repeated, and passed into a proverb, that in the families of the great the children are born in three months.

Rome was scandalized by the marriage and its circumstances, and Octavian was regarded as a very unpleasant young scoundrel. The gods, too, were outraged, and, in fact, the goddess Virtus fell off her pedestal flat on her face; and when the priests took her down to Ostia to purify her in the sea, she tumbled into the waves and was with difficulty recovered.

But if Antony was astonished at the news, his surprise was turned to anger when he received the intelligence that Octavian had followed up his divorce from Scribonia by persuading the forces of Sextus Pompeius in Sardinia to desert their leader and to hand that island over to him with sixty ships and many men. Sextus at once reported to Antony that Octavian had broken the treaty, and therewith the angry sea-rover began again to attack the Roman shipping. Octavian then wrote to Antony asking him to come at once to Brindisi to discuss the situation, declaring that the fault lay with Sextus who had himself broken the treaty in various little ways.

Antony was furious. He was just about to start for Cilicia to join Ventidius Bassus, having heard that the Parthians were making a new incursion into Syria; and the dislocation of his plans thoroughly upset him. With all possible speed he raced back to Italy, determined to stop the expected fight; but to his great annoyance Octavian was not at Brindisi to meet him. He therefore wrote very sharply to him telling him to behave himself and to respect the treaty with Sextus; and therewith he sailed back to Greece, and at once set out for Cilicia, hoping to reach the army in time to lead them against the enemy.

He arrived there in June, only to find that Ventidius had already marched into Syria to attack the Parthian invaders and had overwhelmed them at Gindarus in the land of Cyrrhestice, that area of northern Syria above Antioch which lay between Cilicia and the Euphrates. Pacorus, the son of the king of Parthia, had been killed, and so many thousands of his men with him, that the Romans were justified in regarding the victory as full revenge for the destruction of Crassus and his army at Carrhae, sixteen years earlier. Ventidius had then pushed on to the city of Samosata (Samosat) on the Euphrates, the capital of Commagene, Parthia’s ally, and had laid siege to it.

Antony must have been bitterly disappointed at having arrived too late to take command of these operations; but he hastened on to Samosata, where he and Ventidius spent the summer in fruitless siege operations which were terminated at last, probably in August, by the surrender of the beleaguered king of Commagene on terms. Antony then went south to Palestine in order to establish Herod upon the throne of Judea which had been seized, with the aid of the Parthians, by that same Antigonus, the son of Aristobulus, against whom he, Antony, had fought in 57 BC. The authorities in Jerusalem, however, refused to receive Herod, and submitted to a siege, during which, according to Josephus, Antony took the opportunity to make a brief visit to Egypt to see Cleopatra and to make the acquaintance of the twins, who were now just two years old.

It is unlikely that he went to Alexandria. It is more probable that Cleopatra came by ship to some point, such as Pelusium, near her eastern frontier, to meet him; and their tune together was necessarily brief, for Antony had just heard that Octavian had begun hostilities against Sextus Pompeius, and he was most anxious to get back to Greece or Italy in order to set this matter to rights. It can hardly be supposed that the Queen received with much enthusiasm the man who had deserted her to marry Octavia; and one may suppose that the meeting was charged with all those potentialities of domestic storm which are usually present when an errant lover returns to the unmarried mother of his children. Antony’s excuses, however, seem to have been as masterly as Cleopatra’s tact; and though history does not offer us any guiding light through the dark channels of their brief reunion, we may suppose that Antony’s approach to their inevitable compromise was illuminated by many vows of fidelity. Doubtless he told her that he would have nothing more to do with Octavia, or at any rate that he would begin to do something about their divorce.

Returning to the siege of Jerusalem, he gave orders to his new governor of Syria, a certain Caius Sossius, to lend all possible aid to Herod in his efforts to capture the Jewish throne; and therewith he and Ventidius Bassus hastened back to Greece. Having arrived at Athens towards the end of September, he found the patient Octavia and her baby awaiting him; and the fact that a few weeks later she learnt that she was once more to become a mother indicates that her warm-hearted pleasure at seeing him again had quite overcome his resolve to keep her at arms’ length. It was now that he heard the news of the warfare which had been waged between her brother and Sextus Pompeius during the summer; and her disappointment and anxiety in this regard may well have obliged him to refrain from adding just now to her unhappiness.

Octavian had attacked the latter’s province of Sicily, and had been completely defeated at sea off that ill-omened rock, Scylla, which, with the neighboring Charybdis, was the bane of the sailor. He had behaved despicably in the fight, and, losing his head as was his habit, had gone ashore in the midst of the fight, leaving his men to the mercy of the enemy and of the tempest which had arisen. His fleet had been sent to the bottom, and thousands of his men drowned. Octavia, who loved her brother deeply, must have been heartbroken at the news; and it was not in Antony’s sympathetic and generous nature to turn from her at such a time.

Hard on the heels of these tidings there arrived at Athens an embassy from Octavian, headed by Maecenas, and including the poets Horace and Virgil. The object of the mission was obvious. The five years originally ordained for the duration of the Triumvirate would end at the close of this present year, 38 BC, and Octavian, after the fiasco of his campaign against Sextus, saw no hope for himself except in its renewal. Without Antony’s patronage he would be completely discredited, and would have to retire from public life, at any rate for the time being. He was eager, therefore, to place his version of his trouble with Sextus before his elder colleague, to excuse himself, to minimize the seriousness of his defeat, and to put forward the advantages of a continuance of the existing arrangements. He was thoroughly frightened, and his perpetual dread of Antony’s popularity was increased almost to panic by the spectacular successes of the latter’s army in the east, of which he had just received the news.

Antony, however, was not willing to commit himself. The ball was at his feet: fortune had suddenly showered her blessings upon him, and the goal of his ambitions was within sight. His young colleague and rival was disgraced, but his own reputation had risen to unexpected heights. For some time he had been considering the possibility of invading Parthia, and of putting into execution the plan of campaign which Caesar had worked out and of which Antony had probably found all the memoranda amongst Caesar’s papers. There remained now only the realization of this dream of conquest in the east; and after that the pathway to his sole autocracy, to his absolute rulership of the entire Roman Empire, east and west, would be open to him. This time, surely, Octavian would fail to weather the storm.

Antony’s first move was to send Ventidius Bassus to Rome to celebrate the Triumph which the Senate and People had accorded him with enthusiasm; and thus, on November 27th, the aged general went in procession through the streets of the capital. That Antony did not go himself to Rome to take part in the Triumph seems to have been due to some extent to his desire to allow Ventidius to have full credit for the victory, for, as Plutarch remarks, Antony wished him to receive the glory. But there was another reason which kept him from going to Rome, namely his anxiety not to be drawn into any discussion of the future with Octavian: he did not wish to meet him just now; he wanted the troublesome young man to sink into the quicksands of his ignominy, and he knew that in Rome he would be obliged for decency’s sake to give him a helping hand.

When the Triumvirate should come to an end on January 1st, 37 BC, a few weeks hence, Roman law and custom prescribed that the retiring parties should remain outside the capital until further arrangements had been made. Lepidus was in Africa, and well out of the way; and if Antony were to remain in Greece, Octavian would be obliged to follow suit and to retire from the city. Antony would then wait awhile until Octavian’s rustication had completed his political collapse; and thereupon he would ask the Senate to transfer some of Octavian’s legions to him to serve in the Parthian expedition which he was now planning for the following autumn. The Triumvirate being ended, Octavian would have no authority to hold back these troops; but Antony, meanwhile, would have caused himself to be appointed by the Senate as Commander-in-Chief of the Parthian campaign, and would therefore have a right to their use.

That, at least, is how I interpret Antony’s decision to remain for the winter in Athens: in a word, he could not go back to Rome without being drawn into a renewal of this bargain-making Triumvirate. Octavian, however, with equal cunning, decided to retain command of his troops by the simple expedient of assuming, likewise with the consent of the Senate, the position of Commander-in-Chief in another campaign against Sextus Pompeius; and thus on January 1st, 37 BC, both he and Antony allowed their positions as Triumvirs to fall into abeyance in place of these appointments as generals, respectively, of the expeditionary forces against Parthia and Sicily.

Now Antony was seriously in need of the extra troops, and his annoyance must have been extreme when he found that Octavian’s proposed renewal of the war against Sextus Pompeius had provided justification for their withholding. He, Antony, was entitled to recruit soldiers in Italy, but what he wanted was the trained veteran legions; and soon, it seems to me, he realized with dismay that nothing short of another bargain with Octavian could obtain them for him. He would have to offer his former colleague some of his ships—which he himself did not require for his inland campaign—in exchange for the legions he needed; but when this compromise was suggested, Octavian made the stipulation that the Triumvirate should in that case be renewed, and to this Antony replied by postponing the discussion of that matter until April or May, that being the latest date to which the mobilization for the autumn campaign against Parthia could be held over.

Meanwhile, during the early months of 37 BC Antony, from his headquarters at Athens, enthusiastically organized his forces for the coming invasion of the Orient which had so taken hold of his imagination, and administered his empire, keeping himself informed of Octavian’s movements and watching with bitter disappointment the amazing young man's recovery from his disaster. He was told that a new fleet was being built in the Bay of Naples to take the place of that destroyed by Sextus; and presently it became apparent that soon Octavian would have no real need of the ships which Antony was offering him in exchange for the legions. As week after week went by, the position of affairs, so favorable to Antony in November, became equalized as between him and his rival: Octavian’s prestige recovered, and soon there was little doubt that he would in the end overwhelm Sextus Pompeius as fully as Antony hoped to overwhelm Parthia.

By May Antony was exasperated, and determined to go to Brindisi to see Octavian and to force him to hand over the required legions. He therefore sailed across the Adriatic with a large fleet, taking with him Octavia, who was expecting her baby in about four months’ time. But when he arrived before Brindisi the authorities in that city took fright, thinking that he had come over with intentions hostile to Octavian, and refused to allow him to land. Antony therefore sailed on to Tarentum, a port at which he had reason, apparently, to expect a friendlier reception; and there he waited for Octavian to come to him. Octavian, however, was now in a truculent mood, and would do nothing until Antony had agreed to renew the Triumvirate; and the letters exchanged between them seem to have breathed the defiance of both.

At last Octavia intervened, and persuaded her angry husband to let her go to her brother to arrange a meeting. To this he agreed, and it was by her exertions that a complete rupture was avoided. With tears and lamentations she told Octavian, in the words of Plutarch, that from being the most fortunate woman on earth she was in danger of becoming the most unhappy, for as yet the eyes of everyone were fixed upon her as the wife and sister of the two great commanders, but, if rash counsels should prevail, and war ensue, she would be reduced to hopeless misery, since, whichever side won, she would be the loser. At this, Octavian agreed to meet Antony, and came in state to Tarentum, where, with much pomp and ceremony, the two men dined together and composed their differences.

It was agreed between them that the Triumvirate should be renewed for five years, dating from January 1st, 37 BC; that the promise of a Consulship for Sextus Pompeius at the close of the period of their treaty with him should be rescinded; that Octavian should hand over to Antony twenty-one thousand soldiers, and that Antony should deliver to Octavian one hundred and thirty ships in exchange; and that, to cement the bargain, Octavian’s infant daughter Julia, the child of his divorced wife Scribonia, should be betrothed to Antyllus, Antony’s son by Fulvia. Lepidus, the third Triumvir, was allowed to retain office, simply to save trouble.

This agreement was a veritable climb-down on Antony’s part, for it placed Octavian once more in undisputed authority in the western empire. Again Antony had found it impossible to get the better of him; again this discredited rival of his had miraculously extricated himself from his difficulties, and had turned defeat into victory in such a way that the elder man could but regard him with superstitious awe. Octavian’s good fortune was uncanny.

Antony at once gave orders for his new troops to begin their long journey to Syria, and with such ships as remained under his command he set out for Greece. By the time that he reached the island of Corcyra (Corfu), however, he had made up his mind to postpone his Parthian campaign for some months, and to concentrate his army in Syria in preparation for an offensive in the spring. Thither he would go at once, if only to be as far away as possible from Octavian. He was exasperated beyond endurance by affairs in Italy, and by the frustrations which there always met him. He could not stand the sight of the gentle Octavia, in whom he daily saw the depressing reflection of her brother; and suddenly he told her to go back to Italy, protesting, in excuse, that as she was so soon going to have a baby she would be more comfortable there. He wanted to be free; to leave behind him all incumbrances; to be rid even of his children.

His eldest daughter, Antonia, the child of his first marriage with his cousin of the same name, had recently been betrothed to the son of Lepidus, the third Triumvir, and it seems that she was already with her future father-in-law. Fulvia’s children, Clodius and Clodia, appear now to have been housed elsewhere. His own two sons by Fulvia, Antyllus and Julus, had been with him in Athens, and could now be handed over to Octavia, who would look after them until he could send for them to join him in Syria. As for his little daughter, Antonia, the child of Octavia, her place was obviously with her mother and her uncle Octavian; and he now told his wife to take her back to Italy, nor did he care greatly if, as proved to be the case, he should never see her again.

Octavia was complacently obedient to his wishes. During these last months she must have found him increasingly difficult; and the anticipation of a quiet life alone with her children may well have made its appeal to her disturbed mind. She did not realize, when she bade him farewell, that he was shaking from off his shoes the dust of the west, and was hastening with outstretched arms to the adventurous east. She was unaware that she had no part in the bright visions which lured his thoughts away from the paralyzing rebuffs, the lame and impotent conclusions, of his dark with her brother; and she was happy in her ignorance of the fact that he was going out of her life for ever.

Historians have never asked themselves a simple question which may well have presented itself to the reader. Why, during the greater part of the course of the Triumvirate, was Antony content to engage himself in the affairs of the east and to leave Rome and the west to Octavian? Why had he not concentrated his efforts all along upon establishing his authority m the capital? Why, when he might have fought it out with his rival, as Caesar did with Pompey, had he now turned his back upon Rome as though the metropolis and its affairs were not worth the struggle? In my opinion the answer is to be found in the statement of Suetonius that Caesar had often thought of transferring the capital of the entire Roman world to Troy, in northwestern Asia Minor, or to Alexandria, and that Rome was not a city suitable to the grandeur of the empire.

Antony, in fact, who had been Caesar’s confidant, and, after his death, had possessed himself of all his memoranda, seems to have believed with him that the future capital of the Roman dominions ought to be situated in some part of the world more central than Italy. A glance at a map will show that Athens was geographically a better centre than Rome; and now that Antony had hopes of bringing Parthia and the Orient under Roman sway, and adding the eastern dominions of Alexander the Great to the regions which he already ruled, the transfer of the seat of government to Asia Minor or even to Alexandria seemed desirable. Antony had travelled extensively. Gaul and the countries northwest of Italy were regarded by him as barbarous territories, and even Spain and the western coast of North Africa were not of first-rate importance. But east of Italy, in that empire which he now administered, there were the wealthy and ancient cities and lands of Greece, Macedonia, Thrace, Asia Minor, and Syria and, south of Syria, Egypt—which together formed a teeming hive of human activity; and in relation to them Italy was as it were a mere western outpost. In this rich and busy eastern area he had made himself fully acquainted with mighty cities such as Athens, Ephesus, Tarsus, Tyre, and Alexandria; and Italy had become to him but a far­away limb of this pulsing body.

I think there can be little doubt that he desired to found a new capital, possibly in Cilicia, that region being equidistant from Greece and Egypt, from Italy and Parthia, and practically the centre of the known world. In this new Rome he intended to establish the Senate and the government, and perhaps his own throne; and thus Italy did not hold so important a place in his thoughts as might now be supposed. He turned his back upon it without regrets, glad, indeed, to put seas and kingdoms between himself and the exasperating Octavian. For a brief period in the previous winter he had thought that the time had come for him to add Rome and the west to his sphere of authority; but he had been disillusioned, and now he would have to wait for that consummation until Parthia was his, and until the entire eastern empire, from Greece in the west to the Indus in the east, from Scythia in the north to Ethiopia in the south, was consolidated into one vast realm such as Alexander the Great had dreamed of and planned.

His brain was full of such visions as he sailed now over the summer seas towards Syria. But during his journey, says Plutarch, “the mischief that had long lain dormant, his love for Cleopatra, which wiser thoughts had seemed to have lulled and charmed into oblivion, upon his approach to Syria gathered strength again and broke into flame; and, like Plato’s restive and rebellious horse of the human soul, flinging off the harness of good counsel and breaking completely loose, he sent for her to come to him in Syria”. This, doubtless, is something of a misinterpretation of his state of mind, for his love for the Egyptian Queen could not at this time have been overwhelming. Yet his repugnance to all that he had left behind him in the west, and his memory of his happy days in brilliant Alexandria three years and more ago, must have combined to fill his heart with the warm consciousness of Cleopatra’s importance in his life.

There was today a place for her in his plans. That old prophecy which declared that Parthia would be conquered by a “king”, and which had had such influence upon Caesar, was always in his mind, it would seem; and he knew that Cleopatra, unable to conceal the fact that he was the parent of her twins, had made the knowledge palatable to her subjects by speaking of him as her legal consort—legal, mat is to say, by Egyptian royal prerogative. In Egypt, in fact, he was almost a king, and there was no reason why he should not regularize that position by some arrangement with Cleopatra tantamount to a marriage, which should make of him an actual monarch in that country while leaving him still Triumvir in Roman eyes.

Such a marriage, geographically restricted in its legal acceptance, would be a first step towards that wider sovereignty which was now his ultimate ambition. After all, everybody knew that Caesar had intended to marry Cleopatra; and it was common knowledge that she had termed him her royal and divine consort in Egypt, the earthly and celestial father of her son, Caesarion. Now, therefore, that he, Antony, had turned his back upon the west, and was definitely committed to the Parthian adventure and thereafter to the creation of a great empire of the east, there was every reason why he should legalize his position as the sovereign lord of Cleopatra’s realms while retaining his position as the democratic Triumvir of the eastern Roman world. In Greece and Asia Minor he was widely accepted by the masses as a kind of deity, an incarnation of Dionysus; and in Egypt Cleopatra had already covered their union with a mantle of divinity similar to that which she had cast about her previous union with Caesar. It would be all to the good now to capitalize that royal and celestial position m his dealings with the east, just as Alexander the Great had done when he accepted his identification with the Egyptian god Ammon.

At the time of his previous association with Cleopatra he had felt that Caesarion, her son by Caesar, was the most important factor in the situation; for this youth might be put forward one day as the true heir of the Dictator in place of Octavian. But since that time, by the unaccountable workings of Fate, Octavian’s position as Caesar’s successor had been unexpectedly consolidated, if only by the years and by the accustoming of the public mind to this view of his claims upon their allegiance. Yet there was still something to be said for Antony’s assumption of the position of guardian and step­father of Caesar’s only son, who was now ten years of age; and the boy’s existence would certainly serve to make a closer connection with Cleopatra more understandable in Roman eyes.

Thus, in sending for the Queen and in inviting her to meet him in Syria it was not so much a revival of his passion for her which was the incentive, as it was her usefulness to him. She was now thirty-one years of age, and the mother of three children, and he was forty-six, had been married three times, and had enjoyed the charms of many mistresses. Yet, even so, he must have been prompted in part by his affection for her, or, rather, by the memory of her brilliant and alluring companionship. He wanted, I suppose, to make amends to her for his treatment of her; he wanted her to know that his marriage to Octavia had been a political necessity which had now outgrown its value. The Queen had been so faithful to him in her loneliness; and at their recent meeting she had been so justified in her rebukes. Apart from all other considerations, she must have been, so to speak, on his conscience.

He reached northern Syria early in September, and took up his headquarters at Antiochia (Antioch), a pleasant city some twenty miles back from the sea. Here he received news that the siege of Jerusalem had at last been brought to a successful conclusion, and that Antigonus had surrendered to Herod and his Roman allies. Shortly afterwards the defeated monarch was brought to him at Antioch, where Antony ordered him to be kept m captivity; but later, at Herod's request, the unfortunate man was beheaded, after having been scourged and crucified as a vicarious sacrifice, I presume, of the kind mentioned by Philo of Byblus and others as being prevalent amongst the peoples of Syria and its neighborhood.

The fall of Jerusalem released a considerable Roman force; and Antony now decided to take the first step in his Parthian campaign by sending an army of six legions and their auxiliaries, under Publius Canidius Crassus, into the Caucasus to open the northern route into Parthia, this being the route which Caesar had planned to follow in his proposed campaign of 44 BC. Marching north­eastwards across the eastern edge of Asia Minor, this army was to move into Iberia (southern Georgia), and thence south-eastwards to the plateau of Erzurum, where it was to winter preparatory to the invasion of Media, the sister-state of Parthia.

It was towards the end of September when Cleopatra arrived at Antioch; and in the absence of any ancient account of the meeting itself, the apparent fact can only be recorded that she and Antony wasted no time in entering into a businesslike discussion of the general situation, as the result of which an agreement of the most far-reaching character was made between them. He and she were to be married according to Egyptian law, and the union was to be regarded as binding upon them, although it would not be recognized as legal in Roman law, nor would necessitate the divorcing of Octavia. By the legalizing of his position as Cleopatra’s consort, Antony would become actual king of Egypt; but it was agreed that he would not assume this title, reserving it, in fact, for Caesarion when the boy should, come of age. Instead, he chose to be called Autocrator, a Greek word signifying an absolute personal ruler or autocrat, and corresponding more or less to the Latin term Imperator. Thus, while he would be King to Cleopatra’s subjects, he was to be Autocrator throughout his eastern empire, yet would still be a democratic triumvir, a chief magistrate of the Republic, in Roman eyes. It is to be presumed, however, that he stated privately his intention of establishing in the end a throne for himself from which he and his successors would rule the entire Roman world—the whole earth, in fact, if his plans of conquest did not miscarry; and it seems to me that in order to benefit by Caesar’s worshipped name and authority, he was prepared to regard Caesarion, Caesar’s only son, as the heir-apparent to this future throne.

It was agreed, also, that all the wealth and power of Egypt should be placed at his disposal in the colossal undertakings he had in mind; and in return he now proposed to extend Cleopatra’s dominions so that they should be stretched around the east end of the Mediterranean. Nearly all Phoenicia and Syria and a great part of Cilicia should be hers, together with Cyprus and a part of Crete. Tyre and Sidon were to remain outside her authority, and Judaea, Herod’s kingdom, was to be independent; but she was to have Damascus, Jericho, and the strip of country east of the Jordan, while Egypt’s ancient claim to Sinai and northern Arabia was to be recognized.

History tells us nothing of the manner in which this agreement was ratified or the marriage performed; but the event was celebrated by the striking of coins upon which their two heads were represented, she being Queen and he Autocrator and Triumvir. Moreover, Cleopatra introduced a new dating of the years of her reign: she was now beginning her fifteenth year as Queen of Egypt, but she spoke in future of this year as the first of her larger sovereignty; and thus on a coin minted six years later we find an inscription giving that date as the “21st, which is also the 6th year” of her reign.

The gift of all this territory is said to have been very displeasing to the Romans of the west, for, says Plutarch, although Antony had bestowed great kingdoms upon several private persons, and had taken away the thrones of many kings, nothing stung the Romans as did the shame of these honors paid to Cleopatra, their dissatisfaction being increased also by his public acknowledgment that her twins were his; yet he, who knew how to put a good color on the most discreditable action, now excused himself by saying that the greatness of the Roman empire lay more in giving kingdoms than in taking them away. Cleopatra, however, was not altogether satisfied with the arrangement; and she is said to have pleaded so hard to be given also the kingdom of Herod, the cities of Tyre and Sidon, and the land of Arabia, that Antony had to speak very sharply to her.

One gets the impression, in fact, that this beginning of their renewed life together was not altogether idyllic. Antony was busy with his preparations for the Parthian campaign, and this enormous undertaking must have caused him the greatest anxiety. Yet Antioch was a charming city in which to spend the winter; and, being famous for its art and learning, it provided, no doubt, a pleasant setting for that kind of elegant existence which both he and she so much enjoyed. At any rate, in spite of worries and distractions, their intimate life together was happily renewed; nor was it disturbed by the news which presently arrived from Italy, that in the autumn Octavia had given birth to a daughter, whom, like her previous child by Antony, she had named Antonia. By the beginning of the new year, 36 BC, Cleopatra found that she, too, was once more to become a mother.

By March all was in readiness for the campaign, and Antony set out from Antioch, marching north-eastwards, at the head of his legions. Cleopatra accompanied him for the first hundred and fifty miles; but at Zeugma on the Euphrates she turned back, probably owing to her condition, and began the return journey to Egypt, there to await the birth of her child and the hoped-for news of Antony’s triumphant progress. It was hard to say when he and she would meet again, for the conquest of the Orient might occupy two or three years: there was no telling what would happen, and it might even be that he would never return.

The task he had set himself was one which, if victoriously carried out, would place ins name alongside that of Alexander the Great; but if he were to fail, his death and the slaughter of his army would be a more likely consequence than a successful retreat. It was an appalling risk that he was taking; and the fact that he was prepared to take it, and to endure the inevitable hard­ships of the campaign, is an indication that at this time he was neither the chronic drunkard nor the luxury-loving libertine, nor yet the love-sick loon, which history has supposed him to have been. He was—the fact must surely be obvious—a man in perfect health, keen, ambitious, and extremely active in mind and body; and as he watched Cleopatra’s cavalcade moving away on the road back to Antioch and the south, it may be supposed that he turned to the task before him with an eager heart not so greatly weighed down by his bereavement as eluted by his vast hopes.

CHAPTER XVIII

The Great Parthian Adventure, and Antony’s Movement towards Sovereign Power. 36—33 BC