THE LIFE AND TIMES OF MARC ANTHONY

CHAPTER XX

The Battle of Actium and the Return of Antony and Cleopatra to Egypt,

31-30 BC

The Gulf of Ambracia, or Arta as it is now called, is more than, a natural harbor: it is a lake-like inlet of the sea, twenty-five miles long and ten wide, entered from the open water through a narrow mouth varying from seven hundred yards to half a mile in width. The south side of this mouth is formed by the promontory of Actium, the north side by a tongue of land of which the ancient name has been forgotten. The Gulf provided excellent winter-quarters for Antony’s transports and the main battle-fleet of two hundred ships, and by placing strong garrisons on the two sides of the entrance he was able to feel that these vessels were safe from attack, although, as a matter of fact, Octavian did consider such an enterprise, and was only deterred by bad weather.

During the winter, however, the fleet suffered serious losses by an epidemic of some kind which took a heavy toll of lives, its ravages having been the more widespread because of the under­feeding of the men, food being difficult to obtain in the country round about. Many of the galley-slaves had deserted; and although the officers had seized upon farm-laborers, herdsmen, and even unsuspecting wayfarers, and had pressed them into service at the oars, the crews of the big battleships were incomplete and all were out of training.

Meanwhile, the beginning of the new year, 31 BC, found Antony still at Patrae, which place, though on the south side of the Gulf of Corinth, was close to the narrow straits between the promontories of Rhium and Anti-Rhium, whence a three or four days’ march north-westwards would take him to the Gulf of Ambracia. It seems that he was now not sure whether Octavian would divide his forces and send a strong expedition to Egypt, or whether he would bring his main army over to southern Greece, south of Patrae, or to Epirus, north of the Gulf of Ambracia, or, again, whether he would retain his ships and men on the east-coast of Italy, in the neighborhood of Brindisi, and wait to be attacked.

Antony’s dispositions provided against all these contingencies; and towards the beginning of spring he must have watched anxiously and impatiently, endeavoring to discover his enemy’s plans. He knew, at any rate, that if the attack on Egypt were launched, Octavian would assuredly attempt to occupy points in southern Greece, Crete, and Cyrene to protect his expeditionary fleet; it was for this reason that strong forces of ships and men had been left to defend these areas. He must have hoped that Octavian would undertake this adventure, for then he, Antony, would be able to launch an attack on Italy from the Gulf of Ambracia or Epirus.

Early in March messengers suddenly arrived in Patrae with the news that an enemy fleet, under the command of Octavian’s lieutenant, Agrippa, had appeared before Methone in southern Greece; and soon the tidings came that that port had been captured, and that King Bogud of Mauretania, whose troops were garrisoned there, had been killed. Antony, though disturbed by this defeat, was probably relieved by what he supposed to be the partial disclosing of the enemy’s plans, and at once prepared to send troops to the south to recapture Methone, and he made ready to march in that direction himself with his main army if it should prove that Octavian intended to make southern Greece the scene of a decisive battle.

The enemy, however, had outwitted him; and while Antony’s attention was thus directed upon the south, news arrived from the north that Octavian had descended in full force upon Corcyra (Corfu), which had surrendered to him. He had then disembarked his army on the coast of the mainland, and was marching at full speed to the Gulf of Ambracia. The attack on southern Greece had been a feint. Antony at once crossed the Gulf of Corinth, and, giving orders to his main army to come north with all speed, hurried ahead to the point of danger; but when he arrived to the mouth of the Gulf of Ambracia, on both sides of which his garrisons were stationed, he found that Octavian had taken up his position on the northern side of the mouth, upon high ground now called Mikalitzi, and then known as “The Ladle”, just to the north of Antony’s own lines. This high ground, where afterwards stood the city of Nicopolis, commanded a view, eastwards, of the waters of the Gulf of Ambracia, and, westwards, of the open sea; and between it and the latter, Octavian had thrown up defenses so as to retain touch with his fleet.

Here Antony at once besieged him, increasing his forces on the northern tongue of land at the mouth of the Gulf, opposite Actium, and sending his cavalry round the Gulf to hem him in on the Ambracian side; but as the main army had not yet come up from Patras, and as the fleet in the Gulf was in such poor condition, a full attack on the invaders could not be developed. Octavian then sent his fleet a few miles southwards to the island of Leucadia, which, following the example of Corfu, surrendered to him; and thus he obtained possession of the open sea in this area, and more or less bottled up Antony’s ill-conditioned fleet and transports within the Gulf of Ambracia, although the Antonian land forces had possession of the two sides of the mouth of the Gulf. The position which therefore developed was curious: Octavian’s army was besieged in the narrow strip of land at the northern end of the promontory which formed the north side of the mouth of the Gulf; but Antony’s fleet was trapped inside the Gulf itself, for the two hundred battleships were in no shape to fight Octavian’s fleet which now numbered, all told, some four hundred keels, and lay for the most part anchored across the outside of the Gulf’s mouth.

Antony’s poor generalship, of course, cannot be excused. He ought to have invaded Italy in the previous autumn; or, having failed to do so, he ought to have given his closest attention during the winter to his fleet and its disposition, instead of leaving a great part of it to deteriorate at its moorings in the Gulf, and the rest to waste its time in guarding Egypt from a highly improbable attack. There can be no question, in fact, that he had frittered away his winter at Patras; and the only explanation I have to offer is that his violent disputes with his Roman officers in regard to Cleopatra, and his personal quarrels with her and consequent drinking-bouts, had played havoc with his abilities as a commander, and that he had allowed himself to underestimate his enemy and to drift along in the confused belief that everything would be all right.

The situation, however, was not desperate; and when Cleopatra arrived with the main army at Actium, and heard the news, she said with a laugh, “Dear me, we may well be frightened if Octavian has got hold of a ladle!” The invaders’ position was precarious, and the troops which Antony sent round the Gulf to attack “The Ladle” on the far side nearly succeeded in cutting off their water supply which was obtained from the Charadrus, a river flowing down from the north. Moreover, Octavian’s fleet was always open to attack by Antony’s other squadrons when they could be recalled from the Mediterranean, and he failed to interfere with the corn-ships which brought their supplies safely to Antony from the east.

But a deadlock could not be avoided, since Octavian’s defences repelled all assaults; and though the thought of a renewed period of waiting must have been very trying to Antony’s nerves, he was obliged to make the best of it. He was forced to form a great encampment on the promontory of Actium, where around him and Cleopatra the vassal kings and princes, the Consuls and Senators, the military and naval commanders, and the soldiers, camp-followers and slaves of scores of different nations, were herded together, treading on one-another’s toes, arguing with each other over the distribution of food, squabbling about precedence and privilege, and hotly debating the right thing to do. Octavian appeared to have no intention of bestirring himself save to make his defenses more and more secure; and at length when he felt that his position was absolutely impregnable, he sent back to Rome for the entire body of senators who had remained faithful to him, obliging them to come across the sea to him in their hundreds. His object, one may suppose, was to have them here under his eye, for fear lest in the distant capital they might intrigue against him, or, weary of waiting for something to happen, might attempt to restore peace by a compromise.

Thus, the months of spring and summer went by, and small engagements by sea or land, of no great importance, alone served to break the monotony. Profound discontent developed in Antony’s camp; but in his own mind there was more than discontent, there was confusion of thought and consequent misery. Cleopatra no longer gave him her confidence or her respect; yet her disdainful attitude seems only to have induced him in a greater dependence upon her, a sort of dog-like devotion almost pitiful to behold. He continued to be frequently drunk, and when sober, was overwrought and quarrelsome.

The question as to whether she should go back to Egypt or not had for the moment been shelved, because her fleet was imprisoned in the Gulf of Ambracia, and could not force its way to the open sea without a naval engagement of the first magnitude, while her return overland would be a dangerous undertaking in view of possible revolts inspired by Octavian’s ubiquitous agents in the countries through which she would have to pass, and, in any case, would give a very widespread impression that she was in flight. She herself was now willing to go, and to take her Egyptian fleet with her, for she was worn out by her domestic quarrels, and was beginning, moreover, to doubt Antony’s ability to defeat Octavian in battle, her confidence in him having been disturbed by numerous ill-omens and by the more trustworthy portent of the state of his nerves. She knew that she was unpopular in the camp, for Antony, in his outbursts of temper, had doubtless told her some home truths; and she must have realized by now that his cause, which was hers also, would really be strengthened by her departure. Moreover, in the event of disaster, she would be safer and of more use in Egypt than here where she might be taken captive. Yet, under the circumstances, she was obliged to stay on at Actium and to tolerate as best she could the nerve-racking quarrels and brief reconciliations with the distracted Antony, life with whom was at this time a tempestuous round of emotional crises. He loved her passionately; and yet, so close is love to hate, their relationship was like a skyscape of sun and thunderclouds shot through with murderous flashes,

On a certain occasion he accused her of wishing to kill him, and thereupon she resorted to a method of giving him the lie which reveals the ferocious state of mind in which they were both passing their days. One night at supper she handed him a cup containing wine of which she herself had just drunk half; and as he was raising it to his lips, happy at this gesture of reconciliation, she took a flower from her hair and dipped it into the wine. Antony was about to drink when she snatched the cup from his hand, and told him that the contents were poisoned. In fear and astonishment he asked her how this could be so, since she herself had just drunk some of the wine; and for a moment he must have supposed that she had intended to kill herself and him together. She thereupon explained that the flower which she had dipped into the cup was poisoned, and that she had chosen this method of proving to him how easy it would be to murder him did she desire to do so. “I could have killed you at any time”, she smiled, “if I could have done without you”.

The great contention which now exercised the camp was as to whether it would be better to bring Octavian to battle by taking the fleet out of the Gulf and engaging him in a naval action, or by retiring inland, as Pompey had done in his war with Caesar, so that a second Pharsalia might be fought out on a selected battle­field. Cleopatra favored a sortie from the Gulf and a fight at sea, combined with an assault by land on “The Ladle”; for her Egyptian ships-of-war would thus gain the open water, and even if the battle should go against them, she would probably be able to make good her escape, whereas a defeat on an inland battlefield would mean her speedy capture. The fight she had in mind, in fact, was one which was about to be fought so that her Egyptian ships might break out of their prison and take her home, away from an intolerable situation. She had no great hopes of victory, but if Antony should win she would still leave him for a while, her general unpopularity being now apparent to her, and her desire being intense to punish him by showing him her independence and her real need of rest away from him.

Antony and his generals, however, were set upon a land-battle, and with this object in view he sent Dellius and King Amyntas of Galatia into Thrace to raise more cavalry, for he had received word from Dicomes, King of the Getae (or Daci), whose realms extended about the Danube, north of Thrace, offering to help him—a message which had greatly heartened him. The Consul Domitius Ahenobarbus, whose personal dislike of Cleopatra led him always to oppose her advice, was in full agreement with Antony in regard to the desirability of an inland battle, in spite of the fact that he would be rid of her more surely by means of a naval engagement; and the fact that he and Antony were now making their plans together for a retreat into the interior, with the object of drawing Octavian after them, led to renewed quarrels between the Queen and her husband.

Antony was completely distracted by the furious scenes which ensued around the private council-table—the impassioned demands of Cleopatra that the blockade should be broken and her Egyptian fleet released to sail away with her to her own country, and the equally urgent insistence of Ahenobarbus and other generals that the army should move inland, and, if necessary, let the ships in the Gulf be destroyed. It would not be any kind of disparagement to Antony, these generals contended, to yield the sea to Octavian who, in the wars with Sextus Pompeius, had had such long practice in naval warfare; but, on the contrary, it would be simply ridiculous for Antony, who was by land the most experienced commander living, to make no use of his well disciplined and numerous legions, but to scatter and waste his forces by parceling them out in the battleships.

There must have been in the end some violent rupture and patched up peace between Antony and Cleopatra in this regard; for suddenly Antony agreed to postpone the plans for a land-battle until after he had tried his luck at sea. What happened we do not know: Plutarch states laconically that “Cleopatra prevailed”, and we are left to picture Antony, urged by his wife’s tears and appeals, at last giving way to her, though he knew in his heart that he was bringing about their separation in doing so. He was too deeply in love with her, too heartbroken by their estrangement, too weary of their quarrels, to stand up to her any longer: he would have to let her go. At the same time, however, he seems to have insisted that Cleopatra should take with her only a few of her ships, and that most of her powerful men-of-war should be used by him in the naval battle.

It was in the month of August that he came to this decision and communicated it to Ahenobarbus, explaining to him, no doubt, that he did not feel it to be an honorable course after all the help in money and arms which Cleopatra had contributed, to leave her Egyptian fleet shut up in the Gulf, where it faced the risk of destruction by Octavian’s ships as soon as the supporting army had been withdrawn into the interior. Ahenobarbus was suffering from a slight fever at the time, and, upon hearing that his advice had been overruled, he told Antony that he would go for a short sea-journey in the Gulf to recover his health and his equanimity. He boarded a small sailing-ship that same day, and never returned. He went straight across the water to the mouth of the river Charadrus, presented himself before the enemy’s lines, and so was conducted to Octavian with whom he made his peace.

When it became known in Antonyms camp that the Consul had deserted there must have been something like a panic. It was a crushing blow, and it struck fear into every heart, for it was felt that if a man of the importance of Ahenobarbus had elected to go over to the enemy, Octavian’s chances must have appeared to him, with his inside knowledge, to be much better than those of Antony. Rumor said, too, that the Consul had been driven to this step by Cleopatra’s insolence; and the general dislike of the Queen was thereby increased. Antony was staggered by the desertion, but he behaved with great magnanimity towards the traitor, and sent after him a ship containing all his baggage and effects and all his suite and slaves. The example of Ahenobarbus was speedily followed by other important personages. Philadelphus, king of Paphlagonia, and King Deiotarus of Galatia, both deserted, and went over to Octavian; and shortly afterwards King Iamblicus of Emesa and a senator named Quintus Postumius were caught in the act of making their escape to the enemy. To these latter Antony, in his anxiety, showed no mercy: both were put to death by torture.

The desertion of Deiotarus caused him to fear that the other royal Galatian, King Amyttas, might prove also to be untrustworthy, more especially since he now heard that Dellius, who was accompanying Amyntas on the above-mentioned mission to Thrace to raise reinforcements, was nursing a grievance against Cleopatra, as already recorded; and Antony was so distracted that he actually set out, himself, to overtake the mission, but presently abandoned the pursuit and sent messengers after them, instead, to recall them. When he arrived back in Actium he was greeted with the news that a squadron of his ships, sailing to his aid from the Mediterranean, had been routed by the enemy with great loss; and, enraged by this reverse, he himself led out a strong force of cavalry to attack Octavian’s cavalry which were reported to be daily reconnoitering outside their defenses. But in the engagement which ensued he was defeated, and shortly afterwards he was almost captured near his own lines, being ambushed by Octavian’s men and having to take to his heels.

These reverses, the increasing audacity of the enemy, and the panicky condition in which he and his officers found themselves, induced him hurriedly to decide upon an immediate naval battle, and he gave orders to the captains of his ships to prepare to pass out of the Gulf on August 29th, a few days hence. His plans seem to me to have been these: he would send a small body of infantry round the Gulf to attack Octavian’s position on land, and at the same time some twenty thousand Roman legionaries, and two thousand archers, carried upon his best ships-of-war, would pass out of the Gulf and attack the enemy’s fleet at sea. If the sea battle should go in Antony’s favor all his vast land-forces, not yet engaged, would join in the assault upon “The Ladle” with the exception of the cavalry, which would be concentrated to the north to cut off the enemy’s retreat into Epirus; and Antony himself would immediately lead his victorious fleet across the Adriatic before the opposing ships could recover and reassemble, and, disembarking a small army on the Italian coast, he would march on Rome, while Cleopatra would sail for Egypt with a small squadron of her own ships, there to wait until he could send for her and Caesarion. If, on the contrary, the naval fight should go against him, Cleopatra would seize her opportunity to sail away, touching at some port of southern Greece to obtain news of the subsequent movements; while Antony would retire to the Gulf and, burning those of his ships which were unsunk, would lead his yet unused main army inland, in the expectation that Octavian would follow and that a land-battle would be fought with him on ground chosen by Antony.

In order to put these arrangements into effect certain measures were taken, the references to which have much puzzled historians; but it seems to me that the explanation in each case is clear, if the above plan of action be correct. Firstly, in the event of victory at sea and a consequent invasion of Italy, the Roman and Egyptian ships which were to take part in this enterprise would need to have their large sails aboard, as also would those of the Egyptian squadron which were to accompany Cleopatra to Egypt; and therefore orders were given to this effect, much to the surprise of the ship’s captains who were accustomed to leave the sails behind when clearing for action. Secondly, since Cleopatra proposed to sail for Egypt whatever might be the outcome of the fight, her personal belongings were carried onto the vessels detailed to go with her—a fact which again caused much surprise. Thirdly, the smaller ships and those which were not to be used in the engagement were now burnt or scuttled, this drastic measure being taken so that, in the event of a defeat at sea and the retirement of the army inland, they should not fall into Octavian’s hands, and also that the galley-slaves thus released might fill the vacancies at the oars of the larger men-of-war. Fourthly—and this gives the chief clue to Antony’s plan, the bulk of the troops stationed on the northern side of the mouth of the Gulf were withdrawn to Actium on the southern side, the obvious explanation being that Antony wished to concentrate his main army at a point from which, in the event of defeat at sea, he could march it inland, and he saw that any troops left on the opposite side of the mouth would have to surrender if Octavian should obtain the mastery on the water, whereas if Antony were successful In the naval battle his ships could quickly transport the army across the narrow straits to attack Octavian’s position. Finally a large force of cavalry was sent round the Gulf to the north of “The Ladle”, to cut off Octavian’s retreat if Antony were successful, cavalry rather than infantry being chosen partly because, in the event of defeat at sea, they could the more rapidly rejoin the main army retiring inland.

These arrangements reveal Antony’s misgivings as to the result of the engagement at sea, and indicate that he was taking all the necessary steps to secure a successful march into the interior, there to renew the war on land if the naval project should fail. The battle at sea had really been forced upon him by tempestuous Cleopatra’s decision to go back to Egypt, and by her determination to prevent her Egyptian fleet from being sacrificed by the retirement inland; but Antony, torn this way and that, at last had cleverly adjusted his plans to hers by preparing at the same time for an invasion of Italy, or, alternatively, for a march into the interior to a chosen battlefield, after the Queen had gone. He was going to use no more than a fifth part of his army in the sea-fight, and the remainder was ample to assure him the probability of victory on land if the naval battle should fail.

Those of his Roman troops who were to fight at sea much disliked the prospect, and Plutarch relates that he was accosted by one of the officers, who pleaded with him to abandon the project. “What have our wounds and our swords done to displease you?” this man asked him, “that you should give your confidence to rotten timbers? Let Egyptians and Phoenicians fight at sea but give us the land, where we know how to win or to die where we stand”. To this, it is said, Antony made no answer, but by his looks and gestures gave the officer to understand that there was no cause for dismay.

On the eve of the battle Antony addressed his men, pointing out to them that he himself was at the height of his powers and was in no way the victim either of years or of dissolute habits, as some of them, perhaps, had begun to think, but that Octavian on the contrary, was a physical weakling who had never been the victor in an important battle in his life. Yet this Octavian, he declared, desired to make himself King of the Roman world, whereas he, Antony, had sworn to restore the Republic; and he bade them fight to the death for their just cause and for freedom. A strong wind, however, arose in the night, and next day the sea was so rough that the battle had to be postponed. Everything was in readiness; everybody was keyed up; but for four days the gale blew, and nothing could be done. The cavalry had already gone round to the north of Octavian’s position, and with them Antony had sent Dellius and King Amyntas, who had just arrived back at Actium, after being recalled from their mission to Thrace, as already mentioned. Antony’s trust in them had been restored by an interview with them on their return; and as Amyntas had at his command two thousand of his own Galatian cavalry, it was felt that he and his men could best be put to use in this way. But the howling wind and the long delay played havoc with the king’s nerves, already frayed by his sudden recall; and on the second or third day of the storm he went over to Octavian with all his men, whereupon Dellius did the same.

The news of these latest desertions reached Antony, it would seem, on the first day of September, and struck him a blow which completely upset his equilibrium. He did not dare to delay the battle another day, and gave immediate orders that the fight was to take place on the morrow. Then, in a frenzy of dismay, he appears to have turned upon Cleopatra, and to have vented his wrath upon her; for subsequent events indicate clearly, I think, that a very serious quarrel took place between them a few hours before the battle. It may be that he accused her of having estranged his friends from him by what is spoken of as her “insolent usage of them”; and since Dellius is quoted by Plutarch as having declared that the Queen intended to murder him, we may suppose that this reason for his desertion had now come to Antony’s knowledge, and that he charged Cleopatra with it.

The Queen, on her part, may well have retorted that he himself was alone to blame for the loss of confidence in him; and it seems likely that she indignantly accused him of being about to place her Egyptian battleships—except those which were to accompany her to Egypt—in such a position that they would have to endure the brunt of the fighting, for such was certainly his intention, the Egyptian vessels being the most powerful in his fleet. She may have reminded him, too, that her object in going to Egypt was not merely to strengthen his cause by ridding it of the only person—herself—against whom Octavian had been able to arouse popular resentment, but also to seek rest from these continuous domestic disputes which had made their relationship a misery to her.

Be this as it may, we may imagine that the quarrel was continued far into the night, and that both husband and wife were exhausted by it when at last they separated in ungovernable anger and sought the needed sleep which would not come to them. On the morrow Antony was to risk his life in battle, and, if he should survive, victorious or defeated, he was to see the last of Cleopatra for many a month, perhaps forever. She was departing for her own country, and he was going either to death or to a lonely victory; and here they were, loving one another in the secret depths of their hearts, dependent upon one another, and yet, in spite of this bitter love, wholly estranged, silenced by mutual abuse into dumb separation, on this night of nights when they should have been so tenderly bidding each other farewell.

On the following morning there was no reconciliation; and Antony, exhausted by want of sleep, and probably befuddled as a consequence of having sought consolation from the wine-cup, went out to do battle with Octavian for the mastery of the world, not caring whether he should win or lose this prize which had once seemed to him to represent the summit of his ambition. Nothing mattered to him except that his wife should not leave him with this weight of anger crushing deeper the already buried sweetness of their love; and he was determined that, if the close of the day should find him still alive, he would see her again before her departure and make his peace with her. We are so apt to overlook the personal element in high affairs of worldwide importance; but the Battle of Actium which was fought on this day, September 2nd, 31 BC, cannot be understood unless we presuppose that condition of mind in Antony which I have attempted to indicate.

The sea was now calm; and Octavian, knowing from what Dellius had told him that the battle would not be delayed after the abating of the storm, prepared to draw up his fleet in three squadrons and to place them less than a mile away from the mouth of the Gulf. The left wing was commanded by Agrippa, the right by Octavian, and the middle by a certain Lucius Arruntius. Antony had also divided his fleet into three commands: the left, opposing Qctavian, was in charge of Sossius, the right, opposing Agrippa, was under Antony’s personal direction, and the middle was commanded by an officer named Marcus Insteius.

While Antony, during the early morning, went with aching head from ship to ship encouraging his men, Octavian addressed his troops which were about to embark; and though the words put into his mouth by Dion Cassius are not to be regarded as those actually spoken, some sentences may be based upon genuine reports of the speech, and deserve to be quoted. “It is unworthy of our fathers” he is supposed to have said, “that we who are Romans and lords of the greatest and best part of the world should be despised and trodden under foot by an Egyptian woman: it is unworthy of ourselves, who have subjugated Gauls and other peoples, have crossed the Rhine, and have gone over into Britain. How could we fail to grieve bitterly if these conquered nations should hear that we had succumbed to an accursed woman, and were humbly bearing the insults of a crowd of Alexandrians and Egyptians?”

“Who can help lamenting to see Roman soldiers acting as the bodyguard of this queen? Who can help weeping when he both hears and sees that Antony himself has abandoned all his ancestors’ habits of life, has emulated foreign and barbaric customs, and worships that woman as though she were the goddess Isis or Selene, calling her children ‘Sun’ and ‘Moon’ and himself taking the title of Osiris or Dionysus, and bestowing kingdoms as though he were master of the whole earth? Fellow-soldiers, at first I was so devoted to him that I gave him a share of my leadership, married my sister to him, and granted him legions. Even after this I felt so affectionately disposed towards him that I was unwilling to wage war on him because of his insulting my sister, or because he neglected the children she had borne him, or because he preferred the Egyptian woman to her and bestowed upon her children your possessions. I deemed Cleopatra by the very fact of her foreign birth to be fundamentally hostile to his career, but I believed that he, as a Roman, could be corrected. Later I entertained the hope that, if not voluntarily, at least reluctantly, he might change his mind as the result of the declaration of war against her and consequently I did not declare war upon him”

“He, however, has treated my efforts with haughtiness and disdain, and will neither be released though we would fain release him, nor be pitied though we try to pity him. He is either a fool or mad; and this which I have heard I do believe—that he has been bewitched by that accursed female, and is in slavery to her. What else, then, can be our duty but to fight him together with Cleopatra? Henceforth let no one call him a Roman, but rather an Egyptian, nor Antony but rather Serapio”.

In such scathing words as these the cunning Octavian aroused the contempt of his men for the great Antony who, even as he spoke, was preparing for battle with no thought in his bursting head save that of his quarrel with the woman he loved to distraction. Antony’s plan of action, however, had been funy discussed, and now was automatically carried out, despite his abstraction. Before noon his ships passed through the narrows, and drew up in close formation in the open water outside the mouth of the Gulf, where Octavian, from no great distance, gazed at them in admiration, so it is said, the Antonian vessels being for the most part much larger and more powerful, though less numerous, than his own.

For some time no movement was made on either side, but at last Antony advanced, whereupon Octavian retired a little so as to entice him out to sea, and then maneuvered with the object of surrounding Antony’s heavy and cumbersome men-o’-war with his own fleeter and more manageable vessels. Soon the fight had developed along these lines, and Antony’s great battleships were being attacked as though they were besieged fortresses. For two hours or so the struggle continued, without advantage to either party; and soon after two o clock, when a strong wind from the north had sprung up and had made the sea rough, the difficulties of maneuvering and getting to close quarters were so great that the casualties were few, and there was probably a good deal more shouting and swearing than actual exchange of blows.

Cleopatra, meanwhile, was on her flagship, the Antonias, riding at anchor near the shore, protected by those Egyptian vessels which were to go with her to Egypt. It had been arranged, as has already been explained, that in the event of obvious defeat, she was to sail away and make good her escape down the wind, which, in these parts, could he relied upon to blow from the north during each afternoon, and would thus speed her on her journey to the south. This wind, which was now whistling through her rigging, had pushed the contending fleets some distance southwards; and Antony, who was wearily directing the fight from behind his right, or north, wing was now at no great distance from her. If he were victorious, it was understood that he would board her ship at the close of the battle, and bid her farewell; but this, in her great anger, she did not wish him to do: she wanted to hurt him by leaving him without a word, and she began now to ask herself whether it would not be more dignified in her, and more painful to him, if she were to sail away at once,

The north wind usually sank at sunset, and if she were to delay her departure, she would perhaps be unable to sail until the next day. In the event of victory this would mean another distressing interview with Antony; in the event of defeat, it might mean that she would fail to escape. Moreover, she was finding it hard, as Dion Cassius says, to endure the long uncertainty, and was harassed by womanly fears and terrible anxiety in regard to the outcome of the long-continued and doubtful struggle; and since Antony, in the madness of their violent quarrel on the previous night, had doubtless told her that he never wished to speak to her again, she felt that it would but serve him right if she were to slip away now while he was too busy to notice her departure, and thus have her revenge.

These reckless thoughts led her at length to a reckless decision, and suddenly she gave orders to her little squadron to hoist sail and run with the wind southwards. Both Plutarch and Dion Cassius state emphatically that the battle was still undecided when she sailed away; but it seems that she intended to touch at some port of southern Greece to obtain news of its result before crossing the Mediterranean, and she evidently preferred to endure the longer period of uncertainty than allow him the consolation of her forgiveness. History has regarded her as a cruel woman; but in this impulsive action the cruelty was of that feminine kind which is born of love—it was a case of cutting off her nose to spite her face.

Antony, at the height of the battle, saw her making off, and the insanity of his warring emotions overwhelmed his tired brain. She was going out of his life without a word of reconciliation; mortally wounded by his insults she was leaving him forever. He was a man who, as Plutarch said of him in another connection, was given to sudden and extreme repentance, and was ready to ask pardon of those he had injured; and he could not now bear the thought of parting from his wife in this manner, unforgiven and unforgiving. His passionate desire to be reconciled to her in a last loving farewell was irresistible; and at the same time his anger and his dismay at her ability to leave him at a time when he was facing death, demanded a final explosion of fury and an adequate vent to his anguish.

Acting upon an impulse no less insensate than hers, he summoned the swiftest ship in his fleet—a galley of five banks of oars—and boarding it, told the captain to overtake the Antonias. The battle could be continued in his absence: indeed his departure would probably be unnoticed in the confusion of the fight, and it is to be supposed that he intended to be back at his post before long. The stubbornness of the conflict, and the roughness of the sea, already indicated that the day would end in a victory for neither side, and on the morrow the fight could be renewed. His one thought was that Cleopatra must not leave him until reconciliation had been effected. “What was once said as a jest” writes Plutarch, “that the soul of a lover lives in the body of the beloved”, he proved to be a serious truth; for, as if he had been born part of her and must move with her wherever she went, he abandoned all those who were fighting and giving their lives for him, and went after her. Both Plutarch and Dion Cassius, our two main authorities for these events, suppose that, despairing of victory, he intended flight; but since they are agreed that the battle was as yet wholly undecided, it seems far more probable that his intentions curried him no farther than the present hour. He hardly knew what he was doing or going to do. He knew only that he must see his wife.

When he had overtaken the Antonias, Cleopatra gave a reluctant order that he was to be taken aboard, but she would not see him nor speak to him; and he, refusing to be the first to make the necessary overtures, went without a word to the prow of the ship, and sitting down, held his head in his hands like one who was dazed. Very well then, if she would not be reconciled, he would not go back to the battle; their cause could suffer complete disaster for all he cared. He did not wish to live. He was mentally and physically tired out.

He was still sitting there, dumb and heartbroken, when night fell. Now Octavian had seen him go in pursuit of Cleopatra, and, supposing that he would presently come back, had at once dispatched two or three fast Liburnian galleys to attempt his capture while he was thus alone; and with them went a certain vessel which had been provided and fitted out by a man named Eurycles, a Spartan, who had placed himself and his ship at Octavian’s service in order to be revenged upon Antony for having condemned his father, Lachares, to death for robbery. In the darkness these vessels came up with the Antonias and the escorting ships which, laden with Cleopatra’s treasure and baggage, were sailing by her side; and at this Antony rose to his feet, and called out: “Who is this that wants Antony?” Across the water came the reply: “I am Eurycles, son of Lachares, armed with the warrant of Caesar Octavian’s fortune to revenge my father’s death”

Antony gave the order to turn about and face the danger, and at this the Liburnian ships drew off in fear, only the vessel of Eurycles keeping to its course. For a moment this man was seen standing at the prow, holding aloft a spear which he was about to hurl at Antony, who faced him; but suddenly the ship collided with one of the Egyptian vessels, and both united away into the darkness, locked together. The Antonias then continued on her way, and Antony resumed his seat in the prow.

All through the summer night he sat there, waiting doggedly for Cleopatra to make some sign, but this she refused to do, and, in bitter retaliation, he refused to consider any means of returning to Actium to resume the direction of the war which was their one hope of life. They were sailing close to the coast, and at any time he could have gone ashore: he had with him two of his faithful servants, and with their help he could have obtained horses and ridden back to Actium. But he refused to take any action whatsoever. It was suicide, and he knew it; but the hopes and life of Cleopatra were as surely being destroyed by their mutual stubbornness as his own. Every mile that the Antonias carried him made the disaster more inevitable; and already their dreams of dominion had vanished, and their chances, even, of life were fading. The specter of the cold and calculating Octavian, the man who had always beaten him, towered before his drooping eyes; but now no more did his heart sink at the menacing vision. He cared no longer what should become of him: he wanted to disappear from the face of the earth.

The sun rose and found him haggard and unkempt. His two servants brought him food, but if he ate at all he did not know what he ate. There was no message from Cleopatra’s cabin, and he refused to move from the prow to go to her uninvited. The ship was now crossing the open sea at the mouth of the Gulf of Corinth, and his immediate return to Actium was out of the question. If the naval battle had ended in a victory for his ships, he could no longer hope to be present at the final assault upon “The Ladle”; if the victory had been Octavian’s he could not be present to lead his army inland. He did not care.

The day passed, and night returned. Morning came, and now the Antonias were sailing down the coast of southern Greece; but still Cleopatra refused to be reconciled. Her ladies, Iras and Charmion, came to see him, yet could effect no accommodation; but whether, as Plutarch asks, it was because of his continued anger or because he did not wish to upbraid her, he would not go to her, and she would not ask him to come. The third night ensued, and during the next day they sailed across the Gulf of Messeniacus (Kalamata), and that evening reached Cape Taenarium, the southernmost point of Grecce. Here a halt had to be made in order to obtain supplies and fresh water; and at last Iras and Charmion persuaded the Queen to send for her husband.

We know nothing of the meeting beyond the statement of Plutarch that they were persuaded first to speak to one another, and afterwards to cat and sleep together. Antony’s condition, however, can hardly have failed to disinter their love from its grave and to prove it yet alive; and a night of exhausted slumber no doubt improved the spirits of both of them. During the day two or three ships came in bringing refugees from Actium and news of the results of the battle. Octavian had been victorious, they said; and at four o clock in the afternoon, about two hours after Antony had left, the fleet had given up the fight and had surrendered, although not more than five thousand men had lost their lives, and few ships had been sunk. Including the transports and other shipping in the Gulf, about three hundred vessels had passed into Octavian’s hands, of which the best part of two hundred were powerful men-o’-war by no means seriously damaged. Antony’s informants told him that only a few of the officers knew that he had deserted them and many of those to whom these had given the news had refused to believe it, supposing, rather, that he had been killed or had gone away on important business and would presently return. The army, it seemed, was standing firm, and was preparing to march inland.

At this Antony dispatched messengers to his generals, telling them to lead the troops eastwards through Macedonia and Thrace into Asia Minor; but he had no hope that these orders would be carried out. Long before they could reach the army, his desertion would have been apparent to all, and there would have been a general capitulation. It was too late for him to go back himself: he would almost certainly be captured and put to death. Nor had he any desire to continue the war or to sacrifice any more lives in the cause of a leader so worthless as himself. The queens mind, it is true, was already full of plans for defending herself in Egypt, whither, she supposed, Octavian would presently come to seek her out; but he himself could not think so far ahead as this. He wanted, for very shame, to die; and no one who has studied his face in the Vatican bust, and has observed the sensitiveness of his mouth, will fail to appreciate the agony of his humiliation.

Amongst the refugees there were several senators and officers whose plight was pitiful, and to these he offered a large sum of money and numerous plates and dishes of gold which Cleopatra had told him he might use for this purpose; but they refused his kindness with tears in their eyes, and he, on his part, comforted them with all the goodness and consideration imaginable, begging them to leave him, and writing letters on their behalf to his steward at Corinth that he would provide for their safety and keep them concealed till such time as they could make their peace with Octavian. There were two men, however, who elected to go with him across the sea: one was a Greek professor of oratory, named Aristocrates, and the other was that Roman officer, Lucilius, who, after the battle of Philippi, had pretended to be Brutus to save his defeated general’s life, as already recorded, and who had been forgiven for his deception and spared by Antony.

Next morning the Antonias and her escorting ships set out to cross the Mediterranean; and the party arrived some days later at Paraetonium (El Baratun), a little port on the western frontier of Egypt, about two to three days sail west of Alexandria. Here water and provisions were to be taken aboard, after which the journey to the capital was to be resumed; but now Antony came to a surprising decision: he made up his mind to go ashore there, and to remain in seclusion while his wife went on to Alexandria. It is possible that some hope of renewing the war had revived in him, and that he wished to get into touch with his forces in Cyrene, Paraetonium being on the desert highroad between that place and Alexandria; but it seems to me to be more probable that he had no other wish than to hide here, and perhaps to put an end to himself.

During the voyage his mind, I think, had undergone a great revolution. He knew now that his love for Cleopatra, and all the tempestuous emotions which it had involved, had been his ruin; and he wanted to put her out of his thoughts, and to compose himself for death or for the only kind of life which still seemed possible, namely, that of an obscure personage living in complete retirement from the turmoil of the world. As often happens in the case of one who has passed through a great emotional crisis, the thought of peace and rest presented itself as a heavenly vision towards which his broken heart yearned with intense longing: had he lived in the Middle Ages he would, I dare say, have sought sanctuary from his cares in a monastery. His passionate devotion to the Queen, it seems to me, had shattered itself in the mental convulsions of those first three days during which he sat in solitude at the prow of the Antonias; and when at Taenarium he had returned to Cleopatra’s arms he had become aware that their love, though still alive, was maimed out of all recognition. No longer did he feel that life was unthinkable without her: he wanted now to be alone. Thus, at least, I interpret the condition of his mind.

Cleopatra’s attitude is not difficult to understand. Antony, as ruler of the eastern empire, and potential sovereign of the world, had been her one hope, her one protection against Octavian who was bent upon her destruction and the removal of her son, Caesarion, from his path. But Antony—whether the fault were hers or his—had made her life with him intolerable during those last months at Actium, and she had determined to leave him: she had not dreamed, however, that when she made her hurried exit from the scene of his struggle against their common enemy, he would abandon all and follow her. By so doing he had consigned her and himself to their almost inevitable doom. Within a few brief hours he had wrecked their mutual hopes, and had converted a still radiant outlook into the darkness of impending death. Yet she was not prepared to accept her destiny in the limp condition of collapse in which he had accepted it: she was going to make a last bid for life and freedom if only by flight, and in her schemes he had no place. He was now an encumbrance; he was like a corpse attached to her by chains which she could not break. Her love for him was not dead, but he himself was dead, and she could but mourn for him as for one who was about to be buried. As she sailed away from Paraetonium she did not expect to see him again, and she must have waved him her sorrowful farewell in this belief; while he, standing on the water-front of this desolate little settlement, could hardly have failed to impart a sense of finality into the drama of their leave-taking.

Aristocrates and the faithful Lucilius remained with him and for several weeks they passed their days in wandering about the desert behind the sun-baked cluster of mud-brick houses which, with the small frontier-fort, constituted the township, or in walking along the interminable seashore. It may be supposed that a ship or two put in at the port to obtain water on the journey from Greece to Egypt; and Antony may thus have received news of what had happened to his army. “At first”, says Plutarch, “nobody could believe a thing so incredible as that a general, who had a great army of infantry and cavalry upon land, could have abandoned everything and fled away—he, above all, who had so often experienced both good and ill fortune, and had in a thousand fights and battles been inured to such changes. At last, however, when a week had passed, and their commanding officers had all surrendered or fled, they made their submission to the bewildered victor, who could no more understand than they what had happened”.

Then came news from Cyrene that the Antonian forces in that province had renounced their allegiance and had declared for Octavian; and at this Antony told his two friends that he saw no further reason to prolong his life, and that he was going to kill himself. They persuaded him, however, to wait yet awhile, and to die, if die he must, in Alexandria, where at least he might be buried with honor, beside the tomb of his hero, Alexander the Great. Thus, when the next ship came into port on its way to the Egyptian capital, Antony was persuaded to board it; and at about the end of October he presented himself once more at Cleopatra’s palace.

He found the Queen busily engaged in preparations for the evacuation of Alexandria, and for the removal of the seat of her government to some far-distant point on the Red Sea such as the port of Berenice (Saket el-Kubli), near the headland now known as Ras Benas, her design being, in the last extreme, to sail for India, with which country the Egyptian merchants for the past century or two had been in trade. She was already attempting to transfer some of her ships-of-war from the Mediterranean to the Red Sea by way of the disused channels which occupied, more or less, the site of the present Suez Canal; and, where these were blocked up with sand, the vessels were being dragged across the desert.

It may be that she felt some encouragement at first in the return of Antony, for her subjects had not yet accustomed themselves to the thought that he was bereft of all power, and his was still a great and inspiring name to them. But if this be so, Antony soon disillusioned her and them; for, refusing to resume his conjugal life and asserting that he was done with affairs of state, he betook himself to a little house which had once been used, it is to be supposed, by some port-official, and which stood at the end of a breakwater in the harbor. Here he said that he was going to live the life of a hermit, and that he would never again appear at court. He hated all men, he declared, and, like Timon of Athens, the famous misanthrope, he would pass his days in solitude, cursing all mankind. He called the house the Timoneum; and for the next few months he lived there alone, food being brought to him, presumably, from the palace. People passing in boats could see him sitting there in the sun, staring out across the harbor, or, perhaps, fishing, or, again, reading a book; and at nights the light in his window would sometimes indicate that he was not asleep.

I have said repeatedly in this biography that there was something of the actor in his character; and had he not been at this time a man practically under sentence of death, one would be inclined to smile at his impersonation of sour old Timon, deeming it a theatrical pose. But he had fallen headlong from too great a height, his wounds were too real, his situation was too hopeless, for such a criticism of his behavior to be made with entire justice. This desire for solitude may well have been his nature’s necessary reaction to the shock of his fall; and his hatred of his fellow-men was, very likely, an unconscious defence put up by his harassed mind to protect him against the battery of his shame. At any rate it is to be said in his favor that he maintained the character of a hermit for many weeks—that is to say during the remainder of the year 31 BC, and well on into 30 BC; and during all this time he must have been fighting down the still smoldering fires of his love for Cleopatra, enduring the anguish of his memories, conquering his starved emotions, and struggling to overcome his jealousy and his chagrin when, across the water, there came to his ears the sounds of music in the palace, or when, at night, he saw the lights in the windows and knew that she was entertaining her friends.

One day in the spring, however, news was brought to him that the crisis was approaching. Octavian, who had gone back to Rome for a brief visit after his victory, had, in February, crossed into Asia Minor, and was now marching with a great army towards Syria, which province had declared for him, as had King Herod of Judea. On the west of Egypt, one of Octavian’s generals was preparing another large army in Cyrene for the attack upon Alexandria. Most of the vassal kings who had been with Antony at Actium had been killed or dethroned; and many of his friends had been put to death, while others had given their allegiance to the conqueror. Of all the countries in the Roman world Egypt alone remained hostile to Octavian; and from north, east, and west, the enemy was closing in on doomed Alexandria. Close on the heels of these tidings came the news that the ships which had been transferred by Cleopatra with such labor to the Red Sea, had been attacked and burnt by Bedouin Arabs, apparently incited by Octavian’s agents.

At this a sudden revulsion of feeling overwhelmed Antony’s misanthropy. Plutarch says that he received these evil tidings with a kind of quiet exultation, as though he were glad that the end was nigh. He was sick to death of melancholy and despair: he would make the most of these last months, and round his life off with music, feasting, love and laughter. He sent a message to Cleopatra, asking her if she were prepared to receive him back as her husband; and to this the lonely and anxious Queen seems to have replied in a nervous affirmative. And thus in the spring of 30 BC, Antony turned his back upon his hermitage, and, abandoning his efforts to overcome that turmoil of his emotions which alone was left of his love, resumed his place at Cleopatra’s side.

CHAPTER XXI

Octavian’s Invasion of Egypt and Death of Antony.

30 BC