THE DIVINE HISTORY OF JESUS CHRIST

THE LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA, QUEEN OF EGYPT

PART II.

CLEOPATRA AND ANTONY

CHAPTER XVII.

THE BATTLE OF ACTIUM AND THE FLIGHT TO EGYPT.

The story of the battle of Actium has troubled historians of all periods, and no one has been able to offer a satisfactory explanation of the startling incidents which occurred in it or of the events which led up to them. I am not able to accept the ingenious theory set forward by Ferrero, nor is it easy to agree wholly with the explanations given by classical authors. In the following chapter I relate the events as I think they occurred, but of course my interpretation is open to question. The reader, however, may refer to the early authors to check my statements; and there he will find, as no doubt he has already observed in other parts of this volume, that while the incidents and facts all have the authority of these early writers, the theories which explain them, representing my own opinion, are frankly open to discussion.

For the time being Octavian did not care to be at too close quarters to Antony, and he therefore fortified himself in a position a few miles back from the actual entrance to the Gulf of Ambracia. Antony at once shipped a part of his army across from Actium to the north side of the great harbour’s mouth, and thus placed himself in command of the passage into the inland water. 

Octavian soon threw up impregnable earthworks around his camp, and built a wall down to the shore of the Ionian Sea, so that the enemy could not interfere with the landing of his supplies, all of which had to come from across the water. He stationed his ships in such a position that they could command the entrance to the Gulf of Ambracia; and, these vessels proving to be extremely well manned and handled, Antony soon found that his own fleet was actually bottled up in the Gulf, and could not pass into the open sea without fighting every inch of the passage out through the narrow fairway. Octavian was thus in command of the Ionian Sea, and was free to receive provisions or munitions of war day by day from Italy. He could not, however, leave his fortified camp, for Antony commanded all the country around him. Thus, while Octavian blockaded Antony’s fleet in the Gulf, Antony besieged Octavian’s army in their camp ; and while Octavian commanded the open sea and obtained his supplies freely from Italy, Antony commanded the land and received his provisions without interruption from Greece. A deadlock therefore ensued, and neither side was able to make a hostile move. It seems clear to me that a decisive battle could only be brought on by one of two manoeuvres: either Antony must retire from Actium and induce Octavian to come after him into Greece, or else his fleet must fight its way out of the Gulf and cut off Octavian’s supplies, thus starving him into surrender. Many of Antony’s generals were of opinion that the former movement should be undertaken, and they pressed him to retire and thus draw Octavian from his stronghold. Cleopatra, however, appears to have been in favour of breaking the blockade and regaining possession of the sea. She may have considered Antony’s army to be composed of too many nationalities to make success on land absolutely assured, and any retreat at this moment might easily be misinterpreted and might lead to desertions. On the other hand, she had confidence in her Egyptian fleet and in Antony’s own ships, if, by cutting down their number, their crews could be brought up to the full complement; and she believed that with, say, 300 vessels Octavian’s blockade could be forced, and his own position subjected to the same treatment. I gather that this plan, however, was hotly opposed by Domitius Ahenobarbus and others; and, since a loss of time was not likely to alter the situation to their disadvantage, no movement was yet made.

Some time in June Antony sent a squadron of cavalry round the shores of the Gulf to try to cut off Octavian’s water-supply, but the move was not attended with much success and was abandoned. Shortly after this the deserter Titius defeated a small body of Antony’s cavalry, and Agrippa captured a few of his ships which had . been cruising from stations outside the Gulf; whereupon Octovian sent despatches to Rome announcing these successes as important victories, and stating that he had trapped Antony’s fleet within the Gulf. He also sent agents into Greece to try to shake the confidence of the inhabitants in his enemy, and these men appear to have been partially successful in their endeavours.

These small victories of Octavian seem to have unnerved Antony, and to have had a dispiriting effect upon the army. Cleopatra, too, must have been particularly depressed by them, for they seemed to be a confirmation of the several ominous and inauspicious occurrences which had recently taken place. An Egyptian soothsayer had once told Antony that his genius would go down before that of Octavian; and Cleopatra, having watched her husband’s rapid deterioration in the last two years, now feared that the man’s words were indeed true. News had lately come from Athens that a violent hurricane had torn down the statue of Bacchus, the god whom Antony impersonated, from a group representing the Battle of the Giants; and two colossal statues of Fumenes and Attalus, each of which was inscribed with Antony’s name, had also been knocked over during the same cyclone. This news recalled the fact that a few months previously at Patrae the temple of Hercules, the ancestor of Antony, had been struck by lightning; and at about the same time a small township founded by him at Pisaurum, on the east coast of Italy, north of Ancona, had been destroyed by an earthquake. These and other ill-omened accidents had a very depressing effect on Cleopatra’s spirits, and her constant quarrels with Antony and his generals seem to have caused her to be in a state of great nervous tension. Towards the end of July or early in August, when the low-lying ground on which their camp was pitched became infested with mosquitos, and when the damp heat of summer had set the tempers of everybody on edge, the quarrels in regard to the conduct of the campaign broke out with renewed fury. Domitius Ahenobarbus, Dellius, Amyntas, and others, again urged Antony to retire inland and to fight a pitched battle with Octavian as soon as he should come after them. Cleopatra, however, still appears to have considered that the forcing of the blockade was the most important operation to be undertaken, and this she urged upon her undecided husband. It was of course a risky undertaking, but by reason of the very danger it made a strong appeal to Cleopatra’s mind. If their fleet could destroy that of Octavian, they would have him caught in his stronghold as in a trap. They would not even have to wait for the surrender; but, leaving eighty or a hundred thousand men to prevent his escape, they might sail over to Italy with twenty or thirty thousand legionaries and take possession of empty Rome. There was not a senator nor a military force in the capital, for Octavian had lately made the entire senate in Rome come over to his camp, in order to give tone to his proceedings; and, when once Octavian’s sea-power had been destroyed, Antony and Cleopatra would be free to ride unchecked into Rome while the enemy was starved into surrender in Greece. A single naval battle, and Rome would be theirs ! This, surely, was better than a slow and ponderous retreat into the interior.

Antony, however, could not persuade his generals to agree to this. The risk was great, they seem to have argued; and even if they were victorious, was he going to march into Rome with Cleopatra by his side ? The citizens would never stand it, after the stories they had heard in regard to the Queen’s magical power over him. Let her go back to Egypt, nor any longer remain to undermine Antony’s popularity. How could he appear to the world as a good republican with royal Cleopatra’s arm linked in his ? By abandoning the idea of a naval battle the Egyptian fleet could be dispensed with, and could be allowed to depart to Egypt if it succeeded in running the blockade. Cleopatra had supplied ships but hardly any soldiers, and a land battle could be fought without her aid, and therefore without cause for criticism; nor would Octavian any longer be able to say that he was waging war against Cleopatra and not against Antony. The money which she had supplied for the campaign was almost exhausted, and thus she was of no further use to the cause. Let Antony then give up the projected naval battle, and order the Queen to go back quickly with her ships to her own country: for thus, and thus only, could the disaffected republican element in their army be brought into line. Cleopatra, they said, had been the moving spirit in the war; Cleopatra had supplied the money; it was against Cleopatra that Octavian had declared war; it was Cleopatra’s name, and the false stories regarding her, which had aroused Rome to Octavian’s support; it was Cleopatra who was now said on all sides to be supreme in command of the whole army; and it was of Cleopatra that every senator, every vassal king, and every general, was furiously jealous. Unless she were made to go, the whole cause was lost.

Antony seems to have realised the justice of these arguments, and to have promised to try to persuade his wife to retire to Egypt to await the outcome of the war; and he was further strengthened in this resolve when even Canidius, who had all along favoured the keeping of Cleopatra with the army, now urged him to ask her to leave them to fight their own battle. He therefore told the Queen, it would seem, that he desired her to go, pointing out that in this way alone could victory be secured.

Cleopatra, I take it, was furious. She did not trust Antony, and she appears to have been very doubtful whether he would still champion her cause after victory. She even doubted that he would be victorious. He was now but the wreck of the man he had once been, for a too lifelike impersonation of the god Bacchus had played havoc with his nerves and with his character. He had no longer the strength and the determination necessary for the founding of an imperial throne in Rome; and she felt that, even if he were successful in arms against Octavian, he would make but a poor regent for her son Caesarion. Having used her money and her ships for his war, he might abandon her cause; and the fact that they were fighting for Caesar’s son and heir, which had already been placed in the background, might be for ever banished. It must have seemed madness for her to leave her husband at this critical juncture. In order to prevent further desertions he would probably proclaim his republican principles as soon as her back was turned; and, in his drunken weakness, he might commit himself so deeply that he would never be able to go back upon his democratic promises. Since she was unpopular with his generals, he would perhaps at once tell them that she was nothing to him; and for the sake of assuring victory he might even divorce her. Of course, it was obvious that he was devoted to her, and relied on her in all matters, seeming to be utterly lost without her ; but, for all she knew, his ambition might be stronger than his love. She therefore refused absolutely to go; and Antony was too kind-hearted, and perhaps too much afraid of her anger, to press the matter.

His talk with her, however, seems to have decided him to break the blockade as soon as possible, and at the same time to invest Octavian’s lines so that he could not escape from the stronghold which would become his death-trap. Once master of the sea, he would, at any rate, have opened a path for Cleopatra’s departure, and she could retire unmolested with her fleet to her own country. He therefore hurried on the manning of his ships, and at the same time sent Dellius and Amyntas into Thrace to recruit a force of cavalry to supplement those at his disposal. Cleopatra pointed out to him that the ground upon which their camp was pitched at Actium was extremely unhealthy, and if they remained there much longer the troops would be decimated by malaria; and she seems perhaps to have urged him to move round to the north of the Gulf of Ambracia, in order both to obtain more healthy conditions for the army and to invest more closely the camp of Octavian in preparation for the naval fight. Domitius Ahenobarbus was still hotly opposed to this fight; and now, finding that not only was Cleopatra to be allowed to remain with the army, but also that her plan of breaking the blockade was to be adopted, instead of that of the retreat inland, he was deeply incensed, and could no longer bear to remain in the same camp with the Queen. Going on board a vessel, therefore, as he said, for the sake of his health, he slipped over to Octavian’s lines and offered his services to the enemy. He did not live, however, to enjoy the favourable consequences of his change, for, having contracted a fever while at Actium, he died before the battle of that name was fought.

This desertion, which occurred probably early in August, came as a terrible shock to Antony, and he seems to have accused his wife of being the cause of it, which undoubtedly she was. This time he insisted more vehemently on her leaving the army and retiring to Egypt; and thereupon a violent quarrel ensued, which lasted, I think, without cessation during the remainder of their stay in Greece. At first, it seems to me, the Queen positively refused to leave him, and she probably accused him of wishing to abandon her cause. With a sneer, she may have reminded him that his compact with her, and his arrangements for an Egypto-Roman monarchy, were made at a time when he had, to a great extent, cut himself off from Rome and when he required financial aid; but now he had four hundred respectable republican senators to influence him, and, no doubt, their support at this juncture was far more valuable to him than her own. He had deserted her once before, and she was quite prepared for him to do so again.

Her anger, mistrust, and unhappiness must have distressed Antony deeply, and he would, perhaps, have given way once again had not three more desertions from his camp taken place. The King of Paphlagonia, jealous, apparently, of Cleopatra’s power, slipped across to Octavian’s lines, carrying thither an account of the dissensions in Antony’s camp. The two others, a Roman senator named Quintus Postumius, and an Arab chieftain from Emesa, named Iamblichus, were both caught; and, to terrify those who might intend to go over to the enemy, both were put to death, the one being torn to pieces and the other tortured. Every day Octavian’s cause was growing in popularity, and Antony was being subjected to greater ridicule for his subserviency to the little Queen of Egypt, who appeared to direct all his councils and who now seemed to frighten him by her anger. Octavian’s men were becoming self-confident and even audacious. On one occasion while Antony, accompanied by an officer, was walking at night down to the harbour between the two ramparts which he had thrown up to guard the road, some of the enemy’s men crept over the wall and laid in wait for him. As they sprang up from their ambush, however, they seized Antony’s attendant officer in mistake for himself, and, by a rapid flight down the road, he was able to escape.

Thoroughly unnerved by the course events were taking, he again ordered the Queen to retire to Egypt; and at last, stung by Antony’s reproaches, Cleopatra made up her mind to go and to take her fleet with her. Having formed this decision, she appears to have treated Antony with the utmost hostility; and he, being in a highly nervous condition, began to fear that she might kill him. Her great eyes seemed to blaze with anger when she looked upon him, and the contempt which she now felt for him was shown in the expression of her face. He appears to have cowered before her in the manner of a naughty boy, and to have told his friends that he believed she would murder him in her wrath. On hearing this, Cleopatra decided to teach him a lesson which he should not forget. One night at supper, she caused her goblet to be filled from the same wine-jar from which all had been drinking, and having herself drunk some of the wine, she handed the cup to Antony as though in token of reconciliation ; and he, eagerly raising it to his mouth, was about to place his lips where those of the Queen had rested a moment before, when, as though to add grace to her act, she took the wreath of flowers from her hair and dipped it into the wine. Antony again lifted the cup, but suddenly Cleopatra dashed it from his hand, telling him that the wine was poisoned. Antony appears to have protested that she was mistaken, since she herself had just drunk from the same cup; but Cleopatra calmly explained that the wreath which she had dipped into the wine as she handed it to him was poisoned, and that she had chosen this means of showing him how baseless were his fears for his life, for that, did she wish to rid herself of him, she could do so at any moment by some such subtle means. “I could have killed you at any time,” she said, “if I could have done without you.”

The Queen, I imagine, now carried herself very proudly and disdainfully, regarding Antony’s insistence on her departure as a breach of faith. In her own mind she must have feared lest he would actually abandon her, and the anxiety in regard to the future of her country and dynasty must have gnawed at her hfeart all day and all night; but to him she seems only to have shown coldness and contempt, thus driving him to a condition of complete wretchedness. He did not dare, however, to alter his decision in regard to her departure, for he seems to have admitted some of his senators and generals into the secret of this coming event, and it had much quieted the volcanic atmosphere so long prevalent in the camp. I am of opinion that the plan upon which he and his wife had agreed was as follows: Having invested Octavian’s lines more closely, and having taken all steps to prevent him issuing from his stronghold, the pick of Antony’s legionaries would be embarked upon as many of the vessels in the Gulf of Ambracia as were seaworthy, and these warships would force their way out and destroy Octavian’s fleet. As soon as this was done an assault would be made on the enemy’s position by sea and land; and Cleopatra, taking with her the Egyptian fleet, could then sail away to Alexandria, leaving Antony to enter Rome alone.

This scheme, in my opinion, presented the only possible means by which the Antonian army could rid itself of Egyptian influence. If Cleopatra was made to retire overland by way of Asia Minor and Syria, not only would her passage through these countries be regarded by the inhabitants as a flight, thus causing instant panic and revolt, but also the Egyptian fleet would still remain in the Gulf of Ambracia to show by its presence that Cleopatra and her Kingdom of Egypt were yet the main factors in the war. On the other hand, if the Queen retired by sea with her ships, a naval battle designed to force the blockade would have to be fought in order to permit her to escape by that route. Thus, the republican demand that the Queen should go to her own country, and Cleopatra’s own reiterated proposal that the war should be decided by a sea-fight, here concurred in determining Antony to stake all upon a naval engagement.

This being settled, Antony announced to the army that the fleet should break the blockade on August 29, but the fact that the Egyptian ships were to depart immediately after the battle was not made known, save to a few. A great many of the vessels were ill furnished for the fight, and were much under-manned; and Antony now ordered these to be burnt, for, though they were useless to him, they might be of value to the enemy, and might be seized by them while the fleet was away scouring the Ionian Sea. Sixty of the best Egyptian vessels, and at least three hundred other ships, were made ready for the contest; and during these preparations it was no easy matter to keep the secret of the Egyptian departure from leaking out. In order to cross to Egypt Cleopatra’s sixty ships required their large sails, but these sails would not under ordinary circumstances be taken into battle; and in order that the Egyptian vessels should not be made conspicuous by alone preparing for a long voyage, thereby causing suspicions to arise, all the fleet was ordered to ship its big sails; Antony, therefore, having to explain that they would be required in the pursuit of the enemy. Another difficulty arose from the fact that Cleopatra had to ship her baggage, including her plate and jewels ; but this was ultimately done under cover of darkness without arousing suspicion.

Many of the generals, not realising that the naval battle was largely forced upon Antony by those who desired to rid his party of the Egyptians, were much opposed to the scheme; and one infantry officer, pointing to the many scars and marks of wounds which his body bore, implored Antony to fight upon land. “O General,” he said, “what have our wounds and our swords done to displease you, that you should give your confidence to rotten timbers? Let Egyptians and Phoenicians fight on the sea; but give us the land, where we well know how to die where we stand or else gain the victory.” Antony, however, gave him no reply, but made a motion with his hand as though to bid him be of good courage.

On August 28 twenty thousand legionaries and two thousand archers were embarked upon the ships of war¹ in preparation for the morrow’s battle. The vessels were much larger than those of Octavian, some of them having as many as ten banks of oars; and it seemed likely that victory would be on their side. On the next day, however, the sea was extremely rough, and the battle had to be postponed. The storm proved to be of great violence, and all question of breaking the blockade had to be abandoned for the next four days. The delay was found to be a very heavy strain upon the nerves of all concerned, and so great was the anxiety of the two important generals, Dellius and Amyntas, that they both deserted to Octavian’s lines, the latter taking with him two thousand Galatian cavalry. Dellius had probably heard rumours about the proposed departure of Cleopatra, and he was able to tell Octavian something of the plans for the battle. In after years he stated that his desertion was partly due to his fear of the Queen, for he believed her to be angry with him for having once remarked that Antony’s friends were served with sour wine, whereas even Sarmentus, Octavian’s ddicia, or page, drank Falernian. One may understand Cleopatra’s annoyance at this hint that money and supplies were running short, more especially since this must actually have been the fact.

On September 1st the storm abated, and in the evening Antony went from ship to ship encouraging his men. Octavian, informed by Dellius, also prepared for battle, embarking eight legions and five pretorian cohorts upon his ships of war, which seem to have been more numerous, but much smaller, than those of Antony.

The morning of September 2nd was calm, and at an early hour Octavian’s workmanlike ships stationed themselves about three-quarters of a mile from the mouth of the Gulf of Ambracia, where they were watched by the eyes of both armies. They were formed into three divisions, the left wing being commanded by Agrippa, the centre by Lucius Arruntius, and the right wing by Octavian. At about noon Antony’s huge men-o’-war began to pass out from the harbour, under cover of the troops and engines of war stationed upon the two promontories. Octavian seems to have thought that it would be difficult to attack them in the straits, and therefore he retired out to sea, giving his enemies the opportunity of forming up for battle. This was speedily done, the fleet being divided, like Octavian’s, into three squadrons, C. Sossius moving against Octavian, Marcus Insteius opposing Arruntius, and Antony facing Agrippa. The sixty Egyptian ships, under Cleopatra’s command, were the last to leave the Gulf, and formed up behind the central division.

Antony appears to have arranged with Cleopatra that her ships should give him full assistance in the fight, and should sail for Egypt as soon as the victory was won. He intended, no doubt, to board her flagship at the close of the battle and to bid her farewell. They had separated that morning, it would seem from subsequent events, with anger and bitterness. Cleopatra, I imagine, had once more told him how distasteful was her coming departure to her, and had shown him how little she trusted him. She had bewailed the misery of her life and the bitterness of her disillusionment. She had accused him of wishing to abandon her cause, and she had, no doubt, called him coward and traitor. Very possibly in her anger she had told him that she was leaving him with delight, having found him wholly degenerate, and that she hoped never to see his face again. Her accusations, I fancy, had stung Antony to bitter retorts; and they had departed, each to their own flagship, with cruel words upon their lips and fury in their minds. Antony’s nature, however, always boyish, impulsive, and quickly repentant, could not bear with equanimity so painful a scene with the woman to whom he was really devoted, and as he passed out to battle he must have been consumed by the desire to ask her forgiveness. The thought, if I understand him aright, was awful to him that they should thus separate in anger; and being probably a little intoxicated, the contemplation of his coming loneliness reduced him almost to tears. He was perhaps a little cheered by the thought that when next he saw her the battle would probably be won, and he would appear to her in the role of conqueror— a theatrical situation which made an appeal to his dramatic instincts; yet, in the meantime, I think he was as miserable as any young lover who had quarrelled with his sweetheart.

The battle was opened by the advance of Antony’s left wing, and Agrippa’s attempt to outflank it with his right. Antony’s other divisions then moved forward, and the fight became general.. “When they engaged,” writes Plutarch, “ there was no ramming or charging of one ship into another, because Antony’s vessels, by reason of their great bulk, were incapable of the speed to make the stroke effectual, and, on the other side, Octavian’s ships dared not charge, prow to prow, into Antony’s, which were all armed with solid masses and spikes of brass, nor did they care even to run in on their sides, which were so strongly built with great squared pieces of timber, fastened together with iron bolts, that their own vessels’ bows would certainly have been shattered upon them. Thus the engagement resembled a land fight, or, to speak more properly, the assault and defence of a fortified place; for there were always three or four of Octavian’s vessels around each one of Antony’s, pressing upon them with spears, javelins, poles, and several inventions of fire which they flung into them, Antony’s men using catapults also to hurl down missiles from their wooden towers.”

The fight raged for three or four hours, but gradually the awful truth was borne in upon Antony and Cleopatra, that Octavian’s little ships were winning the day. Antony’s flagship was so closely hemmed in on all sides that he himself was kept busily occupied, and he had no time to think clearly. But as, one by one, his ships were fired, sunk, or captured, his desperation seems to have become more acute. If his fleet were defeated and destroyed, would his army stand firm ? That was the question which must have drummed in his head, as in an agony of apprehension he watched the confused battle and listened to the clash of arms and the cries and shouts of the combatants. Cleopatra, meanwhile, after being subjected to much battering by the enemy, had perhaps freed her flagship for a moment from the attentions of Octavian’s little warships, and, in manoeuvring for a better position, she was able to obtain a full view of the situation. With growing horror she observed the struggle around Antony’s flagship, and heard the cheers of the enemy as some huge vessel struck or was set on fire. Her Egyptian fleet had probably suffered heavily, though her sailors would hardly have fought with the same audacity as had those under Antony’s command. As she surveyed the appalling scene no doubt remained in her mind that Octavian had beaten them, and she must even have feared that Antony would be killed or captured. The anxieties which had harassed her overwrought brain during the last few weeks as to her husband’s intentions in regard to her position and that of her son Caesarion, were now displaced by the more frightful thought that the opportunity would never be given to him of proving his constancy; for, here and now, he would meet his end. Her anger against him for his vacillation, her contempt for the increasing weakness of his character, and her misgivings in regard to his ability to direct his forces in view of the growing intemperance of his habits, were now combined in the one staggering certainty that defeat and ruin awaited him. He had told her to go back to Egypt, he had ordered her to take herself off with her fleet at the end of the battle. That end seemed to her already in sight. It was not from a riotous scene of victory, however, that she was to retire, nor was she to carry over to Alexandria the tidings of her triumph with which to cover the shame of her banishment from her husband’s side ; but now she would have to sail away from the spectacle of the wreck of their cause, and free herself by flight from a man who, no longer a champion of her rights, had become an encumbrance to the movement of her ambitions.

In the late afternoon, while yet the victory was actually undecided, although there could have been no hope for the Antonian party left in Cleopatra’s weary mind, a strong wind from the north sprang up, blowing straight from unconquered Rome towards distant Egypt. The sea grew rough, and the waves beat against the sides of the Queen’s flagship, causing an increase of confusion in the battle. As the wind blew in her face, suddenly, it seems to me, the thought came to her that the moment had arrived for her departure. Antony had told her with furious words to go: why, then, should she wait ? In another hour, probably, he would be captured or killed, and she, too, would be taken prisoner, to be marched in degradation to the Capitol whereon she had hoped to sit enthroned. She would pay her husband back in his own coin: she would desert him as he had deserted her. She would not stand by him to await an immediate downfall. Though he was sodden with wine, she herself was still full of life. She would rise above her troubles, as she had always risen before. She would cast him off, and begin her life once more. Her throne should not be taken from her at one blow. She would, at this moment, obey Antony’s command and go; and in distant Egypt she would endeavour to start again in the pursuit of that dynastic security which had proved so intangible a vision.

Having arrived at this decision she ordered the signal to be given to her scattered ships, and hoisting sail she passed right through the combatants, and made off down the wind, followed by her damaged fleet. At that moment, it seems, Antony had freed his flagship from the surrounding galleys, and thus obtained an uninterrupted view of the Queen’s departure. His feelings must have overwhelmed him,—anger, misery, remorse, and despair flooding his confused mind. Cleopatra was leaving him to his fate: she was obeying the order which he ought never to have given her, and he would not see her face again. All the grace, the charm, the beauty which had so enslaved him, was being taken from him ; and alone he would have to face the horrors of probable defeat. He had relied of late so entirely upon her that her receding ships struck a kind of terror into his degenerate mind. It was intolerable to him, moreover, that she should leave him without one word of farewell, and that the weight of his cruelty and anger should be the last impression received by her. He could not let her depart unreconciled and unforgiving; he must go after her, if only to see her for a moment. Yet what did it matter if he did not return to the battle? There was little hope of victory. His fevered and exhausted mind saw no favourable incident in the fight which raged around him. Disgrace and ruin stared him in the face; and the sooner he fled from the horror of defeat the better would be his chance of retaining his reason.

“Here it was,” says Plutarch, “that Antony showed to all the world that he was no longer actuated by the thoughts and motives of a commander or a man, or indeed by his own judgment at all; and what was once said in jest, that the soul of a lover lives in the loved one’s body, he proved to be a serious truth. For, as if he had been born part of her, and must move with her wheresoever she went, as soon as he saw her ships sailing away he abandoned all that were fighting and laying down their lives for him, and followed after her.” Hailing one of his fastest galleys, he quickly boarded her and told the captain to go after Cleopatra’s flagship with all possible speed. He took with him only two persons, Alexander the Syrian, and a certain Scellias. It was not long before the galley, rowed by five banks of oars, overhauled the retreating Egyptians, and Cleopatra then learnt that Antony had followed her and had abandoned the fight. Her feelings may be imagined. Her leaving the battle had, then, terminated the struggle, and her retreat had removed the last hope of victory from the Antonians. Antony was a ruined and defeated man, and a speedy death was the best thing he could hope for; but not so easily was she to be rid of him. He was going to cling to her to the end: she would never be able to shake herself clear of him, but, drowning, he would drag her down with him. Yet he was her husband, and she could not abandon him in defeat as in victory he had wished to abandon her. She therefore signalled to him to come aboard; and having done this she retired to her cabin, refusing to see him or speak to him. Antony, having been helped on to the deck, was too dazed to ask to be taken to her, and too miserable to wish to be approached by her. He walked, as in a dream, to the prow of the ship, and there seating himself, buried his face in his hands, uttering not a word.

Thus some hours passed, but after it had grown dark the beat of the oars of several galleys was heard behind them, and presently the hull of the foremost vessel loomed out of the darkness. The commotion on board and the shouts across the water aroused Antony. For a moment he seems to have thought that the pursuing ships were bringing him some message from Actium— perhaps that the tide of battle had turned in his favour. He therefore ordered the captain to turn about to meet them, and to be ready to give battle if they belonged to the enemy; and, standing in the prow, he called across the black waters: “Who is this that follows Antony?” Through the darkness a voice responded: “I am Eurycles, the son of Lachares, come to revenge my father’s death.” Antony had caused Lachares to be beheaded for robbery, although he came of the noblest family in the Peloponnese; and his son had fitted out a galley at his own expense and had sworn to avenge his father. Eurycles could now be seen standing upon his deck, and handling a lance as though about to hurl it; but a moment later, by some mistake which must have been due to the darkness, he had charged with terrific force into another Egyptian vessel which was sailing close to the flagship. The blow turned her round, and in the darkness and confusion which followed, Cleopatra’s captain was able to get away. The other vessel, however, was captured, together with a great quantity of gold plate and rich furniture which she was carrying back to Egypt.

When the danger was passed Antony sat himself down once more in the prow, nor did he move from that part of the ship for three whole days. Hour after hour he sat staring out to sea, his hands idly folded before him, his mind dazed by his utter despair. By his own folly he had lost everything, and he had carried down with him in his fall all the hope, all the ambition, and all the fortune of Cleopatra. It is surprising that he did not at once put an end to his life, for his misery was pitiable; yet, when at last the port of Tamarus was reached, at the southern end of the Greek peninsula, he was still seated at the prow, his eyes fixed before him. At length, however, Iras, Charmion, and other of Cleopatra’s women induced the Queen to invite him to her cabin; and after much persuasion they consented to speak to one another, and, later, to sup and sleep together. Cleopatra could not but pity her wretched husband, now so sobered and terribly conscious of the full meaning of his position; and I imagine that she gave him what consolation she could.

As their ship lay at anchor several vessels came into the harbour, bringing fugitives from Actium; and these reported to him that his fleet was entirely destroyed or captured, more than five thousand of his men having been killed, but that the army stood firm and had not at once surrendered. At this news Cleopatra, who had not been wholly crushed under the weight of her misfortunes, seems to have advised Antony to try to save some remnant of his forces, and to send messengers to Canidius to march his legions with all speed through Macedonia into Asia Minor. This he did; and then, sending for those of his friends who had come into the port, he begged them to leave him and Cleopatra to their fate, and to give their whole attention to their own safety. He and the Queen handed to the fugitives a large sum of money and numerous dishes and cups of gold and silver wherewith to purchase their security; and he wrote letters in their behalf to his steward at Corinth, that he should provide for them until they had made their peace with Octavian. In deep dejection these defeated officers attempted to refuse the gifts, but Antony, pressing them to accept, “cheered them,” as Plutarch says, “with all the goodness and humanity imaginable,” so that they could not refrain from tears. At length the fleet put out to sea once more, and set sail for the coast of Egypt, arriving many days later at Paraetonium, a desolate spot some 160 miles west of Alexandria, where a small Roman garrison was stationed. Here Antony decided to stay for a time in hiding, while the braver Cleopatra went on to the capital to face her people; and for the next few weeks he remained in the great solitude of this desert station. A few mud huts, a palmtree or two, and a little fort constituted the dreary settlement, which in the damp heat of September must have presented a colourless scene of peculiarly depressing aspect. This part of the coast is absolutely barren, and only those who have visited these regions in the summer time can realise the strange melancholy, the complete loneliness, of this sun-scorched outpost. The slow, breaking waves beat upon the beach with the steady insistence of a tolling bell which counts out a man’s life; the desert rolls back from the bleak sea-shore, carrying the eye to the leaden haze of the far horizon; and overhead the sun beats down from a sky which is, as it were, deadened by the heat. In surroundings such as these heart-broken Antony remained for several weeks, daily wandering along the beach accompanied only by two friends, one, a certain Aristocrates, a Greek rhetorician, and the other the Roman soldier Lucilius, who, fighting on the side of the enemy at Philippi, as we have read, had heroically prevented the capture of the defeated Brutus, and had been pardoned by Antony as a reward for his courage, remaining thereafter, and until the last, his devoted friend.

At length one of his ships, putting into the little port, seems to have brought him the news of events at Actium. After his flight the battered remnant of his fleet, having continued the fight until sunset, sailed back into the Gulf of Ambracia; and next day Octavian invited them and the army to surrender on easy terms. No one, however, would believe that Antony had fled, and the offer was refused. Next day, however, some of the vassal kings laid down their arms, and, after a week of suspense, Canidius fled. Part of the legions scattered into Macedonia, and on September 9th the remainder surrendered together with the fleet. Octavian then sailed round to Athens, and there received the submission of every city in Greece, with the exception of Corinth. He at once began a general massacre of Antony’s adherents, and, to save their skins, the townspeople in every district heaped honours upon the conqueror, erecting statues to him and decreeing him all manner of civic distinctions. Shortly after this a messenger reached Antony from the west stating that the legions left in North Africa had also gone over to Octavian; and thereupon he attempted to commit suicide. He was, however, restrained by his two faithful friends; and in the deepest dejection he was at last persuaded by them to sail for Alexandria, once more to comfort himself with the presence of Cleopatra.

CHAPTER XVIII.

CLEOPATRA’S ATTEMPT TO BEGIN AGAIN.