CHAPTER XIV.
THE ALLIANCE RENEWED BETWEEN CLEOPATRA AND ANTONY.
In the autumn of the year B.C. 40, some six months after the departure of Antony, Cleopatra gave birth to twins, a boy and a girl, whom she named Alexander Helios and Cleopatra Selene, the Sun and the Moon. With this event she passes almost entirely from the pages of history for more than three years, and we hear hardly anything of her doings until the beginning of B.C. 36. During this time she must have been considerably occupied in governing her own kingdom and in watching, with a kind of despair, the complicated events in the Roman world. Despatches from Europe must have come to her from time to time telling of the progress of affairs, but almost all the news which she thus received was disappointing and disconcerting to her; and one must suppose that she passed these years in very deep sadness and depression. I do not think that any historian has attempted to point out to his readers the painful condition of disillusionment in which the little Queen now found herself. When Antony left her she must have expected him either to return soon to her, or presently to send his lieutenants to bring her to him; but the weeks passed and no such event took place. While she suffered all the misery of lonely childbirth, her consort was engaged in absorbing affairs in which she played no immediate part; and it seems certain that in the stress of his desperate circumstances the inconsequent Antony had put her almost entirely from his thoughts.
When he left her in the spring of B.C. 40 he sailed straight across the Mediterranean to Tyre, where he learnt to his dismay that practically all Syria and Phœnicia had fallen into the hands of the Parthians, and that there was no chance of resisting their advance successfully with the troops now holding the few remaining seaport towns. He therefore hastened with 200 ships by Cyprus and Rhodes to Greece, abandoning Syria for the time being to the enemy. Arriving at Ephesus, he heard details of the troubles in Italy; how his supporters had been besieged by Octavian in Perugia, which had at length been captured; and how all his friends and relatives had fled from Italy. His wife Fulvia, he was told, escorted by 3000 cavalry, had sailed from Brundisium for Greece, and would soon join him there; and his mother, Julia, had fled to the popular hero, Sextus Pompeius, the outlawed son of the great Pompey, who had received her very kindly. Thus, not only was Italy shut to Antony, since Octavian was now sole master of the country, but he seemed likely also to be turned out of his eastern provinces by the advance of the Parthians. His position was a desperate one; and he must now have both reproached himself very deeply for his waste of time in Alexandria and blamed his relations for their impetuosity in making war against Octavian.
Towards the end of June Antony arrived in Athens, and there he was obliged to go through the ordeal of meeting the domineering Fulvia, of whom he was not a little afraid, more especially in view of his notorious intrigue with the Queen of Egypt. The ensuing interviews between them must have been of a very painful character. Fulvia probably bitterly reproved her errant husband for deserting her and for remaining so long with Cleopatra, while Antony must have abused her roundly for making so disastrous a mess of his affairs in Italy. Ultimately the unfortunate woman seems to have been crushed and dispirited by Antony’s continued anger; and having fallen ill while staying at Sicyon, some sixty miles west of Athens, and lacking the desire to live, she there died in the month of August. Meanwhile Antony, having made an alliance with Sextus Pompeius, was ravaging the coasts of Italy in a rather futile attempt to regain some of his lost prestige; but no sooner was the death of Fulvia announced than he shifted the entire blame for the war on to his late wife’s shoulders, and speedily made his peace with Octavian. The two rivals met at Brundisium in September B.C. 40, and a treaty was made between them by which the peace of the Roman world was expected to be assured for some years to come. It was arranged that Octavian should remain autocrat in Italy, and should hold all the European provinces, including Dalmatia and Illyria; and that Antony should be master of the East, his dominions comprising Macedonia, Greece, Bithynia, Asia, Syria, and Cyrene. The remaining provinces of North Africa, west of Cyrene, fell to the lot of the third Triumvir, the insignificant Lepidus. This treaty was sealed by the marriage of Antony with Octavia, the sister of Octavian, a young woman who had been left a widow some months previously, and the wedding was celebrated in Rome in October B.C. 40, the populace showing peculiar pleasure at seeing the two rivals, whose quarrels had caused such bloodshed and misery, thus fraternising in the streets of the capital.
The consternation of Cleopatra, when the news of Antony’s marriage reached her, must have been sad to witness. The twins whom she had borne to him were but a few weeks old at the time when their father’s perfidy was thus made known to her; and bitterly must she have chided herself for ever putting her trust in so unstable a man. It now seemed to her that he had come to Alexandria as it were to fleece her of her wealth, and she, falling a victim to his false protestations of love, had given her all to him, only to be deserted when most she needed him. With the news of his marriage, her hopes of obtaining a vast kingdom for herself and for Cæsar’s son were driven from her mind, and her plans for the future had to be diverted into other directions. She must have determined at once to give no more assistance to Antony, either in money or in materials of war; and we have no evidence of any such help being offered to him in the military operations which ensued during the next two years. Cleopatra had perhaps known Antony’s new wife in Rome, and certainly she must have heard much of her charms and her goodness. Plutarch tells us that Octavia was younger and more beautiful than the Queen, and one may therefore understand how greatly Cleopatra must have suffered at this time. Not only was her heart heavy with the thought of the miscarriage of all her schemes, but her mind it would seem was aflame with womanly jealousy.
In the following year, B.C. 39, by the force of public opinion, Sextus Pompeius was admitted to the general peace, the daughter of the sea-rover marrying Marcellus, the son of Octavian. The agreement was made at Misenum (not far from Naples), and was celebrated by a banquet which was given by Sextus Pompeius on board his flag-ship, a galley of six banks of oars, “the only house,” as the host declared, “that Pompey is heir to of his father’s.” During the feast the guests drank heavily, and presently many irresponsible jests began to be made in regard to Antony and Cleopatra. Antony very naturally was annoyed at the remarks which were passed, and there seems to have been some danger of a fracas. Observing this, a pirate-chief named Menas, who was one of the guests, whispered to Sextus: “Shall I cut the cables and make you master of the whole Roman Empire?” “Menas,” replied he, after a moment’s thought, “this might have been done without telling me, but now we must rest content. I cannot break my word.” Thus Antony was saved from assassination, and incidentally it may be remarked that had he been done to death at this time, history would probably have had to record an alliance between Sextus and Cleopatra directed against Octavian, which might have been as fruitful of romantic incident as was the story which has here to be related. We hear vaguely of some sort of negotiations between Sextus and the Queen, and it is very probable that with his rise to a position of importance Cleopatra would have attempted to make an alliance with this son of Egypt’s former patron.
In September B.C. 39, Octavia presented Antony with a daughter who was called Antonia, and who subsequently became the grandmother of the Emperor Nero. Shortly after this he took up his quarters at Athens, where he threw himself as keenly into the life of the Athenians as he had into that of the Alexandrians. He dressed himself in the Greek manner, with certain Oriental touches, and it was noticed that he ceased to take any interest in Roman affairs. He feasted sumptuously, drank heavily, spent a very great deal of money, and wasted any amount of time. The habits of the East appealed to him, and in his administration he adopted the methods sometimes practised by Greeks in the Orient. He abolished the Roman governorships in many of the provinces under his control, converting them into vassal kingdoms. Thus Herod was created King of Judea; Darius, son of Pharnaces, was made King of Pontus; Amyntas was raised to the throne of Pisidia; Polemo was given the crown of Lycaonia, and so on. His rule was mild and kindly, though despotic; and on all sides he was hailed as the jolly god Dionysos, or Bacchus, come to earth. Like Julius Cæsar, he was quite willing to accept divinity, and he even went so far as personally to take the place of the statue of Dionysos in the temple of that god, and to go through the mystical ceremony of marriage to Athene at Athens. His popularity was immense, and this assumption of a godhead was received quite favourably by the Athenians; but when one of his generals, Ventidius Bassus, who had been sent to check the advance of the Parthians, returned with the news that he had completely defeated them, public enthusiasm knew no bounds, and Antony was fêted and entertained in the most astonishing manner.
The contrast between Antony’s benevolent government of his eastern provinces and Octavian’s conduct in the west was striking. Octavian was a curious-tempered man, morose, quietly cruel, and secretly vicious. So many persons were tortured and crucified by him that he came to be known as the “Executioner.” His manner was imperturbable and always controlled in public; but in private life at this time he indulged in the wildest debauches, gambled, and surrounded himself with the lowest companions. His rule in Italy in these days constituted a Reign of Terror; and large numbers of the populace hated the very sight of him. His appearance was unimposing, for he was somewhat short and was careless in his deportment; while, although his face was handsome, it had certain very marked defects. His complexion was very sallow and unhealthy, his skin being covered with spots, and his teeth were much decayed; but his eyes were large and remarkably brilliant, a fact of which he was peculiarly proud. He did not look well groomed or clean, and he was notably averse to taking a bath, though he did not object to an occasional steaming, or Turkish bath, as we should now call it. He was eccentric in his dress, though precise and correct in business affairs. He disliked the sunshine, and always wore a broad-brimmed hat to protect his head from its brilliancy; but at the same time he detested cold weather, and in winter he is said to have worn a thick toga, at least four tunics, a shirt, and a flannel stomacher, while his legs and thighs were swathed in yards of warm cloth. In spite of this he was constantly suffering from colds in his head, and was always sneezing and snuffling. His liver, too, was generally out of order, a fact to which perhaps his ill-temper may be attributed. His clothes were all made at home by his wife and sister, and fitted him badly; and his light-brown, curly hair always looked unbrushed. He was a poor general, but an able statesman; and his cold nature, which was lacking in all ardour as was his personality in all magnetism, caused him to be better fitted for the office than for the public platform. He was not what would now be called a gentleman: he was, indeed, very distinctly a parvenu. His grandfather had been a wealthy money-lender of bourgeois origin, and his father had raised himself by this ill-gotten wealth to a position in Roman society, and had married into Cæsar’s family.
These facts were not calculated to give him much of a position in public esteem: and there was no question at this time that Antony was the popular hero, while Sextus Pompeius, the former outlaw, was fast rising in favour. In the spring of B.C. 38 Octavian decided to make war upon this roving son of the great Pompey, and he asked Antony to aid him in the undertaking. The latter made some attempt to prevent the war, but his efforts were not successful. In the following July, to the delight of a large number of Romans, Octavian was badly defeated by Sextus; and Cæsar’s nephew thus lost a very considerable amount of prestige. At about the same time Antony’s reputation made an equally extensive gain, for in June Ventidius Bassus, acting under Antony’s directions, again defeated the Parthians, Pacorus, the King’s son, being killed in the battle. The news stirred the Romans to wild enthusiasm. At last, after sixteen years, Crassus[92] had been avenged; and Antony appeared to have put into execution with the utmost ease the plans of the late Dictator in regard to the Parthians, while, on the other hand, Octavian, the Dictator’s nephew, had failed even to suppress the sea-roving Pompeians. A Triumph was decreed both for Antony and for Ventidius, and before the end of the year this took place.