The Jewish King, therefore, giving up his treacherous scheme, politely escorted Cleopatra to the frontier fortress of Pelusium, and thus she came unscathed to Alexandria, where she settled down to await the birth of her fourth child. It is perhaps worth noting that she is said to have brought back to Egypt from Jericho many cuttings of the balsam shrubs, and planted them at Heliopolis, near the modern Cairo.[98] The Queen’s mind must now have been full of optimism. Antony had collected an enormous army, and already, she supposed, he must have penetrated far into Parthia. In spite of her previous fears, she now expected that he would return to her covered with glory, having opened the road through Persia to India and the fabulous East. Rome would hail him as their hero and idol, and the unpopular Octavian would sink into insignificance. Then he would claim for himself and for her the throne of the West as well as that of the Orient, and at last her little son Cæsarion, as their heir, would come into his own.
With such hopes as these to support her, Cleopatra passed through her time of waiting; and in the late autumn she gave birth to a boy, whom she named Ptolemy, according to the custom of her house. But ere she had yet fully recovered her strength she received despatches from Antony, breaking to her the appalling news that his campaign had been a disastrous failure, and that he had reached northern Syria with only a remnant of his grand army, clad in rags, emaciated by hunger and illness, and totally lacking in funds. He implored her to come to his aid, and to bring him money wherewith to pay his disheartened soldiers, and he told her that he would await her coming upon the Syrian coast somewhere between Sidon and Berytus.
Once more the unfortunate Queen’s hopes were dashed to the ground; but pluckily rising to the occasion, she collected money, clothes, and munitions of war, and set out with all possible speed to her husband’s relief.
The history of the disaster is soon told. From Zeugma Antony had marched to the plateau of Erzeroum, where he had reviewed his enormous army, consisting of 60,000 Roman foot (including Spaniards and Gauls), 10,000 Roman horse, and some 30,000 troops of other nationalities, including 13,000 horse and foot supplied by Artavasdes, King of Armenia, and a strong force provided by King Polemo of Pontus. An immense number of heavy engines of war had been collected; and these were despatched towards Media along the valley of the Araxes, together with the contingents from Armenia and Pontus and two Roman legions. Antony himself, with the main army, marched by a more direct route across northern Assyria into Media, being impatient to attack the enemy. The news of his approach in such force, says Plutarch, not only alarmed the Parthians but filled North India with fear, and, indeed, made all Asia shake. It was generally supposed that he would march in triumph through Persia; and there must have been considerable talk as to whether he would carry his arms, like Alexander the Great, into India, where Cleopatra’s ships, coming across the high sea trade-route from Egypt, would meet him with money and supplies. Towards the end of August, Antony reached the city of Phraaspa, the capital of Media-Atropatene, and there he awaited the arrival of his siege-train and its accompanying contingent. He had expected that the city would speedily surrender, but in this he was mistaken; and, ere he had settled down to the business of a protracted siege, he received the news that his second army had been attacked and defeated, that his entire siege-train had been captured, that the King of Armenia had fled with the remnant of his forces back to his own country, and that the King of Pontus had been taken prisoner. In spite of this crushing loss, however, Antony bravely determined to continue the siege; but soon the arrival of the Parthian army, fresh from its victory, began to cause him great discomfort, and his lines were constantly harassed from the outside by bodies of the famous Parthian cavalry, though not once did the enemy allow a general battle to take place. At last, in October, he was obliged to open negotiations with the enemy; for, in view of the general lack of provisions and the deep despondency of the troops, the approach of winter could not be contemplated without the utmost dread. He therefore sent a message to the Parthian King stating that if the prisoners captured from Crassus were handed over, together with the lost eagles, he would raise the siege and depart. The enemy refused these terms, but declared that if Antony would retire, his retreat would not be molested; and to this the Romans agreed. The Parthians, however, did not keep their word; and as the weary legionaries crossed the snow-covered mountains they were attacked again and again by the fierce tribesmen, who ambushed them at every pass, and followed in their rear to cut off stragglers. The intense cold, the lack of food, and the extreme weariness of the troops, caused the number of these stragglers to be very great; and besides the thousands of men who were thus cut off or killed in the daily fighting, a great number perished from exposure and want of food. At one period so great was the scarcity of provisions that a loaf of bread was worth its weight in silver; and it was at this time that large numbers of men, having devoured a certain root which seemed to be edible, went mad and died. “He that had eaten of this root,” says Plutarch, “remembered nothing in the world, and employed himself only in moving great stones from one place to another, which he did with as much earnestness and industry as if it had been a business of the greatest consequence; and thus through all the camp there was nothing to be seen but men grubbing upon the ground at stones, which they carried from place to place, until in the end they vomited and died.” This account, though of course exaggerated and confused, gives a vivid picture of the distressed legionaries, some dying of this poison, some going mad, some perishing from exposure and vainly endeavouring to build themselves a shelter from the biting wind.
All through the long and terrible march Antony behaved with consummate bravery and endurance. He shared every hardship with his men, and when the camp was pitched at night he went from tent to tent, talking to the legionaries, and cheering them with encouraging words. His sympathy and concern for the wounded was that of the tenderest woman; and he would throw himself down beside sufferers and burst into uncontrolled tears. The men adored him; and even those who were at the point of death, arousing themselves in his presence, called him by every respectful and endearing name. “They seized his hands,” says Plutarch, “with joyful faces, bidding him go and see to himself and not be concerned about them; calling him their Emperor and their General, and saying that if only he were well they were safe.” Many times Antony was heard to exclaim, “O, the ten thousand!” as though in admiration for Xenophon’s famous retreat, which was even more arduous than his own. On one occasion so serious was the situation that he made one of his slaves, named Rhamnus, take an oath that in the event of a general massacre he would run his sword through his body, and cut off his head, in order that he might neither be captured alive nor be recognised when dead.
At last, after twenty-seven terrible days, during which they had beaten off the Parthians no less than eighteen times, they crossed the Araxes and brought the eagles safely into Armenia. Here, making a review of the army, Antony found that he had lost 20,000 foot and 4000 horse, the majority of which had died of exposure and illness. Their troubles, however, were by no means at an end; for although the enemy had now been left behind, the snows of winter had still to be faced, and the march through Armenia into Syria was fraught with difficulties. By the time that the coast was reached eight thousand more men had perished; and the army which finally went into winter quarters at a place known as the White Village, between Sidon and Berytus, was but the tattered remnant of the great host which had set out so bravely in the previous spring. Yet it may be said that had not Antony proved himself so dauntless a leader, not one man would have escaped from those terrible mountains, but all would have shared the doom of Crassus and his ill-fated expedition.
At the White Village Antony eagerly awaited the coming of Cleopatra; yet so ashamed was he at his failure, and so unhappy at the thought of her reproaches for his ill-success, that he turned in despair to the false comfort of the wine-jar, and daily drank himself into a state of oblivious intoxication. When not in a condition of coma he was nervous and restless. He could not endure the tediousness of a long meal, but would start up from table and run down to the sea-shore to scan the horizon for a sight of her sails. Both he and his officers were haggard and unkempt, his men being clad in rags; and it was in this condition that Cleopatra found them when at last her fleet sailed into the bay, bringing clothing, provisions, and money.