The Life and Times of Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt / A Study in the Origin of the Roman Empire

by Arthur E. P. Brome Weigall

The procession seems to have set out in the sunshine of the morning from the Royal Palace on the Lochias Promontory, and to have skirted the harbour as far as the temple of Neptune. It then travelled probably through the Forum, past the stately buildings and luxuriant gardens of the Regia, and so out into the Street of Canopus at about the point where the great mound of the Paneum rose up against the blue sky, its ascending pathway packed with spectators. Turning now to the west, the procession moved slowly along this broad paved street, the colonnades on either side being massed with sightseers. On the right-hand side the walls of the Sema, or Royal Mausoleum, were passed, where lay the bones of Alexander the Great; and on the left the long porticos of the Gymnasium and the Law Courts formed a shaded stand for hundreds of people of the upper classes. On the other side of the road the colonnades and windows of the Museum were crowded, I suppose, with the professors and students who had come with their families to witness the spectacle. Some distance farther along, the procession turned to the south, and proceeded along the broad Street of Serapis, at the end of which, on high ground, stood the splendid building of the Serapeum. Here Cleopatra and her court, together with the high functionaries of Alexandria, were gathered, while the priests and priestesses of Serapis were massed on either side of the street and upon the broad steps which led up to the porticos of the temple. At this point Antony dismounted from his chariot; and probably amidst the shouts of the spectators and the shaking of hundreds of systra, he ascended to the temple to offer the prescribed sacrifice to Serapis, as in Rome he would have done to Jupiter Capitolinus. This accomplished he returned to the court in front of the sacred building, where a platform had been erected, the sides of which were plated with silver. On this platform, upon a throne of gold, sat Cleopatra, clad in the robes of Isis or Venus; and to her feet Antony now led the royal captives of Armenia, all hot and dusty from their long walk, and dejected by the continuous booing and jeering of the crowds through which they had passed. Artavasdes was no barbarian: he was a refined and cultured man, to whose sensitive nature the ordeal must have been most terrible. He was something of a poet, and in his time had written plays and tragedies not without merit. He was now told to abase himself before Cleopatra, and to salute her as a goddess; but this he totally refused to do, and, in spite of some rough handling by his guards, he persisted in standing upright before her and in addressing her simply by her name. In Rome it was customary at the conclusion of a Triumph to put to death the royal captives who had been exhibited in the procession; and now that he had openly insulted the Queen of Egypt he could not have expected to see another sun rise. Antony and Cleopatra, however, appear to have been touched at his dignified attitude; and neither he nor his family were harmed. Instead, they were treated with some show of honour,[103] and thereafter were held as state prisoners in the Egyptian capital.

British Museum.]

[Photograph by Macbeth.

ANTONIA, the Daughter of Antony.

The Triumph ended, a vast banquet was given to all the inhabitants of Alexandria; and late in the afternoon a second ceremony was held in the grounds of the Gymnasium. Here again a silver-covered platform had been erected, upon which two large and four smaller thrones of gold had been set up; and, when the company was assembled, Antony, Cleopatra, and her children took their seats upon them. Certain formalities having been observed, Antony arose to address the crowd; and, after referring no doubt to his victories, he proceeded to confer upon the Queen and her offspring a series of startling honours. He appears to have proclaimed Cleopatra sovereign of Egypt, and of the dominions which he had bestowed upon her at Antioch nearly three years previously. He named Cæsarion, the son of Julius Cæsar, co-regent with his mother, and gave him the mighty title of King of Kings.[104] Cæsarion was now thirteen and a half years of age; and since, as Suetonius remarks, he resembled his father, the great Dictator, in a remarkable manner, Antony’s feelings must have been strangely complicated as he now conferred upon him these vast honours. To Alexander Helios, his own child, Antony next gave the kingdom of Armenia; the kingdom of Media, presumably after the death of the reigning monarch, whose daughter had just been married to him; and ultimately the kingdom of Parthia, provided that it had been conquered. This seems to have been arranged by treaty with the King of Media in the previous summer,[105] the agreement probably being that, on the death of that monarch, Alexander Helios and the Median heiress, Iotapa, should ascend the amalgamated thrones of Armenia, Media, and Parthia, Antony promising in return to assist in the conquest of the last-named country. The boy was now six years of age, and his chubby little figure had been dressed for the occasion in Median or Armenian costume. Upon his head he wore the high, stiff tiara of these countries, from the back of which depended a flap of cloth covering his neck; his body was clothed in a sleeved tunic, over which was worn a flowing cloak, thrown over one shoulder and hanging in graceful folds at the back; and his legs were covered by the long, loosely-fitting trousers worn very generally throughout Persia. To Cleopatra Selene, Alexander’s twin-sister, Antony gave Cyrenaica, Libya, and as much of the north-African coast as was in his gift; and finally he proclaimed the small Ptolemy King of Phœnicia, northern Syria, and Cilicia. This little boy, only two years of age, had been dressed up for the occasion in Macedonian costume, and wore the national mantle, the boots, and the cap encircled with the diadem, in the manner made customary by the successors of Alexander. At the end of this surprising ceremony the children, having saluted their parents, were each surrounded by a bodyguard composed of men belonging to the nations over whom they were to rule; and at last all returned in state to the Palace as the sun set behind the Harbour of the Happy Return.

In celebration of the occasion coins were struck bearing the inscription Cleopatræ reginæ regum filiorum regum—“Of Cleopatra the Queen, and of the Kings the children of Kings.” Antony perhaps also caused a bronze statue to be made, representing his son Alexander Helios dressed in the royal costume of his new kingdom, for a figure has recently been discovered which appears to represent the boy in this manner. He then wrote an account of the whole affair to the Senate in Rome, together with a report on his Armenian war; and in a covering letter he told his agents to obtain a formal ratification of the changes which he had made in the distribution of the thrones in his dominions. The news was received in Italy with astonishment, and in official circles the greatest exasperation was felt. Antony’s agents very wisely decided not to read the despatches to the Senate; but Octavian insisted, and after much wrangling their contents were at last publicly declared. Stories at once began to circulate in which Antony figured as a kind of Oriental Sultan, living at Alexandria a life of voluptuous degeneracy. He was declared to be constantly drunken; and, since no such charge could be brought against Cleopatra, the Queen was said to keep sober by means of a magical ring of amethyst, which had the virtue of dispelling the fumes of wine from the head of the wearer.

There can, indeed, be little doubt that Antony was very intemperate at this period. He was worried to distraction by the approach of the great war with Octavian; and he must have felt that his popularity in Rome was now very much at stake. While waiting for events to shape themselves, therefore, he attempted to free his mind from its anxieties by heavy drinking; but in so doing, it would seem from subsequent events, he began to lose the place in Cleopatra’s esteem which he had formerly held. She herself did not ever drink much wine, if we may judge from the fact, just now quoted, that she was at all times notably sober; and she must have watched with increasing uneasiness the dissolute habits of the man upon whom she was obliged to rely for the fulfilment of her ambitions.

The fact that he was ceasing to be a Roman, and was daily becoming more like an Oriental potentate, did not trouble her so much. It differentiated him, of course, from the great Dictator, whose memory became more dear to her as she contrasted his activities with Antony’s growing laziness; but all her life she had been accustomed to the ways of Eastern monarchs, and she could not have been much shocked at her husband’s new method of life, except in so far as it modified his abilities as an active leader of men. Now that the quarrel with Octavian was coming to a head, her throne and her very existence depended on Antony’s ability to inspire and to command; and I dare say a limited adoption of the manners of the East made him more agreeable to the people with whom he had to deal. “Cleopatra,” says the violently partisan Florus, “asked of the drunken general as the price of her love the Roman Empire, and Antony promised it to her, as though Romans were easier to conquer than Parthians.... Forgetting his country, his name, his toga, and the insignia of his office, he had degenerated wholly, in thought, feeling, and dress, into that monster of whom we know. In his hand was a golden sceptre, at his side a scimitar; his purple robes were clasped with great jewels; and he wore a diadem upon his head so that he might be a King to match the Queen he loved.”

The Palace at Alexandria had been much embellished and decorated during recent years; and it was now a fitting setting for the ponderous movements of this burly monarch of the East. Lucan tells us how sumptuous a place the royal home had come to be. The ceilings were fretted and inlaid, and gold-foil hid the rafters. The walls and pillars were mainly made of fine marble, but a considerable amount of purple porphyry[106] and agate were used in the decoration. The flooring of some of the halls was of onyx or alabaster; ebony was used as freely as common wood; and ivory was to be seen on all sides. The doors were ornamented with tortoise-shells brought from India and studded with emeralds. The couches and chairs were encrusted with gems; much of the furniture was shining with jasper and carnelian; and there were many priceless tables of carved ivory. The coverings were bright with Tyrian dye, shining with spangled gold, or fiery with cochineal. About the halls walked slaves, chosen for their good looks. Some were dark-skinned, others were white; some had the crisp black hair of the Ethiopians; others the golden or flaxen locks of Gaul and Germania. Pliny tells us that Antony bought two boys for £800 each, and that they were supposed to be twins, but that actually they came from different countries. Of Cleopatra, Lucan writes: “She breathes heavily beneath the weight of her ornaments; and her white breasts shine through the Sidonian fabric which, wrought in close texture by the sley of the Chinese, the needle of the workmen of the Nile has separated, loosening the warp by stretching out the web.” The newly-developed trade with India had filled the Palace with the luxurious fabrics of the Orient; and the Greek, or even Egyptian, character of the materials and objects in daily use was beginning to be lost in the medley of heterogenous articles drawn from all parts of the world.