CHAPTER XIX.
OCTAVIAN’S INVASION OF EGYPT AND THE DEATH OF ANTONY.
The historian must feel some reluctance in discrediting the romantic story of the attachment of Cleopatra and Antony at this period; but nevertheless the fact cannot be denied that they had now decided to live apart from one another, and there seems very little doubt that each regarded the other with distrust and suspicion. Antony had lived so long alone in his Timonium that he was altogether out of touch with his wife’s projects; and she, on her part, had not, for many a month, admitted him fully into her confidence. Their relationship was marked, on his side, by mistrust, and on hers, by disdainful pity; and I can find no indication of that romantic passage, hand-in-hand to their doom, which has come to be regarded as the grand finale of their tragic tale. In its place, however, I would offer the spectacle of the lonely and courageous fight made by the little Queen against her fate, which must surely command the admiration of all men. Her husband having so signally failed her, the whole burden of the government of her country and of the organisation of her defence seems to have fallen upon her shoulders. Day and night she must have been harassed by fearful anxieties, and haunted by the thought of her probable doom; yet she conducted herself with undaunted courage, never deigning to consider the question of flight, and never once turning from the pathway of that personal and dynastic ambition which seems to me hardly able to be distinguished from her real duty to her country.
When Octavian was preparing in Syria, during the month of June B.C. 30, to invade Egypt, both Cleopatra and Antony attempted to open negotiations with him. They sent a certain Greek named Euphronius, who had been a tutor to one of the young princes, to the enemy bearing messages from them both. Cleopatra asked that, in return for her surrender, her son Cæsarion might be allowed to retain the throne of Egypt; but Antony prayed only that he might be allowed to live the life of a private man, either at Alexandria or else in Athens. With this embassy Cleopatra sent her crown, her sceptre, and her state-chariot, in the hope that Octavian would bestow them again upon her son, if not upon herself. The mission, however, was a partial failure. Octavian would not listen to any proposals in regard to Antony; but to Cleopatra he sent a secret message, conveyed by one of his freedmen, named Thyrsus, indicating that he was well-disposed towards her, and would be inclined to leave her in possession of Egypt, if only she would cause Antony to be put to death. Actually, Octavian had no intention of showing any particular mercy to Cleopatra, and his suggestions were intended to deceive her. He seems to have made up his mind how to act. Antony would have to be murdered or made to take his own life: it would be awkward to have to condemn him to death and formally to execute him. Cæsarion, his rival, would also have to meet with a violent end. Cleopatra ought to be captured alive so that he might display her in his Triumph, after which she would be sent into exile, while her country and its wealth would fall into his hands, the loot serving for the payment of his troops. In all his subsequent dealings with the Queen we shall observe his anxiety to take her alive, while towards Antony he will be seen to show a relentless hostility.
The freedman Thyrsus was a personage of tact and understanding, and with Cleopatra he was able to discuss the situation in all its aspects. The Queen was striving by every means to retain her throne, and she was quite capable of paying Octavian back in his own coin, deceiving him and leading him to suppose that she would trust herself to his mercy. She showed great attention to Thyrsus, giving him lengthy audiences, and treating him with considerable honour; and Antony, not being admitted to their secret discussions, grew daily more angry and suspicious. It is not likely that Cleopatra consented to the proposed assassination of her husband, but the situation was such that she could have had no great objection to the thought of his suicide, and I dare say she discussed quite frankly with Thyrsus the means of reminding him of his honourable obligations. It is said by Dion Cassius that Octavian actually conveyed messages of an amorous nature to Cleopatra, but this is probably incorrect, though Thyrsus may well have hinted that his master’s heart had been touched by the brave manner in which she had faced her misfortunes, and that he was eager to win her regard. Possibly a rumour of the nature of their conferences reached Antony, or maybe his jealousy was aroused by the freedman’s confidential attitude to the Queen; for he became even more suspicious than he had been before, and he appears to have conducted himself as though his mind were in a condition of extreme exasperation. Suddenly he caused Thyrsus to be seized by some of his men, and soundly thrashed, after which he sent him back to Octavian with a letter explaining his action. “The man’s inquisitive, impertinent ways provoked me,” he wrote, “and in my circumstances I cannot be expected to be very patient. But if it offend you, you have got my freedman, Hipparchus, with you: hang him up and whip him to make us even.” Hipparchus had probably deserted from Antony to Octavian, and the whipping of Thyrsus and the suggested retaliation constituted a piece of grim humour which seems to have appealed at once to Cleopatra’s instincts. The audacity of the action was of the kind which most delighted her; and she immediately began to pay more respect to her husband, who, she thus found, was still capable of asserting himself in a kingly manner. Plutarch tells us that to clear herself of his suspicions, which were quite unfounded, she now paid him more attention and humoured him in every way; and it seems that her change of attitude put new courage into his heart, substituting a brave bearing for that dejection of carriage which had lately been so noticeable. She seemed anxious to prove to him that she would not play him false, and to make her attitude clear to Octavian. When the anniversary of her birthday had occurred in the previous winter she had celebrated it very quietly; but Antony’s birthday, which fell at about this time of year, she celebrated in the most elaborate manner, giving great presents to all those who had enjoyed her hospitality. It was as though she desired all men to know that so long as Antony played the man, and entered into this last fight with that spirit of adventure which always marked her own actions, she would stand by him to the last; but that if he lacked the spirit to make a bid for success, then she could but wish him well out of her way. The thrashing of Thyrsus proved to be the occasion of a temporary reconciliation between the Queen and her husband,[135] and for a time Antony acted with something of his old energy and courage.
Hearing that the army under Cornelius Gallus was marching through Cyrenaica, the modern Tripoli, towards the western frontier of Egypt, he hastened with a few ships to Parætonium in order to secure the defence of that place. But on landing and approaching the walls of the fortress and calling upon the commander to come out to him, his voice was drowned by a blare of trumpets from within. A few minutes later the garrison made a sortie, chased him and his men back to the harbour, set fire to some of his ships, and drove him with considerable loss from their shores. On returning to Alexandria he heard that Octavian was approaching Pelusium, the corresponding fortress on the eastern frontier of Egypt, which was under the command of a certain officer named Seleucus; and shortly after this, towards the middle of July, the news arrived that that stronghold had surrendered.
Thereupon Antony, whose nerves were in a very highly-strung condition, furiously accused Cleopatra of having betrayed him by arranging secretly with Seleucus to hand over the fortress to Octavian in the hope of placating the approaching enemy. Cleopatra denied the accusation, and, to prove the truth of her words, she caused the wife and children of Seleucus to be arrested and handed over to her husband, that he might put them to death if it were shown that she had had any secret correspondence with the traitor,[136] a fact which seems to prove her innocence conclusively.
Antony’s suspicions, however, unnerved him once more, and drove the flickering courage from his heart. Dispirited and agitated, he sent Euphronius to Octavian a second time, accompanied on this occasion by the young Antyllus, and provided with a large sum of money with which he hoped to placate his enemy. Octavian took the money but would not listen to the pleading of Antyllus on behalf of his father. The embassy must have been most distasteful to Cleopatra, who could not easily understand how a man could fall so low as to attempt to buy off his enemy with gold—and gold, let it be remembered, belonging to his wife. Her surprise and pain, however, must have been greatly increased when she discovered that Antony had next sent in chains to Octavian a certain ex-senator, named Turullius, who had been one of the murderers of Julius Cæsar, and was, in fact, the last survivor of all the assassins, each one of the others having met his death as though by the hand of a vengeful Providence. Turullius had now come into Antony’s power, and, since Cleopatra’s son was Julius Cæsar’s heir, the man ought to have been handed over to the Queen for punishment. Instead, however, Antony had sent him on to his enemy in a manner which could only suggest that he admitted Octavian’s right to act as the Dictator’s representative. Octavian at once put Turullius to death, thereby performing the last necessary act of vengeance in behalf of the murdered Cæsar; but to Antony he did not so much as send an acknowledgment of the prisoner’s reception. Receiving no assurance of mercy, Antony appears for a time to have thought of flying to Spain or to some other country where he could hide, or could carry on a guerilla warfare, until some change in the politics of Rome should enable him to reappear. His nobler nature, however, at length asserted itself, owing to the example set by Cleopatra, who was determined now to defend her capital; and once more he pulled himself together, as though to stand by the Queen’s side until the end. Their position, though bad, was not desperate. Alexandria was a strongly fortified city. The four Roman legions which had been left in Egypt during the war in Greece were still in the city; the Macedonian household troops were also stationed there; and no doubt a considerable body of Egyptian soldiers were garrisoned within the walls; while in the harbour lay the fleet which had retired from Actium, together with numerous other ships of war. Thus a formidable force was in readiness to defend the metropolis, and these men were so highly paid with the never-ending wealth of the Egyptian treasury that they were in much happier condition than were the legionaries of Octavian, whose wages were months overdue.
Cleopatra, nevertheless, did not expect to come through the ordeal alive; and although Octavian continued to send her assurances of his goodwill, the price which he asked for her safety was invariably the head of Antony, and this she was not prepared to pay. I do not think that the Queen’s temptation in this regard has been properly observed. Dion Cassius emphatically states that Octavian promised her that if she would kill Antony he would grant her both personal safety and the full maintenance of her undiminished authority; and Plutarch, with equal clearness, says that Octavian told her that there was no reasonable favour which she might not expect from him if only she would put Antony to death, or even expel him from his safe refuge in Egypt. Antony had proved himself a broken reed; he had acted in a most cowardly manner; he was generally drunk and always unreliable; and he appeared to be of no further use to her or to her cause. Yet, although his removal meant immunity to herself, she was too loyal, too proud, to sanction his assassination; and her action practically amounted to this, that she defied Octavian, telling him that if he wanted her drunken husband’s useless head he must break down the walls of her city and hunt for it.