[113] Propertius. Canopus was an Egyptian port with a reputation much like that once held by the modern Port Said. Anubis was the Egyptian jackal-god, connected with the ritual of the dead.
[114] An earlier eunuch of the same name, it will be remembered, played an important part in Cleopatra’s youth.
[115] The numbers given by the early authors are very contradictory, but Plutarch states that Octavian reported the capture of three hundred ships.
[116] Not upon the sixty Egyptian ships, as Plutarch states: that is an evident mistake, as the proportion of numbers per ship will at once show.
[117] The fact that Dellius knew something of the plans for the battle fixes the date of his desertion to this period, as Ferrero has pointed out.
[118] Dion Cassius states (though he afterwards contradicts himself by speaking of the Queen’s panic) that Antony had agreed to fly to Egypt with Cleopatra, and this view is upheld by Ferrero, Bouché-Leclercq, and others; but I do not consider it probable. One can understand Antony flying after the departing Queen in the agony and excitement of the moment; but it is difficult to believe that such a movement was the outcome of a carefully considered plan of action, for all are agreed that previous to the battle of Actium his chances of success had been very fair. If the two had arranged to retire to Egypt together, why was Cleopatra’s treasure, but not his own, shipped; and why did they refuse to speak to one another for three whole days? Ferrero thinks that he had arranged amicably with Cleopatra to retire to Egypt with her, and that the naval battle had not gone much against him; but surely it is difficult to suppose that he would deliberately desert his huge army and his undefeated navy for strategic reasons.
[119] Scholz: Reise zwischen Alex. und Parætonium.
[120] Pliny, Epist. iii. 16.
[121] In a very similar manner Herod, who had taken the part of Antony and who now feared that Octavian would dethrone him in favour of the earlier sovereign, Hyrcanus, put that claimant to death, so that Octavian, as Josephus indicates, should not find it easy to fill Herod’s place.