The gauzy curtains of her palanquin.”[205]
Antony himself made no concealment as to the queen’s connection with the army. After his disastrous expedition of B.C. 36-5, Cleopatra supplied him with money, and he told his men when paying them that they were receiving it from her. The connection also involved a breach with Cæsar. Their friendship—always doubtful—had been patched up from time to time by formal reconciliations; in B.C. 43 after Mutina; in B.C. 40 at Brundisium; and in B.C. 37 at Tarentum. For a time Antony had found great pleasure in the society of Octavia, with whom he lived for a time at Athens. But after the meeting at Tarentum he left Octavia with her brother on his return to the East, and soon fell again under Cleopatra’s spell, who, though not beautiful, fascinated him by her art and infinite variety. When in B.C. 35 Octavia, trying to effect another reconciliation, went to Athens, taking money and soldiers for him from her brother, Antony accepted the gifts, but sent her word that she was to return to Rome. Cæsar would have had her repudiate him at once, but she seems to have been sincerely attached to him, and to have shrunk from the idea of an insult to herself being made an occasion of civil war. She persisted in living in his town house, and in bringing up with liberality, not only her own children by him, but also Antony’s children by Fulvia.
Final breach between Cæsar and Antony.
But after his return from the Armenian expedition (B.C. 34) Antony became still more infatuated with Cleopatra. He publicly gave her the title of “Queen of Queens,” and her eldest son the name of Cæsarion and “King of Kings”; while to his two sons and daughter by Cleopatra he assigned kingdoms in Syria, Armenia, Libya, and Cyrene. He had the assurance to write to the Senate asking for the confirmation of these acta. When his two friends, C. Sosius and Cn. Domitius Ahenobarbus entered on their consulship (1st of January, B.C. 32), they resolved to suppress this despatch, in spite of Cæsar’s wishes; but they communicated to the Senate his message that the second period of the Triumvirate having expired (on the last day of B.C. 33), he had no desire for its renewal. He did not, however, lay down his imperium, and the object of this declaration was to embroil Cæsar with the Senate, should he wish to retain his extraordinary powers. Ahenobarbus, indeed, had had enough of civil war and wished to take no step likely to bring it about. But Sosius made an elaborate speech in praise of Antony, and attacking, or at least depreciating, Cæsar; and was only prevented from bringing in a motion in Antony’s favour by the intervention of a tribune. A few days after this Cæsar (who had not been present on the 1st of January) summoned the Senate, and delivered a speech from the consular bench, which though studiously moderate as regards himself, was very outspoken as regards Sosius and Antony. No one ventured to reply, and the Senate was dismissed with the assurance that Cæsar would produce proofs of what he had said about Antony. The two consuls, without taking any farther step, left Rome privately and joined Antony in Alexandria. They were followed by a considerable number of Senators, Cæsar giving out that they went with his full consent, and declaring that others might go if they chose.
The grievances of either side.
War proclaimed against Cleopatra, B.C. 32.
This was a division of the governing body similar to that of B.C. 49-8, and it was evident that a civil war was imminent. Sentiment was by no means all on one side at Rome, as is proved by the numbers of the Senate who crossed to Antony. Party feeling, in fact, was so keen that the very boys in the streets divided themselves into Cæsarians and Antonians;[206] and both leaders shewed great eagerness by arguments and declarations to put themselves in the right. Antony’s grievances against Cæsar were: (1) that he deprived Lepidus of Africa without consulting him; (2) that he had not shared with him the countries formerly controlled by Sextus Pompeius; (3) that he enrolled soldiers in Italy without sending him the contingents due by their agreement. Cæsar’s against Antony were that he was occupying Egypt (not a Roman province) without authority; had executed Sextus Pompeius, whom he (Cæsar) had wished to spare; had disgraced the Roman name by his conduct to the king of Armenia, by his connection with Cleopatra, and by bestowing kingdoms on his children by her; and, lastly, had wronged him by acknowledging Cæsarion as a son of Iulius Cæsar. Letters and messages were interchanged for some months on these and other points, both trying to justify themselves. Antony, in one letter at least, preserved by Suetonius, ridicules in the coarsest terms what he regards as Cæsar’s hypocritical or prudish objection to his connection with the queen. But at length Cæsar found means to discredit Antony in the eyes of the Senators, and to convince them that they must prevent an invasion of Italy by a proclamation of war against Cleopatra, which would be understood to be against Antony. He did this by using two of Antony’s officers who had quarrelled with him and returned to Rome—M. Titius and L. Munatius Plancus. The latter, Cicero’s correspondent, the governor of Celtic Gaul in B.C. 44, and consul in B.C. 42, had joined Antony in Alexandria as his legatus, and had been much in his confidence. He is held up to scorn by contemporary writers as a monster of fickleness and an ingrained traitor, and his thus turning upon Antony was regarded with much contempt even by the Cæsarians. The story he and his companion had to tell, however, served Cæsar’s turn. They brought word that, on hearing of his speech in the Senate, Antony had publicly divorced Octavia in the presence of the Senators, and had announced that he intended to undertake a war against him. They also told how Antony styled Cleopatra his queen and sovereign, gave her a bodyguard of Roman soldiers, with her name on their shields; how he escorted her to the forum and sat by her side on the seat of justice; how, when she rode in her chair he walked on foot by her side among the eunuchs; how he called the general’s quarters or prætorium “the Palace,” wore an Egyptian scimitar and a robe embroidered with gold, and sat on a gilded chair; and how some religious mummeries had been played, in which he took the part of Osiris, she of the Moon and Isis. The Roman world believed that Antony was bewitched by Cleopatra; and the serious consequences likely to ensue were made more manifest by his will, of which Augustus got either a copy or an account of its contents from Plancus, and read it publicly from the Rostra. In it Antony affirmed the legitimacy of Cæsarion, gave enormous legacies to his children by Cleopatra, and ordered his body to be buried with that of the queen’s in the royal mausoleum. Altogether people began to believe the report that he meant to hand over the Empire, even Rome itself, to Cleopatra, and to transfer the seat of government to Alexandria. There was one of those outbursts of feeling which carries all before it. Even those who had been neutral, or inclined to be suspicious of Cæsar, turned violently against Antony. He was deposed from the consulship for B.C. 31, to which he had been elected, and declared to be divested of imperium. It seems probable that he was not at first declared a hostis,[207] but war was voted against Cleopatra. It was enough for his enemies that he should be found fighting with the Egyptians against Rome; and the vote was well understood to include him. Cæsar was appointed to proclaim the war with all the Fetial ceremonies, and the Senate assumed the sagum.[208]
Both sides were now making preparations in earnest. Cæsar could draw forces from Italy, Gaul, Spain, Illyricum, Sardinia, Sicily, and other islands. Antony relied on Asia, the parts about Thrace, Greece and Macedonia, Egypt, Cyrene, and the islands of the Ægean, besides a large number of client kings who had owed their position to him.[209] He silenced their scruples, when gathered at Samos, by pointing out that they would not be formally at war with Rome, and promising that within two months of the victory he would lay down his imperium and remit all power to the Senate and people. Nor did he confine his exertions to the East. Agents were sent to cities in Italy carrying money, though Cæsar—who kept himself well informed—frustrated this attempt for the most part.
Antony approaches Italy.