From the winter of 39 to the summer of 36 B. C., for three long years, Cleopatra remained thus parted from Antony. She was queen of Egypt and Cyprus, she had borne one son to Cæsar and two to Antony, she possessed immense revenues and treasures inexhaustible, but she suffered in her pride and in her love from the desertion of the triumvir. Cleopatra at twenty years of age had in all probability not loved Cæsar, who was over fifty. She loved Antony. In fact, though she had at first given herself to the triumvir through policy, yet she soon felt for this rough soldier, handsome with the beauty of Hercules, master of the East, surrounded by glory and power, the same passion that she had inspired in him. If, indeed, the ancient authors do not state in words that Cleopatra loved Antony, the scenes which they depict can scarcely permit a doubt of it. There is a logic of circumstances. With his martial air, his lofty stature and broad chest, his mane of black hair and eyes of gloom, his aquiline nose and harshly cut features, Antony certainly possessed manly attractions. His first wife, Fulvia, loved him passionately; his second wife, Octavia, loved him supremely; the haughty Cleopatra gave him love for love. Besides, Shakspeare tells us this, and the word of this great painter of the human heart, of this marvelously comprehensive genius, may well make up for the silence on this point of a Dion Cassius or a Paul Orose.
Great as might have been the suffering of this other Dido, one can scarcely imagine her enveloped in habiliments of woe and sighing in the retirement of her palace. In all probability Cleopatra continued her gay life of pompous show, giving to pleasure all the time that was left from official ceremonies, public audiences and other duties of the government, and her conferences with architects and engineers.[8] The Typhonium, at Denderah, dates from the reign of Cleopatra. As is shown by its cartouches, she also labored at the great temple of Denderah, at those of Edfou, Heminthis, and Coptos, as well as at the monuments of Thebes situated on the left bank of the Nile. At Alexandria, besides the Cæsarium, which it appears was begun by Cleopatra, she had many fine buildings erected; but as with many other more ancient palaces and temples, there remains of them not a vestige on that surface which the ruins of centuries have in so many places raised to a height of fully ten meters.
Did the queen seek to play the indifferent by leaving Antony without tidings, or, as Plutarch insinuates and Shakspeare declares, did she, during these three years, overwhelm him with dolorous appeals and burning messages of love? According to Josephus, her voluptuous temperament was ever leading her into transient amours. Besides Cneius Pompey, Cæsar, Dellius, Antony, and Herod, king of the Jews, the five lovers who are accredited or attributed to her, the queen of Egypt had many flirtations and anonymous entanglements. Is this calumny? It is rather a slander. Be this as it may, the accusation is no proof that Cleopatra no longer loved Antony. These riddles of the heart and the senses are, after all, no enigma.
As for Antony, it seems that he had indeed forgotten Cleopatra. Not only during the three years that he had passed with Octavia at Athens and Rome; not only on his return from the expedition against Antiochus of Commagene had he not visited Egypt, but even on his way from Tarentum to Laodicea he had not touched at Alexandria, which was almost directly in his course. He sailed straight for Syria. By a singular fatality, scarcely had he set foot in Asia when he felt his passion rekindle with the utmost violence. He established himself at Laodicea, and at once despatched his friend Fonteius Capito into Egypt to conduct Cleopatra to Syria. The queen, enchanted, had no thought of delaying her departure in order to make herself the more desired, as she had done five years before. She embarked at once, and was received at Laodicea by her lover with transports of joy. To prove otherwise than by caresses his unspeakable happiness at seeing her again, he gave her, not jewels, but kingdoms: Chalcedon, Phœnicia, Cœolo-Syria, a great part of Cilicia, Genesereth in Judea, noted for its balm, and Nabathae in Arabia. Antony had no right to dispose of these territories, which belonged to the Roman people; but mad with pride as much as with love he declared that “The glory of Rome was displayed much less in her conquests and possessions than in the gifts she bestowed.”[9]
A few days after they were again compelled to part, with the promise, however, of meeting again in the spring at Alexandria. Antony passed with his army into Armenia; Cleopatra returned to Egypt, passing through Apamea, Damascus, and Petrea. She desired to settle with the kings of Judea and Arabia the amount of the tribute which these rulers were to pay yearly for the portions of territory which Antony had bestowed. The king of Arabia promised three hundred talents (sixteen hundred and sixty thousand francs); the tribute of the king of the Jews was greater. This king was Herod, whom the protection of Antony had a few years before placed on the throne. He went to Damascus to meet Cleopatra. According to Josephus, Herod, who was remarkably handsome, repulsed the shameless advances of the queen, even proposing to put her to death whilst she was in his power in order to deliver Antony from her fatal influence; but his counselors dissuaded him from this crime, telling him that from that moment he would incur the terrible vengeance of Antony.
Cleopatra had not been long in Alexandria when she received a message from Antony, dated at Leucocoma, a city on the seaboard of Syria. He entreated her to join him at once with money, stores, and clothing for his soldiers, who were destitute of everything. The war had been unsuccessful. By his too eager desire to rejoin Cleopatra in the spring, Antony had compromised the success of the campaign. When he reached Armenia, after a forced march of eight thousand stadia, he should have gone into winter quarters and not opened the campaign till the spring, with troops rested and refreshed, and at a favorable season. Too impatient to submit to this long delay, he entered Upper Media, and that his march might be more rapid he left behind all his siege machinery under the guard of one detachment. Chariots, towers, catapults, battering-rams eighty feet long—all were destroyed by the Parthian cavalry. Through the want of these batteries Antony failed in the attack on the city of Phraata. Threatened by an overwhelming force, he was compelled to retreat. It was midwinter, the legionaries had to march through the snow amid freezing squalls. Every morning many were found frozen to death. Provisions failed, they lost their way, and the formidable Parthian cavalry harassed the exhausted columns. In this terrible retreat, the remembrance of which may have occurred to Napoleon before crossing the Niemen, Antony recovered his energy and his qualities as a general; insensible to fatigue and hunger he was everywhere present; he was both imperator and centurion. Ever at the point where danger threatened most, in twenty-seven days he fought eighteen battles. Victor at night, the next day the struggle was renewed against fresh and ever-increasing forces. When Antony reached the coast of Syria his army was reduced from seventy thousand to thirty-eight thousand men. More fortunate than Crassus, however, the Romans brought back their eagles.
Cleopatra in vain used all despatch; she did not reach Antony as soon as he had hoped, and his impatience became agony. He imagined that the queen would not comply with the appeal of a conquered man. Overcome by despair he fell into a sort of stupor. Then he sought distraction in drinking, but the pleasures of the table, of which he had been so utterly deprived during the campaign of Media, had no power to relieve his anxiety. At the very height of an orgy he would suddenly rise from the table, leave his companions, and hasten to the seashore, where he would remain whole hours with his eyes fixed on the horizon in the direction whence he expected Cleopatra to appear.
At length the long-desired queen arrived with provisions and clothing, and about two hundred and forty talents of silver. The paying of the legionaries,[10] the reorganization of the army, and the collection of contributions compelled Antony to remain some time longer at Leucocoma, and Cleopatra remained with him. Meanwhile, the news of the disastrous expedition having reached Rome, Octavia, still devoted to her husband despite the efforts of Octavius, who had had the cruelty to inform her of the reunion of Antony and Cleopatra, determined to embark for Asia. She entreated Octavius to furnish her with ships, soldiers, and money. Report had informed Octavius of the renewed passion of Antony. He yielded to the request of Octavia in the hope that the insulting reception she was likely to receive from her husband might detach her from him forever and rouse the indignation of the Romans. Not to risk a meeting with Cleopatra, Octavia landed at Athens, whence she sent word to Antony of her arrival. But the triumvir would not dismiss his mistress; he wrote to Octavia to remain at Athens, offering her as a pretext his intention of undertaking a new expedition against the Parthians. In fact, the king of Media, incessantly a prey to these wild hordes, had proposed to Antony an alliance against them. Without resenting Antony’s refusal to receive her, of which refusal she did not deceive herself as to the cause, Octavia wrote again to Antony. This letter contained no reproaches; the young wife asked the triumvir simply whither she should send the reënforcements and the munitions she had brought for him. These included, besides military clothing and arms, machines of war and a large amount of money, three thousand chosen men as splendidly armed as the prætorian cohorts. Octavia had sacrificed a portion of her private fortune to add this quota to the supplies. Niger was charged with the delivery of this letter. Often interviewed by Antony, who held him in great esteem, he mildly pointed out the wrongs of Octavia, reminded him of the rare virtues of this admirable woman, and exhorted him in the name of his own interests so seriously involved, and of his renown so sadly compromised, to abandon Cleopatra.
Much shaken, Antony hesitated. He thought he would go to Media. By this means he could send Cleopatra back to Egypt, leave Octavia in Greece, and delay, until his return from the campaign, the decision which he could not resolve now to make; but Cleopatra, with the penetration of a woman who loves, read the heart of Antony. She saw herself a second time in danger of losing her lover; moreover, she had the advantage over Octavia of being near Antony. She redoubled her smiles and caresses, purposely exaggerating the passion already very warm and unfeigned which possessed her. Then, at the first broaching of his departure for Media, she pretended a mortal sorrow. She would neither eat nor sleep, she passed her days and nights in tears; her pale face, her haggard features and sunken eyes, her stony look and pallid lips struck all who approached her. Her women, her friends, the intimates of the triumvir whom she had won over by her flatteries and promises, reproached Antony with his want of feeling. They accused him of allowing to die of grief the most adorable of women, who breathed only for him. “Octavia,” said they, “is bound to you merely by her brother’s interest; she enjoys all the advantages of a wife’s title, while Cleopatra, the queen of so many peoples, is called only the mistress of Antony, ἐρω.μένην Ἀντωνíου. She refuses not this name, she does not feel humiliated by it—she glories in it: her sole bliss, her only ambition, is to live with thee!” Antony yielded, overcome by such speeches and by the fear that Cleopatra, who possessed his whole heart, and whom only his reason urged him to resist, would die of grief or take poison. He therefore postponed his expedition into Media, and returned with Cleopatra to Alexandria, where they resumed the “Life Inimitable.”
At the commencement of the year 34, Antony joined his legions in Asia. In a few days he defeated the Armenians, made prisoner the king and all his family, and reduced the country to subjection. After this glorious campaign Antony was to enjoy a triumph at Rome, but through love and devotion to Cleopatra, whom he wished to share his honors, the ceremony was given at Alexandria. For the first time a Roman received the reward of a triumph outside of Rome. It was an insult to the city, which thus seemed discrowned; it was an offense to the senate and the people, from whom alone the honor of a triumph could be received.