This scandalous triumph was of the utmost magnificence. Through Alexandria, decorated with the richest ornaments and massed with flowers, filed to the sound of horns and trumpets, the legionaries, the auxiliary cavalry, the priests, the censer-bearers, and the deputies from different cities, wearing crowns of gold, chariots filled with trophies, and thousands of captives. Before the triumphal chariot, drawn by four white horses, walked the king Artavasdes, his wife, and two sons, bound in chains of gold. When the chariot arrived before Cleopatra, who, seated on a throne of gold and ivory, presided at the triumph, Antony stayed his quadriga, and presented to the queen his royal captives. After the procession and the sacrifices, he gave a mammoth banquet to the citizens of Alexandria. Enormous tables were spread in the gardens of the palace and in the public squares. The feast over, Antony seated Cleopatra on her throne of gold and ivory [chryselephantine], and placed himself on a similar one; the trumpets sounded, the soldiers presented arms, and the whole people collected in crowds around the two lovers. Then Antony proclaimed that from that time Cleopatra should be called the Queen of Kings, and her son, Cæsarion, the heir of Julius, the divine, the King of Kings; and he renewed to them the sovereignty of Egypt and Cyprus. Next he publicly settled the state of the three children borne him by Cleopatra. He gave to the eldest, Alexander, called by him Helios, Armenia, Media, and the country of the Parthians; to his twin-sister Cleopatra, whom he called Selene, the kingdom of Lybia; to Ptolemy, Phœnicia, Syria, and Cilicia. At each proclamation of the triumvir, heralds repeated his words and the trumpets sounded. The same day the youthful (infant) sovereigns were presented by Antony to the army and the people. Alexander appeared in the robes of the Mede with the cidaris (sash) of the kings of Persia, and a platoon of Armenians as a guard of honor. Ptolemy had an escort of Macedonian mercenaries armed with lances eighteen feet long; he wore the long purple mantle, the sandals embroidered with gold, and the crown of precious stones of the successors of Alexander.
Cleopatra had already set the example of such masquerades. Two years before, on her return from Laodicea, when Antony had added to her dominions Phœnicia, Chalcedon, Cœlo-Syria and many other countries she had opened a new era and had assumed the name of the New Isis, or New Goddess. It was in the narrow garment of Isis, and on her head the covering of Isis (the golden horns, between which rested the vulture head), with the lotoform scepter in her hand, that she presided at public ceremonies or gave state audiences.
Submissive to these caprices Antony allowed himself to be represented in paintings and groups of statuary under the figures of Osiris and Bacchus, seated beside Cleopatra Isis and Cleopatra Selene. It seemed that bewitched by his mistress he renounced his country for her. He accepted the office of grand-gymnasiarch of Alexandria. He commanded that the effigy of the Egyptian queen should be engraved on the back of his imperial coins; he even dared to inscribe the name of Cleopatra on the shields of his legionaries. He permitted, by a shameless inversion of parts, that the queen should go about Alexandria seated in a curule chair, whilst he, carrying a scimeter and wearing a purple robe with jeweled clasps, accompanied her on foot surrounded by Egyptian officers and the base troop of eunuchs.
VI.
By deposing Lepidus, Octavius had changed the triumvirate into a duumvirate, and the empire became divided between himself and Antony. But the domination of the East satisfied the pride of Antony no better than the domination of the West sufficed for the ambition of Octavius. Though twice deferred, the civil war remained inevitable. In his extreme caution, Octavius would still have delayed it; in his folly, Antony precipitated it. He despised Octavius as a general; his flatterers and his soldiers, who adored him, predicted victory to his arms; Cleopatra, who retained the angry recollection of the insolent reception by the Romans, burned to avenge it, and confiding in the sword of Antony, she already swore “By the justice which she would soon dispense at the Capitol.”[11]
Antony began by overwhelming Octavius with reproaches and dark threats. His clients, who were numerous in Rome, his friends, his emissaries sent from Egypt, made themselves busy in enhancing with the people his grievances, real and supposed. Octavius, said they, has robbed Sextus Pompey of Sicily without dividing the spoils with his colleague: he has not even restored the hundred and twenty triremes borrowed for that war; he has deposed Lepidus and retained for himself alone the provinces, the legions, and the ships of war that had been assigned to that triumvir; he has distributed to his own soldiers nearly all the public lands of Italy, without keeping any for the veterans of Antony. Every act of the government of Octavius was criticized and incriminated. The people were reminded that he was crushing Italy under the weight of taxes; he was accused of aiming at sovereign power. They even went the length of saying that the true heir of Cæsar was not Octavius, his nephew, but Cæsar’s own son Cæsarion, and that a second will of the Dictator would some day be forthcoming. According to Dion Cassius, Antony, by his formal recognition of Cæsarion as the legitimate son of Cæsar, had raised to a climax the uneasiness and anger of Octavius.
Meanwhile Octavius bided his time; his preparations for war were not complete, and Antony was still popular in Rome, where he maintained very many clients, protected by Octavia his wife. She, in spite of the insult inflicted by Antony, was still wholly devoted to him; in vain, on her return from Greece, had Octavius besought her to forget her husband and to quit his dwelling; she had utterly refused to do so. She continued to reside in that famous mansion, once the property of the great Pompey, there educating with equal care and tenderness her own children by Antony and those of his first wife. The clients of Antony and the friends he sent from Alexandria were sure of finding support and assistance from Octavia; she even obtained favors for them from Octavius, irritated though he might be; finally she incessantly assumed in his presence the defense of Antony, excusing both faults and follies, and declaring that it was a hateful thing for two great emperors to incite Romans to slay each other, the one to avenge personal wrongs, the other for the love of a foreign woman.