VIII.
The Egyptian fleet and some other vessels which had followed the fugitives put into the port of Cænopolis, near Cape Tenarum. Often repulsed by the obstinate silence of Antony, Cleopatra’s women finally succeeded in bringing about an interview between the lovers. They supped and passed the night together. O, wretched human weakness!
Some of his friends who had escaped from Actium brought them news. The fleet had made an obstinate resistance, but all the vessels which were not sunk or burned were now in possession of Octavius. The army still maintained its position, and appeared to be faithful. Antony at once sent messengers and despatched Canidius with orders to recall those troops, and himself embarked for Cyrenaica, where he still had several legions. One of his vessels bore his jewels, his valuables, and all the services of gold and silver which he had used at his entertainments of the kings, his allies. Before departing from Cænopolis, Antony divided all this wealth among a few of his friends, whom he constrained to seek an asylum in Greece, refusing to allow them any longer to follow his fatal fortunes. When parting from them he talked in the kindest manner, seeking to console them and regarding their tears with a sad but kindly smile.
Cleopatra had sailed from Greece some days before Antony. She was in haste to return to Egypt, fearing that the news of the disaster of Actium might provoke a revolution. To mislead the people for a few days, and thus gain time to take her measures, she entered the port of Alexandria with all the parade of a triumph. Her ships, their prows adorned with crowns, resounded with the songs of victory and the music of flutes and sistra. No sooner was she reinstalled in the palace than she put to death many whose intrigues she feared. These executions, which benefited the royal treasury, for death involved the confiscation of the wealth of the real or pretended guilty, delivered Cleopatra from all fear of an immediate revolution, but she none the less felt a mortal terror about the future. She still suffered from the horror of Actium;—at times haunted by the idea of suicide, she contemplated a death as pompous as had been her life, and she erected at the extremity of Cape Lochias an immense tomb, in which to consume herself and her treasures. At other times she thought of flight, and by her orders a number of her largest ships were transported with great reënforcements of men, engines, and beasts of burden across the isthmus to the Red Sea. She had a vision of embarking with all her wealth for some unknown country of Asia or Africa, there to renew her existence of lust and pleasure.
Antony soon returned to Alexandria. He was in a state of gloomy discouragement; his army in Acarnania, deserted by Canidius, who had taken flight, had surrendered to Octavius after a week of hesitation; in Cyrenaica he could not even obtain a meeting with his lieutenant Scarpus, who, having taken sides with the Cæsarians, had threatened his life; Herod, his creature, whom he had made king of the Jews, had offered his allegiance to the conqueror of Actium; defection on all sides with his allies as with his legions. Antony reached the point of doubting even Cleopatra; he would scarcely see her. Exasperated at the cruelty of the gods, and still more so at the perfidy of men, he resolved to pass in solitude the wretched days that his enemies might yet permit him to live. The story of Timon, the misanthrope of Athens, which he had heard in happier days, recurred to his memory, and, determined to live like Timon, he settled in the barren mole of Poseidon, and busied himself there in erecting a tower which he intended to call the Timonion.
Cleopatra yielded less submissively to fate. Attacked in the crisis of danger by a fainting courage to which Antony was an utter stranger, the immediate danger past she recovered all her powers. With her exalted imagination she could not despair either wholly or even for very long. She learned that the vessels she had had transported to the Red Sea had been burned by the Arabs, and thus her flight prevented. She at once prepared for determined resistance. Whilst Antony was losing his time playing the misanthrope, the queen raised fresh forces, furnished new vessels, formed new alliances, repaired the fortifications of Pelusium and Alexandria, distributed arms to the people, and to encourage the Alexandrians to the determined defense of their city, she inscribed the name of her son, Cæsarion, in the rolls of the militia. Antony could not but admire the courage and energy of Cleopatra, and, entreated by his friends besides being weary of his solitude, he resumed his residence at the palace. The queen received him as in the happy days of his return from Cilicia or Armenia. They again enjoyed with the friends of the last hour banquets, festivals, orgies—only “The Inimitables” changed their appellation, and called themselves “The Inseparables in Death”: οἱ συναποθανουμéνοι.
The choice of this funereal name, assumed as much from resignation as bravado, sufficiently reveals the state of mind of the lovers. Antony, it seems, had lost all hope; Cleopatra still hoped, but with intervals of gloomy discouragement. At such times she would descend to the crypts of the palace, near the prisons of the condemned; slaves would drag them, a few at a time, from their cells to test on them the effects of different poisons. Cleopatra watched with a curiosity, more painful even than cruel, the dying agonies of the victims. The experiments were frequently repeated, for the queen could not discover the poison of her dreams—a poison that slays instantly without pain and without shock. She noticed that violent poisons killed swiftly but with frightful torture, and that less active ones inflicted lingering agonies; then she studied the bites of serpents, and after new experiments she discovered that the venom of an Egyptian viper, called in Greek “Aspis,” caused neither convulsion nor any painful sensation, and led by a constantly increasing drowsiness to a gentle death, like a sleep. As for Antony, like Cato and Brutus, he had his sword.