Predecessors of Cleopatra

by Leigh North

Now again came Cleopatra’s opportunity. Antony, victorious in the battle of Philippi, turned his attention to the East, and summoned Cleopatra before him, she being accused, as it has been seen, perhaps untruly, of sending aid to his rival, Cassius. Antony was of the party of Caesar, had delivered his funeral oration and was in a sense his successor. Like Caesar, also he had a fair and devoted wife, the noble Fulvia, but no legal bonds could resist “the Sorceress of the Nile.”

Dellius, Antony’s messenger, at once foresaw the probable result of a meeting between his master and the fascinating Egyptian, advised her to go in her “best style” and vaunted his chief as the “gentlest and kindliest of soldiers.” But Cleopatra was no subservient slave to hasten at the first bidding, and, disregarding many summons, took her own time and way to comply.

Her interview with Antony was in singular contrast with her first meeting with Caesar. As a fugitive and suppliant she conquered the one, with regal pomp and magnificence the other. Perhaps each method appealed most directly to the man she had to deal with, and her keen perception indicated the different modes. Cæsar might have shown himself less malleable to the dominant queen, Antony to the pleading and powerless maiden.

Josephus speaks of her corrupting Antony with her “love trick,” and says he was bewitched and utterly conquered by her charms—her “tricks” were of large and magnificent description. She made great preparations and gathered together splendid ornaments and costly gifts. At last, with full and well deserved confidence in her own powers of fascination she started. Plutarch’s words will best describe the gorgeous pageant she devised. “She came sailing up the River Cydnus” (Antony was in Cilicia) “in a barge with gilded stem and outspread sails of purple, while oars of silver beat time to the music of flutes and pipes and harps. She herself lay all along under a canopy of cloth of gold, dressed as Venus in a picture, and beautiful young boys, like painted Cupids, stood on each side to fan her. Her maids were dressed like sea Nymphs and Graces, some steered at the rudder, some working at the ropes. The perfumes diffused themselves from the vessel to the shore, which was covered with multitudes.” The people vacated the whole place and hastened to gaze upon the wondrous and beautiful sight, while Antony remained alone, awaiting the humble petitioner whom perhaps he expected to appear before him. But finally as Cleopatra intended he went to her.

“He found the preparations to receive him magnificent beyond expression, but nothing so admirable as the number of lights, for on a sudden there was let down together so great a number of branches with lights in them so ingeniously disposed, some in squares, some in circles, that the whole thing was a spectacle that has seldom been equalled for beauty.”

This beginning was the keynote of their future intercourse, amusements, banquets, entertainments of all sorts. Cleopatra sent Antony the whole gold service which he admired, and, according to the familiar story, dissolved her pearl earring in a cup of vinegar or sour wine, which she made him drink. Pleasure was the goddess whom they worshipped. Unworthy though it might be of her fine powers and abilities, this was perhaps the happiest time of Cleopatra’s life. Antony tried to vie with her in the splendor of his entertainments, but laughingly confessed she far outdid him.

Something like true love for him seems to have inspired the fickle queen. Caesar was but three years dead, but he was unmourned and forgotten. Antony was a handsome man of fine and attractive appearance and is thus described: “His beard was well grown, his forehead large and his nose aquiline, giving him altogether a bold, masculine look that reminded people of the face of Hercules in painting and sculpture.”

He was of the type that is most apt to win general regard generous and lavish, if not always just or honest, free and easy in manner to his inferiors, full of jokes and raillery and ready to drink and gamble with almost any one. Physically the two, the man and the woman, were splendid specimens of the human race. Morally what can be said of them?

Meanwhile Antony’s wife was fighting his battles at Rome and beseeching him to return, which he finally promised to do, but the Circe who held him in thrall willed rather that he should go with her to Alexandria, and prevailed, for he basely yielded to her arguments and spent the winter there, giving himself with her wholly up to the pursuit of pleasure in every form and the wildest revelry.

The inferior officers must have fulfilled their duties more faithfully than their superiors or the whole land would have been plunged in anarchy and destruction. The laws were administered, industry and commerce flourished, and Alexandria continued to be a large, populous and busy city, full of life and animation and adorned with many magnificent buildings. The Pharos steadily cast its beneficent light across the waters to be a guide to mariners; the Temple of Serapis, on its high platform, called attention to the worship of the gods; the Library was as yet the casket of valuable treasures; the Museum was thronged with students and scholars; palaces and public buildings adorned the beautiful streets, forts and castles, breakwaters and harbor were laid out and perfected and Alexandria was alone rivalled by Rome.