Early in the morning he led his infantry to a position from which he could see his fleet, for he believed that two battles would be fought that day, one on sea and one on land.
But to his dismay, as his fleet drew near to Cæsar’s vessels, he saw that his men saluted the enemy and then joined it. A moment later his cavalry also went over to Cæsar’s army, while his infantry was soon after utterly beaten.
Crushed and humiliated, Antony tried to escape on board a vessel, but finding that he was watched by the enemy he stabbed himself to death. Such, say the history books, was the sad end of Mark Antony, but Plutarch, who writes his life, tells us of his last days in another way.
After his defeat, Plutarch says that Antony went back to Alexandria, complaining that he had been betrayed by Cleopatra into the hands of Cæsar.
His anger against the queen was so fierce that she was afraid and hastened to shut herself into the mausoleum or tomb which she had built in preparation for her death.
She then bade servants go tell Antony that she was dead. Such tidings would, she knew, speedily change his anger into sorrow.
But she had not stayed to think to what desperate step his grief might drive Antony. He no sooner believed that she was dead, than he determined that he too would die.
‘I am not troubled, Cleopatra,’ he said, ‘to be at present bereaved of you, for I shall soon be with you, but it distresses me that so great a general should be found of a tardier courage than a woman.’ Then he called his servant Eros, who had sworn to put him to death when he should demand it, and bade him now fulfil his promise. Silently the faithful servant drew his sword, not to kill his master—that he found he could not do—but to slay himself.
When Antony saw that his servant was dead, he cried, ‘It is well done, Eros; you show your master how to do what you had not the heart to do yourself.’ He then threw himself upon his sword, but the wound did not at once cause his death.
As Antony lay dying upon his couch, a messenger came from Cleopatra to tell him that she was not dead, but alive and in the mausoleum.