LXXXV. After making this lamentation and crowning and embracing the coffin, she ordered a bath to be prepared for her. After bathing, she lay down and enjoyed a splendid banquet. And there came one from the country bringing a basket; and on the guards asking what he brought, the man opened it, and taking off the leaves showed the vessel full of figs. The soldiers admiring their beauty and size, the man smiled and told them to take some, whereon, without having any suspicion, they bade him carry them in. After feasting, Cleopatra took a tablet, which was already written, and sent it sealed to Cæsar, and, causing all the rest of her attendants to withdraw except those two women, she closed the door. As soon as Cæsar[479] opened the tablet and found in it the prayers and lamentations of Cleopatra, who begged him to bury her with Antonius, he saw what had taken place. At first he was for setting out himself to give help, but the next thing that he did was to send persons with all speed to inquire. But the tragedy had been speedy; for, though they ran thither and found the guards quite ignorant of everything, as soon as they opened the door they saw Cleopatra lying dead on a golden couch in royal attire. Of her two women, Eiras was dying at her feet, and Charmion, already staggering and drooping her head, was arranging the diadem on the forehead of Cleopatra. One of them saying in passion, “A good deed this, Charmion;” “Yes, most goodly,” she replied, “and befitting the descendant of so many kings.” She spake not another word, but fell there by the side of the couch.
LXXXVI. Now it is said that the asp was brought with those figs and leaves, and was covered with them; for that Cleopatra had so ordered, that the reptile might fasten on her body without her being aware of it. But when she had taken up some of the figs and saw it, she said, “Here then it is,” and baring her arm, she offered it to the serpent to bite. Others say that the asp was kept in a water-pitcher, and that Cleopatra drew it out with a golden distaff and irritated it till the reptile sprang upon her arm and clung to it. But the real truth nobody knows; for it was also said that she carried poison about her in a hollow comb, which she concealed in her hair; however, no spots broke out on her body, nor any other sign of poison. Nor yet was the reptile seen within the palace; but some said that they observed certain marks of its trail near the sea, in that part towards which the chamber looked and the windows were. Some also say that the arm of Cleopatra was observed to have two small indistinct punctures; and it seems that Cæsar believed this, for in the triumph a figure of Cleopatra was carried with the asp clinging to her. Such is the way in which these events are told. Though Cæsar was vexed at the death of Cleopatra, he admired her nobleness of mind, and he ordered the body to be interred with that of Antonius in splendid and royal style. The women of Cleopatra also received honourable interment by his orders. Cleopatra at the time of her death was forty years of age save one, and she had reigned as queen two-and-twenty years, and governed together with Antonius more than fourteen. Antonius, according to some, was six years, according to others, three years above fifty. Now the statues of Antonius were thrown down, but those of Cleopatra remained standing, for Archibius, one of her friends, gave Cæsar two thousand talents that they might not share the same fate as those of Antonius.
LXXXVII. Antonius by his three wives left seven children, of whom Antyllus, the eldest, was the only one who was put to death by Cæsar; the rest Octavia[480] took and brought them up with her own children. Cleopatra, the daughter of Cleopatra, she married to Juba, the most accomplished of kings; and Antonius, the son of Fulvia, she raised so high that, while Agrippa held the first place in Cæsar’s estimation, and the sons of Livia the second, Antonius had and was considered to have the third. Octavia had by Marcellus two daughters, and one son, Marcellus, whom Cæsar made both his son and son-in-law, and he gave one of the daughters to Agrippa. But as Marcellus died very soon after his marriage, and it was not easy for Cæsar to choose from the rest of his friends a son-in-law whom he could trust, Octavia proposed to him that Agrippa should take Cæsar’s daughter and put away her daughter. Cæsar was first persuaded and then Agrippa, whereupon Octavia took her own daughter back and married her to Antonius; and Agrippa married Cæsar’s daughter. There were two daughters of Antonius and Octavia, of whom Domitius Ænobarbus took one to wife; and the other, who was famed for her virtues and her beauty, Antonia, was married to Drusus, the son of Livia, and step-son of Cæsar. From the marriage of Drusus and Antonia came Germanicus and Claudius, of whom Claudius afterwards ruled; and of the children of Germanicus, Caius, who ruled with distinction for no long time, was destroyed together with his child and wife; and Agrippina, who had by Ænobarbus a son, Lucius Domitius, married Claudius Cæsar; and Claudius adopting her son, named him Nero Germanicus. Nero, who ruled in my time, slew his mother, and through his violence and madness came very near subverting the supremacy of Rome, being the fifth from Antonius in the order of succession.
COMPARISON OF DEMETRIUS AND ANTONIUS.
I. Since, then, great changes of fortune took place in each of their lives, let us first consider their power and renown. The position of Demetrius was inherited and already made for him, as Antigonus was the most powerful of the successors of Alexander, and, before Demetrius came of age, had overrun and conquered the greater part of Asia: while Antonius, whose father, though an excellent man, was no soldier, and left him no renown, yet dared to seize upon the empire of Cæsar, with which he was in no way connected, and constituted himself the heir of what Cæsar had won by the sword. Starting as a mere private person, he raised himself to such a height of power as to be able to divide the world into two, and to select and obtain the fairer half for his own, while, without his being even present, his lieutenants and agents inflicted several defeats upon the Parthians, and conquered all the nations of Asia as far as the Caspian Sea. Even that for which he is especially reproached proves the greatness of his power. Demetrius’s father was well pleased at getting Phila, the daughter of Antipater, as a wife for his son, in spite of the disparity of their ages, because he regarded her as his son’s superior; while it was thought to be a disgrace for Antonius to ally himself with Cleopatra, a woman who excelled in power and renown all the Kings of her age, except Arsakes himself. Antonius had made himself so great that men thought him entitled to more even than he himself desired.
II. Demetrius, however, cannot be blamed for attempting to make himself king over a people accustomed to servitude, while it appeared harsh and tyrannical for Antonius to try to enslave the people of Rome just after they had been set free from the rule of Cæsar: and the greatest of his exploits, the war against Brutus and Cassius, was waged with the intention of depriving his countrymen of their liberty. Demetrius, before he became involved in difficulties, used always to act as a liberator towards Greece, and to drive out the foreign garrisons from her cities, and did not act like Antonius, who boasted that he had slain the would-be liberators of Rome in Macedonia. And though Antonius is especially commended for his magnificent generosity, yet Demetrius so far surpassed him as to bestow more upon his enemies than Antonius would upon his friends. It is true that Antonius gained great credit for having caused Brutus to be honourably buried; but Demetrius buried all his enemy’s slain, gave money and presents to his prisoners, and sent them back to Ptolemy.
III. Both were arrogant when in prosperity, and set no bounds to their luxury and pleasures. Yet it cannot be said that Demetrius was ever so immersed in enjoyments as to let slip the time for action, but he only dedicated the superfluity of his leisure to enjoyment, and used his Lamia, like the mythical nightmare, only when he was half asleep or at play. When he was preparing for war, no ivy wreathed his spear, no perfume scented his helmet, nor did he go forth from his bed-chamber to battle covered with finery, but, as Euripides says, he laid the Bacchic wand aside, and served the unhallowed god of war, and, indeed, never suffered any reverse through his own carelessness or love of pleasure. But just as in pictures we often see Omphale stealing the club and stripping off the lion’s skin from Herakles, so Cleopatra frequently would disarm Antonius and turn his mind to pleasure, persuading him to give up mighty enterprises and even necessary campaigns to wander and sport with her on the shores of Canopus and beside the tomb of Osiris. At last, like Paris, he fled from battle to nestle on her breast, though Paris only took refuge in his chamber after he had been defeated in battle, while Antonius, by his pursuit of Cleopatra, gave up his chance of victory.
IV. Moreover, in marrying several wives, Demetrius did not break through any custom, for he only did what had been usual for the kings of Macedonia since the days of Philip and Alexander, and what was done by Lysimachus and Ptolemy in his own time; and he showed due respect to all his wives; while Antonius, in the first place, married two wives at the same time, which no Roman had ever dared to do before, and then drove away his own countrywoman and his legitimate wife to please a foreigner, and one to whom he was not legally married. Yet with all his excesses Antonius was never led by his vices into such sacrilegious impiety as is recorded of Demetrius. We are told that no dogs are allowed to enter the Acropolis,[481] because these animals copulate more openly than any others; but Demetrius consorted with harlots in the very temple of the virgin goddess, and debauched many of the Athenian citizens, while, although one would have imagined that a man of such a temperament would be especially averse to cruelty, Demetrius must be charged with this in allowing, or rather compelling, the most beautiful and modest of the Athenians to suffer death in order to avoid outrage. To sum up, the vices of Antonius were ruinous to himself, while those of Demetrius were ruinous to others.