No doubt. But though Touchstone says, “Your If is your only peace-maker,” it can also be a very good peace-breaker on occasion. In Enobarbus’ opinion (and in his own way Octavius is just as shrewd), Octavia with her “holy, cold and still conversation” is no dish for Antony. But though this is now expressly pointed out to Octavius’ confidants, the marriage goes on as though nothing could be urged against it. The reason is that nothing can, from the point of view of the contrivers. If it turns out well, so far good; if it turns out ill, so much the better. Only when it is an accomplished fact, does Caesar give a glimpse of what it involves in the sinister exhortation:
Let not the piece of virtue which is set
Betwixt us, as the cement of our love,
To keep it builded, be the ram to batter
The fortress of it.
(III. ii. 28.)
Thus when Antony returns to Cleopatra, as he was bound to do, Octavius manages to represent himself as the aggrieved party, as champion of the sanctity of the hearth, the vindicator of old Roman pieties; and in this way gains a good deal of credit at the outset of the quarrel.
And for the fortunate conduct of it, he is indebted, apart from Antony’s demoralisation, to his adroitness in playing on the weakness of others, rather than to any nobler strength in himself. Thus he irritates Antony’s reckless chivalry, both vain and grandiose, by defying him to give battle by sea at Actium. Antony is not bound even by any punctilio of honour to consent, for Octavius has twice declined a similar challenge.
Ant.Canidius, we
Will fight with him by sea.