Antony and Cleopatra (21 page)

He had Antony’s measure. Caesar the God would have been knocking on King Orodes’s palace door in Selecueia-on-Tigris by now, but where was Antony? Laying siege to Brundisium, still in his own country. Prate though he might about being there to defend his entitlements as a Triumvir, he was actually there so he couldn’t be in Syria fighting the Parthians. Prate though he might about single-handedly winning Philippi, Antony knew he couldn’t have won without Octavian’s legions, composed of men whose loyalty he couldn’t command, for it belonged to Octavian.

I would give almost anything, Octavian thought after he had written his note to Antony and sent it off by a freedman courier, I would give almost anything to have Fortuna drop something in my lap that would send Antonius crashing down for good. Octavia isn’t it, nor probably would his rejection of her be it, did he decide to reject her once he tired of her goodness. I am aware that Fortuna smiles upon me—I have had so many close shaves that I am always beardless. And every time, it has been luck that yanked me back from the abyss. Like Libo’s hunger to find an illustrious husband for his sister. Like Calenus’s death in Narbo and his idiot son’s petitioning me instead of Antonius. Like the death of Marcellus. Like having Agrippa to general armies for me. Like my escapes from death each time the asthma has squeezed all the breath out of me. Like having my father Divus Julius’s war chest to keep me from bankruptcy. Like Brundisium’s refusing Antonius entry, may Liber Pater, Sol Indiges, and Tellus grant Brundisium future peace and great prosperity. I didn’t issue any orders to the city to do what it has, any more than I provoked the futility of Fulvia’s war against me. Poor Fulvia!

Every day I offer to a dozen gods, Fortuna at their head, to give me the weapon I need to bring Antonius down faster than age will inevitably do it. The weapon exists, I know that as surely as I know I have been chosen to set Rome on her feet permanently, to achieve lasting peace on the frontiers of her empire. I am the Chosen One whom Maecenas’s poet Virgil writes about and all Rome’s prognosticators insist will herald in a golden age. Divus Julius made me his son, and I will not fail his trust in me to finish what he started. Oh, it will not be the same world as Divus Julius would have made, but it will satisfy and please him. Fortuna, bring me more of Caesar’s fabled luck! Bring me the weapon, and open my eyes to recognize it when it comes!

Antony’s reply came by the same courier. Yes, he would see Caesar Octavianus under a flag of truce. But we are not at war! Octavian thought, breath taken away by something other than asthma. How does his mind work, to think that we are?

Next day Octavian set out on the Julian Public Horse—it was a small one, but very handsome with its creamy coat and darker mane and tail. To ride meant he couldn’t wear a toga, but as he didn’t want to appear warlike, he wore a white tunic with the broad purple stripe of a senator down its right shoulder.

Naturally Antony was in full armor, silver-plated, and with Hercules slaying the Nemean lion worked on its contoured cuirass. His tunic was purple, so was the
paludamentum
flowing from his shoulders, though by rights it should have been scarlet. As ever, he looked fit and well.

“No built-up boots, Octavianus?” he asked, grinning.

Though Antony had not, Octavian held out his right hand so obviously that Antony was obliged to take it, wring it so hard he crunched fragile bones. Face expressionless, Octavian endured it.

“Come inside,” Antony invited, holding the flap of his tent aside. That he chose to inhabit a tent rather than commandeer a private home was evidence of his confidence that the siege of Brundisium would not be a long business.

The tent’s public room was generous, but with the flap down, very dark. To Octavian, an indication of Antony’s wariness. He didn’t trust his face not to betray his emotions. Which didn’t worry Octavian. Not faces but thought patterns concerned him, for they were what he had to work on.

“I’m so pleased,” he said, swallowed by a chair much too big for his slight frame, “that we have reached the stage of drafting out an agreement. I felt it best that you and I in person should thrash out those matters on which we haven’t quite reached accord.”

“Delicately put,” said Antony, drinking deeply from a goblet of wine he had ostentatiously watered.

“A beautiful thing,” Octavian remarked, turning his own vessel in his hands. “Where was it made? Not Puteoli, I’d wager.”

“In some Alexandrian glassworks. I like drinking from glass, it doesn’t absorb the flavor of earlier wines the way even the best ceramic does.” He grimaced. “And metal tastes—metallic.”

Octavian blinked. “
Edepol!
I didn’t realize you’re such a connoisseur of something that merely
holds
wine.”

“Sarcasm will get you nowhere,” Antony said, unoffended. “I was told all that by Queen Cleopatra.”

“Oh, yes, that makes sense. An Alexandrian patriot.”

Antony’s face lit up. “And rightly so! Alexandria is the most beautiful city in the world, leaves Pergamum and even Athens shivering in the shade.”

Having sipped, Octavian put his chalice down as if it burned. Here was another fool! Why rave about a city’s beauty when his own city faded to nothing from lack of care? “You may have as many of Calenus’s legions as you wish, that goes without saying,” he lied. “In fact, nothing about your conditions fazes me save only your refusal to help me rid the seas of Sextus Pompeius.”

Frowning, Antony got to his feet and pulled the tent flap wide open, apparently deciding it was necessary to see Octavian’s face properly after all. “Italia is your province, Octavianus. Have I asked for
your
help in governing mine?”

“No, you haven’t, but nor have you sent Rome’s share of the eastern tributes to the Treasury. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that, even as Triumvir, the Treasury is supposed to gather in the tributes and pay Rome’s provincial governors a stipend, out of which they fund their legions and pay for public works in their provinces,” Octavian said blandly. “Of course I understand that no governor, least of all a Triumvir, simply collects what the Treasury demands—he always asks for more, keeps the surplus for himself. A time-honored tradition I have no quarrel with. I too am a Triumvir. However, you’ve sent
nothing
to Rome in the two years of your governorship. Had you, I would be able to buy the ships I need to deal with Sextus. It may suit you to use pirate ships as your fleets, since all the admirals who sided with Brutus and Cassius decided to become pirates after Philippi. I’m not above using them myself, were it not that they grow fat picking at
my
carcass! What they’re busy doing is proving to Rome and all Italia—the source of our best soldiers—that a million soldiers can’t help two shipless Triumvirs. You
should
have grain from the eastern provinces to feed your legions right fatly! It’s not my fault that you’ve let the Parthians overrun everywhere except Bithynia and Asia Province! What’s saved your bacon is Sextus Pompeius—as long as it suits you to stay sweet with him, he sells you Italia’s grain at a modest price—grain, may I remind you, bought and paid for by Rome’s Treasury! Yes, Italia is my province, but my only sources of money are the taxes I must squeeze from all Roman citizens living in Italia. They are not enough to pay for ships as well as buy stolen wheat from Sextus Pompeius for thirty sesterces the
modius
! So I ask again, where are the eastern tributes?”

Antony listened in growing ire. “The East is bankrupt!” he shouted. “There isn’t any tribute to send!”

“That’s not true, and even the least Roman from end to end of Italia knows that,” Octavian countered. “Pythodorus of Tralles brought you two thousand silver talents to Tarsus, for instance. Tyre and Sidon paid you a thousand more. And raping Cilicia Pedia yielded you four thousand. A total of one hundred and seventy-five million sesterces! Facts, Antonius!
Well-known facts!
”

Why had he ever consented to see this despicable little gnat? Antony asked himself, squirming. All he had to do to gain the ascendancy was remind me that whatever I do in the East somehow leaks back to every last Roman citizen in Italia. Without saying it, he’s telling me that my reputation is suffering. That I’m not yet above criticism, that the Senate and People of Rome can strip me of my offices. And yes, I can march on Rome, execute Octavianus and appoint myself Dictator.
But I was the one who made a huge fuss out of abolishing the dictatorship!
Brundisium has proved that my legionaries won’t fight Octavianus’s. That fact alone is why the little
verpa
can sit here and defy me, be open about his antagonism.

“So I’m none too popular in Rome,” he said sullenly.

“Candidly, Antonius, you’re not at all popular, especially after laying siege to Brundisium. You’ve felt at liberty to accuse me of putting Brundisium up to refusing you entry, but you’re well aware I didn’t. Why should I? It profits me nothing! All you’ve actually done is throw Rome into a frenzy of fear, expecting you to march on her. Which you cannot do! Your legions won’t let you. If you genuinely want to retrieve your reputation, you have to prove that to Rome, not to me.”

“I won’t join you against Sextus Pompeius, if that’s what you’re angling for. All I have are a hundred warships in Athens,” Antony lied. “Not enough to do the job, since you have none. As matters stand, Sextus Pompeius prefers me to you, and I’ll not do anything to provoke him. At the moment, he leaves me alone.”

“I didn’t think you would help me,” Octavian said calmly. “No, I was thinking more of something visible to
all
Romans from the top of the heap to the very bottom.”

“What?”

“Marriage to my sister, Octavia.”

Jaw dropped, Antony stared at his tormentor. “Ye gods!”

“What’s so unusual about it?” Octavian asked softly, smiling. “I’ve just concluded a similar kind of marital alliance myself, as I’m sure you know. Scribonia is very pleasant—a good woman, pretty, fertile…. I hope tying myself to her keeps Sextus at bay, for a while at any rate. But she can’t begin to compare with Octavia, can she? I am offering you Divus Julius’s great-niece, known and loved by every stratum in Rome as Julia was, beautiful to look at, enormously kind and thoughtful, an obedient wife, and the mother of three children, including a boy. As Divus Julius expected of
his
wife, she’s above suspicion. Marry her, and Rome will assume that you mean Rome no harm.”

“Why should it do that?”

“Because to be cruel to such a public paragon as Octavia would brand you a monster in every Roman’s eyes. Not the most stupid among them would condone ill treatment of Octavia.”

“I see. Yes, I see,” said Antony slowly.

“Then we have a deal?”

“We have a deal.”

This time Antony shook Octavian’s hand gently.

The Pact of Brundisium was sealed on the twelfth day of October, in Brundisium’s town square, and in the presence of a horde of cheering, beaming people who threw flowers at Octavian’s feet and controlled their behavior sufficiently not to spit at Antony’s feet. His perfidies were neither forgotten nor forgiven, but this day signified a victory for Octavian and Rome. There wasn’t going to be another civil war. Which pleased the legions strung around the city even more than it pleased Brundisium.

“So what do you think about this?” Pollio asked Maecenas as they traveled up the Via Appia in a four-mule gig.

“That Caesar Octavianus is a master of intrigue and a far better negotiator than I.”

“Did you think of offering Antonius the dearly beloved sister?”

“No, no! It was his idea. I suppose I thought the chances of his agreeing to it so remote that it never even popped into my mind. Then when he told me the day before he went to see Antonius, I assumed he’d be sending me to do the offering—brr! I quailed in my shoes! But no. Off he went himself, unescorted.”

“He couldn’t send you because he needed it man to man. What he said, only he could say. I gather he pointed out to Antonius that he’d lost the love and respect of most Romans. In such a way that Antonius believed him. The crafty little
mentula
—I beg your pardon!—crafty little—um—ferret then presented Antonius with the chance to mend his reputation by marrying Octavia. Brilliant!”

“I concur,” said Maecenas, envisioning Octavian as a
mentula
or a ferret, and smiling.

“I shared a gig with Octavianus once,” Pollio said, tone of voice musing. “From Italian Gaul to Rome after the formation of the Triumvirate. He was twenty years old, but he spoke like a venerable consular. About the grain supply, and how the Apennine mountain chain made it easier for Rome to get her grain from Africa and Sicilia than from Italian Gaul. Trotted out numbers and statistics like the most idle senior civil servant you ever heard. Only he wasn’t trying to get out of work, he was tabling the work he considered must be done. Yes, a memorable journey. When Caesar made him his heir, I thought he’d be dead within months. That journey taught me that I’d been mistaken. No one will kill him.”

Atia brought the news of her fate to Octavia, and in tears. “My darling girl!” she cried, falling on Octavia’s neck. “My ingrate of a son has betrayed you! You! The one person in the world I thought safe from his machinations, his coldness!”

“Mama, be explicit, please!” said Octavia, helping Atia sit down. “What has Little Gaius done to me?”

“Betrothed you to Marcus Antonius! A brute who kicked his wife! A monster!”

Stunned, Octavia slumped into a chair and stared at her mother.
Antonius?
She was to marry Marcus Antonius? Shock was followed by a slowly seeping warmth that suffused her whole body. In a trice her lids went down to veil her eyes from Atia, done with weeping, beginning to fulminate.