Authors: Joyce Tyldesley
Tales of Antony’s unnatural subservience to Cleopatra spread like wildfire. Cleopatra had demanded, and received, the vast libraries of Pergamon; she had recruited Roman soldiers into her bodyguard; she had made Antony rub her feet like a slave at an official banquet (and everyone knew what foot-rubbing led to!); she had sent letters which distracted Antony while he presided in court. Cleopatra had only to appear and Antony would drop everything and run after her. Antony was, like Caesar before him, planning to abandon Rome and establish a new capital in Egypt. He was assuming un-Roman, foreign ways; he called his headquarters ‘the palace’. He sometimes wore an oriental dagger at his belt, and was often seen reclining on a gilded couch or a chair. He even pissed in a gold chamber pot! Worst of all, as Dio tells us:
He posed with her [Cleopatra] for portrait paintings and statues, he representing Osiris or Dionysos and she Selene or Isis. This more than all else made him seem to have been bewitched by her through some enchantment. For she so charmed and enthralled not only him but also the rest who had any influence with him that she conceived the hope of ruling even the Romans; and whenever she used an oath her strongest phrase in swearing was by her purpose to dispense justice on the Capitol.
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Officially, Octavian found this laughable. As far as he was concerned, the only link between Antony and the world-conquering Dionysos was his excessive drinking. If Antony was to be Dionysos, let him be the savage Dionysos Omestes, eater of flesh, who stole from the wealthy to give to his sycophantic followers. Octavian, the moderate Roman, would challenge him as Apollo.
With Octavian’s propaganda becoming increasingly effective, Antony was forced to publish a pamphlet (De
Sua Ebrietate, ‘On His Sobriety
’, now lost
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) defending himself against charges of drunkenness. It was his turn to launch a spate of personal attacks. Octavian was a man of despicably humble origins; he had been Caesar’s catamite; he had betrothed his daughter to a barbarian; he was a coward who dared not fight; he removed the hairs on his legs by singeing them with red-hot walnut shells. At a time of shortages, when the people of Rome were hungry for bread, Octavian had hosted a private banquet, ‘The Feast of the Divine Twelve’ (
cena dodekatheos
), at which he and his eleven guests, blasphemously disguised as gods and goddesses, had consumed a vast amount of food. Octavian was indeed Apollo; not the archer god of light and learning, but his darker aspect, Apollo Tortor, the tormentor.
Cleopatra and Antony spent the winter of 33/2 assembling a fleet in Ephesus. Here they were joined by the current consuls, Gaius Sosius and Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus, old friends of Antony who brought with them as many as 300 senators – confirmation that by no means everyone in Rome had been swayed by Octavian’s rhetoric. Cleopatra’s presence was not universally welcomed; the senators liked to believe they were supporting Antony against Octavian rather than Egypt against Rome, and they felt that there was no room for a woman in a war cabinet. But Antony, recognising Cleopatra’s experience and intelligence, and of course the fact that she was making a substantial financial contribution to his campaign, argued that she should stay. Now, as the impecunious Octavian struggled to finance a fleet,
Cleopatra, Antony and their forces travelled to the island of Samos, where they boosted morale by holding an impressive festival of music and drama:
For just as all the kings, dynasts, tetrarchs, nations, and cities between Syria, the Mareotic Lake, Armenia, and Illyria had been ordered to send or bring their equipment for the war, so all the dramatic artists were compelled to put in an appearance at Samos; and while almost all the world around was filled with groans and lamentations, a single island for many days resounded with flutes and stringed instruments; theatres there were filled, and choral bands were competing with one another. Every city also sent an ox for the general sacrifice, and kings vied with one another in their mutual entertainments and gifts. And so men everywhere began to ask: ‘How will the conquerors celebrate their victories if their preparations for the war are marked by festivals so costly?
’
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In May 32 Cleopatra and Antony transferred their troops to the Greek mainland and took up residence in Athens. Dio tells us that the Athenians, who had earlier respected Octavia, extended the same courtesy to Cleopatra, and a statue of the queen as Isis was erected on the Acropolis. It was now, while living in Athens, that Antony formally divorced Octavia, sending representatives to remove her from his house in Rome. Finally, in late 32, came a move to Patras in the northwestern Peloponnese. The fleet was by now moored in over a dozen different harbours along the west coast of Greece, stretching from Actium in the north to Methone in the south. Had they invaded Italy at this time, they might well have triumphed. But Antony believed that the Romans would unite against a ‘foreign invasion’ if Cleopatra remained in command of her troops, while Cleopatra’s Egyptian troops would not necessarily follow his command if their queen went home. So together Antony and Cleopatra waited for Octavian’s forces
to leave Italy so that they might fight their battle on neutral territory.
In late 32 Antony was formally stripped of all his titles by the Roman Senate. Then, at last, Octavian donned ritual garments, stood before the temple of Bellona on the Campus Martius, hurled a wooden javelin against an invisible foreign enemy and, invoking the most ancient of rites (rites which he appears to have rewritten for the occasion), declared war on Cleopatra. The charge against her was the remarkably vague ‘for her acts’. Theoretically, the ancient rites demanded that Octavian should seek compensation from Cleopatra before hurling his javelin: this part of the ritual was, however, ignored. It is hard to see what Cleopatra’s heinous anti-Roman ‘acts’ might have been.
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Throughout the civil war she had acted as a faithful Roman vassal, supplying assistance to Pompey in 49; preparing a fleet for Antony and Octavian in 42; responding to various summonses to Alexandria (Caesar, 48), Tarsus (Antony, 42) and Antioch (Antony, 37). The truth is, of course, that Octavian had realised that his troops would agree to fight a foreign enemy, but would not fight Antony, who was still, despite all the negative propaganda, a popular figure. As Antony was likely to stand by Cleopatra, he would, by his own deeds, become a true quasi-foreign enemy of Rome.
Plutarch tells us that the omens, published by Octavian and therefore highly suspect, did not look good for the couple. Pisaurum (modern Pesaro, Umbria), a city colonised by Antony, was swallowed by an earthquake, a selection of heroic and divine statues linked with Antony was destroyed, and marble statues were seen to ooze blood or sweat for many days. In Rome the schoolboys formed parties, the Antonians and the Caesarians, which fought for two days before the Caesarians emerged victorious. In Etruria a two-headed serpent eighty-five feet in length appeared from nowhere and did a great deal of damage before it was killed by a bolt of lightning. It is interesting to contrast these omens with the prophecies recorded in the
Sibylline
Oracles
, a collection of twelve books of predictions formally attributed to various Sibyls between 200
BC
–
AD
400, but actually deriving from other sources. Book 3 of the
Oracles
was written by Egyptian Jewish scholars. The bulk of their prophecies date to the reign of Ptolemy VI and look forward to the arrival of a ‘king from the sun’ – an Egyptian (Ptolemaic?) messiah. But a passage written much later, shortly before the battle of Actium, equates Cleopatra with ‘The Mistress’ (
despoina
), an eastern saviour intent on destroying Rome at the dawn of a golden age:
Of Asia, even thrice as many goods
Shall Asia back again from Rome receive…
O virgin, soft rich child of Latin Rome,
Oft at thy much-remembered marriage feasts
Drunken with wine, now shalt thou be a slave
And wedded in no honourable way.
And oft shall mistress shear thy pretty hair,
And wreaking satisfaction cast thee down
From heaven to earth…
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Later still, after the battle, Cleopatra is transformed into an eschato-logical adversary, an anti-saviour who will indeed rule the world, but who will bring about its destruction.
Suddenly there was action of the most unwelcome sort. Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa, Octavian’s highly experienced admiral, took the Egyptian naval base of Methone, on the tip of the Peloponnese. From this base Octavian’s ships were able to work their way along the coast, attacking Cleopatra’s supply ships and targeting Antony’s dispersed fleet. Meanwhile, Octavian’s army had taken Corecyna (Corfu), landed unopposed on the Greek mainland and marched south to strike camp at low-lying, swampy Actium on the Gulf of Ambracia. Cleopatra and Antony fled north to Actium and struck camp on the
opposite side of the gulf to Octavian. Soon after, their joint fleet was trapped by Octavian’s ships in the bay. Conditions in their camp deteriorated quickly: the supply lines had been cut, many of the men were suffering from a distressing combination of malaria and dysentery, and morale was at rock bottom. High-profile supporters, Ahenobarbus included, were deserting in droves and Antony was forced to execute a fleeing Roman senator as a warning. In August Antony’s ships made a serious but unsuccessful attempt to escape the blockade.
Plutarch – who, historians believe, gained much of his information from a deserter who joined Octavian in time to take part in the sea battle – tells us that Cleopatra and Antony had raised an army of not fewer than 500 warships, 100,000 legionaries and armed infantry and 12,000 cavalry. They were supported by an impressive list of kingly allies: Bocchus of Libya, Tarcondemus of Upper Cilicia, Archelaos of Cappadocia, Philadelphos of Paphlagonia, Mithridates of Com-magene and Sadalas of Thrace. Polemon of Pontus sent an army, as did Malchus of Nabataea, Amyntas of Lycaonia, Galatia, the king of the Medes, and Herod, the king of the Jews. Cleopatra supplied at least sixty Egyptian ships and commanded her own fleet. Octavian, with a mere 250 ships, 80,000 infantry and approximately 12,000 cavalry, was outnumbered, but his fleet was both better armed and better prepared, and although Octavian himself was a far from seasoned campaigner, Admiral Agrippa had all the experience that he lacked. Aware of Agrippa’s reputation, Antony’s friend and general Crassus, a man who, as we have already seen, had a considerable financial interest in Egypt, advised that the fleet should be abandoned and that the troops should march northwards to fight in better circumstances in Macedon. Dio tells us that Cleopatra, reluctant to abandon her ships, disagreed with Crassus, and that Antony sided with her. Her plan, formulated after observing a series of bad omens (swallows nesting on her ships and around her tent; milk and blood dripping
from beeswax; several statues of herself and Antony in the guise of gods being struck down by thunderbolts), was to flee to Egypt and regroup:
In consequence of these portents and of the resulting dejection of the army, and of the sickness prevalent among them, Cleopatra herself became alarmed and filled Antony with fears. They did not wish, however, to sail out secretly, nor yet openly, as if they were in flight, lest they should inspire their allies also with fear, but rather as if they were making preparations for a naval battle, and incidentally in order that they might force their way through in case there should be any resistance. Therefore they first chose out the best of the vessels and burned the rest, since the sailors had become fewer by death and desertion; next they secretly put all their most valuable possessions on board by night.
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Dio is worth quoting at length here, because he makes it quite clear that Cleopatra and Antony were united in their plan to take the fleet to Egypt. The fact that they loaded sails on to their warships makes it fairly certain that their troops, too, knew that something unusual was afoot.
After some minor skirmishes, more defections from Antony’s camp, a bizarre and quickly foiled attempt to kidnap Antony (reported by Plutarch), several days of bad weather and a couple of lengthy and inspirational speeches from the two leaders, the sea battle flared up on 2 September 31. Antony’s ships emerged from the Gulf of Ambracia and faced out to sea in three divisions, protecting Cleopatra’s fleet, which was held in reserve behind the central division. From the beginning things went badly. Octavian’s ships kept out of range, drawing Antony’s fleet further and further out to sea so that they might become dispersed. Antony’s ships were hopelessly undercrewed and unable to fight efficiently. Antony himself commanded the right division facing
Octavian’s left division, commanded by Agrippa. Here things went according to plan and there was some brisk fighting, but the central and left divisions underperformed, allowing Octavian to take an early advantage. At some point the battleships from the central and left divisions stopped participating in the battle and retreated into the gulf. Soon after, possibly at a prearranged signal, Cleopatra’s sixty ships hoisted their sails, broke through Octavian’s line and sailed away at full speed. Antony abandoned his large flagship, transferred his flag to a quinquereme, and chased after Cleopatra with about forty of his personal squadron:
… Antony made it clear to all the world that he was swayed neither by the sentiments of a commander nor of a brave man, nor even by his own, but, as someone in pleasantry said that the soul of the lover dwells in another’s body, he was dragged along by the woman as if he had become incorporate with her and must go where she did. For no sooner did he see her ship sailing off than he forgot everything else, betrayed and ran away from those who were fighting and dying in his cause, got into a five-oared galley, where Alexas the Syrian and Scellius were his only companions, and hastened after the woman who had already ruined him and would make his ruin still more complete. Cleopatra recognized him and raised a signal on her ship; so Antony came up and was taken on board, but he neither saw nor was seen by her. Instead, he went forward alone to the prow and sat down by himself in silence, holding his head in both hands.
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