THE DIVINE HISTORY OF JESUS CHRIST

THE LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA, QUEEN OF EGYPT

PART II.

CLEOPATRA AND ANTONY

CHAPTER XVIII.

CLEOPATRA’S ATTEMPT TO BEGIN AGAIN.

Crushed and broken by her misfortunes, it might have been expected that Cleopatra would now give up the fight. She was not made, however, of ordinary stuff; and she could not yet bring herself to believe that her cause was hopeless. On her voyage across the Mediterranean she seems to have pulled herself together after the first shock of defeat; and, with that wonderful recuperative power, of which we have already seen many instances in her life, she appears, so to speak, to have regained her feet, standing up once more, eager and defiant, to face the world. The defeat of Antony, though it postponed for many years all chance of obtaining a footing in Rome, did not altogether preclude that possibility. He would now probably kill himself, and though the thought of his suicide must have been very distressing to her, she could but feel that she would be well rid of him. A drunken and discredited outlaw with a price upon his head was not a desirable consort for a Queen; and he had long since ceased to make an appeal to any quality in her, save to her pity. Octavian would hunt him down, and would not rest until he had driven him to the land of the shades; but she herself might possibly be spared and her throne be saved in recognition of the fact that she had been the great Dictator’s “wife.” Then, some chance occurrence, such as the death of Octavian, might give her son Caesarion the opportunity of putting himself forward once more as Caesar’s heir.

Antony was now a terrible encumbrance. His presence with her endangered her own life, and, what was more important, imperilled the existence of her royal dynasty. Had he not the courage, like defeated Cato at Utica, like her uncle Ptolemy of Cyprus, like Brutus after Philippi, and like hundreds of others, to kill himself and so end his misfortunes ? It is to be remembered that suicide after disaster was a doctrine emphatically preached throughout the civilised world at this time, and so frequently was it practised that it was felt to be far less terrible than we are now accustomed to think it. The popular spectacle of gladiatorial fights, the many wars conducted in recent years, and the numerous political murders and massacres, had made people very familiar with violent death. The case of Arria, the wife of Paetus, is an illustration of the light manner in which the termination of life was regarded. Her husband having been condemned to death, Arria determined to anticipate the executioner; and therefore, having driven a dagger into her breast, she coolly handed the weapon to him, with the casual words, Paete non dole, “It isn’t painful.” I do not think, therefore, that Cleopatra need be blamed if she now hoped that Antony would make his exit from the stage of life.

Her fertile brain turned to the consideration of other means of holding her throne should Octavian’s clemency not be extended to her. Her dominant hope was now the keeping of Egypt independent of Rome. The founding of an Egypto-Roman empire having been indefinitely postponed by the defeat at Actium, her whole energies would have to be given to the retention of some sort of crown for her son. The dominions which Antony had given her she could hardly expect to hold: but for Egypt, her birthright, she must fight while breath remained in her body. Under this inspiration her thoughts turned to the Orient, to Media, Persia, Parthia, and India. Was there not some means of forming an alliance with one or all of these distant countries, thereby strengthening her position? Her son Alexander Helios was prospective King of Media. Could not she find in Persia or India an extension of the dominions which she could hand on to Caesarion? And could not some great amalgamation of these nations, which had never been conquered by Rome, be effected?

I imagine that her thoughts ran in these channels as she sailed over the sea; but when she had dropped Antony at Paraetonium and was heading for Alexandria the more immediate question of her entry into the capital must have filled her mind. It was essential to prevent the news of the defeat from being spread in the capital until after she had once more obtained control of affairs. She therefore seems to have arranged to sail into the harbour some days before the arrival of the fleet, and she caused her flagship to be decorated as though in celebration of a victory. Her arrival took place at about the end of September BC 31; and, with music playing, sailors dancing, and pennants flying, the ship passed under the shadow of the white Pharos and entered the Great Harbour. Having moored the vessel at the steps of the Palace, Cleopatra was carried ashore in royal state, and was soon safely ensconced behind the walls of the Lochias. She brought, no doubt, written orders from Antony to the legions stationed in Alexandria; and, relying on the loyalty of these troops, she soon took the sternest measures to prevent any revolt or rioting in the city as the news of the disaster began to filter through. Several prominent citizens who attempted to stir up trouble were promptly arrested and put to death; and by the time that full confirmation of the news of the defeat had arrived, Cleopatra was in absolute control of the situation.

She now began to carry out her schemes in regard to the East, in pursuance of which her first step was, naturally, the confirmation of her treaty with the King of Media. It will be remembered that the elder son of Cleopatra and Antony, Alexander Helios, had been married to the King of Media’s daughter, on the understanding, apparently, that he should be heir to the kingdoms of Media and Armenia. The little princess was now living at Alexandria; and it will be recalled that Artavasdes, the dethroned King of Armenia, the greater part of whose kingdom had been handed over to Media, remained a prisoner in the Egyptian capital, where he had been incarcerated since the Triumph in BC 34, three years previously. The defeat of Antony, however, would probably cause the reinstatement of the rulers deposed by him ; and it seemed very probable that Octavian would restore Artavasdes to his lost kingdom, and that Media, on the other hand, by reason of its support of the Antonian party, would be stripped of as much territory as the Romans dared to seize. In order to prevent this by removing the claimant to the Armenian throne, and perhaps owing to some attempt on the part of Artavasdes to escape or to communicate with Octavian, Cleopatra ordered him to be put to death; and she thereupon sent an embassy to Media bearing his head to the King as a token of her good faith. I think it is probable that at the same time she sent the little Alexander and his child-wife Iotapa to the Median court in order that they might there live in safety; and there can be little doubt that she made various proposals to the King for joint action.

She then began an undertaking which Plutarch describes as “a most bold and wonderful enterprise.” The northernmost inlet of the Red Sea, the modern Gulf of Suez, was separated from the waters of the Mediterranean by a belt of low-lying desert not more than thirty-five miles in breadth. Across the northern side of this isthmus the Pelusian branch of the Nile passed from the Delta down to the Mediterranean. Somewhat further south lay the Lakes of Balah and Timsah, and between these and the Gulf of Suez lay the so-called Bitter Lakes. These pieces of water had been linked together by a canal opened nearly five hundred years previously by the great Persian conqueror Darius I,, who had thus sent his ships through from one sea to the other by a route not far divergent from that of the modern Suez Canal. King Ptolemy Philadelphus, three hundred years later, had reopened the waterway, and had built a great system of locks at its southern end, near the fortress of Clysma; but now a large part of the canal had become blocked up once more by the encroaching sand, and any vessel which had to be transported from the Mediterranean to the Red Sea would have to be dragged for several miles over the desert. In spite of the enormous labour involved, however, Cleopatra determined to transfer immediately all her battleships which had survived Actium to the Red Sea, where they would be safe from the clutches of Octavian, and would be in a position to sail to India or to Southern Persia whenever she might require them to do so. She also began with startling energy to build other vessels at Suez, in the hope of there fitting out an imposing fleet. Plutarch states simply that her object was to go “with her soldiers and her treasure to secure herself a home where she might live in peace, far away from war and slavery ”; but, viewing the enterprise in connection with the embassy to Media, it appears to me that she had determined to put into partial execution the schemes of which she seems to have talked with Julius Caesar while he was staying with her in Alexandria, in regard to the conquest of the East

Media, Parthia, and India were all outside the influence of Rome. Of these countries Media was now bound to Egypt by the closest ties of blood, while India was engaged in a thriving trade with Cleopatra’s kingdom. Parthia, now the enemy of Media, lay somewhere between these vast lands; and if the Egyptian fleet could sail round the coasts of Arabia and effect a junction with the Median armies in the Persian Gulf, some sort of support might be given to the allies by the Indian States, and Parthia could be conquered or frightened into joining the confederacy. Syria and Armenia could then be controlled, and once more the fight with the West might be undertaken. In the meantime these far countries offered a safe hiding-place for herself and her family; and having, as I suppose, despatched her son Alexander to his future kingdom of Media, she now began to consider the sending of her beloved Caesarion to India, there to prepare the way for the approach of her fleet.

In these great schemes Antony played no part. During their undertaking he was wandering about the desolate shores of Paraetonium, engrossed in his misfortunes and bemoaning the ingratitude of his generals and friends whom, in forgetfulness of his own behaviour at Actium, he accused of deserting him. Cleopatra, as she toiled at the organisation of her new projects, and struggled by every means, fair or foul, to raise money for the great task, must have heartily wished her husband out of the way; and it must have been with very mixed feelings that she presently received the news of his approach. On his arrival, perhaps in November, he was astonished at the Queen’s activities; but, being opposed to the idea of keeping up the struggle and of setting out for the East, he tried to discourage her by talking hopefully about the loyalty of the various garrisons of whose desertion he had not yet heard. He seems also to have pointed out to her that some sort of peace might be made with Octavian, which would secure her throne to her family; and, in one way and another, he managed to dishearten her and to dull her energies. He himself desired now to retire from public life, and to take up his residence in some city, such as Athens, where he might live in the obscurity of private citizenship. He well knew the contempt in which Cleopatra held him, and at this time he thought it would be best, in the long-run, if he left her to her fate. At all events, he seems to have earnestly hoped that she would not expect him to set out on any further adventures; and in this his views must have met hers, for she could have had no use for him. Her son Caesarion was growing to manhood, and in the energy of his youth he would be worth a hundred degenerate Antonys.

An unexpected check, however, was put to her schemes, and once again misfortune seemed to dog her steps. The Nabathaean Arabs from the neighbourhood of Petra, being on bad terms with the Egyptians, raided the new docks at Suez and, driving off the troops stationed there, burnt the first galleys which had been dragged across from the Mediterranean and those which were being built in the docks. Cleopatra could not spare troops enough to protect the work, and therefore the great enterprise had to be abandoned.

Shortly after this Canidius himself arrived in Alexandria, apparently bringing the news that all Antony’s troops in all parts of the dominions had surrendered to Octavian, and that nothing now remained to him save Egypt and its forces. Thereupon, by the code of honour then in recognition, Antony ought most certainly to have killed himself; but a new idea had entered his head, appealing to his sentimental and theatrical nature. He decided that he would not die, but would live, like Timon of Athens, the enemy of all men. He would build himself a little house, the walls buffeted by the rolling swell of the sea; and there in solitude he would count out the days of his life, his hand turned against all men. There was a pier jutting out into the Great Harbour¹ just to the west of the Island of Antirrhodos, close to the Forum and the Temple of Neptune. Though a powerful construction, some three hundred yards long, it does not appear to have been then in use; and Antony hit upon the idea of repairing it and building himself a little villa at its extreme end, wherein he might dwell in solitude. Cleopatra was far too much occupied with the business of life to care what her husband did; and she seems to have humoured him as she would a child, and to have caused a nice little house to be built for him on this site, which, in honour of the misanthrope whom Antony desired to emulate, she named the Timonium. It appears that she was entirely estranged from him at this time, and he was, no doubt, glad enough to remove himself from the scorn of her eyes and tongue. From his new dwelling he could look across the water to Cleopatra’s palace; and at night the blaze of the Pharos beacon, and the many gleaming windows on the Lochias Promontory and around the harbour, all reflected with the stars in the dark water, must have formed a spectacle romantic enough for any dreamer. In the daytime he could watch the vessels entering or leaving the port; and behind him the noise and bustle of Cleopatra’s busy Alexandrians was wafted to his ears to serve as a correct subject for his Timonian curses.

The famous Timon, I need hardly say, was a citizen of Athens, who lived during the days of the Peloponnesian war, and figures in the comedies of Aristophanes and Plato. He heartily detested his fellow-men, his only two associates being Alcibiades, whom he esteemed because he was likely to do so much mischief to Athens, and Apemantus, who also was a confirmed misanthrope. Once when Timon and Apemantus were celebrating a drinking festival alone together, the latter, wishing to show how much he appreciated the fact that no other of his hated fellow-men was present, remarked: “ What a pleasant little party, Timon! ” “Well, it would be,” replied Timon, “if you were not here.” Upon another occasion, during an assembly in the public meetingplace, Timon mounted into the speaker’s place and addressed the crowd. “ Men of Athens,” he said, “ I have a little plot of ground, and in it grows a fig-tree, from the branches of which many citizens have been pleased to hang themselves; and now, having resolved to build on that site, I wish to announce it publicly, that any of you who may so wish may go and hang yourselves there before I cut it down.” Before his death he composed two epitaphs, one of which reads—

“ Timon, the misanthrope, am I below,

Go, and revile me, stranger—only go!”

The other, which was inscribed upon his tomb, reads—

“ Freed from a tedious life, I lie below.

Ask not my name, but take my curse and go.”

Such was the man whom Antony now desired to imitate ; and for the present the fallen Autocrator may be left seated in glum solitude, while Cleopatra’s eager struggle for her throne occupies our attention. The Queen’s activities were now directed to urgent affairs of State. She engaged herself in sending embassies to the various neighbouring kingdoms in the attempt to confirm her earlier friendships. Alexandria and Egypt had to be governed with extreme firmness, in order to prevent any insurrections or riots in these critical days; and, at the same time, her subjects had to be heavily taxed so that she might raise money for her projects. The task of government must have been peculiarly anxious, and the dread of the impending reckoning with Octavian hung over her like a dark cloud. It was quite certain that Octavian would presently invade Egypt; but for the moment he was prevented from doing so, mainly by financial embarrassments. After his visit to Athens he had crossed into Asia Minor, and now he was making arrangements for an advance through Syria to Egypt, as soon as he should have collected enough money for the expedition.

Towards the close of the year BC 31, the Jewish King Herod seems to have come to Alexandria to discuss the situation with Antony, his former friend and patron. Herod’s dislike of Cleopatra, and his desire to put her to death when she was passing through his country, will be recalled;¹ and now, after paying the necessary compliments to the Queen, he appears to have engaged himself in earnest conversation with Antony, perhaps visiting him in his sea-girt hermitage. Josephus tells us that he urged the fallen triumvir to arrange for the assassination of Cleopatra, declaring that only by so doing could he hope to have his life spared by Octavian. Antony, however, would not entertain this proposal, for, though anxious to escape his impending doom, he was not prepared to do so at the cost of his wife. Herod’s object, of course, was to rid his horizon of the fascinating queen, who might very possibly play upon Octavian’s sympathies and retain her Egyptian and Syrian dominions, thus remaining an objectionable and exacting neighbour to the kingdom of Judea. But failing to obtain Antony’s co-operation in this plot, he returned to Jerusalem, and presently sailed for Rhodes to pay his respects to Octavian. Antony, hearing of his intention, sent after him a certain Alexis of Laodicea, to urge him not to abandon his cause, This Alexis had been instrumental in persuading Antony to divorce Octavia, and Cleopatra had often used him in persuading her husband to actions in regard to which he was undetermined; but he now showed the misapplication of the trust placed in him both by Antony and the Queen, for he did not return to Egypt from Herod’s court, going on instead to place himself at the disposal of Octavian. His connection with Octavia’s divorce, however, had not been forgotten by her revengeful brother, and his treachery was rewarded by a summary death. Herod, meanwhile, by boldly admitting that he had been Antony’s friend, but was now prepared to change his allegiance, managed to win the favour of the conqueror, and his throne was not taken from him, although practically all the other kings and princes who had assisted Antony were dispossessed.

About the beginning of February BC 30, Octavian returned to Italy to quell certain disturbances arising from his inability to pay his disbanded troops, and there he stayed about a month, sailing once more for Asia Minor early in March. Dion tells us that the news of his voyage to Rome and that of his return to Asia Minor were received simultaneously in Alexandria, probably late in April; but I think it very unlikely that the news of the first voyage was so long delayed, and, at any rate, some rumours of Octavian’s retirement to Rome must have filtered through to Cleopatra during the month of March.

The news of this respite once more fired the Queen with hope, and she determined to make the best possible use of this precious gift of time. It will be remembered that her son Caesarion, if I am not in error, was born at the beginning of July BC 47; but a short time afterwards, some eighty days were added to the calendar in order to correct the existing inexactitude, the real anniversary of the boy’s birthday thereby being made to fall at about the middle of April. The preparations for the celebration in this year BC 30, of his seventeenth birthday, were thus beginning to be put into motion at the time when Octavian was still thought to be struggling in Rome with his discontented troops. Cleopatra therefore determined to mark the festival by very great splendour, and to celebrate it more particularly by a public declaration of the fact that Caesarion was now of age. I do not think it can be determined with certainty whether or not the seventeenth birthday was the customary age at which the state of manhood was supposed to be reached by an Egyptian sovereign, but it may certainly be said that the coming of age was seldom, if ever, postponed to a later period. Cleopatra seems to have wished to make a very particular point of this fact of her son’s majority, which would demonstrate to the Alexandrians, as Dion says, “that they now had a man as King.” Let the public think, if they were so minded, that she herself was a defeated and condemned woman; but from this time onwards they had a grown man to lead them, a son of the divine Julius Caesar, for whose rights she had fought while he was a boy, but who was henceforth capable of defending himself. Whatever her own fate might be, her son would, at any rate, have a better chance of retaining his throne by being firmly established upon it in the capacity of a grown man. In future she herself could work, as it were, behind the scenes, and her son could carry on the great task which she had so long striven to accomplish.

When the news of the coming celebrations was conveyed to Antony in his hermitage, he seems to have been much disturbed by it. Caesarion and his rights had been to a large extent the cause of his ruin, and he must have been somewhat frightened at the audacity of the Queen in thus giving Octavian further cause for annoyance. Here was Alexandria preparing to celebrate in the most triumphant manner the coming of age of Octavian’s rival, the claimant to Julius Caesar’s powers and estate. Was the move to be regarded as clever policy or as reckless effrontery ? Leaving the passive solitude of his little Timonium, he seems to have entered once more into active discussions with Cleopatra ; and as a result of these conversations, he appears to have received the impression that his wife’s desire was now to resign her power to a large extent into her son’s hands, thus leaving to the energy of youth the labours which middle age had failed to accomplish. This aspect of the movement appealed to him, and he determined in like manner to be represented in future by a younger generation. His son by Fulvia, Antyllus, who was a year or so younger than Caesarion, was living in the Alexandrian Palace; and Antony therefore arranged with Cleopatra that the two youths should together be declared of age (ephebi), Antyllus thenceforth being authorised to wear the legal dress of Roman manhood. Cleopatra then appears to have persuaded her husband to give up his ridiculous affectation of misanthropy, and either to make himself useful in organising her schemes of defence, or to leave Egypt altogether. Antony was by this time heartily tired of his solitary life, and he was glad enough to abandon his Timonian pose. He therefore took up his residence once more in the Palace, and both he and Cleopatra made some attempt to renew their old relationship. Their paths had diverged, however, too far ever to resume any sort of unity. Antony had brooded in solitude over his supposed wrongs, and he now regarded his wife with a sort of suspicion; and she, on her part, accepted him no longer as her equal, but as a creature deserving her contempt, though arousing to some extent her generous pity.

The birthday celebrations were conducted on the most magnificent lines, and the whole city was given over to feasting and revelling for many days. The impending storm was put away from the minds of all, and it would have been indeed difficult for a visitor to Alexandria during that time to believe that he had entered a city whose rulers had recently been defeated by an enemy already preparing to invade Egypt itself. Cleopatra, in fact, could not be brought to admit that the game was up; and in spite of the misery and anxiety weighing upon her mind she kept a cheerful and hopeful demeanour which ought to have won for her the admiration of all historians. Antony, on the other hand, was completely demoralised by the situation; and the birthday festivities having whetted his appetite once more for the pleasures of riotous living, he decided to bring his life to a close in a round of mad dissipation. Calling together the members of the order of Inimitable Livers, the banqueting club which he had founded some years before, he invited them to sign their names to the roll of membership of a new society which he named the Synapotha-noumenoi or the “ Die-togethers.” “ Let us eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die,” must have been his motto; and he seems to have thrown himself into this new phase with as much shallow profundity as he had displayed in his adoption of the Timonian pose. Having no longer a world-wide audience before whom he could play the jovial role of Bacchus or Hercules, he now acted his dramatic parts before the eyes of an* inner love of pretence; and with a kind of honest and boyish charlatanism he paraded the halls of the Palace in the grim but not original character of the reveller who banqueted with his good friend Death. Antony actually had no intention of dying: he hoped to be allowed to retire, like his late colleague, Lepidus, the third triumvir, into an unmolested private life; but the paradoxical situation in which he now found himself, that of a state prisoner sent back, as it were, on bail to the luxuries of his home, could not fail to be turned to account by this “ colossal child.”

Cleopatra, on the other hand, was prepared for all eventualities; and, while she hoped somehow to be able to win her way out of her dilemma, she did not fail to make ready for the death which she might have to face. The news of Octavian’s return to Asia Minor was presently received in Alexandria, and she must have felt that her chances of successfully circumventing her difficulties were remote. She therefore busied herself in making a collection of all manner of poisonous drugs, and she often went down to the dungeons to make eager experiments upon the persons of condemned criminals. Anxiously she watched the death-struggles of the prisoners to whom the different poisons had been administered, discarding those drugs which produced pain and convulsions, and continuing her tests and trials with those which appeared to offer an easy liberation from life. She also experimented with venomous snakes, subjecting animals and human beings to their poisonous bites; and Plutarch tells us that “ she pretty well satisfied herself that nothing was comparable to the bite of the asp, which, without causing convulsion or groaning, brought on a heavy drowsiness and coma, with a gentle perspiration on the face, the senses being stupefied by degrees, and the victim being apparently sensible of no pain, but only annoyed when disturbed or awakened, like one who is in a profound natural sleep.”¹ If the worst came to the worst, she decided that she would take her life in this manner; and this question being settled, she turned her undivided attention once more to the problems which beset her.

By May Octavian had marched into Syria, where all the garrisons surrendered to him. He sent Cornelius Gallus to take command of the legions which had surrendered to him in North Africa, and this army had now taken possession of Paraetonium, where Antony had stayed after his flight from Actium. The news that this frontier fortress had passed into the hands of the enemy had not yet reached Alexandria, but that of Octavian’s advance through Syria was already known in the city, and must have caused the greatest anxiety. Cleopatra thereupon decided upon a bold and dignified course of action. Towards the end of May she sent her son Caesarion, with his tutor Rhodon, up the Nile to Koptos, and thence across the desert to the port of Berenice, where as many ships as she could collect were ordered to be in waiting for him. The young Caesar travelled, it would seem, in considerable state, and carried with him a huge sum of money. He was expected to arrive at Berenice by about the end of June; and when, towards the middle of July, the merchants journeying to India began to set out upon their long voyage, it was arranged that he should also set sail for those distant lands, there to make friends with the Kings of Hindustan, and perhaps to organise the great amalgamation of eastern nations of which Cleopatra had so often dreamed. She herself decided to remain at Alexandria, first to negotiate with Octavian for the retention of her throne, and in the event of this proving unsuccessful, to fight him to the death. No thought of flight entered her mind; and though, with a mother’s solicitous care, she made these adventurous arrangements for the safety of her beloved son, it does not seem to have occurred to her to accompany him to the East, where she might have expected at any rate to find a temporary harbour of refuge. Her parting with him must have been one of the most unhappy events of her unfortunate life. For his safety and for his rights she had struggled for seventeen years; and now it was necessary to send him with the Indian merchants across perilous seas to strange lands in order to save him from the clutches of his successful rival Octavian, while she herself remained to face their enemies and to fight for their joint throne. Her thoughts in these days of distress were turning once more to the memory of the boy’s father, the great Julius Caesar, for often, it would seem, she gazed at his pictures or read over again the letters which he had written to her; and now as she despatched the young Caesar upon his distant voyage to those lands which had always so keenly interested his father, she must have invoked the aid of that deified spirit which all the Roman world worshipped as Divus Julius, and, in an agony of supplication, must have implored him to come to the assistance of his only earthly son and heir.

CHAPTER XIX.

OCTAVIAN’S INVASION OF EGYPT AND THE DEATH OF ANTONY