CRISTO RAUL.ORG

READING HALL

THE DOORS OF WISDOM

OCTAVIUS CAESAR AUGUSTUS :

THE LIFE AND TIMES OF THE FOUNDER OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE

CHAPTER VII

ACTIUM

When Sextus fled from Sicily Octavius was about to complete his 27th year. It was nearly nine years since, while little more than a boy, he had first boldly aborted himself in opposition to men more than twice his age, and had forced those who had been states-men before he was born to regard him as their champion or respect him as their master. Since that time he had had little rest from grave anxieties or war. At Mutina, Philippi, Perusia, and in Sicily, he had tasted danger and disaster as well as victory; and had more than once been in imminent hazard. These fatigues had been made more trying by frequent illness, apparently arising from a sluggish liver, to which he had been subject from boyhood. Through all he had been supported by an indomitable persistence and a passionate resolve to avenge his “adoptive father, all the more formidable perhaps in a character naturally cold and self-contained. As he went on there gradually awoke in him a nobler ambition, that of restoring and directing the distracted state. Neither now nor afterwards do the more vulgar-attributes of supreme power—wealthy luxury, and adulation—seem to have had charms for him. He felt the governing power in him, he believed in his “genius,” what we might call his “mission,” and the difficulties of a divided rule became more and more clear to him. From this time, therefore, he used every means which wise statesmanship or crafty policy could suggest to rid himself of the remaining partner in the Triumvirate, and to gain a free hand in the work of restoration which, he had already begun.

In private life he had taken a step which was the source of a life-long happiness to him. The political marriage with Scribonia in BC40, contracted with the idea of conciliating Sextus Pompeius, bad been ended by divorce on the very day of the birth of his only daughter Iulia. The reason alleged was her disagreeable disposition; but, besides the change in the political situation, there was another reason of a more personal nature. The peace of Misenum had permitted many partisans of Brutus, Cassius, or Lucius Antonius, who had filed to Sextus Pompeius, to return to Rome. Among others came Tiberius Nero, with his young wife, Livia Drusilla. Unless statues and coins are more than usually false, she was possessed of rare beauty. In BC 38 she was twenty years old, and had one son (the future Emperor Tiberius) now in his fourth year, and was within three months of the birth of her second son Drusus. Even to the lax notions of divorce and re-marriage then current this seemed somewhat scandalous. A year was held to be the necessary interval for a woman between one marriage and another. But the object of this convention was to prevent ambiguity as to the paternity of children; and when Octavius consulted the pontifices, they told him that, if there was no doubt as to the paternity of the child with which Livia was pregnant, the marriage might lawfully take place at once. No opposition seems to have been made by Livia’s husband, who was at least twenty years her senior. He acted as a father in giving her to her new husband, and entertained the bridal pair at a banquet. The marriage was so prompt that a favourite page of Livia’s, seeing her take her place on the same dinner couch as Octavius, whispered to his mistress that she had made a mistake, for her husband was on the other couch. On the birth of Drusus, Octavius sent the infant to its father, thus complying with the conditions of the pontifices. That the two men should have been on good terms is not incredible in view of the prevailing sentiment as to divorce. We find Cicero, for instance, writing effusively to Dolabella almost directly after he had compelled his daughter to divorce him for gross misconduct, and there are other instances. At any rate Tiberius Nero, on his death-bed in BC 33, left the guardianship of his sons to Octavius, and in spite of such a beginning the marriage proved permanently happy. Octavius was devoted to Livia to the day of his death; his last conscious act was to kiss her lips.

The victory in Sicily left him supreme in the West, and he at once devoted himself to the re-establishment of order and prosperity. The relief to Italy and Rome was immense; for with Pompeius master of the sea the city was always in danger of famine, and the Italian coast of devastation. This feeling of relief found expression in the proceedings of the Senate, which now began those votes of special honours and powers to Octavius Caesar, which in the course of the next ten or twelve years gradually clothed him with every attribute of supremacy in the state. On his return from Sicily he was decreed an ovation, as after Philippi, as well as statues and a triumphal arch. On the day of the victory over Pompeius (2nd of September), there were to be feriae and supplicationes for ever; he and his wife and family were to be feasted on the Capitol, and he was to have the perpetual right of wearing the laurel wreath of victory. He refused the office of Pontifex Maximus, as long as Lepidus lived, but he accepted the privileges of the tribuneship—the personal sanctity which put any one injuring or molesting him under a curse, and the right of sitting with the tribunes in the Senate. This it seems gave him practically the full tribunicia potestaswithin the city. But it was a novel measure, and its full consequences were not perhaps foreseen. He had twice before wished to be elected tribune, but his “patriciate” stood in his way. This was meant as a kind of compromise, and if furnishes the keynote to his later plans for absorbing the power of the republican offices.

Octavius Caesar’s chief difficulties now came from the large military forces of which he found himself possessed, either by his own enlistment or from that of the various leaders. To disband them was neither safe in view of possible complications with Antony, nor possible without finding large sums of money or great tracts of unoccupied land with which to reward the men; whereas his object now was to put an end to confiscation, fines, and unusual imposts, and to bring back confidence and security. After suppressing more than one incipient mutiny, he contrived to secure enough land for those who had served their full time, partly by purchases from Capua, where there was still a good deal of unassigned land. He repaid the colony by granting it revenues from lands at Cnossus in Crete, which had become ager publicus on the defeat of the pirates, and on some of which a Roman colony was not long afterwards established. Some of the men, again, who had been most clamorous and mutinous he sent to Gaul as a supplementum to colonies already existing, or to found new colonies. He was thus able to make remission of taxation, as well as of arrears due from the lists of forfeiture published by the triumvirs. His enemies said that his object was to throw the odium of their original imposition upon Antony and Lepidus; or to make a merit of necessity, since in most cases it would have been impossible to collect the money. These motives may have had a share in his policy, but, he doubtless also wished to restore confidence and cause an oblivion of the miseries of the civil wars. For the soldiers who remained various other employments were found. The weakness of the central government had long been shown by the existence of marauding bands in various parts of Italy. The civil wars had aggravated the evil, till travelling had become dangerous almost everywhere, and even the streets of Rome were unsafe. Octavius now organised a police force of soldiers under Sabinus Cotta to patrol the city and Italy, and within a few months the evil was much mitigated. Besides this, Statilius Taurus was sent with an army to restore order in the two African provinces—Proconsularis and Numidia. Another expedition was sent against the Salassi, inhabiting the modern Val d’Aosta, who had for two years been holding out against Antistius Vetus. He had driven them into their mountain fastnesses; but when he left the district they once more descended and expelled the Roman garrisons. The war was entrusted to Valerius Messala, who reduced them at least to temporary submission (BC 35-34). Another similar war was that against the Iapydes, living in what is now Croatia, who in their marauding expeditions had come as far as Aquileia and plundered Roman colonies. To this Caesar went in person. He destroyed their capital, Metulum, on the Colapis (mod. Kolpa), after a desperate resistance, in the course of which he was somewhat severely injured by the fall of a bridge. The rest of the country then submitted. The Iapydes had no doubt provoked the attack. But that does not seem to be the cast with the Pannonians, whom Octavius proceeded to invade. They were a mixed Illyrian and Celtic tribe, dwelling in forests and detached villages without great towns, and appear to have lived peaceably. But Octavius resolved to take their one important town, Siscia, at the junction of the Kolpa and Save, partly as a convenient magazine in wars against the Daci, and partly for the mere object of keeping his army employed and paid at the expense of a conquered country. The siege of the town lasted thirty days, and after its fell he returned to Rome, leaving Fufius Geminus to continue the campaign. So again in the spring of BC 34 Agrippa was sent against the Dalmatians, and when later in the season he was joined by Octavius in person, their chief towns were taken and burnt; and this people, who since their defeat of Gabinius in BC 44-43, had been practically independent, had again to submit and pay tribute, with ten years’ arrears, and restore the standards taken from Gabinius. Their submission was followed by that of other tribes, and by the middle of BC33, the whole of Illyricum was restored to obedience.

These were the sort of successes to make a man popular at Rome; for they were not costly in blood or treasury and they affected the interests of a large number of merchants and men of business. Nor was this all. One of his legates, Statilius Taurus, was so successful in Africa, and another, C. Norbanus, in Spain, that both were decreed triumphs in BC34, and in the same year Mauretania was made a Roman province. Octavius had declined a triumph after the Pannonian war, but accepted honours for Octavia and Livia, who were exempted from the tutela, to which all women were subject; and during these two years his name was becoming associated with success and with the expansion of the Empire and of trade.

This was accompanied by restorations and improvements in the city calculated to appeal still more strongly to popular imagination. In BC33 Agrippa as aedile reformed the water supply of Rome, constructing 700 basins, 500 fountains, and repairing the aqueducts. He also cleansed the cloacae, adorned the circus, distributed oil and salt free, and opened the baths gratis throughout his year of office, besides throwing among the spectators at the theatre tessera (tickets) entitling the holders to valuable presents. Octavius himself, who was consul for a few months at the beginning of BC33, erected the Porticus Octaviae, named in honour of his sister, with the spoils of the Illyrian and Pannonian wars, and began the building of the temple of Apollo and the two libraries, on the site bought for a house on the Palatine before BC36, when that of Hortensius had been granted to him by the Senate, and while he was still living in the house of Calvus near the Forum.  

These successes in the Western provinces, combined with such costly improvements in the city, impressed (as it was intended that they should) the minds of the people in Rome with the feeling that Octavius Caesar’s name was the best guarantee for the era of peace and prosperity which seemed at last to be succeeding the ruin and horror of civil war. In strong contrast—carefully emphasized by Octavius and his friends—were the military expeditions in the East, and the extravagance of Antony’s infatuation for Cleopatra in Egypt. In BC40 he had been roused from the intoxication of love and revelry in Alexandria to find Syria in the hands of the Parthian Pacorus, son of Orodes, and of Labienus, son of the old legate of Iulius, who had joined the enemy after the battle of Philippi. They had defeated and killed his legate, Decidius Saxa, and taken possession of the province. It is true that next year, BC39, P. Ventidius drove away Labienus, and in BC38 defeated the Parthians and killed Pacorus. But Antony was jealous of Ventidius, deposed him from his command, and went in person to besiege the remains of the Parthian army in Samosata, where they had been received by Antiochus, king of Commagene. He failed to take the town, and though in his despatch he took all the credit of previous successes, the truth was well known in Rome. After his failure at Samosata he made somewhat inglorious terms with Antiochus, and going off to meet Octavius at Tarentum left C. Sosius in charge of Syria. Sosius put down an insurrection in Judaea and established Herod as king (BC 38-7). But in BC36 Antony suffered severe reverses in an expedition against Phraates, who had just succeeded his father Orodes as king of Parthia. One success, however, in the course of an inglorious campaign enabled him to send home laurelled despatches, the real value of which Caesar and his friends took care should be known. In BC35 he began carving out a kingdom for his elder son by Cleopatra, and making preparations for an expedition against the king of Armenia, whom he accused of failing in his duty of supporting him in the previous year. Having first made a treaty of friendship with the king of Media, in BC34 he invaded Armenia, and getting possession of the person of the king by an act of treachery which shocked Roman sentiment—not very scrupulous in such matters—he brought him in silver chains to Alexandria.

Thus Antony’s career as an administrator and defender of the Empire was rightly or wrongly looked upon as comparing unfavourably with that of Octavius. But still more shocking to Roman feeling was his position in Cleopatra’s court. Though the moral standard at Rome was far from high, it was rigid in regard to certain details. Just as a valid marriage could only be contracted with a woman who was a civis, so for a man in high position to live openly with a foreign mistress, however high her rank, was peculiarly scandalous. The beloved Emperor Titus, a hundred years later, had to give way to this sentiment and dismiss his Idumaean mistress. But that a Roman imperator should not only have, such a connection with a “barbarous” queen, but should act as her officer and courtier; that she should have a bodyguard of Roman soldiers; should give the watchword to them as their sovereign, and should even employ them to deal with what in one sense or another was Roman territory—this seemed an outrage of the worst kind. In a poem written it seems while the campaign at Actium was still undecided, but when rumours of Antony’s defeat were reaching Rome, Horace well expresses the disgust with which the position conceded to Cleopatra by Antony’s fondness was regarded :

False, false the tale our grandsons will declare—

That Romans to a woman fealty sware ;

Shouldered their pikes; presented arms; and did

Whate'er her wrinkled eunuchs deigned to bid:

Or that among our Roman flags were seen

The gauzy curtains of her palanquin.’'

Antony himself made no concealment as to the queen’s connection with the army. After his disastrous expedition of BC 36-5, Cleopatra supplied him with money, and he told his men when paying them that they were receiving it from her. The connection also involved a breach with Octavius. Their friendship—always doubtful—had been patched up from time to time by formal reconciliations; in BC43 after Mutina; in BC40 at Brindisi, and in BC37 at Tarentum. For a time Antony had found great pleasure in the society of Octavia, with whom he lived for a time at Athens. But after the meeting at Tarentum he left Octavia with her brother on his return to the East, and soon fell again under Cleopatra’s spell, who, though not beautiful, fascinated him by her art and infinite variety. When in BC35 Octavia, trying to effect another reconciliation, went to Athens, taking money and soldiers for him from her brother, Antony accepted the gifts, but sent her word that she was to return to Rome. Caesar would have had her repudiate him at once, but she seems to have been sincerely attached to him, and to have shrunk from the idea of an insult to herself being made an occasion of civil war. She persisted in living in his town house, and in bringing up with liberality, not only her own children by him, but also Antony’s children by Fulvia.

But after his return from the Armenian expedition (BC34) Antony became still more infatuated with Cleopatra. He publicly gave her the title of “Queen of Queens”, and her eldest son the name of Caesarion and “King of Kings”; while to his two sons and daughter by Cleopatra he assigned kingdoms in Syria, Armenia, Libya, and Cyrene. He had the assurance to write to the Senate asking for the confirmation of these acta. When his two friends, C. Sosius and Cn. Domitius Ahenobarbus entered on their consulship (1st of January, BC32), they resolved to suppress this despatch, in spite of Octavius’s wishes; but they communicated to the Senate his message that the second period of the Triumvirate having expired (on the last day of BC33) he had no desire for its renewal. He did not, however, lay down his imperium, and the object of this declaration was to embroil Octavius with the Senate, should he wish to retain his extraordinary powers. Ahenobarbus, indeed, had had enough of civil war and wished to take no step likely to bring it about. But Sosius made an elaborate speech in praise of Antony, and attacking, or at least depreciating, Octavius; and was only prevented from bringing in a motion in Antony’s favour by the intervention of a tribune. A few days after this Octavius (who had not been present on the 1st of January) summoned the Senate, and delivered a speech from the consular bench, which though studiously moderate as regards himself, was very outspoken as regards Sosius and Antony. No one ventured to reply, and the Senate was dismissed with the assurance that Octavius would produce proofs of what he had said about Antony. The two consuls, without taking any farther step, left Rome privately and joined Antony in Alexandria. They were followed by a considerable number of Senators, Octavius giving out that they went with his full consent, and declaring that others might go if they chose.

This was a division of the governing body similar to that of BC 49-8, and it was evident that a civil war was imminent. Sentiment was by no means all on one side at Rome, as is proved by the numbers of the Senate who crossed to Antony. Party feeling, in fact, was so keen that the very boys in the streets divided themselves into Caesarians and Antonians; and both leaders showed great eagerness by arguments and declarations to put themselves in the right. Antony’s grievances against Octavius were: (1) that he deprived Lepidus of Africa without consulting him; (2) that he had not shared with him the countries formerly controlled by Sextus Pompeius; (3) that he enrolled soldiers in Italy without sending him the contingents due by their agreement. Octavius Caesar’s against Antony were that he was occupying Egypt (not a Roman province) without authority; had executed Sextus Pompeius, whom he (Octavius) had wished to spare; had disgraced the Roman name by his conduct to the king of Armenia, by his connection with Cleopatra, and by bestowing kingdoms on his children by her; and, lastly, had wronged him by acknowledging Caesarion as a son of Iulius Caesar. Letters and messages were interchanged for some months on these and other points, both trying to justify themselves. Antony, in one letter at least, preserved by Suetonius, ridicules in the coarsest terms what he regards as Octavius Caesar’s hypocritical or prudish objection to his connection with the queen. But at length Octavius found means to discredit Antony in the eyes of the Senators, and to convince them that they must prevent an invasion of Italy by a proclamation of war against Cleopatra, which would be understood to be against Antony. He did this by using two of Antony’s officers who had quarrelled with him and returned to Rome—M. Titius and L. Munatius Plancus. The latter, Cicero’s correspondent, the governor of Celtic Gaul in BC44, and consul in BC42, had joined Antony in Alexandria as his legatus, and had been much in his confidence. He is held up to scorn by contemporary writers as a monster of fickleness and an ingrained traitor, and his thus turning upon Antony was regarded with much contempt even by the Caesarians. The story he and his companion had to tell, however, served Octavius’s turn. They brought word that, on hearing of his speech in the Senate, Antony had publicly divorced Octavia in the presence of the Senators, and had announced that he intended to undertake a war against him. They also told how Antony styled Cleopatra his queen and sovereign, gave her a bodyguard of Roman soldiers, with her name on their shields; how he escorted her to the forum and sat by her side on the seat of justice; how, when she rode in her chair he walked on foot by her side among the eunuchs; how he called the general’s quarters or praetorium “the Palace,” wore an Egyptian scimitar and a robe embroidered with gold, and sat on a gilded chair; and how some religious mummeries had been played, in which he took the part of Osiris, she of the Moon and Isis. The Roman world believed that Antony was bewitched by Cleopatra; and the serious consequences likely to ensue were made more manifest by his will, of which Augustus got either a copy or an account of its contents from Plancus, and read it publicly from the Rostra. In it Antony affirmed the legitimacy of Caesarion, gave enormous legacies to his children by Cleopatra, and ordered his body to be buried with that of the queen’s in the royal mausoleum. Altogether people began to believe the report that he meant to hand over the Empire, even Rome itself, to Cleopatra, and to transfer the seat of government to Alexandria. There was one of those outbursts of feeling which carries all before it. Even those who had been neutral, or inclined to be suspicious of Octavius, turned violently against Antony. He was deposed from the consulship for BC31, to which he had been elected, and declared to be divested of imperium. It seems probable that he was not at first declared a hostis, but war was voted against Cleopatra. It was enough for his enemies that he should be found fighting with the Egyptians against Rome; and the vote was well understood to include him. Caesar was appointed to proclaim the war with all the Fetial ceremonies, and the Senate assumed the sagum.

Both sides were now making preparations in earnest. Octavius could draw forces from Italy, Gaul, Spain, Illyricum, Sardinia, Sicily, and other islands. Antony relied on Asia, the parts about Thrace, Greece and Macedonia, Egypt, Cyrene, and the islands of the Aegean, besides a large number of client kings who had owed their position to him. He silenced their scruples, when gathered at Samos, by pointing out that they would not be formally at war with Rome, and promising that within two months of the victory he would lay down his imperium and remit all power to the Senate and people. Nor did he confine his exertions to the East. Agents were sent to cities in Italy carrying money, though Octavius —who kept himself well informed—frustrated this attempt for the most part.

From Samos Antony removed his headquarters to Athens, whence in the winter of BC32 he started to invade Italy. But at Corcyra he got intelligence of an advanced approaches squadron of Octavius Caesar’s fleet near the Acroceraunian promontory, and thinking that Octavius was there in full force, he decided to put off hostilities till the spring, by which time he expected to be joined by the forces of the client kings. He himself wintered at Patrae, distributing his forces so as to guard various points in Greece. He scornfully rejected Octavius Caesar’s proposal for an interview, on the ground that there was no one to decide between them, if either broke the terms upon which they might agree. The proposal was probably not seriously meant. It was only another means of putting Antony in the wrong.

Nothing, however, was done before the end of the year, a storm having frustrated an attempt of Octavius  Caesar’s to surprise some of the enemy’s ships at Corcyra. In the early spring the first move was made by Agrippa, who swooped down upon Methone in Messenia, killed Bogovas, late king of Mauretania, and harassed the shores of Greece by other descents, in order to divert Antony’s attention; who was now with his main fleet in the Ambracian gulf, having secured the narrow entrance to it by towers on either side, and with ships stationed between. His camp was close to the temple of Apollo, on the south side of the strait. The successes of Agrippa encouraged Octavius to move. He landed troops in Ceraunia, making his own headquarters at the “Sweet Haven”, at the mouth of the Cocytus, and sent a detachment by land round the Ambracian sea to threaten Antony’s camp. Having failed to entice the fleet from the Ambracian gulf, or to tempt the men to abandon Antony, he seized the high ground overlooking the strait, and opposite Actium, where he entrenched himself, on the ground on which he afterwards built Nicopolis. The summer months, however, were wearing away without any decisive blow being struck by either side, and the delay was irksome to both. Rome was in a state of simmering revolt owing to distress and heavy taxes, a discontent which found expression in the conspiracy of Lepidus, son of the ex-triumvir. It was promptly suppressed, indeed, and Lepidus was sent over to Octavius to receive his condemnation; but, nevertheless, Maecenas, who was in charge of Rome, found that he had no sinecure. To Antony, again, delay meant discontent among his Eastern followers, tottering loyalty, and probable abandonment. Above all, Cleopatra was in a highly nervous state, and was urging a return to Egypt. At last on the 31st of August, a cavalry engagement going against Antony, she became clamorous; and after long deliberation, Antony determined to follow her advice. He ordered his ships to be prepared for battle, but with the secret intention of avoiding a fight and sailing away to Alexandria.

Octavius was kept informed of this, and resolved to prevent it. His idea was to allow the Antonian fleet to issue out and begin their course, and then to fall upon their rear. But Agrippa thought that the superior sailing powers of the Antonian fleet would render this impossible, and urged an attack as soon as the ships cleared the straits. There had been rough weather for four days, but on the 3rd of September there was a calm, or only some surf from the preceding storms; and when the trumpet rang out for the start Antony’s huge vessels, furnished with towers and filled with armed men, began streaming out of the straits. They did not at first show any signs of standing out to sea. The ships took up a close order and waited to be attacked. There was a brief pause on Octavius Caesar’s side. He or Agrippa hesitated to attack these great galleons with their smaller craft. But before long an order was issued to the vessels on the extremities of Octavius’s fleet to exert their utmost powers in rowing in order to get round Antony’s two wings. To avoid this danger Antony was forced against his will to order an attack.

The battle raged all the afternoon without decisive result; though the smallness of Octavius’s vessels proved in many points a decided advantage. They could be rowed close up to bigger ships and be rowed away again when a shower of javelins had been poured in upon the enemy. Antony’s men returned the volleys and used grappling irons of great weight. If these irons caught one of the smaller ships they were doubtless very effective; but if the cast missed they either seriously damaged their own ship, or caused so much confusion and delay that an opportunity was given to the enemy to pour in fresh volleys of darts. At length Cleopatra, whose ships were on the southern fringe of the fleet, could bear the suspense no longer. She gave the signal for retreat, and a favourable breeze springing up, the Egyptian ships were soon fading out of sight. Antony thinking that this was the result of a panic, and that the day was lost, hastened after the retiring squadron. The example of their leader was followed by many of the crews, who lightening their ships by throwing overboard the wooden towers and war tackle, fled with sails full spread. But others still maintained the struggle, and it was not until Caesar’s men began throwing lighted brands upon the enemy’s ships that the rout became general. Even then the work was not over, for Octavius spent the whole night on board endeavouring to rescue men from the burning ships.

Antony got clear off from pursuit, but his camp on land was easily taken, and his army was intercepted while trying to retreat into Macedonia. For the most part the men took service in Octavius Caesar’s legions, the veterans being disbanded without pensions. Antony, however, was followed to Egypt by many of his adherents of rank, and still thought himself strong enough to make terms with Octavius. But he could no longer hope for aid from the client kings. They all hastened to make their peace with Octavius, or were captured and punished. Even Cleopatra was secretly prepared to betray him.

With the exception of one visit to Brindisi of seven days, to suppress the mutiny of some discontented veterans, Octavius spent the winter at Samos and Athens, collecting an army and navy destined to deprive Egypt permanently of its independence! Cleopatra had indeed tried to brave it out. She returned to Alexandria with her prows decked with flowers and her pipers playing a triumphant tune. The people are not likely to have been deceived, but there was no sign of revolt. She was able to seize the property of those whose fidelity she suspected, and even put to death the captive king of Armenia to gratify her ally the king of Media. Messages were sent to the kings who had been allied with Antony, and for some gladiators whom he had in training at Trapezus. The gladiators started but were intercepted, and no help came from the client kings. A still worse disappointment awaited him in Cyrene, over which he had placed L. Pinarius Scarpus with four legions. When, leaving Cleopatra at Parattonium, he went to take over these legions, Pinarius refused to receive hint and even put his messengers to death, and shortly afterwards handed over his province and army to Octavius Caesar’s legate, Cornelius Gallus. This was an unmistakable sign that Antony’s day of influence was over. Cleopatra returned to Alexandria and made secret preparations for retiring into Asia, as far as Iberia (Georgia) if necessary, though still keeping up appearances and sending in every direction for aid. Cleopatra’s son Cassarion and Antony’s son by Fulvia (Antyllus) were declared of man’s estate and capable of governing, and messages were despatched to Octavius proposing that Antony should retire to Athens as a privatus, and that Cleopatra should abdicate in favour of Caesarion. The queen also, without Antony’s knowledge, sent Octavius a gold sceptre and crown. He made no reply to Antony, but answered in threatening terms to Cleopatra, while sending his freedman Thyrsus to give her privately a reassuring message. Antony suspected the purport of Thyrsus’s mission, and with a last ebullition of his old swaggering humour had him flogged, and sent back with the message, that if Octavius felt aggrieved, he might put his freedman Hipparchus (who had joined Octavius) to the torture in revenge. But things went from bad to worse with him. News came that the gladiators had been impounded, that his own legatus in Syria (Q. Didius) had bidden the Arabs burn the ships while he had prepared for his flight in the Red Sea, and that the only two client kings who had seemed inclined to stand by him—those of Cilicia and Galatia—had fallen off. He therefore tried once more to open communications with Octavius. He sent him as a prisoner one of the assassins of Iulius, whom he had protected and employed, P. Turullius, and a considerable sum of money by the hands of his son Antyllus. Octavius put Turullius to death and took the money, but returned no answer to Antony, though he again sent a private message to Cleopatra. Presently Antony was informed that Gallus had arrived at Paraetonium with the four legions taken over from Pinarius; and believing that even now his personal influence was sufficient to win back the men, he hurried thither, accompanied by the remains of his fleet coasting along to guard him. But this only led to farther disaster. The soldiers refused to listen to him; and when his ships entered the harbour the chains were made fast across the mouth and they were trapped. On land he now found himself between two hostile forces; for Octavius with Cleopatra’s connivance had landed at Pelusium and was marching on Alexandria, and Gallus was attacking him from Paraetonium. He once more executed one of those rapid movements for which he was famous. Hastening back to Alexandria he flung his cavalry upon Octavius Caesar’s vanguard when tired with its march. But the success of this movement encourage him to make a general attack, in which he was decisively beaten. His last resource, the ships still remaining in the harbour of Alexandria, failed him. Acting under Cleopatra’s orders the captains refused to receive him. The queen, it is said, had shut herself up in the Tomb-house or Ptolemaeum, hoping to drive Antony to despair and suicide, as the only solution of the difficulty. If that was indeed her motive, she was both successful and repentant. Antony stabbed himself, and begged to be carried to the Tomb-house, where he died in her arms.

Octavius was now eager to secure Cleopatra’s person. He sent Gallus to her with soothing messages, which he delivered to her at the porch. But while he was speaking with her C. Proculeius entered by a window, seized the queen and conveyed her to the Palace, was allowed her usual attendants and all the usually paraphernalia of royalty. Of the two accounts of Octavius’s interview with her the more picturesque one is given by the usually prosaic Dio. He found her looking charming in her mourning, surrounded by likenesses of various kinds of the great Iulius, and in the bosom of her dress a packet of letters received from him. On his entrance she rose with a blush and greeted him as her lord and master. She pleaded that Iulius had always honoured her and acknowledged her as queen. She read affectionate passages from his letters, which she kissed passionately with tears streaming from her eyes, being at the same time careful to put respectful admiration and affection for Octavius himself into her looks and the tone of her voice. Octavius quite appreciated the drama thus played for his behoof, but feigned unconsciousness, keeping his eyes fixed on the ground and saying nothing but: “Courage, madam! Do hot be alarmed, for no harm will happen to you”. He said no word, however, as to her retention of royal power, nor did his voice betray the least tenderness. In an agony of disappointment she flung herself at his feet and besought him by the memory of his father to allow her to die and share Antony’s tomb. Octavius made no reply except once more to bid her not be alarmed; but he gave orders that though allowed her usual attendants she was to be closely watched. Cleopatra understood only too well that the intention was to take her to Rome that she might adorn the victor’s triumph. But in order to secure greater freedom she feigned submission and to be busied in collecting presents to take to Livia. Having thus diminished the vigilance of Epaphroditus and her other guards, she some days afterwards made a parade of writing a letter to Octavius, which she induced Epaphroditus to convey. When he returned, however, he found the queen, decked in royal robes, lying dead with two of her waiting women dead or dying by her side. “No one knows for certain,” says Dio, “how she died. Some say that a venomous snake was conveyed to her in a water-vessel or in some flowers. Others that the long pin with which she fastened her hair had a poisoned point, with which she pricked her arm.” Plutarch, with a like expression of doubt, says that the snake was conveyed in a basket of figs; and that on receiving the letter brought by Epaphroditus Octavius understood her purpose and hurried to the Palace to prevent it, and even summoned some of the mysterious Psylli—snake charmers and curers—to suck out the poison. But in spite of his disappointment, he admired her spirit and gave her a royal funeral. Perhaps after all he felt relieved of a difficulty. According to Plutarch she had shown him that she was not to be easily managed. At the end of her conversation with Caesar, he says, she handed him a schedule of the royal treasures. But when one of her stewards or treasurers remarked that she was keeping back certain sums, the enraged queen sprang up, clutched his hair, and beat his face with her fists. When Octavius smiled and tried to pacify her, she exclaimed: “A pretty thing, Octavius, that you should visit and address me with honour in my fallen state, and that one of my own slaves should malign me! If I have set apart certain women’s ornaments, it was not for myself, but for Octavia and Livia, that they might soften your heart to me.”

It would be pleasanter if the death of Cleopatra and the confiscation of her treasury were the end of the story. But the executions of the two poor boys, Caesarion and Antyllus, were acts of cold-blooded cruelty. The former, who could not have been more than sixteen, had been sent by his mother with a large supply of money to Ethiopia, but was betrayed by his padagogus, overtaken by Octavius’s soldiers, and put to death. The young Antonius (or Antyllus) begged hard for his life, and fled for safety to the heroum of the divine Iulius, constructed by Cleopatra, but was dragged away and killed. He could at most have been no more than fourteen, and had in childhood been betrothed to Caesar’s infant daughter, Iulia. Perhaps the pretensions of Caesarion to the paternity of Caesar, and his acknowledgment as heir to the throne of Egypt, made his death inevitable, but the extreme youth of Antyllus and his helplessness, might have pleaded for him. The rest of Antony’s children were protected by Octavia, and brought up as became their rank.

It is impossible not to feel some sympathy for Antony, who had thus flung away fame and life for a woman’s love. But it was doubtless happy thing for the world that the direction of affairs fell to the cautious Augustus rather than to him. He had some attractive qualities, but no virtues. Boundless self-indulgence in a ruler more than outweighs good-nature or liberality. It brings more suffering to subjects than the occasional gratification caused by the latter qualities can compensate. His scheme for erecting a series of semi-independent kingdoms in the East would almost certainly have been the cause of endless troubles. He was not more than fifty-three at his death, but there were signs of a great decay of energy and activity. The people thought of him—

“As of a Prince whose manhood was all gone,

And molten down in mere uxoriousness.’’

And undoubtedly, if instead of spending a winter in Samos in luxury and riot and part of another at Athens in much the same way, he had begun his attack on Octavius a year earlier, the result might have been different. But he let the occasion slip and found, as others have done, that the head of Time is bald at the back.

CHAPTER VIII

THE NEW CONSTITUTION, B.C. 30-23