by Daisy Dunn
its power so the rest of the army could ford it with ease.
Once Caesar had crossed and reached the Italian shore
on the further side, he halted on territory proscribed to them:
‘Here I relinquish peace,’ he cried, ‘and the law already
scorned, to follow you, my Fortune. Let me hear no more
talk of pacts, I have placed my trust in those for far
too long, now I must seek the judgement of war.’
DIVINE CAESAR
Metamorphoses, Book XV
Ovid
Translated by ‘Mr. Dryden and Others’, 1700
In 44 BC, four months after Julius Caesar was assassinated, a comet appeared in the skies above Rome and shone for seven days. It was taken to represent the soul of Caesar received into the heavens. Two years later Caesar was officially deified. The description of Caesar’s apotheosis by the poet Ovid (43 BC–AD 17/18), a contemporary of Virgil and Horace, is wonderfully overblown. Although Caesar twice invaded Britain, he could hardly have been said to have conquered it. The Roman victory over Mithridates of Pontus, a kingdom in what is now Turkey, was secured rather by Pompey the Great and a general named Lucullus. In his lifetime Caesar, who served as Pontifex Maximus (chief priest), claimed descent from Venus via Aeneas. Ovid emphasises the fact that Caesar’s death does not mark the end of his line. He pays tribute to Caesar’s great-nephew and successor, Octavian, the future emperor Augustus. Hailed as divi filius – son of a god – Octavian secured the help of Mark Antony in defeating Caesar’s assassins, Brutus and Cassius, at Philippi, six years after Caesar had defeated Pompey at Pharsalus. In 1717 the English poet Sir Samuel Garth edited a collection of translations of the books of Ovid’s Metamorphoses by some of the leading writers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, including Joseph Addison and John Dryden, who is the principal translator of this portion of the text.
In his own city, Caesar we adore:
Him arms and arts alike renown’d beheld,
In peace conspicuous, dreadful in the field;
His rapid conquests, and swift-finish’d wars,
The hero justly fix’d among the stars;
Yet is his progeny his greatest fame:
The son immortal makes the father’s name.
The sea-girt Britons, by his courage tam’d,
For their high rocky cliffs, and fierceness fam’d;
His dreadful navies, which victorious rode
O’er Nile’s affrighted waves and seven-sourc’d flood;
Numidia, and the spacious realms regain’d;
Where Cinyphis or flows, or Juba reign’d;
The pow’rs of titled Mithridatès broke,
And Pontus added to the Roman yoke;
Triumphal shows decreed, for conquests won,
For conquests, which the triumphs still outshone;
These are great deeds; yet less than to have giv’n
The world a lord, in whom, propitious heav’n,
When you decreed the sov’reign rule to place,
You blessed with lavish bounty human race.
Now, lest so great a prince might seem to rise
Of mortal stem, his sire must reach the skies;
The beauteous goddess that Aeneas bore;
Foresaw it, and, foreseeing, did deplore;
For well she knew her hero’s fate was nigh,
Devoted by conspiring arms to die.
Trembling, and pale, to ev’ry god she cry’d,
Behold, what deep and subtle arts are tried,
To end the last, the only branch that springs
From my Iülus, and the Dardan kings!
How bent they are! how desp’rate to destroy
All that is left me of unhappy Troy!
Am I alone by Fate ordain’d to know
Uninterrupted care, and endless woe?
Now from Tydidès’ spear I feel the wound:
Now Ilium’s tow’rs the hostile flames surround:
Troy laid in dust, my exil’d son I mourn,
Through angry seas, and raging billows borne;
O’er the wide deep his wand’ring course he bends;
Now to the sullen shades of Styx descends.
With Turnus driv’n at last fierce wars to wage,
Or rather with unpitying Juno’s rage.
But why record I now my ancient woes?
Sense of past ills in present fears I lose;
On me their points the impious daggers throw;
Forbid it, gods, repel the direful blow:
If by curst weapons Numa’s priest expires,
No longer shall ye burn, ye vestal fires.
While such complainings Cypria’s grief disclose;
In each celestial breast compassion rose:
Nor gods can alter fate’s resistless will;
Yet they foretold, by signs, th’ approaching ill.
Dreadful were heard, among the clouds, alarms
Of echoing trumpets, and of clashing arms;
The sun’s pale image gave so faint a light.
That the sad earth was almost veil’d in night;
The Aether’s face with fiery meteors glow’d;
With storms of hail were mingled drops of blood!
A dusky hue the morning star o’erspread,
And the moon’s orb was stain’d with spots of red;
In ev’ry place portentous shrieks were heard,
The fatal warnings of th’ infernal bird:
In ev’ry place the marble melts to tears;
While in the groves, rever’d through length of years,
Boding, and awful sounds, the ear invade;
And solemn music warbles through the shade;
No victim can atone the impious age,
No sacrifice the wrathful gods assuage;
Dire wars and civil fury threat the state:
And ev’ry omen points out Caesar’s fate:
Around each hallow’d shrine and sacred dome,
Night-howling dogs disturb the peaceful gloom;
Their silent seats the wand’ring shades forsake,
And fearful tremblings the rock’d city shake.
Yet could not, by these prodigies, be broke
The plotted charm, or staid the fatal stroke;
Their swords th’ assassins in the temple draw;
Their murd’ring hands nor gods nor temples awe;
This sacred place their bloody weapons stain,
And virtue falls before the altar slain.
’Twas now fair Cypria, with her woes opprest,
In raging anguish smote her heav’nly breast;
While with distracting tears the goddess try’d
Her hero in th’ ethereal cloud to hide,
The cloud which youthful Paris did conceal,
When Meneläus urg’d the threat’ning steel!
The cloud, which once deceiv’d Tydidès sight,
And sav’d Aeneas in th’ unequal fight.
When Jove:—‘In vain, fair daughter, you essay
To o’er-rule destiny’s unconquer’d sway:
Your doubts to banish, enter Fate’s abode:
A privilege to heav’nly pow’rs allow’d;
There shall you see the records grav’d in length,
On ir’n and solid brass, with mighty strength;
Which heav’n’s and earth’s concussions shall endure,
Maugre all shocks, eternal, and secure:
There, on perennial adamant design’d,
The various fortunes of your race you’ll find:
Well I have mark’d ’em, and will now relate
To thee the settled laws of future fate.
‘He, goddess, for whose death the fates you blame,
Has finish’d his determin’d course with fame:
To thee ’tis giv’n, at length that he shall shine
Among the gods, and grace the worshipp’d shrine:
His son to all his greatness shall be heir,
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And worthily succeed to empire’s care:
Our self will lead his wars, resolv’d to aid
The brave avenger of his father’s shade:
To him its freedom Mutina shall owe,
And Decius his auspicious conduct know:
His dreadful pow’rs shall shake Pharsalia’s plain,
And drench in gore Philippi’s fields again:
A mighty leader in Sicilia’s flood,
Great Pompey’s warlike son shall be subdu’d.
Aegypt’s soft queen, adorn’d with fatal charms,
Shall mourn her soldier’s unsuccessful arms:
Too late shall find, her swelling hopes were vain,
And know, that Rome o’er Memphis still must reign:
Why name I Afric or Nile’s hidden head?
Far as both oceans roll, his pow’r shall spread:
All the known earth to him shall homage pay,
And the seas own his universal sway:
When cruel war no more disturbs mankind;
To civil studies shall he bend his mind,
With equal justice guardian laws ordain,
And, by his great example, vice restrain:
Where will his bounty or his goodness end?
To times unborn his gen’rous views extend;
The virtues of his heir our praise engage,
And promise blessings to the coming age:
Late shall he in his kindred orbs be plac’d,
With Pylian years, and crouded honours grac’d.
Meantime, your hero’s fleeting spirit bear,
Fresh from his wounds, and change it to a star:
So shall great Julius rites divine assume,
And from the skies eternal smile on Rome.’
This spoke; the goddess to the senate flew:
Where, her fair form conceal’d from mortal view,
Her Caesar’s heav’nly part she made her care,
Nor left the recent soul to waste to air,
But bore it upwards to its native skies:
Glowing with new-born fires she saw it rise;
Forth springing from her bosom up it flew,
And, kindling, as it soar’d, a comet grew;
Above the lunar sphere it took its flight,
And shot behind it a long trail of light.
Thus rais’d, his glorious offspring Julius view’d.
Beneficently great, and scatt’ring good,
Deeds, that his own surpass’d, with joy beheld,
And his large heart dilates to be excell’d.
What, though this prince refuses to receive
The preference, which his juster subjects give;
Fame uncontroll’d, that no restraint obeys,
The homage, shunn’d by modest virtue, pays,
And proves disloyal only in his praise.
Though great his sire, him greater we proclaim:
So Atreus yields to Agamemnon’s fame;
Achilles so superior honours won,
And Peleus must submit to Peleus’ son;
Examples yet more noble to disclose,
So Saturn was eclips’d, when Jove to empire rose:
Jove rules the heav’ns; the earth Augustus sways;
Each claims a monarch’s and a father’s praise.
Celestials, who for Rome your cares employ;
Ye gods, who guarded the remains of Troy;
Ye native gods, here born and fix’d by fate;
Quirinus, founder of the Roman state;
O parent Mars, from whom Quirinus sprung;
Chaste Vesta, Caesar’s household gods among
Most sacred held; domestic Phoebus, thou,
To whom with Vesta chaste alike we bow;
Great guardian of the high Tarpeïan rock;
And all ye pow’rs whom poets may invoke;
O, grant that day may claim our sorrows late,
When lov’d Augustus shall submit to fate;
Visit those seats where gods and heroes dwell;
And leave, in tears, the world he rul’d so well.
ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA
Life of Antony
Plutarch
Translated by Aubrey Stewart and George Long, 1892
In 31 BC, Antony (‘Antonius’) lost to Octavian (‘Caesar’), great-nephew of Julius Caesar, in a naval battle at Actium in western Greece. Here, one of Antony’s most trusted men, Canidius, informs him that he is now isolated. Antony’s response is to take comfort in his lover Cleopatra, ruler of Egypt, and the luxuries of her court. Their time is limited. The Greek writer Plutarch (AD 46–120), Antony’s biographer – and author of Parallel Lives (a collection of paired biographies of famous Greeks and Romans) – describes the lovers as the end draws near.
Canidius himself brought intelligence to Antonius of the loss of his forces at Actium, and he heard that Herodes, the Jew, who had certain legions and cohorts, had gone over to Caesar, and that the rest of the princes in like manner were revolting, and that none of his troops out of Egypt still kept together. However, none of these things disturbed him; but, as if he gladly laid aside hope as he did care, he left that dwelling on the sea, which he called Timoneium, and being taken by Cleopatra into the palace, he turned the city to feasting and drinking and distribution of money, registering the son of Cleopatra and Caesar among the young men, and putting on Antyllus, his son by Fulvia, the vest without the purple hem, which marked the attainment of full age, on which occasion banquets and revellings and feasts engaged Alexandria for many days. They themselves put an end to that famed company of the Inimitable Livers, and they formed another, not at all inferior to that in refinement and luxury and expense, which they called the company of those who would die together. For the friends of Antonius registered themselves as intending to die together, and they continued enjoying themselves in a succession of banquets. Cleopatra got together all kinds of deadly poisons, and she tried the painless character of each by giving them to those who were in prison under sentence of death. When she discovered that the quick poisons brought on a speedy death with pain, and the less painful were not quick, she made trial of animals, which in her presence were set upon one another. And she did this daily; and among nearly all she found that the bite of the asp alone brought on without spasms and groans a sleepy numbness and drowsiness, with a gentle perspiration on the face, and dulling of the perceptive faculties, which were softly deprived of their power, and made resistance to all attempts to awake and arouse them, as is the case with those who are in a deep sleep.
At the same time they sent also ambassadors to Caesar into Asia, Cleopatra requesting the dominion of Egypt for her children, and Antonius asking to be allowed to live as a private person at Athens, if he could not be permitted to stay in Egypt. Through the want of friends and their distrust owing to the desertions, Euphronius, the instructor of the children, was sent on the embassy. For Alexas, of Laodiceia, who at Rome had become known to Antonius through Timagenes, and possessed most influence of all the Greeks, who also had been the most active of the instruments of Cleopatra against Antonius, and had overthrown all the reflections which rose in his mind about Octavia, had been sent to King Herodes to keep him from changing; and having stayed there and betrayed Antonius, he had the impudence to go into the presence of Caesar, relying on Herodes. But Herodes helped him not, but being forthwith confined and carried in chains to his own country, he was put to death there by order of Caesar. Such was the penalty for his infidelity that Alexas paid to Antonius in his lifetime.
Caesar would not listen to what was said on behalf of Antonius; but as to Cleopatra, he replied that she should not fail to obtain anything that was reasonable if she would kill Antonius or drive him away. He also sent with the ambassadors of Antonius and Cleopatra one Thyrsus, a freedman of his, a man not devoid of judgment, nor, as coming from a young general, one who would fail in persuasive address to a haughty woman who was wonderfully proud of her beauty. This man, having longer interviews with Cle
opatra than the rest, and being specially honoured, caused Antonius to have suspicions, and he seized and whipped him; and he then sent him back to Caesar with a letter to the effect that Thyrsus, by giving himself airs and by his insolent behaviour, had irritated him, who was easily irritated by reason of his misfortunes. “But you,” he said, “if you do not like the thing, have my freedman Hipparchus. Hang him up and whip him, that we may be on equal terms.” Upon this Cleopatra, with the view of doing away with his cause of complaint and suspicions, paid more than usual court to Antonius: she kept her own birthday in a mean manner and a way suitable to her condition, but she celebrated the birthday of Antonius with an excess of splendour and cost, so that many of those who were invited to the feast came poor and went away rich. Agrippa in the meantime called Caesar back, frequently writing to him from Rome, and urging that affairs there required his presence.
Accordingly for the time the war was suspended; but when the winter was over, Caesar advanced through Syria and his generals through Libya. Pelusium was taken, and it was said that Seleukus gave it up, not without the consent of Cleopatra. But Cleopatra surrendered to Antonius the wife and children of Seleukus to be put to death; and as she had a tomb and a monument constructed of unusual beauty and height, which she had built close to the temple of Isis, she collected there the most precious of the royal treasures, gold, silver, emeralds, pearls, ebony, ivory, and cinnamon, and also a great quantity of fire-wood and tow; so that Caesar, being afraid about the money, lest Cleopatra becoming desperate should destroy and burn the wealth, kept continually forwarding to her hopes of friendly treatment while he was advancing with his army against the city. When Caesar had taken his position near the hippodrome, Antonius sallied forth and fought gallantly, and he put Caesar’s cavalry to flight and pursued them to the camp. Elated with his victory, he entered the palace and embraced Cleopatra in his armour, and presented to her one of the soldiers who had fought most bravely. Cleopatra gave the soldier as a reward of his courage a golden breastplate and a helmet. The man took them, and in the night deserted to Caesar.
Again, Antonius sent to Caesar and challenged him to single combat. Caesar replied that Antonius had many ways of dying, on which Antonius, reflecting that there was no better mode of death for him than in battle, determined to try a land battle and a naval battle at the same time. And at supper, it is said, he bade the slaves to pour out and feast him cheerfully, for it was uncertain whether they would do that on the morrow or would be serving other masters, while he should lie a corpse and should be a nothing. Seeing that his friends shed tears at his words, he said that he would not lead them out to a battle from which he would seek for himself a glorious death rather than safety and victory. During this night, it is said, about the middle thereof, while the city was quiet and depressed through fear and expectation of the future, all at once certain harmonious sounds from all kinds of instruments were heard, and shouts of a crowd with Evoes and satyric leapings, as if some company of revellers not without noise were going out of the city; and the course of the procession seemed to be through the middle of the city to the gate leading outwards in the direction of the enemy, and at this point the tumult made its way out, being loudest there. And those who reflected on the sign were of opinion that the god to whom Antonius all along most likened himself and most claimed kinship with was deserting him.