Antony and Cleopatra

by Adrian Goldsworthy

  It is unclear whether Antony, Cassius and Curio joined Caesar at Ariminum or earlier at Ravenna, but the former seems more likely. In either case, the Thirteenth was paraded and the proconsul addressed them and explained how he had been forced to act by the bitter and illegal hostility of his enemies, who had lured Pompey away from him. The two tribunes were still dressed as slaves when they were brought before the soldiers to underline the way that his opponents had trampled on the laws. The persons of the tribunes of the people were sacrosanct and yet these representatives of the people had been threatened with violence. All Romans had a deeply emotional attachment to the idea of the tribunate and by the end of the parade the legionaries and their officers were shouting that they were ready to set things right.20

  Antony was a few days short of his thirty-fourth birthday. Years later Cicero would blame him for starting the civil war. That was a huge exaggeration, for it is hard to see enough trust on either side to have made a peaceful resolution possible. It is fair to say that Antony was an active participant in the actual events that sparked the war. He also showed no reluctance about taking part in an invasion of Italy.21

  TRIBUNE WITH PROPRAETORIAN POWERS

  Caesar did not linger, but pressed on. His opponents were unprepared and had no reliable troops to oppose even the small invading army. Town after town opened its gates to Caesar’s men. Antony was sent with a force of five cohorts from the Thirteenth to occupy Arretium (modern-day Arezzo). There was no fighting. A little later Curio led another column to Iguvium. The Pompeian commander fled, his soldiers deserted and the townsfolk welcomed the cohorts. From the beginning, Caesar maintained very strict discipline and forbade his soldiers from looting or indiscriminate acts of violence. They were to fight only when actively resisted.22

  Absolutely no one had anticipated Caesar’s strategy. Even men like Cicero who knew Caesar personally and had hoped to avoid the war, expected him to advance like Sulla or Marius, plundering and slaughtering all his opponents. Instead, he paraded his clemency. When he surrounded a large force at Corfinium under the inept leadership of Domitius Ahenobarbus, the town surrendered after a brief siege. Ahenobarbus — Antony’s rival for the augurate — and all of the senior officers were allowed to go free, taking their possessions with them. His soldiers nearly all changed sides and joined Caesar, who proclaimed that this was ‘a new way of conquest — we grow strong through pity and generosity’.23

  Early on Pompey had decided that it was impossible to defend Rome. He had very few trained and reliable soldiers. Levies were held, but the raw legions raised in this way would take many months to be trained. Everything had to be improvised and for the moment he and his supporters were weak. Hotheads like Ahenobarbus tried to force him to fight, refusing to obey orders and retire to join him. Attempts at negotiation continued, some involving Antony’s cousin, the son and namesake of Lucius Julius Caesar. Both sides repeated their desire for peace and much of this may have been intended to win support from the undecided. The bulk of the Senate, let alone the wider population, felt no strong commitment to either side and tried to remain out of the conflict.24

  Pompey retreated to Brundisium in the south and began transporting his men by sea across to Greece. There he planned to assemble and train a great army, drawing on the resources of the eastern provinces he himself had organised. Once he was ready, he would return and crush Caesar. As he put it, ‘Sulla did it, so why can’t I?’ Caesar pursued and tried to prevent his escape, but failed to close the harbour. Brundisium fell, but only after Pompey and his forces had escaped.25

  Caesar had won the first campaign, but he remained a rebel with many strong enemies at large. He lacked the ships needed to follow Pompey, so instead decided to march by land to Spain and defeat the Pompeian legions there. First he needed to make arrangements for the governance of Italy. He returned to Rome, but at first did not enter the city itself. Antony and Cassius as tribunes summoned a meeting of the Senate to a spot outside the pomerium on 1 April. Few attended, and only two of these were former consuls. Nevertheless, Caesar took the opportunity to address the meeting and later an Assembly of the Roman people to lay out his case. The Senate decreed that an embassy should be sent to Pompey and his allies in the hope of agreeing a peace. No one was willing to serve on the delegation, however, and so the whole matter was dropped. Needing funds to pay his soldiers, Caesar took money from the Republic’s Treasury, in spite of the opposition of another of the tribunes. This was only a few months after proclaiming his willingness to fight on behalf of the rights of the tribunate.26

  Caesar then left for the campaign in Spain. Antony’s brother Caius Antonius was given command of two legions and sent to Illyricum, nearest to the massing enemies in Greece. Curio received the legions that had defected at Corfinium and was sent to Sicily, with orders to proceed to North Africa once this was secured. On his way, the young aristocrat visited Cicero and spoke with his usual freedom, claiming that Caesar’s clemency was a sham and that soon he would reveal his true and far more cruel nature, becoming another Sulla.27

  As well as generals, Caesar needed administrators. Rome was put under the charge of the praetor Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, the younger brother of the consul of 50 BC and a man who would later play a major role in Antony’s life. Antony himself was given special propraetorian imperium to add to his office of tribune and was tasked with overseeing the rest of Italy. Both men were appointed because they were already properly elected magistrates and also because they came from well-established families. It was still an unprecedented responsibility for a tribune. Antony revelled in the power.28

  [XI]

  QUEEN

  Cleopatra was about eighteen when her father died in 51 BC, the oldest of Auletes’ four surviving children. Her sister Arsinoe was younger by one or more years and the older of their two brothers was just ten. Their father had intended Ptolemy XIII and Cleopatra to rule jointly. It is normally assumed that they were quickly married in accordance with the family tradition, but no source explicitly tells us this, and it was unusual for a Ptolemaic king to take a wife who was so much older. On the other hand, if Ptolemy XIII had subsequently married then friction would always have been likely between his wife and his sister and co-ruler, so in many respects marriage between the royal siblings encouraged stability. It is also possible that a marriage was planned, but did not actually take place.

  We do not know how Auletes died and whether his death was sudden or long anticipated. This means that it is uncertain how far he prepared the way for the succession. There were problems from the beginning. Ptolemy XIII was a minor who could not rule himself and so required some form of regency. There was a long tradition amongst the Ptolemies of giving important courtiers the status of‘friends’ or the even greater honour of‘kinsmen’, in keeping with Macedonian tradition, which had surrounded Alexander and other kings with ‘companions’. A number of important men were associated with the boy and formed a loose faction around him. The dominant figures were his tutor Theodotus of Samos and the eunuch Pothinus. There does not seem to have been any formally appointed regent or regency council, merely a group of prominent men able to influence and effectively control the young prince. All had ambitions of their own and were united only in a desire to increase the importance Ptolemy XI and so gain power themselves.1

  Cleopatra also had her advisers and allies, although we know next to nothing about them. This is because she was older, confident enough to assert herself and unwilling to let anyone else rule through her. From the beginning this created tension. Her favourites doubtless gained prestige and power within the court, but these were inevitably a minority. Other men saw their rivals doing well, as their own influence and importance declined or at best remained the same. If they were unable to ingratiate themselves with the young queen, then the natural alternative was to turn to her brother. Increasing his power would benefit all those who surrounded and supported him.

  The teenage queen made her intentions clear
very quickly. Ignoring her father’s will, Cleopatra made herself sole monarch of his kingdom. Official documents from 51 BC make no mention of Ptolemy XIII. They refer instead to ‘Year Thirty, which is also Year One’. The Egyptian system of dating inherited by the Ptolemies was based around the years of rule of each monarch. Year Thirty was the final year of Auletes’ reign – tactfully ignoring the period of his exile. Therefore the year marked the end of one era and the start of the new reign of the sole queen. She styled herself the ‘father-loving goddess’ (Thea Philopator), at once stressing her connection with Auletes and ignoring his declaration that his children were ‘sibling-loving’.

  Her sole rule was also reflected in less official sources. A priest of an association dedicated to the worship of the goddess Isis seems to have prepared a statue to dedicate to Ptolemy XII. When the king died, this man had the inscription altered to celebrate ‘Queen Cleopatra Thea Philopator’ instead. Time, cost or lack of concern meant that the statue was still of an obviously male figure in the traditional garb of a pharaoh. There is no mention on the inscription of Ptolemy XIII.2

  On the 22 March 51 BC a grand ceremony was held at Hermonthis in Upper Egypt to enthrone a new Buchis bull, the focus of one of the great animal cults of Egypt. Whenever a Buchis bull died, it was carefully mummified and buried, while the priests searched for a replacement of suitable type, size and colour. The Buchis bull was supposed to change colour during the course of each day. The animal cults of Egypt often attracted the scorn of Greek and Roman observers, but that did nothing to prevent their popularity, which extended beyond the indigenous population to many settlers from outside. Most famous was the Apis bull whose shrine was at Memphis, but there were others. The Buchis bull was believed to be in some way the physical manifestation of Montu, a god of war, and was also sacred to other deities. Hermonthis lay on the opposite bank of the Nile to the Upper Kingdom’s capital city of Thebes and had immense prestige.

  An inscription from Hermonthis, recording the burial of this Buchis bull more than twenty years later, stated that:

  He reached Thebes, the place of installation, which came into existence aforetime, beside his father, Nun the old. He was installed by the king himself in the year 1, Phamenoth 19 [22 March 51 BC]. The Queen, the Lady of the Two Lands, the Goddess Philopator, rowed him in the boat of Amen, together with all the barges of the king, all the inhabitants of Thebes and Hermonthis and priests being with him. He reached Hermonthis, his dwelling place …3

  Such inscriptions were formulaic, so that we need to be cautious about reading too much into the details. ‘He was installed by the king himself was a traditional formula and did not usually mean that the king was in fact present. We do not know if it anyway refers to Auletes, or less probably Ptolemy XIII, or is simply used vaguely to mean Cleopatra herself, in this traditional religious role of the pharaoh.

  Many historians chose to take the description of her participation literally. If this is correct, then it would be striking that the new queen was willing to travel to the south of her realm so early in her reign, removing her from Alexandria and the court for a period of a least a few weeks. Ptolemy Auletes was generous to the temple cults, and this can be seen as an extension of his patronage, taken a stage further by a young queen able to speak the Egyptian language. Upper Egypt does seem to have been consistently loyal to both father and daughter, which could suggest that this attention was rewarded. Cleopatra certainly continued to build temples and fund the cults. Another inscription records that she gave money to pay for the ceremonial feasts accompanying the instalment of a new Apis bull. However, in this case the sum involved was no more than 421 silver coins, making the gift generous, but not on an especially grand scale.4

  It is certainly possible that the eighteen-year-old Cleopatra actually did go down the Nile and play a role in the rituals of the Buchis bull. She does seem to have enjoyed theatre, perhaps felt a genuine religious commitment to the cult and may also have wanted to show herself as queen in a very public role. The ‘rowing’ would never have to be more than symbolic. Extending this to a deep commitment to traditional Egyptian religion and culture remains a very large step even beyond this, as does the claim that ‘she was indeed queen of Egypt’ in contrast to earlier Ptolemies. We do have to remember that her participation may have been entirely symbolic, consisting of financial support and official words of approval issued from distant Alexandria. It was obviously in the interests of the priests of the cult to portray royal involvement as direct and true, in an ideal rather than literal sense. Once again we simply do not know, making this a flimsy piece of evidence on which to base sweeping statements about Cleopatra’s policies and attitudes.5

  EXILE

  There was no tradition of a Ptolemaic queen ruling alone for any length of time. Cleopatra was intelligent, capable and ambitious, but she was also young and inexperienced. Perhaps she believed that she could be the exception to this, but her position was always precarious and it was difficult to keep enough of the court and wider aristocracy satisfied. The Roman attitude was almost as vital, but remained unclear. Although news of Auletes’ death had reached Rome by the summer of 51 BC, the Senate took no action to recognise the new queen or to enforce the terms of her father’s will. There were plenty of other matters occupying the senators’ minds and a general indifference to Egypt’s affairs. It had after all taken Auletes more than a decade and concerted lobbying and bribery to gain the formal acceptance of the Roman Republic.6

  Crassus’ unprovoked and disastrous invasion of Parthia was followed by a series of heavy Parthian raids into the Roman provinces. In 50 BC, the Roman proconsul governing Syria was Marcus Calpurnius Bibulus, son-in-law of Cato. Bibulus had the misfortune to be Julius Caesar’s contemporary, and in a succession of magistracies was overshadowed by his far more charismatic and able colleague. In 59 BC the two men were consuls and after vain attempts to block Caesar’s legislation, Bibulus had retired to his house. He produced a stream of scurrilous attacks on his colleague, whilst all the time proclaiming that public business was invalid because of bad omens. People joked that the year was the consulship of Julius and Caesar rather than Caesar and Bibulus.7

  Like Cicero, Bibulus had only reluctantly gone out to govern a province, but once there he seems to have tried to do the job to the best of his limited ability. With only the remnants of Crassus’ army at his disposal, he sent two of his sons to Alexandria to summon the Gabinian troops. This does suggest that these were still seen as part of the Roman army, although it is just possible that he simply saw them as Roman citizens and so obliged to serve the cause of the Republic. Whatever Bibulus’ view, the Gabinians and their officers did not recognise his authority. Not only did they refuse to answer to leave Egypt, but they also promptly murdered the proconsul’s sons.

  Cleopatra had the ringleaders arrested and sent in chains to Bibulus for punishment. As one source puts it, ‘No greater favour could have been offered to a mourner. But when offered it, he made grief yield to moderation and had the slaughterers of his flesh and blood returned to Cleopatra immediately unharmed, saying that the power to punish them should be the Senate’s, not his.’8

  The young queen had demonstrated her loyalty to Rome and asserted some degree of control over the Gabinians, who formed such a major part of the royal army. It is not known what happened to the prisoners once they were returned to her by Bibulus. Cleopatra had been able to arrest these men, but had not been able to get the Gabinians to go to Syria, assuming that she wanted this. The queen’s willingness to hand these officers over for execution can scarcely have endeared her to their colleagues.

  Much of Auletes’ unpopularity in 58 BC came from his fawning attitude to Roman power. Many Alexandrians, and in particular many of the well-off and influential, seem to have resented this. It is more than likely that Cleopatra’s actions following the murder of Bibulus’sons caused a similar reaction, but we should be careful not to push this too far. It was not a simple question of pro
- and anti-Roman factions at court. Instead, any perceived weakness or mistake made by the queen was bound to be exploited by the faction surrounding her brother. Discontent amongst army officers weakened Cleopatra and aided men like Pothinus and Theodotus.

  At some point in 50 BC the queen’s sole rule ended and she was forced to acknowledge her brother as co-ruler. For a while there seems to have been co-operation between the two, at least officially. There are relatively few formal documents from this period, but Ptolemy XIII more often than not is named first. This may simply be because a king would normally be considered the dominant partner, but perhaps reflects the real balance of power. On 27 October a decree was issued in the name of the king and queen forbidding any excess from the harvest being stored locally and commanding that all of this was to be transported to Alexandria. The death penalty was to be imposed on anyone violating this decree and ‘whoever wishes shall inform … about contraventions of this order, on the understanding that he shall receive a third part of the property of the person found guilty, or, if he be a slave, shall be freed and in addition receive the sixth part’. Harsh penalties for violating royal decrees were not unusual.9