Cleopatra the Great

by Joann Fletcher

  Residing at Antonius’ Ephesus HQ which he referred to as ‘the Palace’, Cleopatra maintained the same high public profile as she would have had in Alexandria: ‘she visited the market place [forum] with Antony, presided with him over festivals and the hearing of lawsuits, rode around with him on horseback even in the cities, or else was carried in a litter’. She was also present at Antonius’ planning meetings as she almost certainly had been at Caesar’s, but some newly arrived allies began to voice objections, complaining that women surely belonged in the home and their presence in camp would bring bad luck. The peculiarly aggressive behaviour of swallows nesting in the stern of Cleopatra’s flagship was regarded as a bad omen. Perhaps nervous that she would uncover certain financial irregularities regarding her money, Plancus and his nephew Titius were among those muttering against her; Ahenobarbus even refused to use her royal form of address, curtly referring to her as ‘Cleopatra’ and bluntly requesting that she return to Egypt.

  Yet she was having none of it. She was backed by the other consul, Sosius, an admiral who recognised the crucial importance of the ships she contributed, but her strongest support came from Canidius Crassus, commander of the land forces, who claimed that her presence was needed to sustain the morale of their Egyptian troops. He also told his fellow officers that ‘it was not just that one that bore so great a part in their charge of the war should be robbed of her share of glory’, especially as she was in no way inferior ‘in prudence to any one of the kings that were serving with him; she had long governed a great kingdom by herself alone, and long lived with him [Antonius], and gained experience in public affairs’. So, regardless of any dissent, Cleopatra was staying where she was.

  In April 32 BC, as the campaign season fast approached, she and Antonius travelled to the island of Samos, summoning to join them ‘all kings, princes and governors, all nations and cities within the limits of Syria, the Maeotid Lake, Armenia and Illyria’. Each was told to provide troops, provisions and ‘theatrical artists’ — the couple’s preparations for war involved several weeks of Ptolemaic-style ‘high festivities’ in honour of Dionysos, personified by their supreme commander Antonius who led the procession as ‘this one island for some days resounded with piping and harping, theatres filling and choruses playing. Every city sent an ox as its contribution to the sacrifice and the kings that accompanied Antonius competed who should make the most magnificent feasts and the greatest presents’ to gain divine support for the war ahead. Plans were already in place for their forthcoming Triumph, which would, like Julius Caesar’s, feature Roman-style games with gladiators to celebrate Octavian’s defeat. In May the couple left Samos for the Greek mainland, the border between their world and that of Octavian and the place where all their fates would soon be decided.

  On two previous occasions Antonius had fought and won here to decide Rome’s future, first with Caesar against Pompeius at Pharsalus, and then with a largely absent Octavian against Brutus and Carsius at Philippi. He must have felt the gods were surely with him for a third time as he and Cleopatra viewed their vast force and equally impressive navy.

  Sending their fleet west around the Peloponnese to create a line of defence, the couple themselves travelled on to Athens to pass the summer of 32 BC. AS Antonius’ former home and a place that Cleopatra seems to have visited as a girl, the city had close links to the Ptolemies whose statues stood on the Acropolis. The Athenians now set up Cleopatra’s statue as Isis alongside a companion figure of Antonius as Osiris, and, holding court in Antonius’ sumptuous Athenian home as she had done in Caesar’s Roman villa twelve years earlier, Cleopatra ‘courted the favour of the people with all sorts of attentions. The Athenians in requital, having decreed her public honours, deputed several of the citizens to wait upon her at her house; amongst whom went Antony as one, he being an [honorary] Athenian citizen and he it was that made the speech’.

  After paying great honours to the wife who sat before him he initiated divorce proceedings against the other, and ‘sent orders to Rome to have Octavia removed from his house. She left it, we are told, accompanied by all his children, except the eldest by Fulvia, who was then with his father.’ Amidst much ‘weeping and grieving that she must be looked upon as one of the causes of the war’, it was said they ‘pitied not so much her as Antonius himself, and more particularly those who had seen Cleopatra, whom they could report to have no way the advantage of Octavia either in youth or in beauty’ — the classic responses to a jilted woman. Having replaced Octavia as the face of female divinity in Athens, and now as Antonius’ sole wife, Cleopatra must have been ecstatic. Nevertheless she must have realised that Antonius’ decision finally to divorce Octavia was first and foremost a political move designed to sever dramatically the last remaining tie with his bitter enemy Octavian. Later it was claimed that Antonius ‘drove away his lawful Roman wife to please the foreign and unlawful woman. And so . . . Antony procured his ruin by his marriage’.

  Just as intended, the divorce of his sister provoked Octavian into action, making him appear the aggressor and presenting him with a real problem. For having only just made a name for himself as the great saviour who had personally ended Rome’s civil war, he could hardly resume hostilities against a fellow Roman. And so he initiated moves to sideline Antonius and target Cleopatra as the ‘enemy without’. She was a foreigner, a monarch and a woman, each guaranteed to repel much of the Roman establishment, so Octavian cast himself as her brave opponent and, despite the fact that the cities of Bononia (Bologna) and Palaestrina remained loyal to Antonius and Cleopatra, Octavian would claim that ‘all Italy took a personal oath to me voluntarily, demanding me as their leader in the war’.

  Exploiting Rome’s long-standing suspicion of the East, he told his fellow citizens they faced the gravest of dangers, since Cleopatra and her Eastern hordes could at any moment swarm into their city and destroy their very way of life. In line with the Sibylline Oracle’s prophecy ‘O Rome . . . the Queen crops off your delicate head of hair and uttering judgements will hurl you to earth from the sky’, Octavian’s poets claimed that Cleopatra wanted ‘to demolish the Capitol, and topple the empire.’

  So the noble, masculine West prepared to embark on its great crusade against the corrupt and feminised East, and all memory of the unpopular war tax receded as Octavian’s henchman Calvisius described the corrupt lifestyle that Cleopatra had forced upon Antonius. As a result of her influence he had unlawfully seized the Library of Pergamum to give to her, had forced the Ephesians to salute her as monarch and had read her love letters in the presence of leading statesmen. Inferring that he paid more attention to a woman’s words, it was asserted that he had once lost interest in a speech being made by a leading Roman orator simply at the sight of her and had even been seen rubbing her feet in public.

  Although some dismissed Calvisius’ take on such events, the orator Marcus Valerius Messala published a booklet duplicating his claims and adding that Antonius used a golden chamber pot of ‘an enormity that even Cleopatra would have been ashamed’. It was also claimed that he ran behind her litter in Eastern dress, as emasculated as the court eunuchs, described as ‘her squalid pack of diseased half-men’; Octavian even commented that ‘the generals they would have to fight would be Mardion the eunuch, Pothinus, Eiras, Cleopatra’s hair-dressing girl and Charmion, who were Antony’s chief state-councillors’.

  When the couple’s former ally, the ‘pathologically treacherous’ Plancus came over to Octavian, claiming that Cleopatra’s presence in meetings had upset his sensibilities — but failing to mention that he had once painted himself blue and crawled naked along the floor to amuse her — he too enumerated Antonius’ apparent crimes before the Senate. He also claimed to know the contents of his will, which had apparently been sent back to Rome and deposited with the Vestal Virgins. After the chief priestess refused to hand it over, Octavian seized it by force.

  With the reading out of wills, genuine or otherwise, something in which Roman statesmen ha
d long specialised in their dealings with Ptolemaic Egypt, Octavian made a great show of reading out edited highlights from the last will and testament of Marcus Antonius. Reaffirming Caesarion as the legitimate son of Caesar, something Antonius had already done at the Donations, he then stated his apparent wish to leave generous legacies to his children by Cleopatra, even though Roman law did not allow children of a non-Roman citizen to inherit — something Antonius knew full well. This clause was almost certainly invented by Octavian, who then added with a final flourish that, if Antonius were to die in Rome, he had requested burial with Cleopatra in Alexandria.

  Even if he had voiced such a wish privately, it hardly seems credible that Antonius would have provided written proof in the very city controlled by his great adversary. Yet despite those who were outraged at the violent treatment of the sacred Vestals and the disclosure of such a private document, Octavian’s masterful propaganda hit the mark. Whether his audience believed him or not they were smart enough to realise the tide might well be turning, regardless of the methods used to turn it. So, as defections to Octavian’s cause began, Antonius’ supporters attempted damage limitation. They concluded that the only way to silence Octavian was to remove Cleopatra from the equation.

  Gaius Geminius was sent to Athens to speak urgently with Antonius, but Cleopatra was immediately suspicious and kept him waiting. When finally made to state his business over dinner, he answered that he would explain himself on a more sober occasion, although ‘one thing he had to say, whether sober or drunk, was that all would go well if Cleopatra would return to Egypt’. Despite Antonius’ angry response, Cleopatra is said to have simply congratulated him, with the words, ‘You have done well, Geminius, to tell your secret without being put on the rack.’

  Antonius’ remaining support in Rome now began to fall away, while claims that Cleopatra wanted to move the capital to Alexandria developed into the widespread belief that she wished to become ‘queen of Rome’. She was said to have referred to the day when ‘I shall one day give judgement on the Capitol’, the sacred heart of Rome itself, and such stories gained sufficient support from the remaining members of the Senate to allow Octavian’s plans to be pushed through.

  Stripping the absent Antonius of his remaining powers and ‘denying him the authority which he had let a woman exercise in his place’, Octavian finally denounced Cleopatra as an enemy of the state in the autumn of 32 BC. Formally declaring war on the thirty-seven-year-old mother of four, he processed through Rome to the Field of Mars and the temple of the war goddess Bellona where he made a vitriolic speech against her. Then, taking up a blood-smeared javelin, he hurled it east into land representing enemy territory, if not the enemy herself, Cleopatra the ‘fatale monstrum’ or deadly force. It has famously been stated that ‘Rome, who had never condescended to fear any nation or people, did in her time fear two human beings; one was Hannibal, and the other was a woman.’

  As Rome remained in a state of high alert waiting for Cleopatra and her hordes to cross the Adriatic, the time had long passed for any invasion of Italy to be successful — since Cleopatra, as a foreign invader, would turn Antonius’ remaining Roman supporters against him. So Greece would remain the battleground. Having left Athens in the autumn, Antonius and Cleopatra moved west to Corinth to keep watch over the Gulf of Corinth. Linked to the fortress at Methone on the southernmost tip of the Peloponnese, it was part of Antonius’ defensive chain stretching from Corcyra (Corfu) in the north down to Cyrene in the south, a means of keeping Egypt and the East safe while also forming a vital supply route to Alexandria.

  Yet the bulk of their forces were concentrated around the Bay of Ambracia, the perfect harbour for more than four hundred warships ornamented with bronze prows representing Isis, armed Athena and centaurs together with brass spikes, forked prows and multiple rams. Armed with grappling irons, incendiary devices and catapults, each had a standard contingent of 120 soldiers plus a detachment of archers, while as many as 600 rowers, mixed crews of Egyptians, Phoenicians, Indians, Arabs and Sabaeans, were needed to manoeuvre up to ten banks of oars.

  Late in 32 BC, Antonius and Cleopatra arrived to make their winter camp at Aktion (Actium) on the bay’s southern promotory, looking west to await Octavian. They were unaware that a traitor had been among them until Dellius defected to Octavian’s side and, having made claims that Cleopatra had taken against him, revealed the couple’s position and their battle plans. This allowed Agrippa to seize Methone and other key sites in Antonius’ defensive network so that the vital supply chain from Alexandria fell apart.

  As Octavian, Agrippa and some eighty thousand men made their camp only half a mile away north of the bay at a place named Toryne, meaning ladle’, Antonius was cut off from his land forces strung out further north to protect the coast. With his advisers clearly alarmed at this situation, Cleopatra is said to have commented tersely ‘we may be frightened if Octavian has got hold of the ladle’, mocking those still voicing their disapproval of her continued presence.

  Such sentiments were certainly voiced in Octavian’s camp where soldier-poet Horace claimed that ‘amid the soldiers’ standards the sun shines on the shameful Egyptian pavilion’, asking how any Roman could bring himself to ‘bear weapons at a woman’s behest’. For Octavian would be facing Antonius ‘and — shocking! — accompanied by an Egyptian wife’, spurring on her troops by shaking her ‘native sistrum’ to summon up ‘all kinds of monstrous gods’ as she challenged Rome’s Neptune, Minerva and Venus. As these were all deities she herself worshipped and in one case even personified, claims that lecherous Canopus’ prostitute queen dared to oppose her yapping Anubis against our Jupiter’ likewise fell short of historical accuracy, since the couple’s own coins bore the head ofjupiter, embellished with the rams’ horns of Amun.

  Then Octavian, having adopted the unprecedented title ‘Commander Caesar, son of the god’ both to dismiss the existence of Caesarion and take on Living Isis, publicly prayed for victory to Mars before addressing his troops. He described Cleopatra as ‘this pestilence of a woman,’ and Antonius as her effeminate, impotent appendage — let nobody consider him a Roman, but rather an Egyptian; let us not call him Antony but rather Serapis’. Then he dismissed the Egyptians as nothing but a ‘rabble’ who ‘worship reptiles and beasts as gods, they embalm their bodies to make them appear immortal, they are most forward in effrontery, but most backward in courage. Worst of all, they are not ruled by a man, but are the slaves of a woman.’

  Although he had only half as many ships as Antonius, he had Agrippa as his admiral, who on the basis of Dellius’ intelligence was able to bring his fleet around to block the bay and trap most of the couple’s ships. Yet despite the sparse nature of the surviving evidence, Antonius won a series of military encounters after crossing over to the north of the bay; one of these victories was revealed on coins, which named him ‘Imperator’ for the fourth time as a title awarded by troops following a successful battle.

  When Octavian turned down his offer of single combat, preferring an assassination attempt which nevertheless failed, simply played a waiting game as the summer temperatures rose. With most of their food supplies cut off, Antonius’ men grew weaker. Then disease struck the camp: dysentery and malaria from marshy ground wiped out hundreds, until there were insufficient rowers to man the ships. Antonius was forced to burn 140 vessels to prevent them falling into enemy hands. Morale plummeted. Defections to Octavian included the consul Ahenobarbus, about whom Antonius joked that he must be missing his mistress. So, despite Cleopatra’s fury, he sent his old comrade his staff and equipment, which he received shortly before he expired from fever.

  Faced with this growing crisis, late in August 31 BC Antonius called a council of war in an attempt to find the best way out of a no-win situation. Since most preferred a land-based solution, Canidius Crassus advised them to abandon the fleet, send Cleopatra back to Alexandria and then retreat inland north to Macedonia, joining with the Dacians to attack Octavian by la
nd. Yet this was an all-or-nothing strategy that Cleopatra felt was too risky. Unwilling to hand over the fleet to give Octavian control of the sea, she believed they should try to save as many of their ships as possible, using the afternoon’s offshore winds to break out, sail to Egypt and regroup to fight again. She was accused of forcing this strategy on Antonius against his better judgement, but he knew the opposition too would prefer a land battle; by using the element of surprise, they could still break out of the bay and turn to fight at sea, taking out as many of Octavian’s ships as possible in the process.

  So, ordering Canidius Crassus to take the army back to Egypt via Asia Minor, Antonius press-ganged unfortunate locals to fill the shortfall of rowers while the sails usually left ashore during fighting were taken on board for the flight ahead. And with the war chest loaded on to Cleopatra’s flagship by night, they waited for a spell of rough sea to subside. When the morning of 2 September 31 BC dawned calmly, Antonius, resplendent in his purple cloak, urged his men to fight on board ship as well as they did on land. Then as he boarded his flagship, Cleopatra, ‘rich in gaudy robes’ and highly visible, boarded hers to await the breeze, which began to build up toward noon.

  As their remaining fleet of around 240 ships moved slowly out of the bay, Cleopatra’s squadron kept to the rear while Antonius, with his admiral, Sosius, to his left, sailed out towards Agrippa’s ships on the right. Although they did not respond, he had little choice but to launch his attack to break the stalemate. For several hours the air was thick with arrows, javelins, spears, catapult missiles and fire-balls. It was said that ‘from the fifth to the seventh hour it raged with terrific losses on both sides’, and with ‘Roman corpses floating in the sea’, increasing quantities of debris were washed ashore as ships on both sides succumbed to the onslaught.