The Murder of Cleopatra

by Pat Brown

  It is said that Octavian was quite worried when he saw that Antony had linked himself with Cleopatra and together they were amassing ships and soldiers to take him on. He rather broke into a sweat in the spring of 33 BCE when it became clear that, at some point, the twosome planned to bring the fight to him and stage an all-out fight for Italy and the Roman Empire. Yet, it is also said that Antony then became lazy, perhaps avoiding battle by not pushing the offensive until the fall of 32, when he finally gathered his fleet in Patras; and by winter, nineteen of his legions had arrived on the coast.

  So why did Antony wait so long to go after Octavian if Octavian was gaining political power and momentum by the week? It is quite possible that it was just this fact that made Cleopatra and Antony very aware that this battle was going to be extremely decisive. Antony was on the ropes, and he had to come back with a massive barrage to overcome Octavian; otherwise, Octavian would grow so powerful politically and militarily that it would be unlikely Antony could pick himself off the mat, even with Cleopatra in his corner, and come back for a win. Actium was going to be the proving ground, winner takes all; and Cleopatra and Antony, with everything riding on this fight, no doubt wanted to go in with the most massive force possible. Indeed, this they did accomplish, and Plutarch admits it.

  Antony had six squadrons, five hundred ships in all (but the number is in question and it is possible he had even more, or if one believes Plutarch, just half that), and he had spent that time during 33/32 not twiddling his thumbs, but building the biggest ships he could. He constructed ships that would outweigh Octavian’s and have strong reinforcement to interfere with ramming, tough bows that do ramming quite nicely themselves, and sound catapults on the decks of the ships. Cleopatra’s wealth and logistics were in place to fund and feed this large military force, and no doubt Octavian had a number of sleepless nights considering what he was up against, even if Plutarch downplayed his concerns. There was also the weather to consider as autumn and winter could be treacherous times to attempt battle on either sea or land. It would seem Cleopatra and Antony decided it was far wiser to spend the time of tricky weather increasing their fleet and then going to war later, at a better time of the year and with the strongest military possible.

  No, Antony did not come to Italy to fight his enemy nor did he attack at sea when he had the chance of confronting Octavian as the latter was forced out into the waters while making his way around the peninsula toward Antony’s encampments. Instead, Antony preferred to meet his adversary on land (where he was most comfortable) and in Greece (which would make it a civil war between two Roman factions and not an invasion by an Eastern enemy—Egypt) with a Roman as its leader. Also, by forcing Octavian out of Italy to make his way to Greece served two additional purposes: (1) it would take him time and effort to reach the location of battle, during which time Antony hoped Octavian’s resources would dwindle along the way; and (2) fighting at Actium would leave open an escape route back to Egypt, which clearly would make Cleopatra a lot more comfortable. Even though losing the battle at Actium would be a disaster, an escape to Egypt at least would allow some hope of survival for the duo. I think this Plan B escape route was hardly a foolish addition to their military strategy.

  Was allowing Cleopatra to accompany him at the battle a highly damaging move for Antony? I do not see this. It was not unusual to be accompanied by leaders of countries that provided military support, and with so many of the troops not being Antony’s but Cleopatra’s, if she were not with him, he would likely have had difficulties controlling these men; and if the battle turned against them in any way, would these Egyptian warriors support a Roman general? Perhaps not, but with Cleopatra in command of the men, their willingness to fight would be much stronger.

  Octavian’s propaganda took what was the norm for such massive military campaigns and twisted it into something perverted: Antony being handled by a woman, a wicked Egyptian queen, an eastern poison that was about to spread into Italy. Emotions would run wild among the Roman population, and this could set the entire country against Antony. Hence, Antony decided not to invade Italy but to force the fight in neutral territory with Cleopatra at his side, a perfectly reasonable strategy.

  Of Antony’s two-pronged strategy, one can say that the first did not work out but the latter did. It turned out not to be Octavian who ran out of resources, but Antony, which then caused the rout that did indeed send Cleopatra and Antony scurrying back to Alexandria. What went wrong? I believe an analysis will show there was actually nothing terribly wrong with Cleopatra and Antony’s plan; in fact it was really a pretty good one, and, if Octavian hadn’t ended up the victor, we might easily believe today that it was brilliant (because if Cleopatra and Antony had won, they would be the victors and would have written history to favor themselves). Antony and Cleopatra amassed greater forces, had the stronger support system, and were to have fought on neutral ground on both land and sea. They should have won. Only they didn’t.

  Let’s break it down further.

  It was in the winter of 33/32 BCE that Cleopatra and Antony made their preparations for battle by assembling their fleet and forces in Ephesus. The fleet was quite impressive—huge, in fact—and Antony may well have felt the spirit of Alexander the Great with him (Macedonian though he was) since he now controlled the entire sea power of the east. Three hundred transport ships were at Antony’s disposal, ships that were to bring food from Egypt and also carry the troops from Ephesus over to Actium across the Aegean Sea (preparations which took place in the spring and summer of 32).

  There is another important issue to understand concerning Cleopatra and Antony’s decision not to invade Italy. This action would not be a winner-take-all battle but would require a number of assaults to win the war. While each of these assaults was occurring, the weather could switch up, the convoys could be attacked, and then everything could fall apart. And, again, we must remember that with Cleopatra by his side during an invasion, the Roman citizenry may well have come out en mass to support Octavian and thereby increase his military force.

  So the decision was made to have the showdown in Greece. In May of 32, Cleopatra and Antony were stationed in Athens with their troops. By September, they had moved the base of operations to Patras, and their fleet was moored in more than a dozen locations along the western Grecian coast, from Actium in the north to Methone in the south. The plan was to force the encounter at Actium, at which Antony and Cleopatra had built two towers with artillery covering the mouth that connected the Ionian Sea and the Gulf of Ambracia, where Antony had the ships waiting in protected waters. There Cleopatra and Antony waited comfortably enough through the winter, until Octavian made his move.

  But when Octavian did make his move, just as winter ended in 31 BCE, it was not at all what Antony had expected. He had thought, quite reasonably, that Octavian would push off Italy, straight over to Greece in relatively protected coastal waters, and then work his way down to Actium. But Octavian, with his brilliant General Agrippa, made a very daring move. Agrippa took his fleet straight across open water, away from the coast and the prying eyes of enemy messengers who would carry word of their progress down the coast. They risked dangerous storms at sea; took the long route down the Italian peninsula and over to the southernmost outpost of Antony’s land force, Methone; surprised their adversaries; overran the isolated garrison; burned all the ships stationed there; established Octavian’s forces in Greece; and cut off Antony’s supply route to Egypt all in one fell swoop.

  Brilliant and risky, Octavian’s move paid off. Again, had the weather not cooperated, the maneuver might have spelled the end of Octavian’s campaign. But he got lucky, and if you are both smart and lucky, you will find yourself in a fine position to win a war. By the time Cleopatra and Antony knew what had hit them, Octavian had moved his forces northward and brought them to Actium.

  All was not lost yet, however. Even though Octavian and Agrippa were inflicting a good bit of damage, Antony and Cleopatra could still con
tinue the fight at sea and on land, and there was still a plausible chance of victory. In truth, they had the larger number of men and so they may well have felt that once Octavian attacked, they could win the battle.

  But then more things went wrong. Octavian perched his camp up on a very defensible hill overlooking the bay while Antony’s camp was on a low-lying mosquito-infested sandy bit of land, an acceptable location for a few days, but not the place to be positioned for a protracted period of time. As Antony waited for Octavian to make a move, his men became sick from malaria and dysentery and mental fatigue, and since so many of them were mercenaries and not all that dedicated to the mission, desertions dramatically increased.

  There Antony’s troops remained trapped into the summer. He tried to block the water supply to Octavian’s camp but failed. Desertions continued along with deaths in his own camp, and then Agrippa captured the island of Leucas to the south of Actium, which is where Egyptian ships had been bringing in supplies and reinforcements. Then he went on to capture Patras and Corinth, wiping out more supply routes in addition to barricading the harbor. Antony and Cleopatra found themselves in a pretty dire position. By August, I believe Antony and Cleopatra knew that they were, to put it bluntly, in a hopeless situation.

  Antony did not have enough warriors to man the ships, to row, or to fight on land and at sea effectively. One possibility was to simply abandon the fleet and take all the men, still a large force, and fight on land or retreat and come back to fight another day. There is much dissension over why Antony did not choose either of these options. The most negative viewpoint is that Cleopatra wouldn’t let him and he gave in to her wishes. A slightly less jaded view is that Antony recognized that if he abandoned the fleet and Cleopatra, he would lose her support and her treasure, and he would have to take a disgruntled bunch of men off through difficult terrain, through high mountain passes, with dwindling supplies and morale, and survive through the coming winter. This was not a very attractive prospect.

  In my opinion, Antony had to choose the lesser of two evils. If he escaped with his army, he might just as well sign his own death warrant or at least accept that his military and political career was over. He would spend the remaining years of his life in some backwater, hiding from Octavian. But if he left with Cleopatra, he would still have a fleet and a lot of money, and he could rejoin the rest of his dozen legions that had remained behind in Egypt. As I have often said, if he and Cleopatra escaped, anything could happen over the course of the next year that could hold out the hope of (1) putting them back in contention to take over the empire (especially if Octavian happened to die of one of his many alleged illnesses); (2) allowing them to hold onto Egypt (if Octavian’s power dwindled); or (3) giving them the opportunity to reestablish themselves elsewhere (if they needed to flee). I think a number of historians, ancient and modern, have been overly harsh with respect to Cleopatra and Antony’s decision to bolt from Actium with whatever they could take with them. And this is clearly the plan of action they decided to take and successfully enacted.

  I think it is odd that Plutarch and future tellers of the tale of Cleopatra and Antony’s escape from Actium try so hard to portray Antony as oblivious to Cleopatra’s plan to hightail it with her fleet at the height of the battle. Even Octavian knew they were planning to break out and flee; what choice did they have? And Octavian had two choices. One was to simply allow them to go through his blockade and then pick off as many ships from their fleet as he could while they sailed away, but that would be seen as a sign of weakness. The more ships and men remained in their fleet, the more he would have to deal with later. On the other hand, he could reduce their numbers as much as possible by forcing them to fight but make sure the Lagide treasury did not sink to the bottom of the sea during the battle. Octavian would actually want Cleopatra to sail away safely at that point, and later he would go to Egypt, conquer her, and retrieve the treasure.

  I think the battle actually went as planned on both sides. Cleopatra loaded sails onto her ships, and her fleet stayed safely behind the battle lines. Antony loaded sails onto some of his ships as well. Octavian knew they had done this and that sails meant a plan to hurry off, not stay and fight, since added sails reduced the maneuverability of the ships, which is obviously not a great idea if you are planning to use the ships in battle. Octavian moved his ships out into the harbor so that Antony would be forced into the open with his warships. Then, the battle would begin but this time with Octavian in possession of far more ships than Antony (due to the fact that Antony did not have enough oarsmen to man all his ships). Octavian could easily force Antony’s ships to spread out in a line and then have his own ships surround each of Antony’s and take them down.

  And this is exactly what happened on the morning of September 2, 31 BCE; the Battle of Actium began. Octavian and his generals waited with his fleet a distance from the shore, while Antony went out to engage them and the fighting began. Then the day wore on and the lines naturally thinned. Cleopatra waited for the afternoon wind to shift so she could put up her sails and speed southward, a change of wind which she expected; it was not a stroke of luck as Plutarch would have us believe. When the time was right, her fleet of sixty ships sailed quickly through the center of the lines, and when Antony saw her make her break, he transferred from the unwieldy ship he was on to a smaller, faster galley with sails (which he conveniently had waiting nearby) and set after Cleopatra with about twenty of his own ships (at least this is the number Plutarch gives us). Plutarch claims that two-thirds of the fleet was left behind to fight on and eventually surrender (so it would suggest that far more than twenty of Antony’s ships accompanied him) while Cleopatra and Antony, the Lagide treasure, and a sizeable portion of their combined fleet were safely on their way back to Egypt.

  Octavian was clearly the victor of the Battle of Actium, but this did not actually mean at the time that Antony and Cleopatra were completely destroyed. Antony was still in charge of half of the Roman Empire, and Cleopatra was still in charge of Egypt. The biggest problem with their loss at Actium, however, was that word eventually got out to the client kingdoms of Egypt and of Antony that Octavian had beaten the pair, which started a rather unfortunate negative attitude toward Antony. Why would they provide more men and war matériel for the losing side at Actium? Then, as Octavian moved toward Egypt, each of these allies had to decide whether to back Antony or Octavian; since the odds seemed to be in Octavian’s favor, they went with the surer bet. Like a row of dominos flicked from one end, each country fell without resistance to Octavian as he made his way toward Alexandria.

  Surely Cleopatra and Antony realized how likely it was that, bit by bit, their power would erode with Octavian’s advancing army. It was during this last year, as they saw ultimate defeat facing them, that they switched to Plan B before it was too late. Although there had been rumors from Rome of at least one plan to assassinate Octavian (by Marcus Lepidus, son of Brutus) and, of course, Octavian’s health was still questionable (they could always hope he would just keel over and die), neither of these options seemed likely. The Roman soldiers who served Octavian and wanted their pay from an exhausted treasury might take matters into their own hands and depose their leader (which is why Octavian would have to come to Egypt and plunder Cleopatra’s family treasure). Cleopatra and Antony knew they had better find a way to escape the coming wrath of Octavian, assuming bad luck did not befall him before he arrived to finish them off.

  On to Plan B.

  I returned to Rome and caught a flight back to Egypt. As the plane circled for its landing in Cairo, I had to smile a bit at what Cleopatra would have thought if she knew that in 2012, Octavian could have made it to her country in just a little over three hours! In a way, perhaps, she was luckier back in 31 BCE because she would unquestionably have had a least a few months before his arrival, a few months to put together some plan of escape.

  Yes, I believe she did indeed have a plan to escape from Egypt. It is this incredible plan that
I feel has been completely ignored. In its place has been substituted the ridiculous story of an emotionally distraught, desperate, and hopeless queen who begs Octavian for favors and then hides in her tomb with her treasure, making idle threats. She then supposedly begs Octavian for more favors, and finally kills herself to save herself from humiliation at the hands of her Roman conqueror. For the most part, Plutarch makes both Cleopatra and Antony appear to be impotent bystanders in the months following Actium—according to him, they are weaklings who simply sit about, waiting for Octavian to do them in. Oh, yes, Plutarch does claim that they drank, partied, sighed about their situation, begged Octavian to give them a break, and groveled to Octavian to spare them. But he does not attribute to them more than a couple of pitiful attempts to stave off their demise or, should I say, give a long-serving Roman general at least some dignity before his final fall. (Note that Antony did attempt to stop Octavian’s invasion from the west, and his one singular victory occurred when he prevented Octavian’s men from entering Alexandria in the night.) However, there is one fascinating piece of information that Plutarch mentions, a real attempt to determine a future. Cleopatra tried to drag some ships on rollers across the desert to the Red Sea in what was ultimately a failed attempt to flee; but her enemies, the Nabataeans, burned the ships or at least some of them (the reference to this event by Plutarch is extremely limited in information). At least this is one example of Cleopatra and Antony trying to take real action. Other than that one incident, for most of the remaining nine months, Antony and Cleopatra are portrayed by Plutarch as a couple consigned to their doom, with an “eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we shall die” type of attitude as the days tick down to their final moments.