Antony and Cleopatra

by Colleen McCullough

  Naturally Antony was in full armor, silver-plated, and with Hercules slaying the Nemean lion worked on its contoured cuirass. His tunic was purple, so was the paludamentum flowing from his shoulders, though by rights it should have been scarlet. As ever, he looked fit and well.

  “No built-up boots, Octavianus?” he asked, grinning.

  Though Antony had not, Octavian held out his right hand so obviously that Antony was obliged to take it, wring it so hard he crunched fragile bones. Face expressionless, Octavian endured it.

  “Come inside,” Antony invited, holding the flap of his tent aside. That he chose to inhabit a tent rather than commandeer a private home was evidence of his confidence that the siege of Brundisium would not be a long business.

  The tent’s public room was generous, but with the flap down, very dark. To Octavian, an indication of Antony’s wariness. He didn’t trust his face not to betray his emotions. Which didn’t worry Octavian. Not faces but thought patterns concerned him, for they were what he had to work on.

  “I’m so pleased,” he said, swallowed by a chair much too big for his slight frame, “that we have reached the stage of drafting out an agreement. I felt it best that you and I in person should thrash out those matters on which we haven’t quite reached accord.”

  “Delicately put,” said Antony, drinking deeply from a goblet of wine he had ostentatiously watered.

  “A beautiful thing,” Octavian remarked, turning his own vessel in his hands. “Where was it made? Not Puteoli, I’d wager.”

  “In some Alexandrian glassworks. I like drinking from glass, it doesn’t absorb the flavor of earlier wines the way even the best ceramic does.” He grimaced. “And metal tastes—metallic.”

  Octavian blinked. “Edepol! I didn’t realize you’re such a connoisseur of something that merely holds wine.”

  “Sarcasm will get you nowhere,” Antony said, unoffended. “I was told all that by Queen Cleopatra.”

  “Oh, yes, that makes sense. An Alexandrian patriot.”

  Antony’s face lit up. “And rightly so! Alexandria is the most beautiful city in the world, leaves Pergamum and even Athens shivering in the shade.”

  Having sipped, Octavian put his chalice down as if it burned. Here was another fool! Why rave about a city’s beauty when his own city faded to nothing from lack of care? “You may have as many of Calenus’s legions as you wish, that goes without saying,” he lied. “In fact, nothing about your conditions fazes me save only your refusal to help me rid the seas of Sextus Pompeius.”

  Frowning, Antony got to his feet and pulled the tent flap wide open, apparently deciding it was necessary to see Octavian’s face properly after all. “Italia is your province, Octavianus. Have I asked for your help in governing mine?”

  “No, you haven’t, but nor have you sent Rome’s share of the eastern tributes to the Treasury. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that, even as Triumvir, the Treasury is supposed to gather in the tributes and pay Rome’s provincial governors a stipend, out of which they fund their legions and pay for public works in their provinces,” Octavian said blandly. “Of course I understand that no governor, least of all a Triumvir, simply collects what the Treasury demands—he always asks for more, keeps the surplus for himself. A time-honored tradition I have no quarrel with. I too am a Triumvir. However, you’ve sent nothing to Rome in the two years of your governorship. Had you, I would be able to buy the ships I need to deal with Sextus. It may suit you to use pirate ships as your fleets, since all the admirals who sided with Brutus and Cassius decided to become pirates after Philippi. I’m not above using them myself, were it not that they grow fat picking at my carcass! What they’re busy doing is proving to Rome and all Italia—the source of our best soldiers—that a million soldiers can’t help two shipless Triumvirs. You should have grain from the eastern provinces to feed your legions right fatly! It’s not my fault that you’ve let the Parthians overrun everywhere except Bithynia and Asia Province! What’s saved your bacon is Sextus Pompeius—as long as it suits you to stay sweet with him, he sells you Italia’s grain at a modest price—grain, may I remind you, bought and paid for by Rome’s Treasury! Yes, Italia is my province, but my only sources of money are the taxes I must squeeze from all Roman citizens living in Italia. They are not enough to pay for ships as well as buy stolen wheat from Sextus Pompeius for thirty sesterces the modius! So I ask again, where are the eastern tributes?”

  Antony listened in growing ire. “The East is bankrupt!” he shouted. “There isn’t any tribute to send!”

  “That’s not true, and even the least Roman from end to end of Italia knows that,” Octavian countered. “Pythodorus of Tralles brought you two thousand silver talents to Tarsus, for instance. Tyre and Sidon paid you a thousand more. And raping Cilicia Pedia yielded you four thousand. A total of one hundred and seventy-five million sesterces! Facts, Antonius! Well-known facts!”

  Why had he ever consented to see this despicable little gnat? Antony asked himself, squirming. All he had to do to gain the ascendancy was remind me that whatever I do in the East somehow leaks back to every last Roman citizen in Italia. Without saying it, he’s telling me that my reputation is suffering. That I’m not yet above criticism, that the Senate and People of Rome can strip me of my offices. And yes, I can march on Rome, execute Octavianus and appoint myself Dictator. But I was the one who made a huge fuss out of abolishing the dictatorship! Brundisium has proved that my legionaries won’t fight Octavianus’s. That fact alone is why the little verpa can sit here and defy me, be open about his antagonism.

  “So I’m none too popular in Rome,” he said sullenly.

  “Candidly, Antonius, you’re not at all popular, especially after laying siege to Brundisium. You’ve felt at liberty to accuse me of putting Brundisium up to refusing you entry, but you’re well aware I didn’t. Why should I? It profits me nothing! All you’ve actually done is throw Rome into a frenzy of fear, expecting you to march on her. Which you cannot do! Your legions won’t let you. If you genuinely want to retrieve your reputation, you have to prove that to Rome, not to me.”

  “I won’t join you against Sextus Pompeius, if that’s what you’re angling for. All I have are a hundred warships in Athens,” Antony lied. “Not enough to do the job, since you have none. As matters stand, Sextus Pompeius prefers me to you, and I’ll not do anything to provoke him. At the moment, he leaves me alone.”

  “I didn’t think you would help me,” Octavian said calmly. “No, I was thinking more of something visible to all Romans from the top of the heap to the very bottom.”

  “What?”

  “Marriage to my sister, Octavia.”

  Jaw dropped, Antony stared at his tormentor. “Ye gods!”

  “What’s so unusual about it?” Octavian asked softly, smiling. “I’ve just concluded a similar kind of marital alliance myself, as I’m sure you know. Scribonia is very pleasant—a good woman, pretty, fertile…. I hope tying myself to her keeps Sextus at bay, for a while at any rate. But she can’t begin to compare with Octavia, can she? I am offering you Divus Julius’s great-niece, known and loved by every stratum in Rome as Julia was, beautiful to look at, enormously kind and thoughtful, an obedient wife, and the mother of three children, including a boy. As Divus Julius expected of his wife, she’s above suspicion. Marry her, and Rome will assume that you mean Rome no harm.”

  “Why should it do that?”

  “Because to be cruel to such a public paragon as Octavia would brand you a monster in every Roman’s eyes. Not the most stupid among them would condone ill treatment of Octavia.”

  “I see. Yes, I see,” said Antony slowly.

  “Then we have a deal?”

  “We have a deal.”

  This time Antony shook Octavian’s hand gently.

  The Pact of Brundisium was sealed on the twelfth day of October, in Brundisium’s town square, and in the presence of a horde of cheering, beaming people who threw flowers at Octavian’s feet and controlled their
behavior sufficiently not to spit at Antony’s feet. His perfidies were neither forgotten nor forgiven, but this day signified a victory for Octavian and Rome. There wasn’t going to be another civil war. Which pleased the legions strung around the city even more than it pleased Brundisium.

  “So what do you think about this?” Pollio asked Maecenas as they traveled up the Via Appia in a four-mule gig.

  “That Caesar Octavianus is a master of intrigue and a far better negotiator than I.”

  “Did you think of offering Antonius the dearly beloved sister?”

  “No, no! It was his idea. I suppose I thought the chances of his agreeing to it so remote that it never even popped into my mind. Then when he told me the day before he went to see Antonius, I assumed he’d be sending me to do the offering—brr! I quailed in my shoes! But no. Off he went himself, unescorted.”

  “He couldn’t send you because he needed it man to man. What he said, only he could say. I gather he pointed out to Antonius that he’d lost the love and respect of most Romans. In such a way that Antonius believed him. The crafty little mentula—I beg your pardon!—crafty little—um—ferret then presented Antonius with the chance to mend his reputation by marrying Octavia. Brilliant!”

  “I concur,” said Maecenas, envisioning Octavian as a mentula or a ferret, and smiling.

  “I shared a gig with Octavianus once,” Pollio said, tone of voice musing. “From Italian Gaul to Rome after the formation of the Triumvirate. He was twenty years old, but he spoke like a venerable consular. About the grain supply, and how the Apennine mountain chain made it easier for Rome to get her grain from Africa and Sicilia than from Italian Gaul. Trotted out numbers and statistics like the most idle senior civil servant you ever heard. Only he wasn’t trying to get out of work, he was tabling the work he considered must be done. Yes, a memorable journey. When Caesar made him his heir, I thought he’d be dead within months. That journey taught me that I’d been mistaken. No one will kill him.”

  Atia brought the news of her fate to Octavia, and in tears. “My darling girl!” she cried, falling on Octavia’s neck. “My ingrate of a son has betrayed you! You! The one person in the world I thought safe from his machinations, his coldness!”

  “Mama, be explicit, please!” said Octavia, helping Atia sit down. “What has Little Gaius done to me?”

  “Betrothed you to Marcus Antonius! A brute who kicked his wife! A monster!”

  Stunned, Octavia slumped into a chair and stared at her mother. Antonius? She was to marry Marcus Antonius? Shock was followed by a slowly seeping warmth that suffused her whole body. In a trice her lids went down to veil her eyes from Atia, done with weeping, beginning to fulminate.

  “Antonius!” shrieked Atia loudly enough to bring servants running, only to be waved out impatiently. “Antonius! A boor, a scavenger, a—a—oh, there aren’t words to describe him!”

  While Octavia thought, am I to be lucky at last, have a man I want as my husband? Thank you, thank you, Little Gaius!

  “Antonius!” roared Atia, flecks of foam at the corners of her mouth. “Dearest girl, you must screw up the courage to say no! No to him, and no to my wretched son!”

  While Octavia thought, I have dreamed of him for so long, hopelessly, sadly. In the old days, when he was in Italia and came to call on Marcellus, I used to find excuses to be present.

  “Antonius!” howled Atia, pounding her fists on the chair arms, thump, thump, thump! “He’s sired more bastards than any other man in the history of Rome! Not a faithful bone in him!”

  While Octavia thought, I used to sit and feast my eyes on him, offer to Spes that he’d visit again soon. Yet careful that I never gave myself away. Now this?

  “Antonius!” whimpered Atia, the tears gathering again as her impotence gained the upper hand. “I could plead until next summer, and my traitor of a son wouldn’t listen!”

  While Octavia thought, I will make him a good wife, I will be whatever he wants me to be, I won’t complain about mistresses or beg to accompany him when he returns to the East. So many women, all more experienced than I am! He will grow tired of me, I know it in my bones. But nothing can ever take away the memories of my time with him after it is over. Love understands, and love forgives. I was a good wife to Marcellus, and I have mourned him as a good wife does. But I pray to all Rome’s goddesses of women that I have long enough with Marcus Antonius to last for the rest of my life. For he is my true love. After him, there can be no one. No one…

  “Hush, Mama,” she said aloud, eyes open and shining. “I will do as my brother says and marry Marcus Antonius.”

  “But you’re not in Gaius’s hand, you’re sui iuris!” Then Atia recognized the look in those splendid aquamarine eyes, and gaped. “Ecastor!” she exclaimed feebly. “You’re in love with him!”

  “If love is to long for his touch and his good esteem, then I must be,” said Octavia. “Do you know when it is to happen?”

  “According to Philippus, Antonius and your callous brother have made a pact at Brundisium that there will be no civil war. The whole country is wild with joy, so the pair of them elected to make a regular spectacle out of their journey to Rome. Up the Via Appia to Teanum, then up the Via Latina. Apparently they won’t arrive here until the end of October. The marriage is to take place very shortly after that.” The mother’s face twisted. “Oh, please, dearest daughter, refuse it! You’re sui iuris, your fate is in your own hands!”

  “I shall accept gladly, Mama, whatever you say or how much you beseech me. I know what Antonius is like, and that makes not a scrap of difference. There will always be mistresses, but he has never had a satisfactory wife. Look at them,” Octavia went on, warming to her theme. “First Fadia, the illiterate daughter of a dealer in everything from slaves to grain. I never saw her, of course, but apparently she was as unattractive as she was dull. But Antonius didn’t divorce her, he just didn’t come home much. She bore him a son and a daughter, bright little things by all accounts. That Fadia and her children died of the summer paralysis cannot be blamed on Antonius. Then came Antonia Hybrida, daughter of a man who tortured his slaves. They say Antonia Hybrida tortured her slaves too, but that Antonius ‘beat it out of her’—can you condemn Antonius for curing his wife of such a horrible habit? I do remember her vaguely, also the child. The poor little girl was so fat and plain—but far worse, slightly simple.”

  “That’s what comes of marrying close relatives,” said Atia grimly. “Antonia Minor is sixteen now, but she’ll never find a husband, even one of low birth.” Atia sniffed. “Women are fools! Antonia Hybrida fell into a depression after Antonius divorced her, which he did with cruel words. Yet she loved him. Is that the fate you want? Is it?”

  “Whether Antonia Hybrida loved Antonius or not, Mama, the fact remains that she was not an interesting wife. Whereas, for all her faults, Fulvia was. Her troubles I lay at the door of far too much money, that sui iuris status you keep throwing at me, and her first husband, Publius Clodius. He encouraged her to run wild in the Forum, engage in behavior that isn’t condoned in high-born women. But she wasn’t too bad until after Philippi, when she found out that Antonius would be permanently in the East for years, and wasn’t planning any trips to Rome. Her freedman Manius got at her, worked on her. And on Lucius Antonius. But she paid the price, not Lucius.”

  “You’re determined to find excuses,” said Atia, sighing.

  “Not excuses, Mama. My point is that none of Antonius’s wives was a good wife. I intend to be a perfect wife, the kind Cato the Censor would have approved of, the awful old bigot. Men have whores and mistresses for bodily gratification, the sort of relief they cannot obtain from their wives because wives are not supposed to know how to please a man bodily. Wives who know too much about gratifying a man are suspect. As a virtuous wife, I will fare no differently or better than any other virtuous wife. But I will make sure that whenever I see Antonius, I am an educated, interesting confidante as well as a pleasure to spend time with. After all,
I grew up in a political household, listened to men like Divus Julius and Cicero, and I am exceptionally well schooled. I will also be a wonderful mother for his children.”

  “You’re already a wonderful mother for his children!” Atia snapped tartly, having listened to this tall order with despair. “I suppose the moment you’re married you’ll demand to take charge of that dreadful boy, Gaius Curio? What a dance he’ll lead you!”

  “There’s not a child born I can’t tame,” said Octavia.

  Atia rose, wringing her knotted, crippled hands. “I will say this for you, Octavia, you’re not as sheltered as I thought. Perhaps there’s more Fulvia in you than you realize.”

  “No, I’m quite different,” Octavia said, smiling, “though I do know what you’re trying to say. What you forget, Mama, is that I am the full sister of Little Gaius, which means I am one of the cleverest women Rome has produced. The quality of my mind has given me a self-confidence my life thus far hasn’t put on display to anyone, from Marcellus to you. But Little Gaius is well aware what lies inside me. Do you think he doesn’t know how I feel about Marcus Antonius? There’s nothing Little Gaius misses! And nothing he can’t use to further his own career. He loves me, Mama. That should have told you everything. Little Gaius, force me into a marriage I wouldn’t welcome? No, Mama, no.”

  Atia sighed. “Well, since I’m here, I’d like to see the contents of your nursery before it grows even larger. How is little Marcia?”

  “Beginning to show her true colors. Very self-willed. She won’t be forced into an unwelcome marriage!”

  “I heard a whisper that Scribonia is pregnant.”

  “So did I. How lovely! Her Cornelia is a nice girl, so I imagine this child will have a good disposition too.”

  “Well, it’s too early for her to know whether she’s carrying a boy or a girl,” Atia said briskly as they walked toward the sound of baby wails, toddler giggles, and small child arguments. “Though I hope it will be a girl for Little Gaius’s sake. He has such a high opinion of himself that he won’t welcome a son and heir from such a mother. As soon as he can, he’ll divorce her.”