Historical Tales [calibre 5.4.1]

Antony and Cleopatra

The battles of Philippi and the death of Brutus and Cassius put an end to the republican party to whom Cæsar owed his death. The whole realm was handed over to the imperial Triumvirate, who now made a new division of the vast Roman world. Antony took as his share all the mighty realm of the East; Octavius all the West. To Lepidus, whom his powerful confederates did not take the trouble to consult, only Africa was left.

The after-career of Antony was a curious and impressive one. He loved a bewitching Egyptian queen, and for a false love lost the vast dominion he had won. The story is one of the most romantic and popular of all that have come to us from the past. It has been told in detail by Plutarch and richly dramatized by Shakespeare. We give it here in brief epitome.

Fourteen years previously Antony had visited Alexandria, and had there seen the youthful Cleopatra, then a girl of fifteen, but already so beautiful and attractive that the susceptible Roman was deeply smitten with her charms. Later she had charmed Cæsar, and now when the lord of the East set out on a tour of his new dominions, the love queen of Egypt left her capital for Cilicia with the purpose of making him her captive.

It was midsummer of the year 41 B.C. when Antony arrived at Tarsus, on the river Cydnus. Up this stream to visit him came, in more than Oriental pomp, the beautiful Egyptian queen. The galley that bore her was gorgeous beyond comparison. Its sails were of Tyrian purple; silver oars fretted the yielding wave, while music timed their rise and fall; the poop glittered with burnished gold; rich perfumes filled the air with fragrance. Here, on a splendid couch, under a spangled canopy, reclined Cleopatra, attired as Venus, and surrounded by attendants dressed as Graces and Cupids. Beautiful slaves moved oars and ropes, and the whole array was one of wondrous charm. We cannot do better than quote Shakespeare's vivid description of this unequalled spectacle:

"The barge she sat in, like a burnished throne,

Burned on the water; the poop was beaten gold;

Purple the sails, and so perfumed that

The winds were love-sick with them; the oars were silver,

Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke, and made

The water that they beat to follow faster,

As amorous of their strokes. For her own person,

It beggared all description; she did lie

In her pavilion-cloth-of-gold of tissue—

Out picturing that Venus where we see

The fancy outwork nature; on each side her

Stood pretty dimpled boys, like smiling Cupids,

With divers-colored fans, whose wind did seem

To glow the delicate cheeks which they did cool."

The people of Tarsus ran in crowds to gaze on this wondrous spectacle, leaving Antony alone in the Forum. At the request of Cleopatra he came also, and was so captivated at sight that he became her slave. He forgot Rome, forgot his wife Fulvia, forgot honor and dignity, through his wild passion for this Egyptian sorceress. Following her to Alexandria, he laid aside his Roman garb for the Oriental costume of the Egyptian court, gave way to all Cleopatra's pleasure-loving caprices, and lived in a perpetual round of orgies and festivities, heedless of honor and duty, and caring for naught but love and sensual enjoyment.

Intoxicated with pleasure, Antony did not know what risk he ran. Shortly before Octavius had been spoken of as a boy, whom it would be easy to manage and control. He was feeble and sickly,—so much so, indeed, that just at this time his death was reported in Rome. But the "boy" was ambitious, astute, and far-seeing, and Marc Antony was descending to ruin with every step he took in his career of folly and profligacy.

The history of the succeeding years is long, but must here be made short. The two lords of Rome were changed from friends to enemies by the act of Fulvia, the wife of Antony. Octavius had married her daughter Claudia, and now divorced her. Anger at this, and a hope of winning Antony from the seductions of the Egyptian queen, caused her to organize a formidable revolt against Octavius. She succeeded in raising a large army, but Antony was still too absorbed in Cleopatra to come to her aid, and Agrippa, the able general of Octavius, soon put down the revolt.

Then, when it was too late to help her, Antony awoke from his lethargy, and sailed to battle with Octavius. He besieged Brundusium. But Fulvia had died, the soldiers had no heart for civil war, and the great rivals again made peace. Antony married Octavia, the sister of Octavius, they divided the Roman world between them as before, and Rome was made happy by a grand round of games and festivities.

For three years Antony remained true to his new wife, and aided Octavius in putting down the foes of Rome. Then, during a campaign in Syria, his old passion for the fascinating Egyptian returned, he called Cleopatra to him, dallied with her instead of prosecuting his march, and in the end was forced to retreat in haste from the barbarian foe.

For three years now Antony was the willing slave of the enchanting queen. The courage and stoical endurance of the soldier vanished, and were replaced by the soft indulgence of the voluptuary. The rigid discipline of the camp was exchanged for the idle and often childish amusements of the Oriental court. Cleopatra enchained him with an endless round of pleasures and profligacies. Now, while in a fishing-boat on the Nile, the queen amused him by having salted fish fixed by divers on his hook, which he drew up amid the laughter of the party. Again she wagered that she would consume ten million sesterces at a meal, and won her wager by drinking vinegar in which she had dissolved a priceless pearl. All the enjoyments that the fancy of the cunning enchantress could devise were spread around him, and he let the world roll unheeded by while he yielded to their alluring charm.