The Historians' History of the World 05 [The Roman Republic]

In his relations to women his sensual sultanic nature and his chivalrous character unite. We need not here concern ourselves with the foul love stories of his youth. His enemy Cicero speaks frequently of Antony’s men and women friends and also of others about whom it is uncertain whether they should be classed with the former or with the latter. Antony was always regardless of his reputation; he well knew that in this direction he had nothing left to spoil. We will not here intrude upon his innumerable liaisons with beautiful dancers, distinguished Roman ladies and eastern princesses. Cleopatra alone could claim, at all events in their last years, to exercise her dominion over him undivided with any other wife or mistress. This dominion was so absolute and so enduring that in the days of the ancients it was thought impossible to explain it by natural means and recourse was had to the superstition of a magic potion.

Could we have seen Antony on foot with a bevy of eunuchs following the litter of his mistress at the entry into some Egyptian town, we might have concluded him to be a knight doing homage to his lady’s honour. Mediæval worship of women is absolutely foreign to antiquity; but Antony based his descent on Hercules, who after his twelve Labours became a slave of Omphale, and laid aside club and crossbow to help his lady at the spinning-wheel. Antony followed the example of his great ancestor and paid obedience in effeminate sloth where it was within his power and his duty to be sovereign. The sacrifices he made to his lady are without a parallel in the history of the world; and Cleopatra’s thanks were, to betray him first at Actium and then at his death in Alexandria. In a word one may sum up the verdict in the language of the ancients: Nature had intended Mark Antony for a Deuteragonist, chance and misfortune made him Protagonist. But Shakespeare says: “His taints and honours waged equal with him.”f

FOOTNOTES

[131] This story is however rendered somewhat doubtful by the manner in which Cinna is mentioned in Virgil’s Ninth Eclogue, which was certainly written in or after the year 40 B.C.

[132] Pedius was son of Cæsar’s second sister, Julia minor, and therefore first cousin (once removed) to Octavius.

[133] He had divorced Tullia, the orator’s daughter, before he left Italy.

[134] [Velleius Paterculusd thus contrasts Brutus and Cassius:

“Such was the end assigned by fortune to the party of Marcus Brutus, who was then in his thirty-seventh year, and whose mind had been incorrupt till the day which obscured all his virtues by the rashness of one act. Cassius was as much the better commander, as Brutus was the better man. Of the two, you would rather have Brutus for a friend; as an enemy, you would stand more in dread of Cassius. In the one there was greater ability, in the other greater virtue. Had they been successful, it would have been as much for the interest of the state to have had Brutus for its ruler rather than Cassius, as it was to have Cæsar rather than Antony.”]

[135] [Says Floruse: “The madness of Antony, which could not be allayed by ambition, was at last exterminated by luxury and licentiousness. The Egyptian woman demanded of the drunken general, as the price of her favours, nothing less than the Roman Empire. This Antony promised her; as though the Romans had been easier to conquer than the Parthians.”]

Roman Surgical Instruments

(In the British Museum)