CHAPTER I CLEOPATRA'S MARRIAGE The plan of the Parthian campaign-Antony resolves to marry Cleopatra-Octavianus prepares for a final campaign against Sextus Pompeius-The marriage of Antony and Cleopatra-Public opinion in Italy-The first epodes of Horace. of campaign. MEANWHILE, apparently in July 37, Jerusalem had fallen into Antony's plan the power of Herod and Sossius;* the conclusion of this struggle so far modified the situation as to make the trouble expended upon the convention of Tarentum partially unnecessary. The army which had been besieging Jerusalem was set free, and Antony, who had already transferred part of his naval expenditure to his colleague, was glad to save the pay and maintenance of the twenty-one thousand soldiers which he had proposed to borrow from Octavianus; he had now no further need of them to carry out Cæsar's plan, which was an application on a large scale of the advice vainly offered to Crassus by the King of Armenia in the year 55. The conquest of Persia could only be completed by the destruction of the Parthian army, and, in particular, of their famous cavalry with its marvellous skill in drawing the enemy from his base of operations, turning his positions, making frontal attacks and harassing his flanks, while avoiding any decisive conflict. How were these tactics to be avoided? How could Antony oblige the Parthians to give battle at a short distance from his base of operations at a favourable place and moment? Should he follow the route * This is the opinion of Kromayer, Hermes, xxix. p. 563 ff., but the date is very disputable, and it seems to me difficult to reach any positive conclusion. Cp. Van der Chijs, de Herode Magno, p. 36. Gardthausen, Augustus und seine Zeit, ii. p. 118, n. 12. 37 B.C. of Crassus and threaten Seleucia ? The temporary occupation of the Mesopotamian towns would make no great difference to the Parthians, while Seleucia was so far from the Euphrates that a campaign in that direction would have provided the enemy with every opportunity for pursuing their favourite tactics, as indeed the disaster of Crassus had shown. Cæsar had therefore resolved to invade Persia by a longer but safer route, on the north instead of the east; in Armenia Minor, upon the table-land now known as the plateau of Erzeroum, he proposed to concentrate some hundred thousand legionaries and oriental auxiliary troops, a large supply of provisions and an immense siege train; from this point his march would lie through rich and populous countries friendly to the Romans until he reached the Araxes, which formed the frontier of a great vassal state of the Parthians, Media Atropatene; thence he would march upon the metropolis of Media, which was only some four hundred kilometres from the frontier." If the Parthians came to the help of their vassal king, the Roman army would be able to fight decisive battles in a favourable situation with full protection for their rear; if, on the other hand, the Parthians abandoned their vassal to his fate, Media would be made the first stage of the conquest and the base from which the Roman army would begin the invasion of Persia. Antony's life of pleasure cannot have made him so effeminate as his biographers have asserted; otherwise he would never have had the courage to begin so great an enterprise. He required, however, enormous sums of money for the soldiers whom he proposed to concentrate and for the supply of munitions and engines of war. At length he was reduced to the conviction that all his efforts to secure the necessary funds had been inadequate. His needs could not be supplied either by the new sovereigns whom he had enthroned in the east in the year 39, or by his quæstors, who debased the silver coinage to strike * Suetonius, Cæs. 44: Parthis inferre bellum per Armeniam minorem. For this account of Antony's war, I have followed in almost every instance the masterly reconstruction of Kromayer in Hermes, xxxi. p. 70 ff; he seems to me to have sifted every grain of truth from the classical texts, and to have made every permissible conjecture. the denarii intended for the payment of the legions, or by the petty raids upon which he constantly despatched detachments of his army. It was for this purpose that Antony then ordered Canidius to lead six legions into the Caucasus to make war upon the Iberians and Albanians; these legions were to live upon the country and to winter near the tableland of Erzeroum, where the army was to concentrate in the spring. † 37 B.C. reasons for marriage with It was thus not men but money that Antony required to Antony's carry out Cæsar's great project, which was to make him master of the empire. Octavianus was still poorer than himself Cleopatra, and therefore could not be of the smallest use, while Antony's anger must have been aroused by the mistrust and duplicity which his colleague had displayed in the course of their bargaining; he was obliged to swallow the affront which his brother-in-law had inflicted on him at Tarentum by forcing him to beg for an agreement which was much more advantageous to Octavianus than to himself. For this reason, on his short journey from Tarentum to Corfu, Antony considered that the moment had come for him to accept the offer which Cleopatra had made him and to become King of Egypt by marriage. The man who is represented by ancient historians as the hero of a long love-story had contrived to endure three years of separation from Cleopatra; he was returning to her, because she was the queen of the only eastern country which had not been desolated by civil war, and because at that moment his pecuniary anxieties had obliged him to resign part of his fleet to his colleague. This consideration alone is full reason for asking whether the famous love-story was not invented to conceal a much more serious struggle of political interests. It was not to satisfy a romantic passion for the Queen of Egypt that Antony was marrying Cleopatra; his object was to join Egypt to the other countries which he governed and to draw as he pleased upon the treasury of the Ptolemies for the maintenance of his army and the execution of Cæsar's great project. In short, this action and indeed the *Cp. Pliny, N. H. XXXIII. ix. 132; Mommsen, Röm. Munzw. p. 743. † Dion, xlix. 24; Plutarch, Ant. 34 (who puts this event under a different date). See the appendix. 37 B.C. Disadvantages of the marriage. Preparations of Octavianus against Sextus. whole of Antony's policy can be explained in connection with the conquest of Persia. Unfortunately the dynastic marriage which this expedient involved could not be reconciled with the Roman constitution or with the nature of proconsular authority, transformed as both had been by a century of political upheaval. Marriage with Cleopatra at that moment was a most serious and revolutionary act, even in so disturbed a period. It was a proceeding against every tradition of Roman policy, and it was performed precipitately, as a matter of little importance, in defiance of class and traditional prejudices and with a disregard of consequences which only the most brilliant success could have justified. Greater men than Antony, possibly even Cæsar, would have hesitated. However, when he reached Corfu, Antony sent Octavia and her children back to Italy * and sent Fonteius Capito to Alexandria with an invitation to Cleopatra to meet him in Syriat His dominating but ill-balanced character, the extraordinary good fortune which he had enjoyed in recent years, the vast confusion of an age when the impracticable might easily be mistaken for the actual, his foresight and at the same time his extravagant optimism induced him thus hurriedly to take a step which was to decide the whole of his future career. Meanwhile in Italy Octavianus spent the last month of the year 37 in carrying out the agreement of Tarentum; he directed the comitia to pass a law prolonging the power of the triumvirs until January 1, 32 B.C. and vigorously accelerated his preparations for the war against Sextus, which was to begin during the following year. There is no doubt that public opinion was as much opposed as ever to this project. The old Pompey remained an object of general admiration; the misfortunes of the year 38 were regarded as an act of divine vengeance and as a sign of the divine protection enjoyed by the last scion of this noble and unfortunate family. Octavianus was gaining greater insight and strength of will with the course of years and experience; the beneficent influence of Livia, of his master Didymus Areus and of the more foresighted of his friends * Dion, xlviii. 54; Plutarch, Ant. 35. ↑ Plutarch, Ant. 36. had steadied his tendencies to violence and precipitation; he was anxious not to offend public feeling and possibly would have been ready to satisfy it if he could. At the same time the public admiration of Pompey meant danger to Cæsar's son, and the overthrow of Sextus thus became a vital necessity. Much as he wished to win the sympathy of the masses, he was again obliged to defy public opinion in the prosecution of this unpopular war. The extent of his preparations shows that he was anxious to justify his persistent opposition to public opinion by a rapid, striking and final success; he was well aware that only so could he regain his hold of the people and that another failure would be fatal to him. He made an attempt to induce Lepidus to help with the ships and the sixteen legions at his disposal; he completed the construction of the fleet and the harbour which Agrippa had begun; it is likely that he studied the history of the first Punic War in which Sicily was attacked by sea and land, and drew up a plan of campaign calculated to crush these new Carthaginians. As many legions as possible were to be sent to the extreme point of Italy for transport to Sicily; upon the same day Lepidus would start from Africa, Agrippa would leave Puteoli with his new fleet, and Statilius Taurus would leave Tarentum with Antony's ships. The latter was a novus homo, one of the numerous young men of low birth who had made their way to Antony's favour; he had distinguished himself in war and Antony had therefore placed him in command of the fleet which was left in Italy. 37 B.C. Octavianus, Thus both Antony in Syria and Octavianus in Italy were Misfortunes of extremely busy towards the end of the autumn of 37, when navigation and therefore the interchange of news between the two halves of the Roman world was interrupted. Antony was pushing on his expedition for the following year while awaiting the arrival of Cleopatra; he ordered the Asiatic sovereigns to send men, provisions and supplies for the following winter to the Armenian plateau; he deposed Polemo from the throne of Pontus for reasons unknown to us and replaced him by Darius; he hastily followed the thread of a diplomatic intrigue which chance had put into his hands, in order to secure |
