Marching With Caesar-Antony and Cleopatra: Part II-Cleopatra

by Peake, R. W.

  Word also reached us from one of the Senators still traveling back and forth between the camps that Ahenobarbus had died, just a day after he left our camp to go to Octavian. It made me wonder if he had spent the last of his strength trying to convince Antonius to abandon his current course of action, whatever it was. Spending my time walking through the Legion area talking to the men, I tried every trick I could think of to keep morale from sinking lower by the day. I had long given up thinking that each day it could not get any worse, instead trying to focus on finding ways to keep the men somewhat interested in their duties. While I dug deeply into my own purse, I am afraid that I also put some pressure on the other Centurions to come up with funds of their own, putting the money up as prizes in a series of games and contests. We did not have the room or energy for mock battles, meaning I had to keep the contests short and of a sufficiently small scale that the men were not exhausted or did not want to participate.

  Although other Primi Pili were cracking down on the discipline, marching men out almost daily to witness punishments ranging from flogging to executions, I, along with the Primi Pili of the more veteran Legions, took the opposite approach. I had never seen the value of trying to beat men into being in a better frame of mind, and I did not think that watching other men being punished would help either. That is not to say that I stopped punishing my own men, but I did it without making a spectacle of it, or whenever possible I substituted onerous duties instead of a flogging.

  Unfortunately, Antonius chose to start taking the hard road as well, as his frustration with the continuing defections of high-ranking men mounted. Any man wishing to visit the opposing camp first had to seek permission from Antonius, stating his reason for visiting and how long he intended on being there. Evidently he was lied to so many times, with men telling him that they were visiting a friend or cousin for an afternoon never to return, that he ordered the practice to cease altogether. This did not stop men from seeking to escape, but when they were caught, Antonius once again showed a viciousness that almost defies description. When Iamblichus, one of the client kings of Arabia tried to escape and was caught trying to sneak out with a cavalry patrol, he was dragged to the forum before Antonius. Calling for all the client kings to be assembled, Antonius ordered his summary execution, and he was beheaded in front of the other kings as an example. One would think that would be enough to discourage others from attempting to leave and resigning themselves to waiting to see what the Fates had in store for them, but one foolish man, Quintus Postumius was his name, tried his own chances at getting away. The unfortunate fool was caught, his ruse trying to mingle with the muleteers leaving for the return journey back to Thrace, but he was easily discovered. Highly born people have an arrogance and posture that proclaims itself no matter how they’re clothed, even if it is in the meanest rags, so it did not take exceptional alertness on the part of the guard Cohort to spot him. He was taken to Antonius, who flew into a rage at this latest desertion, then ordered all the Centurions of the army to the forum.

  “Do you have any idea what this is about?” Scribonius asked as we strode to the forum, but at that moment, I did not.

  “No, but I don’t imagine it’s anything good.”

  I was more right than I knew. When we arrived, we saw that there was a large cleared area and we were directed to a side of a square enclosing the area by one of the provosts. The square was made of not only Centurions but all of the Tribunes, with the remaining Legates and Senators on one side, all facing inward. In the middle of the square lay a naked man, over which stood two of Antonius’ Brundisium Cohorts, looking down to make sure he did not try to escape, or so I presumed. He was bound, but not in the normal fashion; instead of his hands being tied together each wrist was secured by a length of thick rope, the other end of which snaked away several feet where it was attached to the rigging of a horse. His legs were similarly bound, so there were four horses, each facing in a different direction. It became immediately apparent what the punishment for this man was to be, even if I did not know why.

  “I’ve heard of this but I’ve never seen it before,” I heard a man whisper, several heads bobbing in acknowledgment.

  Once we were assembled, Antonius stepped forward, his face twisted and cruel as he looked down at the naked man, who was understandably shaking uncontrollably.

  “This miserable excuse for a man you see before you is Quintus Postumius. He was a Senator of Rome. Now he is a traitor, a traitor who was caught trying to skulk out despite taking a solemn oath before Jupiter Optimus Maximus and his household gods to remain true to me. But the gods are watching us, always. And they saw what this bag of excrement was attempting to do and called attention to him by putting a rock in his path, causing him to trip and fall. When that happened, his disguise as a mule driver fell away and he was revealed to the guards, who did their duty and apprehended him.”

  Although I had no idea whether this was true, I was skeptical. While I believe that the gods are watching us, I was doubtful that they intervened to the extent that Antonius claimed. Regardless, I also knew he was saying this so that his words would be relayed back to the men, since the men in the ranks are much more likely to believe such things. Postumius was on the young side, but he had evidently been living well, his white, flabby skin rippling with each tremor of fear that seized his body. Antonius, seemingly impervious to the man’s sheer terror at the prospect of a gruesome death, continued talking.

  “I called you all here to witness what happens to those who break their oaths to me. I am still Triumvir of the East, no matter what that worm Octavian says! I am still Marcus Antonius! And I will be obeyed!”

  His voice rang out, hard and cruel, without a drop of mercy in his tone. He turned to signal to the men holding the bridles of the horses. They did not slap the horses and get them to a full gallop, as I expected. Instead, they merely gave a tug on the lead rope of their respective beasts, each of them plodding forward. Postumius’ head was whipping around as he watched the slack being taken out of the rope, very slowly, his eyes rolling back in his head so that only the whites showed.

  “Surely he’s not going to go through with this,” whispered Scribonius.

  “I think he is,” Balbus muttered, and I agreed with Balbus.

  The horses moved until the slack was taken out of the rope, Postumius’ limbs spreading out as he vainly tried to ease the strain by extending them. In a few moments, Postumius’ moans became screams as the horses were urged forward, their ears twitching at the sounds coming from the tortured man. When Postumius was suspended in the air, his head twisting back and forth in agony, Antonius raised his hand to halt the horses. I heard Scribonius exhale in clear relief.

  “I told you,” he whispered. “He’s not going to go through with it.”

  But Scribonius was wrong. All Antonius was doing was prolonging the man’s agony. While he stopped the horses from continuing, he did not have their handlers back up, so Postumius hung suspended, his muscles slowly being pulled apart. He screamed, the sound piercing our ears like needles, a high-pitched wail that was unsettling to both man and the beasts involved in the punishment, their ears twitching as their heads tossed nervously. After a moment like this, Antonius waved his hand again, the horses resuming their pulling. I will not go into any more detail about the death of Quintus Postumius, other than to say that next to Eumenis, it was the most gruesome death that I have ever witnessed. He did not die easily, nor did he die well, but I do not imagine many men would under those circumstances. During the whole ordeal, which caused some of the most hardened Centurions in the army to turn away, Antonius watched impassively, his face betraying not the slightest emotion. I thought it strange that Cleopatra was absent, though I supposed that it made sense in that this was a purely Roman matter. Once it was over, with the gore that had been Quintus Postumius lying spread across the dirt of the forum, Antonius closed with the command to tell the men what we had witnessed here, then dismissed us back to our Legions. It
was a quiet but sullen group of Centurions that walked with me back to our area.

  While Antonius shut down all traffic out of the camp, for some reason he continued to allow high-ranking men to enter ours, to visit what were now essentially captives. I cannot imagine that the Senators and clients being held forcibly inside our camp had anything good to say about Antonius, although it is probable that they were too scared to say anything of that nature lest some Antonian spy be listening. The series of reverses that we had suffered caused Antonius finally to make some decisions. About two months before, just after Octavian had made camp at Toryne, Antonius enlarged the fort on the north side of the inlet, sending a third part of the army across to occupy the new camp. His intent was to create a blocking position strong enough to withstand an assault by a large force that would allow time to bring the bulk of the army across the inlet to reinforce or counterattack. Now, he pulled this force back to the original camp, leaving two Cohorts along with some extra artillery at the fort, guarding the mouth of the inlet.

  After this action, he called a council of war that for the first time in months included the Primi Pili, Evocati, Tribunes, and Legates of the entire army, along with each navarch of the navy, with the client kings acting in their role as commanders of their respective contingents. It was held in the forum and guards were posted around the edges to keep the rankers from lingering and overhearing what their fate was to be. Of course, Cleopatra was present, seated on a throne that I recognized as the one from her palace in Alexandria, and I wondered how much trouble it had been to drag that thing all this way to this bog in Greece. Antonius sat in a curule chair, but it was raised up on boards so that it was on the same level as Cleopatra’s, while both were dressed in their best armor. Cleopatra had a diadem draped around her golden helmet, although I noticed that she also had the crooked staff that represented her relationship with one of her Egyptian gods propped up next to her. She was not wearing the hideous makeup that usually marked her royal appearances; I suspected that this was intentionally done to reduce her foreignness. Antonius’ face was puffy, but his eyes were clear and his speech was not slurred as he began to speak.

  “We are at a decision point,” he announced. “Our supply situation has become tenuous, and I don't want to go to half-rations, but I may be forced to. We've suffered a series of setbacks, it's true, for which I take full responsibility. The fault doesn't lie with any of you.”

  So far, Antonius was hitting all the right notes, I thought.

  “The purpose of this meeting is to discuss the best next step for us to take. I know that it has been some time since we last held a council of war that included all of the senior officers of both army and navy, but I thought this would be the right time.”

  Now, I did not remember ever having a meeting that included both arms of the might of the East, but I supposed it was better late than never. Because of the many different tongues spoken among the men of this force, Antonius was forced to pause to allow interpreters to translate. He was speaking in our tongue, and while I imagine that if he had spoken in Greek it would have been easier, since I was sure that every client king and Egyptian, almost exclusively Macedonian, spoke fluent Greek, it was not lost on me at least that he had chosen to speak in his native tongue. Was it a mark of respect for his army, a sign that he recognized on whom he truly relied? Or was it to lull us into a false comfort, before he sprung some surprise on us? Even as this thought occurred to me, I wryly chided myself that I had been in the East too long and had begun thinking like one of them.

  “I would hear from the commanders of each contingent of the army now.” Antonius turned, nodding to Canidius, who stood to face us, striking the classic pose of an orator about to address the Senate.

  “Thank you, Triumvir Antonius and Your Highness, for hearing my words.” He bowed to Cleopatra, while I suppressed a smirk at his choice of the word “hearing” as opposed to “listening,” sure that they would not do much of either. “The Triumvir is of course correct,” he began, using the title Antonius had now held for more than ten years. Despite the fact that he technically no longer held the office, according to Octavian and his Senate at least, that was still the most common method by which he was addressed, at least by fellow Romans. “We are in a situation that I won't call desperate, but it is serious. It's become clear to me that we have nothing to be gained by staying put, trying to force Octavian into a confrontation. A confrontation, I might add, that he has consistently refused our invitation to participate in, that we might settle this matter once and for all. But he is behaving in a cowardly manner, and as he refuses to engage with us, I see no point in remaining here.”

  This, of course, was a bald-faced lie and I could tell by the faces of the men around me that they knew it. In fact, it had been Octavian who issued an invitation to meet in battle, which Antonius had refused. There was nothing to be gained, other than a quick trip to a slow death in pointing this out, so none of us said a word, listening stone-faced as Canidius continued.

  “I propose that we make a strategic withdrawal of the entire army, into the interior of Macedonia towards Thrace, where we can not only find terrain that's more suitable for battle, but puts us closer to what has now become our main source of supply. In doing so, we can draw Octavian farther away from his own base of supply and can reverse our position, putting him on the defensive.”

  Heads, mostly Roman, I noted, bobbed up and down at Canidius’ proposal, and mine was one of them.

  Antonius sat for a moment, seeming to consider, then asked, “And what about the fleet?”

  “The fleet can break out of the bay, it's clearly strong enough, and once it does, we can regain control of the sea. It should operate independently of the army but in a supporting role, reestablishing our supply line back to Alexandria to augment our line of supply from Thrace.”

  Cleopatra’s face looked as if it was made of stone, her lips a thin line as she sat silently, listening to Canidius. Canidius waited for more questions or objections, but there were none, so he sat down. As far as I was concerned and I could see I was not alone, Canidius’ argument would be hard, if not impossible to beat. It made sense, both from a strategic and tactical standpoint, yet I was disquieted by the look on the general’s face, which looked anything but triumphant. Although I tried to interpret his expression, I could not think of a solid reason why I felt unsettled. Antonius was impassive as he looked over to Cleopatra, who plainly intended to speak for the naval arm of this endeavor. She stood, her demeanor as haughty as ever and I wondered where the softer, feminine side of the woman had gone, the side that I had seen in Alexandria and on the Nile. I was forced to admit that it was possible that it had never truly been there in the first place. Perhaps it was an illusion, one of her conjurer’s tricks, pulled from the same bag as the one she used to bewitch Marcus Antonius, the most powerful Roman of his time, after Caesar. And Octavian, came the unbidden thought popping into my head. Do not forget Octavian. He may prove to be more powerful than even his adopted father, a thought I would have immediately dismissed just a few years before, but now I was not so sure.

  “There is much merit in what you say, Canidius,” Cleopatra began and I could see the surprise register on some faces, which made me want to shout a warning to them not to be fooled, since I had no doubt whatsoever that she was about to tear Canidius’ argument into tatters, at least in her own mind.

  “However, I would propose that we accomplish the same thing, but in a different manner.”

  I saw Canidius’ eyes narrow in obvious suspicion, he at least knowing that there was an attack on his flank coming.

  “I would argue that it is the fleet that is the most precious asset that we have, followed closely by the army, but not all of the army. I do not think it is any secret that there are Legions that are of a higher quality than others.”

  Suddenly, a low growl began issuing from the throats of the Centurions. Two spots of color appeared on her cheeks, while her voice raised j
ust a bit in volume.

  “I do not intend in any way to cast aspersions on the abilities of the Primi Pili. I know that you have done a magnificent job in training the men to the highest standards available to you. But let us be frank; training is not the same as battle, and a large portion of this army is unblooded.”

  “As if she would know the difference,” someone whispered, causing a few snickers, but if she heard, she chose to ignore it.

  For the most part, her words had somewhat soothed the feelings of the men listening, because the brutal truth is that she was right, and we knew it. I still did not know exactly where she was going, but she was not finished, not by a long shot.

  “That is why my proposal is that we save the most veteran part of the army, and the entire fleet, as in my view the fleet is the most important. The fleet can control a much larger area of territory than an army can. It is more mobile and it is vital to keeping our supply lines open.”