Augustus

by John Williams

  The Parthians have proved to be a wily and resourceful foe, and they have made more intelligent use of their terrain than I might have foreseen. The maps made by Crassus and Ventidius on their campaigns here have proved worse than useless; treasons among some of the provincial legions have harmed our cause; and this abominable countryside does not furnish sufficient food to keep my legions in health through the winter.

  Thus I have withdrawn from my siege of Phraaspa, where we could not have endured the cold; and for twenty-seven days we have made our way across the country, nearly all the way from the Caspian Sea, and now rest in the comparative safety of Armenia, though we are tired, and illness pervades the camp.

  Yet all in all, the campaign has, I believe, been a successful one, though I fear that many of my weary soldiers would not agree with me. I know the Parthian tricks now; and we have mapped the territory with sufficient accuracy to serve us next year. I have sent to Rome the news of our victory.

  But you must understand that, despite the tactical success of the campaign, I am now in most desperate straits. We cannot stay in Armenia; I do not fully trust my host, King Artavasdes, who deserted me at a crucial moment in Parthia—though I cannot now upbraid him, since we are his guests. Therefore I shall march with a few legions to Syria, and the rest of the army will join me after it has recovered from its exhaustion.

  To endure the winter, even in Syria, we shall need provisions; for we are like beggars now. We shall need food, and clothing, and the materials necessary to repair our damaged war machines. We shall also need horses to replenish those lost in battle and to the weather, so that we might continue training for the campaign next spring. And I must have money. My soldiers have not been paid for months, and some are threatening revolt. And we shall need these things quickly. I attach to this letter a detailed list of those things that I absolutely require, and a supplementary list of things that may be needed later in the winter. I cannot exaggerate our need.

  We shall winter in the little village of Leuke Kome, just south of Beirut. You may not have heard of it. There is sufficient dockage there for the ships that you will send. Be careful. For all I know, the mad Parthians may be roaming the coast lines by the time you receive this. But there should be no danger of blockage at Leuke Kome. I trust that this letter will reach you soon, however rough the winter seas are; we shall not be able to endure for many more weeks without provisions.

  Outside my tent the snow is falling, so that the plain on which we are encamped is invisible. I can see no other tent; I can hear no sound. I am cold, and in the silence more aware of my loneliness than you can imagine. I long for the warmth of your arms and for the intimacy of your voice. Come to me in Syria with your ships. I must stay there with my troops, else they will scatter before spring comes, and our sacrifices will have been for naught; and yet I cannot suffer another month without your presence. Come to me, and we shall make of Beirut another Antioch, or Thebes, or Alexandria.

  III. Report: Epimachos, High Priest of Heliopolis, to Cleopatra, from Armenia (November, 36 B.C.)

  Revered Queen: No man is more courageous than that Marcus Antonius whom you have honored by your presence and raised at your side to overlook the world. He fights more bravely than prudence should allow, and endures privations and hardships which would destroy the most seasoned common soldier. But he is no general, and the campaign has been a disaster.

  If what I report to you contradicts what you may have heard from other sources, you must know that I write nevertheless in friendship for your husband, in reverence for you, and in anxiety for Egypt and her future.

  In the spring we marched from Antioch to Zeugma on the River Euphrates, and thence northward along that river, where food was plentiful, to the watershed between the Euphrates and the River Araxes, and then southward toward the Parthian citadel of Phraaspa. But before Phraaspa, to save time, Marcus Antonius divided his army, sending our supply train, with our food and baggage, and our battering rams and siege wagons by a more level passage, while the bulk of the army advanced rapidly to its goal.

  But while that army advanced in safety, the Parthians descended from the mountain upon the more slowly moving force that we had divided from us. News reached us of the attack, but when we arrived it was too late to save anything. The escort was slain, our supplies were burned, our siege wagons and engines of war were all destroyed; and only a few soldiers remained unharmed behind hastily thrown up fortifications. We then dispersed the attacking Parthians, who, having done their damage, prudently withdrew to the mountains that they knew, and where we dared not follow.

  That was the “victory” that Marcus Antonius reported to Rome. We counted eighty Parthian dead.

  Despite the destruction of all our instruments of siege, all our replacement supplies, our food—Marcus Antonius persisted in his siege of the Parthian city of Phraaspa. Even if the city had not been prepared for us, the task would have been nearly impossible, since we had only the arms that we bore at our sides. We could not lure them into open battle; when we foraged for food, the detachments were set upon by the Parthian archers who appeared from nowhere to kill, and who disappeared again; and winter drew on. For two months we persisted; and at last Antonius exacted from King Phraates a pledge that we would be allowed to retreat from his country without hindrance. And so in mid-October, hungry and exhausted, we began our return whence we had begun, five months before.

  For twenty-seven days, in bitter cold, through drifts of snow and in swirling winds, we struggled over mountains and unprotected plains; and upon eighteen separate occasions we were attacked by the mounted archers of the perfidious Phraates. They swooped from everywhere—upon our rear, our flanks, our fronts; let fly their arrows before we could prepare ourselves; and then were gone back into their barbaric darkness, while the poor blind animal that was their victim lumbered on.

  It was in these awful days of retreat that your Marcus Antonius showed himself to be the man that he is. He endured all the hardships of his men; he would take no food other than that taken by his comrades, who were reduced to gnawing roots and foraging for insects in rotting wood; nor would he wear clothing warmer than they wore themselves.

  We are in Armenia now, where we cannot stay; the King of this country, nominally our ally but no more trustworthy than our foe, has furnished us with a little food. We leave for Syria soon. But I have made an accounting of our losses, and I give them to you.

  In these five months, we have lost nearly forty thousand men, many to Parthian arrows, but more to the cold and disease; of these, twenty-two thousand were Antonius’s Roman veterans, the best warriors in the world, it is said; and these cannot be replaced, unless Octavius Caesar consents to replace them—and that is not likely. Virtually all the horse is gone. We have no reserve of supplies. We have no clothing, except the rags we wear. We have no food, save that which is in our bellies.

  Thus, Revered Queen, if you wish to save even a remnant of this army, you must accede to your husband’s request for supplies. Out of his pride, he may not, I fear, wish you to know how desperate his plight is.

  IV. Memorandum: Cleopatra to the Minister of Supplies (36 B.C.)

  You are hereby authorized to procure and prepare for shipment to the Imperator Marcus Antonius at the port of Leuke Kome in Syria the following items:

  Garlic: 3 tons

  Wheat or spelt, according to supply: 30 tons

  Salt fish: 10 tons

  Cheese (of goat): 45 tons

  Honey: 600 casks

  Salt: 7 tons

  Sheep, ready for slaughter: 600

  Sour wine: 600 barrels

  In addition to above items: if there is significant surplus of dried vegetables in the silos, you are to include that surplus in your shipment. If there is no surplus, you are to allow the foregoing to suffice.

  You are also to procure a sufficient quantity of heavy woolen cloth, of the second quality (240,000 yards of the broad width) to manufacture 60,000 winter cloaks; sufficient co
arse linen (120,000 yards of the middle width) for the manufacture of a like number of military tunics; and sufficient cured leather (soft) of horse or bullock (2000 skins) to manufacture a like number of pairs of shoes.

  Speed is crucial in this matter. You are to assign a sufficient number of tailors and bootmakers to the appropriate ships so that the manufacture of these items may take place there and be completed in a voyage of eight to ten days.

  The ships (twelve in number, waiting in the Royal harbor) will be made ready to sail within three days, at which time all procurement and loading must have been completed. The displeasure of your Queen would attend your failure.

  V. Memorandum: Cleopatra to the Minister of Finance (36 B.C.)

  Despite whatever orders or requests you may receive, either from his representative or from Marcus Antonius himself, you are to disburse no monies from the Royal treasury without the explicit approval and authorization of your Queen. Such approval and authorization is to be honored only if it is delivered by hand by a known representative of the Queen herself, and only if it bears the Royal seal.

  VI. Memoranda: Cleopatra to the Generals of the Egyptian Army (36 B.C.)

  Despite whatever orders or requests you may receive, either from his representatives or from Marcus Antonius himself, you are neither to allocate nor promise any troops from the Egyptian army without the explicit approval and authorization of your Queen. Such approval and authorization is to be honored only if it is delivered by hand by a known representative of the Queen herself, and only if it bears the Royal seal.

  VII. Letter: Cleopatra to Marcus Antonius, from Alexandria (winter, 35 B.C.)

  My dear husband, the Queen has ordered that the needs of your brave army be filled; and your wife like a trembling girl flies to meet you, as rapidly as the uncertain winter sea will carry her. Indeed, even as you read this letter, she is no doubt at the prow of the ship that leads the line of supply, straining her eyes in vain for the Syrian coast where her lover waits, cold in the weather, but warm in the anticipation of her lover’s arms.

  As a Queen, I rejoice at your success; as a woman, I bewail the necessity that has kept us apart. And yet during these hurried days since I received your letter, I have concluded (can I be wrong?) that at last woman and Queen may become one.

  I shall persuade you to return with me to the warmth and comfort of Alexandria, and to leave the completion of your success in Parthia for another day. It will be my pleasure to persuade you as a woman; it is my duty to persuade you as a Queen.

  The treasons that you have seen in the East have had their birth in the West. Octavius plots against you still, and libels you to those whose salvation is to love you. I know that he has tried to subvert Herod; and I am persuaded by all the intelligence that I can gather that he is responsible for the defections of the provincial legions that hampered your success in Parthia. I must convince you that there are barbarians in Rome as well as in Parthia; and their use of your loyalty and good nature is more dangerous than any Parthian arrow. In the East there is only plunder; but in the West there is the world, and such power as only the great can imagine.

  But even now my mind wanders from what I say. I think of you, the mightiest of men—and I am woman again, and care nothing for kingdoms, for wars, for power. I come to you at last, and count the hours as if they were days.

  VIII. Letter: Gaius Cilnius Maecenas to Titus Livius (12 B.C.)

  How delicately you put things, my dear Livy; and yet, beneath that delicacy, how clear are your brutal alternatives! Were we “deceived” (and therefore fools), or did we “withhold” some information (and were therefore liars)? I shall reply somewhat less delicately than you question.

  No, my old friend, we were not deceived about the matter of Parthia; how could we have been deceived? Even before we got Antonius’s account of the campaign, we knew the truth of it. We lied to the Roman people.

  I must say that I am a good deal less offended by your question than by what I perceive to lie behind it. You forget that I am an artist myself, and know the necessity of asking what to ordinary people would seem the most insulting and presumptuous things. How could I take offense at that which I myself would do, without the slightest hesitation, for the sake of my art? No, it is what I perceive in the tenor of your question that begins to give me offense; for I think (I hope I am wrong) I detect the odor of a moralist. And it seems to me that the moralist is the most useless and contemptible of creatures. He is useless in that he would expend his energies upon making judgments rather than upon gaining knowledge, for the reason that judgment is easy and knowledge is difficult. He is contemptible in that his judgments reflect a vision of himself which in his ignorance and pride he would impose upon the world. I implore you, do not become a moralist; you will destroy your art and your mind. And it would be a heavy burden for even the deepest friendship to bear.

  As I have said, we lied; and if I give the reasons for the lie, I do not explain in order to defend. I explain to enlarge your understanding and your knowledge of the world.

  After the Parthian debacle, Antonius sent to the Senate a dispatch describing his “victory” in the most glowing and general terms; and demanded, though in absentia, the ceremony of a triumph. We accepted the lie, allowed it currency, and gave him his triumph.

  Italy had been racked by two generations of civil wars; the immediate history of a strong and proud people was a history of defeat, for none is victor in a civil strife; after the defeat of Sextus Pompeius, peace seemed possible; the news of such an overwhelming defeat might have been simply catastrophic, both to the stability of our government and to the soul of the people. For a people may endure an almost incredible series of the darkest failures without breaking; but give them respite and some hope for the future, and they may not endure an unexpected denial of that hope.

  And there were more particular reasons for the lie. The defeat of Sextus Pompeius had been accomplished only shortly before we got the news from Parthia; the auxiliary legions had been disbanded and settled on the lands promised them; the prospect that they might be called again would have wholly disrupted all land values outside of Rome, and would have proved disastrous to an already precarious economy.

  Finally, and most obviously, we still had some hope that Antonius might be deflected from his Eastern dream of Empire and become once again a Roman. It was a vain hope, but at that time it seemed a reasonable one. To have refused him his triumph— to have told your “truth” to all of Rome—would have made it impossible for him ever to have returned in honor or in peace.

  In my account of these events, I have been saying “we”; but you must understand that for nearly three years after the defeat of Sextus Pompeius, Octavius and Agrippa were only occasionally in Rome; most of their time was spent in Illyria, securing our borders and subduing the barbarian tribes that theretofore had ranged freely up and down the Dalmatian shore-lands, and had even pillaged villages on the Adriatic coast of Italy itself. During this time I was entrusted with the official seal of Octavius. These decisions were mine, though in every instance, I am proud to say, they were approved by the Emperor, though often after the fact. I remember once he returned to Rome, briefly, to recuperate from a wound received in a battle against one of the Illyrian tribes; and he said to me, only half-jokingly, I think, that with Agrippa at the head of his army and with me, however unofficially, at the head of his government, he felt that the security of the nation demanded that he relinquish any pretense to either position, and for his own pleasure become the head of my stable of poets.

  Marcus Antonius. . . . The charges and countercharges that have come down through the years! But beneath them, the truth was there, though the world may never fully apprehend it. We played no game; we had no need to. Though many senators in Rome, being of the old Party and somehow irrationally reversing allegiances and seeing Antonius as the only hope of recapturing the past, we knew to be against us and for Antonius, yet the people were for us; we had the army; and we had su
fficient senatorial power to carry at least the most important of our edicts.

  We could have endured Marcus Antonius in the East as an independent satrap or Imperator or whatever he chose to call himself, so long as he remained a Roman, even a plundering Roman; we could have endured him in Rome, even with his recklessness and ambition. But it was being forced upon us that he had caught the dream of the Greek Alexander, and that he was sick from that dream.

  We gave him his triumph; it strengthened his senatorial support, but it did not draw him back to Rome. We offered him the consulship; he refused it, and did not return to Rome. And in what was really a last desperate effort to avert what we knew was coming, we returned to him the seventy ships of his fleet that had helped us defeat Sextus Pompeius, and we sent two thousand troops to augment his depleted Roman legions. And Octavia sailed with the fleet and soldiers to Athens, in the hope that Antonius might be dissuaded from his awful ambition and return to his duty as husband, Roman, and triumvir.

  He accepted the ships; he enlisted the troops; and he refused to see Octavia, nor even gave her dwelling in Athens, but sent her forthwith back to Rome. And as if to leave no doubt in the minds of any of his contempt, he staged a triumph in Alexandria —in Alexandria—and presented a few token captives, not to a Senate, but to Cleopatra, a foreign monarch, who sat above even Antonius himself and upon a golden throne. It is said that a most barbaric ceremony followed the triumph—Antonius robed himself as Osiris, and sat beside Cleopatra, who was gowned as Isis, that most peculiar goddess. He proclaimed his mistress to be Queen of Kings, and proclaimed that her Caesarion was joint monarch over Egypt and Cyprus. He even had struck coins on one side of which was a likeness of himself and on the other a likeness of Cleopatra.