Cleopatra the Great

by Joann Fletcher

  The ceremonials were generally followed by a wedding feast, which in the case of royal marriages was held in a great pavilion of the sort used at the nuptials of Alexander, Ptolemy and their successors. Roses and narcissi formed the backdrop for specially composed wedding songs and speeches, followed by the groom revealing his wife’s face to the guests by lifting her veil before the happy couple were taken in nocturnal procession to the groom’s home. He carried his new wife over the threshold to prevent her stumbling and bringing bad luck, and they were showered with dried fruit and nuts to bring fertility before being led to the bridal chamber with its saffron-coloured hangings. Then, behind closed doors, the husband undertook the final unveiling of his bride, untying the complex Herakles knot of her bridal belt in a symbolic unlocking of her chastity.

  Although the extent to which such customs were employed during Antonius’ marriage to Cleopatra is impossible to gauge, she regarded the event as so important that she renumbered her regnal years to make ‘Year 16 which is also Year 1’. Yet this was no mere declaration of love, since her marriage had been accompanied by one of the most generous wedding presents of all time — nothing less than the restoration of virtually all the Ptolemies’ former empire — and it was this major achievement which Cleopatra wished to announce to the world.

  As the couple prepared to rule the East together, coins issued at Antioch, Damascus and Askelon provide the only known images of Cleopatra at the time of her marriage. With her usual melon coiffure topped with the royal diadem and embellished with small curls carefully arranged over her brow, her chlamys robe adorned by a necklace of round pearls wrapped twice about her neck, the thirty-one-year-old appears younger than her gaunt face on coins from her late teens and early twenties. So perhaps her rejuvenation was part of this ‘new beginning’, in the same way that images of certain pharaonic predecessors had grown younger during their reigns. She was literally backed by her new husband Antonius, who appeared on the coins’ reverse. His increasingly Eastern ways were balanced by the apparent Westernisation of Cleopatra who was ‘made to look Roman, almost like Antony in drag’, an amusing notion not so far from the truth, since their images emphasised their combined powers noted on the coins’ inscriptions.

  With Antonius named ‘Imperator for the third time and triumvir’, Cleopatra was ‘Basilissa’, female version of the Greek ‘king’, followed by the title ‘Kleopatra Thea Neotera’, ‘the new Cleopatra Thea’, after her great-great-aunt the first Cleopatra Thea. Daughter of one monarch, sister of two, wife of three (two of whom took on Parthia) and mother of four (virtually the same tally as Cleopatra VII herself), Egyptian-born Thea had ruled in her own right as the only Seleucid royal woman ever to issue her own coins. And it was her example Cleopatra VII chose to follow as she restored the Ptolemies’ former empire across the East.

  Believing that ‘the greatness of the Roman empire consisted more in giving than in taking’, Antonius made land grants to his new wife stretching right down the eastern Mediterranean coast, from Cilicia, through Syria and Phoenicia, large parts of Judaea, Lebanon and the Arab state of Ituraea. Confirmed as ruler of Cyprus, she also received estates on Crete and regained Cyrene. All these regions were rich in a range of natural resources which Egypt had intermittently controlled for the previous three millennia. Lebanon’s timber supplies, in particular, would be vital for building the ships needed to patrol the eastern Mediterranean during Antonius’ forthcoming Parthian campaign, particularly since he had given 130 of his ships to Octavian in return for troops which had still not materialised.

  Although Cleopatra did not receive all of Judaea, which she wanted but which Antonius had previously given to the militarily useful Herod, she did receive Herod’s lands around Jericho containing groves of the shrubs which produced the precious Balm of Gilead (Commiphora gileadensis and Pistacia lentiscus), of which it was said that ‘every scent ranks below balsam’. Only growing in these limited areas, the balm was so rare that it was incredibly expensive, and since it was regarded as ‘the most precious drug that there is’, a key ingredient in medicine, incense and perfumes, this land was a most valuable gift. Nor was Herod the only one of Antonius’ dependants left seriously out of pocket by Cleopatra’s gains, for the Nabatean Arabs of Jordan were ordered to hand over control of their trade in Dead Sea bitumen ‘which serves as no small source of income. . . . the barbarians export the tar to Egypt and sell it for embalming the dead, for if this material is not mixed into the other substances the cadaver will not last long’. And whereas the mighty Seleucid army had failed to take the bitumen trade by force, the Nabateans were forced to hand it over to Cleopatra without a fight.

  So not only had her restoration of almost all the Ptolemies’ empire been achieved without bloodshed, it had made Cleopatra an incredibly wealthy woman; and to crown her amazing success, she now discovered she was pregnant with her fourth child. It must therefore have been with the most tremendous sense of satisfaction that she left Antioch in the spring of 36 BC, taking her leave of Antonius at Zeugma on the Euphrates to return to Alexandria in a grand royal progress overland. Taking the opportunity to view her new territories and show herself to her new subjects, she travelled from the Seleucid city of Apamea and the religious centre of Emesa down toward the mountains of Lebanon to arrive at Ituraea with its famous shrine of Zeus at Baalbek. After a rapturous reception at the great city of Damascus where her image was placed on the coinage, she moved on to Judaea and was received by Herod at his capital, Jerusalem.

  Housed in suitably regal splendour in his newly built fortified palace, she toured the balsam groves which had once been his, ordering cuttings to be taken back to Egypt for planting in Heliopolis, the ancient centre of Egypt’s incense-fuelled sun worship. Then the consummate businesswoman agreed to lease the groves back to him for the huge annual rent of 200 talents. Apart from these financial reverses Herod was also unsettled by Cleopatra’s friendship with his new mother-in-law Alexandra, whose daughter he had recently married when he became king and adopted the Jewish faith. Because he was an Idumaean Arab by birth, however, he was unable to fulfill the accompanying role of Jewish high priest; but equally he claimed that Alexandra’s popular sixteen-year-old son Aristobulus was too young for the office. This so outraged Alexandra that she appealed directly to Cleopatra and Antonius, whereupon Aristobulus was made high priest regardless of Herod’s opinion.

  So, with his detested enemy now his guest, Herod planned Cleopatra’s assassination. But when his advisers pointed out Antonius’ likely reaction to the murder of’a woman who held the greatest position of any living at that time’ he settled for character assassination instead, claiming she had tried to seduce him in order to discredit him with Antonius and acquire his entire kingdom. The story is certainly consistent with the tactics of a king who killed one of his ten wives, three of his sixteen sons, an uncle, his unfortunate brother-in-law Aristobulus when his plan to escape to Egypt with his mother was discovered, and all first-born boys in Judaea so as to eliminate the long-awaited ‘King of the Jews’ prophesied across the ancient world. Yet, in contrast to the unfortunate Aristobulus and Alexandra, Jesus and his mother Mary escaped Herod’s wrath by their flight into Egypt, a journey that Cleopatra and her unborn child also undertook when ‘instead of having her murdered, he plied her with gifts and escorted her on the way to Egypt’.

  It must surely have been a spectacular homecoming as the pregnant monarch made her triumphal return to Alexandria after restoring virtually all the Ptolemies’ fabled empire. It was an achievement she marked by taking the unique title ‘Philopatris’, ‘Fatherland Loving’, usually assumed to refer to Cleopatra as a lover of Egypt. Yet this Greek title is equally likely to have referred to Macedonia, homeland ‘of Alexander and Egypt’s dynastic family. She was a Macedonian . . . and since Cleopatra’s patris [homeland] was Macedon, she was looking back to old Greece and to the home of her forefathers’. But given her ability to appear as all things to all people, the title may
have been intentionally ambiguous as she reached out across vast swathes of territory to pursue Alexander’s own achievements, announcing her intentions in her titles ‘New Thea, Father Loving and Fatherland Loving’, Cleopatra, ‘renowned in her ancestry’.

  In September 36 BC the thirty-three-year-old gave birth to her fourth child, whom she named Ptolemy Philadelphus. Again she was using the magical power of names, since the baby’s namesake, Ptolemy II Philadelphus, had ruled the territories she gained at her marriage, the time when her child had been conceived. And with her children by Antonius a key part of her foreign policy, her eldest child Caesarion remained her co-ruler within Egypt and, in 36 BC, aged eleven, was elevated to the throne as full co-regent.

  As Cleopatra revelled in her glorious renaissance in Alexandria, Antonius was already on the long march to Parthia with a force so great it ‘made all Asia shake’. Having brought together a force of a hundred thousand comprising sixty thousand Roman soldiers, ten thousand Celtic and Spanish cavalry and thirty thousand infantry provided by his Eastern allies, he had made a decision to set out following the news that the Parthian king had just been assassinated by his brother Phraates. During the ensuing purge of rivals to the throne, the Parthian governor Monaises came over to Antonius’ side; having installed him as his client king east of Antioch, Antonius followed Caesar’s original plans by sending his forces north to Armenia. After his general Publius Canidius Crassus defeated the Armenian king Artavasdes, bringing him over to the Roman cause as an ally, Antonius and the bulk of the army continued south into the Parthian vassal state of Media (modern Azerbaijan), from where they would launch their ultimate attack on the Parthian heartland.

  But, as their cumbersome baggage train travelled on behind, guarded by troops under Antonius’ officer Oppius and the new Armenian ally Artavasdes, a surprise attack by the turncoat Monaises and fifty thousand mounted archers destroyed all their supplies and siege equipment. At this setback, Artavasdes withdrew his own forces to Armenia. All this was unknown to Antonius, who waited in vain outside Media’s fortified capital for the siege engines he needed in order to attack the city. Stuck in a barren landscape with no supplies, against an enemy who refused to face him on the field, he was eventually forced to return west where twenty thousand of his men fell victim to dysentery, hunger and repeated attacks. And on the retreat over the Armenian mountains to Syria, another eight thousand were lost in severe blizzards at the onset of a bitter winter.

  Yet at that same moment at the other end of the Roman world, deploying the ships loaned by Antonius, Octavian was celebrating victory over Sextus Pompeius. Octavian himself had been too ill to take part, and ‘could not even stand up to review his fleet when the ships were already at their fighting stations; but lay on his back and gazed up at the sky, never rising to show that he was alive until his admiral Marcus Agrippa had routed the enemy’. As Sextus fled east and many of his troops were crucified — a traditional form of Roman execution — the elimination of his senatorial support so alarmed Lepidus that he feared he might be next. He therefore seized Sicily, but Octavian’s men easily retook the island and Lepidus was stripped of his powers, losing both Sicily and Africa Nova to Octavian. With the three-way power base now reduced to two-way, world politics were suddenly polarised between East and West, between Alexandria and Rome, and between the two remaining triumvirs, Antonius and Octavian.

  Octavian now returned to Rome a hero, having freed the seas, brought an end to civil war and finally secured peace. The contrast with Antonius’ situation could not have been more stark. Having lost more than a quarter of his entire force as a result of bad weather and treachery, the dejected triumvir finally reached the Phoenician coast, once more summoning Cleopatra to come and meet him with money and supplies. Even though she had recently given birth and it was the middle of winter, when rough seas normally closed the Mediterranean to traffic, Cleopatra bravely set sail. Antonius waited so impatiently he ‘could not hold out long at table, but in the midst of the drinking would often rise or spring up to look out, until she put into port’. After they returned to Alexandria in early 35 BC, the couple received news that the king of Media had quarrelled with his overlord Phraates over the division of Roman booty, and was now offering them an alliance to include the use of his deadly cavalry when Antonius renewed the invasion. New plans were drawn up. Cleopatra would take responsibility for the navy needed to guard the Mediterranean. But Antonius still needed to augment his reduced land forces, since the twenty thousand men Octavia and her brother had promised him never materialised. A mere two thousand were eventually sent out only as far as Athens in the spring of 35 BC, along with just seventy of the 130 ships that Antonius had originally lent him. And Octavian sent these reinforcements in the company of his most deadly weapon, his sister Octavia.

  Keen to take back her husband in order to restore her position as wife and mother while competing with Cleopatra’s contribution to the war effort, Octavia was the ultimate political pawn whose role as ‘dutiful wife’, so skilfully exploited by her brother, created an obvious trap. If Antonius went to Athens to accept the troops and Octavia, he would risk losing Cleopatra’s vital support. Yet the small number of soldiers on offer made this an unlikely scenario, and it seems that Octavian wanted him to repudiate Octavia. In so doing Antonius would be casting himself in an even weaker position following his recent military defeat.

  While Antonius considered his options Cleopatra is said to have resorted to hysterical tactics, declaring undying love, feigning tears, throwing tantrums and apparently starving herself, ‘bringing her body down by slender diet’. Although later sources claimed that such unlikely behaviour decided the matter for Antonius, he could surely weigh up the two clear choices before him. For in the West were Octavia, their two daughters and a brother-in-law whose very existence threatened all that Antonius wanted to achieve. Against this in the East were Cleopatra and their three children, all descendants of Alexander whom he might still emulate through his military abilities. And in the Octavian-free East, Antonius could be his own man. Since his future as an independent force clearly lay with Cleopatra, Antonius wrote to Octavia in Athens, telling her to send him the troops, the ships and Antyllus, his eldest son by Fulvia, while she must return to her brother in Rome and care for Antyllus’ younger brother and their two daughters. As expected of any Roman wife, she obeyed her husband while he continued gathering his forces at his Syrian base, Antioch, in preparation for the renewed war against Parthia.

  As Cleopatra helped fund his expedition and maintained alliances across the East, the couple had sealed their agreement with the king of Media by betrothing their son Alexander Helios to the Median princess Iotape (Jatapa). They almost accepted an alliance from Sextus Pompeius until he joined with the Parthians and continued to undermine Roman authority by setting fire to Roman shipping. Eventually, however, he was captured by one of Antonius’ client kings and executed by Antonius’ general Marcus Titius, nephew of the Syrian governor Plancus.

  Antonius had also sent out his envoy Dellius to Artavasdes of Armenia, giving him a final chance to redeem himself by suggesting he once again join with them to invade Parthia. His refusal provided sufficient reason for Antonius’ forces to invade Armenia in spring 34 BC. Artavasdes and his family were sent back to Egypt as prisoners, a Roman garrison installed under Canidius Crassus, and Antonius and Cleopatra issued coins bearing the news ‘Armenia conquered’. Their victory had been a ‘brilliant success’, not only providing them with a solid base from which to take on Parthia the following summer, but opening up new markets to Roman traders and providing lands for Roman settlers. This news was so well received in Rome that it became imperative for Octavian to prove his own military abilities amidst well-founded rumours of cowardice.

  Setting out with Agrippa to secure Italy’s north-eastern borders against any future attacks from the east, they subdued volatile Illyricum (former Yugoslavia) as far as the Macedonian border and seized large amounts of booty
. By injuring his knee, Octavian could finally claim to have received ‘honourable wounds’ in battle. When he returned to Rome in late 34 BC the Senate awarded Octavian a Triumph, which he postponed to allow public celebrations for Antonius’ Armenian campaign and the death of Sextus. This was no magnanimous gesture, but aimed to draw maximum public attention to Antonius’ continuing absence from Rome and from Octavia. The Senate set up public statues of Antonius and Octavian in the Forum and voted similar honours to their Roman wives Octavia and Livia. Both women were elevated to the rank of Vestal Virgin, the highest status a Roman woman could attain. Their modestly swathed statues would have proved a stark contrast to that of Cleopatra standing in Caesar’s temple of Venus. The same comparisons were drawn between their menfolk, who similarly divided public opinion: images of their alter-egos Apollo and Herakles battling it out adorned the temple of Apollo on the Palatine Hill, where Octavian set up his own cult to counter the divine aura fostered by Antonius and Cleopatra. As Octavian knew full well, Antonius would not return to Rome to celebrate a traditional Triumph, for he had travelled back to Alexandria in the autumn of 34 BC to be greeted as the second Alexander by an adoring public led by Cleopatra.

  The couple celebrated their military success by reviving the great Ptolemaia festival initiated to honour her dynasty’s lineage from both Alexander and Dionysos through displays of Eastern wealth. Painted scenes of Alexander at Narmouthis in the Fayum portrayed him Dionysos-like in triumphant procession, an image Caesar chose to repeat in his own Ptolemaic-style Triumph in Rome and which now Antonius was reviving, playing his favourite role of Dionysos to the hilt. Preceded by a vast retinue of celebrants, divine statuary and exotic spoils, Antonius appeared before the crowds, having given orders that he should be called Dionysos, his head bound with the ivy wreath, his person enveloped in the saffron robe of gold and wielding Dionysos’ pinecone-topped thyrsos wand.