by Stacy Schiff
The timing was particularly inauspicious as the Roman civil war returned violently in 43 to Egypt’s shores. The Italian peninsula could hardly contain that conflict, a brutal, fitful demonstration that, in Plutarch’s words, “No wild beast is more savage than man when his passion is supplemented by power.” For Cleopatra the infighting took the form of a sort of perverse fairy tale: She knew that all parties would come calling. (The number of appeals attests to her sustained wealth.) She also knew that to back the wrong party was to invite disaster. While she remained answerable to Rome, it was difficult to do so when she did not know who, precisely, Rome was. And no matter whom she endorsed, the cost was likely to be exorbitant. Already she was well acquainted with the wisdom offered to her father, bluntly apprised in the midst of his negotiations as to “what humiliations and troubles he would run himself into; what bribery he must resort to; and what cupidity he would have to satisfy when he came to the leading men at Rome, whom all Egypt turned into silver would scarcely content.”
Cleopatra’s best option would have been to do nothing, an option she quickly exhausted. She went finally with her natural sympathies, and at her price. Dolabella had been high in Caesar’s favor, his precocious fleet commander, his first choice for consul in 44. He was dissolute and hot-headed, also robust, a fine speaker, and a popular favorite. Still in his twenties, he may have struck Cleopatra as Caesar’s natural political heir. When Dolabella applied for assistance, Cleopatra sent him the four legions Caesar had left her, along with a fleet. In exchange she secured a promise that Caesarion would be recognized as king of Egypt, a confirmation crucial to her. Unfortunately, her fleet was intercepted on the high seas. Without a struggle it defected to Cassius, Dolabella’s rival and a leader among the assassins. In turn Cassius prevailed upon Cleopatra for assistance. She sent her excuses. Famine and plague ravaged her country. She was utterly without resources. Simultaneously she prepared a second expedition for Dolabella. Foul winds confined that fleet to the harbor. And she met with rebellious subordinates. Her military commander in Cyprus countermanded her order, supplying Cassius with Egyptian ships. Cleopatra would be called upon to answer for his defiance later.
She was playing a dangerous game that only became more so. In July 43 Cassius’s army encircled and crushed Dolabella, who committed suicide. If she had not already done so, Cleopatra heard next from Cassius’s enemies, Octavian and Antony. The two were in league at the end of 43, intent on revenge against the assassins, primarily led by Brutus and Cassius. For Octavian, Caesar’s adopted son and his former counsel, Cleopatra readied a powerful fleet, loaded down with materiel. She intended to deliver it personally to Greece. Meanwhile the assassin Cassius menaced her. She refused to rise to the bait. He threatened again. He had asked only for her cooperation; Cleopatra had instead assisted his enemy. She was by no means proving the obedient female Caesar had advertised. Enraged, Cassius prepared a full-scale Egyptian invasion. The timing was right; Egypt was weak with famine, Cleopatra vulnerable in the absence of her Roman legions. She later insisted that “she had not been terrified of Cassius,” but she would have been foolish not to have been. He was a noxious character, composed of equal parts cruelty and greed. Known as “the most aggressive of men,” he had been a prime mover among the assassins. He had twelve first-rate legions at his command, as well as an expert force of mounted bowmen. He had been pitiless with those cities into which he had already marched. A skilled general and a former Pompeian admiral, he had fought in the East before. And he was already close at hand, across the Egyptian border, where he had seized control of Syria.
Yet again Cleopatra was spared in the nick of time by competing Roman interests. As he began his march toward Egypt, Cassius was diverted by an urgent summons. Antony and Octavian had crossed the Adriatic. They traveled east to challenge him. Cassius hesitated. Egypt was a rich prize, within easy reach. Sternly, Brutus reminded him that he was not meant to win power for himself, but liberty for his country. The disappointed Cassius reversed direction, to join Brutus in Greece. For Cleopatra the reprieve coincided with unhappy events. She had headed out with her fleet, to join Antony and Octavian. She herself commanded the flagship. Yet again foul weather intervened. In its face a high, square-rigged warship was useless, quickly swamped, easily overturned. She returned to Alexandria with a battered remnant of a navy. As she explained later, the storm “not only ruined everything but also caused her to fall ill, for which reason she had not put to sea even afterwards.” Some have questioned her sincerity, giving Cleopatra’s story a suspect I-didn’t-want-to-get-my-heels-wet spin. (It is notable that when she is not condemned for being too bold and masculine, Cleopatra is taken to task for being unduly frail and feminine.) She appears to have been true to her word, however. She knew she could not deny assistance to those actively avenging her lover’s death. And a Cassius ally who lay in wait to ambush Cleopatra’s fleet—with a fleet of sixty decked ships, a legion of Cassius’s men, and a stockpile of flaming arrows—both heard of the disaster and came across Egyptian wreckage floating off the coast of southern Greece. Cleopatra limped home in ill health. For her careful and costly efforts she had secured the allegiance of no one.
Having offered the victors no effective assistance, Cleopatra knew she would be held to account soon enough. An emissary arrived in Alexandria more or less on cue, probably early in 41. He was a suave and tart-tongued negotiator, also a man of acrobatic loyalties. Already Quintus Dellius had changed sides three times in the course of the civil war, having leapt from Dolabella’s camp to Cassius’s, to touch down, temporarily, in Mark Antony’s. He had come to Alexandria to exact some answers from the oddly uncooperative queen of Egypt. Why had she collaborated with Cassius? How to explain her tepid support of the Caesarians? Where precisely were her loyalties? Presumably Dellius had been briefed on the wonders of Alexandria and its jewel-encrusted palace. Whatever he had heard failed to prepare him adequately for Cleopatra. He “had no sooner seen her face, and remarked her adroitness and subtlety in speech” than he realized he would need to reassess his approach. On Cleopatra’s disarming effect all sources unanimously, even actively, agree. Plutarch so much falls under her posthumous spell that—from the moment of Dellius’s arrival—he essentially lets her run off with Mark Antony’s narrative.
Dellius quickly grasped that he would not be delivering up a sorry, subdued queen for arraignment. The woman before him was not the kind who could be asked to explain herself. Opportunist that he was, he may have seen that something else could be made of the situation. He was himself highly susceptible to beauty. From their lusty escapades together, he knew well the tastes of his commanding officer. Dellius either melted in Cleopatra’s hands, realized Antony would, or both. Fortunately the flip side of his inconstancy was a nearly double-jointed agility; he executed an effortless about-face. He flattered and fawned, so much so that it is unclear whose agenda he ultimately advanced. His advice was—Dellius deserves long overdue points for stage management—to engage in a little playacting. Cleopatra was to put on her finest clothes. Her situation was analogous to that of Hera in the Iliad, who kneads her skin to a soft glow, anoints herself with enticing oils, braids her bright tresses, wraps herself in ambrosial robes, cinches her waist with tassels, and—gold brooches at her breast and gems dangling from her ears—strides off to meet Zeus. Cleopatra was to come abroad with him posthaste. She had, Dellius assured her, nothing to fear. Mark Antony was “the gentlest and kindest of soldiers.”
THREE YEARS EARLIER, as Cleopatra had hurried from Rome under a dull April sky, she crossed paths with another wary traveler. Though he did so as a private citizen, Octavian had made his way to Rome “accompanied by a remarkable crowd which increased every day like a torrent” and borne along by a current of goodwill. Either at the time or in the retelling, he was greeted by the ancient equivalent of special effects. As he neared the Appian Way, the fog lifted and “a great halo with the colours of the rainbow surrounded the whole sun,” which h
ad not been seen for weeks. Caesar’s heir was as unknown to his followers as they were to him; they flocked to his side—none more enthusiastically than the veterans of Caesar’s campaigns—with the expectation that the eighteen-year-old would avenge “the butchery in the Senate.” He was noncommittal on that front, proceeding, on his mother’s advice, “craftily and patiently,” at least until he set foot on Antony’s property. The sallow, provincial teenager with the curly blond hair and the eyebrows that joined above his nose had hardly distinguished himself. He had spent little time in Rome. He had neither military experience nor political authority. His constitution was frail, his figure unprepossessing. He had arrived to claim the most coveted inheritance of the age, the name of his granduncle.
Bright and early the next morning Octavian presented himself at the Forum to accept Caesar’s adoption. He proceeded to call on Mark Antony, in the garden of his fine estate, to which Octavian was admitted only after a lengthy, humiliating delay. No matter how he announced himself—already his followers called him Caesar—the call would have rankled. If for Cleopatra Octavian’s appearance in Rome was uncomfortable, it was for Mark Antony an insult. A strained conversation followed between two men—or in the forty-year-old Antony’s opinion, a man and a boy—who felt they had equal right to Caesar’s legacy. Octavian was precise and deliberative, later something of a control freak; he no doubt practiced his remarks in advance. (Even when speaking to his wife he preferred to write out his thoughts and read them aloud.) Certainly Octavian delivered those in 44 with chilling confidence and candor. Why had Antony failed to prosecute the assassins? (For the sake of order, everyone had urged an amnesty. Antony had presided over the Senate when it was granted, however.) The prime movers were not only alive, but had been rewarded with provincial governorships and military commands. Octavian entreated his elder “to stand behind me and help me take revenge on the murderers.” If he could not, would he please step respectfully aside? After all, Antony might just as well have been Caesar’s political heir had he conducted himself more prudently. As for the inheritance, could Antony kindly hand over the gold Caesar had left, for the promised distributions? Octavian added that Antony could keep “the valuables and other finery,” less an invitation than an accusation.
Mark Antony was more than twice Octavian’s age. He had “all the prestige of his long service with Caesar.” Over the previous two years he had exercised great, if not always decorous, authority. He had moreover already liquidated Octavian’s inheritance, as he had earlier made a shambles of Pompey’s former home, liberally bestowing magnificent tapestries and furniture on friends. He did not need to be reminded that he had narrowly missed out on adoption by the man he too admired above all others. Nor did he need to be lectured by a diminutive, self-righteous upstart. He was much taken aback. In his rich, raspy voice, he reminded the young man before him that political leadership in Rome was not hereditary. Comporting himself as if it were had got Caesar murdered. Antony had run plenty of risks to ensure that Caesar was buried with honors, plenty more for the sake of his memory. It was entirely thanks to him, he testily informed Octavian, “that you in fact possess all the distinctions of Caesar’s that you do—family, name, rank and wealth.” Antony owed no explanations. He deserved gratitude rather than blame. Unable to resist, as he often was, Antony added a little poison dart to his message, upbraiding the stripling for his disrespect, “and you a young man and I your senior.” Octavian was moreover mistaken if he believed Antony coveted political power or resented the newcomer’s position. “Descent from Hercules is quite good enough for me,” huffed Antony, who—broad-shouldered, bull-necked, ridiculously handsome, with a thick head of curls and aquiline features—entirely looked the part. As for money, there was none in his hands. Octavian’s brilliant father had left the treasury quite empty.
Explosive though it was, that interview came as a relief to the Senate, to which there was only one danger greater than a public feud between the two Caesarians. Antony wielded political power. Octavian was respected, and surprisingly popular. Enthusiastic demonstrations greeted him throughout his travels. Far better that the two rivals obstruct each other, went the thinking, than that they join forces. Antony noted as much in his garden that spring morning. Octavian was fresh from his studies. Certainly in the course of them he had learned that the populace considered it their business to prolong discord, that they built up demagogues for the pleasure of knocking them down, that they encouraged them to destroy each other. He was of course right. And no one was better at fomenting dissension than Cicero, who could always be counted on, as a contemporary put it, to malign the prominent, blackmail the powerful, slander the distinguished. He now gamely obliged.
To Cicero the contest was a baneful one between weakness and villainy. In truth there were a dizzying number of options. Among Caesar’s assassins, Brutus and Cassius remained very much in the picture. A bold young man with a gift for assembling armies, Pompey’s son was in Spain with the greater part of the Roman navy. Sextus Pompey had on his side his own father’s still-bright reputation; he, too, was looking to avenge a parent and recover an inheritance. (He arguably had a greater claim on vengeance. As an adolescent, he had witnessed his father’s beheading off the coast of Egypt.) The consul Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, having succeeded Antony as Caesar’s second in command, having dined with Caesar the night before his murder, dreamed too of succeeding Caesar. He controlled a faction of Caesar’s army. Additional legions reported to additional consuls. Brutus had unexpectedly raised his army in record time.* It seemed that Octavian alone was without a command.
The most influential man in Rome after the Ides, Cicero found himself in much the same bind as Cleopatra. Which side to join? He could see that neutrality would on this occasion—the fifth civil war of his lifetime—not be possible. At the same time, he knew all the parties in question and was enchanted by none. In 44 Octavian struck him as a mere schoolboy, a nuisance rather than a prospect. “I don’t trust his age and I don’t know what he’s after,” Cicero carped. It was difficult to imagine Octavian—a pale-faced teenager in a city that preferred its complexions ruddy—as a commander in chief. He proferred himself as leader, and yet was so naïve as to believe that Rome could keep a secret! (It is interesting that few deigned to take Octavian seriously at eighteen, at which age Cleopatra already ruled Egypt.)
By May 44, when Cicero felt Rome no longer safe for him, he settled on Dolabella, though with a wrinkle. That dashing commander had for four years been his son-in-law. Dolabella and Cicero’s daughter had divorced during her pregnancy; Dolabella had subsequently been slow to repay the dowry, as he was obliged to do. Once an ardent Caesarian, Dolabella turned after the Ides against his former benefactor. He pretended even to have been party to the conspiracy, which he publicly approved. Cicero cheered loudly from the sidelines. As of May 1 his former son-in-law was “my wonderful Dolabella.” Stocky, long-haired Dolabella delivered a star performance of a speech. Cicero slobbered in admiration. Dolabella had so eloquently defended the assassins that Brutus could practically wear a crown himself! Surely, Cicero assured him, Dolabella knew already of his deep regard? (More likely, Dolabella knew of just the opposite.) Dolabella destroyed a makeshift column, raised to Caesar’s memory. He suppressed pro-Caesarian demonstrations. Cicero’s esteem only grew. “No affection was ever more ardent,” he effused. The Republic rested on Dolabella’s shoulders.
A week later Cicero was through with his former son-in-law. “The gall of the man!” he spat, declaring himself a bitter enemy. What had happened in the interim? Despite the fusillade of compliments, Dolabella had neglected to make good on his debt. There was a moment of reprieve; Cicero could not help but repeatedly congratulate Dolabella for a brilliant tirade against Antony, long the way to Cicero’s heart. On that count too, personal animosities trumped political issues. Trusted associates of Caesar both, Dolabella and Mark Antony had for several years been at odds following a certain indiscretion on the part of Ant
ony’s then wife. (For the same reason, she abruptly became his ex-wife.) Sometimes it indeed seemed as if there were only ten women in Rome. And in Cicero’s view, Mark Antony had slept with every one of them.
Politics have long been defined as “the systematic organization of hatreds.” Certainly nothing better described Rome in the years following the Ides, when enmity rather than issues divided Caesar’s assassins, Caesar’s heirs, and the last of the Pompeians, each of whom, it seemed, had an army, an agenda, and ambitions of his own. Among the bumper crop of personal vendettas, none was more savage than that of Cicero and Mark Antony. The bad blood went back decades. Antony’s father had died when he was ten, leaving so many debts that Antony had declined his inheritance. His stepfather, a celebrated orator, had been sentenced to death on Cicero’s orders. From his father, Mark Antony inherited a joyful, capricious temperament. He was given to sulks and sprees. His mother—by all accounts a force of nature—appeared to have fostered in her reckless son a taste for competent, strong-minded women. Without them Antony arguably would have self-destructed well before March 44. Already his personal life was something of a catastrophe. He cemented the family reputation for insolvency while still in his teens. His sterling military reputation was eclipsed only by his fame as a reveler; he left tutors half-dead in his carousing wake. He was given to good living, great parties, bad women. He was generous to a fault, always easier when the house you are rashly giving away is not yours in the first place. What was said of an earlier tribune was more true of Antony: “He was a spendthrift of money and chastity—his own and other people’s.” The brilliant cavalry officer had all of Caesar’s charm and none of his self-control. In 44 the conspirators had deemed him too inconsistent to be dangerous.
