Antony and Cleopatra

by Colleen McCullough

  “You may see Octavia at any time,” he was saying to her, “but be prepared for tears and children.”

  That was all the conversation they managed to hold together before her new serving maids put her into his bed.

  The house was very large and made of gloriously colored marbles, but its new owner hadn’t bothered to furnish it properly or to hang any paintings on the walls in places clearly designed for that purpose. The bed was very small for such a huge sleeping room. She had no idea that Hortensius had abhorred the tiny cubicles Romans slept in, so caused his own sleeping room to be the size of another man’s study.

  “Tomorrow your servants will install you in your own suite of rooms,” he said, getting into the bed in pitch darkness; he had snuffed out the candle in the doorway.

  That became the first evidence of his innate modesty, which she would find difficult to overcome. Having shared the marriage bed with two other men, she expected urgent fumbling, pokes, and pinches, an assault that she assumed was structured to arouse her to the same degree of want, though it never had.

  But that was not Caesar’s way (she must, must, must remember to call him Caesar!). The bed was too narrow not to feel his naked length alongside hers, yet he made no attempt to touch her otherwise. Suddenly he climbed on top of her, used his knees to push her legs apart, and inserted his penis into a sadly juiceless receptacle, so unprepared was she. However, it didn’t seem to put him off; he worked diligently to a silent climax, removed himself from her and the bed with a muttered word that he must wash, and left the room. When he didn’t come back she lay there bewildered, then called for a servant and a light.

  He was in his study, seated behind a battered old desk loaded with scrolls, loose sheets of paper under his right hand, which held a simple, unadorned reed pen. Her father Libo’s pen was sheathed in gold, had a pearl on top. But Octavian—Caesar—clearly cared nothing for those kinds of appearances.

  “Husband, are you well?” she asked.

  He had looked up at the advent of another light; now he gave her the loveliest smile she had ever seen. “Yes,” he said.

  “Did I displease you?” she asked.

  “Not at all. You were very nice.”

  “Do you do this often?”

  “Do what?”

  “Um—ah—work rather than sleep?”

  “All the time. I like the peace and quiet.”

  “And I’ve disturbed you. I’m sorry. I won’t again.”

  He put his head down absently. “Good night, Scribonia.”

  Only hours later did he lift his head again, remember that little encounter. And thought with a sense of enormous relief that he liked his new wife. She understood the boundaries, and if he could quicken her, the pact with Sextus Pompey would hold.

  Octavia was not at all what she had expected, Scribonia discovered when she went to pay that condolence call. To her surprise, she found her new sister-in-law tearless and cheerful. It must have shown in her eyes, for Octavia laughed, pressed her into a comfortable chair.

  “Little Gaius told you I was prostrate with grief.”

  “Little Gaius?”

  “Caesar. I can’t get out of the habit of calling him Little Gaius because that’s how I see him—as a dear little boy toddling around behind me making a thorough nuisance of himself.”

  “You love him very much.”

  “To distraction. But these days he’s so grand and terribly important that big sisters and their ‘Little Gaiuses’ do not sit well. However, you appear to be a woman of good sense, so I trust you not to tell him what I say about him.”

  “Dumb and blind. Also deaf.”

  “The pity of it is that he never had a proper childhood. The asthma plagued him so dreadfully that he couldn’t mix with other boys or do his military exercises on the Campus Martius.”

  Scribonia looked blank. “Asthma? What is that?”

  “He wheezes until he goes black in the face. Sometimes he nearly dies of it. Oh, it’s awful to watch!” Octavia’s eyes looked at an old, familiar horror. “It’s worst when there’s dust in the air, or around horses from the chaff. That’s why Marcus Antonius was able to say that Little Gaius hid in the marshes at Philippi and contributed nothing to the victory. The truth is that there was a shocking drought. The battlefield was a thick fog of dust and dead grass—certain death. The only place where Little Gaius could find relief was in the marshland between the plain and the sea. It is a worse grief to him that he appeared to be avoiding combat than the loss of Marcellus is to me. I do not say that lightly, believe me.”

  “But people would understand if only they knew!” Scribonia cried. “I too heard that canard, and I simply assumed it was true. Couldn’t Caesar have published a pamphlet or something?”

  “His pride wouldn’t let him. Nor would it have been prudent. People don’t want senior magistrates who are likely to die early. Besides, Antonius got in first.” Octavia looked miserable. “He isn’t a bad man, but he’s so healthy himself that he has no patience with those who are sickly or delicate. To Antonius, the asthma is an act, a pretext to excuse cowardice. We’re all cousins, but we’re all very different, and Little Gaius is the most different. He’s desperately driven. The asthma is a symptom of it, so the Egyptian physician who ministered to Divus Julius said.”

  Scribonia shivered. “What do I do if he can’t breathe?”

  “You’ll probably never see it,” said Octavia, having no trouble seeing that her new sister-in-law was falling in love with Little Gaius. Not a thing she could avert, but understandably a thing that was bound to lead to bitter sorrow. Scribonia was a lovely woman, but not capable of fascinating either Little Gaius or Imperator Caesar. “In Rome his breathing is usually normal unless there’s drought. This year has been halcyon. I don’t worry about him while he’s here, nor should you. He knows what to do if he has an attack, and there’s always Agrippa.”

  “The stern young man who stood with him at our wedding.”

  “Yes. They’re not like twins,” Octavia said with the air of one who has puzzled a conundrum through to its solution. “No rivalry exists between them. It’s more as if Agrippa fits into the voids in Little Gaius. Sometimes when the children are being particularly naughty, I wish I could split myself into two of me. Well, Little Gaius has succeeded in doing that. He has Marcus Agrippa, his other half.”

  By the time that Scribonia left Octavia’s house she had met the children, a tribe whom Octavia treated as if all of them were born of her own womb, and learned that next time she came, Atia would be there. Atia, her mother-in-law. She also dug deeper into the secrets of this extraordinary family. How could Caesar pretend that his mother was dead? How great were his pride and hauteur, that he couldn’t excuse the understandable lapse of an otherwise unimpeachable woman? According to Octavia, the mother of Imperator Caesar Divi Filius could have absolutely no failings. His attitude spoke volumes about what he expected from a wife. Poor Servilia Vatia and Clodia, virgins both, but hampered by having morally unsatisfactory mothers. As he did himself, and better Atia was dead than living proof of it.

  Yet, walking home between two gigantic and fierce German guards, his face filled her thoughts. Could she make him love her? Oh, pray she could make him love her! Tomorrow, she resolved, I will offer to Juno Sospita for a pregnancy, and to Venus Erucina that I please him in bed, and to the Bona Dea for uterine harmony, and to Vediovis just in case disappointment is lurking. And to Spes, who is Hope.

  7

  Octavian was in Rome when the news came from Brundisium that Marcus Antonius, accompanied by two legions, had attempted to enter its harbor, but been rebuffed. The chain had been cranked up, the bastions manned. Brundisium didn’t care what status the monster Antonius enjoyed, the letter said, nor did it care if the Senate ordered it to admit him. Let him enter Italia anywhere he liked: just not through Brundisium. Since the only other port within the area able to land two legions was Tarentum, on the far side of the heel, a foiled and furious
Antonius had had to land his men in much smaller ports around Brundisium, thus scattering them.

  “He should have gone to Ancona,” Octavian said to Agrippa.

  “He’d have been able to link up with Pollio and Ventidius there, and by now would be marching on Rome.”

  “Were he sure of Pollio, he would have,” Agrippa replied, “but he isn’t sure of him.”

  “Then you believe Plancus’s letter tattling of doubts and discontent?” Octavian waved a single sheet of paper.

  “Yes, I do.”

  “So do I,” Octavian said, grinning. “Plancus is in a cleft stick—he’d prefer Antonius, but he wants to keep an avenue open to me in case the time comes to hop the fence to our side of it.”

  “You have too many legions around Brundisium for Antonius to band his men together again until Pollio arrives, which my scouts say won’t happen for at least a nundinum.”

  “Time enough for us to reach Brundisium, Agrippa. Are our legions placed across the Via Minucia?”

  “Perfectly placed. If Pollio wants to avoid a fight, he’ll have to march to Beneventum and the Via Appia.”

  Octavian put his pen in its holder and gathered his papers together in neat piles that comprised correspondence with bodies and persons, drafts of laws, and detailed maps of Italia. He rose. “Then it’s off to Brundisium,” he said. “I hope Maecenas and my Nerva are ready? What about the neutral one?”

  “If you didn’t bury yourself under a landslide of papers, Caesar, you’d know,” Agrippa said in a tone only he dared use to Octavian.

  “They’ve been ready for days. And Maecenas has sweet-talked the neutral Nerva into coming along.”

  “Excellent!”

  “Why is he so important, Caesar?”

  “Well, when one brother elected Antonius and the other me, his neutrality was the only way the Cocceius Nerva faction could continue to exist should Antonius and I come to blows. Antonius’s Nerva died in Syria, which left a vacancy on his side. A vacancy that saw Lucius Nerva in a lather of sweat—did he dare choose to fill it? In the end, he said no, though he would not choose me either.” Octavian smirked. “With his wife wielding the lash, he’s tied to Rome, therefore—neutrality.”

  “I know all that, but it begs the question.”

  “You’ll have an answer if my scheme succeeds.”

  What had propelled Mark Antony off his comfortable Athenian couch was a letter from Octavian.

  “My very dear Antonius,” it said, “it grieves me sorely to have to pass on the news I have just received from Further Spain. Your brother Lucius died in Corduba not very long into his tenure as governor. From all the many reports I have read of the matter, he simply dropped dead. No lingering, no pain. The physicians say it was a catastrophe originating in the brain, which autopsy revealed was full of blood around its stem. He was cremated in Corduba, and the ashes were sent to me along with documentation sufficient to satisfy me on all counts. I hold his ashes and the reports against your coming. Please accept my sincere condolences.” It was sealed with Divus Julius’s sphinx ring.

  Of course Antony didn’t believe a word of it beyond the fact that Lucius was dead; within a day he was hurrying to Patrae, and orders had gone to western Macedonia to embark two legions from Apollonia immediately. The other eight were put on standby for shipment to Brundisium as soon as he summoned them.

  Intolerable that Octavian should have the news first! And why had no word come to him ahead of that letter? Antony read the missive as a challenge thrown down: your brother’s ashes are in Rome—come and get them if you dare! Did he dare? By Jupiter Optimus Maximus and all the gods, he dared!

  An informative letter from Plancus to Octavian sped off from Patrae, where the enraged Antony was obliged to wait until his two legions were confirmed as sailed. It went (had Antony only known of its contents, it would not have) together with Antony’s curt order to Pollio to get his legions moving down the Via Adriatica; at the moment they were in Fanum Fortunae, where Pollio could move on Rome along the Via Flaminia, or hug the Adriatic coast to Brundisium. A quailing Plancus begged a place on Antony’s ship, judging his chances of slipping through the lines to Octavian easier on Italian soil. By now he was desperately wishing that he hadn’t sent that letter—could he be sure Octavian wouldn’t leak its contents back to Antony?

  His guilt made Plancus an edgy, anxious companion on the voyage, so when, in mid-Adriatic, the fleet of Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus hove in sight, Plancus soiled his loincloth and almost fainted.

  “Oh, Antonius, we’re dead men!” he wailed.

  “At the hands of Ahenobarbus? Never!” said Antony, nostrils flaring. “Plancus, I do believe you shit yourself!”

  Plancus fled, leaving Antony to wait for the arrival of a rowboat heading for his ship. His own standard still fluttered from the mast, but Ahenobarbus had lowered his.

  Squat, dark, and bald, Ahenobarbus clambered neatly up a rope ladder and advanced on Antony, grinning from ear to ear. “At last!” the irascible one cried, hugging Antony. “You’re moving on that odious little insect Octavianus, aren’t you? Please say you are!”

  “I am” was Antony’s answer. “May he choke on his own shit! Plancus just shit himself at sight of you, and I would have put his courage higher than Octavianus’s. Do you know what Octavianus did, Ahenobarbus? He murdered Lucius in Further Spain, then had the gall to write and inform me that he’s the proud owner of Lucius’s ashes! He dares me to collect them! Is he mad?”

  “I’m your man through thick and thin,” Ahenobarbus said huskily. “My fleet is yours.”

  “Good,” said Antony, extricating himself from a very strong embrace. “I may need a big warship with a solid bronze beak to break Brundisium’s harbor chain.”

  But not a sixteener with a twenty-talent bronze beak could have broken the chain strung across the harbor mouth; anyway, Ahenobarbus didn’t have a ship half as large as a sixteener. The chain was anchored between two concrete piers reinforced with iron pieces, and each of its bronze links was fashioned from metal six inches thick. Neither Antony nor Ahenobarbus had ever seen a more monstrous barrier, nor a population so jubilant at sight of their frustrated attempts to snap that barrier. While the women and children cheered and jeered, the men of Brundisium subjected Ahenobarbus’s battle quinquereme to a murderous hail of spears and arrows that finally drove it offshore.

  “I can’t do it!” Ahenobarbus yelled, weeping in rage. “Oh, but when I do, they’re going to suffer! And where did it come from? The old chain was a tenth this one’s size!”

  “That Apulian peasant Agrippa installed this one,” Plancus was able to say, sure he no longer smelled of shit. “When I left to seek refuge with you, Antonius, the Brundisians were quick to explain its genesis. Agrippa has fortified this place better than Ilium was, including on its land sides.”

  “They won’t die quickly,” Antony snarled. “I’ll impale the town magistrates on stakes up their arses and drive them in at the rate of an inch a day.”

  “Ow, ow!” said Plancus, flinching at the thought. “What are we going to do?”

  “Wait for my troops and land them wherever we can to north and south,” said Antony. “Once Pollio arrives—he’s taking his sweet time!—we’ll squash this benighted place from its land side, Agrippa’s fortifications or no. After a siege, I suppose. They know I won’t be kind to them—they’ll resist to the end.”

  So Antony withdrew to the island off Brundisium’s harbor mouth, there to wait for Pollio and try to discover what had become of Ventidius, curiously silent.

  Sextilis had ended and the Nones of September were gone, though the weather was still hot enough to make island living an ordeal. Antony paced; Plancus watched him pace. Antony growled; Plancus pondered. Antony’s thoughts never left the subject of Lucius Antonius; Plancus’s ranged far and wide on one subject too, but a more fascinating one—Marcus Antonius. For Plancus was seeing new facets in Antony, and didn’t like what he saw. Wonderful, glorious
Fulvia wove in and out of his mind—so brave and fierce, so—so interesting. How could Antony have beaten a woman, let alone his wife? The granddaughter of Gaius Gracchus!

  He’s like a small child with its mother, Plancus thought, brushing at tears. He should be in the East fighting the Parthians—that’s his duty. Instead, he’s here on Italian soil, as if he hasn’t the courage to abandon it. Is it Octavianus who eats at him, or is it insecurity? At his core, does Antonius believe he can win future laurels? Oh, he’s brave, but generaling armies doesn’t demand bravery. It’s more an intellectual exercise, an art, a talent. Divus Julius was a genius at it, Antonius is Divus Julius’s cousin. But to Antonius, I suspect that fact is more a burden than a delight. He’s so terrified of failing that, like Pompeius Magnus, he won’t move unless he has superior numbers. Which he has here in Italia, between Pollio, Ventidius, and his own legions just across a small sea. Sufficient to crush Octavianus, even now Octavianus has Calenus’s eleven legions in Further Gaul. I gather that they’re still in Further Gaul under the command of Salvidienus, writing to Antonius regularly in an attempt to switch sides. One little item I didn’t tell Octavianus.