CONCLUSION: HISTORY
AND THE GREAT ROMANCE
All attempts to revive the queen failed. Octavian ordered special snake handlers known as Psylli to be brought, since these were credited with being able to suck poison from wounds. He was said to be angry, but treated the body with all due respect. Cleopatra was interred alongside Antony in the mausoleum she had built. Octavian was more scornful of earlier Ptolemies. He paid a visit to the tomb of Alexander, not simply looking at the corpse within the crystal sarcophagus, but reaching inside to touch it, and accidentally snapped off part of the nose. When asked if he would like to see the tombs of Cleopatra’s family, he said that he had come to see a king and not a load of corpses.
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Based on the well-established tradition of entertaining visiting Roman dignitaries, he was also asked if he wanted to see the Apis bull. Octavian was not interested, saying that he worshipped ‘gods and not cattle’. He was far more concerned to gather as much gold and other treasure as possible, a task made easier by Cleopatra’s energetic fund-raising since her return from Actium. Dio says that he did not need to commit sacrilege by confiscating property from the temples.
He may have received additional ‘gifts’ from the temple cults. Plutarch claims that Antony’s statues were destroyed, but a man named Archibus paid 1,000 talents to Octavian to protect the images of the queen. Many of these would have been carved onto temples and their destruction likely to cause wider damage to the physical structure and prestige of these shrines. Some doubt the story altogether, but others suggest that the man was a representative of one of the priestly cults. Even if that is so, the gesture need not be an indication of particular fondness for Cleopatra. Octavian wanted money, and it was better for the temples and more convenient for him if this was willingly’ given rather than taken. The temple cults would also naturally hope to prove as useful to the new Roman occupiers just as they been to the Ptolemies.
Apart from treasure there were other trophies. Two ancient obelisks were taken to Rome, one to form the gnomon of a giant sundial constructed by Octavian. (Today it stands in the Piazza di Montecitorio. The other is in the Piazza San Giovanni in Laterano.) On a smaller scale, the pearl earring that survived Cleopatra’s trick with vinegar was split into two and placed in the ears of the statue of the queen in the temple of Venus Genetrix. Some suggest that the statue itself came to Rome as part of Octavian’s spoils, rather than being set up in Caesar’s day.
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Antony and Cleopatra were not the only victims of their defeat. Canidius was executed, as was Cassius of Parma, the last survivor of Caesar’s assassins. Rather more of Antony’s closest followers managed to change sides before it was too late and at the very least saved their lives. Sosius, the consul of 32 BC who had led the attack on Octavian in the Senate and later commanded the left wing of the fleet at Actium, surrendered and was well treated. Marcus Licinius Crassus, grandson of Caesar’s ally, defected somewhat earlier and was rewarded with the consulship in 30 BC. Munatius Plancus did well out of the new regime and after a long life was interred in a monumental mausoleum, which stands to this day at Gaeta on the coast of Italy. It was said that many of Octavian’s closest companions in the years to come were men who had once followed Antony.
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Antyllus did not long survive his father. The teenager, who had only a few months before becoming a man, was dragged from the shrine to Caesar built by Cleopatra in Alexandria. He was beheaded on Octavian’s orders. His tutor had betrayed him and then stolen a valuable gem the youth wore as a pendant. The jewel was discovered hidden in the tutor’s belt and he was crucified.
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Caesarion was also betrayed by his tutor on the journey to the Red Sea. The man’s name was Rhodion, and he either sent word to their pursuers or actually lured his charge back to Alexandria. Caesarion was immediately murdered. Areius the philosopher is supposed to have urged Octavian to give this order, changing a passage of the
Iliad to declare that ‘there can be too many Caesars’. (In the original, Odysseus controlled a meeting of the Greeks who were inclined to abandon the war with Troy by physical force, and telling them, ‘Surely not all of us Achaians can be as kings here. Lordship for many is no good thing. Let there be one ruler, one king… to watch over his people.’
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On 1 January 29 BC Octavian became consul for the fourth time. Between 13 and 15 August he celebrated three triumphs. The first was for his victories in Illyricum, which he had deferred in 34 BC. The second was for Actium and the third for the capture of Alexandria. An effigy of Cleopatra — and probably pictures as well — was carried as part of the procession. She was depicted with two snakes. This makes it clear that the story of the queen dying from a snakebite was already current and given official support. On the other hand, other forms of poison would have been more difficult to represent. Horace had written: ‘Now is the time for drinking, now stamp the earth in dance’ in a poem celebrating the defeat of Rome’s enemy. Yet later in the same piece he spoke of the queen’s courage in taking her own life. Attitudes towards Cleopatra were already changing. The Romans admired courage, even in an enemy — or at least in a defeated enemy.
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Also included in the triumph were Alexander Helios and Cleopatra Selene, now aged about eleven, and perhaps the seven-year-old Ptolemy Philadelphus. The latter is not mentioned by name, but apart from Antyllus and Caesarion none of Antony’s or Cleopatra’s other children was harmed. All were raised in the household of Octavia. Antyllus’ younger brother Iullus Antonius enjoyed considerable favour until he was involved in the scandal surrounding Octavian’s daughter Julia in 2 BC. It may in fact have been an attempted coup, and certainly the punishments were severe. Julia was exiled. Iullus and a number of other young men from prominent senatorial families were executed. Cleopatra Selene was in due course married to King Juba II of Mauretania. (He was the son of Juba I of Numidia and as a boy had also walked as a prisoner when Caesar celebrated his African triumph in 45 BC.) Her two remaining brothers may have accompanied her to live in the royal court. Juba and Cleopatra Selene’s son Ptolemy succeeded to the kingdom, until he was deposed and executed by Emperor Caligula, who was himself Antony’s great-grandson.
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Caligula was the first of three emperors to be descended from Mark Antony, through the younger Antonia, his second child with Octavia. When Caligula was murdered, he was succeeded by his uncle – and Antony’s grandson – Claudius. The latter was followed by another of Antony’s great-grandsons, this time through the elder Antonia, who married the son of Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus, the man who had defected before Actium. His name was Nero and he proved himself to be one of the least capable men ever to hold imperial power at Rome, although perhaps his love of music and display owed something to his ancestor.
With Nero’s suicide, the Julio-Claudian line of emperors established by Octavian/Augustus came to an end. His creation, the system of imperial rule known as the Principate, would endure for another two centuries, and emperors would rule from Italy until the fifth century and from Constantinople until the fifteenth century. The man who defeated Antony and Cleopatra was Rome’s first emperor, whose reforms fundamentally altered the state. His success was not inevitable. Only thirty-two when Antony and Cleopatra killed themselves, no one would have guessed that he would live on and continue to dominate for another forty-four years. Indeed, given his continuing poor health and bouts of apparently life-threatening illness, his survival was all the more amazing. Octavian became Augustus, and over a long time and after a number of changes of direction, he shaped the system that would govern the empire in the height of its success.
We cannot know how different things would have been if Antony had won, or simply outlived his rival. At no point in his career did Antony suggest strong commitment to any particular reforms. All of his legislation as consul and triumvir was designed first and foremost to bring tangible advantage to himself and his close allies. He does not appear to have wanted to change the state, but simply to have as much power and wealth as possible. In this Antony’s ambitions were highly traditional, even if his methods were extreme. The same could be said of many senators in the last decades of the Republic.
As an adult, Cleopatra’s first concern was always to stay in power. The greatest threats came from her own family and those in the court willing to support them. Arsinoe and her two brothers were disposed of, but she did not live long enough for her own children to challenge her position. The grants of land made to her by Antony, culminating in the Donations, offered a way of maintaining her dominance, becoming ‘Queen of Kings’ and so on a higher level than her offspring. Her survival and this elevation were achieved solely through Roman support.
Julius Caesar’s critics claimed — and perhaps genuinely believed — that he wanted to become a king, and the only real model for kingship was that of the Hellenistic world. Some saw Cleopatra as encouraging his desire, but the evidence makes this unlikely. Caesar was dictator, held supreme power, which he clearly intended to keep, and this was enough to prompt his murder. There is scarcely much more evidence to support the allegations of Octavian’s propaganda that Antony and Cleopatra planned some form of joint rule. Her supposed boast of giving judgement on the Capitol and his alleged plan of moving the centre of rule from Rome to Alexandria are just some of the contradictions in the charges made against them. Antony kept Cleopatra at his side in the civil war. That attested to her importance to him, but was a serious political mistake. He had done nothing to promote her position more formally in a Roman context.
If either Antony or Cleopatra wanted to rule as king and queen of a Roman empire — and this does seem unlikely — then such a plan was utterly unrealistic. Caesar had been murdered for far less, and although since then people had been forced to accept that power lay with the commanders of the strongest armies, they were certainly not ready to accept open monarchy. Octavian toned down some of the grander projects and symbols of his power in the next decade or so. These were far less provocative than the presence of a foreign queen at the side of the man who controlled Rome. If Antony and Cleopatra had won the civil war and tried to rule as monarchs, then they would have failed. He would certainly have been murdered and she might also have perished. Indeed, it is hard to believe that Antony would have survived in the long run even if he had tried to exercise power in a more traditionally Roman way. Subtlety was never his strongpoint and he too readily paraded his power. Opinion at Rome was not yet ready for this. Octavian would take care to veil the reality of his sole power behind a façade of tradition.
Antony’s career reflected the great advantages enjoyed by the established nobility at Rome. He was raised to expect a place at the centre of the Republic and his birth gave him so many advantages that at least some eminence was assured, assuming that he lived long enough. This was true in spite of the heavy debts he inherited from his father and accumulated on his own. The record of his uncle, Caius Antonius Hybrida, is instructive. He was expelled from the Senate in 70 BC and yet managed to become consul in 63 BC. Exiled in the civil war, he nevertheless returned to Rome and public life. Established families like the Antonii had a strong network of clients and connections, bolstered by past favours and the promise of more in the future. They also had the added advantage that their name was well known.
It was because he was an Antonius that Caesar was so ready to promote Antony’s career. Few
nobiles joined Caesar in Gaul and even fewer sided with him in 49 BC. Men like Antony were valuable for their name and connections as much or more than any personal ability. The deputies Caesar employed to control Italy in his absence were all men from established families. In the confusion of civil war, Antony gained responsibilities far greater than would normally have been possible for a man of his age, however eminent his family. Luck also played a part. In 44 BC Antony was consul, making him the most senior magistrate when the dictator was murdered. He had immediate power, and the promise of a province and army in the near future. Combined with his name and family connections, this provided the basis for his dominance for the next thirteen years.
None of this had much to do with exceptional talent. Antony began his career with considerable advantages and made the most of his opportunities. In 44 BC he exploited his position as consul to the full, building up his power and influence. Personally brave, he enjoyed considerable success in small-scale engagements, but that was also true of many senators. In more senior positions he proved an adequate subordinate officer to Caesar, but in independent commands Antony failed more often than he succeeded. He was beaten in 43 BC and survived only through the political manoeuvring that created the triumvirate. At Philippi he proved the most able of the four senior commanders, but since none of the others displayed any real skill this achievement should not be exaggerated. Had Brutus been a better general, he might well have turned his success in the First Battle of Philippi into a decisive victory, while Antony was caught up in the details of storming Cassius’ camp. The invasion of Media was a disaster caused largely by his own mistakes. In 31 BC he let the enemy take and keep the initiative, and his only achievement was to break out from the blockade, abandoning two-thirds of his fleet and virtually all of his army.
Antony was not a very good general, in spite of his own public image and the portrayal of him in our ancient sources and modern myth. His political rise allowed him to amass huge resources of men and supplies massed for the attack on Parthia, but he proved incapable of using them well. On its own, a large army is no guarantee of victory. The failure in Media was the turning point in his career. He achieved very little in the years that followed. It is tempting to see him in these years as suffering some sort of mental and emotional breakdown — today we might speak of post traumatic stress disorder — and probably declining into alcoholism, as he struggled to cope with his defeat.
There was nothing in his past career to expect a more competent performance in 31 BC, and yet his behaviour seems so exceptionally lethargic that it again reinforces the picture of a man broken in spirit, and in turn indecisive or rash. Perhaps Cleopatra sensed this and that was one of the reasons she wished to stay beside him in the hope of strengthening his resolve. Yet she was no commander, and while they were able to concentrate a grand navy and army in Greece, they do not seem to have known how to use these forces to achieve victory. In a way, this would bring us closer to Octavian’s propaganda, which painted Antony as controlled by the queen. The difference would be that Cleopatra was not the cause of Antony’s weakness, but the source of whatever strength he had left. The evidence can support this interpretation, but then it can equally support other views. We simply do not have enough information to understand the emotional state and motives of Antony, Cleopatra or any of the major figures in their story. We can only look at what happened.
In spite of his shaky start, Octavian was by this time better able to play the part of a general than Antony. More importantly, he had Agrippa to make the key decisions and actually lead the soldiers and sailors in battle. The skill with which Octavian won the propaganda war has frequently been noted; the degree to which he and Agrippa so far outstripped Antony’s military talent is usually ignored. In 31 BC Antony was outclassed and outmanoeuvred in every important respect. He had resources to match his opponent, but failed to use them anywhere near as well.
Mark Antony had risen to be one of the most powerful men in the Roman world through his family background, joining Caesar and sharing his success, and the chance that placed him at the centre of things when the latter was murdered. He showed some skill as a politician and administrator, but had only limited ability as a soldier. Like the overwhelming majority of politicians throughout history, Antony’s rise owed little to conspicuous talent and far more to good connections, luck and the ardent desire for power, position and wealth. In this respect his career was traditional, and the same was true of his ambitions. This again made him very different to Octavian. The latter could easily have died young or been defeated and utterly discredited by Sextus Pompey. Antony was ready for war –or at the very least for a demonstration of force – against his triumviral colleague by 33 BC. Yet he had not used his time in the east at all well to prepare himself for this conflict.
Cleopatra was more intelligent, and certainly far better educated, than Antony. It is harder to say whether she was more able in other respects. Her political ability was enough to keep her in power for two decades, through harnessing Roman support. We do not really know how popular she was within her kingdom, whether in Alexandria with its mixed population, amongst the Greek community or with the various sections of the wider Egyptian people. Roman force restored her after her exile and kept her in power, just as it had done for her father. Rome dominated the Mediterranean world and this brings us back to one of the basic facts about Cleopatra’s life with which we began. In terms of power and political importance, she was never the equal of Caesar or Antony, or indeed of any Roman senator. Her Roman supporters — and most of all her two lovers — kept her on the throne and added to her territory. She could not have achieved this on her own.
Cleopatra was the last of the Ptolemies to rule from Alexandria, since Caesarion cannot really be counted as ruling in his own right. Her kingdom was the last of the great powers created in the breakup of Alexander the Great’s empire, and in that sense her death marked the end of an era. Yet the rise of Rome had occurred over a long period and was already clearly unstoppable by the time she was born. Cleopatra did not try to resist Rome, but accepted its power and tried best to make use of it.
Antony was the last man to challenge the dominance of Octavian. His death marked the beginning of another new era, the rule of Rome by emperors — three of whom would be his descendants. Later tradition, fuelled by a senatorial class nostalgic for their former political dominance, at times cast him as closer in spirit to Brutus and Cassius on the basis that he had opposed Octavian just as they had murdered Caesar. Such claims make little sense. As triumvir, Antony shared supreme power equivalent to that of a dictator and was unaccountable either to the Senate or Popular Assemblies. There is no doubt that he would also have taken exclusive dictatorial powers if he had been able to seize them. Antony did not fight and lose against Octavian for any vision of the Republic, but for personal supremacy.
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As much as anything else it was the drama of Antony and Cleopatra’s suicides that helped to fuel the fascination with them, which persists to this day. Their stories grew, and over the centuries were embellished so that the truth began to be buried. Cleopatra became the far larger figure, more famous and more important in a way she had never been in life. Today an image of Cleopatra probably owes more to Elizabeth Taylor than the Ptolemaic queen, but is instantly recognisable, whether on screen or as a fancy dress costume. Antony lags behind, rarely mentioned unless in the same breath as Cleopatra.
This is not the place to trace the long cultural history of Antony and Cleopatra, for that is a major theme in itself and has already been dealt with in other books. Here, the focus has been exclusively on the Antony and Cleopatra of history, of what we know, and do not know, and sometimes what we guess. Fiction and drama freely invent and alter, but in the simple history there was ambition, pride, cruelty, ruthlessness, jealousy, deceit, savagery and passion enough. Neither Antony nor Cleopatra lived a quiet life. They will continue to fascinate, their story being retold and reinvented by each new generation. The same is almost as true of their most famous fictional portrayal, as new productions of Shakespeare’s play adopt different styles and presentations. Nothing any historian could say will ever stop this process, nor should it.
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The history is there for those who care to look and, as we have seen, the sources contain many gaps and difficulties of interpretation. It is unlikely that these will ever be filled and the mysteries will remain. There will be fresh archaeological discoveries, but these are unlikely to add more than small details to our picture of the world. The underwater excavations on the site of Alexandria have produced a great quantity of artefacts, although since the city was occupied for so many centuries only a small proportion date to the first century BC, let alone have any direct connection with Cleopatra. Yet such is the appeal of her name and story that people will continue to hunt for places more intimately linked to the queen and her Roman lover.
Recently, one team has claimed to be close to finding the mausoleum in which Antony and Cleopatra were interred – a story that rapidly made the newspapers and television news reports. Nothing has come of this so far, and such a find seems unlikely. It is true that such a discovery might provide much new information, although this would inevitably be mainly personal and not in any way alter our understanding of the politics of the time. Even so, as an historian, any new discoveries would be of interest. Yet in the main, I cannot help hoping that the excavators are unsuccessful. Neither Antony nor Cleopatra enjoyed much peace in their lives (although it is of course arguable whether or not they deserved more or less than they experienced). It would seem a shame if their remains ended up on display to crowds of tourists, or even examined, stored and catalogued in a museum basement. Both Cleopatra and Antony separately expressed the wish to be laid to rest next to the other. Better to let them stay like that, in the tomb that she began and was completed after their suicides.
