The Murder of Cleopatra (21 page)

Antony did not have enough warriors to man the ships, to row, or to fight on land and at sea effectively. One possibility was to simply abandon the fleet and take all the men, still a large force, and fight on land or retreat and come back to fight another day. There is much dissension over why Antony did not choose either of these options. The most negative viewpoint is that Cleopatra wouldn't let him and he gave in to her wishes. A slightly less jaded view is that Antony recognized that if he abandoned the fleet and Cleopatra, he would lose her support and her treasure, and he would have to take a disgruntled bunch of men off through difficult terrain, through high mountain passes, with dwindling supplies and morale, and survive through the
coming winter. This was not a very attractive prospect.

In my opinion, Antony had to choose the lesser of two evils. If he escaped with his army, he might just as well sign his own death warrant or at least accept that his military and political career was over. He would spend the remaining years of his life in some backwater, hiding from Octavian. But if he left with Cleopatra, he would still have a fleet and a lot of money, and he could rejoin the rest of his dozen legions that had remained behind in Egypt. As I have often said, if he and Cleopatra escaped, anything could happen over the course of the next year that could hold out the hope of (1) putting them back in contention to take over the empire (especially if Octavian happened to die of one of his many alleged illnesses); (2) allowing them to hold onto Egypt (if Octavian's power dwindled); or (3) giving them the opportunity to reestablish themselves elsewhere (if they needed to flee). I think a number of historians, ancient and modern, have been overly harsh with respect to Cleopatra and Antony's decision to bolt from Actium with whatever they could take with them. And this is clearly the plan of action they decided to take and successfully enacted.

I think it is odd that Plutarch and future tellers of the tale of Cleopatra and Antony's escape from Actium try so hard to portray Antony as oblivious to Cleopatra's plan to hightail it with her fleet at the height of the battle. Even Octavian knew they were planning to break out and flee; what choice did they have? And Octavian had two choices. One was to simply allow them to go through his blockade and then pick off as many ships from their fleet as he could while they sailed away, but that would be seen as a sign of weakness. The more ships and men remained in their fleet, the more he would have to deal with later. On the other hand, he could reduce their numbers as much as possible by forcing them to fight but make sure the Lagide treasury did not sink to the bottom of the sea during the battle. Octavian would actually want Cleopatra to sail away safely at that point, and later he would go to Egypt, conquer her, and retrieve the treasure.

I think the battle actually went as planned on both sides. Cleopatra
loaded sails onto her ships, and her fleet stayed safely behind the battle lines. Antony loaded sails onto some of his ships as well. Octavian knew they had done this and that sails meant a plan to hurry off, not stay and fight, since added sails reduced the maneuverability of the ships, which is obviously not a great idea if you are planning to use the ships in battle. Octavian moved his ships out into the harbor so that Antony would be forced into the open with his warships. Then, the battle would begin but this time with Octavian in possession of far more ships than Antony (due to the fact that Antony did not have enough oarsmen to man all his ships). Octavian could easily force Antony's ships to spread out in a line and then have his own ships surround each of Antony's and take them down.

And this is exactly what happened on the morning of September 2, 31 BCE; the Battle of Actium began. Octavian and his generals waited with his fleet a distance from the shore, while Antony went out to engage them and the fighting began. Then the day wore on and the lines naturally thinned. Cleopatra waited for the afternoon wind to shift so she could put up her sails and speed southward, a change of wind
which she expected
; it was not a stroke of luck as Plutarch would have us believe. When the time was right, her fleet of sixty ships sailed quickly through the center of the lines, and when Antony saw her make her break, he transferred from the unwieldy ship he was on to a smaller, faster galley with sails (which he conveniently had waiting nearby) and set after Cleopatra with about twenty of his own ships (at least this is the number Plutarch gives us). Plutarch claims that two-thirds of the fleet was left behind to fight on and eventually surrender (so it would suggest that far more than twenty of Antony's ships accompanied him) while Cleopatra and Antony, the Lagide treasure, and a sizeable portion of their combined fleet were safely on their way back to Egypt.

Octavian was clearly the victor of the Battle of Actium, but this did not actually mean at the time that Antony and Cleopatra were completely destroyed. Antony was still in charge of half of the Roman Empire, and Cleopatra was still in charge of Egypt. The
biggest problem with their loss at Actium, however, was that word eventually got out to the client kingdoms of Egypt and of Antony that Octavian had beaten the pair, which started a rather unfortunate negative attitude toward Antony. Why would they provide more men and war matériel for the losing side at Actium? Then, as Octavian moved toward Egypt, each of these allies had to decide whether to back Antony or Octavian; since the odds seemed to be in Octavian's favor, they went with the surer bet. Like a row of dominos flicked from one end, each country fell without resistance to Octavian as he made his way toward Alexandria.

Surely Cleopatra and Antony realized how likely it was that, bit by bit, their power would erode with Octavian's advancing army. It was during this last year, as they saw ultimate defeat facing them, that they switched to Plan B before it was too late. Although there had been rumors from Rome of at least one plan to assassinate Octavian (by Marcus Lepidus, son of Brutus) and, of course, Octavian's health was still questionable (they could always hope he would just keel over and die), neither of these options seemed likely. The Roman soldiers who served Octavian and wanted their pay from an exhausted treasury might take matters into their own hands and depose their leader (which is why Octavian would have to come to Egypt and plunder Cleopatra's family treasure). Cleopatra and Antony knew they had better find a way to escape the coming wrath of Octavian, assuming bad luck did not befall him before he arrived to finish them off.

On to Plan B.

I returned to Rome and caught a flight back to Egypt. As the plane circled for its landing in Cairo, I had to smile a bit at what Cleopatra would have thought if she knew that in 2012, Octavian could have made it to her country in just a little over three hours! In a way, perhaps, she was luckier back in 31 BCE because she would unquestionably have had a least a few months before his arrival, a few months to put together some plan of escape.

Yes, I believe she did indeed have a plan to escape from Egypt. It is this incredible plan that I feel has been completely ignored. In its place has been substituted the ridiculous story of an emotionally distraught, desperate, and hopeless queen who begs Octavian for favors and then hides in her tomb with her treasure, making idle threats. She then supposedly begs Octavian for more favors, and finally kills herself to save herself from humiliation at the hands of her Roman conqueror. For the most part, Plutarch makes both Cleopatra and Antony appear to be impotent bystanders in the months following Actium—according to him, they are weaklings who simply sit about, waiting for Octavian to do them in. Oh, yes, Plutarch does claim that they drank, partied, sighed about their situation, begged Octavian to give them a break, and groveled to Octavian to spare them. But he does not attribute to them more than a couple of pitiful attempts
to stave off their demise or, should I say, give a long-serving Roman general at least some dignity before his final fall. (Note that Antony did attempt to stop Octavian's invasion from the west, and his one singular victory occurred when he prevented Octavian's men from entering Alexandria in the night.) However, there is one fascinating piece of information that Plutarch mentions, a real attempt to determine a future. Cleopatra tried to drag some ships on rollers across the desert to the Red Sea in what was ultimately a failed attempt to flee; but her enemies, the Nabataeans, burned the ships or at least some of them (the reference to this event by Plutarch is extremely limited in information). At least this is one example of Cleopatra and Antony trying to take real action. Other than that one incident, for most of the remaining nine months, Antony and Cleopatra are portrayed by Plutarch as a couple consigned to their doom, with an “eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we shall die” type of attitude as the days tick down to their final moments.

Plutarch imagines Antony's state of mind: “After Antony had reached the coast of Libya and sent Cleopatra forward into Egypt from Paraetonium, he had the benefit of solitude without end, roaming and wandering about.”
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According to Plutarch, Antony was in such a terrible fit of depression that he attempted suicide: “Antony tried to kill himself, but was prevented by his friends and brought to Alexandria.”
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Cleopatra, on the other hand, was hard at work trying to secure the future.

Here he found Cleopatra venturing upon a hazardous and great undertaking. The Isthmus, namely, which separates the Red Sea from the Mediterranean Sea off Egypt and is considered to be the boundary between Asia and Libya, in the part where it is most constricted by the two seas and has the least width, measures three hundred furlongs. Here Cleopatra undertook to raise her fleet out of water and drag the ships across, and after launching them in the Arabian Gulf with much money and a large force, to settle in parts outside of Egypt, thus escaping war and servitude. But since the
Arabians about Petra burned the first ships that were drawn up, and Antony still thought that his land forces at Actium were holding together, she desisted, and guarded the approaches to the country.
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Antony continues in his depression:

And now Antony forsook the city and the society of his friends, and built for himself a dwelling in the sea at Pharos, by throwing a mole out into the water. Here he lived an exile from men, and declared that he was contentedly imitating the life of Timon, since, indeed, his experiences had been like Timon's; for he himself also had been wronged and treated with ingratitude by his friends, and therefore hated and distrusted all mankind.
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Cleopatra then attempted to pick up Antony's spirits:

So he might lay aside his anxieties also, he forsook that dwelling of his in the sea, which he called Timoneion, and after he had been received into the palace by Cleopatra, turned the city to the enjoyment of suppers and drinking-bouts. . . . Cleopatra and Antony now dissolved their famous society of Inimitable Livers, and founded another.
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And then it would seem Cleopatra also became suicidal …

Which they called the society of Partners in Death. For their friends enrolled themselves as those who would die together, and passed the time delightfully in a round of suppers. Moreover, Cleopatra was getting together collections of all sorts of deadly poisons, and she tested the painless working of each of them by giving them to prisoners under sentence of death.
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They made a last-ditch attempt to beg Octavian for mercy:

At the same time they also sent an embassy to Caesar in Asia, Cleopatra asking the realm of Egypt for her children, and Antony
requesting that he might live as a private person at Athens, if he could not do so in Egypt. . . .
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Caesar would not listen to the proposals for Antony, but he sent back word to Cleopatra that she would receive all reasonable treatment if she either put Antony to death or cast him out.
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Then Octavian (also called Caesar by Plutarch) started marching toward Egypt:

When the winter was over, Caesar again marched against his enemy through Syria, and his generals through Libya. When Pelusium was taken there was a rumour that Seleucus had given it up, and not without the consent of Cleopatra; but Cleopatra allowed Antony to put to death the wife and children of Seleucus.
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The story of Cleopatra planning to burn all her treasures unless Octavian made a deal with her supposedly reached the general on route:

She herself, now that she had a tomb and monument built surpassingly lofty and beautiful, which she had erected near the temple of Isis, collected there the most valuable of the royal treasures, gold, silver, emeralds, pearls, ebony, ivory, and cinnamon; and besides all this she put there great quantities of torch-wood and tow, so that Caesar was anxious about the reason, and fearing lest the woman might become desperate and burn up and destroy this wealth, kept sending on to her vague hopes of kindly treatment from him, at the same time that he advanced with his army against the city. But when Caesar had taken up position near the hippodrome, Antony sallied forth against him and fought brilliantly and routed his cavalry, and pursued them as far as their camp. Then, exalted by his victory, he went into the palace, kissed Cleopatra, all armed as he was, and presented to her the one of his soldiers who had fought most spiritedly. Cleopatra gave the man as a reward of valour a golden breastplate and a helmet. The man took them, of course,—and in the night deserted to Caesar.
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