Lawrence Alma-Tadema (1836-1912): Antony & Cleopatra

" But instead of considering the distress of the people caused by these most burdensome exactions, "Antony surrounded himself with flute-players, mountebanks, and dancing-girls. He entered Ephesus, preceded by women dressed as Bacchantes, and youths in the garb of Fauns and Satyrs. Already he assumed the attributes of Bacchus, and set himself to play the part by continual orgies." -- Duruy.15

 

Summoned to Tarsus

While Cassius was in Asia Minor, he had compelled Cleopatra, queen of Egypt, to supply him with troops and money. As these had been used against the triumvirs, Antony sent from Tarsus in Cilicia, and called her to account for her conduct in 42 BC. She came, as the goddess Venus on a large ceremonial barge, to render her account in person. And "when she first met Mark Antony, she pursed up his heart on the river of Cydnus."

"The barge she sat in, like a burnished throne, Burned on the water: the poop was beaten gold; Purple the sails, and so perfumed that The winds were love-sick with them; the oars were silver, Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke, and made The water, which they beat, to follow faster, As amorous of their strokes. For her own person, It beggared all description: she did lie In her pavilion (cloth of gold and tissue), O'er-picturing that Venus, where we see The fancy out-work nature: on each side her, Stood pretty dimpled boys, like smiling cupids, With divers colored fans, whose wind did seem To glow the delicate cheeks which they did cool, And what they undid, did. . . . "Her gentlewomen, like the Nereides, So many mermaids, tended her i' the eyes, And made their bends adornings: at the helm A seeming mermaid steers; the silken tackle Swell with the touches of those flower-soft hands, That yarely frame the office. From the barge A strange invisible perfume hits the sense Of the adjacent wharfs. The city cast Her people out upon her; and Antony, Enthroned in the market-place, did sit alone, Whistling to the air; which, but for vacancy, Had gone to gaze on Cleopatra, too, And made a gap in nature. . . . "Upon her landing, Antony sent to her, Invited her to supper: she replied, It should be better, he became her guest; Which she entreated: Our courteous Antony, Whom ne'er the word of `No,' woman heard speak, Being barbered ten times o'er, goes to the feast; And, for his ordinary, pays his heart, For what his eyes eat only."

--- Shakespeare.

Cleopatra VII at Rosicrucian Museum

Antony that he chose to spend the winter of 41 BC–40 BC with her in Alexandria. On 25 December 40 BC she gave birth to two children Alexander Helios and Cleopatra Selene II.  According to some sources, Cleopatra could get out of him whatever she wanted, including the assassination of her sister, Arsinoe. Cleopatra influence over him later on. He took control of Cyprus from her. They exploited each other for Antony needed the wealth of Egypt and Cleopatra could be afford to be generous.

In the spring of 40 BC, Mark Antony left Cleopatra and returned home. He did not see her for four years. Fulvia, his first wife, died in the spring of 40 following an illness and difficulties with the soldiers over deliverance of promised lands.

The matter was patched up for a little while, by the marriage of Antony and Octavia, the sister of Octavius, B. C. 40; when the two men met in Italy to patch up the peace. To seal their new amity, Octavian pressed Antony to marry his only sister, Octavia. Antony did not hesitate. After the marriage, he and his bride moved to Athens to govern the east, and Cleopatra and her children were forgotten for three years. Octavia. She was a beautiful and intelligent woman who had been recently widowed. She had three children from her first marriage.

There, Octavia bore him two daughters, even issuing coinage bearing Octavia's portrait. Antony was determined to conquer Parthia, that area in modern Iran and Iraq which had seduced Julius Caesar and Crassus and would make him again a hero in Rome.

Octavia accompanied him partway on the journey but he eventually convinced her that she would be more use to him at home in Rome keeping peace with her brother, Octavian. However, he soon thereafter sent for Cleopatra. Their twin children were officially recognized by Antony and were given the names of Alexander Helios and Cleopatra Selene. Mark Antony gave her much land which was very essential to Egypt. He gave her Cyprus, the Cilician coast, Phoenicia, Coele-Syria, Judea and Arabia. This allowed Egypt to be able to build ships from the lumber from Cilician coast.

He needed Cleopatra's assets. While Cleopatra remained in Egypt to bear her fourth child (Ptolemy Philadelphus), Antony set out 60,000 legionaries and 10,000 cavalry on his Parthian offensive. Antony lost a more than a third of his army and, starving and exhausted, brought his army back to Syria in January, 35 BC. The couple left the army and returned to Alexandria for the winter. They had just had a third child.

Antony had not yet abandoned Octavia, and used her as a go-between to secure additional Roman troops from her brother so that he could resume his Parthian campaign (Octavia was unsuccessful). Octavian saw that Antony's mistreatment of his wife could be politically useful; he refused the promised troops and put his sister in the impossible position of traveling to Greece to publicly tell Antony of her brother's betrayal.

PE (possibly Peter Ehemann), Cleopatra or Eurydice, 1532

Antony's wife, Octavia was in Athens with supplies and reinforcements waiting for her husband. He sent her a letter telling her to not come any further. Her brother, Octavian, tried to provoke Antony into a fight. Octavian would release troops as well as ships to try to force Antony into a war, which, by this time was almost inevitable. Antony might have been able to patch things up with Octavia and her brother had he returned to Rome in 35 BC. Cleopatra probably did her best to keep him in Alexandria. Octavia remained completely loyal to Antony through all of this.

The two twin children by Antony and Cleopatra were named the Sun and the Moon, and when Cleopatra assumed the dress and professed the attributes of Isis, Antony played the part of Osiris.

It was against nature for any Roman to be ruled by a woman. Antony appeared to be helping Cleopatra increase her lands and powers at the expense of Rome. Octavian made sure the word was spread throughout Italy that Antony was in league with Rome's enemy.

Bronze eighty drachma coin of Cleopatra. Cleopatra’s coinage hailed her as Isis, the ‘New Goddess,’ and she was actively worshipped as such in Egypt.

He publicly rejected Octavia in 35. In 34 BC, Antony had a campaign into Armenia, which was successful and financially rewarding. He celebrated his triumph with a parade through Alexandria with Cleopatra presiding over as the New Isis.Antony presented himself as the New Dionysus as part of his dream of the Graeco-Roman rule. Within a few days, a more political ceremony took place in which the children were given their royal titles with Antony sitting on the throne as well.  Cleopatra had dreams of becoming the Empress of the world. She was very close to achieving these dreams and her favorite oath was, "As surely as I shall yet dispense justice on the Roman Capital."

 Antony divorced Octaviain 32, and war was declared the same year. The war began and ended with the naval battle of Actium, September 2, B. C. 31.

Early in 31 BC, Octavian and Agrippa surprised Antony - who had planned a leisurely war in Italy - by transporting their legions across the Adriatic, meeting his forces gathered in northwestern Greece. Agrippa attacked Antony's supply lines while Octavian marched south; Antony's forces were soon hemmed in between the two Octavian forces near the Gulf of Actium. There was no possibility of victory by land; Agrippa's Roman fleets lurked outside the Bay, barring any attempt to break out by sea. Constant pressure from the Roman forces began to cause desertions in Antony's forces, which rapidly became a flood draining his legions.

Most historians agree that the famous Battle of Actium was, in part, a feint to permit Antony and the Queen intended to flee from an impossible military situation behind an initial line of fighting ships. When the naval battle commenced about midday on September 2, 31 BC, Agrippa's smaller, more maneuverable vessels quickly gained the advantage over Antony's heavier warships. Antony appeared unable to break out; therefore Cleopatra (who waited with her own magnificent ships inside the Gulf of Actium) ordered her entire fleet forward to force a passage through the Roman naval lines. As the enemy wavered, the Egyptians escaped and Antony followed his queen. His ships and legions, left behind, promptly surrendered to Octavian. Octavian would later celebrate the victory as one of the gods of Rome over the gods of Egypt, which shows how clearly identified Antony had become with Cleopatra's world.

 Fleeing to Egypt, both Antony and Cleopatra attempted to regroup their forces, shattered by the losses at Actium. Almost a year later, a final battle was fought outside Alexandria. Abandoned by Romans, Antony fought alone with Egyptian supporters and was promptly defeated on August 1, 30 BC. Antony fell on his sword, dying in Cleopatra's arms.

When Octavian invaded Egypt in 30 BC, Cleopatra VII sent Caesarion, then seventeen years old, to the Red Sea port of Berenice for safety, with possible plans of an escape to India. Caesarion's guardians, including his tutor, either were themselves lured by false promises of mercy into returning the boy to Alexandria or perhaps even betrayed him; the records are unclear. Octavian had Caesarion murdered there, with the words "Two Caesars is one too many".

After Antony's death, Cleopatra was taken to Octavian where her role in Octavian's triumph was carefully explained to her. He had no interest in any relationship, negotiation or reconciliation with the Queen of Egypt. She would be displayed as a slave in the cities she had ruled over. She must have had memories of her sister, Arsinoe, being humiliated in this way.

Death of Cleopatra by Rixens

She would not live this way, so she had an asp, which was an Egyptian cobra, brought to her hidden in a basket of figs. She died on August 12, 30 BC at the age of 39. The Egyptian religion declared that death by snakebite would secure immortality. With this, she achieved her dying wish, to not be forgotten.

Within an extremely short time, her son Caesarion (by Caesar) disappeared, obviously murdered by Octavian - who had no intention of allowing Julius Caesar's natural son to live. Her remaining children by Antony were sent to Rome be brought up by Antony's wife, Octavia, in

Cleopatra & her son  Caesarion, @ Temple of Denderah

 Caesar's own household.

Plutarch made a cryptic entry that, after both Antony and Cleopatra were dead and Octavian controlled Egypt, "...all his [Antony's] statues were torn down but those of Cleopatra's were allowed to stand, because Archibius, one of her friends, gave Octavius Caesar two thousand talents to save them . . ." (Plutarch, Antony, 86). Interestingly, this was an astronomical sum at the time; if true, it is likely that, instead of coming from any one man, it came from the temple treasuries of Egypt, for whom the last Pharaoh, and an incarnate goddess, deserved eternal memory.

In the meantime Lepidus had been set aside, and now, just thirteen and one-half years from the murder of Caesar, the State, having again gone through the same course precisely, came again to the exact point where it had been then, only in worse hands, and Octavius was the head of one hundred and twenty millions of people, and SOLE MASTER OF THE ROMAN WORLD.

Cleopatra & Egypt on Youtube