Antony and Cleopatra (45 page)

“It will look better,” said Antony, mouth quivering, “if we say a third dead, a fifth incapacitated. Oh, Canidius, to lose so many without fighting a battle! I can’t even claim a Cannae.”

“At least no one passed beneath the yoke, Antonius. It isn’t a disgrace, it’s simply a disaster due to weather.”

“Fonteius says I should continue to Leuke Kome to wait for the Queen, send her another message if necessary.”

“Good thinking. Go, Antonius.”

“Bring the army on as best you can, Canidius. Fur or leather socks for everyone, and when you encounter a snowstorm, wait it out in a good camp. Hugging the Euphrates will be a little warmer, I imagine. Just keep them moving, and promise them a wander in the Elysian Fields when they reach Leuke Kome—warm sun, lots to eat, and every whore I can round up in Syria.”

Clemency had gone the way of all the horses once charcoal had appeared between the mountain pass and Artaxata. Legs dangling nearly to the ground, Antony set off from Carana on a local pony, accompanied by Fonteius, Marcus Titius, and Ahenobarbus.

He reached Leuke Kome a month later, to find the little port bewildered at his advent; Cleopatra had not come, nor was there any word from Egypt. Antony sent Titius off to Alexandria, but with little hope; she hadn’t wanted him to undertake this campaign, and she was not a forgiving woman. There would be no aid, no money to patch up what remained of his legions, and while to him it was at least something of an achievement to have gotten the legions out decimated but not annihilated, she was more likely to mourn for the lost auxiliary levies.

Depression clamped down and became a despair so dark that Antony took to the wine flagon, unable to face the thoughts of icy cold, of rotting toes, of mutiny on one terrible night, of rank after rank of hating faces, of troopers loathing him for the loss of their beloved horses, of his own pathetic decisions, always wrong and always disastrous. He, and no one else, bore the blame for so many deaths, so much human misery. Oh, unbearable! So he drank himself into oblivion, and kept on drinking.

Twenty and thirty times a day he would reel out of his tent, a brimming beaker in one hand, stagger the short distance to the shore, and look toward the shipless, sailless harbor mouth.

“Is she coming?” he would ask anyone near. “Is she coming? Is she coming?” They thought him mad, and ran away the moment they saw him emerge from his tent. Is who coming?

Back inside he would bolt to drink some more, then outside: “Is she coming? Is she coming?”

January became February, then the end of February, and she never came, nor sent a message. Nothing from Cyrus or Titius.

Finally Antony’s legs wouldn’t bear him anymore; he lolled over the wine flagon in his tent and tried to say “Is she coming?” to anyone who entered.

“Is she coming?” he asked the movement of the tent flap at the beginning of March, a meaningless gabble to those who didn’t know from long experience what he was trying to say.

“She is here,” said a soft voice. “She is here, Antonius.”

Soiled, stinking, Antony somehow managed to get to his feet; he fell on his knees and she sank down beside him, cradling his head against her breast as he wept and wept.

She was horrified, though that was just a word; it didn’t even begin to describe the emotions that roiled in Cleopatra’s mind and devastated her body during the days that followed as she talked to Fonteius and Ahenobarbus. Once Antony had wept himself to sleep and could be bathed, put into a more comfortable bed than his military camp stretcher, the painful process of sobering up and doing without the wine taxed Cleopatra’s ingenuity to its limits; he was not a good patient, given his state of mind—he refused to talk, grew angry when denied wine, and seemed to regret ever having wanted Cleopatra there.

Thus it had to be Fonteius and Ahenobarbus who talked to her, the former very willing to help in any way he could, the latter making no attempt to disguise his dislike and contempt for her. So she tried to divide the horrors she was told into categories, in the hope that, by approaching things logically, sequentially, she might see more clearly how to go about the healing of Mark Antony. If he was to survive, he
must
be healed!

From Fonteius she got the full story of that doomed campaign, including the night when suicide had seemed the only alternative. Of the blizzards, ice, and thigh-deep snow she had no comprehension, having seen snow only during her two winters in Rome, and they were not hard, she had been assured at the time; the Tiber hadn’t frozen over, and the sparse snowfalls had been an enchantment, an utterly silent world coated in white. Not, she divined, remotely comparable to the retreat from Phraaspa.

Ahenobarbus concentrated more on painting graphic pictures for her, of feet and noses rotting from frostbite, of men chewing raw wheat, of Antony driven mad by the treachery of everyone from his allies to his guides.

“You paid for this debacle,” Ahenobarbus said, “without ever stopping to think of equipment that wasn’t included and should have been, like warmer clothing for the legionaries.”

What could she answer? That such were not her concerns, but lay within the province of Antony and his
praefectus fabrum
? If she did, Ahenobarbus would attribute her answer to self-preservation at Antony’s expense; clearly he would hear no criticism of Antony, preferring to lay the blame at her door just because her money had funded the expedition.

So she said, “Everything was already in place when my money became available. How was Antonius going to conduct his campaign if my money hadn’t turned up?”

“There would have been no campaign, Queen! Antonius would have continued to sit in Syria, in colossal debt to the purveyors of everything from mail shirts to artillery.”

“And you would rather he went on that way than have the money to pay and be able to conduct his campaign?”

“Yes!” snapped Ahenobarbus.

“That implies that you don’t consider him a capable general.”

“Infer what you like, Queen. I say no more.” And Ahenobarbus stormed off, radiating hatred.

“Is he right, Fonteius?” she asked her sympathetic informant. “Is Marcus Antonius incapable of commanding a great enterprise?”

Surprised and flustered, Fonteius privately cursed Ahenobarbus’s irascible tongue. “No, Your Majesty, he’s not right, but nor was he saying quite what you thought. If you hadn’t accompanied the army to Zeugma with the intention of going farther, and spoken your mind at councils, men like Ahenobarbus would have had no criticism to make. What he was saying was that
you
bungled the venture by insisting that it be conducted in a certain way—that, without you, Antonius would have been a different man, and not gone down to defeat without a battle.”

“Oh, that isn’t fair!” she said, gasping. “I laid no kind of command on Antonius! None!”

“I believe you, lady. But Ahenobarbus never will.”

When the army began to limp into Leuke Kome three
nundinae
after the Queen of Egypt had arrived there, it found the little harbor choked with ships and a number of camps spread around the town’s outskirts. Cleopatra had brought physicians, medicines, what seemed like a legion of bakers and cooks to feed the soldiers better fare than their noncombatant servants gave them, comfortable beds, clean soft clothing; she had even gone to the trouble of having her slaves pluck all the sea urchins from the shallows of a large beach so everyone could bathe free of the worst scourge beaches at this end of Our Sea contained. If Leuke Kome wasn’t exactly the Elysian Fields, to the average legionary it seemed akin to them. Spirits soared, especially among the men whose toes hadn’t perished.

“I’m very grateful,” Publius Canidius said to her. “My boys need a real holiday, and you’ve enabled them to have it. Once they’ve mended, they’ll forget the worst of their ordeals.”

“Except for rotten toes and noses,” Cleopatra said bitterly.

Portus Julius was finished in time for Agrippa to train his oarsmen and marines all through the mild winter that saw Lucius Gellius Poplicola and Marcus Cocceius Nerva assume the consulship on New Year’s Day. As usual, partisan won out over neutral; the impartial third at negotiations to frame the Pact of Brundisium, Lucius Nerva, lost to the brother who was Octavian’s adherent. There in Rome to hold a watching action for Antony, Poplicola was given the job of governing Rome; Octavian didn’t want him trying to claim any victories over Sextus Pompey for Antony’s faction, still large and very vocal.

Sabinus had been an adequate supervisor of the construction of Portus Julius and wanted the high command, but his tendency to be hard to get along with rendered him unsuitable in Octavian’s eyes; while Agrippa was busy at Portus Julius, Octavian went to the Senate with his proposals.

“Having been consul, you rank with Sabinus,” he said to Agrippa when that worthy came to Rome to report, “so the Senate and People have decreed that you, not Sabinus, will be commander-in-chief on the land, and admiral-in-chief on the water. Under me, of course.”

Two years governing Further Gaul, a consulship and Octavian’s trust in his initiative had worked upon Agrippa powerfully. Where once he would have blushed and disclaimed, now he simply swelled a little and looked pleased. His degree of self-importance—none—had not altered, but his confidence in himself had mushroomed without manifesting Antony’s fatal flaws; no laziness, erratic attention to detail, or reluctance to deal with correspondence from Marcus Agrippa! When Agrippa received a letter, it was answered immediately, and so succinctly that its recipient experienced no doubt whatsoever about the nature of its contents.

All Agrippa said in response to the news of his huge job was “As you wish, Caesar.”

“However,” Octavian went on, “I would humbly ask that you find me a tiny fleet or a couple of legions to command. I want to serve in this war personally. Since I married Livia Drusilla I seem to have lost the asthma entirely, even around horses, so I ought to be able to survive without incurring a new lot of canards about my cowardice.” It was said matter-of-factedly, but a glassy look in his eyes betrayed his determination to scotch the slur of Philippi for good.

“I had planned to do so anyway, Caesar,” Agrippa said, smiling. “If you have the time, I’d like to discuss war plans.”

“Livia Drusilla should be here.”

“I agree. Is she in, or out buying clothes?”

Octavian’s wife had few faults, but a love of fine clothing was certainly one such. She insisted upon dressing well, had perfect taste, and her jewelry, augmented by her husband regularly, was the envy of every woman in Rome. That the habitually parsimonious Octavian didn’t object to her extravagance lay in the fact that he wanted his wife to be above all others in every way; she must look and conduct herself like an uncrowned queen, thus establishing her ascendancy over other women. One day that would be very important.

“In, I think.” Octavian clapped his hands and told the man who answered to fetch the lady Livia Drusilla.

In she came a moment later, clad in floating draperies of a very dark blue, sewn with an occasional sapphire that flashed when light caught it. Her necklace, earrings, and bracelets were of sapphires and pearls, and the buttons that pinched her sleeves together at intervals were also of sapphires and pearls.

Agrippa blinked, dazzled.

“Delicious, my dear,” said Octavian, sounding seventy years old; she had that effect on him.

“Yes, I can’t understand why sapphires are so unpopular,” she said, settling herself in a chair. “I find their darkness subtle.”

Octavian nodded to the scribes and clerks, lingering with ears flapping. “Go and have lunch, or count the fish in the one pond the Germans haven’t plundered,” he said to them. And to Agrippa, “Oh, not to live behind fortified walls! Tell me that this year I will be able to pull them down, Agrippa!”

“This year, definitely, Caesar.”

“Speak, Agrippa.”

But first Agrippa spread out a big map on the large table that served as a culling area for the myriad papers a busy triumvir collected in the course of his duties: Italia from the Adriatic to the Tuscan Sea, Sicilia, and Africa Province.

“I’ve just taken a count, and can tell you that we’ll have four hundred and eleven ships,” Agrippa said. “All but a hundred and forty of them are in Portus Julius, ready and waiting.”

“Antonius’s hundred and twenty plus Octavia’s twenty, in Tarentum,” Octavian said.

“Exactly. If they were intended to sail through the Straits of Messana, vulnerable, but they won’t go near the Straits. They will take a southward curve and make Sicilian landfall at Pachymus Cape, then creep northward up the coast to attack Syracuse. This fleet goes to Taurus, who will also have four legions of land troops. After he takes Syracuse he’s to set off across the slopes of Aetna, reducing the countryside as he goes, and bring his legions to Messana, where the strongest resistance is bound to be concentrated. But Taurus will need help, both in taking Syracuse and on his land march afterward.” The hazel eyes buried under Agrippa’s jutting forehead gleamed suddenly green. “The most dangerous task of all is a bait consisting of sixty big fives specially chosen to withstand a heavy sea battle—I’d prefer not to lose them, if possible, even though they are a bait. This fleet will sail from Portus Julius through the Straits to reinforce Taurus. Sextus Pompeius will do what he always does—lurk in the Straits. And he’ll pounce on our bait fleet like a lion on a deer. The aim is to keep Sextus’s attention riveted on the Straits and, by inference, Syracuse—why else would a fleet of stout fives be sailing south than to attack Syracuse? With any luck, my own fleet, following behind the bait fleet, will steal a march on Sextus and succeed in landing legions at Mylae.”

“I’ll command the bait fleet,” Octavian said eagerly. “Give me that task, Agrippa, please! I’ll take Sabinus with me so he won’t feel passed over for an important job.”

“If you want the bait fleet, Caesar, it’s yours.”

“Thus far, a two-pronged attack directed at the eastern end of the island,” said Livia Drusilla. “You’ll move from the west toward Messana, Agrippa, while Taurus approaches Messana from the south. But what about the western end of Sicilia?”

Agrippa’s face took on an unhappy expression. “For that, lady, I am afraid we have to use Marcus Lepidus and some of the too many legions he has accumulated in Africa Province. It’s a short sail from Africa to Lilybaeum and Agrigentum, one better undertaken by Lepidus. Sextus may have his headquarters in Agrigentum, but he won’t linger in that neighborhood with so much going on around Syracuse and Messana.”

“I never thought he would linger there, but his money vaults will,” Livia Drusilla said, and looked steely. “Whatever we do, we can’t let Lepidus make off with Sextus Pompeius’s hoard. Which he will try to do.”

“Absolutely,” Octavian said. “Unfortunately he was privy to our dickerings with Antonius, so he knows full well that Agrigentum is vital. And that militarily it’s not a first target. We’ll have to beat Sextus around Messana, separated from Agrigentum by half the island and several mountain ranges. But I see Agrigentum as another bait. Lepidus can’t afford to confine his activities to the western end if he’s to preserve his status as Triumvir and a major contributor to victory. So what he’ll do is garrison Agrigentum with several legions until he can return to empty the vaults. Therefore we don’t let him return.”

“How do you plan to do that, Caesar?” Agrippa asked.

“I’m not sure yet. Just take my word for it, that’s what will happen to Lepidus.”

“I believe you,” said Livia Drusilla, looking smug.

“And I,” said Agrippa, looking loyal and devoted.

Unwilling to run the risk of equinoctial gales, Agrippa didn’t mount his attack until early summer, after word had come from Africa and Lepidus that he was ready and would sail on the Ides of Julius. Statilius Taurus, who had by far the longest voyage to make, was to sail from Tarentum fifteen days earlier, on the Kalends, while Octavian, Messala Corvinus, and Sabinus set off from Portus Julius the day before the Ides, and Agrippa, the day after the Ides.

It had been agreed that Octavian would land in Sicilia just south of the toe of the Italian boot, at Tauromenium, and have the bulk of the legions in his charge; Taurus was to join up with him there after crossing Mount Aetna. Octavian’s friend Messala Corvinus was to march the legions through Lucania to Vibo, from which port they would cross to Tauromenium.

All of which would have been fine, had it not been for an unseasonal storm that did more damage to Octavian’s bait fleet than Sextus Pompeius did in pouncing. Octavian himself was stranded on the Italian side of the Straits together with half his legions; the other half, having landed at Tauromenium, waited for Taurus to come up and Octavian to come over. A long wait. Even after the storm blew itself out two
nundinae
later, Octavian and Messala Corvinus were frustrated by the damage done to their troop transports. By the time they were repaired, it was well into Sextilis, and the whole island was involved in land fighting.

Lepidus had no troubles at all. He landed in Lilybaeum and Agrigentum on time, disembarked twelve legions, and struck both north and east across the mountains, aiming for Messana. Just as Octavian had predicted, he garrisoned Agrigentum with four more legions, sure that it would be he and no one else who returned to pick over the contents of Sextus Pompey’s vaults.

But it was Agrippa who won the campaign. Knowing the size of Taurus’s Tarentum fleet and overestimating the size of Octavian’s bait fleet, Sextus Pompey pulled in every ship he owned and concentrated them in the Straits, determined to hold Messana and therefore the eastern end of the island. With the result that Agrippa’s two hundred and eleven quinqueremes and triremes sent a small Pompeian fleet to the bottom off Mylae, and landed the four legions in his wake there, safe and sound. Agrippa then raided far along the north coast in a westerly direction before rallying his warships and lurking offshore at Naulochus.

It seemed not to have entered Sextus Pompey’s mind that the despised Octavian would—or could—gather so many ships and troops against him. Bad news followed bad news: Lepidus was reducing the western end of Sicilia, Agrippa was reducing the north coast, and Octavian himself had finally made it across the Straits. Sicilia swarmed with soldiers, but few of them belonged to Sextus Pompey. Filled with dread and despair, Pompey the Great’s younger son decided to stake everything on a huge naval engagement, and sailed to meet Agrippa.

The two fleets met at Naulochus, Sextus convinced that, as well as having the numbers, he also had the skill. More than three hundred galleys admiraled and crewed superbly, with himself in overall command—what did an Apulian lout like Marcus Agrippa think he was doing, to take on Sextus Pompeius, unbeaten at sea for ten long years? But Agrippa’s ships were more aggressive, and armed with a typically Agrippan secret weapon—the
harpax.
He had taken an ordinary tossing grapnel and turned it into something that could be fired from a scorpion at a much longer distance than an arm’s throw. The enemy vessel was then winched in, all the while bombarded with scorpion darts, boulders, and flaming bundles of hay. As this was going on, the Agrippan ship turned bow on and ran down the enemy vessel’s side to shear off its oars. That done, the marines boarded across
corvus
gangplanks and finished the process by killing everyone who hadn’t leaped into the water, there to drown or be fished out as a prisoner of war. According to Agrippa’s way of thinking, beaks for ramming were all very well, but they rarely sank a ship and mostly allowed it to get away. The
harpax,
sheared oars, and marines to follow invariably meant a doomed quarry.

Tears streaming down his face, Sextus Pompey watched his combined fleets destroyed. At the very last moment he turned his flagship into the south and ran, determined that he wouldn’t be led in chains through the Forum Romanum to be tried for treason in secret in the Senate, like Salvidienus. For he knew well that his status would protect him from the usual fate of one declared
hostis
: to be killed by the first man who saw him. That, he could have borne.

He hid in a cove and negotiated the Straits during darkness, then set his course eastward to round the Peloponnnese and seek shelter with Antony, who he knew was absent on his campaign; he would go to earth somewhere sympathetic until Antony returned. Mitylene on the island of Lesbos had let his father have asylum; it would do the same for the son, Sextus was sure.

Land resistance was negligible, especially after the third day of September, the day on which Agrippa won at Naulochus. Sextus’s “legions” were made up of brigands, slaves, and freedmen, poorly trained and not valorous. All Sextus had used them for was to terrorize the local populace; against true Roman legions they stood no hope of winning. Most surrendered, crying for mercy.