Antony and Cleopatra (50 page)

She sat with Antony’s head in her lap and fixed her eyes on a bust of Caesar, the perfect partner taken from her. It was from Aphrodisias, whose sculptors and painters were unparalleled, and everything about it was right, from the shade of the pale gold hair to the piercing eyes, palest blue surrounded by inky dark rings. A wave of grief swept over her, was ruthlessly suppressed. Make do with what you have, Cleopatra, don’t yearn for what might have been.

It will be war, it has to be war. The only question is, when? Octavianus lies through his teeth about no more civil wars—he will have to fight Antonius or lose what he has. But not yet, from that speech. He plans to train his legions to peak condition by subjugating the tribes of Illyricum, and he says up to three years of campaigns. That means we have three years to prepare, and then—we invade the West, we invade Italia. I will have to let Antonius finish with the Parthians inside his mind, in a way that will weld his legions without destroying them. For Antonius is not in Caesar’s class as a general of troops. I must always have known that, but I believed that, with Caesar dead, no one alive could rival Antonius. But now that I know him better, I realize that the flaws he demonstrates as a man also affect his ability to general troops. Ventidius was his superior; so, I think, is Canidius. Let Canidius do the real work while Antonius, enjoying the reputation, dazzles the world with the illusory tricks of a magician.

First, the marriage. We do that as soon as I can send for Cha’em. Push Canidius off on the first stage of this silly campaign, see that Armenia is crushed and Media too intimidated to move. Keep Antonius out of the Kingdom of the Parthians proper. I will work to convince Antonius that, in conquering Armenia and Media Atropatene, he has conquered the Parthians. Befuddle him with wine, run things myself. Why shouldn’t I be able to run a campaign as well as any man? Oh, Antonius, why couldn’t you have been Caesar’s equal? How easy it would have been!

One day, no more than ten years in the future, Caesarion must be King of Rome, for he who is King of Rome is king of the world. I will have him tear down the temples on the Capitol and build his palace there, with a golden hall in which he will sit in judgment. And Egypt’s “beast gods” will become Rome’s gods. Jupiter Optimus Maximus will prostrate himself before Amun-Ra. I have done my duty to Egypt: three sons and one daughter. Nilus will continue to inundate. I will have the time to turn my attention to conquering Rome, and Antonius will be my partner in the enterprise.

Antony’s tears had ceased; she lifted his head, smiled at him tenderly, and cleaned his face with a soft linen handkerchief.

“Better, my love?” she asked, kissing his brow.

“Better,” he said, humiliated.

“Have a glass of wine, it will do you good. You have things to do, an army to organize. Don’t take any notice of Octavianus! What does he know about armies? A thousand talents to one mud brick, he’ll fail in Illyricum.”

Antony gulped until the goblet was empty.

“Have some more,” crooned Cleopatra.

Late in June they married in the Egyptian rite; Antony was given the title of Pharaoh’s Consort, which semed to please him. Now that she had abandoned the idea of a sober Antony to share her throne, albeit as consort only, she relaxed a little, only then realizing how taxing it had been trying to keep Antony away from the wine since his return from Carana. A fruitless business.

She turned her attention to Canidius, having Antony summon him to a council comprising the three of them, no one else. But she made sure Antony was sober; it was no part of her plans to expose the degree of his weakness to his commanders, though one day it was bound to happen. The only one who might have objected to such a small meeting, Ahenobarbus, had returned to Bithynia and was now embroiled in Furnius’s war against Sextus Pompey, who had decided that Bithynia would suit him beautifully and plotted to kill the intractable Ahenobarbus before taking it over. A fate Ahenobarbus had no intention of letting happen.

Well schooled beforehand by Cleopatra, Antony began by outlining his plans for the coming campaign in a manner that didn’t betray her careful coaching.

“I have twenty-five legions at my disposal,” he said to Publius Canidius in a voice that held no trace of slurring, “but those in Syria are very under strength, as you know. Exactly how much under strength, Canidius?”

“If averaged out, only three thousand men. Five cohorts, though some are up at eight, and some down at two cohorts. I’ve called them legions, thirteen altogether.”

“Of which one, at Jerusalem, is at full strength. There are seven more in Macedonia, all full strength, two in Bithynia, also full strength, and three that belong to Sextus Pompeius, full strength.” Antony grinned, looked his old self. “Kind of him to recruit on my behalf, isn’t it? He’ll be a dead man by the end of this year, which is why I lump his and Ahenobarbus’s legions in my total. However, I think I must have thirty legions, not all of which will be full strength or experienced. What I propose to do is send the least numerous of the Syrian legions to Macedonia, and bring the Macedonian troops here for my campaign.”

Canidius looked dubious. “I understand your reasons, Marcus Antonius, but I strongly advise you to leave one Macedonian legion where it is. Send for six, but don’t send any of your Syrian men there. Wait until you’ve recruited five more legions, send them. I agree that inexperienced new soldiers will be all right in Macedonia—the Dardani and the Bessi haven’t recovered from Pollio and Censorinus yet. You’ll have your thirty legions.”

“Good!” said Antony, feeling his spirits soar higher than in months. “I’ll need ten thousand cavalry, Galatian and Thracian. I can’t recruit horse from the Gauls anymore, Octavianus is in control and not inclined to cooperate. He denies me the four legions he owes me, the little turd!”

“How many legions will you take east?”

“Twenty-three, all full strength and experienced men. One hundred and thirty-eight thousand of them, including noncombatants. No auxiliaries this time, they’re too big a nuisance. At least cavalry can keep up with the legions. And this time we march in square the whole way, with the baggage train in the middle. Where the ground is flat enough,
agmen quadratum
.”

“I agree, Antonius.”

“However, I think we have to do something this year, though I have to stay here until I see what happens to Sextus Pompeius. It will have to be you leading this year, Canidius. How many legions can you assemble to start out now?”

“Seven full strength if I merge cohorts.”

“Enough. It won’t be a long campaign—whatever happens, do not get caught by winter unless you’re in warm quarters. Amyntas can donate two thousand horsemen immediately—from his letter, they’re almost here. I suspect had they not been, he would have kept them to deal with Sextus.”

“You’re right, Sextus won’t last,” Canidius said comfortably.

“Drive into Armenia proper from Carana. It’s important that we teach Artavasdes of Armenia a little lesson this year. Then he’ll be ripe for the plucking next year.”

“As you wish, Antonius.”

Cleopatra cleared her throat; the two men looked at her in surprise, having forgotten her presence. For Canidius’s sake she tried to appear—well, if not humble, at least amenable, sensible. “I suggest we start building fleets,” she said.

Astonished, Canidius couldn’t conceal his reaction. “What for?” he asked. “We’re not planning any marine expeditions.”

“Not now, I agree,” she said with composure, not allowing her displeasure to show. “However, we may need them in the future. Ships take a long time to build, especially in the quantities we will need. Or perhaps it’s best to say, might need.”

“Need for what?” Antony asked, as puzzled as Canidius.

“Publius Canidius has not read the transcript of Octavianus’s speech to the Senate, so I acquit him of obstruction. But you have, Antonius, and I would have said that its message was clear—one day he will be sailing east to crush you.”

For a moment neither man said a word, Canidius conscious of a sinking in his belly. What was the woman up to?

“I have read the speech, Your Majesty,” he said. “It was sent to me by Pollio, with whom I correspond whenever I can. But I can’t see any threat to Marcus Antonius in it, beyond criticism Octavianus is not qualified to level. In fact, he reiterates that he will not go to war against a fellow Roman, and I believe him.”

Her face had grown stony; when she spoke, her voice had ice in it. “Allow me to say, Canidius, that I am far more politically skilled than you are. What Octavianus says is one thing. What he does is quite another. And I assure you that he intends to crush Marcus Antonius. Therefore we prepare, and we begin to prepare now, not next year, or the year after that. While you men go on your Parthian odyssey, I will do good work on the shores of Your Sea by commissioning the biggest warships possible.”

“Content yourself with fives—er, quinqueremes—madam!” Canidius said. “Anything larger is too slow and clumsy.”

“Quinqueremes were what I had in mind,” she said haughtily.

Canidius sighed, slapped his hands on his thighs. “Well, I daresay it can do no harm.”

“Who is going to pay for them?” Antony demanded suspiciously.

“I am, of course,” said Cleopatra. “We must have at least five hundred war galleys, and at least that many troop transports.”

“
Troop transports?
” Canidius gasped. “What for?”

“The name is self-explanatory, I would have thought.”

Mouth open to reply, Canidius shut it, nodded, and left.

“You confounded him,” said Antony.

“I am aware of that, though I fail to see why.”

“He doesn’t know you, my dear,” Antony said, a little tiredly.

“Are you opposed?” she asked, teeth clenched.

The little reddish eyes opened wide. “I?
Edepol
, no! It’s your money, Cleopatra. Spend it any way you want.”

“Have a drink!” she snapped, then, recovering her temper, gave him her most enchanting smile. “In fact, for once I’ll join you. My steward tells me that the vintage he bought from old Asander the wine merchant is particularly good. Did you know that Asander is a corruption of Alexander?”

“That’s not a very clever effort at changing the subject, but I’ll humor you.” He produced a grin. “Though if you are going to bib, you’ll have to bib on your own.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“My recovery is complete, I’m done with wine.”

Her mouth fell open. “What?”

“You heard me. Cleopatra, I love you to distraction, but did you really think I haven’t noticed your plan to keep me drunk?” He sighed, leaned forward earnestly. “Though you think you know what my army went through in Media, you don’t. Nor do you know what I went through. To know, you’d have to have been there, and you weren’t. I, my army’s commander, didn’t keep them out of harm’s way because I rushed into enemy lands like a charging boar. I took credence in the whisperings of a Parthian agent, yet took no credence in the warnings of my legates. Julius Caesar was always at me for my rashness, and he was right. The failure of my Median campaign can be laid at no one’s door save my own, and I know it. I am not a simpleton, or hopelessly dependent on wine. You just think I am! It was
necessary
for me to blot out my delinquency in Media by drinking myself into oblivion! That’s the way I’m made! And now—well, it’s passed. I say again, I love you more than life. I will never be able to stop loving you. But you’re not in love with me, for all your protestations, and your head is stuffed with schemes and machinations aimed at securing the gods know what for Caesarion. The entire East? The West as well? Is he to king it over Rome? You dream of it perpetually, don’t you? Lumping your own ambitions on that poor boy’s shoulders—”

“I do love you!” she cried, interrupting. “Antonius, never think I don’t! And Caesarion—Caesarion…” She floundered, too aghast at this Antony to summon up arguments.

He took her hands, chafed them. “It’s all right, Cleopatra. I understand,” he said gently, smiling. His eyes teared, his mouth quivered. “And I, poor fool, will do whatever you want. That’s the fate of any man in love with a masterful woman. Just grant me the right to do it lucidly.” The tears having vanished, he laughed. “Which is not to say that I won’t take to the wine again! I can’t help my tendency to hedonism, but I drink in binges. I can do without wine, which means that when I am most needed, I’ll be there—for you, for Ahenobarbus or Poplicola—and for Octavia.”

She blinked, shook her head. “You have surprised me,” she said. “What else have you noticed?”

“That’s my secret. I’ve commanded Plancus to govern Syria,” he said, going elsewhere. “Sosius wants to return home. And Titius is taking my Syrian fleet to Miletus with a proconsular imperium. He’s to deal with Sextus Pompeius.” He chuckled. “See how right you always are, my love? I have need of fleets already!”

“What are Titius’s orders?” she asked suspiciously.

“To bring Sextus to me here in Antioch.”

“For a ceremonious execution?”

“How you eastern monarchs love an execution! It may be,” said Antony slyly, “that since you’re so set on building ships, I will have need of him as an admiral. They don’t come any better.”

“I have a commission for you, my dear,” said Octavian to his sister over dinner.

She paused with a tiny lamb cutlet in her hand, its thin but delectable crust of fat seeded with mustard and peppercorns. His remark interrupted her thoughts, which dwelled upon the change in Octavian’s dinner menus since he had married Livia Drusilla. The daintiest, most delicious fare! Yet she had good reason to know that nothing was wasted, from the cook’s exorbitant salary to the money spent on buying ingredients and viands; Livia Drusilla did the marketing herself, and drove a hard bargain. Nor did the cook come down with sick headaches or smuggle some of the goodies to his own kitchen favorites; Livia Drusilla watched him hawklike.

“A commission, Caesar?” Octavia asked, carefully biting off more meat than fat; that way, the fat lasted.

“Yes. How would you like to take a trip to Athens to see your husband?”

Octavia’s face lit up, she beamed. “Oh, Caesar, yes, please!”

“I thought you wouldn’t object.” He winked at Maecenas. “I have an errand you can do better than anyone else.”

Her brow pleated. “An errand? Is that a commission?”

“Sometimes,” Octavian said solemnly.

“What do I have to do?”

“Deliver Antonius two thousand picked troops—the finest of the finest—as well as seventy new warships, an outsized battering ram, three smaller rams, two hundred ballistas, two hundred large catapults, and two hundred scorpions.”

“Dear me! Am I to be the officer in command of all this—um—bounty?” she asked, eyes sparkling.

“I like nothing better than to see you look so happy, but no. Gaius Fonteius is anxious to rejoin Antonius, so he’ll be officer in command,” Octavian said, crunching a stick of celery. “You can carry a letter from me to Antonius.”

“I’m sure he’ll appreciate the gifts.”

“Not as much as he appreciates a visit from you,
I’m
sure,” Octavian said, wagging a finger. His gaze traveled from Octavia to the couch Maecenas shared with Agrippa, dwelling upon Agrippa a little sorrowfully. It wasn’t often that his schemes went awry, but this one certainly had, he thought. Where did I go wrong?

It had stemmed out of Agrippa’s bachelor status, which Livia Drusilla had decided could not continue; if she deemed the expression in his eyes too fond when he looked at her, she kept that to herself, simply informing Octavian that it was high time Agrippa married. Unsuspecting, he turned her comment over in his mind and concluded she was, as usual, right. Now that he was loaded down with riches, land, and property, no doting father could possibly judge Agrippa a fortune hunter; he was, besides, very attractive in his person. It was a rare female from fifteen to fifty who did not become kittenish or flirtatious around Agrippa. While he, alas, never even noticed. No small talk, few social graces, that was Agrippa. Women swooned, he yawned—or, worse still, bolted from the room.

When Octavian taxed him with his bachelor status, he blinked and then looked uncomfortable.

“Are you hinting I should marry?” he asked.

“Actually, yes. You’re the most important man in Rome after me, yet you live like one of those eastern hermits. A camp stretcher for a bed, more armor than togas, not even a female servant,” said Octavian. “Whenever you itch”—he tittered, looked coy—“you scratch with some country bumpkin of a girl you can’t possibly form a permanent union with. I’m not saying you ought to abandon the country bumpkin girls, you understand, Agrippa. I’m merely saying that you ought to marry.”

“No one would have me,” he said bluntly.

“Ah, but there you’re wrong! My dear Agrippa, you have looks, wealth, and high status. You’re a
consular
!”

“Yes, but I don’t have the blood, Caesar, and I don’t fancy any of those stuck-up girls named Claudia, Aemilia, Sempronia, or Domitia. If they did say yes, it would only be for my friendship with you. The idea of a wife who looks down on me doesn’t appeal.”

“Then look a little lower, but not much lower,” Octavian wheedled. “I have the ideal wife for you.”

Agrippa looked suspicious. “Is this Livia Drusilla at work?”

“No, word of honor, it isn’t! This is all my own idea.”

“Then, who?”

Octavian took a deep breath. “Atticus’s daughter,” he said, looking triumphant. “Perfect, Agrippa, truly! Not of senatorial rank, though I admit that’s only because her
tata
prefers to make money by unsenatorial means. Connected by blood to the Caecilii Metelli, therefore high born enough. And heiress to one of the biggest fortunes in Rome!”

“She’s too young. Do you even know what she looks like?”

“She’s seventeen, nearly eighteen, and yes, I have seen her. Handsome rather than pretty, a good figure, and extremely well educated, as you would expect of Atticus’s daughter.”

“Is she a reader, or a shopper?”

“A reader.”

The craggy face looked relieved. “Well, that’s one good thing. Is she dark, or fair?”

“Medium.”

“Oh.”

“Look, if I had a female relative old enough, you could have her with my blessing!” Octavian cried, hands flailing the air.

“Would you? Would you really, Caesar?”

“Yes, of course I would! But as I don’t, will you or will you not take Caecilia Attica?”

“I’d never be game to ask.”

“I’ll do the asking. Will you?”

“I don’t seem to have much choice, so—yes, I will.”

And so it had been done, though Octavian hadn’t realized just how reluctant the bridegroom was. Agrippa had been set in his ways at thirteen; at twenty-seven he was dipped in the concrete he so loved to experiment with. Unless in Octavian’s company—and to some extent, Livia Drusilla’s—he was dour, silent, and eternally watchful. All had seemed well at the wedding, for the bride was, like all her friends, enamored of the magnificently glamorous and unattainable Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa.

A month into the marriage saw the tall, graceful lily (as Livia Drusilla had named her) wilted and browned. She poured her woes into Livia Drusilla’s sympathetic ear, and Livia Drusilla in her turn poured them into Octavian’s ear.

“It’s a disaster!” she cried. “Poor Attica thinks he doesn’t care for her a scrap—he never
talks
to her! And his idea of making love is—is—I crave your pardon for being vulgar, my love!—resembles a stallion with a mare! He bites her on the neck and—and—well, I leave it to your imagination. Luckily,” she continued in tones of gloom, “he doesn’t avail himself of his conjugal pleasures very often.”

As this was a side of Agrippa he had never expected to know anything about, nor wanted to now, Octavian blushed and wished he was anywhere but sitting with his wife. That his own lovemaking talents left something to be desired he knew, but he also knew that Livia Drusilla’s thrills came from power, and could rest comfortably. A pity that Attica was not so inclined—but then, she hadn’t had six years of marriage to Claudius Nero to transform her girlish dreams into a woman’s iron purpose.

“Then we will have to hope that Agrippa quickens her,” he said. “A baby will give her someone else to interest her.”

“A baby is no substitute for a satisfactory husband,” said Livia Drusilla, extremely satisfied herself. She frowned. “The trouble is that she has a confidant.”

“What do you mean? That Agrippa’s marital affairs will become known far and wide?”

“If it were that simple, I wouldn’t worry as much. No, her confidant is her old tutor, Atticus’s freedman Quintus Caecilius Epirota. According to her, the nicest man she knows.”

“Epirota? I know that name!” Octavian exclaimed. “An eminent scholar. According to Maecenas, an authority on Virgilius.”

“Hmmm…I’m sure you’re right, Caesar, but I don’t think he’d offer her poetic consolation, somehow. Oh, she’s virtuous! But for how long, if you take Agrippa off to Illyricum?”

“That is on the laps of the gods, my dear, and I for one have no intention of sticking my beak into Agrippa’s marriage. We must hope that a baby comes along to keep her occupied.” He sighed. “Perhaps a very young woman isn’t right for Agrippa. Ought I to have suggested Scribonia?”

Be that as it may, by the time that Octavia came to dinner together with Maecenas and his Terentia and Agrippa and his Attica, it was clear to most of Rome’s upper class that Agrippa’s marriage was not prospering. Looking at Agrippa’s bleak expression, his oldest friend yearned to offer him words of comfort, but could not. At least, he reflected, Attica was pregnant. And he had had the necessary fortitude to drop a hint in Atticus’s ear that his much-loved freedman Epirota ought to be kept far from his much-loved daughter. Women who read, he thought, are just as vulnerable as women who shop.

Octavia almost skipped home to the palace on the Carinae, she was so happy. To see Antonius at last! Two years had gone by since he left her on Corcyra; baby Antonia Minor, known as Tonilla, was walking and talking. A lovely little girl with her father’s dark red hair and reddish eyes, but luckily neither his chin nor—thus far, at any rate—his nose. Oh, what a temper! Antonia was more her mother’s child, whereas Tonilla was all her father’s. Stop, Octavia, stop! Stop thinking of your children and think about your husband, whom you will be seeing soon. Such joy! Such pleasure! She went in search of her dresser, a very competent woman who much esteemed her position in the Antonian household, and was, besides, greatly attached to Octavia.

They were deep in a consultation about which dresses Octavia should take with her to Athens, and how many new dresses she ought to have made to delight her husband, when the steward came to tell her that Gaius Fonteius Capito had come to call.

She knew him, but not very well; he had been with them when she and Antony had last set sail, but seasickness had kept her in her cabin and her journey had been cut short at Corcyra. So she greeted the tall, handsome, impeccably garbed Fonteius with some reserve, not sure why he had come.

“Imperator Caesar says you and I are to take his gifts to Marcus Antonius in Athens,” he said, not attempting to sit down, “and I thought I should call to see if there is anything you specially need, either on the voyage or as cargo for Athens—a piece of furniture, or some nonperishable foods, perhaps?”

Her eyes, he thought, watching the expressions chase through them, are the most beautiful I have ever seen, though it isn’t the unusual color that renders them so haunting; it’s the sweetness in them, the all-embracing love. How can Antonius play her so false? Were she mine, I would cleave to her forever. Another contradiction: how can she be the full sister of Octavianus? And another: how can she manage to love Antonius
and
Octavianus?

“Thank you, Gaius Fonteius,” she was saying with a smile, “I can think of nothing, really, except”—she looked fearful—“the sea, and that is beyond anyone’s ability to arrange.”

He laughed, took her hand and kissed it lightly. “Lady, I will do my best! Father Neptune, Vulcan Earthshaker, and the Lares Permarini of voyages shall all have rich offerings that the seas be flat, the winds propitious, and our passage swift.”

Whereupon he departed, leaving Octavia to stare after him conscious of a peculiar feeling of relief. What a nice man! With him in charge, things would go well, no matter how the sea behaved.

It behaved exactly as Fonteius had ordered when he made his offerings; even rounding Cape Taenarum was shorn of its dangers. But while Octavia thought that his concern for her welfare was just that, Fonteius knew how much of self was in his hopes; he wanted this lovely woman’s company throughout the voyage, which meant no seasickness. He couldn’t fault her, up to and including docking in the Piraeus. Pleasant, witty, easy to converse with, never prudish or what he called “Roman matron” in her attitude—divine! No wonder Octavianus erected statues to her, no wonder ordinary people respected, honored, and loved her! The two
nundinae
he had spent in Octavia’s company from Tarentum to Athens would live in his memory for the rest of his life. Love? Was it love? Maybe, but he fancied it held none of the baser urges he associated with that word when it concerned the relationship between a man and a woman. Had she appeared in the middle of the night demanding the act of love, he would not have refused her, but she didn’t appear; Octavia belonged to some higher plane, as much goddess as woman.

The worst was that he knew Antony wouldn’t be in Athens to meet her, that he knew Antony was firmly in the clutches of Queen Cleopatra in Antioch. Octavia’s brother knew it too.

“I have entrusted my sister to your care, Gaius Fonteius,” Octavian had said just before the cavalcade set off from Capua to Tarentum, “because I think you more sincere than the rest of Antonius’s creatures, and believe you a man of honor. Of course your main task is to escort these various military supplies to Antonius, but I require something more of you, if you’re willing.”

It was a typically backhanded Octavian compliment—he was one of Antony’s “creatures”—but Fonteius took no offense, as he sensed this was simply an introduction to something else far more important that Octavian wished to say. And here it came:

“You are aware what Antonius is doing, with whom he is doing it, where he is doing it, and probably why he is doing it,” said Octavian in rhetorical vein. “Unfortunately my sister has little idea what’s going on in Antioch, and I haven’t enlightened her because it’s possible that Antonius is just—ah—filling in time by filling up Cleopatra. It’s possible that he will return to my sister the moment he knows she’s in Athens. I doubt it, but must consider it. What I ask is that you remain in Athens in close touch with Octavia in case Antonius doesn’t come. If he doesn’t, Fonteius, poor Octavia will need a friend. News that Antonius’s infidelity is serious will crush her. I trust you to be no more than a friend, but a caring one. My sister is part of Rome’s luck, a figurative Vestal. If Antonius disappoints her, she must be returned home, yet not
hustled
home. Do you understand?”