Antony and Cleopatra (30 page)

Temple building gave work to the construction force, honour and status to the cult involved and its priesthood, and provided grand monuments celebrating the regime. Soon after Cleopatra returned from Rome, work seems to have begun on a grand ‘birth-temple' for Caesarion at Hermonthis. Such structures had a tradition stretching back into the distant past. This one was considerably larger than was normal, and was also unusual in that it does not seem to have been closely associated with an existing temple. Sadly, the structure no longer survives, having been demolished and replaced with a sugar processing plant in the middle of the nineteenth century, but fortunately a few photographs and more extensive drawings were made before this occurred.

One relief showed multiple scenes of childbirth, and some or all may represent Cleopatra herself. She is described in hieroglyphs as ‘The female Horus, the great one, the mistress of perfection, brilliant in counsel, the mistress of the Two Lands, Cleopatra, the goddess who loves her father'. Elsewhere, she is also named ‘the image of her father', although on this section the cartouche was left blank and not filled in with her name. Being known as the female Horus was a clear indication of rule – for kings were the representatives of Horus on earth – and yet Cleopatra never receives all the titles of a pharaoh.
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At face value, tradition seems very much alive in the temple cults supported by Cleopatra. If anything, there seems to have been more revivals of very ancient practices, imagery and titles during her reign. It is also possible to see echoes of the ancient cults in the queen's own life. Just as her father had been the ‘New Dionysus', Cleopatra styled herself the ‘New Isis'; just as Dionysus had grown from a god of wine into a much more powerful and all-encompassing great god of victory and prosperity, so too the Egyptian goddess Isis had changed into an international cult. There was a temple to her at Athens in the fourth century
BC
and during Cleopatra's lifetime there were determined, but unsuccessful attempts made to suppress her cult in Rome itself.

We know much more about Isis as a goddess worshipped by Greeks and other foreigners than in her Egyptian form. Plutarch, whose biography of Antony is such an important source for Cleopatra's life as well as his own, elsewhere provided the longest account of the Isis story. Sister and wife of Osiris, they were children of the Sky goddess. Osiris and Isis ruled Egypt as king and queen, teaching the people how to grow crops and prosper, to follow laws and worship the gods. However, their jealous brother Seth murdered Osiris. After considerable adventures, Isis found her husband's body in a distant land, but as she brought him back to Egypt, Seth stole it away, chopped the corpse into pieces and flung them to the winds. Helped by Anubis, the jackal-headed god of the dead, Isis found all the fragments – apart from the penis, which had fallen into the Nile and been consumed by fish. She sewed the pieces together, fabricated a new penis and breathed life back into her husband's body. They made love and in due course she gave birth to their son Horus. Osiris then left the land of the living to rule the world of the dead. Isis protected the boy until he grew old enough and was able to overthrow his wicked uncle. Mother and son then ruled Egypt.
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It is hard to know how far Egyptians would have recognised Plutarch's version of the story or, indeed, even be sure that most Greek worshippers of Isis believed the same myth. Few ancient religions had clearly developed and universally accepted theology or even traditions. Cults varied from region to region, and the same deity was often perceived and presented in very different ways although given the same name. Greek settlers in Egypt had equated the local divinities with familiar gods and goddesses, worshipping them in their own way, while the native population persisted in their traditional beliefs. In Egypt and elsewhere, for the Greeks Isis expanded to take on attributes of Athena, Demeter and Aphrodite –wisdom, fertility, law, as mother and as wife, as source of rebirth and resurrection with the promise of an afterlife. Finding Osiris a little too alien, the Ptolemies devised a new consort for her, in the god Serapis. Egyptians never seem to have adopted the new god, but his worship was common amongst the Greeks in Egypt and spread abroad through association with the popular Isis. The Isis cult seemed exotic to Greeks and Romans alike, with its shaven-headed priests,
sistrum
rattles, dramatic rituals and deeply emotional experiences. It had the appeal of ancient and faraway wisdom, even if it may well have borne little resemblance to the traditional cult of Egypt.

We cannot say whether Cleopatra chose to associate herself with Isis because it made practical sense to become the personification of such a powerful and popular deity or for more personal, emotional reasons. Perhaps it was a mixture of the two. To be born a Ptolemy set someone apart from the rest of humanity, for they were divine and successors to Alexander the Great. If she did genuinely feel herself to be Isis, it would surely have been in some variant of the Greek perception of the goddess. The traditional imagery at Dendera, Hermonthis and other shrines was conventional, changing little over the centuries. It did not mean an active participation in the cults by the monarch – something especially unlikely for the infant Caesarion. Temples were not churches regularly attended by great congregations, but sacred houses for the gods, entered only by the priests as part of the perpetual cycle of rites. If some very old formulae and images were revived under Cleopatra, the initiative is most likely to have come from the priestly cults, given money and royal favour and permitted to oversee the rituals as they saw fit.

The Isis story of a murdered husband and the infant son who needed protection until he matured and could face the killer had a parallel in Cleopatra's own life. As she was Isis, Caesar could be the dead Osiris or Serapis, and Caesarion would be Horus. Yet apart from the name Ptolemy Caesar, there is no allusion to Cleopatra's murdered lover in any of the monuments and iconography aimed at an Egyptian audience. These were far more concerned with stressing her own and her son's legitimacy as rulers and their roles as divine representatives on earth. Horus, the good ruler of Egypt, is shown over the head of Caesarion in the form of a bird on the Dendera relief. The blessing of the gods who protect Egypt and ensure prosperity was the important thing. There is no place for a dead father or the need to avenge his death.

Perhaps there was a hint of this in the monument called the Caesareum, which Cleopatra devoted to Caesar in Alexandria, although it is not clear when work began on this, and it may well have been later in her reign. It is all too easy to forget that the monuments in the overtly Hellenic city have almost all been lost and focus only on the great and very Egyptian temples that survive. In Greek, Caesarion was titled ‘the father-loving and mother-loving god'
(Theos Philopator Philometor)
and ‘Ptolemy called Caesar'. After the death of Ptolemy XIV, Cleopatra herself had dispensed with the title of'sibling-loving', perhaps aware of the irony, but remained the ‘father-loving goddess'
(Thea Philopator).

Caesar was honoured, but there was never any attempt to present him either to Greeks or Egyptians as Cleopatra's husband or consort, still less as king or pharaoh. He was a distinguished father to Caesarion, but the boy was first and foremost a Ptolemy, and it was through and with his mother that he rightfully ruled. Even if Cleopatra had a strong desire to avenge her lover's death, she lacked the capacity to achieve this. She could aid the triumvirs, and it is striking that she attempted to do so in person, but it was beyond her capacity to do more than assist one side in Rome's civil war. At this stage there is absolutely no trace of friction between Octavian, Caesar's adopted son, and the real, if illegitimate, son Caesarion. The latter had no status at Rome. On top of that he was still a small boy, ruling nominally in Egypt only through his mother's need for a consort. The Romans took adoption very seriously, viewing the bond as effectively as close as a blood relationship. While it might be mildly embarrassing to have a foreign, bastard son of the dictator as a visible reminder of the human Caesar's indiscretions, there was nothing to make Caesarion more of a concern to Octavian. In no meaningful way could he be a rival and assuming that anyone could have considered this at so early a stage is misguided.
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Cleopatra had regained her throne through Caesar's intervention. Her priority after his death was to survive and remain in power. This she did, disposing of her brother, fending off her sister and keeping control of Egypt, if not of Cyprus, against ambitious officials and any other rival. At the same time she managed to avoid having her kingdom seized or plundered by a Roman leader eager to exploit its resources and tried to help those she hoped or guessed would win. She managed to avoid direct collaboration with any of Caesar's murderers, although had this become unavoidable it is doubtful that she would have refused this at the cost of losing her kingdom for the sake of personal hatred. Cleopatra was a pragmatic politician and she managed to survive a difficult few years. She was queen and her son was king. Together they promised long-term stability, which in itself helped to deter any challenges to their rule. Cleopatra had done all that she could to achieve this and done it well. Yet in the truly long term, everything depended, as it always did, on Rome and its leaders.

On 1 January 42
BC
Lepidus began a second consulship with Lucius Munatius Plancus as colleague. Being consul was prestigious, but he shared far greater power with Antony and Octavian as triumvirs. Together they made all important decisions, and neither magistrates nor the Popular Assemblies could contest them. The formalised murder of the proscription lists continued, a blatant warning of the cost of opposing the triumvirate.

Cicero's killers took his head directly to Antony, who was said to have been at dinner when they arrived. In a story echoing the ones told about Marius and Marcus Antonius, he is supposed to have gleefully held the severed head in his hands. According to Dio, Fulvia was even more exultant, grabbing the grisly trophy and mocking the orator. She took pins from her hair – like every aristocratic Roman woman she affected a fashionably elaborate hairstyle – and jabbed them into the orator's tongue.
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The story may be an invention, although it should be remembered that Cicero had been one of the bitterest opponents of her first husband, publicly accusing him of revolution and incest and later praising the man who ordered his murder. More recently, his
Philippics
had lambasted Antony, savaging his character and edging the Senate steadily towards declaring him a public enemy. Fulvia had lived in Rome during those months and had found herself under attack in the courts, as Antony's enemies and plenty of opportunists sensed a chance to take her property. There were debts she and her husband had taken out and purchases they had made, which she now struggled to pay. Cicero's long-time correspondent Atticus had helped the beleaguered Fulvia, appearing in court with her and loaning her funds to prevent bankruptcy.
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There is no evidence that Cicero had taken a personal role in the attacks on Fulvia, but more than anyone else he had shaped the climate in which they occurred. Antony and his wife had plenty of reasons to loathe the orator. Whether or not they actually toyed with his severed head over dinner, they certainly did carry out a very public form of revenge. Antony had ordered the officer in charge of the soldiers sent to kill Cicero to cut off the orator's right hand as well as his head. Both head and the hand were then nailed to the Rostra at the heart of the Forum. The head that had uttered and the hand that had written the
Philippics
paid the price and served as an appalling warning of the cost of opposing Antony and the other triumvirs.
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Atticus went into hiding when the triumvirate occupied Rome, for as well as assisting Fulvia he had aided the families of Brutus and Cassius and been closely associated with Cicero and other opponents of the triumvirs. However, when Antony learned ‘where Atticus was, he wrote to him in his own hand, telling him not to be afraid but to come to him at once; that he had erased his name… from the list of the proscribed'. A friend who was hiding with him was also pardoned as a further gesture of goodwill. Antony sent a detachment of soldiers to escort the two fugitives, since it was night and it would take time for the news of their reprieve to circulate. Until then, they were at risk from anyone hoping to claim the bounty on their heads.
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On another occasion, Antony is supposed to have pardoned a certain Coponius, who was probably a former praetor. His wife had gone to the triumvir, sacrificing her honour for her husband's life. Antony slept with her and in payment removed her husband's name from the proscription lists. Dio claims that Antony and Fulvia were willing to accept money to remove a man's name from the list, but that he always substituted another name to fill the gap. Otherwise there are no stories of Fulvia seeking pardon for anyone, and she was accused of getting one man proscribed so that she could buy up property he owned next to some of her own. Octavian was forced to pardon another man when the latter's wife concealed him in a chest and had this brought into the triumvir's presence at a performance in the theatre. The crowd was so obviously in favour of a pardon that the young Caesar was compelled to issue one.
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The massacre inaugurated by the proscriptions was a stain on the record of all three triumvirs. At the time, Octavian may have been hated more than the others, since such viciousness was even less becoming in a youth. Apart from that, it was felt that at his age he really ought not to have made too many political enemies. In later years, when he was the Emperor Augustus, there was a concerted effort to disassociate himself from the bloodstained triumvir and blame the cruelty on his two colleagues. This no doubt heightened the attention given in our sources to Fulvia as the angry harridan urging Antony on to ever greater savagery.

We need to be cautious about accepting all the stories told of these years, since many no doubt grew in the telling, and the roles of Antony, Fulvia and Lepidus were all emphasised to cover the guilt of Octavian. Yet the truth was savage enough and clearly scarred the Romans' collective memory. Large numbers of books were written recounting tales of the proscribed and how they were saved or betrayed. These have not survived, but the traces in Appian and other later sources give a good idea of their flavour, focusing on the courage of some of the men who died and the loyalty and treachery of those who protected or betrayed them. Sextus Pompey was widely praised because he not only gave refuge to the proscribed, but also sent ships out looking for them along the coast of Italy.
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The proscriptions were meant to intimidate and succeeded in this – the exemplary punishment of Cicero made clear that no one was safe, no matter how distinguished. The triumvirs were hated, but also feared, and no voices spoke out against them in the Senate. They had also hoped to raise money and in this respect they were somewhat less successful. People were afraid to bid at the auctions of the property of the proscribed, worried that a display of wealth could be dangerous and lead to their own names being added to the lists. As importantly, some of the men who had profited from Sulla's proscriptions had been publicly shamed in subsequent decades and in some cases forced to give up their purchases. Some of the confiscated property went as bounty to the killers and informants, and the revenue raised by the rest proved disappointing.
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Desperate for money, most of all to pay an army that now numbered more than forty legions, the triumvirate looked for other sources of revenue. One of the most unorthodox announcements was that 1,400 of the most prominent women in Rome would have their property publicly assessed and pay a levy based upon this. Women had never before been called upon to pay tax to the Republic, although during the worst crisis of the Punic Wars they had voluntarily donated their jewellery to the state.

The decree was deeply unpopular with the women affected. In a properly Roman way, they went first to the female relatives of the triumvirs, asking for them to bring their influence to bear. Fulvia is supposed to have turned them away. Once again, this may be mere propaganda, although it is worth remembering that she may have wondered why such solidarity had not been shown to her when she was being dragged through the courts and war waged against her husband. Led by the daughter of Hortensius – the man whom Cicero had supplanted as the greatest orator of the day – the women gathered in the Forum and appealed both to the crowd and the triumvirs. The former were sympathetic and, sensing this, the latter made no attempt to have their lictors and other attendants clear the demonstrators away by force.
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It is striking that only women risked open opposition to the triumvirate in Rome itself. This was a testament to the fear inspired by the proscriptions, but also the confidence that their violence would only be directed against men. One woman who had hidden her husband asked to be executed with him when he was arrested. The killers refused and so she starved herself to death. The triumvirate were not willing to be seen to attack women, but even so the protest was only partially successful. The number of women to be taxed was reduced to four hundred. Around this time similar levies were announced on the property of male citizens.
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The triumvirate was established and maintained by military force, whatever veneer of legality was created around it. Public opposition from aristocratic women in Rome itself was spectacular, but no more than a minor nuisance. The only people capable of putting serious pressure on the triumvirs were their own soldiers. They needed to raise funds for many reasons, but the greatest was always to provide for their legionaries. The best of the triumviral legions consisted of Caesar's veterans. These were loyal to the dictator's memory and eager to avenge his murder, but were far less firmly committed to any of the current leaders. In 44
BC
Octavian had outbid Antony for the loyalty of the
Fourth
and
Martia
Legions. As each of the competing leaders sought to outdo their rivals by promising ever more lavish rewards, the expectations of the troops grew. Aware of their own power, they had to be persuaded to serve. Standard pay was now dwarfed by the frequent gifts of substantial sums of money, backed by the promise of farmland at the end of their service. With more legions under arms than at any time in the past, the sums of money involved were colossal. The triumvirs occupied the centre of the Republic at Rome itself, but their control of the wider empire was more limited.

Sextus Pompey's power was steadily growing, especially at sea, and he was able to threaten parts of Spain, North Africa, Sicily and the other major islands in the western Mediterranean. All of the provinces and allied states in the east were denied to them by Brutus and Cassius. Cleopatra managed to avoid supplying the conspirators with much active aid, but was lucky to escape retribution. Other leaders and communities who protested that, although loyal to Rome, they had received no instructions from the Senate to obey Brutus or Cassius, were brutally punished. Cassius invaded Rhodes, defeating its fleet and plundering the city itself. When some communities in Judaea refused to give him the money he demanded, he had their populations sold into slavery. Brutus stormed the city of Xanthus in Lycia (modern-day Turkey) and sacked it, although to some extent his victory was marred by the suicide and burning of their own property by some of the population. The liberty proclaimed by the assassins brought little comfort to the allies and subjects of Rome. Cassius also managed to avenge Pompey, when he arrested and executed Ptolemy XIII's former tutor, Theodotus, who had persuaded the king's council to murder the fleeing Roman back in 48
BC.
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Brutus and Cassius needed funds to provide for their own armies, which had grown to more than twenty legions. Many of these formations had once taken an oath of loyalty to Caesar, although some of the soldiers had before that served Pompey until his defeat at Pharsalus. Only a few of the units had actively campaigned under Caesar's command, and most had been raised and trained for his planned Parthian War. The bond to Caesar's memory was there, but it was less strong than in the legions formed from his veterans. They had rallied to the conspirators for various reasons, ranging from dislike of men like Dolabella and Caius Antonius, to some admiration for Brutus or Cassius, or perhaps simply a sense that momentum was on their side. They would remain loyal only if treated well and both commanders began to reward their troops every bit as lavishly as the triumvirs, and for this reason squeezed provincials and allies for revenue.

Cassius had been Crassus' quaestor when he invaded Parthia in 54 BC. A year later, when most of the army was killed or captured at Carrhae, Cassius led the survivors back to Syria, and then staunchly defended the province, winning a few small victories against Parthian raiders. He still had something of a reputation in the east, and this no doubt helped him to recruit and win allies in the area, but ultimately both he and Brutus were successful because they controlled the strongest armies in the region. After his quaestorship, Cassius seems to have had no other military experience until 49-48 BC. Participation in the Macedonian campaign seems to have been the sum total of Brutus'service with the army.

Neither man was an experienced commander. Their recent campaigns had been fought against other Romans or were one-sided conflicts against allied communities. Cassius rather dramatically celebrated his defeat of Rhodes by minting coins depicting the goddess of victory. Brutus' coins bore the cap of liberty and the assassin's dagger on the reverse, but he aped Caesar by having his own head shown on the face. Perhaps it was felt that his reputation and name needed to be emphasised to inspire support. Yet in some ways one of the most striking features of these years is how far the conspirators' behaviour mirrored that of the triumvirs, although they did not stoop to the level of proscription. Caius Antonius was killed as a reprisal for the execution of Decimus Brutus, but otherwise they put to death few Roman citizens, although they did not show similar restraint with provincials and allies. Brutus perhaps showed some reluctance, but his seizure of power in Macedonia was clearly premeditated and once he had resolved to use violence he was determined to do so effectively. Had the conspirators won the war, it is a little hard to see how they could have restored the traditional Republic they revered.
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Both sides had a cause. Sextus Pompey's power was growing, but the triumvirs knew that Brutus and Cassius were the more serious threat in the immediate future. They were older, politically more significant with more sympathisers in the Senate and had murdered Caesar. Brutus and Cassius claimed to be fighting to restore the Republic, which had now unlawfully been seized by three dictators instead of one. Political slogans were backed on both sides by immediate and promised rewards. For the triumvirs, Caesar's veterans were enthusiastic to punish his assassins – not that this made them any less demanding of payment. For Octavian –‘who owed everything to a name' and his connection with the great Caesar –the need to gain vengeance was personal and imperative, an aspect of
pietas,
the respect and duty owed to parents. Sextus Pompey similarly placed his dead and unavenged father and brother at the centre of his public image. He took his father's name of Magnus and also called himself Pius. Such slogans meant a lot to many Romans and piety, whether of fathers and sons or slaves and masters, whether honoured or disgraced, figured heavily in the tales of the proscriptions. Octavian was accused of parading his own piety to his adopted father while scorning it in others, killing sons and fathers alike in the proscriptions and demanding that neither protect the other.
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