Antony and Cleopatra (40 page)

On 1 January 34BC Antony had become consul for the second time. It was nine years since the end of his first consulship, so this was almost the decade that law decreed should pass before holding a magistracy again. That rule had anyway been breached so many times that it was scarcely worth comment. It was far rarer for a consul not to be in Rome when he assumed office, although Marius and Caesar had both done this. More disturbing was his resignation at the end of a single day, showing the minor importance of the Republic's supreme magistracy to a man with Antony's power. Consuls now rarely served for the entire year, but none had chosen to resign within twenty-four hours. In spite of his absence and the extreme brevity of his tenure, the year was still officially known as the consulship of Marcus Antonius and Lucius Scribonius Libo.
¹

In 39
BC
Antony and Octavian had drawn up a list of consuls for the next eight years, including the suffect consuls who would replace them once they resigned. There were four such men in 34 BC, for the first pair also resigned before the year was complete. In this way more loyal followers were rewarded, receiving the dignity of consular status, the precedence this brought in senatorial debate and the prospect of a suitably important provincial command. Octavian would similarly take up and resign the consulship on 1 January 33
BC
, and there were no fewer than six suffect consuls in the remainder of that year.

This figure was in turn dwarfed by the sixty-seven praetors the triumvirs had appointed in 38
BC
. Their lack of respect for the traditional magistracies was blatant and yet it is equally clear that both the triumvirs and their followers still valued the prestige these posts brought. There were also numerous irregularities, ignoring age restrictions and other conventions. One praetor resigned his office in favour of his son. One quaestor was recognised as a runaway slave by his former master. Another escaped slave was discovered serving as praetor. Slaves were usually executed by crucifixion, but this terrible punishment was thought inappropriate for anyone who had served as a praetor, however illegally. Therefore the court decreed that the man should be given his freedom, and then be thrown to his death from the Tarpeian Rock. Antony and Octavian had awarded themselves a joint consulship for 31
BC
. Interestingly, it was over a year after their triumviral power was supposed to lapse. Perhaps they planned that both of them would be in Rome by this time, so that their alliance could be renewed or renegotiated.
²

Antony had certainly not turned his back on Rome, for all that he enjoyed the trappings of monarchy in the Greek world. He seems to have been genuinely fond of Alexandria and at some point he served as
gymnasiarch
there, just as he had done in Athens. Yet although he publicly acknowledged his children by Cleopatra, greater prominence was given to Marcus Antonius Antyllus, his teenage son by Fulvia. A series of silver coins was issued showing Antony on one side and the boy on the other.
³

Although Octavia looked after his other Roman children, Antyllus seems to have been in the east with his father during these years. In Alexandria he enjoyed both the company of learned men and something of the lavish lifestyle of the royal court. Plutarch's grandfather's friend Philotas knew the boy during these years and told stories of his quick wit and generous nature. On one occasion Antyllus gave him the gold cups that they had just used for a feast – an interesting echo of Cleopatra's visit to Tarsus. Philotas was worried that the lad might get into trouble for making such a costly gift. Yet when the servants came to present him with the vessels and get a receipt for them, they assured him that Mark Antony's son could give away as much gold as he liked. They did replace the vessels with their value in money, since some were antiques and so might be missed by his father.
⁴

Elsewhere, Plutarch tells another story of Antony's own generosity, when he promised a man the gift of 250,000 denarii. One of his personal slaves was apparently concerned that his master did not realise how substantial a sum this was and so laid out all the coins to show their number. When informed what the money was for, Antony claimed to be shocked, since he had thought the gift was bigger, and immediately ordered the sum to be doubled.
⁵

Antony's taste for spectacular expenditure long pre-dated his years in the east, but was fully indulged while he was with Cleopatra. Grand wagers were a common feature of the royal court during these years. The most famous incident occurred some time between 34 and 32
BC
, and centred on the famed luxury of the Ptolemaic court and Antony's own obsession with expensively rare and exotic foods. The queen is supposed to have sneered at the fare he was serving and promised that on the next day she would show him a banquet costing no less than 2.5 million denarii. Yet when the meal came he was unimpressed by the food she gave her guests, for this seemed nothing unusual by their recent standards. Cleopatra – our source Pliny does not name her, but dismisses her as an ‘impertinent royal tart'-merely laughed when Antony claimed that he had won the wager. The food was a mere preliminary and she alone would consume the 2.5 million denarii feast. Enjoying his confusion, the queen ordered the final course to be served. This dessert was as lavish as the earlier courses, but she herself was given a single bowl, filled with
acetum,
the sour, vinegar-like wine issued to soldiers as part of their ration and usually a drink for the poor. Reaching up, Cleopatra took off one of her pearl earrings – the pair were famous for their size and quality – and dropped it into the bowl. The pearl dissolved into a slush and she drank the mixture. Lucius Munatius Plancus, who had the task of deciding who won the bet, quickly declared the queen the victor and stopped her from repeating the process with the other pearl.
⁶

Pearls had become highly fashionable as jewellery at Rome in the last generation or so. In 59
BC
Julius Caesar had given his mistress Servilia a pearl that cost 1.5 million denarii, and so was of similar quality to Cleopatra's earrings. It was even rumoured that he had invaded Britain hoping to find a plentiful supply of good pearls. Nor was dissolving pearls in sour wine and drinking the mixture altogether unknown, for we hear of one wealthy young Roman doing the same, in a story spread by one of Horace's poems. It is impossible to know whether Cleopatra was aware of this incident or came up with the idea on her own. In latter years the Emperor Caligula, a descendant of Antony, would copy the practice, a mark both of his eccentricity and extravagance.
⁷

Most modern commentators have been sceptical about the possibility of dissolving a pearl in vinegar and attempts to repeat Cleopatra's trick have invariably failed. The acid in the liquid does soften pearls and dissolve crushed pearls, but appears to take a very long time to do this. The value of such experiments is anyway limited, since we do not know the size or consistency of the pearl earrings. These may well have been smaller than modern expectation. Nor should we necessarily insist that Cleopatra's bowl was filled only with sour wine. Other substances might accelerate the chemical reaction and the philosophers of the Museum had for generations specialised in using their knowledge to perform spectacular, apparently miraculous tricks to grace royal occasions. The pearl did not need to vanish altogether, but dissolve enough to be no longer of value and easy to both consume and keep down. Pliny does not suggest that she simply swallowed the earring to retrieve it later. The precious object had to be permanently destroyed to make the wager meaningful.
⁸

Munatius Plancus is elsewhere described as one of the leading flatterers of the queen from amongst Antony's Roman followers. He clearly felt that this would also win the triumvir's favour. It is said that he went so far as to perform a dance during one of the feasts, acting the part of the sea god Glaucus, his naked skin painted blue and wearing a false fish's tail. This was scarcely the behaviour expected of a former consul. A few aristocratic Roman men were known to be proud of their skill in dancing, but Cicero had probably reflected the general feeling when he said, ‘No sane man ever dances while sober.'
⁹

Sobriety is unlikely to have been a conspicuous feature of Antony and Cleopatra's intimates. Antony had always been a heavy drinker and it seems likely that this had only increased, especially after the disappointment and stress of the Parthian expedition. He may well have been an alcoholic and choosing to associate himself with Hercules and Dionysus meant revering deities famed for drink and festivities. The latter was important to the Ptolemies, and Cleopatra wore a ring carrying the inscription ‘Drunkenness'
(Methe
in Greek). The female attendants of Dionysus, the Maenads, were supposed to be in a permanent state of ecstatic frenzy, induced not by alcohol, but the mere presence of the god. Probably the ring celebrated this. We cannot say whether the sources accusing her of frequent inebriation were true or simply propaganda. It may well have been difficult to spend a lot of time in Antony's company without sharing at least to some degree in his heavy drinking.
¹⁰

The circle surrounding Antony and Cleopatra included performers from the Greek east. We hear of one man who seems to have specialised in erotic dances, and there was also the ‘Parasite' mentioned earlier. Yet apart from the queen herself, only Romans were treated as close advisers by Antony, and certainly only Romans were given important commands as well as other major responsibilities. Plancus, Dellius and Canidius were just a few of the senators amongst the triumvir's close companions and key agents.
¹¹

In 2000 a papyrus that contained an ordinance passed by Cleopatra in 33
BC
(or ‘Year Nineteen which is also Year Four') was identified, prompting considerable excitement because the last word may be in the queen's own handwriting –
ginestho
(‘let it be so' in Greek). The main content received little attention outside scholarly circles, but is highly instructive:

Canidius had clearly been given extensive estates by the queen and the income he gained was to be free of any royal levy. His agents were also allowed to import and sell wine within Egypt without paying any duty. Antony's other senior followers no doubt also did well from her generosity. Cleopatra needed Roman backing and for the last few years that had meant keeping Antony's favour. To ensure this she exploited her kingdom for the benefit of the triumvir and his henchmen. Earlier Ptolemies had been just as generous in granting land and tax-free wealth to powerful aristocrats. Now the important beneficiaries were all Roman and there is no indication that any of these men planned to settle permanently within her realm. Their families, much of their property and their ultimate political ambitions all lay in Italy. There is no good indication that Antony felt any differently. He was in the east to build wealth and power to enhance his position within the Republic.

The stories of the excess and debauchery of Antony and Cleopatra's inner circle no doubt grew with the telling as they travelled to Italy. The mood in Rome was usually uneasy while waiting for powerful men to return after a long spell in the provinces. People had been very nervous awaiting Pompey's return from his eastern campaigns and similar fears over what Caesar might do had helped to create the civil war in 49 BC. Octavian managed to visit Rome on several occasions during his Illyrian wars and had been in Italy for most of the last decade. He bore the brunt of any discontent and resentment, for instance from dispossessed Italian farmers and dissatisfied veterans, but had managed to deal with each crisis in turn. The defeat of Sextus Pompey had ended the long sequence of civil war and there was cautious optimism that this might be permanent. There was certainly no appetite amongst the wider population for a renewal of conflict. Poets like Horace and Virgil helped to express this mood, encouraged by Octavian's close associate Maecenas.
¹³

Antony gained no fresh honours from the Senate after 37 BC, but his colleague was far more visible. A year later Octavian had been awarded the same sacrosanct status given to the tribunes of the plebs. This was a high honour. In 35
BC
the same status was extended to Livia and Octavia, who were also given public statues and the right to run their own affairs and finances without the need for a male guardian. These were unprecedented honours for women. This made Antony's curt instructions for his wife to return to Italy all the more shocking and rendered her obedience and continued care for his house, children and friends especially poignant.
¹⁴

Octavian and Antony competed for prestige and dominance. It was natural for Roman aristocrats to behave in this way and perhaps inevitable that, once all other rivals had gone, the two most powerful men in the state would turn against each other. By 33
BC
the rivalry was becoming steadily more open, although as yet neither side launched a direct attack on the other. Instead, it was a question of contrasts. Octavian had beaten Sextus Pompey. His successes in Illyria were small scale, but genuine, unlike Antony's failure in Media. Antony countered, mainly through his supporters in Rome, but also it seems through letters that were readily made public, and spoke of Octavian's personal failings. At Philippi he had been ‘ill' and absent. In the final confrontation with Sextus Pompey, the young Caesar had again been prostrate with sickness – or was it fear?