Antony and Cleopatra

‘I didn’t realize he felt so strongly about it.’

‘He does, Pollio, he does.’

Persuading Antony to accept the terms Pollio had outlined to Maecenas took a full nundinum of ranting, punching holes in walls, tears and yells. Then he began to calm down; his rages were so devastating that even a man as strong as Antony couldn’t sustain that level of energy for more than a nundinum. From rage he plummeted to depression and finally to despair. The moment he landed at the bottom of his pit, Pollio struck; it was now or never. A Maecenas couldn’t have dealt with Antony, but a soldier like Pollio, a man Antony respected and loved, knew exactly what to do. He had, besides, the confidence of some stalwarts back in Rome who would, if necessary, reinforce his strictures.

‘All right, all right!’ Antony cried wretchedly, hands in his hair. ‘I’ll do it! You’re sure about the exiles?’

‘Absolutely.’

‘I insist on some items you haven’t mentioned.’

‘Mention them now.’

‘I want five of Calenus’s eleven legions shipped to me.’

‘I don’t think that will be a problem.’

‘And I won’t agree to combining my forces with Octavianus’s to sweep Sextus Pompeius from the seas.’

‘That’s not wise, Antonius.’

‘Ask me do I care? I don’t care!’ Antony said savagely. ‘I had to appoint Ahenobarbus governor of Bithynia, he was so furious at the terms you’ve drawn up, and that means I don’t have enough fleets to fall back on without Sextus’s. He stays in case I need him, that has to be made clear.’

‘Octavianus will agree, but he won’t be happy.’

‘Anything that makes Octavianus unhappy makes me happy!’

‘Why did you conceal Octavianus’s asthma?’

‘Pah!’ spat Antony. ‘He’s a girl! Only girls get sick, no matter what the sickness. His asthma is an excuse.’

‘Not conceding Sextus Pompeius may cost you.’

‘Cost me what?’

‘I don’t quite know,’ Pollio said, frowning. ‘It just will.’

Octavian’s response to the terms Maecenas brought him was very different. Interesting, thought Maecenas, how much his face has changed over this last twelve-month. He’s grown out of his prettiness, though he’ll never not be beautiful. The mass of hair is shorter, he doesn’t care about his prominent ears anymore. But the major change is in his eyes, quite the most wonderful I have ever seen, so large, luminous and silvery-grey. They have always been opaque, he has never betrayed what he’s thinking or feeling with them, but now there’s a certain stony hardness behind their brilliance. And the mouth I’ve longed to kiss, knowing I will never be permitted to kiss it, has firmed, straightened. I suppose that means he’s grown up. Grown up? He was never a boy! Nine days before the Kalends of October, he turned a whole twenty-three. While Marcus Antonius is now forty-four. Truly a marvel.

‘If Antonius refuses to aid me in my battle against Sextus Pompeius,’ said Octavian, ‘he must pay a price.’

‘But what? You don’t have the leverage to exact one.’

‘Yes, I do, and Sextus Pompeius gave me my lever.’

‘And that is?’

‘A marriage,’ Octavian said, face tranquil.

‘Octavia!’ Maecenas breathed. ‘Octavia …’

‘Yes, my sister. She’s a widow, there’s no impediment.’

‘Her ten months of mourning aren’t over.’

‘Six of them are, and all of Rome knows she can’t be pregnant: Marcellus suffered a long, agonizing death. It won’t be hard to get a dispensation from the pontifical colleges and the seventeen tribes the lots throw up to vote in the religious comitium.’ Octavian smiled complacently. ‘They’ll be falling all over each other to do anything that might avert a war between Antonius and me. In fact, I predict that no marriage in the annals of Rome will prove so popular.’

‘He won’t agree.’

‘Antonius? He’d copulate with a cow.’

‘Can’t you hear what you’re saying, Caesar? I know how much you love your sister, yet you’d inflict Antonius upon her? He’s a drunkard and a wife beater! I beg you, think again! Octavia is the loveliest, sweetest, nicest woman in Rome. Even the Head Count adore her, just as they did Divus Julius’s daughter.’

‘It sounds as if you want to marry her yourself, Maecenas,’ Octavian said slyly.

Maecenas bridled. ‘How can you joke about something as – as serious as this? I like women, but I also pity them. They lead such uneventful lives, their only political importance lies in marriage – about the most you can say for Roman justice is that the majority of them control their own money. Relegation to the periphery of public affairs may irk the Hortensias and the Fulvias, but it doesn’t irk Octavia. If it did, you wouldn’t be sitting here so smug and certain of her obedience. Isn’t it time she was let wed a man she truly wants to wed?’

‘I won’t force her to it, if that’s what you’re getting at,’ said Octavian, unmoved. ‘I’m not a fool, you know, and I’ve attended enough family dinners since Pharsalus to have realized that Octavia is more than half in love with Antonius. She’ll go to her fate willingly – gladly, even.’

‘I don’t believe it!’

‘It’s the truth. Far be it from me to understand what women see in men but, take my word for it, Octavia is keen on Antonius. That fact and my own union with Scribonia gave me the idea. Nor do I doubt Antonius when it comes to wine and wife beating. He may have attacked Fulvia, but the provocation must have been severe. Under all that bombast he’s sentimental about women. Octavia will suit him. Like the Head Count, he’ll adore her.’

‘There’s the Egyptian queen – he won’t be faithful.’

‘What man on duty abroad is? Octavia won’t hold infidelity against him: she’s too well brought up.’

Throwing his hands in the air, Maecenas departed to stew over the unenviable lot of a diplomat. Did Octavian really expect that he, Maecenas, would conduct these negotiations? Well, he would not! Cast a pearl like Octavia in front of a swine like Antonius? Never! Never, never, never!

Octavian had no intention of depriving himself of these particular negotiations; he was going to enjoy them. By now Antony would have forgotten things like that scene in his tent after Philippi, when Octavian had demanded Brutus’s head – and got it. Antony’s hatred had grown so great it obscured all individual events; it was enough in and of itself. Nor did Octavian expect that a marriage to Octavia would change that hatred. Maybe a poetical kind of fellow like Maecenas would assume such to be Octavian’s motive, but Octavian’s own mind was too sensible to hope for miracles. Once Octavia became Antony’s wife, she would do exactly as Antony wanted; the last thing she would do was to attempt to influence how Antony felt about her brother. No, what he hoped for in achieving this union was to strengthen the hopes of ordinary Romans – and the legionaries’ – that the threat of war had vanished. So when the day came that Antony, in the throes of some new passion for a new woman, rejected his wife, he would go down in the estimation of millions of Roman citizens everywhere. Since Octavian had vowed that he would never engage in civil war, he had to destroy not only Antony’s auctoritas – his official public standing – but also his dignitas, the public standing he possessed due to his personal actions and achievements. When Caesar the God crossed the Rubicon into civil war, he had done it to protect his dignitas, which he had held dearer than his life. To have his deeds stripped from the official histories and records of the Republic and be sent into permanent exile was worse than civil war. Well, Octavian wasn’t made of such stuff; to him, civil war was worse than disgrace and exile. Also, of course, he wasn’t a military genius sure to win. Octavian’s way was to corrode Mark Antony’s dignitas until it reached a nadir wherein he was no threat. From that point on, Octavian’s star would continue to rise until he, not Antony, was the First Man in Rome. It wouldn’t happen overnight; it would take many years. But they were years Octavian could afford to concede; he was twenty-one years younger than Antony. Oh, the prospect of years and years of struggling to feed Italia, find land for the never-ending flood of veterans!

He had Antony’s measure. Caesar the God would have been knocking on King Orodes’s palace door in Seleuceia-on-Tigris by now, but where was Antony? Laying siege to Brundisium, still in his own country. Prate though he might about being there to defend his entitlements as a Triumvir, he was actually there so he couldn’t be in Syria fighting the Parthians. Prate though he might about single-handedly winning Philippi, Antony knew he couldn’t have won without Octavian’s legions, composed of men whose loyalty he couldn’t command, for it belonged to Octavian.

I would give almost anything, Octavian thought after he had written his note to Antony and sent it off by a freedman courier, I would give almost anything to have Fortuna drop something in my lap that would send Antonius crashing down for good. Octavia isn’t it, nor probably would his rejection of her be it, did he decide to reject her once he tired of her goodness. I am aware that Fortuna smiles upon me – I have had so many close shaves that I am always beardless. And every time, it has been luck that yanked me back from the abyss. Like Libo’s hunger to find an illustrious husband for his sister. Like Calenus’s death in Narbo and his idiot son’s petitioning me instead of Antonius. Like the death of Marcellus. Like having Agrippa to general armies for me. Like my escapes from death each time the asthma has squeezed all the breath out of me. Like having my father Divus Julius’s war chest to keep me from bankruptcy. Like Brundisium’s refusing Antonius entry, may Liber Pater, Sol Indiges and Tellus grant Brundisium future peace and great prosperity. I didn’t issue any orders to the city to do what it has, anymore than I provoked the futility of Fulvia’s war against me. Poor Fulvia!

Every day I offer to a dozen gods, Fortuna at their head, to give me the weapon I need to bring Antonius down faster than age will inevitably do it. The weapon exists, I know that as surely as I know I have been chosen to set Rome on her feet permanently, to achieve lasting peace on the frontiers of her empire. I am the Chosen One whom Maecenas’s poet Virgil writes about and all Rome’s prognosticators insist will herald in a golden age. Divus Julius made me his son, and I will not fail his trust in me to finish what he started. Oh, it will not be the same world as Divus Julius would have made, but it will satisfy and please him. Fortuna, bring me more of Caesar’s fabled luck! Bring me the weapon, and open my eyes to recognize it when it comes!

Antony’s reply came by the same courier. Yes, he would see Caesar Octavianus under a flag of truce. But we are not at war! Octavian thought, breath taken away by something other than asthma. How does his mind work, to think that we are?

Next day Octavian set out on the Julian Public Horse – it was a small one, but very handsome with its creamy coat and darker mane and tail. To ride meant he couldn’t wear a toga, but as he didn’t want to appear warlike, he wore a white tunic with the broad purple stripe of a senator down its right shoulder.

Naturally Antony was in full armor, silver-plated, and with Hercules slaying the Nemean lion worked on its contoured cuirass. His tunic was purple, so was the paludamentum flowing from his shoulders, though by rights it should have been scarlet. As ever, he looked fit and well.

‘No built-up boots, Octavianus?’ he asked, grinning.

Though Antony had not, Octavian held out his right hand so obviously that Antony was obliged to take it, wring it so hard he crunched fragile bones. Face expressionless, Octavian endured it.

‘Come inside,’ Antony invited, holding the flap of his tent aside. That he chose to inhabit a tent rather than commandeer a private home was evidence of his confidence that the siege of Brundisium would not be a long business.