Dominant Women

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CHAPTER

I. INTRODUCTORY - - =

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Chapter II Cleopatra The Magnificent

Last (except for a daughter of whom we know very little’ of numerous princesses all called Cleopatra, and all of Macedonian blood, the greatest bearer of the name did not start life with obvious advantages whereby to make her way easily to historical fame. She was, indeed, a child of the immensely wealthy Ptolemy, thirteenth of the house of Lagos to rule over Egypt. But, apart from his wealth, he was a hard-dtinking, frivolous weakling, who prided himself above all on his skill with the flute, which he exhibited at public competitions, gaining from his derisive subjects the nickname of Auletes, “the Fluteplayer.”’

Ptolemy’s hold upon his throne was very insecure. His predecessor had bequeathed Egypt to the Roman people, and it cost him £1,500,000 in bribes at Rome to get himself recognised as king. Then his unpopularity with his heavily over-taxed people caused them to rise up and drive him into exile. Again he bribed Rome, this time to the tune of £2,500,000, when a force was sent to restore him, of which the advance-guard was commanded by a young cavalry officer destined one day to be the famous general Marcus Antonius.

Ptolemy had left behind him in his flight from

Alexandria his wife, three daughters, and two small sons. The wife had died and the eldest daughter, Berenike, had claimed the throne and taken to herself a husband, for which, on her father’s return, she had paid the penalty with her life. Then Ptolemy settled down in peace with the rest of his family for the few more years that remained to him.

Cleopatra, the second of his daughters, was about fourteen when Ptolemy came back. As his reign up to that point had been both short and troubled, and previous to his accession he had been but an illegitimate scion of the royal house, living in obscurity in Syria, it is difficult to imagine how Cleopatra managed to acquire the beginnings of that education for which she was later noted. At the palace in Alexandria, no doubt, she received the benefit of competent Greek tutors. Her most remarkable accomplishment was her skill at languages; but she must have been generally cultured to get the hold which she did over Julius Cesar, and even over Antony, who was not the mere soldier his enemies made him out to be.

In 51 B.c. Ptolemy Auletes died, leaving his throne to the eighteen-year-old Cleopatra, in conjunction with her brother Ptolemy XIV, seven years her junior, whom, by the Egyptian royal custom, she was to marry. There was soon dissension. The boy was swayed by the counsels of his eunuch-guardian Potheinos and his Greek tutor Theodotos, whose great desire was to banish Cleopatra and rule Egypt for themselves. For three years they refrained from active steps, but then, on Ptolemy attaining his official majority, they persuaded him to drive her out of the country. She fled to the Eastern frontier, and—

Cleopatra.

From an antique sculpture in the Cafitol, Rome.

since none of the Lagid family ever seemed to lack money —taised an army to fight for her rights, like a true Macedonian princess. Her brother’s forces marched to meet her.

Now comes the startling introduction of Julius Cesar into her story. There was a prelude to his arrival upon the scene. Czsar had just won his great victory over his former ally and son-in-law at Pharsalia, and the defeated Pompey came in swift flight to Egypt, relying on the fact that Ptolemy Auletes had been his guest in Rome, and hoping for a return of hospitality. He reckoned without the baseness of the new Ptolemy’s advisers. Putting off in a boat from the ship which had brought him from Greece, he was treacherously murdered, before he could land, by a renegade Roman in the Egyptian service. The chief instigator of the crime was Theodotos, who suggested that Ptolemy might thus gain the favour of Cesar.

But Cesar was not the man to welcome such a deed against a fellow-Roman with whom he had once been on the friendliest of terms. Arriving in Alexandria, he turned with horror from the hapless Pompey’s head, sent him as a peace-offering from the young king. Soon, too, he was involved in trouble in Alexandria. He had brought little over four thousand troops with him, but the townspeople were much incensed at even so small a display of Roman power in their midst. Riots took place, and some of Czsar’s men were killed in the streets.

Putting on a bold face, however, Czsar ordered Ptolemy and his sister to disband their armies and appear before him for a settlement of their quarrel. Ptolemy’s advisers disobeyed and brought their twenty thousand troops to Alexandria, where Czsar, who had occupied the palace, was reduced to a state of siege.

Cleopatra, on the other hand, determined to obey. She left her army on the frontier and sailed for Alexandria. Then, making her way at evening in a boat, she landed and dramatically entered the palace, wrapped up in a bed-sack and carried on the shoulders of a faithful servant to the very presence of Cesar.

Did she trust to the notorious susceptibility of the great Roman to feminine charms, and the appeal of her fresh youth to his fifty-four years? If so, she was right. He fell at once, and next morning summoned Ptolemy before him. Unwillingly the boy came, and, in spite of his violent protests, was compelled to listen to a judgment dividing the royal power again between him and Cleopatra.

Cesar detained Ptolemy in the palace, where he had now all of the family except the younger girl, Arsinoe, between whom and Cleopatra there was a bitter hatred. To the elder sister’s enemies Arsinoe was a likely substitute on the throne, and her escape from the palace was welcomed by them.

The forced reconciliation between Ptolemy and Cleopatra did not last. Czsar’s dangerous position in Alexandria was somewhat relieved by the arrival of reinforcements, but he was still vastly outnumbered. A regular war was in progress in the town and the harbour, in which he once nearly lost his life. Finally he decided to release Ptolemy, for which clemency one reason at least was that Cleopatra was now his mistress.

Ptolemy gained nothing by his freedom. More troops arrived for Cesar from Syria, and a great battle took place

CLEOPATRA THE MAGNIFICENT 4I outside Alexandria, in which the Egyptians were totally defeated and the king lost his life. The war was at an end.

The victor conformed to Egyptian custom by associating with Cleopatra on the throne her still junior brother, Ptolemy the Younger, who was only eleven. But he made no secret of his own connection with her. In her company he spent no less than nine months, making the tour of Egypt in magnificent style, and spending money— her money rather than his—most lavishly on banquets and entertainments wherever they went. Their display was a byword for years to come.

Cesar found it almost impossible to break his mistress’s spell, which was both physical and intellectual. At last, however, he dared not remain any longer, lest he should lose his position entirely. Further campaigns awaited him, and he tore himself away, leaving her with a memento of their association, the child Cesarion, of whom he was the acknowledged father.

Cleopatra’s rule in Egypt was firmly maintained by her lover’s loan of three of his legions, and for two years she governed in peace. Then he sent for her to come to him in Rome, to the great scandal of the majority of his countrymen, though his followers flocked to see her in the villa in which he established her across the Tiber.

The Dictator’s wife Calpurnia was still living; but there wete rumouts about that he intended to marry Cleopatra also, after a due change of law to permit him to do so. In fact, there were still more extraordinary tales of the extent to which his infatuation for her was prepared to make him go, such as setting up an empire in the East and ruling from Alexandria with her as his consort. Some modern historians give this amount of belief to the suggestion, that they think Cleopatra was urging Cesar towards the idea.

Assassins ended all such dreams. The Ides of March, 44 B.C., drove Cleopatra in haste to Egypt, where she resumed her rule with her son Czsarion—her brother and nominal husband, Ptolemy the Younger, who had come with her to Italy, somehow mysteriously disappearing. Such an opportunity to impute murder was not lost by those writers who later combined to blacken the fame of Egypt’s queen.

The first of the two great romances in Cleopatra’s life was over ; and she was still but twenty-four or twenty-five. It had been a curious, almost improbable, liaison which she had had with that signal genius who had so nearly jeopardised his triumphant career for love of her in Egypt, and had contributed to the downfall of his apparently solid power by his bondage to her in Rome. It was, no doubt, with his thirty-three years’ superiority in age, more of a romance for him than for her, though he carefully refrained from mentioning her name more than once, and that casually, in his published writings. It has been questioned whether it was a romance for her at all. It was love of power, not love of him, it is suggested, that drew her to him. That she was devoted to their son, however, is not denied.

The second of the great romances began three years after the end of the first. Those years were full of anxiety for Cleopatra. A renewal of civil war was imminent between dead Czsar’s friends and his enemies. She could not afford to be on the losing side, or Egypt would be taken from her. At last, after hostilities had actually broken out, a triumvirate was formed between Czsat’s gtand-nephew Octavian, his firm adherent Antony, and Lepidus, another prominent member of the Czsarian party. Cleopatra decided to range herself with them, and set out with the Egyptian fleet to join the two first-named. A tempest intervened, and the battle of Philippi was fought and won without her. Would her gesture be sufficient to convince the triumvirs of her sincerity ?

Antony’s arrival in the East gave her the chance of testing this. His main object was to collect money, for Octavian and he had their victorious troops to pay. He sent a message to Cleopatra to meet him at Tarsus, and with no excessive speed she obeyed. Antony’s messenger, is is said, assured her of a good reception. But she determined to impress him, not forgetting to bring with her ample evidences of her wealth.

They had met before; possibly in 55, when Antony helped to restore Ptolemy Auletes to his kingdom, certainly in 45-44, when Cleopatra was at Cesar’s villa outside Rome, courted by all his friends. But now in 41 they faced each other on different terms. Antony was one of the two most powerful men in the world. Cleopatra was a free woman, a queen in her own right.

The encounter is too celebrated to need description again. Conquered by her charm and dazzled by her magnificence, Antony could do nothing too much for her. He accepted her excuse for not appearing before Philippi, took part with her in splendid entertainments at Tarsus, and finally let her depart for Egypt, promising to rejoin her there. He consented, too, to the perpetration of a vindictive crime. In the great temple of “‘ Diana of the

Ephesians” there was living Cleopatra’s sister Arsinoe, who, after Czsar’s success in Alexandria, had been kept a prisoner, to walk in his first triumph at Rome in 46, and had been subsequently allowed to retire to sanctuary at Ephesus. But Cleopatra, unable to forget their feud, had her dragged out of the temple and put to death.

Antony kept his promise, and at the end of the year came to Alexandria, to spend a winter of most extravagant revelry with her. As with Cesar, Cleopatra laid herself out in every way to captivate her guest; and it was an easier task with Antony, at once a simpler and a younger man than the Dictator had been. If Cesar could not resist her arts, still less could Antony.

But again came the necessity of a break. Antony should have been attending to the war against the Parthians, to wage which Cesar had died too soon. Instead, in his absence, they had overrun Asia Minor and Syria; while in Rome his affairs, entrusted to his brother Lucius and his wife Fulvia, had been so badly mismanaged that an open breach between him and Octavian looked unavoidable. Antony roused himself and sailed for Asia Minor, where he found the position for the moment hopeless ; for Athens, where he had his last interview with Fulvia ;* and ultimately for Brundisium, where Octavian met him, and a reconciliation was effected.

One of the conditions of peace between the great rivals was that Antony, left a widower by Fulvia’s death, should take to wife Octavia, sister to Octavian. To this he consented; and for nearly four years he left Cleopatra

2 ReSsey Abie alone. The romance seemed at an end. She had to be content with what satisfaction she could extract from the atrival of twins, a boy and a girl.

In Antony’s absence Cleopatra’s history practically ceases, and it does not begin again until 37, when he renewed his agreement with Octavian and set out East once more to deal with the Parthians. His wife Octavia, a good and loyal woman, accompanied him as far as Corcyra, whence he sent her home. There was no quarrel ; but he never set eyes on her again.

Plutarch’s explanation is that Antony’s old passion for Cleopatra blazed up anew. Without going to Egypt, he made for Syria, and from there sent her a message to come to him at Antioch. She arrived, and the infatuation was wotse than ever. It is true that he obtained from her a liberal contribution towards war expenses (which was a legitimate excuse for an interview with her); but he made her in return vast gifts of territory, of which he had no right to dispose, recognised her twin children by him, Alexander Helios and Cleopatra Selene, and sent her home to beat him another son, to whom was given the name of Ptolemy.

His campaign against the Parthians was disastrous. He sought consolation in Cleopatra’s arms, and then took her with him to Syria. There a letter reached him from the faithful Octavia, mother of two children by him. She begged him to come to Athens, where she had money, troops, and equipment for him. Cleopatra, says Plutarch, wept and starved herself, and implored Antony through friends not to be so cruel as to cast her aside, who could not live without him. She won. Antony ordered his wife back to Rome, and himself returned with Cleopatra to Alexandria.

Octavian, in whom no characteristic was more developed than prudence, did not immediately resent this gross insult to his sister. He awaited the time when Antony should fill up the cup—which he did in more senses than one, accotding to the historians. These are all partisans of the future Emperor Augustus ; but really there is some excuse for their attempts to explain Antony’s mad career by an intellectual breakdown caused by debauchery. Having shown a remnant of his military skill in a campaign against the Armenians, and captured their king, Artavasdes, in 34, he celebrated a gorgeous triumph in the streets of Alexandria, with the spectacle, horrifying to all Romans, of Cleopatra, robed as Isis, seated on a golden throne, and receiving homage from all. He proceeded to divide up almost the whole of Rome’s Eastern Empire between her and her children by Cesar and himself.

Still Octavian held back, contenting himself, when Antony tried to get these assignments of territory confirmed in Rome, with preventing the point being brought up in the Senate.

At the end of 33, when the compact made at Brundisium was due to expire, Octavian struck his blow. Antony’s friends, of whom there were many in Rome even now, owing to jealousy against Octavian, pressed for the ratification of his acts. They were defeated, whereon both consuls and about four hundred Senators left to join Antony in the East.

They found him at Ephesus; and with him, to their disgust, “‘the Egyptian woman.” Antony advised her to leave. She refused, and with her ever-ready gold bought for herself sufficient supporters. So she stayed at Ephesus, and from there accompanied her lover to Samos and to Athens. With the Athenians she was well pleased, and they with her. She loaded them with gifts, and they voted her a statue on the Acropolis, beside that of Antony, who was always popular with them.

Antony’s next step was to repudiate Octavia and have her turned out of his house in Rome, where she was living with their children and Fulvia’s. Not even yet did Octavian act, his excuse being that he was short of money ; while Antony had always Cleopatra behind him. It was not until January 31st, 31 B.c., that he felt in a position to declare war, and then so leisurely were his movements that over seven months elapsed before the decisive battle took place off the Greek coast.

Actium settled the fate of the Empire and of Antony’s and Cleopatra’s ambitions. The conduct of the two, or rather the motive for that conduct, on the fatal September 2nd, is a matter of controversy. The sea-fight was still undecided, when Cleopatra, who was at the head of the Egyptian fleet, lying behind Antony’s, was observed to be cutting right through the contending ships and speeding south. Antony recognised her flagship, and set off in pursuit. She allowed him to catch up, and took him on board, where for three days he sat speechless, with bowed head. At the southernmost point of Greece they halted to wait for other fugitives, who brought news of the loss of the fleet. Eventually they reached Paretonium, on the Egyptian coast, whence Antony sent Cleopatra to Alexandria, while he attempted to pick up some troops he had left behind as garrison of Western Egypt.

Whether Cleopatra’s flight from Actium was preattanged with Antony, or whether she was seized with sudden panic (alarmed by unfavourable omens, said some, and fearing for her children’s safety) and fled without consulting him, but stayed to take him with her, she showed no lack of courage on reaching Alexandria. She preceded the news of disaster and took precautions so that, when it arrived, she could punish with death any attempt at sedition, or any expression of joy on the part of her enemies.

Antony, poor fool, finding that his garrison had deserted, tried to commit suicide. Prevented from this, he set off for Alexandria, where more bad news reached him: that a week after the loss of his fleet, the fine army which he had left in Greece had surrendered to Octavian. -The cost of his desertion at Actium was now clear to him; and what remained in him of the soldier was brought to the depths of humiliation. Another side of his curious: character asserted itself. He had managed in the course of his life to acquire a tincture of Greek culture. The story of Timon of Athens, hater of mankind, came back to him, and, shutting himself up in a cell overlooking the harbour of Alexandria, he brooded in solitude over the ingratitude and wickedness of the human race.

Cleopatra spent no time in vain melancholy. The dream of an Eastern Empire might be shattered, but Egypt and her wealth still remained. Egypt, of course, might fall, as all the rest of the Empire had now fallen, into Octavian’s hands; but wealth was always a power. She had a scheme for dragging the Egyptian fleet over the Isthmus of Suez into the Red Sea and seeking a new kingdom somewhere south, with her treasures, her children, her friends, and all else that was left to her. The hostility

of the Arabs in the neighbourhood of the Isthmus, who

burnt a portion of her fleet, defeated this scheme. Escape

that way was therefore cut off. But despair could do no

good. Terms wight be made with Octavian. In any case, it was better to get what could be got out of the present.

She went to the hermit Antony, and prevailed on him to leave his cell and revive the old gay times which they had spent together in Alexandria. The winter after Actium was accordingly marked by sumptuous entertainments, with an added recklessness caused by the shadow of death.

At last Octavian, hampered as ever, even after his great victory, by the lack of funds, was enabled by extensive borrowings to put himself in a position to start for Egypt. In Syria he was sought by envoys from both his enemies. Cleopatra sent him the royal insignia of Egypt and implored that the country might be left for her children to rule. Antony only asked that he might be allowed to spend his remaining years as a private citizen in Athens.

To Antony Octavian returned a curt demand for unconditional surrender. To Cleopatra he is alleged to have replied that she might obtain reasonable terms by killing or driving out Antony. Whether he can really have put the case so bluntly is doubtful ; but, as he showed later, his great desire was to take Cleopatra alive. He wanted her wealth, and a splendid figure to adorn his triumph.

In the summer of 30 negotiations came toanend. The lovers knew that they must prepare for Octavian’s arrival. All avenues of flight were denied to them. East and west of Egypt there were hostile armies, and the sea to the D north was dominated by the hostile fleet. The south offered no safe asylum. There only remained to make a last stand at Alexandria.

Cleopatra had long been contemplating how to die. She had experimented with various poisons, it was said, on condemned criminals, and had satisfied herself that one was painless. She had built herself a tomb, and had collected there all her treasures, that they might perish with her body in a vast holocaust—news of which plan reached Octavian and led him to send to her, secretly, fresh messages of encouragement to live and look for his mercy. Could she believe him? And was anything to be expected from an interview with him? There were her children, and for their sake she must wait to see what might happen.

On July 31st the enemy were outside Alexandria. Antony had discovered a spark of his manhood, and had defeated the advance cavalry in a skirmish, speeding back to the palace to receive Cleopatra’s congratulations. On his last night he supped with an appearance of brave spirit, and talked of “‘ a glorious death or victory.”” But on August 1st victory was soon ruled out. In the harbour the Egyptian fleet surrendered without fighting. On land his horsemen went over to Octavian, and the foot were routed. Nor did the glorious death come his way. He left the field alive, and returned to Alexandria, to find Cleopatra had left the palace. So she, too, was a traitor! In his despair he might well be pardoned for thinking so.

She was not, though both he and she had long been haunted with a suspicion that one might betray the other. She had known of his distrust, and when the defeat was certain had fled to her tomb and barred herself in, rather than face him. She was reported to him dead by suicide. Relenting, she sent to let him know she was still alive. But it was too late. Antony had believed the first report, and had attempted suicide himself, not dying at once, but inflicting a fatal wound. He had himself carried in a litter to her tomb, where were only Cleopatra and her two handmaids, Iris and Charmion, immortalised for their devotion to her to the end. The three women drew the dying man up by ropes to the upper story of the tomb, and there, in her arms, he breathed his last.

Antony was hardly dead when Octavian’s emissaries were at the tomb. They managed to effect an entrance. In vain Cleopatra caught up a dagger, which was snatched from her hand. Taking precautions against a further attempt at suicide, the emissaries bade her still hope for leniency from their master.

Permission was sent her to bury Antony’s body; but her patoxysms of grief, which led her to refuse all food, were checked by the hint that it would be the worse for her children if she died.

Then came a message that Octavian would visit her in person. She received him without any cajolery, meanly dressed, and her face disfigured with weeping. All arts, she knew, would be wasted on this cold young man. She excused herself for the past and begged for pity; and she gave him a list of her treasures. He was polite, and assured her of kinder treatment than she had hoped from him. So he left her, convinced that she still desired to live, and had her conveyed to the palace under guard.

But he had made her no promise about her children.

Czsarion she believed safely out of the way—wherein she was mistaken. In the palace, however, were her offspring by Antony, the twins Alexander Helios and Cleopatra Selene, and the little Ptolemy. And now the dread rumour came to her that Octavian’s intention was to send them away with her in three days’ time. This, then, was the fate reserved for them by Octavian’s kindness: to figure in his triumph, as her sister Arsinoe had figured in Cesat’s, as so many noble captives had figured in other triumphs in Rome, as the Armenian king had figured in Antony’s at Alexandria. She, at any rate, would not be led in triumph. Better death |

So came her famous suicide, after a visit to Antony’s tomb by Octavian’s permission. She returned to the palace, and, clothed in her royal robes, ate her last meal, at the conclusion of which a basket of figs was brought to her. Herein was concealed, known to her, but unknown to her. guards, the medium of the poison she had chosen as the most painless; the “‘ asp ’’—probably, it is now said, the little horned viper of Egypt. She applied it to her arm, and died. A messenger from Octavian, alarmed at a letter he had just received from her asking to be buried in Antony’s tomb, arrived too late. Cleopatra was beyond the reach of all humiliation.

Octavian ordered her body to be buried as she had desired. He also spared her three younger children. But Czsarion, who had attempted to escape, was betrayed by his Greek tutor and was brought back to Alexandria to be put to death. Cleopatra’s wealth fell into Octavian’s hands. That much of her he had secured.

Cleopatra’s second great romance was finished. It had lasted, with an interval, eleven years, and left the lovers side by side in the grave. It has been hailed as the supreme romance of ancient history. It certainly had unique features. It might have been a mere intrigue, indeed began as such. But it not only developed into a wonderful love story, with almost appropriate end;* Cleopatra’s ambition also gave it tremendous political significance. She made Antony, as she was suspected of trying to make Cesar, erect an Eastern Empire, governed from Alexandria. She did not rest content with saving Egypt from being swallowed in the Roman maw. She caused the war to be carried into the enemy’s country, and for a time at least wrested vast territories from Rome. She failed because the Romans of her day were not to be beaten by any foe, even when that foe had Roman aid. She failed; but she failed, as she had lived, magnificently. The significance of her attempt was not lost on those who came after her. The struggle between East and West went on and on, and the East had its fair share of victories.

As to what manner of woman it was who achieved so much, it is not altogether in Cleopatra’s disfavour that we have only the evidence of enemies, for we therefore know that we only hear the worst of her, and make the reasonable deductions. She cannot be cleared of the vindictiveness and cruelty which marked all the prominent women of her

* Dryden, in his usually underrated A// for Love, makes the dying Antony say to Cleopatra : “* Think, we have had a glorious day,

And Heaven did kindly to delay the storm Just to our close of evening. Ten years’ love, And not a moment lost... .”

ancestral race. Her cruelty extended itself to the members of her own family; against which, however, it must be put that she was a fond mother. As she had two lovers, it is perhaps not unnatural that those who wished to blacken her should assign her many. But there is no proof whatever of any liaisons besides the famous two with Cesar and with Antony.

It is much to be lamented that time has caused the disappearance of two statues of Cleopatra of which we hear mention in her lifetime: one placed by Ceasar in the temple he erected in Rome to Venus Genetrix, legendary ancestress of the Julian gevs, and the other voted by the Athenians and presumably set up in the Acropolis. We have the bust assigned to her in the British Museum, which agrees well in profile with her numerous representations on coins. The chief characteristics of her face to be gathered therefrom are a long aquiline nose and a low forehead. In spite of later legends, due to the idea of “the Egyptian woman,” she was very likely, as a Macedonian, not dark, but fair. (This is not to be taken as indication of any preference for blondes.) She was enthusiastic in the use of cosmetics, unguents, and all supposed aids to beauty. It is gathered from the manner of her introduction to Czxsar that she was small, rather than big, for otherwise she would have been awkwardly concealed in a bed-sack.