Henry Houssaye

“ It was not enough that Cæsar for love of Cleopatra had not reduced Egypt to a Roman province; not enough that he had installed this foreigner in Rome, in his villa on the banks of the Tiber, and that he lavished on her every mark of honor and every testimony of love;—now he dedicated, in the temple of a national divinity, the statue of this prostitute of Alexandria, this barbarous queen of the land of magicians, of thaumaturgy [wonder-working] , of eunuchs, of servile dwellers by the Nile, these worshipers of stuffed birds and gods with the heads of beasts. ”

“ Since the emperor’s arrival in Alexandria he had not even expressed the intention of seeing her, and the harsh treatment, the rigorous seclusion, and the savage threats which she had to endure from him did not certainly indicate a man in love. Can it be said, however, that the prospect of the unexpected visit of Octavius aroused in Cleopatra, desperate as she was, no glimpse of hope, no fugitive vision of a throne, no last enthusiasm? that from her beautiful eyes shot no ray of half-seen triumph? ”

“ Octavius already considered himself the master of Egypt—and of the world. He feared but little the broken sword in the hand of Antony, still less the shattered remains of the army of Cleopatra and the wrecks of her navy. But there were two things still beyond his power—all-powerful emperor as he was—the immense treasures of Cleopatra, on which he had reckoned to pay his legionaries, and Cleopatra herself, whom he wished to grace his triumph; she might escape the Roman by death and her treasure by fire. Traitors and spies were not lacking in Alexandria ”

“ How often does the ill-conduct of upper servants create a prejudice against the great.
The assassination of Cæsar, which struck Cleopatra like a thunderbolt, would have been the destruction of all her hopes if one could lose hope at twenty-five. Cæsar dead, there was nothing to detain her in Rome, and she did not feel safe in this hostile city amid the bloody scenes of the parricidal days. She prepared to depart, but Antony having entertained for a moment the weak desire of opposing to Octavius as Cæsar’s heir the little Cæsarion, Cleopatra remained in Rome until the middle of April. ”

“ The queen, the goddess Cleopatra, lying beneath an awning of cloth of gold which shades the deck, appears as the painters usually represent Aphrodite, surrounded by rosy children like the Loves, beautiful young girls scarcely clad with lightest drapery as Graces and sea-nymphs, bearing garlands of roses and the lotus-flower and waving great fans of the feathers of the ibis. ”

“ He might believe himself sufficiently powerful to despise Roman prejudices; for the rest, during the last two years of his life, Cæsar, till then so prudent, so cautious in humoring the sentiments of the plebeians, so skillful in using them for his own designs, pretended in his public life to despise and brave public opinion. It was the same in his private life; far from dismissing Cleopatra, he visited her more frequently than ever at the villa on the Tiber, talked incessantly of the queen, and allowed her publicly to call her son Cæsarion. ”

“ Her grief is bitter and profound—the more bitter that it is mingled with remorse. She must see Antony again; she commands that he be brought, dead or alive. Diomedes, her secretary, hastens to the palace. Antony is at the last gasp, but the joy at hearing that the queen is not dead revives him, and “he rises,” says Dion Cassius, “as if he might still live!” Slaves bear him in their arms, and, to hasten their movements, he utters entreaties, invectives, threats, which mingle with the death-rattle. They reach the tomb; the queen leans from a window of the upper story ”

“ We can easily conceive of Cleopatra as a great queen, the rival of the mythic Semiramis, and the elder sister of the Zenobias, the Isabellas, the Maria-Theresas, and the Catharines; but, in truth, only those queens are great who possess manly virtues, who rule nations and compel events as a great king might do. Cleopatra was too essentially a woman to be reckoned among these glorious androgynuses. ”

“ A famous Egyptian soothsayer, whom probably Cleopatra herself had despatched to Rome, encouraged Antony in these ideas by his predictions and horoscopes. “Your tutelar genius dreads that of Octavius,” said he constantly. “Proud and lofty when alone, he loses power when you are with Octavius. Here your star is eclipsed; it is only away from Rome—it is in the East that it shines in full luster.” A new revolt of the Parthians gave Antony a pretext for leaving Rome. He set out with Octavia, and touched first at Athens. ”

“ Herod, his creature, whom he had made king of the Jews, had offered his allegiance to the conqueror of Actium; defection on all sides with his allies as with his legions. Antony reached the point of doubting even Cleopatra; he would scarcely see her. Exasperated at the cruelty of the gods, and still more so at the perfidy of men, he resolved to pass in solitude the wretched days that his enemies might yet permit him to live. ”

“ Around the vast port, from Cape Lochias to the Heptastadium, extended a noble line of piers along which arose palaces and temples. Edifices of pure Greek style stood side by side with Egyptian buildings and other magnificent ones in which both styles of architecture had combined their elements, relieving the utter plainness of Semitic art by ornaments of the Hellenic order, alternating Corinthian columns with campaniform, and uniting the acanthus leaf with the papyrus flower. ”

“ In vain the gravest interests called him to Rome, where disorder reigned and blood was flowing, and where, since the December of the preceding year, not a letter had been received from him;1 in vain, in Asia, Pharnaces, the conquerer of the royal allies of Rome and of the legions of Domitius, has seized on Pontus, Cappadocia, and Armenia; in vain, in Africa, Cato and the last adherents of Pompey have concentrated at Utica an immense army—fourteen legions, ten thousand Numidian horsemen, and one hundred and twenty elephants of war; in vain, in Spain, all minds are excited and revolt is brewing. ”

“ From the time of the proscriptions of Sylla, the hold on life seemed very precarious; one must make the most of it. “Let us live and love,” says Catullus. “Suns may set and rise again, but we, when our brief day is ended, must sleep a night that has no morrow.” ”

“ In the latter times of the Republic in Rome politics became the school of crime; the theater, where, contrary to the custom of the Greeks, women might take part in the comedies and in the obscene games of the mimes and mountebanks, became the school of debauchery. The favorite poet is the licentious Catullus; the mold of fashion, and at the same time the pupil, client, and friend of Cicero is Cœlius, a man of unscrupulous ambition and unbridled libertinism. Assassination became a means of government, poison a way to an inheritance. ”

“ The Egyptian envoy represented to Octavius that his hatred of Antony ought not to include the queen, who had had no part in the late events. It was Rome, said he, that declared war on Egypt, to bring matters to a close with Antony.90 Was not Cleopatra compelled to arm in her own defense? But now that Antony is overcome, compelled to exile or suicide, the Romans may safely show mercy to Cleopatra and leave her on the throne. That is far more to their interest than to force this powerful queen to a desperate struggle. ”

“ Antony in his turn hoists the sails of his galley, and rushes in the wake of Cleopatra. He will bring back the Egyptian vessels and restore the chances of the battle. But before overtaking the Antoniad the unhappy man has time to think. Cleopatra has deserted him either through cowardice or treason; he can bring back to Actium neither her nor her fleet. Next he thinks he will return to the combat, which is now only a rout, to die with his soldiers—to die without seeing Cleopatra once more! he cannot do it. A fatal power drags him after this woman. ”

“ Finally, imagine all that Asiatic pomp, Egyptian state, and Grecian refinement and depravity, and Roman power and licentiousness blended in a single form—a sensual and splendid woman, delighting in pleasure and sumptuousness—can achieve with such elements and you will have some idea, though very vague and feeble, of the “Life Inimitable.” ”

“ The ally of the Roman people, she could not remain neutral in the struggle; but at the risk of the victors’, whoever they might be, making her pay the penalty of her desertion by annexing Egypt to the empire, she inclined to the Triumvirs; for the partisans of Cæsar had been less inimical to her while in Rome, and Antony, through policy indeed, rather than friendship, had spoken in favor of her son’s succession. On the other hand, if the Triumvirs possessed the West, their adversaries were almost the masters of the East, and directly threatened Egypt. ”

“ On a day when the triumvir on his judgment-seat was giving public audience in the midst of the agora of Tarsus, a great uproar arose on the banks of the Cydnus. Antony inquired what it meant. Flatterers as all Greeks are, the Cilicians replied that it was Aphrodite herself who, for the happiness of Asia, was coming to visit Bacchus. Antony liked to assume the name of Bacchus. The crowd which thronged the public square rushed in a body to the shore. ”

“ Humble cottages, rough-coated with lime, pierced irregularly with little windows, having wooden gratings, and terraced roofs surrounded by ventilators, serving as sleeping-places in the hot summer nights, alternated with vast residences rising amidst courts and gardens, concealing from the view of the outside world by lofty walls, turreted like ramparts, their white façades and sculptured porticos with rows of painted columns and cornices decorated with many colored bands. ”

“ Antony was left alone with his lictors in the deserted agora—his dignity kept him there, but he fidgets in his curule chair, till finally curiosity gains the day. Unaccustomed to self-control, he, also, descends to the strand. The sight is worth the trouble—a vision divine which carries one back to the dawn of mythologic times. Cleopatra is entering43 Tarsus, ascending the Cydnus on a vessel plated with gold over which float sails of Tyrian purple. The silver oars rise and fall in measured cadence to the music of Greek lyres and Egyptian harps. ”

“ To vindicate herself she gave up to Antony the wife and children of Seleucus, and proposed that he should put them to death. This was but a very doubtful proof of her innocence, but Antony had to be satisfied with it. His anger subsided before her protestations and tears, true or false; now was not the time for recriminations: he must fight. Octavius had pitched his camp on the heights about twenty stadia east of Alexandria. Antony, having led in person a strong reconnoitering body of cavalry in that direction, fell in, not far from the Hippodrome, with the whole body of the Roman cavalry. ”

“ Proud and headstrong, Cleopatra was likewise skillful, intelligent, and very learned; she spoke eight or ten languages, among them Egyptian, Greek, Latin, Hebrew, Arabic, and Syriac. How is it possible to think that this woman, so haughty and so gifted, would abandon her share of the sovereignty in favor of a child governed by a eunuch? Either she would get rid of her brother, or if she consented18 to live with the young king she would soon acquire an absolute supremacy over him. Pothinus realized this, and he devoted all his energies to accomplish the ruin of the queen. ”

“ The first advantage Cleopatra took of her power was to have her son, by Cæsar, Ptolemy-Cæsarion, recognized45 as legitimate heir to the crown of Egypt. At Antony’s request the decree was immediately ratified by his colleagues, Octavius and Lepidus. Antony alleged as a pretext for this favor to Cleopatra, the services she rendered to the Romans during the civil war. After having satisfied her ambition, Antony became without difficulty the executor of her revenge. Like most women the beautiful queen was vindictive, and like Dionysius the Tyrant, she carried her prudence to the extent of crime. ”

“ O, wretched human weakness!
Some of his friends who had escaped from Actium brought them news. The fleet had made an obstinate resistance, but all the vessels which were not sunk or burned were now in possession of Octavius. The army still maintained its position, and appeared to be faithful. Antony at once sent messengers and despatched Canidius with orders to recall those troops, and himself embarked for Cyrenaica, where he still had several legions. ”

“ Cæsar soon learned the contentions of Ptolemy and Cleopatra, the flight of the latter in consequence of the threats of the populace, and the battle about to take place between the two armies assembled at Pelusium. It had always been the Roman policy to intermeddle in the private dissensions of nations. This policy of intervention was still more in order for Cæsar with regard to Egypt, because during his first consulate Ptolemy Auletes had been declared the ally of Rome, and in his will had conjured the Roman people to have his last wishes executed. ”