Antony and Cleopatra (10 page)

Alternatively, if Cleopatra Tryphaena survived after 69
BC
, but was in disgrace, it is not impossible that she was the mother of some or all of Auletes' children. This would mean that our Cleopatra's parents were full brother and sister, which would in turn mean that she had only two grandparents. If Tryphaena was no longer officially queen, then that might just explain Strabo's statement that only Berenice was legitimate. We simply do not know and should not pretend otherwise.
²⁵

A Cleopatra ruled jointly with Berenice IV. If it was not her mother, then the only real alternative is that there was another sister, Cleopatra VI, between Berenice and our Cleopatra. In this case Strabo would have been wrong to say that Auletes had three daughters. Once again, we simply do not know. Our Cleopatra is known as Cleopatra VII, but opinion is divided over whether or not there really was a Cleopatra VI. Whether mother or sister, Berenice IV's co-ruler died within a year or so.

*

Mystery surrounds almost every aspect of Cleopatra's family and birth. Our sources are equally blank about her early life. At least until 58
BC
, she was probably raised in Alexandria. Tutors for the Ptolemies were often drawn from the scholars of the Museum. In later life Cleopatra would display formidable intellect and erudition. By this period, the royal family gave girls as full and thorough an education as boys. Her first language was Greek, but Plutarch says that she was also able to converse in the languages of the Medes, Parthians, Jews, Ethiopians, Trogodytae, Arabs and Syrians – all peoples living relatively near to her kingdom. Latin is notably absent from the list. Significantly, she was the first of her family to speak Egyptian.

When Ptolemy Auletes left Alexandria, we do not know what happened to the eleven-year-old Cleopatra. She may have remained behind and because of her youth played no part in the new regime. A vague and undated inscription set up in Athens has been interpreted as showing that she went with her father. There is nothing inherently impossible about this. If Ptolemy was suspicious of the loyalty of some senior courtiers and his eldest daughter, he might have preferred to keep some or all of his children with him. That something is not impossible does not mean that it happened.
²⁶

Yet there is something intriguing about the idea that the little girl accompanied Ptolemy, for the king would now go to Rome.

Very little is known about Mark Antony's mother. Plutarch called her ‘as noble and virtuous a woman as any of her day'. Aristocratic women at Rome tended to be married young, usually to older men. If they survived the perils of childbirth, then there was a good chance that they would outlive their husbands. Politicians rarely became too prominent during their father's lifetime, but many had living mothers and some of these had a powerful influence on their sons. Julia could still change her son's mind when Antony was in his forties.
¹

The Romans celebrated mothers who disciplined their sons, trained them in virtue and drove them on to excel. The ideal was more stern than soft and forgiving – although that may simply be because the latter was taken for granted. One of the most famous was Cornelia, wife of a man who was twice consul and censor, and the mother of Tiberius and Caius Gracchus. The brothers had spectacular careers, but each was killed in succession – the first acts in the violence that dominated the last century of the Republic. By that time she had long since been widowed and was said to have turned down a proposal of marriage from Ptolemy VIII. Julius Caesar's mother Aurelia was held in similarly high regard.
²

Julia was fifth cousin to Julius Caesar. The two branches of the family had diverged several generations earlier, to the extent that they were now members of different voting tribes in the Popular Assembly. Her own brother was Lucius Julius Caesar, who was consul in 64
BC
and a distinguished member of the Senate. Their father had also reached the consulship, but he and his brother were both victims of the massacre carried out by Marius'supporters in 87
BC
. In spite of his failures against the pirates, it is highly likely that her husband, Marcus Antonius, would have reached the consulship had he not died before returning to Rome. Julia's second husband was consul in 71
BC
.

Women could not vote or stand for political office, but senators' daughters were raised to be proud of their family. Unable to have a career of their own, many did their utmost to promote the career of their husband and sons. On marriage, Julia did not take her husband's name. She remained Julia, the daughter of Lucius Julius Caesar, and one of the Julii and a patrician. This was reinforced because her property remained her own and so was not eaten away by her first husband's debts. Her own father dead, Julia enjoyed a remarkable degree of independence even though she married again.

Aristocratic women rarely breastfed their children, and the amount of time they chose to spend with them when they were infants varied considerably – as indeed it does today, especially amongst the more affluent. We know nothing at all of how Julia felt about or treated her three sons – in the same way that we know nothing about her emotions towards either of her husbands. The mother's role was important in supervising the upbringing of her children, even if this was sometimes done at a distance and their day-to-day care left to nurses, who would usually be slaves. These would also be selected by the mother. Yet, ideally, many Romans seem to have believed that the mother should be more directly involved. Writing at the end of the first century
AD
, the senator Tacitus claimed that:

Education was carried out at home in aristocratic families. Only the less well-off, but still moderately wealthy, sent their children to fee-paying primary schools. The poor had little or no access to education and many were probably illiterate. In contrast, the aristocracy were raised to be bilingual, fluent in Greek as well as Latin. A slave from the Hellenic east would act as the child's attendant
(paedagogus)
to begin teaching him Greek (or her — by this period senators' daughters were usually as well educated as their sons). Along with numeracy and literacy, children were taught about history, and in particular the part in it played by their family. As Cicero put it, ‘For what is the life of a man, if it is not interwoven with the life of former generations by a sense of history?'
⁴

Julia would have made sure that Antony and his brothers knew they were heirs both to the Antonii and Julii. Personal virtue was emphasised. Rome had grown to be the greatest power in the world because of its special respect for the gods, and the courage, constancy and proper behaviour of the Romans, especially the aristocracy and most of all the boys' ancestors. From his earliest years Antony would have been surrounded by expectation that he would live up to — or better still surpass — the achievements of previous generations. Rome was the greatest state in the world and it had been led to that greatness by its aristocratic leaders. Being born into a senatorial family made a child special, particularly if his family was one of the handful at the centre of public life. Rome had no monarch and senators considered themselves greater than the kings of other countries. Antony will never have doubted that being born to his parents meant that he would be one of the most prominent men of his generation. He was born to distinction and glory.

From about the age of seven he began a practical preparation for this, accompanying his father as he went about his daily business. Senators' lives were lived very much in public. Apart from meetings of the Senate, there was a daily round of receiving the greetings of clients — people attached to the family, usually as a result of past favours — and meetings with other senators. Boys were supposed to observe and copy the proper way of doing things. They were not admitted to the Senate's meetings themselves, but were allowed to sit outside the open doors and hear what they could of the procedure and debates. Clustered there were the other boys of aristocratic families, so that from very early on there was a close association with the men with whom a boy would later compete for office.
⁵

Antony can only have spent a few years following his father in this way, before Antonius went off to fight the pirates. After this he may have learned about the conduct of politics by accompanying one of his uncles – either his father's brother Caius Antonius Hybrida or Julia's brother Lucius Julius Caesar. We do not know how soon Julia remarried, although at least a year was a common period of mourning, not least because it made clear the paternity of any child. After this Antony may have learned from Lentulus. We simply do not know.

Formal education continued alongside the hours spent observing public life, with the emphasis now on what the Romans called
grammatica.
This included detailed study of the classics of Latin and Greek literature, as well as written and spoken exercises in rhetoric. Pupils were expected to memorise large chunks of literature and also learnt by rote such things as the Twelve Tables, Rome's oldest collection of laws. The ability to speak, and in particular to deliver a coherent and convincing argument, was vital for any man entering public life. Although Mark Antony never gained as great a reputation for oratory as his grandfather, he was certainly a capable speaker.
⁶

As usual, senators'sons were expected to learn as much by observing as doing. Public life was carried on in a very public way, with speeches made from the Rostra in the Forum to crowds gathered before an assembly met or on other important occasions. Criminal trials were also conducted in the open air on platforms in the Forum and regularly attracted a wide audience. Many famous orators published their speeches, although Antony's grandfather refused to do so, saying that it risked something he said in one case being used against him in another. In spite of this he had written a study of oratory. In 92
BC
the Senate had decreed the closure of schools teaching rhetoric in Latin. The ostensible reason was the superiority of such teaching in Greek, although it may also have been intended to restrict formal training to the very wealthy alone.
⁷

As a man Mark Antony was very proud of his physique. Like other Roman boys his education included a strong thread of physical exercise and specialised training. The purpose was practical, so that alongside simple exercise in running, swimming and lifting weights, aristocratic boys learned to fence with swords, handle a shield and throw a javelin. They also learned how to ride, probably both bareback and with the four-horned saddle used by the Romans in an age before the stirrup. Ideally the boy was to be taught these things by a male relative – many senators prided themselves on their skill at arms. The ideal general was supposed to be able to control his army as well as he handled his personal weapons. Again, a good deal of a boy's training occurred in public view on the Campus Martius – the Field of Mars to the west of the Tiber where once the army had mustered. Just as they saw each other waiting outside the Senate's meetings, boys trained and competed with their peers as a prelude to the competition of public life.
⁸

The City of Rome – central area, Forum etc. Some details are conjectural.

Julia raised Mark Antony and his brothers to be leaders of the Republic. It is quite possible that her brother-in-law Caius Antonius and her second husband helped to fulfil the role normally played by the boy's father. In 70
BC
, when Antony was just thirteen, their capacity to do so was severely limited. The censors of that year proved far more rigorous than usual and expelled no fewer than sixty-four senators –just over 10 per cent of the house. These men were condemned as unfit, chiefly for their morals and general character as much as any specific crimes. Both Caius Antonius and Lentulus had their names struck off the senatorial role and had to begin climbing the political ladder almost from scratch.
⁹

As a boy Mark Antony wore the
toga praetexta.
This had a purple border and was otherwise only worn by serving magistrates. When his family decided, he would lay this aside in a ceremony that marked his formally becoming a man. There was no set age for this, and although somewhere between fourteen and sixteen was usual, some boys became men as young as twelve. The death of his father may have encouraged the family to do things earlier than would normally have been the case. There was not a fixed time of year for the ceremony, although many chose to celebrate it on 17 March, during the Liberalia festival. Tradition dictated that the boy was given a shorter, adult hairstyle, and was shaved for the first time, although in most cases there can have been little for the barber to do. The
bulla
charm was also removed and never worn again. On the day of the ceremony, Antony donned the plain
toga virilis
for the first time and was taken through the Forum by relatives and led up to the Capitoline Hill where he would make a sacrifice to Iuventus, the god of youth.
¹⁰

Although now formally a man, and the
paterfamilias,
or head of the household, with authority over his younger brothers, Antony continued to live with his mother and stepfather. Not until their late teens was it common for aristocratic youths to move out from the home, usually renting an apartment rather than a house. There was still much for them to learn about public life and the duties of a senator, and they were supposed to keep following relatives or family friends about their daily tasks, as well as watching events in the Forum. At the same time, there was a generally indulgent feeling towards youths of this age. A little enjoyment of the pleasures offered by the greatest city in the world was pardonable, as long as it was not taken to excess and a man eventually grew through this phase.
¹¹

Restraint was never a prominent feature in Antony's character, and this was an age when there were plenty of temptations for the young. Empire brought wealth on a massive scale and there were soon plenty of people eager to sell luxuries of all kinds to those willing to buy. Older senators and equestrians invested in lavish country villas and estates – Cicero continually complained about ex-consuls more interested in their exotic fish than the affairs of state. The young usually wanted quicker thrills.

One of Antony's contemporaries, himself hounded out of politics on charges of corruption, later railed against the mood of their generation: