Antony and Cleopatra (24 page)

Caesar finally landed in Italy in September 47
BC
and hurried to Rome. Along the way, he met Cicero, and reassured the nervous orator of his goodwill. At Rome he appointed magistrates for the remainder of the year, giving the consulship to two of his loyal supporters. Caesar acted quickly, replacing the confusion of the last year with definite action and continuing his generally moderate approach to major problems, including the burden of debt. When the dictator was actually present, his regime seemed a good deal more stable and less repressive than when government was left to his subordinates.

The mutiny took a little longer to resolve. Caesar sent Sallust – the future historian – to the legions, but he was attacked and barely escaped with his life. The legions then marched on Rome to demand that their grievances were met. Caesar rode into their camp himself. He unnerved the mutineers by his calm, and then broke their spirit by addressing them not as ‘comrades'
(commilitones)
in his normal way, but as ‘citizens'
(Quirites) –
not soldiers at all, but mere civilians. In Gaul he had once shamed the army into advancing, by telling them that he would go on alone with just the
Tenth
Legion if the others refused to follow. Now he singled out the
Tenth
in a different way, saying that he would accept all the others apart from them back into his service. In the end, the veterans of the
Tenth
were begging him to decimate them – executing one soldier in ten –just so long as he would take them back into his service. Caesar graciously granted the request, did not execute anyone and would soon lead the
Tenth
to Africa where it would again fight with great distinction.
⁹

Antony did not accompany Caesar when he set off to fight the Pompeians in Africa, nor was he given any formal role to perform in his absence. In contrast, Dolabella did go with the army, although it is possible that this was to ensure that he got up to no more mischief. Caesar had decided not to extend his dictatorship, and instead became consul for the third time for 46
BC
. The Senate had granted him the right to ignore the usual restriction and hold consecutive consulships. As a colleague he took Lepidus, the man who as praetor had looked after Rome in 49
BC
.
¹⁰

By December Caesar was in Sicily, waiting to embark with his army for the crossing to Africa. Before he left Rome he began the public auction of the property of dead Pompeians. Antony was one of the most enthusiastic bidders, so that he was still sharing in the spoils of victory even if for the moment he held no office. Amongst his purchases were Pompey's grand house in the newly fashionable region known as the
Carinae
(literally, ‘keels'), which led off from the Via Sacra, and several of his country estates. Dolabella also purchased a good deal of property during these auctions.
¹¹

Both men were greatly surprised when Caesar insisted that they must actually pay the high sums they had bid, since they had clearly expected either to pay less or nothing at all. Antony paid grudgingly, and we do not know enough about his personal fortunes to say whether he was now able to do this from his own funds or again needed to borrow, but the latter seems likely. Antony continued to live well beyond his means, trusting to future success to stave off creditors. Pompey's house and country villas became the scenes of wild feasts and celebrations, as the great man's wine cellars were consumed or given away to friends by their new owner. Cicero no doubt exaggerated when he attacked Antony for his excesses, but it is doubtful that he had to invent very much.
¹²

Another person to benefit from the auctions was Caesar's mistress Servilia, who purchased several estates at a knock-down price. Gossips claimed that around this time she had arranged for Caesar to sleep with her daughter, who after the Roman fashion was simply called Tertia, or ‘third'. Cicero joked that there was a ‘third' off the price. Her husband was Cassius, who at the moment was relieved simply to have been pardoned by Caesar, although it is possible that this encouraged his later resentment of the dictator.
¹³

Antony divorced his wife Antonia around this time and publicly alleged that she had betrayed him with Dolabella. He still had Cytheris as his mistress and remained happy to be seen in public with her. Marriage for a senator was normally a political act, where any emotional attachment either came later or was coincidental. In the case of Antony's third marriage there may have been more to it than this, for he seems quickly to have taken a new wife as well and, at least on his side, the passion was genuine. This was Fulvia, the widow of Clodius and Curio, and the match made sense politically. She was also clearly a formidable character and accounted one of the great beauties of her day. Perhaps Antony had been infatuated with her for years and the rumours that this had caused his split with Clodius were genuine.
¹⁴

Caesar may have wanted to give the impression that Antony was out of favour as a way of distancing himself from the excesses that had occurred while his Master of Horse was in charge. Perhaps he also wanted to let Antony know that his approval could not be taken for granted. However, it is also worth noting that there were other loyal supporters to reward, and it is possible that even as a private citizen Antony continued to work informally on Caesar's behalf. Since he held no office, we hear little about Antony's activities in 46
BC
. Caesar defeated the Pompeians at Thapsus in April, and was back in Italy by June, and Rome by July. However, Cnaeus Pompey, along with Labienus and other die-hard Pompeians, had raised another army in Spain, and by November Caesar had set out for war once again.
¹⁵

Dolabella went with Caesar to Spain and was wounded during the fighting that led to the victory at Munda. Antony remained behind, but in 45
BC
he journeyed through Gaul to greet Caesar on his victorious return. If there had been a breach between the two men, then it was now healed, for Caesar treated Antony with great honour, letting him ride in the same carriage. More was to come. Caesar would once again be consul in 44
BC
and this time he chose Antony as his colleague, even though at thirty-nine the latter was still several years below the legal age for the office.

Antony was excited by his return to favour and rushed back to Rome, where he celebrated in a tavern. When it was dark, he came to his own house – once Pompey's – in an exuberant mood. He came in disguise, posing as one of his own slaves with a message for Fulvia from her husband, and was promptly ushered in to her presence. She was worried, fearing that he wrote because something bad had happened – a natural fear, made all the more powerful since she had already been widowed twice. Cicero claims it was actually a passionate letter in which he promised at long last to be devoted only to her and to give up Cytheris, but there is no way of knowing whether there was any basis for this. As Fulvia started to read, the ‘slave'suddenly took her in his arms and kissed her.
¹⁶

Cleopatra's first child was a boy. We do not know when he was born, although some time late in 47
BC
seems most likely. Inevitably, the baby was given the name Ptolemy, and in later years this was extended to ‘Ptolemy called Caesar'. From quite early on the Alexandrians nicknamed him Caesarion (‘Little Caesar').

Caesar never formally acknowledged the baby as his son – there would have been little point. Cleopatra was not a Roman citizen and the child was illegitimate, so by Roman law he could have no official status or inherit any of Caesar's property. On the other hand, Caesar does not seem to have done anything to prevent the informal use of his name. After his assassination there would be debate over whether or not he was actually the boy's father. Antony claimed that Caesar had said in front of witnesses that the child was his and some people claimed a strong physical resemblance. Others were equally vehement in denying his paternity and both sides had a vested interest in proving their case. One of Cicero's letters written just months after Caesar's death makes it clear that wider opinion saw the child as his.
¹

In the course of three long marriages, Caesar had fathered just one child – his daughter Julia, born back in the early 70s
BC.
He does seem to have been eager for more children, especially a son to continue the family line, but was disappointed. On top of this, his numerous affairs produced no certain illegitimate children, although a century later at least one Gaulish aristocrat boasted that he was the product of an illicit liaison between his great-grandmother and the proconsul Caesar.
²

This has led some scholars to question whether Caesar was capable of having children by the time he met Cleopatra. Such things are inherently hard to prove and not entirely predictable, even in this day and age. Apart from this there could easily be other explanations for the failure to produce more than one child – even assuming there were not other pregnancies that ended in miscarriage or a stillborn baby, which went unrecorded in our sources. The second marriage ended in divorce and may well have been unhappy. Caesar and Calpurnia were married for fourteen years, but after the first few months he left for Gaul and they were apart for a decade, and afterwards only reunited during his brief visits to Rome. Quite simply the couple had little opportunity to conceive.

As far as we can tell, Caesar did believe himself to be the boy's father and was most probably right to do so. Absolute certainty would require the sort of intimate knowledge that is rare enough for the recent past, let alone the ancient world. Apart from those who denied the boy's paternity, none of our other sources hints that Cleopatra took another lover at this time. Once again, it is worth stressing that there is no good evidence for any men in her life apart from Caesar and later Antony.
³

Caesar first saw the boy when his mother brought him to Rome late in the summer of 46
BC
. Suetonius tells us that he had summoned the queen to the city, but it is unlikely to have been primarily from a desire to see his son. Nor was the main reason romantic. Cleopatra also brought her brother and husband, Ptolemy XIV, with her. The whole royal party was accommodated in a villa in Trastevere owned by Caesar and technically outside the boundary of the city. This was well within the traditions of Roman hospitality. Ptolemy Auletes had stayed in one of Pompey's villas during his visit to Rome.
⁴

Arsinoe was also in Rome at this time, but as a prisoner. Between 21 September and 2 October, Caesar celebrated four triumphs in succession – one more than Pompey in his entire career. The second of these was over Egypt and the Nile, and amongst the floats carrying paintings of the campaign and trophies of victory was a statue of the Nile as a river god and a flame-belching model of the Pharos lighthouse. Amongst the prisoners was Cleopatra's younger sister. At the end of his Gallic triumph, the chieftain Vercingetorix, held captive since his surrender at Alesia eight years before, was ritually strangled. The death of the enemy leader confirmed Rome's total victory in a conflict.

Dio tells us that the Roman crowd was overwhelmed with sympathy for the teenage Arsinoe. It is most unlikely that Caesar had ever considered having her executed. Women had been included amongst the famous prisoners in earlier triumphs, but had never been executed as part of the ceremony. Arsinoe was kept as a prisoner – as was the four-year-old son of King Juba, who had been part of the triumphal procession for the victory in Africa. She was soon sent to live as an exile in the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus. Cleopatra's attitude towards her sister at this stage is not recorded, but later events suggest that it was scarcely warm. During the triumph, Caesar's soldiers enjoyed the traditional entertainment of singing ribald songs about their commander. Some of the verses joked about his affair with Cleopatra. We do not know whether she ever heard about this.
⁵

Caesar did not live in the villa with the royal party, but that is not to say that the affair was over. He doubtless spent time with the queen whenever he could, as before enjoying her wit, intelligence and companionship, as well as making love. Yet he was exceptionally busy and as usual drove himself hard, drawing up new plans and legislation, and responding to petitions, as he strove to deal with the great backlog of public business. There was little time for pleasure. Caesar was also no more faithful to his mistresses than he was to his wives. During the months in Africa he had bedded another queen, this time Eunoe, the wife of King Bocchus of Mauretania.
⁶

Cleopatra's rule was based on Rome's approval. The royal army had overwhelmingly supported her brother. Many died or were dispersed during the Alexandrian War and those who survived were of questionable reliability, so that the legions left behind by Caesar were the main insurance for her rule. Their commander Rufio was a man Caesar trusted, but interestingly he was the son of a freedman. The appointment may purely have been made on merit, but it is also likely that Caesar wished to avoid having a more senior subordinate stationed in Egypt, given the Alexandrians' reaction to his own symbols of office. The troops were there, but some illusion was preserved that they were controlled by the monarch and not the other way around. Another reason for appointing Rufio to command the garrison may have been that he was not prominent enough to be dangerous.
⁷

In 46
BC
the Roman Senate formally recognised Cleopatra and Ptolemy XIV as rulers and friends of the Roman people. Caesar had arranged for Auletes to be granted the same status in 59
BC
for precisely the same reasons. According to Suetonius, he also lavished presents on the queen, but the most important gain she made was this confirmation of her rule. It was not too long ago that prominent Romans, including Caesar, had talked of annexing Egypt as a province. Cyprus had actually been taken, and although Caesar had given this back to her, there was no absolute assurance that he would not change his mind.
⁸

He and the queen had been lovers in Egypt, at a time when both were threatened by forces loyal to her brother. It would have been only natural if she were worried that his support would not necessarily continue more than a year later. If she had heard the stories about Caesar's other affairs, then Cleopatra's concern would naturally have grown. Perhaps she felt that Caesarion would help to confirm the bond between them, although if she understood Roman law and society to any extent then this would have been less reassuring. In the event, she must have been more than satisfied with the visit to Rome. On a personal level it was clear that strong affection – perhaps genuine love – remained. This could well have been deeply important to the twenty-three-year-old queen. Yet in the end the most essential thing was the political endorsement and assurance that her rule would continue with the full backing of Rome.

In return, Caesar gained a stable Egypt, unlikely to rebel or to let its resources fall into the hands of a Roman rival. No doubt Caesar also enjoyed having the queen near him again. The months spent with her after the Alexandrian War represented the only real rest he had had for well over a decade. In addition, Cleopatra brought with her specialist assistance for some of his projects. Rome's lunar-based calendar of 355 days relied on adding an extra month on alternate years, but the system had been neglected and abused for a long time and was now hopelessly out of tune with the natural seasons. Caesar replaced it with the Julian calendar – the month of his birth was renamed July in his honour. Apart from a minor readjustment, this is the calendar of 365 and a quarter days that we still use today. Much of the work on this project was carried out for him by Sosigenes, an astronomer from the Museum at Alexandria. Inspiration, and perhaps actual assistance, came from Alexandria for another project, namely the creation of grand public libraries, one containing Latin and the other Greek literature, in Rome.
⁹

Caesar left in November for the Spanish campaign. Cleopatra and the royal party may already have begun the journey home before this. If not, then they left soon afterwards, for there was no reason for them to stay in Rome in the absence of the dictator. There is no evidence for the frequent assumption that she remained in the city for eighteen months and it seems highly unlikely that she would have been willing to be absent for so long from her own realm. Perhaps the party visited Cyprus on their way back, but this is pure conjecture.

Caesar returned from Spain late in the summer of 45
BC,
but did not enter Rome itself until October, when he celebrated a fifth triumph. In the past these ceremonies had at least nominally been over foreign enemies – for instance, the African triumph was over King Juba rather than his Pompeian allies. This time it was blatantly a celebration of the defeat of other Romans. Even so the crowds turned out to cheer. The Senate had decreed no less than fifty days of public thanksgiving, something never before openly given for a victory in a civil war.
¹⁰

More and more honours were voted to Caesar. He was made dictator for ten years in 46
BC,
and for life in 45, and allowed to be consul simultaneously for ten consecutive years. On top of formal powers there were monuments and statues, creating a status that seemed more than human and came close to divinity. Caesar is supposed to have refused some of the most sycophantic awards, but still accepted many others. Most were well within the traditions of honouring successful generals and statesmen, but in combination these were on a massively greater scale. There were also generous rewards to his followers. Two of his legates were granted triumphs for the Spanish campaign, and there was no precedent for anyone apart from the army commander receiving such an honour. In addition, Caesar resigned his sole consulship for 45
BC
and had two of his followers elected as replacement or suffect consuls for the remaining months of the year. One of these men died on 31 December and Caesar held a fresh election to elect another replacement for the remaining hours of the day. Cicero joked that this man was so vigilant that he did not even sleep during his term of office. Privately, he and others were outraged at such cavalier treatment of the senior magistracy.
¹¹

Caesar had little patience with formality and tradition, in part because of his temperament and the habit of commanding an army and issuing orders, but also because there was so much to do in very little time. There was an enormous programme of land settlement to provide for his discharged veterans and the unemployed and impoverished citizens living in Rome itself. Caesar was determined to carry this out without the confiscation and upheaval of Sulla's colonisation programme. Few people objected to what Caesar was doing, and most of his reforms were seen to be sensible and for the good of the Republic. Yet they did resent the way he rushed everything through. Cicero found himself being thanked by cities in the provinces whose petitions had been granted in Senate meetings at which he had supposedly been present, but which as far as he could tell had never occurred.
¹²

Caesar once said that the ‘Republic is nothing, merely a name without body or shape', and his behaviour in these months did show a lack of concern about appearances and convention. He possessed supreme, personal and permanent power. So far he had studiously avoided the name and symbols of Rome's ancient kings, but he had accepted the right to dress in the manner supposedly adopted by the kings of nearby and long-vanished Alba Longa, from whom he claimed descent. On 26 January 44
BC
, he celebrated the festival of the Latin games, much of the ceremony being performed on the Alban Hills outside the city. As he processed back, the crowd hailed him as ‘king'. Rex was a family name as well as a title, so he simply responded by saying that he was, ‘Not king, but Caesar.'
¹³

Yet incidents continued that made many people unsure — especially if they were senators who resented his power. On 15 February came the Lupercalia festival in which his fellow consul Mark Antony played a key role. On that day he acted as the leader of the priests of Lupercal, who according to the ancient rite raced through the heart of the city clad only in a leather loincloth, and flicking a goatskin whip at anyone they passed. This was considered lucky, especially for women, increasing the chances of pregnancy and making a safe and easy birth more likely. Caesar was sitting on a raised platform in the special ornate chair awarded to him by the Senate and at the end of the ceremony Antony ran up to him. The almost naked consul was holding a royal diadem, which he offered to the dictator. Caesar refused, prompting cheers from the watching crowd. Antony offered the crown again and the cheering increased when the dictator once again refused to accept kingship. Afterwards, he had the diadem placed in the Temple of Jupiter on the Capitoline Hill, because the god was Rome's only king.