Augustus

The rest of Antony and Cleopatra’s forces were stationed at Pelusium, a port on the easternmost edge of the Nile delta. It straddled the coastal route that skirted the Sinai desert and, being the only means of entry by land into Egypt from the east, was strategically important. Pharaohs throughout the ages had always taken care to give it a strong garrison. However, Pelusium fell with little or no resistance, perhaps surrendered by Cleopatra or else quickly stormed. If the former, she was creating a distance between herself and Antony—as may well be, for her first loyalty was always to her kingdom and the preservation of her own power. This and other accounts of her behavior during this time may have been lifted from Octavian’s propaganda, which often stressed the queen’s eastern deviousness and Antony’s humiliating status as a dupe. However, it is perfectly possible that Cleopatra saw no advantage in going down with Antony and tried to save herself.

Octavian seems to have encountered little or no resistance in his advance on Alexandria. He passed the fashionable suburb of Canopus and set up camp near the racecourse or hippodrome, just outside the city walls. When he received the news that Pelusium was lost, Antony rushed back to Alexandria and, on its outskirts, surprised and routed an advance guard of enemy cavalry. Elated by the victory, he returned to the palace and embraced Cleopatra while still in full armor. He then introduced to her a soldier who had displayed unusual valor in the engagement. As a reward, the queen gave him a golden helmet and breastplate. He took them, and that night deserted to Octavian.

With hopeless bravado Antony challenged his onetime colleague to single combat, as if they were a pair of Homeric heroes. He can hardly have anticipated an acceptance. Octavian responded dismissively: “There are many different ways by which Antony can die.”

On July 31, Antony decided to launch an all-out attack by land and sea on the following day. At dinner he ate and drank particularly well, telling the people around him that he did not expect to survive the battle. That evening, or so the story goes, about the hour of midnight, when all was hushed and a mood of dejection and fear of its impending fate brooded over the whole city, suddenly a marvellous sound of music was heard…as if a troop of revellers were leaving the city, shouting and singing as they went…. Those who tried to discover a meaning for this prodigy concluded that the god Dionysus, with whom Antony claimed kinship and whom he had sought above all to imitate, was now abandoning him.

Gods were imagined to leave besieged cities before they fell—Troy, Athens, Jerusalem. If the story has a basis in fact, perhaps Alexandrians were hearing Octavian, supported by a soldiers’ chorus, conducting an evocatio; in this ceremony, a Roman general used to call on the gods of an enemy city to change sides and migrate to Rome.

On August 1, as soon as it was light, Antony sent his fleet eastward to meet Octavian’s ships, and he drew up his remaining land forces on rising ground between the city walls and the hippodrome. The upshot was an almost comic fiasco. The ships raised their oars and surrendered without a fight; the fleets immediately combined and set a new course for the city. The cavalry deserted and the foot soldiers ran away.

Antony made his way back inside the walls of Alexandria and fell into a rage. He is reported to have shouted out that Cleopatra had betrayed him to the very men whom he was fighting for her sake. Terrified, she had word sent that she was dead.

There was only one thing now to be done. Antony went to his room and took off his armor. He asked his body servant to run him through, but the man suddenly turned away and fell on his sword instead. Antony then stabbed himself in the stomach and fell on the bed. The wound not only failed to kill him but soon stopped bleeding. Racked with pain, he begged bystanders to put him out of his misery, but they ran from the room.