Augustus

Antony was waiting in state on a dais in the central square of Tarsus to give the queen a formal welcome. Rumors spread through the crowds of bystanders of the floating spectacle that was sailing up the river into port and mooring at the quayside. Gradually they drifted away to have a look, leaving Antony and his entourage alone in the marketplace.

Word spread that Aphrodite (whom many worshippers identified with Isis) had come to revel with Dionysus “for the happiness of Asia.” This notion doubtless originated with Cleopatra, but it shows that Antony’s religious propaganda featuring himself as the New Dionysus was evidently working its way into the public mind. She herself well understood the role of religion in royal self-promotion. If she was consciously presenting herself as Aphrodite, she was at one level making a direct sexual offer; but, more profoundly, she was also putting in a claim to be Antony’s divine partner.

The triumvir sent the queen a message inviting her to dinner, but she had already determined what the next step in their relationship should be. Well-informed about Rome’s leading personalities, she will have known that Antony’s character was essentially simple and easy to read. He greatly enjoyed the display of wealth. He was easygoing and had a broad sense of humor that belonged to “the soldier rather than the courtier,” as Plutarch put it. He loved practical jokes. These were not exactly the tastes to which Cleopatra, educated in the sophisticated court of the Ptolemies, was accustomed, but in his company she made every appearance of sharing them.

The queen countered the triumvir’s invitation to dinner with one of her own; always complaisant with the ladies, he gracefully gave way and attended a banquet on board ship. On the following day, the queen dined with Antony. The gustatory exchanges were repeated for four days.

At a certain point, business supplanted pleasure. Antony required practical support from Cleopatra for the invasion of Parthia. She agreed to provide it, but on certain conditions. She required the execution of a few inconvenient personages, and in particular of her hated half sister, Arsinoe, who had briefly seized her throne and had been given sanctuary at the temple of Artemis at Ephesus. Antony obliged.

The queen now invited him to spend the winter with her at Alexandria. The couple sailed off to Egypt, where Antony laid aside the garb of a Roman official and wore an informal tunic in the Greek manner. The couple formed a dining club called the Inimitable Livers and spent much of their time enjoying themselves.

In February or March of 40 B.C., bad news reached Egypt. Having decided not to await Antony’s planned attack on them, the Parthians had launched an invasion of Syria. The triumvir quickly set off for Asia Minor.

Mark Antony’s critics have made much of his oriental debauchery, as though he were acting in an original and shocking way. In fact, he did nothing out of the ordinary but rather behaved very much as he had always done. There are no reports that, at this stage of life, he was sexually promiscuous. He had sex with the queen, but with no one else. (She gave birth to twins, Alexander and Cleopatra, later in the year.) However, he was not in love with her and left Egypt without qualms. The couple were not to meet again for three and a half years. He had spent a most enjoyable holiday, and that was all.

Something more serious, though, was taking place in his personality: a gradual and growing loss of focus. The Greek word for this process was eklusis, the term for the unstringing of a bow. Dio remarks that Antony “had earnestly devoted himself to his duties so long as he had been in a subordinate situation and had been aiming at the highest prizes; but now that he had got into power, he no longer paid strict attention to these things.”

When things are as bad as they can be, fate finds a way to deliver another blow. One of the consuls in 41 B.C. was Lucius Antonius, Mark Antony’s brother, who decided to launch a military challenge against Octavian. He was in collusion with Mark Antony’s wife, the virago Fulvia. At this time she played an active and influential political role, to the point where she seemed to be as much of a consul as those elected to that office.

The two played a double game, simultaneously sympathizing with dispossessed Italian farmers and telling the legionaries that Octavian was acting disloyally to the absent Mark Antony, for whom they claimed to speak. All would be well, they argued, once Mark Antony returned to Italy. Lucius backed a protest against Octavian in Rome, managed to raise eight legions, and occupied the capital. He then marched north, hoping to link with two Antonian generals and their armies. However, the generals were unsure of Antony’s wishes and held aloof.