The Augustan Empire 43 BC

Why did Antony do it? Perhaps Cleopatra needed her position within Egypt strengthened (we know little of the internal history of her reign, but Ptolemies were often insecure on their thrones); but this seems an extreme method. More likely, Antony was hoping to strengthen his own position in the East, at least within Egypt itself. This festive connexion with an eastern queen — almost indeed a sacred marriage of Dionysus- Osiris and Isis - might be as popular there as it turned out to be unpopular in Italy. Glamour was important to Cleopatra in articulating her style of leadership; it was a style which Antony could naturally share; and eastern support would be crucial if it came to war with Octavian - that, surely, was already clear. But it is still surprising that he risked outraging Italian opinion quite so much; was Italy yet such a lost cause? Perhaps he thought he was doing nothing more outrageous than Caesar had done; Caesar had even installed Cleopatra at Rome; but Caesar did not have a master of propaganda to oppose him, and Antony should have sensed the danger. We rarely see Antony's political naivety so clearly, and it does remain quite possible that the personal factor was indeed important, with Cleopatra leading Antony against his political judgment. Not that he was infatuated beyond control: his refusal of the territory she desired is enough to show this; and he was shortly to leave her again, for a Parthian War which (he must have expected) would keep them apart for several years. But romance could still have been there.

Still, romance did not impede the preparations for Parthia. The signs

Joseph. A] xv.79, 91-4, 95, 258; cf. 24-5, 74-9.

Pelling 1988 (в 138) 219-20. ¹³« See above, p. 26.

of unrest at the court continued to come; in 37 or early 36 one Monaeses, from a great Parthian family, arrived with promises of a wider defection among the nobility. Monaeses' role is hard to gauge, and possibly he was playing a double game;[77] still, his news was not implausible, given Phraates' barbarity - Parthians might after all be as ready to exploit Roman help in their internal conflicts as the Roman Labienus had been to exploit the Parthians. There was obviously much to be said for striking quickly; but Crassus' fate in 5 3 had shown the vulnerability of a Roman force in the open plains of Mesopotamia, and Antony preferred a plan on the lines of the one which (it seems) Iulius Caesar was intending to follow in 44[78] — to take the slower northern route through Armenia into Media Atropatene, a rougher and hillier terrain where the Parthian cavalry would be less effective. The long-standing bad feeling between the kings of Armenia and Media (both named Artavasdes) offered the further possibility of exploiting one against the other. Presumably the Armenian Artavasdes would be the Romans' natural ally as they attacked his Median enemy, and it seems that he was already urging Antony on;[79]but both kings were very uncertain quantities. In 37 or early 36 P. Canidius Crassus made a firmer understanding with the Armenian Artavasdes, then passed on in the spring to defeat the Iberi and Albani: this remarkably swift campaign protected what would now become the Roman rear left. In the event the rear would be more exposed than it now seemed, but that was because of Artavasdes' unreliability; and, without a much more extensive campaign, that was a risk the Romans had to take.

Antony had by now sent to Phraates demanding the return of the eagles captured at Carrhae: a firm statement that, whatever Octavian might be saying at Rome, Antony's agreed task of 'avenging Crassus' was still incomplete.[80] Phraates of course refused - the insecure new monarch could hardly make so humiliating a concession — and Antony's muster continued. He first marched with his Syrian army to Zeugma. That might suggest that he was planning to follow Crassus' policy and strike direct at Mesopotamia, but that strategy would only work if the advance was to be unopposed. In fact Phraates swiftly concentrated the Parthian army in Mesopotamia. That ruled out Crassus' plan, and

Antony struck north instead towards Armenia. There he linked with Canidius' army, perhaps at the plateau of Erzerum, perhaps at Artax- ata;¹⁴³ he was also joined by contingents from the allied kings, including Polemo.¹⁴⁴ As Armenia had evidently been selected as the mustering- point some months before, Antony must always have expected that the northern route would turn out to be the only practicable one; otherwise, indeed, Canidius' preliminary campaign would make little sense; and it looks as if the Zeugma exercise had been no more than an elaborate feint.¹⁴⁵ In all Antony had perhaps sixteen legions and a mass of auxiliaries,¹⁴⁶ and Artavasdes of Armenia supplied a large contingent of cataphracts and lighter-armed cavalry, perhaps as many as 16,000.¹⁴⁷ It was a vast army indeed, distinctly greater than that with which Caesar had conquered Gaul.