The Augustan Empire 43 BC

proceeded no further than Brundisium: large numbers of senators and knights, and many of the city plebs, poured forth from Rome to meet him. He was also met, somewhat less obsequiously, by the veterans. He made a show of asserting discipline, but in fact largely capitulated: those 'who had served him throughout' — probably that means those who had fought on his side at Actium - were to get land, the others (probably the Antonians) only money. Even this meant settling perhaps 40,000 or more.³²⁵ Where was the land to come from? Italy was quaking. The risk was all too clear that the trauma of the Perusine War would return. There was only one alternative, to buy the land rather than seize it, and that was what Octavian chose. Of course he did not have the money; but the treasure of Egypt beckoned, and the soldiers and the sellers of land had to be content with promises. There continued to be rumblings during Octavian's absence, including a mysterious 'conspiracy' led by young M. Lepidus, the former triumvir's son.³²⁶ But Italy would have to wait. Quite evidently, the final defeat of Antony and Cleopatra had to come first. Egypt's spoils were needed now.

It took a long time for Octavian's forces to reach Alexandria. With Syria safe, he might perhaps have shipped them to the Phoenician ports; but that too would take time, for they would need to travel in several waves, and Octavian preferred to march them overland from the Ionian coast. It was July before they approached Egypt. By then Antony and Octavian had been exchanging embassies for some time.³²⁷ Octavian offered nothing, though it does seem that he was more encouraging to Cleopatra. For one thing, he was worried that she might destroy her treasure, which Octavian needed so vitally: she was already making a great show of piling it together and packing it round with inflammable flax and tow. There was even some talk of allowing her children (presumably the younger ones, not the embarrassing Caesarion) to retain the throne, provided always that she surrendered Antony or killed him. All that was not unthinkable. Alexandria had seen mysterious deaths before; Rome had appointed many a surprising client king. Cleopatra herself may well have taken the proposals seriously, more seriously than Antony would have wished: certainly, Octavian's messengers seem to have been able to reach her and talk to her privately - very odd, unless she was giving them some encouragement. But such an outcome was never very likely, and it may be that Octavian never intended more than to sow mutual suspicions, or restrain Cleopatra from premature hopeless suicide. By July it was clear that it would be fought out to the end.

Dio li.4.2-8 with Reinhold 1988 (в 150) tut loc.; Keppie 1983 (e 65) 73-82, especially 85.

Veil. Pat. 11.88, cf.Livy, Per. 153; Dio liv. 15.4; Suet. Aug. 19.1: probably in 30 rather than 31 (as App. BCb. iv.50.217 clearly implies), even though inierat at Veil. Pat. 11.88.1 cannot give the precise dating that Woodman claims. Cf. Wistrand 1958 (в 200).

Plut. Ant. 72-3 with Pelling 1988 (в 138) ad loc.; Dio u.6-8.

ALEXANDRIA, JO B.C.

Octavian planned a simple pincer movement. Cornelius Gallus had taken over and reinforced Pinarius' legions, and he would attack from the west while Octavian's own troops completed their long journey from the east. Oddly, Antony himself moved to the western front (and was pretty ineffective there); yet the east was clearly the more important front. Octavian's difficult desert march to Pelusium turned out to be wholly unopposed, and Pelusium itself fell quickly, perhaps by trea­chery. Soon Octavian's army appeared before Alexandria itself. On 31 July there was a cavalry battle, which went quite well for Antony; but the storming of the city itself was clearly imminent.

During the night of 31 July came a most curious event, or so the story was later told — a mysterious sound of divine music, a strange procession as Dionysus himself abandoned the city.³²⁸ What really happened is not beyond conjecture. There was an ancient Roman custom, the evocatio of the gods of an enemy city before a battle: the Roman general would call them out and invite them to take up a new friendly Roman home. The rite was probably enacted before the fall of Carthage in 146;³²⁹ it was also used in the routine capture of a Cilician town, Isaura Vetus, in 75 B.C.³³⁰ Octavian was always sensitive to the use he could make of antique custom. The fall of Alexandria would be the greatest conquest of an enemy city since Carthage itself, and Cleopatra was the greatest threat to Rome since Hannibal. Octavian was the man who had solemnly recalled the old fetial formula for declaring war; he would hardly neglect an opportunity like this, and evocatio is exactly what we should expect. Antony had played Dionysus-Osiris for long enough. Now he was indeed to be deserted by his god.