Excitement spread; it was an excellent maneuver, with a very good chance of succeeding. But disaffection had grown amain since news that the Roman troops were being better fed; a Thracian commander deserted, went to Octavian, and gave the scheme away in great detail. Octavian was able to intercept the cavalry with some of his own Germans. There was no battle. Deiotarus Philadelphus and Rhoemetalces went over to Octavian on the spot, and then, combined with the Germans, went to crush the approaching foot soldiers. Who turned and fled in the direction of Actium.
When he heard of the disaster Antony marshaled the last of his horse, the contingent from Galatia under Amyntas, and set out in person to turn his legions around. But when Amyntas met up with his colleagues and the Germans, he deserted, offering himself and his two thousand horse troopers to Octavian.
Thwarted and despairing, Antony took his legions back to Actium, convinced that no land engagement could be won in this awful place.
“I don’t know how to break free!” he cried to Cleopatra, hopes as black and shriveled as a mummy. “The gods have deserted me, so has my luck! If the winds had blown as they always do, Octavian would never have been able to cross the Adriatic! But they blew to favor him, and undid all my plans! Cleopatra, Cleopatra, what am I to do? It’s all over!”
“Hush, hush,” she crooned, stroking the stiff, curly hair, and noticing for the first time that it was greying. Frosted almost overnight!
She too had acknowledged that same impotence, a terrible dread that her own gods as well as Rome’s had taken Octavian’s side in this. Why else had he been able to cross the Adriatic out of season? And why else had he been gifted with a commander as great as Agrippa? But, most urgent question of all, why hadn’t she abandoned Marcus Antonius to his inevitable fate, fled home to Egypt? Loyalty? No, surely not! What did she owe Antony, after all? He was her dupe, her tool, her weapon! She had always known that! So why now was she cleaving to him? He didn’t have the skill or the stomach for this quest, he never had. Simply, loving her, he had tried to be what she needed. It’s Rome, she thought, stroking, stroking. Not even a monarch as great and powerful as Cleopatra of Egypt can dig the Roman out of a Roman. I almost succeeded. But only almost. I couldn’t do it to Caesar, and I can’t do it to Antonius. So why am I here? Why, over these last nundinae, have I found myself growing softer with him, stopped flogging him? Been kind to him, I who am not kind?
Then it dawned upon her with the terror of some sudden natural catastrophe—an avalanche, a wall of water, an earthquake: I love him! Cradling him protectively, she kissed his face, his hands, his wrists, and, stupefied, realized the identity of this new emotion that had crept upon her so stealthily, invaded her, conquered her. I love him, I love him! Oh, poor Marcus Antonius, finally you have your revenge! I love you as much as you love me—utterly, boundlessly. My walled-up heart has convulsed, cracked, gaped open to admit Marcus Antonius, the wedge that did it his own love for me. He has offered me his Roman spirit, gone out into a night so dense and black that he sees nothing beyond me. And I, in taking his sacrifice, have come to love him. Whatever the future holds, it is the same future for both of us. I cannot desert him.
“Oh, Antonius, I love you!” she cried, embracing him.
As summer wore on legates deserted Antony in dozens, senators flocked to Octavian in hundreds. It was as easy as rowing across the bay, for Antony, plunged into despair, refused to stop them. Their pleas for asylum always revolved around That Woman, the cause of ruin. Though a spy reported a curious thing to Cleopatra: Rhoemetalces of Thrace was particularly acidic in his criticisms of Antony until Octavian rounded on him.
“Quin taces!” he snapped. “Just because I like treason does not mean I must like traitors.”
For Antony, the worst blow came late in Julius; making no secret of his loathing for Cleopatra—hoarsely declaiming it, in fact—Ahenobarbus quit.
“Not even for you, Antonius, can I stand another day of That Woman. You’re aware that I’m ill, but you probably don’t know that I’m dying. And I want to die in a properly Roman environment, free from the slightest whiff of That Woman. Oh, what a fool you are, Marcus! Without her, you would have won. With her, you don’t have a chance.”
Weeping, Antony watched the rowboat carry Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus across the bay, then sent all Ahenobarbus’s possessions after him. Cleopatra’s strenuous objections fell on deaf ears.
The day after Ahenobarbus quit, Quintus Dellius followed him, together with the last of the senators.
The day after that, Octavian sent Antony a graceful letter. “Your most devoted friend, Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus, died peacefully last night. I want you to know that I had welcomed him and treated him with great consideration. As I understand it, his son, Lucius, is betrothed to your elder daughter by my sister, Octavia. The betrothal will be honored, I gave Ahenobarbus my word. It will be interesting to watch the offspring of a couple linking the blood of Divus Julius, Marcus Antonius, and the Ahenobarbi, don’t you agree? A metaphorical tug-of-war, given that the Ahenobarbi have always opposed the Julii.”
“I miss him, I miss him!” Antony said, uncontrolled tears rolling down his face.
“He was my obdurate enemy,” Cleopatra said, tight-lipped.
On the Ides of Sextilis Cleopatra summoned a council of war. So few of us, so few! she thought as she tenderly inserted Mark Antony into his ivory curule chair.
“I have a plan,” she announced to Canidius, Poplicola, Sosius, and Marcus Lurius, the only senior legates left. “However, it may be that someone else also has a plan. If so, I would like to hear it before I speak.” Her tone was humble, she sounded sincere.
“I have a plan,” Canidius said, very grateful for this unexpected opportunity to air it without needing to call a council himself. It was months since he had been able to place any confidence in Antony, who had turned into a remnant of what he used to be. Her fault, no one else’s. And to think that once he had championed her! Well, no more of that.
“Speak, Publius Canidius,” she said.
Canidius too was looking old, despite his trim body and love of physical work. However, he hadn’t lost any of his frankness. “The first thing we have to do is abandon the fleet,” he said, “and by that I don’t mean we save as many as the flagships. All the ships, including Queen Cleopatra’s, must be abandoned.”
Stiffening, Cleopatra opened her mouth, then shut it. Let Canidius finish outlining his ridiculous plan, then strike!
“We withdraw the land army by forced marches into Macedonian Thrace, where we’ll have room to maneuver, room to give battle on ground of our choosing. We’ll be in a perfect position to gather additional troops from Asia Minor, Anatolia, and even Dacia. We can utilize the seven Macedonian legions, at present around Thessalonica—good men, Antonius, as you know. I suggest the area behind Amphipolis, where the air is clean and dry. This year has been wet enough to ensure no dust storms, as happened when we fought at Philippi. The harvest will be in by the time we get there, and it’s going to be a plentiful one. The move will give our sick soldiers time to regain strength, and morale will soar by the very fact that we’re quitting this terrible place. Into the bargain, I doubt Octavianus and Agrippa can march at Caesar’s speed—Octavianus, I’ve heard, is running out of money. He might even decide against fighting a campaign so far from Italia with the winter coming on and uncertain supply lines. We’ll be marching overland, whereas he’ll have to get his fleets from the Adriatic to the upper Aegean. We’re not going to need fleets, but with us blocking the Via Egnatia, he’ll have to rely on ships for supply.”
Canidius stopped, but when Cleopatra would have spoken, he held up his hand so commandingly that she didn’t. The others were hanging on his every word, the fools!
“Your Majesty,” Canidius went on, addressing her now, “you know I have been your strongest supporter. But not anymore. Time has proved that a campaign is no place for a woman, most especially when that woman occupies the command tent. Your p
resence has sown dissent, anger, opposition. Through your presence, we have lost valuable men and even more valuable time. Your presence has sapped the Roman troops of their vitality, their will to win. Your sex has created so many problems that, even were you a Julius Caesar—which you are definitely not—your presence is a frightful burden to Antonius and his generals. Therefore I say adamantly that you must return to Egypt at once.”
“I will do no such thing!” Cleopatra cried, jumping to her feet. “How dare you, Canidius! It’s my money that has kept this war going, and my money means me! I will not go home until this war is won!”
“You miss my point, Your Majesty. Which is that we cannot win this war while ever you are here. You are a woman trying to fill a man’s military boots, and you haven’t succeeded. You and your antics have cost us dearly, and it’s high time you realized that. If we are to win, you must go home immediately!”
“I will not!” she said through her teeth. “What’s more, how can you even suggest that we abandon the fleets? They’ve cost ten times what the land army has, and you want to hand them over to Octavianus and Agrippa? That’s tantamount to handing them the whole world!”
“I didn’t say they’d be handed over to the enemy, Majesty. What I implied—but will now say outright—is that we burn them.”
“Burn them?” She gasped, hands going to her throat and that growing lump. “Burn them? All those trees, all that work, all that money, going up in smoke? Never! No, and no, and no! We have more than four hundred quinqueremes in fighting condition, and many more transports than that! We have no cavalry left, you idiot! That means the land army is in no position to fight—it’s utterly crippled! If anything is to be abandoned, let it be the infantry!”
“Land battles are decided by the infantry, not cavalry,” said Canidius, not about to give in to this crazy woman and her passion for getting her money’s worth. “We burn the fleets, and we march for Amphipolis.”
Antony sat silent while the verbal battle raged, Cleopatra fighting alone against Canidius backed by Poplicola, Sosius, and Lurius. What they said seemed to hum, float, wax and wane, strike colors off the walls that bled into each other. Unreal, thought Antony.
“I will not go home! You will not burn my fleets!” she was screaming, flecks of foam at the corners of her mouth.
“Go home, you woman! We must burn the fleets!” the men were shouting, fists clenched, some brandished at her.
Finally Antony bestirred himself; one hand came down on the table, sent it vibrating. “Shut your mouths, all of you! Shut up and sit down!”
They sat, all of them trembling with rage and frustration.
“We will not burn the fleets,” Antony said in a tired voice. “The Queen is right, they must be saved. If we burn all our ships, nothing will stand between Octavianus and the eastern end of Our Sea. Egypt will fall, because Octavianus will simply bypass us at Amphipolis. He’ll sail straight for Egypt, and Egypt will fall because we won’t be able to get there first if we have to march overland. Think of the distance! A thousand miles to the Hellespont, another thousand miles through Anatolia, and a third thousand to Alexandria. Maybe Caesar could have covered them in three or four months, but his troops would have died for him, whereas ours would grow tired of forced marches in a month, and desert.”
His argument was unassailable; Canidius, Poplicola, Sosius, and Lurius subsided, while Cleopatra sat with eyes downcast and no expression of triumph. At last she understood that it was her sex these fools couldn’t bear, that it was neither her foreignness nor her money-bags. All their hatred was for a woman. Romans didn’t like women, which was why they left them at home even if they were doing nothing more important than staying in a country villa! Finally she had the answer to the puzzle.
“I didn’t know it was my sex,” she said to Antony after his four generals had departed, muttering darkly, but convinced he was right. “How could I have been so blind?”
“Oh, because your own life has never lifted that veil.”
A silence fell, but not an uncomfortable one. Cleopatra sensed a change in Antony, as if the bitterness and protracted length of the argument between her and his four remaining friends had penetrated his detachment, pushed some energy back into him.
“I don’t think that I want to share my plan with Canidius and the others anymore,” she said, “but I would like to air it with you. Will you listen?”
“Gladly, my love. Gladly.”
“We can’t win here, I know that,” she said, but briskly, as if it didn’t concern her. “I also understand that the land army is useless. Your own Roman troops are as loyal as ever, and there have been no desertions among them. So, if possible, they should be saved. What I want to do is break out of Ambracia and make a run for Egypt. And there’s only one way to do that. Our fleets must offer battle. A battle you must lead in person aboard the Antonia. I’ll leave it to you and your friends to work out the details because I have no skill in naval matters. What I want to do is load as many of your Roman troops as will fit in my transports, while you load others aboard your fleetest galleys. Don’t bother with the quinqueremes, they’re so slow they’ll be caught.”
He was listening alertly, eyes fixed on her face. “Go on.”
“This is our secret, Marcus, my love. You can’t speak of it even to Canidius, whom you will keep on land to command whatever infantry are left. Put Poplicola, Sosius, and Lurius in command of your fleets, that will keep them busy. As long as they know you’re there in person, they won’t smell a dead rat. I’ll be aboard Caesarion just far enough behind the lines to see where a gap opens. And the moment that gap opens, we’re running for Egypt with your troops. You’ll have to keep a pinnace near the Antonia—when you see me sailing, you’ll follow. You’ll catch up with me quickly, and come aboard Caesarion.”
“I’ll look like a deserter,” Antony said, frowning.
“Not once it’s known that you acted to save your legions.”
“I can improve on your plan, my beloved. I have a fleet and four good legions in Cyrenaica with Pinarius Scarpus. Give me one ship and I’ll sail for Paraetonium to collect Pinarius and my men. We’ll meet again in Alexandria.”
“Paraetonium? That’s in Libya, not Cyrenaica.”
“Which is why I’m sending a ship to Cyrenaica this moment. I’ll order Pinarius to march for Paraetonium at once.”
“Given that we can’t save all eleven of your legions here, we can do with four more,” she said with satisfaction. “So be it, Marcus. I’ll have that ship on Caesarion’s beam, waiting. But before you board him, you must farewell me on Caesarion, please.”
“That’s no hardship,” he said with a laugh, and kissed her.
The secret leaked, as was inevitable when on the Kalends of September the legions were loaded, packed like sardines, aboard Cleopatra’s transports and any others deemed capable of sailing swiftly. Other evidence of something more than a sea battle had occurred before this: all but the massive fives had their sails stowed, and huge amounts of water and food. Canidius, Poplicola, Sosius, Lurius, and the rest of the legates assumed that, hard on the heels of the engagement, they were making a bid to get to Egypt. This was reinforced when every unseaworthy or unnecessary vessel was beached and burned far enough away from Ambracia’s mouth to dissipate the smoke before Octavian could see it. What no one suspected was that the engagement too was smoke, that it would not be fought to a conclusion. Proud Romans that they were, Poplicola, Sosius, and Lurius could not have borne a plan that meant no all-out fight. Canidius, who did see through the smoke, said nothing to his colleagues, simply concentrated on getting what troops could not be fitted aboard the transports on the march before Octavian woke up to what was going on.
26
At the end of the Adriatic summer the wind was more predictable than at any other season: it blew from the west in the morning, and about midday veered northwest, picking up in strength the more to the north it turned.
Octavian and Agrippa
had not missed the signs of an impending battle, though no spy had reported to them about the sails, water, and food aboard every transport Antony and Cleopatra possessed; had they known those things, they might have planned countermoves for flight. As it was, they just assumed the enemy was tired of sitting still and had resolved to gamble all on defeating Agrippa at sea.
“Antonius’s strategy is simple,” Agrippa said to Octavian in their command tent. “He has to turn my line of ships at its northernmost end and drive it southward—that is, away from your land camp and my own base on the Bay of Comarus. His land army will invade your camp and my naval base with a good chance of winning. My strategy is equally simple. I have to prevent his turning my line downwind. Whoever wins the race to do the turning will also win the battle.”
“Then the wind favors you slightly more than it does him,” Octavian said, on tiptoe from excitement.
“Yes. What also favors me is size, Caesar. Those monstrous fives of Antonius’s are too slow. He’s Antaeus the giant, we’re Hercules the comparative midget,” Agrippa said with a grin, “and what he seems to have forgotten is that Hercules lifted Antaeus free of his mother, the earth. Well, there’s no earth for Antaeus to draw strength from in a battle fought on water.”
“Find me a flotilla to command at the south end of your line,” Octavian said. “I refuse to sit this battle out on dry land, and have everyone call me craven. But if I’m far enough away from the main thrust, I can’t interfere with your tactics even by the most innocent mistake. How many of our legionaries do you plan to use, Agrippa? Given that, if Antonius wins, he’ll invade our camp and port?”
“Thirty-five thousand. Every ship will have the harpax for hauling those elephants in from a distance, and as many hooked gangplanks as possible. We have the advantage in that our troops have been trained as marines—Antonius never bothered to do that. But, Caesar, there’s no use sitting at the south end of our line. Better to be aboard my own Liburnian as my second-in-command. I trust you not to countermand my orders.”