Antony and Cleopatra (18 page)

“But people would understand if only they knew!” Scribonia cried. “I too heard that canard, and I simply assumed it was true. Couldn’t Caesar have published a pamphlet or something?”

“His pride wouldn’t let him. Nor would it have been prudent. People don’t want senior magistrates who are likely to die early. Besides, Antonius got in first.” Octavia looked miserable. “He isn’t a bad man, but he’s so healthy himself that he has no patience with those who are sickly or delicate. To Antonius, the asthma is an act, a pretext to excuse cowardice. We’re all cousins, but we’re all very different, and Little Gaius is the most different. He’s desperately driven. The asthma is a symptom of it, so the Egyptian physician who ministered to Divus Julius said.”

Scribonia shivered. “What do I do if he can’t breathe?”

“You’ll probably never see it,” said Octavia, having no trouble seeing that her new sister-in-law was falling in love with Little Gaius. Not a thing she could avert, but understandably a thing that was bound to lead to bitter sorrow. Scribonia was a lovely woman, but not capable of fascinating either Little Gaius or Imperator Caesar. “In Rome his breathing is usually normal unless there’s drought. This year has been halcyon. I don’t worry about him while he’s here, nor should you. He knows what to do if he has an attack, and there’s always Agrippa.”

“The stern young man who stood with him at our wedding.”

“Yes. They’re not like twins,” Octavia said with the air of one who has puzzled a conundrum through to its solution. “No rivalry exists between them. It’s more as if Agrippa fits into the voids in Little Gaius. Sometimes when the children are being particularly naughty, I wish I could split myself into two of me. Well, Little Gaius has succeeded in doing that. He has Marcus Agrippa, his other half.”

By the time that Scribonia left Octavia’s house she had met the children, a tribe whom Octavia treated as if all of them were born of her own womb, and learned that next time she came, Atia would be there. Atia, her mother-in-law. She also dug deeper into the secrets of this extraordinary family. How
could
Caesar pretend that his mother was dead? How great were his pride and hauteur, that he couldn’t excuse the understandable lapse of an otherwise unimpeachable woman? According to Octavia, the mother of Imperator Caesar Divi Filius could have absolutely no failings. His attitude spoke volumes about what he expected from a wife. Poor Servilia Vatia and Clodia, virgins both, but hampered by having morally unsatisfactory mothers. As he did himself, and better Atia was dead than living proof of it.

Yet, walking home between two gigantic and fierce German guards, his face filled her thoughts. Could she make him love her? Oh, pray she could make him love her! Tomorrow, she resolved, I will offer to Juno Sospita for a pregnancy, and to Venus Erucina that I please him in bed, and to the Bona Dea for uterine harmony, and to Vediovis just in case disappointment is lurking. And to Spes, who is Hope.

Octavian was in Rome when the news came from Brundisium that Marcus Antonius, accompanied by two legions, had attempted to enter its harbor, but been rebuffed. The chain had been cranked up, the bastions manned. Brundisium didn’t care what status the monster Antonius enjoyed, the letter said, nor did it care if the Senate ordered it to admit him. Let him enter Italia anywhere he liked: just not through Brundisium. Since the only other port within the area able to land two legions was Tarentum, on the far side of the heel, a foiled and furious Antonius had had to land his men in much smaller ports around Brundisium, thus scattering them.

“He should have gone to Ancona,” Octavian said to Agrippa.

“He’d have been able to link up with Pollio and Ventidius there, and by now would be marching on Rome.”

“Were he sure of Pollio, he would have,” Agrippa replied, “but he isn’t sure of him.”

“Then you believe Plancus’s letter tattling of doubts and discontent?” Octavian waved a single sheet of paper.

“Yes, I do.”

“So do I,” Octavian said, grinning. “Plancus is in a cleft stick—he’d prefer Antonius, but he wants to keep an avenue open to me in case the time comes to hop the fence to our side of it.”

“You have too many legions around Brundisium for Antonius to band his men together again until Pollio arrives, which my scouts say won’t happen for at least a
nundinum
.”

“Time enough for us to reach Brundisium, Agrippa. Are our legions placed across the Via Minucia?”

“Perfectly placed. If Pollio wants to avoid a fight, he’ll have to march to Beneventum and the Via Appia.”

Octavian put his pen in its holder and gathered his papers together in neat piles that comprised correspondence with bodies and persons, drafts of laws, and detailed maps of Italia. He rose. “Then it’s off to Brundisium,” he said. “I hope Maecenas and
my
Nerva are ready? What about the neutral one?”

“If you didn’t bury yourself under a landslide of papers, Caesar, you’d know,” Agrippa said in a tone only he dared use to Octavian.

“They’ve been ready for days. And Maecenas has sweet-talked the neutral Nerva into coming along.”

“Excellent!”

“Why is he so important, Caesar?”

“Well, when one brother elected Antonius and the other me, his neutrality was the only way the Cocceius Nerva faction could continue to exist should Antonius and I come to blows. Antonius’s Nerva died in Syria, which left a vacancy on his side. A vacancy that saw Lucius Nerva in a lather of sweat—did he dare choose to fill it? In the end, he said no, though he would not choose me either.” Octavian smirked. “With his wife wielding the lash, he’s tied to Rome, therefore—neutrality.”

“I know all that, but it begs the question.”

“You’ll have an answer if my scheme succeeds.”

What had propelled Mark Antony off his comfortable Athenian couch was a letter from Octavian.

“My very dear Antonius,” it said, “it grieves me sorely to have to pass on the news I have just received from Further Spain. Your brother Lucius died in Corduba not very long into his tenure as governor. From all the many reports I have read of the matter, he simply dropped dead. No lingering, no pain. The physicians say it was a catastrophe originating in the brain, which autopsy revealed was full of blood around its stem. He was cremated in Corduba, and the ashes were sent to me along with documentation sufficient to satisfy me on all counts. I hold his ashes and the reports against your coming. Please accept my sincere condolences.” It was sealed with Divus Julius’s sphinx ring.

Of course Antony didn’t believe a word of it beyond the fact that Lucius was dead; within a day he was hurrying to Patrae, and orders had gone to western Macedonia to embark two legions from Apollonia immediately. The other eight were put on standby for shipment to Brundisium as soon as he summoned them.

Intolerable that Octavian should have the news first! And why had no word come to him ahead of that letter? Antony read the missive as a challenge thrown down: your brother’s ashes are in Rome—come and get them if you dare! Did he dare? By Jupiter Optimus Maximus and all the gods, he dared!

An informative letter from Plancus to Octavian sped off from Patrae, where the enraged Antony was obliged to wait until his two legions were confirmed as sailed. It went (had Antony only known of its contents, it would not have) together with Antony’s curt order to Pollio to get his legions moving down the Via Adriatica; at the moment they were in Fanum Fortunae, where Pollio could move on Rome along the Via Flaminia, or hug the Adriatic coast to Brundisium. A quailing Plancus begged a place on Antony’s ship, judging his chances of slipping through the lines to Octavian easier on Italian soil. By now he was desperately wishing that he hadn’t sent that letter—could he be sure Octavian wouldn’t leak its contents back to Antony?

His guilt made Plancus an edgy, anxious companion on the voyage, so when, in mid-Adriatic, the fleet of Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus hove in sight, Plancus soiled his loincloth and almost fainted.

“Oh, Antonius, we’re dead men!” he wailed.

“At the hands of Ahenobarbus? Never!” said Antony, nostrils flaring. “Plancus, I do believe you shit yourself!”

Plancus fled, leaving Antony to wait for the arrival of a rowboat heading for his ship. His own standard still fluttered from the mast, but Ahenobarbus had lowered his.

Squat, dark, and bald, Ahenobarbus clambered neatly up a rope ladder and advanced on Antony, grinning from ear to ear. “At last!” the irascible one cried, hugging Antony. “You’re moving on that odious little insect Octavianus, aren’t you? Please say you are!”

“I am” was Antony’s answer. “May he choke on his own shit! Plancus just shit himself at sight of you, and I would have put his courage higher than Octavianus’s. Do you know what Octavianus did, Ahenobarbus? He murdered Lucius in Further Spain, then had the gall to write and inform me that he’s the proud owner of Lucius’s ashes! He dares me to collect them! Is he mad?”

“I’m your man through thick and thin,” Ahenobarbus said huskily. “My fleet is yours.”

“Good,” said Antony, extricating himself from a very strong embrace. “I may need a big warship with a solid bronze beak to break Brundisium’s harbor chain.”

But not a sixteener with a twenty-talent bronze beak could have broken the chain strung across the harbor mouth; anyway, Ahenobarbus didn’t have a ship half as large as a sixteener. The chain was anchored between two concrete piers reinforced with iron pieces, and each of its bronze links was fashioned from metal six inches thick. Neither Antony nor Ahenobarbus had ever seen a more monstrous barrier, nor a population so jubilant at sight of their frustrated attempts to snap that barrier. While the women and children cheered and jeered, the men of Brundisium subjected Ahenobarbus’s battle quinquereme to a murderous hail of spears and arrows that finally drove it offshore.

“I can’t do it!” Ahenobarbus yelled, weeping in rage. “Oh, but when I do, they’re going to suffer! And where did it come from? The old chain was a tenth this one’s size!”

“That Apulian peasant Agrippa installed this one,” Plancus was able to say, sure he no longer smelled of shit. “When I left to seek refuge with you, Antonius, the Brundisians were quick to explain its genesis. Agrippa has fortified this place better than Ilium was, including on its land sides.”

“They won’t die quickly,” Antony snarled. “I’ll impale the town magistrates on stakes up their arses and drive them in at the rate of an inch a day.”

“Ow, ow!” said Plancus, flinching at the thought. “What are we going to do?”

“Wait for my troops and land them wherever we can to north and south,” said Antony. “Once Pollio arrives—he’s taking his sweet time!—we’ll squash this benighted place from its land side, Agrippa’s fortifications or no. After a siege, I suppose. They know I won’t be kind to them—they’ll resist to the end.”

So Antony withdrew to the island off Brundisium’s harbor mouth, there to wait for Pollio and try to discover what had become of Ventidius, curiously silent.

Sextilis had ended and the Nones of September were gone, though the weather was still hot enough to make island living an ordeal. Antony paced; Plancus watched him pace. Antony growled; Plancus pondered. Antony’s thoughts never left the subject of Lucius Antonius; Plancus’s ranged far and wide on one subject too, but a more fascinating one—Marcus Antonius. For Plancus was seeing new facets in Antony, and didn’t like what he saw. Wonderful, glorious Fulvia wove in and out of his mind—so brave and fierce, so—so
interesting
. How could Antony have beaten a woman, let alone his wife? The granddaughter of
Gaius Gracchus
!

He’s like a small child with its mother, Plancus thought, brushing at tears. He should be in the East fighting the Parthians—that’s his duty. Instead, he’s here on Italian soil, as if he hasn’t the courage to abandon it. Is it Octavianus who eats at him, or is it insecurity? At his core, does Antonius believe he can win future laurels? Oh, he’s brave, but generaling armies doesn’t demand bravery. It’s more an intellectual exercise, an art, a talent. Divus Julius was a genius at it, Antonius is Divus Julius’s cousin. But to Antonius, I suspect that fact is more a burden than a delight. He’s so terrified of failing that, like Pompeius Magnus, he won’t move unless he has superior numbers. Which he has here in Italia, between Pollio, Ventidius, and his own legions just across a small sea. Sufficient to crush Octavianus, even now Octavianus has Calenus’s eleven legions in Further Gaul. I gather that they’re still in Further Gaul under the command of Salvidienus, writing to Antonius regularly in an attempt to switch sides. One little item I didn’t tell Octavianus.

What Antonius fears in Octavianus is that genius Divus Julius had in such abundance. Oh, not as a general of armies! As a man of infinite courage, the kind of courage Antonius is beginning to lose. Yes, his fear of failure grows, whereas Octavianus starts to dare all, to gamble on unpredictable outcomes. Antonius is at a disadvantage when dealing with Octavianus, but even more so when dealing with foes as foreign as the Parthians. Will he ever wage that particular war? He rants about lack of money, but is that lack really the sum total of his reluctance to fight the war he should be fighting? If he doesn’t fight it, he’ll lose the confidence of Rome and Romans, he knows that too. So Octavianus is his excuse for lingering in the West. If he drives Octavianus out of the arena, he’ll have so many legions that he could defeat a quarter of a million men. Yet with sixty thousand men, Divus Julius defeated more than three hundred thousand. Because he went about it with genius. Antonius wants to be master of the world and the First Man in Rome, but can’t work out how to go about it.

Pace, pace, pace, up and down, up and down. He’s insecure. Decisions loom, and he’s insecure. Nor can he embark upon one of his famous fits of “inimitable living”—what a joke, to call his cronies in Alexandria the Society of Inimitable Livers! Now here he is, in a situation where he can’t binge his way to forgetfulness. Haven’t his colleagues realized, as I have, that Antonius debauched is simply demonstrating his innate weakness?

Yes, concluded Plancus, it is time to change sides. But can I do that at the moment? I doubt it in the same way as I doubt Antonius. Like him, I’m short on steel.

Octavian knew all this with more conviction than Plancus, yet he couldn’t be sure which way the dice would fall now Antony had arrived outside Brundisium; he had staked everything on the legionaries. Then their representatives came to tell him they would not fight Antony’s troops, be they his own, or Pollio’s, or Ventidius’s. An announcement that saw Octavian limp with relief. It only remained to see if Antony’s troops would fight for him.

Two
nundinae
later, he had his answer. The soldiers under the command of Pollio and Ventidius had refused to fight their brothers-at-arms.

He sat down to write Antony a letter.

 

My dear Antonius, we are at an impasse. My legionaries refuse to fight yours, and yours refuse to fight mine. They belong to Rome, they say, not to any one man, even a Triumvir. The days of massive bonuses, they say, are past. I agree with them. Since Philippi I have known that we can no longer sort out our differences by going to war against each other.
Imperium maius
we may have, but in order to enforce that, we must have command of willing soldiers. We do not.

I therefore propose, Marcus Antonius, that each of us choose a single man as his representative to try to find a solution to this impasse. As a neutral participant whom both of us deem fair and impartial, may I nominate Lucius Cocceius Nerva? You are at liberty to dispute my choice and nominate a different man. My delegate will be Gaius Maecenas. Neither you nor I should be present at this meeting. To attend it would mean ruffled tempers.

 

“The cunning rat!” cried Antony, screwing up the letter.

Plancus picked it up, smoothed it out, and read it. “Marcus, it’s the logical solution to your predicament,” he faltered. “Consider for a moment, please, where you are and what you face. What Octavianus suggests may prove a salve to heal injured feelings on both sides. Truly, it is your best alternative.”

A verdict echoed by Gnaeus Asinius Pollio several hours later when he arrived by pinnace from Barium.

“My men won’t fight, nor will yours,” he said flatly. “I for one can’t change their minds, nor will yours change theirs, and from all reports Octavianus is in like straits. The legions have decided for us, so it’s up to us to find an honorable way out. I have told my men that I will arrange a truce. Ventidius has done the same. Give in, Marcus, give in! It’s not a defeat.”

“Anything that enables Octavianus to wriggle out of the jaws of death is a defeat,” Antony said stubbornly.

“Nonsense! His troops are as disaffected as ours.”

“He’s not even game to confront me! It’s all to be done by agents like Maecenas—ruffled tempers? I’ll give him ruffled tempers! And I don’t care what he says, I’m going to his little meeting to represent myself!”