Cleopatra
by
Jacob Abbott
Part 2 out of 3
Mark Antony was a special object of public regard and admiration at the
time. His eccentric manners, his frank and honest air, his Roman
simplicity of dress and demeanor, made him conspicuous; and his
interposition to save the lives of the captured garrison of Pelusium,
and the interest which he took in rendering such distinguished funeral
honors to the enemy whom his army had slain in battle, impressed the
people with the idea of a certain nobleness and magnanimity in his
character, which, in spite of his faults, made him an object of general
admiration and applause. The very faults of such a man assume often, in
the eyes of the world, the guise and semblance of virtues. For example,
it is related of Antony that, at one time in the course of his life,
having a desire to make a present of some kind to a certain person, in
requital for a favor which he had received from him, he ordered his
treasurer to send a sum of money to his friend--and named for the sum to
be sent an amount considerably greater than was really required under
the circumstances of the case--acting thus, as he often did, under the
influence of a blind and uncalculating generosity. The treasurer, more
prudent than his master, wished to reduce the amount, but he did not
dare directly to propose a reduction; so he counted out the money, and
laid it in a pile in a place where Antony was to pass, thinking that
when Antony saw the amount, he would perceive that it was too great.
Antony, in passing by, asked what money that was. The treasurer said
that it was the sum that he had ordered to be sent as a present to such
a person, naming the individual intended. Antony was quick to perceive
the object of the treasurer's maneuver. He immediately replied, "Ah! is
that all? I thought the sum I named would make a better appearance than
that; send him double the amount."
To determine, under such circumstances as these, to double an
extravagance merely for the purpose of thwarting the honest attempt of a
faithful servant to diminish it, made, too, in so cautious and delicate
a way, is most certainly a fault. But it is one of those faults for
which the world, in all ages, will persist in admiring and praising the
perpetrator.
In a word, Antony became the object of general attention and favor
during his continuance at Alexandria. Whether he particularly attracted
Cleopatra's attention at this time or not does not appear. She, however,
strongly attracted _his._ He admired her blooming beauty, her
sprightliness and wit, and her various accomplishments. She was still,
however, so young--being but fifteen years of age, while Antony was
nearly thirty--that she probably made no very serious impression upon
him. A short time after this, Antony went back to Rome, and did not see
Cleopatra again for many years.
When the two Roman generals went away from Alexandria, they left a
considerable portion of the army behind them, under Ptolemy's command,
to aid him in keeping possession of his throne. Antony returned to Rome.
He had acquired great renown by his march across the desert, and by the
successful accomplishment of the invasion of Egypt and the restoration
of Ptolemy. His funds, too, were replenished by the vast sums paid to
him and to Gabinius by Ptolemy. The amount which Ptolemy is said to have
agreed to pay as the price of his restoration was two thousand
talents--equal to ten millions of dollars--a sum which shows on how
great a scale the operations of this celebrated campaign were conducted.
Ptolemy raised a large portion of the money required for his payments by
confiscating the estates belonging to those friends of Berenice's
government whom he ordered to be slain. It was said, in fact, that the
numbers were very much increased of those that were condemned to die, by
Ptolemy's standing in such urgent need of their property to meet his
obligations.
Antony, through the results of this campaign, found himself suddenly
raised from the position of a disgraced and homeless fugitive to that of
one of the most wealthy and renowned, and, consequently, one of the most
powerful personages in Rome. The great civil war broke out about this
time between Caesar and Pompey. Antony espoused the cause of Caesar.
In the mean time, while the civil war between Caesar and Pompey was
raging, Ptolemy succeeded in maintaining his seat on the throne, by the
aid of the Roman soldiers whom Antony and Gabinius had left him, for
about three years. When he found himself drawing toward the close of
life, the question arose to his mind to whom he should leave his
kingdom. Cleopatra was the oldest child, and she was a princess of great
promise, both in respect to mental endowments and personal charms. Her
brothers were considerably younger than she. The claim of a son, though
younger, seemed to be naturally stronger than that of a daughter; but
the commanding talents and rising influence of Cleopatra appeared to
make it doubtful whether it would be safe to pass her by. The father
settled the question in the way in which such difficulties were usually
surmounted in the Ptolemy family. He ordained that Cleopatra should
marry the oldest of her brothers, and that they two should jointly
occupy the throne. Adhering also, still, to the idea of the alliance of
Egypt with Rome, which had been the leading principle of the whole
policy of his reign, he solemnly committed the execution of his will and
the guardianship of his children, by a provision of the instrument
itself, to the Roman Senate. The Senate accepted the appointment, and
appointed Pompey as the agent, on their part, to perform the duties of
the trust. The attention of Pompey was, immediately after that time, too
much engrossed by the civil war waged between himself, and Caesar, to
take any active steps in respect to the duties of his appointment. It
seemed, however, that none were necessary, for all parties in Alexandria
appeared disposed, after the death of the king, to acquiesce in the
arrangements which he had made, and to join in carrying them into
effect. Cleopatra was married to her brother--yet, it is true, only a
boy. He was about ten years old. She was herself about eighteen. They
were both too young to govern; they could only reign. The affairs of the
kingdom were, accordingly, conducted by two ministers whom their father
had designated. These ministers were Pothinus, a eunuch, who was a sort
of secretary of state, and Achillas, the commander-in-chief of the
armies.
Thus, though Cleopatra, by these events, became nominally a queen, her
real accession to the throne was not yet accomplished. There were still
many difficulties and dangers to be passed through, before the period
arrived when she became really a sovereign. She did not, herself, make
any immediate attempt to hasten this period, but seems to have
acquiesced, on the other hand, very quietly, for a time, in the
arrangements which her father had made.
Pothinus was a eunuch. He had been, for a long time, an officer of
government under Ptolemy, the father. He was a proud, ambitious, and
domineering man, determined to rule, and very unscrupulous in respect to
the means which he adopted to accomplish his ends. He had been
accustomed to regard Cleopatra as a mere child. Now that she was queen,
he was very unwilling that the real power should pass into her hands.
The jealousy and ill will which he felt toward her increased rapidly as
he found, in the course of the first two or three years after her
father's death, that she was advancing rapidly in strength of character,
and in the influence and ascendency which she was acquiring over all
around her. Her beauty, her accomplishments, and a certain indescribable
charm which pervaded all her demeanor, combined to give her great
personal power. But, while these things awakened in other minds feelings
of interest in Cleopatra and attachment to her, they only increased the
jealousy and envy of Pothinus. Cleopatra was becoming his rival. He
endeavored to thwart and circumvent her. He acted toward her in a
haughty and overbearing manner, in order to keep her down to what he
considered her proper place as his ward; for he was yet the guardian
both of Cleopatra and her husband, and the regent of the realm.
Cleopatra had a great deal of what is sometimes called spirit, and her
resentment was aroused by this treatment. Pothinus took pains to enlist
her young husband, Ptolemy, on his side, as the quarrel advanced.
Ptolemy was younger, and of a character much less marked and decided
than Cleopatra. Pothinus saw that he could maintain control over him
much more easily and for a much longer time than over Cleopatra. He
contrived to awaken the young Ptolemy's jealousy of his wife's rising
influence, and to induce him to join in efforts to thwart and counteract
it. These attempts to turn her husband against her only aroused
Cleopatra's resentment the more. Hers was not a spirit to be coerced.
The palace was filled with the dissensions of the rivals. Pothinus and
Ptolemy began to take measures for securing the army on their side. An
open rupture finally ensued, and Cleopatra was expelled from the
kingdom.
She went to Syria. Syria was the nearest place of refuge, and then,
besides, it was the country from which the aid had been furnished by
which her father had been restored to the throne when he had been
expelled, in a similar manner, many years before. Her father, it is
true, had gone first to Rome; but the succors which he had negotiated
for had been sent from Syria. Cleopatra hoped to obtain the same
assistance by going directly there.
Nor was she disappointed. She obtained an army, and commenced her march
toward Egypt, following the same track which Antony and Gabinius had
pursued in coming to reinstate her father. Pothinus raised an army and
went forth to meet her. He took Achillas as the commander of the troops,
and the young Ptolemy as the nominal sovereign; while he, as the young
king's guardian and prime minister, exercised the real power. The troops
of Pothinus advanced to Pelusium. Here they met the forces of Cleopatra
coming from the east. The armies encamped not very far from each other,
and both sides began to prepare for battle.
The battle, however, was not fought. It was prevented by the occurrence
of certain great and unforeseen events which at this crisis suddenly
burst upon the scene of Egyptian history, and turned the whole current
of affairs into new and unexpected channels. The breaking out of the
civil war between the great Roman generals Caesar and Pompey, and their
respective partisans, has already been mentioned as having occurred soon
after the death of Cleopatra's father, and as having prevented Pompey
from undertaking the office of executor of the will. This war had been
raging ever since that time with terrible fury. Its distant thundering
had been heard even in Egypt, but it was too remote to awaken there any
special alarm. The immense armies of these two mighty conquerors had
moved slowly--like two ferocious birds of prey, flying through the air,
and fighting as they fly--across Italy into Greece, and from Greece,
through Macedon, into Thessaly, contending in dreadful struggles with
each other as they advanced, and trampling down and destroying every
thing in their way. At length a great final battle had been fought at
Pharsalia. Pompey had been totally defeated. He had fled to the
sea-shore, and there, with a few ships and a small number of followers,
he had pushed out upon the Mediterranean, not knowing whither to fly,
and overwhelmed with wretchedness and despair. Caesar followed him in
eager pursuit. He had a small fleet of galleys with him, on board of
which he had embarked two or three thousand men. This was a force
suitable, perhaps, for the pursuit of a fugitive, but wholly
insufficient for any other design.
Pompey thought of Ptolemy. He remembered the efforts which he himself
had made for the cause of Ptolemy Auletes, at Rome, and the success of
those efforts in securing that monarch's restoration--an event through
which alone the young Ptolemy had been enabled to attain the crown. He
came, therefore to Pelusium, and, anchoring his little fleet off the
shore, sent to the land to ask Ptolemy to receive and protect him.
Pothinus, who was really the commander in Ptolemy's army, made answer to
this application that Pompey should be received and protected, and that
he would send out a boat to bring him to the shore. Pompey felt some
misgivings in respect to this proffered hospitality, but he finally
concluded to go to the shore in the boat which Pothinus sent for him. As
soon as he landed, the Egyptians, by Pothinus's orders, stabbed and
beheaded him on the sand. Pothinus and his council had decided that this
would be the safest course. If they were to receive Pompey, they
reasoned, Caesar would be made their enemy; if they refused to receive
him, Pompey himself would be offended, and they did not know which of
the two it would be safe to displease; for they did not know in what
way, if both the generals were to be allowed to live, the war would
ultimately end. "But by killing Pompey," they said, "we shall be sure to
please Caesar and Pompey himself will _lie still."_
In the mean time, Caesar, not knowing to what part of Egypt Pompey had
fled, pressed on directly to Alexandria. He exposed himself to great
danger in so doing, for the forces under his command were not sufficient
to protect him in case of his becoming involved in difficulties with the
authorities there. Nor could he, when once arrived on the Egyptian
coast, easily go away again; for, at the season of the year in which
these events occurred, there was a periodical wind which blew steadily
toward that part of the coast, and, while it made it very easy for a
fleet of ships to go to Alexandria, rendered it almost impossible for
them to return.
Caesar was very little accustomed to shrink from danger in any of his
enterprises and plans, though still he was usually prudent and
circumspect. In this instance, however, his ardent interest in the
pursuit of Pompey overruled all considerations of personal safety. He
arrived at Alexandria, but he found that Pompey was not there. He
anchored his vessels in the port, landed his troops, and established
himself in the city. These two events, the assassination of one of the
great Roman generals on the eastern extremity of the coast, and the
arrival of the other, at the same moment, at Alexandria, on the western,
burst suddenly upon Egypt together, like simultaneous claps of thunder.
The tidings struck the whole country with astonishment, and immediately
engrossed universal attention. At the camps both of Cleopatra and
Ptolemy, at Pelusium, all was excitement and wonder. Instead of thinking
of a battle, both parties were wholly occupied in speculating on the
results which were likely to accrue, to one side or to the other, under
the totally new and unexpected aspect which public affairs had assumed.
Of course the thoughts of all were turned toward Alexandria. Pothinus
immediately proceeded to the city, taking with him the young king.
Achillas, too, either accompanied them, or followed soon afterward. They
carried with them the head of Pompey, which they had cut off on the
shore where they had killed him, and also a seal which they took from
his finger. When they arrived at Alexandria, they sent the head, wrapped
up in a cloth, and also the seal, as presents to Caesar. Accustomed as
they were to the brutal deeds and heartless cruelties of the Ptolemies,
they supposed that Caesar would exult at the spectacle of the dissevered
and ghastly head of his great rival and enemy. Instead of this, he was
shocked and displeased, and ordered the head to be buried with the most
solemn and imposing funeral ceremonies. He, however, accepted and kept
the seal. The device engraved upon it was a lion holding a sword in his
paw--a fit emblem of the characters of the men, who, though in many
respects magnanimous and just, had filled the whole world with the
terror of their quarrels.
The army of Ptolemy, while he himself and his immediate counselors went
to Alexandria, was left at Pelusium, under the command of other
officers, to watch Cleopatra. Cleopatra herself would have been pleased,
also, to repair to Alexandria and appeal to Caesar, if it had been in her
power to do so; but she was beyond the confines of the country, with a
powerful army of her enemies ready to intercept her on any attempt to
enter or pass through it. She remained, therefore, at Pelusium,
uncertain what to do.
In the mean time, Caesar soon found himself in a somewhat embarrassing
situation at Alexandria. He had been accustomed, for many years, to the
possession and the exercise of the most absolute and despotic power,
wherever he might be; and now that Pompey, his great rival, was dead, he
considered himself the monarch and master of the world. He had not,
however, at Alexandria, any means sufficient to maintain and enforce
such pretensions, and yet he was not of a spirit to abate, on that
account, in the slightest degree, the advancing of them. He established
himself in the palaces of Alexandria as if he were himself the king. He
moved, in state, through the streets of the city, at the head of his
guards, and displaying the customary emblems of supreme authority used
at Rome. He claimed the six thousand talents which Ptolemy Auletes had
formerly promised him for procuring a treaty of alliance with Rome, and
he called upon Pothinus to pay the balance due. He said, moreover, that
by the will of Auletes the Roman people had been made the executor; and
that it devolved upon him as the Roman consul, and, consequently, the
representative of the Roman people, to assume that trust, and in the
discharge of it to settle the dispute between Ptolemy and Cleopatra, and
he called upon Ptolemy to prepare and lay before him a statement of his
claims, and the grounds on which he maintained his right to the throne
to the exclusion of Cleopatra.
On the other hand, Pothinus, who had been as little accustomed to
acknowledge a superior as Caesar, though his supremacy and domination had
been exercised on a somewhat humbler scale, was obstinate and
pertinacious in resisting all these demands, though the means and
methods which he resorted to were of a character corresponding to his
weak and ignoble mind. He fomented quarrels in the streets between the
Alexandrian populace and Caesar's soldiers. He thought that, as the
number of troops under Caesar's command in the city, and of vessels in
the port, was small, he could tease and worry the Romans with impunity,
though he had not the courage openly to attack them. He pretended to be
a friend, or, at least, not an enemy, and yet he conducted himself
toward them in an overbearing and insolent manner. He had agreed to make
arrangements for supplying them with food, and he did this by procuring
damaged provisions of a most wretched quality; and when the soldiers
remonstrated, he said to them, that they who lived at other people's
cost had no right to complain of their fare. He caused wooden and
earthen vessels to be used in the palace, and said, in explanation, that
he had been compelled to sell all the gold and silver plate of the royal
household to meet the exactions of Caesar. He busied himself, too, about
the city, in endeavoring to excite odium against Caesar's proposal to
hear and decide the question at issue between Cleopatra and Ptolemy.
Ptolemy was a sovereign, he said, and was not amenable to any foreign
power whatever. Thus, without the courage or the energy to attempt any
open, manly, and effectual system of hostility, he contented himself
with making all the difficulty in his power, by urging an incessant
pressure of petty, vexatious, and provoking, but useless annoyances.
Caesar's demands may have been unjust, but they were bold, manly, and
undisguised. The eunuch may have been right in resisting them; but the
mode was so mean and contemptible, that mankind have always taken part
with Caesar in the sentiments which they have formed as spectators of the
contest.
With the very small force which Caesar had at his command, and shut up as
he was in the midst of a very great and powerful city, in which both the
garrison and the population were growing more and more hostile to him
every day, he soon found his situation was beginning to be attended with
very serious danger. He could not retire from the scene. He probably
would not have retired if he could have done so. He remained, therefore,
in the city, conducting himself all the time with prudence and
circumspection, but yet maintaining, as at first, the same air of
confident self-possession and superiority which always characterized his
demeanor. He, however, dispatched a messenger forthwith into Syria, the
nearest country under the Roman sway, with orders that several legions
which were posted there should be embarked and forwarded to Alexandria
with the utmost possible celerity.
CHAPTER VI.
CLEOPATRA AND Caesar.
Cleopatra's perplexity.--She resolves To go to Alexandria.--Cleopatra's
message to Caesar.--Caesar's reply.--Apollodorus's stratagem.--Cleopatra
and Caesar--First impressions.--Caesar's attachment.--Caesar's wife.--His
fondness for Cleopatra.--Cleopatra's foes.--She commits her cause to
Caesar.--Caesar's pretensions.--He sends for Ptolemy.--Ptolemy's
indignation.--His complaints against Caesar.--Great tumult in the
city.--Excitement of the populace.--Caesar's forces--Ptolemy made
prisoner.--Caesar's address to the people.--Its effects.--The mob
dispersed.--Caesar convenes an assembly.--Caesar's decision.
--Satisfaction of the assembly.--Festivals and rejoicings.
--Pothinus and Achillas.--Plot of Pothinus and Achillas.--Escape
of Achillas.--March of the Egyptian army.--Measures of Caesar.
--Murder of the messengers.--Intentions of Achillas--Cold-blooded
assassination.--Advance of Achillas--Caesar's arrangements for
defense.--Cleopatra and Ptolemy.--Double dealing of Pothinus.--He is
detected.--Pothinus beheaded--Arsinoe and Ganymede--Flight of
Arsinoe--She is proclaimed queen by the army.--Perplexity of the young
Ptolemy.
In the mean time, while the events related in the last chapter were
taking place at Alexandria, Cleopatra remained anxious and uneasy in her
camp, quite uncertain, for a time, what it was best for her to do. She
wished to be at Alexandria. She knew very well that Caesar's power in
controlling the course of affairs in Egypt would necessarily be supreme.
She was, of course, very earnest in her desire to be able to present her
cause before him. As it was, Ptolemy and Pothinus were in communication
with the arbiter, and, for aught she knew, assiduously cultivating his
favor, while she was far away, her cause unheard, her wrongs unknown,
and perhaps even her existence forgotten. Of course, under such
circumstances, she was very earnest to get to Alexandria.
But how to accomplish this purpose was a source of great perplexity. She
could not march thither at the head of an army, for the army of the king
was strongly intrenched at Pelusium, and effectually barred the way. She
could not attempt to pass alone, or with few attendants, through the
country, for every town and village was occupied with garrisons and
officers under the orders of Pothinus, and she would be certainly
intercepted. She had no fleet, and could not, therefore, make the
passage by sea. Besides, even if she could by any means reach the gates
of Alexandria, how was she to pass safely through the streets of the
city to the palace where Caesar resided, since the city, except in
Caesar's quarters, was wholly in the hands of Pothinus's government? The
difficulties in the way of accomplishing her object seemed thus almost
insurmountable.
She was, however, resolved to make the attempt. She sent a message to
Caesar, asking permission to appear before him and plead her own cause.
Caesar replied, urging her by all means to come. She took a single boat,
and with the smallest number of attendants possible, made her way along
the coast to Alexandria. The man on whom she principally relied in this
hazardous expedition was a domestic named Apollodorus. She had, however,
some other attendants besides. When the party reached Alexandria, they
waited until night, and then advanced to the foot of the walls of the
citadel. Here Apollodorus rolled the queen up in a piece of carpeting,
and, covering the whole package with a cloth, he tied it with a thong,
so as to give it the appearance of a bale of ordinary merchandise, and
then throwing the load across his shoulder, he advanced into the city.
Cleopatra was at this time about twenty-one years of age, but she was of
a slender and graceful form, and the burden was, consequently, not very
heavy. Apollodorus came to the gates of the palace where Caesar was
residing. The guards at the gates asked him what it was that he was
carrying. He said that it was a present for Caesar. So they allowed him
to pass, and the pretended porter carried his package safely in.
When it was unrolled, and Cleopatra came out to view, Caesar was
perfectly charmed with the spectacle. In fact, the various conflicting
emotions which she could not but feel under such circumstances as these,
imparted a double interest to her beautiful and expressive face, and to
her naturally bewitching manners. She was excited by the adventure
through which she had passed, and yet pleased with her narrow escape
from its dangers. The curiosity and interest which she felt on the one
hand, in respect to the great personage into whose presence she had been
thus strangely ushered, was very strong; but then, on the other hand, it
was chastened and subdued by that feeling of timidity which, in new and
unexpected situations like these, and under a consciousness of being the
object of eager observation to the other sex, is inseparable from the
nature of woman.
The conversation which Caesar held with Cleopatra deepened the impression
which her first appearance had made upon him. Her intelligence and
animation, the originality of her ideas, and the point and pertinency of
her mode of expressing them, made her, independently of her personal
charms, an exceedingly entertaining and agreeable companion. She, in
fact, completely won the great conqueror's heart; and, through the
strong attachment to her which he immediately formed, he became wholly
disqualified to act impartially between her and her brother in regard to
their respective rights to the crown. We call Ptolemy Cleopatra's
brother; for, though he was also, in fact, her husband, still, as he was
only ten or twelve years of age at the time of Cleopatra's expulsion
from Alexandria, the marriage had been probably regarded, thus far, only
as a mere matter of form. Caesar was now about fifty-two. He had a wife,
named Calpurnia, to whom he had been married about ten years. She was
living, at this time in an unostentatious and quiet manner at Rome. She
was a lady of an amiable and gentle character, devotedly attached to her
husband, patient and forbearing in respect to his faults, and often
anxious and unhappy at the thought of the difficulties and dangers in
which his ardent and unbounded ambition so often involved him.
Caesar immediately began to take a very strong interest in Cleopatra's
cause. He treated her personally with the fondest attention, and it was
impossible for her not to reciprocate in some degree the kind feeling
with which he regarded her. It was, in fact, something altogether new to
her to have a warm and devoted friend, espousing her cause, tendering
her protection, and seeking in every way to promote her happiness. Her
father had all his life neglected her. Her brother, of years and
understanding totally inferior to hers, whom she had been compelled to
make her husband, had become her mortal enemy. It is true that, in
depriving her of her inheritance and expelling her from her native land,
he had been only the tool and instrument of more designing men. This,
however, far from improving the point of view from which she regarded
him, made him appear not only hateful, but contemptible too. All the
officers of government, also, in the Alexandrian court had turned
against her, because they had supposed that they could control her
brother more easily if she were away. Thus she had always been
surrounded by selfish, mercenary, and implacable foes. Now, for the
first time, she seemed to have a friend. A protector had suddenly arisen
to support and defend her,--a man of very alluring person and manners,
of a very noble and generous spirit, and of the very highest station. He
loved her, and she could not refrain from loving him in return. She
committed her cause entirely into his hands, confided to him all her
interests, and gave herself up wholly into his power.
Nor was the unbounded confidence which she reposed in him undeserved, so
far as related to his efforts to restore her to her throne. The legions
which Caesar had sent for into Syria had not yet arrived, and his
situation in Alexandria was still very defenseless and very precarious.
He did not, however, on this account, abate in the least degree the
loftiness and self confidence of the position which he had assumed, but
he commenced immediately the work of securing Cleopatra's restoration.
This quiet assumption of the right and power to arbitrate and decide
such a question as that of the claim to the throne, in a country where
he had accidentally landed and found rival claimants disputing for the
succession, while he was still wholly destitute of the means of
enforcing the superiority which he so coolly assumed, marks the immense
ascendency which the Roman power had attained at this time in the
estimation of mankind, and is, besides, specially characteristic of the
genius and disposition of Caesar.
Very soon after Cleopatra had come to him, Caesar sent for the young
Ptolemy, and urged upon him the duty and expediency of restoring
Cleopatra. Ptolemy was beginning now to attain an age at which he might
be supposed to have some opinion of his own on such a question. He
declared himself utterly opposed to any such design. In the course of
the conversation he learned that Cleopatra had arrived at Alexandria,
and that she was then concealed in Caesar's palace. This intelligence
awakened in his mind the greatest excitement and indignation. He went
away from Caesar's presence in a rage. He tore the diadem which he was
accustomed to wear in the streets, from his head, threw it down, and
trampled it under his feet. He declared to the people that he was
betrayed, and displayed the most violent indications of vexation and
chagrin. The chief subject of his complaint, in the attempts which he
made to awaken the popular indignation against Caesar and the Romans, was
the disgraceful impropriety of the position which his sister had assumed
in surrendering herself as she had done to Caesar. It is most probable,
however, unless his character was very different from that of every
other Ptolemy in the line, that what really awakened his jealousy and
anger was fear of the commanding influence and power to which Cleopatra
was likely to attain through the agency of so distinguished a protector,
rather than any other consequences of his friendship, or any real
considerations of delicacy in respect to his sister's good name or his
own martial honor.
However this may be, Ptolemy, together with Pothinus and Achillas, and
all his other friends and adherents, who joined him in the terrible
outcry that he made against the coalition which he had discovered
between Cleopatra and Caesar, succeeded in producing a very general and
violent tumult throughout the city. The populace were aroused, and began
to assemble in great crowds, and full of indignation and anger. Some
knew the facts, and acted under something like an understanding of the
cause of their anger. Others only knew that the aim of this sudden
outbreak was to assault the Romans, and were ready, on any pretext,
known or unknown, to join in any deeds of violence directed against
these foreign intruders. There were others still, and these, probably,
far the larger portion, who knew nothing and understood nothing but that
there was to be tumult and a riot in and around the palaces, and were,
accordingly, eager to be there.
Ptolemy and his officers had no large body of troops in Alexandria; for
the events which had thus far occurred since Caesar's arrival had
succeeded each other so rapidly, that a very short time had yet elapsed,
and the main army remained still at Pelusium. The main force, therefore,
by which Caesar was now attacked, consisted of the population of the
city, headed, perhaps, by the few guards which the young king had at his
command.
Caesar, on his part, had but a small portion of his forces at the palace
where he was attacked. The rest were scattered about the city. He,
however, seems to have felt no alarm. He did not even confine himself to
acting on the defensive. He sent out a detachment of his soldiers with
orders to seize Ptolemy and bring him in a prisoner. Soldiers trained,
disciplined, and armed as the Roman veterans were, and nerved by the
ardor and enthusiasm which seemed always to animate troops which were
under Caesar's personal command, could accomplish almost any undertaking
against a mere populace, however numerous or however furiously excited
they might be. The soldiers sallied out, seized Ptolemy, and brought him
in.
The populace were at first astounded at the daring presumption of this
deed, and then exasperated at the indignity of it, considered as a
violation of the person of their sovereign. The tumult would have
greatly increased, had it not been that Caesar,--who had now attained all
his ends in thus having brought Cleopatra and Ptolemy both within his
power,--thought it most expedient to allay it. He accordingly ascended
to the window of a tower, or of some other elevated portion of his
palace, so high that missiles from the mob below could not reach him,
and began to make signals expressive of his wish to address them.
When silence was obtained, he made them a speech well calculated to
quiet the excitement. He told them that he did not pretend to any right
to judge between Cleopatra and Ptolemy as their superior, but only in
the performance of the duty solemnly assigned by Ptolemy Auletes, the
father, to the Roman people, whose representative he was. Other than
this he claimed no jurisdiction in the case; and his only wish, in the
discharge of the duty which devolved upon him to consider the cause, was
to settle the question in a manner just and equitable to all the parties
concerned, and thus arrest the progress of the civil war, which, if not
arrested, threatened to involve the country in the most terrible
calamities. He counseled them, therefore, to disperse, and no longer
disturb the peace of the city. He would immediately take measures for
trying the question between Cleopatra and Ptolemy, and he did not doubt,
but that they would all be satisfied with his decision.
This speech, made, as it was, in the eloquent and persuasive, and yet
dignified and imposing manner for which Caesar's harangues to turbulent
assemblies like these were so famed, produced a great effect. Some were
convinced, others were silenced; and those whose resentment and anger
were not appeased, found themselves deprived of their power by the
pacification of the rest. The mob was dispersed, and Ptolemy remained
with Cleopatra in Caesar's custody.
The next day, Caesar, according to his promise, convened an assembly of
the principal people of Alexandria and officers of state, and then
brought out Ptolemy and Cleopatra, that he might decide their cause. The
original will which Ptolemy Auletes had executed had been deposited in
the public archives of Alexandria, and carefully preserved there. An
authentic copy of it had been sent to Rome. Caesar caused the original
will to be brought out and read to the assembly. The provisions of it
were perfectly explicit and clear. It required that Cleopatra and
Ptolemy should be married, and then settled the sovereign power upon
them jointly, as king and queen. It recognized the Roman commonwealth as
the ally of Egypt, and constituted the Roman government the executor of
the will, and the guardian of the king and queen. In fact, so clear and
explicit was this document, that the simple reading of it seemed to be
of itself a decision of the question. When, therefore, Caesar announced
that, in his judgment, Cleopatra was entitled to share the supreme power
with Ptolemy, and that it was his duty, as the representative of the
Roman power and the executor of the will, to protect both the king and
the queen in their respective rights, there seemed to be nothing that
could be said against his decision.
Besides Cleopatra and Ptolemy, there were two other children of Ptolemy
Auletes in the royal family at this time. One was a girl, named Arsinoe.
The other, a boy, was, singularly enough, named, like his brother,
Ptolemy. These children were quite young, but Caesar thought that it
would perhaps gratify the Alexandrians, and lead them to acquiesce more
readily in his decision, if he were to make some royal provision for
them. He accordingly proposed to assign the island of Cyprus as a realm
for them. This was literally a gift, for Cyprus was at this time a Roman
possession.
The whole assembly seemed satisfied with this decision except Pothinus.
He had been so determined and inveterate an enemy to Cleopatra, that, as
he was well aware, her restoration must end in his downfall and ruin. He
went away from the assembly moodily determining that he would not submit
to the decision, but would immediately adopt efficient measures to
prevent its being carried into effect.
Caesar made arrangements for a series of festivals and celebrations, to
commemorate and confirm the reestablishment of a good understanding
between the king and the queen, and the consequent termination of the
war. Such celebrations, he judged, would have great influence in
removing any remaining animosities from the minds of the people, and
restore the dominion of a kind and friendly feeling throughout the city.
The people fell in with these measures, and cordially co-operated to
give them effect; but Pothinus and Achillas, though they suppressed all
outward expressions of discontent, made incessant efforts in secret to
organize a party, and to form plans for overthrowing the influence of
Caesar, and making Ptolemy again the sole and exclusive sovereign.
Pothinus represented to all whom he could induce to listen to him that
Caesar's real design was to make Cleopatra queen alone, and to depose
Ptolemy, and urged them to combine with him to resist a policy which
would end in bringing Egypt under the dominion of a woman. He also
formed a plan, in connection with Achillas, for ordering the army back
from Pelusium. The army consisted of thirty thousand men. If that army
could be brought to Alexandria and kept under Pothinus's orders, Caesar
and his three thousand Roman soldiers would be, they thought, wholly at
their mercy.
There was, however, one danger to be guarded against in ordering the
army to march toward the capital, and that was, that Ptolemy, while
under Caesar's influence, might open communication with the officers, and
so obtain command of its movements, and thwart all the conspirators'
designs. To prevent this, it was arranged between Pothinus and Achillas
that the latter should make his escape from Alexandria, proceed
immediately to the camp at Pelusium, resume the command of the troops
there, and conduct them himself to the capital; and that in all these
operations, and also subsequently on his arrival, he should obey no
orders unless they came to him through Pothinus himself.
Although sentinels and guards were probably stationed at the gates and
avenues leading from the city Achillas contrived to effect his escape
and to join the army. He placed himself at the head of the forces, and
commenced his march toward the capital. Pothinus remained all the time
within the city as a spy, pretending to acquiesce in Caesar's decision,
and to be on friendly terms with him, but really plotting for his
overthrow, and obtaining all the information which his position enabled
him to command, in order that he might co-operate with the army and
Achillas when they should arrive.
All these things were done with the utmost secrecy, and so cunning and
adroit were the conspirators in forming and executing their plots, that
Caesar seems to have had no knowledge of the measures which his enemies
were taking, until he suddenly heard that the main body of Ptolemy's
army was approaching the city, at least twenty thousand strong. In the
mean time, however, the forces which he had sent for from Syria had not
arrived, and no alternative was left but to defend the capital and
himself as well as he could with the very small force which he had at
his disposal.
He determined, however, first, to try the effect of orders sent out in
Ptolemy's name to forbid the approach of the army to the city. Two
officers were accordingly intrusted with these orders, and sent out to
communicate them to Achillas. The names of these officers were
Dioscorides and Serapion.
It shows in a very striking point of view to what an incredible
exaltation the authority and consequence of a sovereign king rose in
those ancient days, in the minds of men, that Achillas, at the moment
when these men made their appearance in the camp, bearing evidently some
command from Ptolemy in the city, considered it more prudent to kill
them at once, without hearing their message, rather than to allow the
orders to be delivered and then take the responsibility of disobeying
them. If he could succeed in marching to Alexandria and in taking
possession of the city, and then in expelling Caesar and Cleopatra and
restoring Ptolemy to the exclusive possession of the throne, he knew
very well that the king would rejoice in the result, and would overlook
all irregularities on his part in the means by which he had accomplished
it, short of absolute disobedience of a known command. Whatever might be
the commands that these messengers were bringing him, he supposed that
they doubtless originated, not in Ptolemy's own free will, but that they
were dictated by the authority of Caesar. Still, they would be commands
coming in Ptolemy's name, and the universal experience of officers
serving under the military despots of those ancient days showed that,
rather than to take the responsibility of directly disobeying a royal
order once received, it was safer to avoid receiving it by murdering the
messengers.
Achillas therefore directed the officers to be seized and slain. They
were accordingly taken off and speared by the soldiers, and then the
bodies were borne away. The soldiers, however, it was found, had not
done their work effectually. There was no interest for them in such a
cold-blooded assassination, and perhaps something like a sentiment of
compassion restrained their hands. At any rate, though both the men were
desperately wounded, one only died. The other lived and recovered.
Achillas continued to advance toward the city. Caesar, finding that the
crisis which was approaching was becoming very serious in its character,
took, himself, the whole command within the capital, and began to make
the best arrangements possible under the circumstances of the case to
defend himself there. His numbers were altogether too small to defend
the whole city against the overwhelming force which was advancing to
assail it. He accordingly intrenched his troops in the palaces and in
the citadel, and in such other parts of the city as it seemed
practicable to defend. He barricaded all the streets and avenues leading
to these points, and fortified the gates. Nor did he, while thus doing
all in his power to employ the insufficient means of defense already in
his hands to the best advantage, neglect the proper exertions for
obtaining succor from abroad. He sent off galleys to Syria, to Cyprus,
to Rhodes, and to every other point accessible from Alexandria where
Roman troops might be expected to be found, urging the authorities there
to forward re-enforcements to him with the utmost possible dispatch.
During all this time Cleopatra and Ptolemy remained in the palace with
Caesar, both ostensibly co-operating with him in his councils and
measures for defending the city from Achillas. Cleopatra, of course, was
sincere and in earnest in this co-operation; but Ptolemy's adhesion to
the common cause was very little to be relied upon. Although, situated
as he was, he was compelled to seem to be on Caesar's side, he must have
secretly desired that Achillas should succeed and Caesar's plans be
overthrown. Pothinus was more active, though not less cautious in his
hostility to them. He opened secret communication with Achillas, sending
him information, from time to time, of what took place within the walls,
and of the arrangements made there for the defense of the city against
him, and gave him also directions how to proceed. He was very wary and
sagacious in all these movements, feigning all the time to be on Caesar's
side. He pretended to be very zealously employed in aiding Caesar to
secure more effectually the various points where attacks were to be
expected, and in maturing and completing the arrangements for defense.
But, notwithstanding all his cunning, he was detected in his double
dealing, and his career was suddenly brought to a close, before the
great final conflict came on. There was a barber in Caesar's household,
who, for some cause or other, began to suspect Pothinus; and, having
little else to do, he employed himself in watching the eunuch's
movements and reporting them to Caesar. Caesar directed the barber to
continue his observations. He did so; his suspicions were soon
confirmed, and at length a letter, which Pothinus had written to
Achillas, was intercepted and brought to Caesar. This furnished the
necessary proof of what they called his guilt, and Caesar ordered him to
be beheaded.
This circumstance produced, of course, a great excitement within the
palace, for Pothinus had been for many years the great ruling minister
of state,--the king, in fact, in all but in name. His execution alarmed
a great many others, who, though in Caesar's power, were secretly wishing
that Achillas might prevail. Among those most disturbed by these fears
was a man named Ganymede. He was the officer who had charge of Arsinoe,
Cleopatra's sister. The arrangement which Caesar had proposed for
establishing her in conjunction with her brother Ptolemy over the island
of Cyprus had not gone into effect; for, immediately after the decision
of Caesar, the attention of all concerned had been wholly engrossed by
the tidings of the advance of the army, and by the busy preparations
which were required on all hands for the impending contest. Arsinoe,
therefore, with her governor Ganymede, remained in the palace. Ganymede
had joined Pothinus in his plots; and when Pothinus was beheaded, he
concluded that it would be safest for him to fly.
He accordingly resolved to make his escape from the city, taking Arsinoe
with him. It was a very hazardous attempt but he succeeded in
accomplishing it. Arsinoe was very willing to go, for she was now
beginning to be old enough to feel the impulse of that insatiable and
reckless ambition which seemed to form such an essential element in the
character of every son and daughter in the whole Ptolemaic line. She was
insignificant and powerless where she was, but at the head of the army
she might become immediately a queen.
It resulted, in the first instance, as she had anticipated. Achillas and
his army received her with acclamations. Under Ganymede's influence they
decided that, as all the other members of the royal family were in
durance, being held captive by a foreign general, who had by chance
obtained possession of the capital, and were thus incapacitated for
exercising the royal power, the crown devolved upon Arsinoe; and they
accordingly proclaimed her queen.
Every thing was now prepared for a desperate and determined contest for
the crown between Cleopatra, with Caesar for her minister and general, on
the one side, and Arsinoe, with Ganymede and Achillas for her chief
officers on the other. The young Ptolemy in the mean time, remained
Caesar's prisoner, confused with the intricacies in which the quarrel had
become involved, and scarcely knowing now what to wish in respect to the
issue of the contest. It was very difficult to foresee whether it would
be best for him that Cleopatra or that Arsinoe should succeed.
CHAPTER VII.
THE ALEXANDRINE WAR.
The Alexandrine war.--Forces of Caesar.--The Egyptian army.--Fugitive
slaves.--Dangerous situation of Caesar.--Presence of Caesar.--Influence of
Cleopatra.--First measures of Caesar.--Caesar's stores.--Military
engines.--The mole.--View of Alexandria.--Necessity of taking possession
of the mole.--Egyptian fleet.--Caesar burns the shipping.--The fort
taken.--Burning of Alexandria.--Achillas beheaded.--Plans of
Ganymede.--His vigorous measures.--Messengers of Ganymede.--Their
instructions.--Ganymede cuts off Caesar's supply of water.--Panic of the
soldiers.--Caesar's wells.--Arrival of the transports.--The transports in
distress.--Lowness of the coast.--A combat.--Caesar successful.
--Ganymede equips a fleet.--A naval conflict.--Caesar in danger.
--Another victory.--The Egyptians discouraged.--Secret messengers.
--Dissimulation of Ptolemy--Arrival of Mithradates.--Defeat of Ptolemy.
--Terror and confusion.--Death of Ptolemy.--Cleopatra queen.--General
disapprobation of Caesar's course.--Cleopatra's son Caesarion.--Public
opinion of her conduct.--Caesar departs for Rome.--He takes Arsinoe with
him.
The war which ensued as the result of the intrigues and maneuvers
described in the last chapter is known in the history of Rome and Julius
Caesar as the Alexandrine war. The events which occurred during the
progress of it, and its termination at last in the triumph of Caesar and
Cleopatra, will form the subject of this chapter.
Achillas had greatly the advantage over Caesar at the outset of the
contest, in respect to the strength of the forces under his command.
Caesar, in fact, had with him only a detachment of three or four thousand
men, a small body of troops which he had hastily put on board a little
squadron of Rhodian galleys for pursuing Pompey across the
Mediterranean. When he set sail from the European shores with this
inconsiderable fleet, it is probable that he had no expectation even of
landing in Egypt at all, and much less of being involved in great
military undertakings there. Achillas, on the other hand, was at the
head of a force of twenty-thousand effective men. His troops were, it is
true, of a somewhat miscellaneous character, but they were all veteran
soldiers, inured to the climate of Egypt, and skilled in all the modes
of warfare which were suited to the character of the country. Some of
them were Roman soldiers, men who had come with the army of Mark Antony
from Syria when Ptolemy Auletes, Cleopatra's father, was reinstated on
the throne, and had been left in Egypt, in Ptolemy's service, when
Antony returned to Rome. Some were native Egyptians. There was also in
the army of Achillas a large number of fugitive slaves,--refugees who
had made their escape from various points along the shores of the
Mediterranean, at different periods, and had been from time to time
incorporated into the Egyptian army. These fugitives were all men of the
most determined and desperate character.
Achillas had also in his command a force of two thousand horse. Such a
body of cavalry made him, of course, perfect master of all the open
country outside the city walls. At the head of these troops Achillas
gradually advanced to the very gates of Alexandria, invested the city on
every side, and shut Caesar closely in.
The danger of the situation in which Caesar was placed was extreme; but
he had been so accustomed to succeed in extricating himself from the
most imminent perils, that neither he himself nor his army seem to have
experienced any concern in respect to the result. Caesar personally felt
a special pride and pleasure in encountering the difficulties and
dangers which now beset him, because Cleopatra was with him to witness
his demeanor, to admire his energy and courage, and to reward by her
love the efforts and sacrifices which he was making in espousing her
cause. She confided every thing to him, but she watched all the
proceedings with the most eager interest, elated with hope in respect to
the result, and proud of the champion who had thus volunteered to defend
her. In a word, her heart was full of gratitude, admiration, and love.
The immediate effect, too, of the emotions which she felt so strongly
was greatly to heighten her natural charms. The native force and energy
of her character were softened and subdued. Her voice, which always
possessed a certain inexpressible charm, was endued with new sweetness
through the influence of affection. Her countenance beamed with fresh
animation and beauty, and the sprightliness and vivacity of her
character, which became at later periods of her life boldness and
eccentricity, now being softened and restrained within proper limits by
the respectful regard with which she looked upon Caesar, made her an
enchanting companion. Caesar was, in fact, entirely intoxicated with the
fascinations which she unconsciously displayed.
Under other circumstances than these, a personal attachment so strong,
formed by a military commander while engaged in active service, might
have been expected to interfere in some degree with the discharge of his
duties; but in this case, since it was for Cleopatra's sake and her
behalf that the operations which Caesar had undertaken were to be
prosecuted, his love for her only stimulated the spirit and energy with
which he engaged in them.
The first measure to be adopted was, as Caesar plainly perceived, to
concentrate and strengthen his position in the city, so that he might be
able to defend himself there against Achillas until he should receive
re-enforcements from abroad. For this purpose he selected a certain
group of palaces and citadels which lay together near the head of the
long pier of cause way which led to the Pharos, and, withdrawing his
troops from all other parts of the city, established them there. The
quarter which he thus occupied contained the great city arsenals and
public granaries. Caesar brought together all the arms and munitions of
war which he could find in other parts of the city, and also all the
corn and other provisions which were contained either in the public
depots or in private warehouses, and stored the whole within his lines.
He then inclosed the whole quarter with strong defenses. The avenues
leading to it were barricaded with walls of stone. Houses in the
vicinity, which might have afforded shelter to an enemy, were demolished
and the materials used in constructing walls wherever they were needed,
or in strengthening the barricades. Prodigious military engines, made to
throw heavy stones, and beams of wood, and other ponderous missiles,
were set up within his lines, and openings were made in the walls and
other defenses of the citadel, wherever necessary, to facilitate the
action of these machines.
There was a strong fortress situated at the head of the pier or mole
leading to the island of Pharos, which was without Caesar's lines, and
still in the hands of the Egyptian authorities. The Egyptians thus
commanded the entrance to the mole. The island itself, also, with the
fortress at the other end of the pier, was still in the possession of
the Egyptian authorities, who seemed disposed to hold it for Achillas.
The mole was very long, as the island was nearly a mile from the shore.
There was quite a little town upon the island itself, besides the
fortress or castle built there to defend the place. The garrison of this
castle was strong, and the inhabitants of the town, too, constituted a
somewhat formidable population, as they consisted of fishermen, sailors,
wreckers, and such other desperate characters, as usually congregate
about such a spot. Cleopatra and Caesar, from the windows of their palace
within the city, looked out upon this island, with the tall light house
rising in the center of it and the castle at its base, and upon the long
and narrow isthmus connecting it with the main land, and concluded that
it was very essential that they should get possession of the post,
commanding, as it did, the entrance to the harbor.
In the harbor, which was on the south side of the mole, and,
consequently, on the side opposite to that from which Achillas was
advancing toward the city, there were lying a large number of Egyptian
vessels, some dismantled, and others manned and armed more or less
effectively. These vessels had not yet come into Achillas's hands, but
it would be certain that he would take possession of them as soon as he
should gain admittance to those parts of the city which Caesar had
abandoned. This it was extremely important to prevent; for, if Achillas
held this fleet, especially if he continued to command the island of
Pharos, he would be perfect master of all the approaches to the city on
the side of the sea. He could then not only receive re-enforcements and
supplies himself from that quarter, but he could also effectually cut
off the Roman army from all possibility of receiving any. It became,
therefore, as Caesar thought, imperiously necessary that he should
protect himself from this danger. This he did by sending out an
expedition to burn all the shipping in the harbor, and, at the same
time, to take possession of a certain fort upon the island of Pharos
which commanded the entrance to the port. This undertaking was
abundantly successful. The troops burned the shipping, took the fort,
expelled the Egyptian soldiers from it, and put a Roman garrison into it
instead, and then returned in safety within Caesar's lines. Cleopatra
witnessed these exploits from her palace windows with feelings of the
highest admiration for the energy and valor which her Roman protectors
displayed.
The burning of the Egyptian ships in this action, however fortunate for
Cleopatra and Caesar, was attended with a catastrophe which has ever
since been lamented by the whole civilized world. Some of the burning
ships were driven by the wind to the shore, where they set fire to the
buildings which were contiguous to the water. The flames spread and
produced an extensive conflagration, in the course of which the largest
part of the great library was destroyed. This library was the only
general collection of the ancient writings that ever had been made, and
the loss of it was never repaired.
The destruction of the Egyptian fleet resulted also in the downfall and
ruin of Achillas. From the time of Arsinoe's arrival in the camp there
had been a constant rivalry and jealousy between himself and Ganymede,
the eunuch who had accompanied Arsinoe in her flight. Two parties had
been formed in the army, some declaring for Achillas and some for
Ganymede. Arsinoe advocated Ganymede's interests, and when, at length,
the fleet was burned, she charged Achillas with having been, by his
neglect or incapacity, the cause of the loss. Achillas was tried,
condemned, and beheaded. From that time Ganymede assumed the
administration of Arsinoe's government as her minister of state and the
commander-in-chief of her armies.
About the time that these occurrences took place, the Egyptian army
advanced into those parts of the city from which Caesar had withdrawn,
producing those terrible scenes of panic and confusion which always
attend a sudden and violent change of military possession within the
precincts of a city. Ganymede brought up his troops on every side to the
walls of Caesar's citadels and intrenchments, and hemmed him closely in.
He cut off all avenues of approach to Caesar's lines by land, and
commenced vigorous preparations for an assault. He constructed engines
for battering down the walls. He opened shops and established forges in
every part of the city for the manufacture of darts, spears, pikes, and
all kinds of military machinery. He built towers supported upon huge
wheels, with the design of filling them with armed men when finally
ready to make his assault upon Caesar's lines, and moving them up to the
walls of the citadels and palaces, so as to give to his soldiers the
advantage of a lofty elevation in making their attacks. He levied
contributions on the rich citizens for the necessary funds, and provided
himself with men by pressing all the artisans, laborers, and men capable
of bearing arms into his service. He sent messengers back into the
interior of the country, in every direction, summoning the people to
arms, and calling for contributions of money and military stores.
These messengers were instructed to urge upon the people that, unless
Caesar and his army were at once expelled from Alexandria, there was
imminent danger that the national independence of Egypt would be forever
destroyed. The Romans, they were to say, had extended their conquests
over almost all the rest of the world. They had sent one army into Egypt
before, under the command of Mark Antony, under the pretense of
restoring Ptolemy Auletes to the throne. Now another commander, with
another force, had come, offering some other pretexts for interfering in
their affairs. These Roman encroachments, the messengers were to say,
would end in the complete subjugation of Egypt to a foreign power,
unless the people of the country aroused themselves to meet the danger
manfully, and to expel the intruders.
As Caesar had possession of the island of Pharos and of the harbor,
Ganymede could not cut him off from receiving such re-enforcements of
men and arms as he might make arrangements for obtaining beyond the sea;
nor could he curtail his supply of food, as the granaries and magazines
within Caesar's quarter of the city contained almost inexhaustible stores
of corn. There was one remaining point essential to the subsistence of
an army besieged, and that was an abundant supply of water. The palaces
and citadels which Caesar occupied were supplied with water by means of
numerous subterranean aqueducts, which conveyed the water from the Nile
to vast cisterns built under ground, whence it was raised by buckets and
hydraulic engines for use. In reflecting upon this circumstance,
Ganymede conceived the design of secretly digging a canal, so as to turn
the waters of the sea by means of it into these aqueducts. This plan he
carried into effect. The consequence was, that the water in the cisterns
was gradually changed. It became first brackish, then more and more salt
and bitter, until, at length, it was wholly impossible to use it. For
some time the army within could not understand these changes; and when,
at length, they discovered the cause the soldiers were panic-stricken at
the thought, that they were now apparently wholly at the mercy of their
enemies, since, without supplies of water, they must all immediately
perish. They considered it hopeless to attempt any longer to hold out,
and urged Caesar to evacuate the city, embark on board his galleys, and
proceed to sea.
Instead of doing this, however, Caesar, ordering all other operations to
be suspended, employed the whole laboring force of his command, under
the direction of the captains of the several companies, in digging wells
in every part of his quarter of the city. Fresh water, he said, was
almost invariably found, at a moderate depth, upon sea-coasts, even upon
ground lying in very close proximity to the sea. The digging was
successful. Fresh water, in great abundance, was found. Thus this danger
was passed, and the men's fears effectually relieved.
A short time after these transactions occurred, there came into the
harbor one day, from along the shore west of the city, a small sloop,
bringing the intelligence that a squadron of transports had arrived upon
the coast to the westward of Alexandria, and had anchored there, being
unable to come up to the city on account of an easterly wind which
prevailed at that season of the year. This squadron was one which had
been sent across the Mediterranean with arms, ammunition, and military
stores for Caesar, in answer to requisitions which he had made
immediately after he had landed. The transports being thus windbound on
the coast, and having nearly exhausted their supplies of water, were in
distress; and they accordingly sent forward the sloop, which was
probably propelled by oars, to make known their situation to Caesar, and
to ask for succor. Caesar immediately went, himself, on board of one of
his galleys, and ordering the remainder of his little fleet to follow
him, he set sail out of the harbor, and then turned to the westward,
with a view of proceeding along the coast to the place where the
transports were lying.
All this was done secretly. The land is so low in the vicinity of
Alexandria that boats or galleys are out of sight from it at a very
short distance from the shore. In fact, travelers say that, in coming
upon the coast, the illusion produced by the spherical form of the
surface of the water and the low and level character of the coast is
such that one seems actually to descend from the sea to the land. Caesar
might therefore have easily kept his expedition a secret, had it not
been that, in order to be provided with a supply of water for the
transports immediately on reaching them, he stopped at a solitary part
of the coast, at some distance from Alexandria, and sent a party a
little way into the interior in search for water. This party were
discovered by the country people, and were intercepted by a troop of
horse and made prisoners. From these prisoners the Egyptians learned
that Caesar himself was on the coast with a small squadron of galleys.
The tidings spread in all directions. The people flocked together from
every quarter. They hastily collected all the boats and vessels which
could be obtained at the villages in that region and from the various
branches of the Nile. In the mean time, Caesar had gone on to the
anchorage ground of the squadron, and had taken the transports in tow to
bring them to the city; for the galleys, being propelled by oars, were
in a measure independent of the wind. On his return, he found quite a
formidable naval armament assembled to dispute the passage.
A severe conflict ensued, but Caesar was victorious. The navy which the
Egyptians had so suddenly got together was as suddenly destroyed. Some
of the vessels were burned, others sunk, and others captured; and Caesar
returned in triumph to the port with his transports and stores. He was
welcomed with the acclamations of his soldiers, and, still more warmly,
by the joy and gratitude of Cleopatra, who had been waiting during his
absence in great anxiety and suspense to know the result of the
expedition, aware as she was that her hero was exposing himself in it to
the most imminent personal danger.
The arrival of these re-enforcements greatly improved Caesar's condition,
and the circumstance of their coming forced upon the mind of Ganymede a
sense of the absolute necessity that he should gain possession of the
harbor if he intended to keep Caesar in check. He accordingly determined
to take immediate measures for forming a naval force. He sent along the
coast, and ordered every ship and galley that could be found in all the
ports to be sent immediately to Alexandria. He employed as many men as
possible in and around the city in building more. He unroofed some of
the most magnificent edifices to procure timber as a material for making
benches and oars. When all was ready, he made a grand attack upon Caesar
in the port, and a terrible contest ensued for the possession of the
harbor, the mole, the island, and the citadels and fortresses commanding
the entrances from the sea. Caesar well knew this contest would be a
decisive one in respect to the final result of the war, and he
accordingly went forth himself to take an active and personal part in
the conflict. He felt doubtless, too, a strong emotion of pride and
pleasure in exhibiting his prowess in the sight of Cleopatra, who could
watch the progress of the battle from the palace windows, full of
excitement at the dangers which he incurred, and of admiration at the
feats of strength and valor which he performed. During this battle the
life of the great conqueror was several times in the most imminent
danger. He wore a habit or mantle of the imperial purple, which made him
a conspicuous mark for his enemies; and, of course, wherever he went, in
that place was the hottest of the fight. Once, in the midst of a scene
of most dreadful confusion and din, he leaped from an overloaded boat
into the water and swam for his life, holding his cloak between his
teeth and drawing it through the water after him, that it might not fall
into the hands of his enemies. He carried, at the same time, as he swam,
certain valuable papers which he wished to save, holding them above his
head with one hand, while he propelled himself through the water with
the other.
The result of this contest was another decisive victory for Caesar. Not
only were the ships which the Egyptians had collected defeated and
destroyed, but the mole, with the fortresses at each extremity of it,
and the island, with the light house and the town of Pharos, all fell
into Caesar's hands.
The Egyptians now began to be discouraged. The army and the people,
judging, as mankind always do, of the virtue of their military
commanders solely by the criterion of success, began to be tired of the
rule of Ganymede and Arsinoe. They sent secret messengers to Caesar
avowing their discontent, and saying that, if he would liberate
Ptolemy--who, it will be recollected, had been all this time held as a
sort of prisoner of state in Caesar's palaces--they thought that the
people generally would receive him as their sovereign, and that then an
arrangement might easily be made for an amicable adjustment of the whole
controversy. Caesar was strongly inclined to accede to this proposal.
He accordingly called Ptolemy into his presence and, taking him kindly
by the hand, informed him of the wishes of the people of Egypt, and gave
him permission to go. Ptolemy, however, begged not to be sent away. He
professed the strongest attachment to Caesar, and the utmost confidence
in him, and he very much preferred, he said, to remain under his
protection. Caesar replied that, if those were his sentiments, the
separation would not be a lasting one. "If we part as friends," he said,
"we shall soon meet again." By these and similar assurances he
endeavored to encourage the young prince, and then sent him away.
Ptolemy was received by the Egyptians with great joy, and was
immediately placed at the head of the government. Instead, however, of
endeavoring to promote a settlement of the quarrel with Caesar, he seemed
to enter into it now himself, personally, with the utmost ardor, and
began at once to make the most extensive preparations both by sea and
land for a vigorous prosecution of the war. What the result of these
operations would have been can now not be known, for the general aspect
of affairs was, soon after these transactions, totally changed by the
occurrence of a new and very important event which suddenly intervened,
and which turned the attention of all parties, both Egyptians and
Romans, to the eastern quarter of the kingdom. The tidings arrived that
a large army under the command of a general named Mithradates, whom
Caesar had dispatched into Asia for this purpose, had suddenly appeared
at Pelusium, had captured that city and were now ready to march to
Alexandria.
The Egyptian army immediately broke up its encampments in the
neighborhood of Alexandria, and marched to the eastward to meet these
new invaders, Caesar followed them with all the forces that he could
safely take away from the city. He left the city in the night, and
unobserved, and moved across the country with such celerity that he
joined Mithradates before the forces of Ptolemy had arrived. After
various marches and maneuvers, the armies met, and a great battle was
fought. The Egyptians were defeated. Ptolemy's camp was taken. As the
Roman army burst in upon one side of it, the guards and attendants of
Ptolemy fled upon the other, clambering over the ramparts in the utmost
terror and confusion. The foremost fell headlong into the ditch below,
which was thus soon filled to the brim with the dead and the dying;
while those who came behind pressed on over the bridge thus formed,
trampling remorselessly, as they fled, on the bodies of their comrades,
who lay writhing, struggling, and shrieking beneath their feet. Those
who escaped reached the river. They crowded together into a boat which
lay at the bank and pushed off from the shore. The boat was overloaded,
and it sank as soon as it left the land. The Romans drew the bodies
which floated to the shore upon the bank again, and they found among
them one, which, by the royal cuirass which was upon it, the customary
badge and armor of the Egyptian kings, they knew to be the body of
Ptolemy.
The victory which Caesar obtained in this battle and the death of Ptolemy
ended the war. Nothing now remained but for him to place himself at the
head of the combined forces and march back to Alexandria. The Egyptian
forces which had been left there made no resistance, and he entered the
city in triumph. He took Arsinoe prisoner. He decreed that Cleopatra
should reign as queen, and that she should marry her youngest brother,
the other Ptolemy,--a boy at this time about eleven years of age. A
marriage with one so young was, of course, a mere form. Cleopatra
remained, as before, the companion of Caesar.
Caesar had, in the mean time, incurred great censure at Rome, and
throughout the whole Roman world, for having thus turned aside from his
own proper duties as the Roman consul, and the commander-in-chief of the
armies of the empire, to embroil himself in the quarrels of a remote and
secluded kingdom with which the interests of the Roman commonwealth were
so little connected. His friends and the authorities at Rome were
continually urging him to return. They were especially indignant at his
protracted neglect of his own proper duties, from knowing that he was
held in Egypt by a guilty attachment to the queen,--thus not only
violating his obligations to the state, but likewise inflicting upon his
wife Calpurnia, and his family at Rome, an intolerable wrong. But Caesar
was so fascinated by Cleopatra's charms, and by the mysterious and
unaccountable influence which she exercised over him, that he paid no
heed to any of these remonstrances. Even after the war was ended he
remained some months in Egypt to enjoy his favorite's society. He would
spend whole nights in her company, in feasting and revelry. He made a
splendid royal progress with her through Egypt after the war was over,
attended by a numerous train of Roman guards. He formed a plan for
taking her to Rome, and marrying her there; and he took measures for
having the laws of the city altered so as to enable him to do so, though
he was already married.
All these things produced great discontent and disaffection among
Caesar's friends and throughout the Roman army. The Egyptians, too,
strongly censured the conduct of Cleopatra. A son was born to her about
this time, whom the Alexandrians named, from his father, Caesarion.
Cleopatra was regarded in the new relation of mother, which she now
sustained, not with interest and sympathy, but with feelings of reproach
and condemnation.
Cleopatra was all this time growing more and more accomplished, and more
and more beautiful; but her vivacity and spirit, which had been so
charming while it was simple and childlike, now began to appear more
forward and bold. It is the characteristic of pure and lawful love to
soften and subdue the heart, and infuse a gentle and quiet spirit into
all its action; while that which breaks over the barriers that God and
nature have marked out for it, tends to make woman masculine and bold,
to indurate all her sensibilities, and to destroy that gentleness and
timidity of demeanor which have so great an influence in heightening her
charms. Cleopatra was beginning to experience these effects. She was
indifferent to the opinions of her subjects, and was only anxious to
maintain as long as possible her guilty ascendency over Caesar.
Caesar, however, finally determined to set out on his return to the
capital. Leaving Cleopatra, accordingly, a sufficient force to secure
the continuance of her power, he embarked the remainder of his forces in
his transports and galleys, and sailed away. He took the unhappy Arsinoe
with him, intending to exhibit her as a trophy of his Egyptian victories
on his arrival at Rome.
CHAPTER VIII.
CLEOPATRA A QUEEN.
The Alexandrine war very short.--Its extent.--Revenues of Egypt.--The
city repaired.--The library rebuilt.--A new collection of manuscripts.--
Luxury and splendor.--Deterioration of Cleopatra's character.--The young
Ptolemy.--Cleopatra assassinates him.--Career of Caesar.--His rapid
course of conquest.--Cleopatra determines to go to Rome.--Feelings of
the Romans.--Caesar's four triumphs.--Nature of triumphal
processions.--Arsinoe.--Sympathy of the Roman people.--Caesar overacts
his part.--Feasts and festivals.--Riot and debauchery.--Public
combats.--The artificial lake.--Combat upon it.--Land combats.--The
people shocked.--Cleopatra's visit.--Caesar's plans for making himself
king.--Conspiracy against Caesar.--He is assassinated.--Arsinoe
released.--Calpurnia mourns her husband's death.--Calpurnia looks to
Mark Antony as her protector.
The war by which Caesar reinstated Cleopatra upon the throne was not one
of very long duration. Caesar arrived in Egypt in pursuit of Pompey about
the first of August; the war was ended and Cleopatra established in
secure possession by the end of January; so that the conflict, violent
as it was while it continued, was very brief, the peaceful and
commercial pursuits of the Alexandrians having been interrupted by it
only for a few months.
Nor did either the war itself, or the derangements consequent upon it,
extend very far into the interior of the country. The city of Alexandria
itself and the neighboring coasts were the chief scenes of the contest
until Mithradates arrived at Pelusium. He, it is true, marched across
the Delta, and the final battle was fought in the interior of the
country. It was, however, after all, but a very small portion of the
Egyptian territory that was directly affected by the war. The great mass
of the people, occupying the rich and fertile tracts which bordered the
various branches of the Nile, and the long and verdant valley which
extended so far into the heart of the continent, knew nothing of the
conflict but by vague and distant rumors. The pursuits of the
agricultural population went on, all the time, as steadily and
prosperously as ever; so that when the conflict was ended, and Cleopatra
entered upon the quiet and peaceful possession of her power, she found
that the resources of her empire were very little impaired.
She availed herself, accordingly, of the revenues which poured in very
abundantly upon her, to enter upon a career of the greatest luxury,
magnificence, and splendor. The injuries which had been done to the
palaces and other public edifices of Alexandria the fire, and by the
military operations of the siege, were repaired. The bridges which had
been down were rebuilt. The canals which had been obstructed were opened
again. The sea-water was shut off from the palace cisterns; the rubbish
of demolished houses was removed; the barricades were cleared from the
streets; and the injuries which the palaces had suffered either from the
violence of military engines or the rough occupation of the Roman
soldiery, were repaired. In a word, the city was speedily restored once
more, so far as was possible, to its former order and beauty. The five
hundred, thousand manuscripts of the Alexandrian library, which had been
burned, could not, indeed, be restored; but, in all other respects, the
city soon resumed in appearance all its former splendor. Even in respect
to the library, Cleopatra made an effort to retrieve the loss. She
repaired the ruined buildings, and afterward, in the course of her life,
she brought together, it was said, in a manner hereafter to be
described, one or two hundred thousand rolls of manuscripts, as the
commencement of a new collection. The new library, however, never
acquired the fame and distinction that had pertained to the old.
The former sovereigns of Egypt, Cleopatra's ancestors, had generally, as
has already been shown, devoted the immense revenues which they extorted
from the agriculturalists of the valley of the Nile to purposes of
ambition. Cleopatra seemed now disposed to expend them in luxury and
pleasure. They, the Ptolemies, had employed their resources in erecting
vast structures, or founding magnificent institutions at Alexandria, to
add to the glory of the city, and to widen and extend their own fame.
Cleopatra, on the other hand, as was, perhaps, naturally to be expected
of a young, beautiful, and impulsive woman suddenly raised to so
conspicuous a position, and to the possession of such unbounded wealth
and power, expended her royal revenues in plans of personal display, and
in scenes of festivity, gayety, and enjoyment. She adorned her palaces,
built magnificent barges for pleasure excursions on the Nile, and
expended enormous sums for dress, for equipages, and for sumptuous
entertainments. In fact, so lavish were her expenditures for these and
similar purposes during the early years of her reign, that she is
considered as having carried the extravagance of sensual luxury, and
personal display, and splendor, beyond the limits that had ever before
or have ever since been attained.
Whatever of simplicity of character, and of gentleness and kindness of
spirit she might have possessed in her earlier years, of course
gradually disappeared under the influences of such a course of life as
she now was leading. She was beautiful and fascinating still, but she
began to grow selfish, heartless, and designing. Her little brother,--he
was but eleven years of age, it will be recollected, when Caesar arranged
the marriage between them,--was an object of jealousy to her. He was
now, of course, too young to take any actual share in the exercise of
the royal power, or to interfere at all in his sister's plans or
pleasures. But then he was growing older. In a few years he would be
fifteen,--which was the period of life fixed upon by Caesar's
arrangements, and, in fact, by the laws and usages of the Egyptian
kingdom,--when he was to come into possession of power as king, and as
the husband of Cleopatra. Cleopatra was extremely unwilling that the
change in her relations to him and to the government, which this period
was to bring, should take place. Accordingly, just before the time
arrived, she caused him to be poisoned. His death released her, as she
had intended, from all restraints, and thereafter she continued to reign
alone. During the remainder of her life, so far as the enjoyment of
wealth and power, and of all other elements of external prosperity could
go, Cleopatra's career was one of uninterrupted success. She had no
conscientious scruples to interfere with the most full and unrestrained
indulgence of every propensity of her heart, and the means of indulgence
were before her in the most unlimited profusion. The only bar to her
happiness was the impossibility of satisfying the impulses and passions
of the human soul, when they once break over the bounds which the laws
both of God and of nature ordain for restraining them.
In the mean time, while Cleopatra was spending the early years of her
reign in all this luxury and splendor, Caesar was pursuing his career, as
the conqueror of the world, in the most successful manner. On the death
of Pompey, he would naturally have succeeded at once to the enjoyment of
the supreme power; but his delay in Egypt, and the extent to which it
was known that he was entangled with Cleopatra, encouraged and
strengthened his enemies in various parts of the world. In fact, a
revolt which broke out in Asia Minor, and which it was absolutely
necessary that he should proceed at once to quell, was the immediate
cause of his leaving Egypt at last. Other plans for making head against
Caesar's power were formed in Spain, in Africa, and in Italy. His
military skill and energy, however, were so great, and the ascendency
which he exercised over the minds of men by his personal presence was so
unbounded, and so astonishing, moreover, was the celerity with which he
moved from continent to continent, and from kingdom to kingdom, that in
a very short period from the time of his leaving Egypt, he had conducted
most brilliant and successful campaigns in all the three quarters of the
world then known, had put down effectually all opposition to his power,
and then had returned to Rome the acknowledged master of the world.
Cleopatra, who had, of course, watched his career during all this time
with great pride and pleasure, concluded, at last, to go to Rome and
make a visit to him there.
The people of Rome were, however, not prepared to receive her very
cordially. It was an age in which vice of every kind was regarded with
great indulgence, but the moral instincts of mankind were too strong to
be wholly blinded to the true character of so conspicuous an example of
wickedness as this. Arsinoe was at Rome, too, during this period of
Caesar's life. He had brought her there, it will be recollected, on his
return from Egypt, as a prisoner, and as a trophy of his victory. His
design was, in fact, to reserve her as a captive to grace his _triumph_.
A triumph, according to the usages of the ancient Romans, was a grand
celebration decreed by the Senate to great military commanders of the
highest rank, when they returned from distant campaigns in which they
had made great conquests or gained extraordinary victories. Caesar
concentrated all his triumphs into one. They were celebrated on his
return to Rome for the last time, after having completed the conquest of
the world. The processions of this triumph occupied four days. In fact,
there were four triumphs, one on each day for the four days. The wars
and conquests which these ovations were intended to celebrate were those
of Gaul, of Egypt, of Asia, and of Africa; and the processions on the
several days consisted of endless trains of prisoners, trophies, arms,
banners, pictures, images, convoys of wagons loaded with plunder,
captive princes and princesses, animals wild and tame, and every thing
else which the conqueror had been able to bring home with him from his
campaigns, to excite the curiosity or the admiration of the people of
the city and illustrate the magnitude of his exploits. Of course, the
Roman generals, when engaged in distant foreign wars, were ambitious of
bringing back as many distinguished captives and as much public plunder
as they were able to obtain, in order to add to the variety and splendor
of the triumphal procession by which their victories were to be honored
on their return. It was with this view that Caesar brought Arsinoe from
Egypt; and he had retained her as his captive at Rome until his
conquests were completed and the time for his triumph arrived. She, of
course, formed a part of the triumphal train on the _Egyptian_ day. She
walked immediately before the chariot in which Caesar rode. She was in
chains, like any other captive, though her chains in honor of her lofty
rank, were made of gold.
The effect, however, upon the Roman population of seeing the unhappy
princess, overwhelmed as she was with sorrow and chagrin, as she moved
slowly along in the train, among the other emblems and trophies of
violence and plunder, proved to be by no means favorable to Caesar. The
population were inclined to pity her, and to sympathize with her in her
sufferings. The sight of her distress recalled too, to their minds, the
dereliction from duty which Caesar had been guilty of in his yielding to
the enticements of Cleopatra, and remaining so long in Egypt to the
neglect of his proper duties as a Roman minister of state. In a word,
the tide of admiration for Caesar's military exploits which had been
setting so strongly in his favor, seemed inclined to turn, and the city
was filled with murmurs against him even in the midst of his triumphs.
In fact, the pride and vainglory which led Caesar to make his triumphs
more splendid and imposing than any former conqueror had ever enjoyed,
caused him to overact his part so as to produce effects the reverse of
his intentions. The case of Arsinoe was one example of this. Instead of
impressing the people with a sense of the greatness of his exploits in
Egypt, in deposing one queen and bringing her captive to Rome, in order
that he might place another upon the throne in her stead, it only
reproduced anew the censures and criminations which he had deserved by
his actions there, but which, had it not been for the pitiable spectacle
of Arsinoe in the train, might have been forgotten.
There were other examples of a similar character. There were the feasts,
for instance. From the plunder which Caesar had obtained in his various
campaigns, he expended the most enormous sums in making feasts and
spectacles for the populace at the time of his triumph. A large portion
of the populace was pleased, it is true, with the boundless indulgences
thus offered to them; but the better part of the Roman people were
indignant at the waste and extravagance which were every where
displayed. For many days the whole city of Rome presented to the view
nothing but one wide-spread scene of riot and debauchery. The people,
instead of being pleased with this abundance, said that Caesar must have
practiced the most extreme and lawless extortion to have obtained the
vast amount of money necessary to enable him to supply such unbounded
and reckless waste.
There was another way, too, by which Caesar turned public opinion
strongly against himself, by the very means which he adopted for
creating a sentiment in his favor. The Romans, among the other barbarous
amusements which were practiced in the city, were specially fond of
combats. These combats were of various kinds. They were fought sometimes
between ferocious beasts of the same or of different species, as dogs
against each other, or against bulls, lions, or tigers. Any animals, in
fact, were employed for this purpose, that could be teased or goaded
into anger and ferocity in a fight. Sometimes men were employed in these
combats,--captive soldiers, that had been taken in war, and brought to
Rome to fight in the amphitheaters there as gladiators. These men were
compelled to contend sometimes with wild beasts, and sometimes with one
another. Caesar, knowing how highly the Roman assemblies enjoyed such
scenes, determined to afford them the indulgence on a most magnificent
scale, supposing, of course, that the greater and the more dreadful the
fight, the higher would be the pleasure which the spectators would enjoy
in witnessing it. Accordingly, in making preparations for the
festivities attending his triumph, he caused a large artificial lake to
be formed at a convenient place in the vicinity of Rome, where it could
be surrounded by the populace of the city, and there he made
arrangements for a naval battle. A great number of galleys were
introduced into the lake. They were of the usual size employed in war.
These galleys were manned with numerous soldiers. Tyrian captives were
put upon one side, and Egyptian upon the other; and when all was ready,
the two squadrons were ordered to approach and fight a real battle for
the amusement of the enormous throngs of spectators that were assembled
around. As the nations from which the combatants in this conflict were
respectively taken were hostile to each other, and as the men fought, of
course, for their lives, the engagement was attended with the usual
horrors of a desperate naval encounter. Hundreds were slain. The dead
bodies of the combatants fell from the galleys into the lake and the
waters of it were dyed with their blood.
There were land combats, too, on the same grand scale. In one of them
five hundred foot soldiers, twenty elephants, and a troop of thirty
horse were engaged on each side. This combat, therefore, was an action
greater, in respect to the number of the combatants, than the famous
battle of Lexington, which marked the commencement of the American war;
and in respect to the slaughter which took place, it was very probably
ten times greater. The horror of these scenes proved to be too much even
for the populace, fierce and merciless as it was, which they were
intended to amuse. Caesar, in his eagerness to outdo all former
exhibitions and shows, went beyond the limits within which the seeing of
men butchered in bloody combats and dying in agony and despair would
serve for a pleasure and a pastime. The people were shocked; and
condemnations of Caesar's cruelty were added to the other suppressed
reproaches and criminations which every where arose.
Cleopatra, during her visit to Rome, lived openly with Caesar at his
residence, and this excited very general displeasure. In fact, while the
people pitied Arsinoe, Cleopatra, notwithstanding her beauty and her
thousand personal accomplishments and charms, was an object of general
displeasure, so far as public attention, was turned toward her at all.
The public mind was, however, much engrossed by the great political
movements made by Caesar and the ends toward which he seemed to be
aiming. Men accused him of designing to be made a king. Parties were
formed for and against him; and though men did not dare openly to utter
their sentiments, their passions became the more violent in proportion
to the external force by which they were suppressed. Mark Antony was at
Rome at this time. He warmly espoused Caesar's cause, and encouraged his
design of making himself king. He once, in fact, offered to place a
royal diadem upon Caesar's head at some public celebration; but the marks
of public disapprobation which the act elicited caused him to desist.
At length, however, the time arrived when Caesar determined to cause
himself to be proclaimed king. He took advantage of a certain remarkable
conjuncture of public affairs, which can not here be particularly
described, but which seemed to him specially to favor his designs, and
arrangements were made for having him invested with the regal power by
the Senate. The murmurs and the discontent of the people at the
indications that the time for the realization of their fears was drawing
nigh, became more and more audible, and at length a conspiracy was
formed to put an end to the danger by destroying the ambitious
aspirant's life. Two stern and determined men, Brutus and Cassius, were
the leaders of this conspiracy. They matured their plans, organized
their band of associates, provided themselves secretly with arms, and
when the Senate convened, on the day in which the decisive vote was to
have been passed, Caesar himself presiding, they came up boldly around
him in his presidential chair, and murdered him with their daggers.
Antony, from whom the plans of the conspirators had been kept profoundly
secret, stood by, looking on stupefied and confounded while the deed was
done, but utterly unable to render his friend any protection.
Cleopatra immediately fled from the city and returned to Egypt.
Arsinoe had gone away before. Caesar, either taking pity on her
misfortunes, or impelled, perhaps, by the force of public sentiment,
which seemed inclined to take part with her against him, set her at
liberty immediately after the ceremonies of his triumph were over. He
would not, however, allow her to return into Egypt, for fear, probably,
that she might in some way or other be the means of disturbing the
government of Cleopatra. She proceeded, accordingly, into Syria, no
longer as a captive, but still as an exile from her native land. We
shall hereafter learn what became of her there.
Calpurnia mourned the death of her husband with sincere and unaffected
grief. She bore the wrongs which she suffered as a wife with a very
patient and unrepining spirit, and loved her husband with the most
devoted attachment to the end. Nothing can be more affecting than the
proofs of her tender and anxious regard on the night immediately
preceding the assassination. There were certain slight and obscure
indications of danger which her watchful devotion to her husband led her
to observe, though they eluded the notice of all Caesar's other friends,
and they filled her with apprehension and anxiety; and when at length
the bloody body was brought home to her from the senate-house, she was
overwhelmed with grief and despair.
She had no children. She accordingly looked upon Mark Antony as her
nearest friend and protector, and in the confusion and terror which
prevailed the next day in the city, she hastily packed together the
money and other valuables contained in the house, and all her husband's
books and papers, and sent them to Antony for safe keeping.
CHAPTER IX.
THE BATTLE OF PHILIPPI.
Consternation at Rome.--Caesar's will.--Brutus and Cassius.--Parties
formed.--Octavius and Lepidus.--Character of Octavius.--Octavius
proceeds to Rome.--He claims his rights as heir.--Lepidus takes command
of the army.--The triumvirate.--Conference between Octavius, Lepidus,
and Antony.--Embassage to Cleopatra.--Her decision.--Cassius abandons
his designs.--Approach of the triumvirs.--The armies meet at Philippi.
--Sickness of Octavius.--Difference of opinion between Brutus and
Cassius.--Council of war.--Decision of the council.--Brutus greatly
elated.--Despondency of Cassius.--Preparations for battle.--Resolution
of Brutus to die.--Similar resolve of Cassius.--Omens.--Their influence
upon Cassius.--The swarms of bees.--Warnings received by Brutus.--The
spirit seen by Brutus.--His conversation with it.--Battle of
Philippi.--Defeat of Octavius.--Defeat of Cassius.--Brutus goes to his
aid--Death of Cassius.--Grief of Brutus.--Defeat of Brutus.--His
retreat.--Situation of Brutus in the glen.--The helmet of water.--Brutus
surrounded.--Proposal of Statilius.--Anxiety and suspense.--Resolution
of Brutus.--Brutus's farewell to his friends.--The last duty.--Death of
Brutus.--Situation of Antony.
When the tidings of the assassination of Caesar were first announced to
the people of Rome, all ranks and classes of men were struck with
amazement and consternation. No one knew what to say or do. A very large
and influential portion of the community had been Caesar's friends. It
was equally certain that there was a very powerful interest opposed to
him. No one could foresee which of these two parties would now carry the
day, and, of course, for a time, all was uncertainty and indecision.
Mark Antony came forward at once, and assumed the position of Caesar's
representative and the leader of the party on that side. A will was
found among Caesar's effects, and when the will was opened it appeared
that large sums of money were left to the Roman people, and other large
amounts to a nephew of the deceased, named Octavius, who will be more
particularly spoken of hereafter. Antony was named in the will is the
executor of it. This and other circumstances seemed to authorize him to
come forward as the head and the leader of the Caesar party. Brutus and
Cassius, who remained openly in the city after their desperate deed had
been performed, were the acknowledged leaders of the other party; while
the mass of the people were at first so astounded at the magnitude and
suddenness of the revolution which the open and public assassination of
a Roman emperor by a Roman Senate denoted, that they knew not what to
say or do. In fact, the killing of Julius Caesar, considering the exalted
position which he occupied, the rank and station of the men who
perpetrated the deed, and the very extraordinary publicity of the scene
in which the act was performed, was, doubtless, the most conspicuous and
most appalling case of assassination that has ever occurred. The whole
population of Rome seemed for some days to be amazed and stupefied by
the tidings. At length, however, parties began to be more distinctly
formed. The lines of demarkation between them were gradually drawn, and
men began to arrange themselves more and more unequivocally on the
opposite sides.
For a short time the supremacy of Antony over the Caesar party was
readily acquiesced in and allowed. At length, however, and before his
arrangements were finally matured, he found that he had two formidable
competitors upon his own side. These were Octavius and Lepidus.
Octavius, who was the nephew of Caesar, already alluded to, was a very
accomplished and elegant young man, now about nineteen years of age. He
was the son of Julius Caesar's niece.[1]
[Footnote 1: This Octavius on his subsequent elevation to
imperial power, received the name of Augustus Caesar, and it is
by this name that he is generally known in history. He was,
however, called Octavius at the commencement of his career,
and, to avoid confusion, we shall continue to designate him by
this name to the end of our narrative.]
He had always been a great favorite with his uncle. Every possible
attention had been paid to his education, and he had been advanced by
Caesar, already, to positions of high importance in public life. Caesar,
in fact, adopted him as his son, and made him his heir. At the time of
Caesar's death he was at Apollonia, a city of Illyricum, north of Greece.
The troops under his command there offered to march at once with him, if
he wished it, to Rome, and avenge his uncle's death. Octavius, after
some hesitation, concluded that it would be most prudent for him to
proceed thither first himself, alone, as a private person, and demand
his rights as his uncle's heir, according to the provisions of the will.
He accordingly did so. He found, on his arrival, that the will, the
property, the books and parchments, and the substantial power of the
government, were all in Antony's hands. Antony, instead of putting
Octavius into possession of his property and rights, found various
pretexts for evasion and delay. Octavius was too young yet, he said, to
assume such weighty responsibilities. He was himself also too much
pressed with the urgency of public affairs to attend to the business of
the will. With these and similar excuses as his justification, Antony
seemed inclined to pay no regard whatever to Octavius's claims.
Octavius, young as he was, possessed a character that was marked with
great intelligence, spirit, and resolution. He soon made many powerful
friends in the city of Rome and among the Roman Senate. It became a
serious question whether he or Antony would gain the greatest ascendency
in the party of Caesar's friends. The contest for this ascendency was, in
fact, protracted for two or three years, and led to a vast complication
of intrigues, and maneuvers, and civil wars, which can not, however, be
here particularly detailed.
The other competitor which Antony had to contend with was a
distinguished Roman general named Lepidus. Lepidus was an officer of the
army, in very high command at the time of Caesar's death. He was present
in the senate-chamber on the day of the assassination. He stole secretly
away when he saw that the deed was done, and repaired to the camp of the
army without the city and immediately assumed the command of the forces.
This gave him great power, and in the course of the contests which
subsequently ensued between Antony and Octavius, he took an active part,
and held in some measure the balance between them. At length the contest
was finally closed by a coalition of the three rivals. Finding that they
could not either of them gain a decided victory over the others, they
combined together, and formed the celebrated _triumvirate_, which
continued afterward for some time to wield the supreme command in the
Roman world. In forming this league of reconciliation, the three rivals
held their conference on an island situated in one of the branches of
the Po, in the north of Italy. They manifested extreme jealousy and
suspicion of each other in coming to this interview. Two bridges were
built leading to the island, one from each bank of the stream. The army
of Antony was drawn up upon one side of the river, and that of Octavius
upon the other. Lepidus went first to the island by one of the bridges.
After examining the ground carefully, to make himself sure that it
contained no ambuscade, he made a signal to the other generals, who then
came over, each advancing by his own bridge, and accompanied by three
hundred guards, who remained upon the bridge to secure a retreat for
their masters in case of treachery. The conference lasted three days, at
the expiration of which time the articles were all agreed upon and
signed.
This league being formed, the three confederates turned their united
force against the party of the conspirators. Of this party Brutus and
Cassius were still at the head.
The scene of the contests between Octavius, Antony, and Lepidus had been
chiefly Italy and the other central countries of Europe. Brutus and
Cassius, on the other hand, had gone across the Adriatic Sea into the
East immediately after Caesar's assassination. They were now in Asia
Minor, and were employed in concentrating their forces, forming
alliances with the various Eastern powers, raising troops, bringing over
to their side the Roman legions which were stationed in that quarter of
the world, seizing magazines, and exacting contributions from all who
could be induced to favor their cause. Among other embassages which they
sent, one went to Egypt to demand aid from Cleopatra. Cleopatra,
however, was resolved to join the other side in the contest. It was
natural that she should feel grateful to Caesar for his efforts and
sacrifices in her behalf, and that she should be inclined to favor the
cause of his friends. Accordingly, instead of sending troops to aid
Brutus and Cassius, as they had desired her to do, she immediately
fitted out an expedition to proceed to the coast of Asia, with a view of
rendering all the aid in her power to Antony's cause.
Cassius, on his part, finding that Cleopatra was determined on joining
his enemies, immediately resolved on proceeding at once to Egypt and
taking possession of the country. He also stationed a military force at
Taenarus, the southern promontory of Greece, to watch for and intercept
the fleet of Cleopatra as soon as it should appear on the European
shores. All these plans, however--both those which Cleopatra formed
against Cassius, and those which Cassius formed against her--failed of
accomplishment. Cleopatra's fleet encountered a terrible storm, which
dispersed and destroyed it. A small remnant was driven upon the coast of
Africa, but nothing could be saved which could be made available for the
purpose intended. As for Cassius's intended expedition to Egypt, it was
not carried into effect. The dangers which began now to threaten him
from the direction of Italy and Rome were so imminent, that, at Brutus's
urgent request, he gave up the Egyptian plan, and the two generals
concentrated their forces to meet the armies of the triumvirate which
were now rapidly advancing to attack them. They passed for this purpose
across the Hellespont from Sestos to Abydos, and entered Thrace.
After various marches and countermarches, and a long succession of those
maneuvers by which two powerful armies, approaching a contest, endeavor
each to gain some position of advantage against the other, the various
bodies of troops belonging, respectively, to the two powers, came into
the vicinity of each other near Philippi. Brutus and Cassius arrived
here first. There was a plain in the neighborhood of the city, with a
rising ground in a certain portion of it. Brutus took possession of this
elevation, and intrenched himself there. Cassius posted his forces about
three miles distant, near the sea. There was a line of intrenchments
between the two camps, which formed a chain of communication by which
the positions of the two commanders were connected. The armies were thus
very advantageously posted. They had the River Strymon and a marsh on
the left of the ground that they occupied, while the plain was before
them, and the sea behind. Here they awaited the arrival of their foes.
Antony, who was at this time at Amphipolis, a city not far distant from
Philippi, learning that Brutus and Cassius had taken their positions in
anticipation of an attack, advanced immediately and encamped upon the
plain. Octavius was detained by sickness at the city of Dyrrachium, not
very far distant. Antony waited for him. It was ten days before he came.
At length he arrived, though in coming he had to be borne upon a litter,
being still too sick to travel in any other way. Antony approached, and
established his camp opposite to that of Cassius, near the sea, while
Octavius took post opposite to Brutus. The four armies then paused,
contemplating the probable results of the engagement that was about to
ensue.
The forces on the two sides were nearly equal; but on the Republican
side, that is, on the part of Brutus and Cassius, there was great
inconvenience and suffering for want of a sufficient supply of
provisions and stores. There was some difference of opinion between
Brutus and Cassius in respect to what it was best for them to do. Brutus
was inclined to give the enemy battle. Cassius was reluctant to do so,
since, under the circumstances in which they were placed, he considered
it unwise to hazard, as they necessarily must do, the whole success of
their cause to the chances of a single battle. A council of war was
convened, and the various officers were asked to give their opinions. In
this conference, one of the officers having recommended to postpone the
conflict to the next winter, Brutus asked him what advantage he hoped to
attain by such delay. "If I gain nothing else," replied the officer, "I
shall live so much the longer." This answer touched Cassius's pride and
military sense of honor. Rather than concur in a counsel which was thus,
on the part of one of its advocates at least, dictated by what he
considered an inglorious love of life, he preferred to retract his
opinion. It was agreed by the council that the army should maintain its
ground and give the enemy battle. The officers then repaired to their
respective camps.
Brutus was greatly pleased at this decision. To fight the battle had
been his original desire, and as his counsels had prevailed, he was, of
course, gratified with the prospect for the morrow. He arranged a
sumptuous entertainment in his tent, and invited all the officers of his
division of the army to sup with him. The party spent the night in
convivial pleasures, and in mutual congratulations at the prospect of
the victory which, as they believed, awaited them on the morrow. Brutus
entertained his guests with brilliant conversation all the evening, and
inspired them with his own confident anticipations of success in the
conflict which was to ensue.
Cassius, on the other hand, in his camp by the sea, was silent and
desponding. He supped privately with a few intimate friends. On rising
from the table, he took one of his officers aside, and, pressing his
hand, said to him that he felt great misgivings in respect to the result
of the contest. "It is against my judgment," said he, "that we thus
hazard the liberty of Rome on the event of one battle, fought under such
circumstances as these. Whatever is the result, I wish you to bear me
witness hereafter that I was forced into this measure by circumstances
that I could not control. I suppose, however, that I ought to take
courage, notwithstanding the reasons that I have for these gloomy
forebodings. Let us, therefore, hope for the best; and come and sup with
me again to-morrow night. To-morrow is my birth-day."
The next morning, the scarlet mantle--the customary signal displayed in
Roman camps on the morning of a day of battle--was seen at the tops of
the tents of the two commanding generals, waving there in the air like a
banner. While the troops, in obedience to this signal, were preparing
themselves for the conflict, the two generals went to meet each other at
a point midway between their two encampments, for a final consultation
and agreement in respect to the arrangements of the day. When this
business was concluded, and they were about to separate, in order to
proceed each to his own sphere of duty, Cassius asked Brutus what he
intended to do in case the day should go against them. "We hope for the
best," said he, "and pray that the gods may grant us the victory in this
most momentous crisis. But we must remember that it is the greatest and
the most momentous of human affairs that are always the most uncertain,
and we can not foresee what is to-day to be the result of the battle. If
it goes against us, what do you intend to do? Do you intend to escape,
or to die?"
"When I was a young man," said Brutus, in reply, "and looked at this
subject only as a question of theory, I thought it wrong for a man ever
to take his own life. However great the evils that threatened him, and
however desperate his condition, I considered it his duty to live, and
to wait patiently for better times. But now, placed in the position in
which I am, I see the subject in a different light. If we do not gain
the battle this day, I shall consider all hope and possibility of saving
our country forever gone, and I shall not leave the field of battle
alive."
Cassius, in his despondency, had made the same resolution for himself
before, and he was rejoiced to hear Brutus utter these sentiments. He
grasped his colleague's hand with a countenance expressive of the
greatest animation and pleasure, and bade him farewell, saying, "We will
go out boldly to face the enemy. For we are certain either that we shall
conquer them, or that we shall have nothing to fear from their victory
over us."
Cassius's dejection, and the tendency of his mind to take a despairing
view of the prospects of the cause in which he was engaged, were owing,
in some measure, to certain unfavorable omens which he had observed.
These omens, though really frivolous and wholly unworthy of attention,
seem to have had great influence upon him, notwithstanding his general
intelligence, and the remarkable strength and energy of his character.
They were as follows:
In offering certain sacrifices, he was to wear, according to the usage
prescribed on such occasions, a garland of flowers, and it happened that
the officer who brought the garland, by mistake or accident, presented
it wrong side before. Again, in some procession which was formed, and in
which a certain image of gold, made in honor of him, was borne, the
bearer of it stumbled and fell, and the image was thrown upon the
ground. This was a very dark presage of impending calamity. Then a great
number of vultures and other birds of prey were seen for a number of
days before the battle, hovering over the Roman army; and several swarms
of bees were found within the precincts of the camp. So alarming was
this last indication, that the officers altered the line of the
intrenchments so as to shut out the ill-omened spot from the camp. These
and other such things had great influence upon the mind of Cassius, in
convincing him that some great disaster was impending over him.
Nor was Brutus himself without warnings of this character, though they
seem to have had less power to produce any serious impression upon his
mind than in the case of Cassius. The most extraordinary warning which
Brutus received, according to the story of his ancient historians, was
by a supernatural apparition which he saw, some time before, while he
was in Asia Minor. He was encamped near the city of Sardis at that time.
He was always accustomed to sleep very little, and would often, it was
said, when all his officers had retired, and the camp was still, sit
alone in his tent, sometimes reading, and sometimes revolving the
anxious cares which were always pressing upon his mind. One night he was
thus alone in his tent, with a small lamp burning before him, sitting
lost in thought, when he suddenly heard a movement as of some one
entering the tent. He looked up, and saw a strange, unearthly, and
monstrous shape, which appeared to have just entered the door and was
coming toward him. The spirit gazed upon him as it advanced, but it did
not speak.
Brutus, who was not much accustomed to fear, boldly demanded of the
apparition who and what it was, and what had brought it there. "I am
your evil spirit," said the apparition. "I shall meet you at Philippi."
"Then, it seems," said Brutus, "that, at any rate, I shall see you
again." The spirit made no reply to this, but immediately vanished.
Brutus arose, went to the door of his tent, summoned the sentinels, and
awakened the soldiers that were sleeping near. The sentinels had seen
nothing; and, after the most diligent search, no trace of the mysterious
visitor could be found.
The next morning Brutus related to Cassius the occurrence which he had
witnessed. Cassius, though very sensitive, it seems, to the influence of
omens affecting himself, was quite philosophical in his views in respect
to those of other men. He argued very rationally with Brutus to convince
him that the vision which he had seen was only a phantom of sleep,
taking its form and character from the ideas and images which the
situation in which Brutus was then placed, and the fatigue and anxiety
which he had endured, would naturally impress upon his mind.
But to return to the battle. Brutus fought against Octavius; while
Cassius, two or three miles distant, encountered Antony, that having
been, as will be recollected, the disposition of the respective armies
and their encampments upon the plain. Brutus was triumphantly successful
in his part of the field. His troops defeated the army of Octavius, and
got possession of his camp. The men forced their way into Octavius's
tent, and pierced the litter in which they supposed that the sick
general was lying through and through with their spears. But the object
of their desperate hostility was not there. He had been borne away by
his guards a few minutes before, and no one knew what had become of him.
The result of the battle was, however, unfortunately for those whose
adventures we are now more particularly following, very different in
Cassius's part of the field. When Brutus, after completing the conquest
of his own immediate foes, returned to his elevated camp, he looked
toward the camp of Cassius, and was surprised to find that the tents had
disappeared. Some of the officers around perceived weapons glancing and
glittering in the sun in the place where Cassius's tents ought to
appear. Brutus now suspected the truth, which was, that Cassius had been
defeated, and his camp had fallen into the hands of the enemy. He
immediately collected together as large a force as he could command, and
marched to the relief of his colleague. He found him, at last, posted
with a small body of guards and attendants upon the top of a small
elevation to which he had fled for safety. Cassius saw the troop of
horsemen which Brutus sent forward coming toward him, and supposed that
it was a detachment from Antony's army advancing to capture him. He,
however, sent a messenger forward to meet them, and ascertain whether
they were friends or foes. The messenger, whose name was Titinius, rode
down. The horsemen recognized Titinius, and, riding up eagerly around
him, they dismounted from their horses to congratulate him on his
safety, and to press him with inquiries in respect to the result of the
battle and the fate of his master.
Cassius, seeing all this, but not seeing it very distinctly, supposed
that the troop of horsemen were enemies, and that they had surrounded
Titinius, and had cut him down or made him prisoner. He considered it
certain, therefore, that all was now finally lost. Accordingly, in
execution of a plan which he had previously formed, he called a servant,
named Pindarus, whom he directed to follow him, and went into a tent
which was near. When Brutus and his horsemen came up, they entered the
tent. They found no living person within; but the dead body of Cassius
was there, the head being totally dissevered from it. Pindarus was never
afterward to be found.
Brutus was overwhelmed with grief at the death of his colleague; he was
also oppressed by it with a double burden of responsibility and care,
since now the whole conduct of affairs devolved upon him alone. He found
himself surrounded with difficulties which became more and more
embarrassing every day. At length he was compelled to fight a second
battle. The details of the contest itself we can not give, but the
result of it was, that, notwithstanding the most unparalleled and
desperate exertions made by Brutus to keep his men to the work, and to
maintain his ground, his troops were borne down and overwhelmed by the
irresistible onsets of his enemies, and his cause was irretrievably and
hopelessly ruined.
When Brutus found that all was lost, he allowed himself to be conducted
off the field by a small body of guards, who, in their retreat, broke
through the ranks of the enemy on a side where they saw that they should
meet with the least resistance. They were, however, pursued by a
squadron of horse, the horsemen being eager to make Brutus a prisoner.
In this emergency, one of Brutus's friends, named Lucilius, conceived
the design of pretending to be Brutus, and, as such, surrendering
himself a prisoner. This plan he carried into effect. When the troop
came up, he called out for quarter, said that he was Brutus, and begged
them to spare his life, and to take him to Antony. The men did so,
rejoiced at having, as they imagined, secured so invaluable a prize.
In the mean time, the real Brutus pressed on to make his escape. He
crossed a brook which came in his way, and entered into a little dell,
which promised to afford a hiding-place, since it was encumbered with
precipitous rocks and shaded with trees. A few friends and officers
accompanied Brutus in his flight. Night soon came on, and he lay down in
a little recess under a shelving rock, exhausted with fatigue and
suffering. Then, raising his eyes to heaven, he imprecated, in lines
quoted from a Greek poet, the just judgment of God upon the foes who
were at that hour triumphing in what he considered the ruin of his
country.
He then, in his anguish and despair, enumerated by name the several
friends and companions whom he had seen fall that day in battle,
mourning the loss of each with bitter grief. In the mean time, night was
coming on, and the party, concealed thus in the wild dell, were
destitute and unsheltered. Hungry and thirsty, and spent with fatigue as
they were, there seemed to be no prospect for them of either rest or
refreshment. Finally they sent one of their number to steal softly back
to the rivulet which they had crossed in their retreat, to bring them
some water. The soldier took his helmet to bring the water in for want
of any other vessel. While Brutus was drinking the water which they
brought, a noise was heard in the opposite direction. Two of the
officers were sent to ascertain the cause. They came back soon,
reporting that there was a party of the enemy in that quarter. They
asked where the water was which had been brought. Brutus told them that
it had all been drunk, but that he would send immediately for more. The
messenger went accordingly to the brook again, but he came back very
soon, wounded and bleeding, and reported that the enemy was close upon
them on that side too, and that he had narrowly escaped with his life.
The apprehensions of Brutus's party were greatly increased by these
tidings; it was evident that all hope of being able to remain long
concealed where they were must fast disappear.
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