Part 8 (1/2)

Before going there Antony made and unmade a dozen kings. Then, presently, at Tarsus he ordered Cleopatra to come to him. Indolently, his subject obeyed.

Caesar claimed descent from Venus. Antony's tutelary G.o.d was Bacchus, but he claimed descent from Hercules, whom in size and strength he resembled.

The strength was not intellectual. He was an understudy of genius, a soldier of limited intelligence, who tried to imitate Caesar and failed to understand him, a big barbarian boy, by accident satrap and G.o.d.

At Rome he had seen Cleopatra. Whether she had noticed him is uncertain.

But the gilded galley with the purple sails, its silver oars, its canopy of enchantments in which she went to him at Tarsus, has been told and retold, sung and painted.

At the approach of Isis, the Tarsians crowded the sh.o.r.e. Bacchus, deserted on his throne, sent an officer to fetch her to him. Cleopatra insisted that he come to her. Antony, amused at the impertinence, complied. The infinite variety of this woman, that made her a suite of surprises, instantly enthralled him. From that moment he was hers, a lion in leash, led captive into Alexandria, where, initiated by her into the inimitable life, probably into the refinements of the savoir-vivre as well, Bacchus developed into Osiris, while Isis transformed herself anew. She drank with him, fished with him, hunted with him, drilled with him, played tricks on him, and, at night, in slave's dress, romped with him in Rhakotis--a local slum--broke windows, beat the watch, captivating the captive wholly.[20]

Where she had failed with Caesar she determined to succeed with him, and would have succeeded, had Antony been Caesar. Octavius was not Caesar, either. Any man of ability, with the power and resources of which Antony disposed, could have taken the Occident from him and, with Cleopatra, ruled the world.

Together they dreamed of it. It was a beautiful dream, inimitable like their life. Rumors of the one and of the other reached Octavius. He waited, not impatiently and not long. Meanwhile Antony was still the husband of Octavia. But Cleopatra had poisoned her brother-husband. There being, therefore, no lawful reason why she and Antony should not marry, they did. Together, in the splendid palace of the Bruchium--an antique gem of which the historic brilliance still persists--they seated themselves, he as Osiris, she as Isis, on thrones of gold. Their children they declared kings of kings. Armenia, Phoenicia, Media, and Parthea, were allotted to them. To Cleopatra's realm Antony added Syria, Lydia, and Cyprus. These distributions const.i.tuted just so many dismemberments of the res publica, Antony thought them so entirely within the scope of his prerogatives that he sent an account of the proceedings to the senate.

With the account there went to Octavia a bill of divorce. Rome stood by indignant. It was precisely what Octavius wanted.

Octavius had divorced his wife and married a married woman. According to the ethics of the day, he was a model citizen, whereas Antony throning as Osiris with a female Mithridates for consort, was as oblivious of Roman dignity as of conjugal faith. In addition, it was found that he had made a will by which Rome, in the event of capture, was devised as tributary city to Cleopatra. Moreover, a senator, who had visited Antony at the Bruchium, testified that he had seen him upholding the woman's litter like a slave.

It was obvious that he was mad, demented by her aphrodisiacs. But it was obvious also that the G.o.ds of the East were rising, that Isis with her cormorant, her lotos and her spangled arms, was arrayed against the Roman penates.[21]

War was declared. At Actium the clash occurred. Antony might have won. But before he had had time to lose, Cleopatra, with singular clairvoyance, deserted him. Her reasons for believing that he would be defeated are not clear, but her motive in going is obvious. She wanted to rule the world's ruler, whoever he might be, and she thought by prompt defection to find favor with Octavius.

At the sight of her scudding sail Antony lost his senses. Instead of remaining and winning, as he might have, he followed her. Together they reached Alexandria. But there it was no longer the inimitable life that they led, rather that of the inseparables in death, or at least Antony so fancied. Cleopatra intoxicated him with funereal delights while corresponding in secret with Octavius who had written engagingly to her.

In the Bruchium the nights were festivals. By day she experimented on slaves with different poisons. Antony believed that she was preparing to die with him. She had no such intention. She was preparing to be rid of him. Then, suddenly, the enemy was at the gates. Antony challenged Octavius to single combat. Octavius sent him word that there were many other ways in which he could end his life. At that the lion roared. Even then he thought he might demolish him. He tried. He went forth to fight.

But Cleopatra had other views. The infantry, the cavalry, the flotilla, joined the Roman forces. The viper of the Nile had betrayed him. Bacchus had also. The night had been stirred by the hum of harps and the cries of bacchantes bearing the tutelary G.o.d to the Romans.

Antony, staggering back to the palace, was told that Cleopatra had killed herself. She had not, but fearful lest he kill her, she had hidden with her treasure in a temple. Antony, after the Roman fas.h.i.+on, kept always with him a slave who should kill him when his hour was come. The slave's name, Plutarch said, was Eros. Antony called him. Eros raised a sword, but instead of striking his master, struck himself. Antony reddened and imitated him. Another slave then told him that Cleopatra still lived. He had himself taken to where she was, and died while attempting to console this woman who was preparing for the consolations of Octavius.

It is said that she received the conqueror magnificently. But his engaging letters had been _ruses de guerre_. They had triumphed. The new Caesar wanted to triumph still further. He wanted Cleopatra, a chain about her neck, dragged after his chariot through Rome. He wanted in that abjection to triumph over the entire East. Instead of yielding to her, as she had expected, he threatened to kill her children if she eluded him by killing herself. The threat was horrible. But more horrible still was the thought of the infamy to be.

Shortly, on a bed of gold, dressed as for nuptials, she was found dead among her expiring women, one of whom even then was putting back on her head her diadem which had fallen. At last the cormorant had cried ”Enough!”

Said Horace: ”Nunc est bibendum.”

IX

THE IMPERIAL ORGY

Death, in taking Cleopatra, closed the doors of the temple Ja.n.u.s. After centuries of turmoil, there was peace. The reign of the Caesars had begun.

Octavius became Augustus, the rest of the litter divine. The triumvirs of war were succeeded by the triumvirs of love. These were the poets.

Catullus had gone with the republic. In verse he might have been primus.

He was too negligent. His microscopic masterpieces form but a brief bundle of pastels. The face repeated there is Lesbia's. He saw her first lounging in a litter that slaves carried along the Sacred Way. Immediately he was in love with her. The love was returned. In the delight of it the poet was born. His first verses were to her, so also were his last. But Lesbia wearied of song and kisses, at least of his. She eloped with his nearest friend. In the _Somnambula_ the tenor sings _O perche non posso odiarte_--Why can I not hate thee? The song is but a variant on that of Catullus. Odi et amo, I love and hate you, he called after her. But, if she heard, she heeded as little as Beatrice did when Dante cursed the day he saw her first. Dante ceased to upbraid, but did not cease to love. He was but following the example of Catullus, with this difference: Beatrice went to heaven, Lesbia to h.e.l.l, to an earthly h.e.l.l, the worst of any, to a horrible inn on the Tiber where sailors brawled. She descended to that, fell there, rather. Catullus still loved her.

At the sight of Cynthia another poet was born. What Lesbia pulchra had been to Catullus, Cynthia pulchrior became to Propertius. He swore that she should be his sole muse, and kept his word, in so far as verse was concerned. Otherwise, he was less constant. It is doubtful if she deserved more, or as much. Never did a girl succeed better in tormenting a lover, never was there a lover so poetically wretched as he. In final fury he flung at her farewells that were maledictions, only to be recaptured, beaten even, subjugated anew. She made him love her. When she died, her death nearly killed him. Nearly, but not quite. He survived, and, first among poets, intercepted the possibility of reunion there where all things broken are made complete, and found again things vanished--_Lethum non omnia finit_.

Horace resembled him very remotely. A little fat man--brevis atque obesus, Suetonius said--he waddled and wallowed in the excesses of the day, telling, in culpable iambics, of fair faces, facile amours, easy epicureanism, rose-crowned locks, yet telling of them--and of other matters less admissible--on a lyre with wonderful chords. At the conclusion of the third book of the _Odes_, he declared that he had completed a monument which the succession of centuries without number could not destroy. ”I shall not die,” he added. He was right. Because of that flame of fair faces, lovers turn to him still. Because of his iambics, he has a niche in the hearts of the polite. Versatile in love and in verse, his inconstancy and his art are nowhere better displayed than in the incomparable _Donec gratus eram tibi_, which Ponsard rewrote:

HORACE.

Tant que tu m'as aime, que nul autre plus digne N'entourait de ses bras ton col blanc comme un cygne, J'ai vecu plus heureux que Xerxes le grand roi.