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.On Cleopatra’s disarming effect all sources unanimously, even actively, agree.Plutarch so much falls under her posthumous spell that—from the moment of Dellius’s arrival—he essentially lets her run off with Mark Antony’s narrative.Dellius quickly grasped that he would not be delivering up a sorry, subdued queen for arraignment.The woman before him was not the kind who could be asked to explain herself.Opportunist that he was, he may have seen that something else could be made of the situation.He was himself highly susceptible to beauty.From their lusty escapades together, he knew well the tastes of his commanding officer.Dellius either melted in Cleopatra’s hands, realized Antony would, or both.Fortunately the flip side of his inconstancy was a nearly double-jointed agility; he executed an effortless about-face.He flattered and fawned, so much so that it is unclear whose agenda he ultimately advanced.His advice was—Dellius deserves long overdue points for stage management—to engage in a little playacting.Cleopatra was to put on her finest clothes.Her situation was analogous to that of Hera in the Iliad, who kneads her skin to a soft glow, anoints herself with enticing oils, braids her bright tresses, wraps herself in ambrosial robes, cinches her waist with tassels, and—gold brooches at her breast and gems dangling from her ears—strides off to meet Zeus.Cleopatra was to come abroad with him posthaste.She had, Dellius assured her, nothing to fear.Mark Antony was “the gentlest and kindest of soldiers.”THREE YEARS EARLIER, as Cleopatra had hurried from Rome under a dull April sky, she crossed paths with another wary traveler.Though he did so as a private citizen, Octavian had made his way to Rome “accompanied by a remarkable crowd which increased every day like a torrent” and borne along by a current of goodwill.Either at the time or in the retelling, he was greeted by the ancient equivalent of special effects.As he neared the Appian Way, the fog lifted and “a great halo with the colours of the rainbow surrounded the whole sun,” which had not been seen for weeks.Caesar’s heir was as unknown to his followers as they were to him; they flocked to his side—none more enthusiastically than the veterans of Caesar’s campaigns—with the expectation that the eighteen-year-old would avenge “the butchery in the Senate.” He was noncommittal on that front, proceeding, on his mother’s advice, “craftily and patiently,” at least until he set foot on Antony’s property.The sallow, provincial teenager with the curly blond hair and the eyebrows that joined above his nose had hardly distinguished himself.He had spent little time in Rome.He had neither military experience nor political authority.His constitution was frail, his figure unprepossessing.He had arrived to claim the most coveted inheritance of the age, the name of his granduncle.Bright and early the next morning Octavian presented himself at the Forum to accept Caesar’s adoption.He proceeded to call on Mark Antony, in the garden of his fine estate, to which Octavian was admitted only after a lengthy, humiliating delay.No matter how he announced himself—already his followers called him Caesar—the call would have rankled.If for Cleopatra Octavian’s appearance in Rome was uncomfortable, it was for Mark Antony an insult.A strained conversation followed between two men—or in the forty-year-old Antony’s opinion, a man and a boy—who felt they had equal right to Caesar’s legacy.Octavian was precise and deliberative, later something of a control freak; he no doubt practiced his remarks in advance.(Even when speaking to his wife he preferred to write out his thoughts and read them aloud.) Certainly Octavian delivered those in 44 with chilling confidence and candor.Why had Antony failed to prosecute the assassins? (For the sake of order, everyone had urged an amnesty.Antony had presided over the Senate when it was granted, however.) The prime movers were not only alive, but had been rewarded with provincial governorships and military commands.Octavian entreated his elder “to stand behind me and help me take revenge on the murderers.” If he could not, would he please step respectfully aside? After all, Antony might just as well have been Caesar’s political heir had he conducted himself more prudently.As for the inheritance, could Antony kindly hand over the gold Caesar had left, for the promised distributions? Octavian added that Antony could keep “the valuables and other finery,” less an invitation than an accusation.Mark Antony was more than twice Octavian’s age.He had “all the prestige of his long service with Caesar.” Over the previous two years he had exercised great, if not always decorous, authority.He had moreover already liquidated Octavian’s inheritance, as he had earlier made a shambles of Pompey’s former home, liberally bestowing magnificent tapestries and furniture on friends.He did not need to be reminded that he had narrowly missed out on adoption by the man he too admired above all others.Nor did he need to be lectured by a diminutive, self-righteous upstart.He was much taken aback.In his rich, raspy voice, he reminded the young man before him that political leadership in Rome was not hereditary.Comporting himself as if it were had got Caesar murdered.Antony had run plenty of risks to ensure that Caesar was buried with honors, plenty more for the sake of his memory.It was entirely thanks to him, he testily informed Octavian, “that you in fact possess all the distinctions of Caesar’s that you do—family, name, rank and wealth.” Antony owed no explanations.He deserved gratitude rather than blame.Unable to resist, as he often was, Antony added a little poison dart to his message, upbraiding the stripling for his disrespect, “and you a young man and I your senior.” Octavian was moreover mistaken if he believed Antony coveted political power or resented the newcomer’s position.“Descent from Hercules is quite good enough for me,” huffed Antony, who—broad-shouldered, bull-necked, ridiculously handsome, with a thick head of curls and aquiline features—entirely looked the part.As for money, there was none in his hands.Octavian’s brilliant father had left the treasury quite empty.Explosive though it was, that interview came as a relief to the Senate, to which there was only one danger greater than a public feud between the two Caesarians.Antony wielded political power.Octavian was respected, and surprisingly popular.Enthusiastic demonstrations greeted him throughout his travels.Far better that the two rivals obstruct each other, went the thinking, than that they join forces.Antony noted as much in his garden that spring morning.Octavian was fresh from his studies.Certainly in the course of them he had learned that the populace considered it their business to prolong discord, that they built up demagogues for the pleasure of knocking them down, that they encouraged them to destroy each other.He was of course right.And no one was better at fomenting dissension than Cicero, who could always be counted on, as a contemporary put it, to malign the prominent, blackmail the powerful, slander the distinguished.He now gamely obliged.To Cicero the contest was a baneful one between weakness and villainy.In truth there were a dizzying number of options.Among Caesar’s assassins, Brutus and Cassius remained very much in the picture.A bold young man with a gift for assembling armies, Pompey’s son was in Spain with the greater part of the Roman navy.Sextus Pompey had on his side his own father’s still-bright reputation; he, too, was looking to avenge a parent and recover an inheritance.(He arguably had a greater claim on vengeance.As an adolescent, he had witnessed his father’s beheading off the coast of Egypt [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]