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Cleopatra. Anthony's last love

by Eugenia Salza Prina Ricotti

And now we arrive to Anthony last wife: Cleopatra. It was at Tarsus that the two celebrated lovers met for the first time. Anthony had arrived there just after the battle of Filippi. He had to solve many problems of Asia Minor, and then he must also try to collect all the tributes. He was still at Tarsus when he invited the queen to come and discuss with him certain questions. We don’t know what was the argument he wanted to debate, we only perceive that it couldn’t have been a very pleasant one. According to Plutarch the queen had been called to clear herself from the accusation to have helped Brutus and Cassius during the civil war, but in this Plutarch - who is not always reliable -, was wrong: Cleopatra, as a matter of fact, stood by the triumvirs and by them she had been thanked and rewarded. We can only ask to ourselves if, not having collected a sum large enough to pay the expenses of the last war, Anthony was not trying to squeeze a little money more and tried to have it from Cleopatra and Egypt. But under which pretext?. It doesn’t seem that there was any reason.
Of course Cleopatra, while officially sustaining Anthony and Octavian, could also have sent help and boats to Dolabella: To sum it up she could have kept a foot in both camp: After all this was one of her favorite politic.
As a matter of fact it wasn’t impossible that the queen hadn’t something to blame. What is sure is that she felt obliged to accept the invitation, but she also decided that she would be the one who won. Thus she began to sharpen all her best weapons, to wit study which were her sexiest dresses. When everything had been prepared as she wanted, she sailed on a most elegant boat which, gliding on the water, gave off all the best perfumes of the far away Orient. She was laid on a restful bed set in the shade of a purple red canopy . This splendid creature, well in sight on the higher part of the poop, draped in soft veils and dressed up like Venus, must have appeared to the people like a divine apparition and naturally Anthony was quite struck by it. Thus instead of sensing the trap that had been prepared for him and instead of keeping himself at a strict distance, the imprudent young general accepted to dine with her. For Mark Anthony it was normal: He was accustomed to discuss the most various State affairs reclined on a tricliniar couch, but he didn’t realize that now the question was quite different. One thing could be to lay beside Octavian or of some other stern personages and drink with them, and another was be to be immersed in the most intoxicating perfumes and lye down on soft cushions beside a fascinating woman.
If ever during this dinner, while he was sipping exquisite wines from golden cups and all around sounded sweet and sensual melody, Anthony had tried to start a serious discussion with Cleopatra, the woman needed only to raise toward him her visage bathed by the warm reflex of the torches and look at him with her beautiful eyes just if she wanted to better follow his speech. The sensual man would immediately have forgotten everything else and also lost any concentration. Only an ascetic austere person would have been able to resist temptations and go on treating some serious argument. Now Anthony was certainly not this kind of man. We can not marvel if, after some days of this kind of treatment, he had been definitely ensnared and if one of the few love story that really succeeded in shaking the world had begun.
From this moment on, it was impossible to divide Anthony from Cleopatra. Fulvia tried to do it with the Perugia’s war, but she was completely beaten. After which fleeing to Greece she died leaving Anthony widowed and free. He was immediately remarried with Augustus’s sister, sweet Octavia, handsome Octavia that all the Romans hoped could be the solution of all their problems, and certainly the noble and serious young matron did whatever was possible to succeed in keeping with her Anthony whom she really loved. Obviously she failed. Of course Anthony should have been happy to have such a wife, nice, virtuous and in addition extremely handsome, a woman who deeply loved him and. always excused all his faults, Unluckily she was not the kind that could keep him tied to her. She was too good and perfect, too pious and well educated and as any wonderful women, in the long run she should also be a little boring. What was sure was that she didn’t have the seduction with which Cleopatra was endowed. To sum it up, Anthony was absolutely not able to forget the queen.
The wish to see her again constantly beleaguered him. Then, as soon he could, to her he came back. Then greedily wanting a to conquer all the Empire the two ran toward their tragic end. Anyway the collision between Augustus and Anthony was unavoidable: One of them had to disappear. Besides near Anthony was Cleopatra with her unbounded crave for power. Romans were terrified by this unsavory queen, thus the largest part of them was on Augustus side. In the meantime Cleopatra forced her lover to begin war and not only she did this, but, as she wanted to share the triumph, she also decided that she in person had to take part in it. As it could have been easily foreseen, she persuaded him to accept. It was for this absurd whim that she prevented Anthony to fight on the field where he was stronger than Augustus, and convinced him to engage himself in a naval battle, the only one to which she and the Egyptian could take part . Unfortunately the sea was not fit for Anthony: There he had to fight in inferior conditions, and not only this because to worsen things he committed a large number of errors. To top all of them and to made everything more difficult there was his unhappy passion for Cleopatra who was to join him in the battle. But she was not a heroine and, snatching from him any possibility to win, at the first signals of danger she lost her head and ran away in a dishonorable flight. Anthony went after her and the battle was lost.
After the defeat the two took refuge in Alexandria, but by then nobody ignored that the end was near. As anyone could easily imagine, an year after this disastrous battle Augustus arrived in Africa and on the 31 B.C. rapidly conquered Alexandria. Thus at one blow he got his vengeance and the Roman Empire. To the two lovers, both suicides, the only thing left was the brief space of a tomb. They had only the satisfaction to realize their last will. As a matter of fact Anthony had asked to be buried with Cleopatra’s in the country where they had known love. Thus for eternity they were left. No more a queen and a general but a woman and a man who had loved each other and that now would always be together The tomb now has disappeared, but the legend of Mark Anthony and Cleopatra still hover on the great desert’s border and their memory will always stay alive in the minds of men.

Bibliography
Scientific divulgation
E. SALZA PRINA RICOTTI, Dossier L'amore a Roma in Archeo, VII, 10 (92) October 1992, pp. 54-99

Book
E. SALZA PRINA RICOTTI - Amori ed amanti tra la repubblica ed il principato, Casa editrice. L’Erma di Bretschneider, Rome, 1992