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Anthony's ghosts

by Eugenia Salza Prina Ricotti

More spectacular was the prodigy that happened at Alexandria the night before the final battle that was fought between the decimated army of Anthony and the one of the young Caesar; then just only a little before the defeat of Anthony and his suicide. The day passed and the night came: It was a dark, silent night and sad like a funereal wake.
“Everything in the town was quiet and everybody, distressed, waited what would happen. However it is told that, while the people turned in their bed tortured by the sleeplessness and the uncertainty on their fate, suddenly in the darkness were heard the harmonious sounds of all kind of instruments that accompanied the wildest Bacchanalian songs. Also the feet of the wild dancers who rhythmically beat the soil resounded. It was the Bacchic thyasus that went by; it was the procession of the Satyrs maddened by pleasure.”
Could it be that a riotous crowd had formed a procession to celebrate the rites in honor of Dionysus? But who ever in a city so hardly hit by misfortune, where nobody was sure to be able to see the next sunset, could want to organize such a manifestation of joy and brightness. The people of Alexandria, caught by panic in the presence of what they sensed to be supernatural phenomenon, stood behind their closed window and, fearing what they could witness, didn’t dare to look out. As if petrified they didn’t succeeded to detach themselves from their barred shutters and stood as if they had been nailed there, not finding the courage to look out.
“All this din ran across the town as far as the outward door and the enemy camp side and there abruptly as if by magic all the sounds ceased”.
The ghostly procession was dissolved and returned to nothingness In the deep silence that followed all this pandemonium, behind their closed windows the citizen of Alexandria shuddered and many thought that what they had heard was the procession of the god of wine and joy to whom so many time Anthony had assimilated himself. It was Dionysus Bacchus who abandoned the unhappy general to his fate.