Back To Rome Part Three

Dio may have been correct in all or at least part of that. However, Octavian and his military men may have realized that authority over the coastal strip of Illyricum would not in itself secure Rome's preeminence. To achieve permanent control the Romans needed a defensible frontier. The most obvious landmark was the river Danube, which bordered the far or northeastern end of Pannonia. What this meant in practice was that Pannonia would become a Roman province. These plans were for the future, however. Now Octavian probably wanted to test just how much of an undertaking a permanent conquest might be. The tribesmen of this area proved to be very hard to fight at first. On two sides, the Colapis and the Savus (Save) rivers made the fortress of Siscia almost impregnable.

But on the third side there was a gap between the rivers that was fortified. The Romans attacked from the rivers and land at the same time. The defenders of Siscia, in the meantime, learned that a number of tribes had gone over to the Romans. With this unwelcome news they lost heart and negotiated a surrender. During this time the Roman fleet had defeated the Adriatic pirates and killed or enslaved coastal tribes. Octavian could congratulate himself on a fruitful year. he left more than two legions to hold Siscia. Then he returned to Rome where he planned to spend the winter attending to civilian business. Before the winter of 35-34 BC was over, new arrived that the garrison at Siscia was under attack and Octavian returned to Illyricum. On arriving he learned that the tribal forces had been defeated.

So Octavian went to the south of the province, where he joined Agrippa and then they fought against one of Illyricum's largest tribes-the Dalmatae. The terrain they battled the tribe on was rough and rocky. A sling stone hit Octavian's knee and he was immobilized for several days. When he recovered, he returned to Rome in late autumn to be ready for his second consulship, whihc began on 1 January 33 BC. After his return to Egypt in 34 BC, Antony put on a show that seemed almost like a triumphal procession. Antony rode into Alexandria on a chariot, preceded by his Armenian prisoners of war, and then went to the central square where Cleopatra sat in luxury awaiting him. Enormous banquets followed, along with the distribution of money and food. When word of this reached Octavian, he used it as a means to unfairly attack Mark Antony. However, Octavian knew he could spin this story his way because it was unheard of for a Roman general to hoold a triumph anywhere except for Rome.

Octavian and his allies were painting a picture, stroke by stroke, that Antony was losing his romanitas acting like a debauched Hellenistic monarch. What actually appears to have happened is that Antony simply staged a grand eastern spectacle, and not in anyway simulating a Roman triumph. Antony's persona during the Egyptian festivities was not that of a Roman general-but as a human Dionysus. He was reported as riding in the "Bacchic chariot." This chariot was traditionally pulled by big cats such as leopards or panthers. When Antony put on the personae of an appropriate divinity, he was just keeping to his policy of establishing a public persona that would appeal to the people of the eastern provinces.

Several days later an even more exotic ceremony took place which came to be known as the Donations of Alexandria. This took place in the city's splendid great Gymnasium. Two golden thrones were erected and Cleopatra, who was dressed as the goddess Isis joined Antony as Dionysus on the thrones. Caesarion, who was officially Ptolemy V, and at the age of thirteen was in theory at least, Cleopatra's co-ruler, as a woman was not allowed to reign alone. Caesarion, who was Cleopatra's child by Julius Caesar, and the queen's children by Antony say on lower thrones. Antony addressed the crowd, saying that Cleopatra had been married to Julius Caesar, and thus Caesarion (Ptolemy XV) was his legitimate son. This absurd claim was made by Antony in order to undermine Octavian's position. Antony conveniently ignored the existence of Caesar's wife, Calpurnia, and of the Roman custom to not marry foreigners. Antony may have been thinking along the lines of another symbolic or heavenly joining of two gods.

Antony then proceeded to give Cleopatra and the children honors and territories. Alexander was to receive Armenia, Media, and all the lands to the east as far as India-this would include the so far unconquered Parthian empire. The youngest child, Ptolemy Philadelphus was to become king of all the Syrian territories already given to Cleopatra, and overlord of the client kingdoms of Asia Minor. Cleopatra Selene, Alexander's twin sister, was given Cyrenaica (the eastern half of modern Libya) and the island of Crete. Caesarion was declared king of kings, and Cleopatra was queen of kings. Around this time Antony issued a silver denarius, which graphically showed his partnership with Cleopatra, One side showed Antony's bare head, and behind it the royal tiara of Armenia, with the inscription "Antony, after the conquest of Armenia." Cleopatra, depicted diademed and with jewels in her hair, was on the other side, along with the prow of a ship. The inscription read: "To Cleopatra, queen of kings and of her sons who are kings." This was quite scandalous for Roman currency, which never depicted foreigners.

What are the reasons behind the Donations of Alexandria? Antony never left any records for history about this event, and most sources mostly claim Octavian's version. So we can only guess. Something very important should be stated here about what Antony was not doing. He was not giving away the eastern half of the Roman Empire away to Cleopatra and her children! The Donations were in keeping with the way Antony had previously reorganized the east. In other words, especially as Rome had no permanent civil service, it made more sense to allow locals to manage most of the eastern provinces. This arrangement worked out great for Rome. It also solved the problem of greedy Roman officials becoming targets of local hatred and the empire itself was greatly more stable if the people that it ruled over didn't feel like they were under foreign occupation.

Historians at the time of Antony and later saw a much more duplicitous and dangerous reason for Antony's actions. They believed he was laying the foundations, with his allocated territory as a triumvir, to bring all of these lands under a single monarchy. And these men saw a longer range goal than even that-the final goal some believed was to overthrow Rome herself. One rumor actively had it that the queen's favorite oath was "so surely as I shall one day give judgment on the Capitol." This speculation is implausible. Antony was no the far-reaching, star-grabbing type or all conquering soul that Julius Caesar, Octavian and Alexander the Great before them were. Antony was even being crowded out of his role as a fellow triumvir by younger and even less experienced but whip-smart Octavian

I am hardly a professional historian-perhaps not even a good amateur one-but I have done a lot of research into the time from of Rome from Sulla through the "Twelve Caesars" and of course the era of Emperor Hadrian. I have also read many wonderful books on the subject, such as Anthony Everitt's Augustus, where so much of the information in about 40 or more articles on this blog comes from, and I just don't think Antony wanted to be a world-conqueror or maybe in the end even a Roman ruler. I feel he would have-and probably deeply hoped that he and Octavian could get along better and simply rule Rome as co-rulers as originally envisioned (or his part of the empire I should say). But Octvian's constant undermining of Antony prevented this.

I hope to be back very soon with more articles for this blog-although there will always be starts and stops on this blog due to the time it takes to read and condense information-but I will try to never go longer than two weeks without anything new. I have some information ready to go -it just needs to be typed out and I will try to keep staying ahead and get somewhat caught up on this blog. All the best to anyone stopping by! The second image shows a map of the Donations of Alexandria.