A noble ruin, p.47
A Noble Ruin, page 47
It may not have been until 39 that Antony received the news that Cleopatra had borne him twins, Alexander Helios and Cleopatra Selene. These were foreign children to whom he was in no way obliged. At the same time, they constituted a connection between the triumvir and the Egyptian queen which Antony did not repudiate. Whether or not this report was welcomed in Roman circles, there was no one, certainly not his wife, who harboured any illusions about Antony’s past: ‘he did not deny his relationship with Cleopatra’, as Plutarch underlines when narrating Antony’s marriage to Octavia.114 In Cleopatra’s court Antony had, in some ways, played the part of a second Caesar: among his rivals, not least Octavian, that may have rankled. What Octavia thought of it is lost to us. Perhaps, however, with the birth of Antonia, nothing that had happened in Alexandria was any longer regarded as significant.
After Misenum, Antony’s position was a strong one. And as the year advanced, he received welcome reports from the east, where Ventidius, exhibiting extraordinary tactical brilliance, inflicted defeat after defeat on the Parthians. Labienus he eliminated in 39, and in the following year, at the battle of Gindarus, the Parthian army, commanded by Pacorus, was crushed and the Parthian prince fell fighting. The east was secure.115 By contrast, conditions in Italy remained unpleasant for many and were sometimes desperate. The end of Sextus’ embargo, to be sure, improved the basic quality of everyone’s daily lives: the people no longer feared famine. But other pressures persisted. Despite Ventidius’ successes, revenues from the east were not yet accessible to Rome. Consequently, Octavian could not abandon the triumvirs’ policy of extortionate taxation. In 38, after Antony’s departure, the public reacted so violently against his exactions that Octavian was forced to deploy soldiers to enforce payment.116 As for the western provinces, even before the pact of Misenum was finalized there was unrest and rebellion in Spain and Gaul. So unstable was the situation in Gaul that Agrippa was dispatched to cope with it. And, before the end of 39, Octavian joined him there.117 In the east Antony was now the sole authority. Roman power in the west, however, was divided among three independent chiefs, two of whom distrusted and detested one another. That Antony failed to grasp his advantage over Octavian, Sextus, and Lepidus is unimaginable. Each was in any case an ally, Octavian a relation. For the foreseeable future, Roman affairs were settled—in principle. Should any one of his colleagues, however, prove antagonistic, Antony saw no reason for fear.
Goodbye to All That
Antony now departed. But not without theatre. His governor in Macedonia, the reliable Pollio, had secured a handful of victories over the Parthini, a rebellious tribe in the region of Dyrrachium. This man, whose steady offices in a time of crisis had reconciled Antony with Domitius Ahenobarbus and both men with Octavian, merited a reward. Antony now elevated Pollio’s successes into a brilliant victory over a fearsome, foreign foe. Pollio was summoned home, where on 25 October he was accorded the dignity of a triumph—proof of the new Rome’s reversion from civil to just war and testimony to Antony’s deserved fame as a commander of men and guarantor of Roman security.118 Antony, we know, was still in Rome in early October.119 It is highly unlikely that he quit the city before his friend’s dazzling celebration. This event, we can be certain, was the work of Antony. The Parthini were hardly subdued by Pollio: almost immediately upon his return to Greece, it was necessary for Antony to organize another expedition against them.120 But that hardly mattered. Antony’s leadership—and his loyalty—were, in the person of Pollio, paraded before an admiring public. That occasion, and his ceremonial departure for the east, were Antony’s final performances in the capital.
Athens Again
In November Antony returned to Greece. Our principal sources are, in different ways, so preoccupied in assessing Antony’s deportment in Athens, the city where he settled for the winter, that they ignore, distort, or displace other matters. For Plutarch, Antony is once again an exemplary philhellene. In Appian’s version, Antony’s winter with Octavia reprises his cultured but irresponsible holiday with Cleopatra in Alexandria. As for Dio, his account seethes with censure and vituperation: this Antony is un-Roman, uncultured, and unabashedly greedy.121 The literary and moralizing agenda of each writer is an impediment frustrating any attempt at recovering a detailed or even clear account of events. At the same time, the importance of this Athenian winter, like Antony’s previous visit to the city in the aftermath of Philippi, is undeniable: there could be no better opportunity for the triumvir to define and exhibit his new political identity. From that perspective, Plutarch, Appian, and Dio got it right: what happened in Athens did not stay in Athens. The city remained highly visible internationally and was now teeming with embassies from throughout the east, all keen to congratulate their new master and negotiate a place in the new regime. The Athenians, too, aimed to please, and it was perhaps now that the city’s colossal statues of Eumenes II and Attalus I, kings of Pergamum and generous benefactors of Attic society, were reattributed to Antony.122 In the whole of the east, there was no doubt, Antony’s return constituted a new beginning.123
Administration
But first, provincial administration and regional security. Even before winter set in, Antony deployed Roman forces against the Parthini and the Dardanii, tribes which threatened Macedonia’s security. These campaigns were intended to extend into the next year. Troops were also stationed in Epirus.124 Presumably the supervision of these operations was entrusted to Gaius Cocceius Balbus if he was in fact Pollio’s successor as governor of Macedonia.125 By now Marcus Cocceius Nerva was selected as Plancus’ relief in Asia.126 One other administrative change is observable: dissatisfied with Silo’s slow progress in restoring Herod in Judea, Antony dispatched the energetic Gaius Sosius. Appointed governor of Syria and Cilicia, he was now in charge of that campaign.127 Ventidius, so brilliantly successful in driving the Parrthians from Asia and destined for a triumph in Rome, Antony did not seek to distract with problems in Palestine.
Executing arrangements for the transfer of Achaea to the authority of Sextus Pompey, a provision of the pact of Misenum, was another likely assignment for Balbus, unless Antony delegated this responsibility to Lucius Sempronius Atratinus, his legate who was certainly active in the Peloponnese at this time.128 Dio claims that Antony sought first to plunder this region before surrendering it, political polemic derived from later propaganda aimed at blaming Antony for the outbreak of Octavian’s war against Sextus. An alternative version, however, and no more credible, blamed Octavian for interfering in Greece.129 Antony’s congenital cupidity is hardly to be denied, but here we may safely lay aside the assertion that he abused the cities of Achaea. It is nevertheless likely that handing over Achaea involved legitimate complexities: to whom, for instance, were back-taxes owed?130 Sextus will have had agents on the spot who were ready to act on his behalf. But how much time was spent in these negotiations, we cannot know.
The region was certainly restless. Factionalism in Sparta provoked Roman intervention. Lachares, a prominent figure, was put to death on Antony’s instructions. In reaction, this man’s son, Eurycles, hated Antony and later brought Sparta into the conflict at Actium as an ally of Octavian.131 In the end, of course, Sextus never acquired Achaea. Under Antony’s jurisdiction his friends and allies became powerful figures in this region’s cities. We can detect, for instance, the importance in Corinth of Antony’s procurator, Marcus Antonius Theophilus, as well as his friend, the poet and rhetorician Marcus Antonius Aristocrates.132 Spartan resentments notwithstanding, Antony’s administration of Achaea was highly efficient: after Actium the system of taxation and tribute Antony employed there was maintained by Octavian.133 So, too, were many leaders from Antony’s circle.134
New Dionysus
At Athens Antony proclaimed himself the New Dionysus. During his previous tour of the east, as we have seen, Antony more than once accepted the formal, almost routine courtesy of divine honours, including his identification with Dionysus by the Ephesians and others. Now, however, Antony’s divinity became an official triumviral policy.135 At Athens it was welcomed with theatrical celebrations and sensational pageantry.136 Games in Antony’s honour, the Antoneia, at which he was hailed New Dionysus, were either reprised or established.137 Antony, who now assumed the important Athenian liturgy of gymnasiarch, doubtless presided.138 By doing so, he registered not only his enduring philhellenism but also his personal involvement in promulgating his new eastern identity. This policy was comprehensive: the Athenians even minted coins depicting a youthful Dionysus.139
Octavia, too, showcased her philhellenism and enjoyed the company of philosophers and writers.140 She received divine honours in conjunction with her husband: an inscription describes the couple as theoi euergetai, beneficent gods, a phrase recalling the sacred propaganda of Hellenistic kings and queens.141 This, too, was Antonian policy: dignities of this kind, as we have seen, were familiar to inhabitants of the east; they were so closely associated with the imagery of monarchy that they constituted an easily recognizable medium for projections of power and civic expressions of respect. Antony’s Attic signals were intended for a wide audience. At Ephesus he produced coins portraying himself and Octavia in an environment rich with suitable Dionysiac symbols.142
Octavia, it is clear, had a significant role to play in Antony’s programme. Our sources comment on their appearances together and their obvious affection for one another: Antony, as Appian puts it, ‘was gushingly devoted to her’.143 There is no reason to doubt it. At the same time, their devotion to one another was a crucial element in the triumvirate’s policy of projecting political stability—desperately important to everyone both in the west and the east. In Athens, consequently, Octavia was a beneficent goddess and Antony’s conspicuous partner in the majesty of cult. This collocation was hardly limited to our single inscription.144
In Rome, as we have seen, Octavia appeared with Antony on his coinage, where her extraordinary presence as his wife signalled Antony’s affinity with his colleague, Octavian. In the east, too, she modelled triumviral stability. In his so-called Fleet Coinage, a profusion of low denomination coins produced in Achaea and intended for everyday use by Greeks and Romans alike, we find coins the obverse of which show jugate busts of Antony and Octavian looking at a bust of Octavia.145 The message on these coins is obvious, but their artistic vocabulary is striking. Jugate busts were very rare on Roman coins: we know of one republican issue which portrays the Dioscuri, the divine brothers Castor and Pollux, in jugate busts.146 Nor did many Roman coins depict busts of individuals looking at one another: Sextus Pompey minted coins on which his elder brother met the eyes of his father; in imitation, Octavian struck the same pose on coins he issued which represented him with his divine father.147 From a Roman perspective, then, a numismatic canon figuring profound family unity, pietas, was emerging during the triumviral period: in his coins Antony puts this conceit to work in a novel way underlining his solidarity with his brother-in-law, Octavian. Not that any of this background was needed to get the point: Antony and Octavian in jugate could only indicate unity and the reality that their relationship relied on Octavia was hardly to be missed. More intriguing are the issues on which appear only Antony and Octavia gazing at one another, a declaration of unity the focus of which remains fixed on the wedded couple.148
The Fleet Coinage was issued for the use of all social classes in Achaea and by Greeks and Romans alike. For many Romans in the east, doubtless, and certainly for any Greek, the most notable series are the coins on which jugate busts of Antony and Octavia appear on the obverse.149 These coins, like the others, communicate stability, but they also evoke, remarkably in a Roman context, the familiar regal imagery of Hellenistic queens and kings. Jugate royal portraits on coins were emblems reaching back to the Ptolemies but by Antony’s day suffused the Hellenistic world.150 It was a signature pose for royal power couples but by way of an iconography entirely alien to Rome. Although the Fleet Coinage remained local coinage in Achaea, its imagery was extensive. The Dionysiac coins of Ephesus portray Antony (in the guise of Dionysus) and Octavia as a jugate pair.151 That this imagery recurs in coinage in various locations, minted for different purposes, suggests that it was more widespread than our current evidence indicates.152
As we have seen, it was a thoroughly Roman practice for officials in the east to appropriate the imagery and postures employed by Hellenistic kings in projecting their authority. Roman governors had been doing it for years. Nothing, then, was truly revolutionary in Antony’s innovative deployment of Octavia in coinage or in cult. Still, Antony’s pose as New Dionysus along with his widely promoted presentation of himself and Octavia by way of regal iconography could only suggest to viewers that their joint authority matched that of a royal couple. At the same time, Antony, his majestic station notwithstanding, made it clear to the Athenians how much he enjoyed activities like attending lectures and wrestling in the gymnasium.153 In doing so, Antony introduced a new, programmatic dimension to what previously had been localized, ad hoc Roman reactions to eastern honorifics. He also made it obvious in the east that his position there was unlike that of any Roman administration they had known before.
Antony’s Dionysiac pose provoked nothing in the way of animadversion in Rome. And why should it? Eastern conventions like these were entirely familiar in the west. Even in so populist a genre as Roman comedy, paying a man divine honours was a recurring, unsurprising motif.154 Later, however, when all things Antonian were subject to deformation in Octavian’s propaganda, his identity with Dionysus furnished abundant material for invective—but not owing to Antony’s divine pretensions. Instead of the god of culture and conquest, Dionysiac Antony was then pilloried for drunkenness, effeminacy, and luxury.155 That came later. But one allegation of Antony’s divine perversity must occupy us now. A hostile tradition, preserved by the Elder Seneca and Dio, related how the Athenians, in a debased attempt to curry favour, proposed a divine marriage between the New Dionysus and Athena. Antony agreed but exploited this footling gesture by extorting an obscenely large dowry. This report, although sometimes given credence, is an obvious fabrication.156 Any marriage for Athena is a patent impossibility and early on in Greek literature the very idea became a formula for expressing hubris.157 It is pertinent that this moralizing trope had been applied to Demetrius Poliorcetes, one of many outrages committed during this debauched king’s residence in Athens.158 Its application to Antony, then, was a natural move in vituperating his activities in the same city. Perhaps this tale originated in Octavian’s propaganda or perhaps emerged later in Augustan declamation schools. In any case, it is a transparent fiction.
Fig. 11.1 A cistophorus from the east (RPC 1.2202) the obverse of which displays a jugate portrait of Antony and Octavia with the legend M ANTONIUS IMP COS DESIG ITER ET TERT (Mark Antony, imperator, consul designate for the second and third time); the reverse exhibits Dionysus between twisted serpents with the legend III VIR R P C (triumvir appointed to set the republic in order).
Source: Wikimedia Commons.
Reshaping the East
By the time Antony arrived in Athens, Ventidius had successfully repulsed the Parthians’ invasion and was busily pacifying pockets of active, often fierce, resistance in Asia and Syria. Welcome though this military solution obviously was, the return of robust, engaged Roman government was now an urgent imperative. Antony had begun consolidating alliances and planning a reorganization of the east while still in the capital. By way of senatorial decrees, he rewarded cities whose loyalty had withstood Parthian pressure or actively supported Rome: Stratonicea, Aphrodisias, and Miletus certainly, and very likely Rhodes, Lycia, Laodicea, and Tarsus as well.159 Steadfast allies, like Castor II, will also have been recognized. Heroic individuals were also recognized by Antony. Our information is hardly comprehensive, but we know about the installation of Ateporix as ruler in Caranitis, Nicias in Cos, Strato in Amisus, Hybreas in Mylasa, even the obscure Cleon, an adventurer who stood up against the Parthians and was made into a petty dynast in Gordium by a grateful Antony.160 There were two men in the east who impressed Antony profoundly. Polemo, the son of Zeno, defended his native Laodicea stoutly. He was now granted a principality in Lycaonia, centred in the city of Iconium.161 The actions of Amyntas, the able official of Deiotarus who now served that man’s son, Castor II, go unreported, but they were doughty enough to earn Antony’s esteem. This man now became a ruler in his own right, receiving Pisidia and a part of Lycaonia as his domain.162
In creating these principalities in Lycaonia, Antony carved out parts of the Roman province of Cilicia. This was a reflex of Antony’s sweeping reform of Rome’s provincial arrangements. Asia and Bithynia remained intact, but Antony now began dismantling Cilicia and Pontus. He also consolidated Crete and the Cyrenaica into a single province. As a consequence of these changes, Rome’s client kings were assigned a much greater role in the administration of the east than had been the case under Pompey’s arrangements, which, as we have seen, were largely preserved by Caesar and, after Philippi, by Antony. These reforms were not completed instantly—as always it was necessary to react to local circumstances—and much about the chronology of this settlement remains unclear. Undoing annexation and handing administrative duties over to client kings, it should be underlined, was hardly un-Roman, nor did these reforms in any way diminish Roman authority in these regions. As we have seen, the Romans’ conception of their empire included its subject cities and principalities: power, not provinces, was the main thing.163
