The Best of the Bureau/The_Best_of_the_Bureau_Bureau_Development_Inc._1992.iso/dp/0001/00012.txt

Text File | 1992-08-11 | 36KB | 542 lines

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$Title{History Of Cleopatra, Queen Of Egypt
Chapter X: Cleopatra And Antony}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Abbott, Jacob}
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$Subject{antony
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$Date{1900}
$Log{See Cleopatra's Barge*0001201.scf
See Entertainments At Tarsus*0001202.scf
}
Title:       History Of Cleopatra, Queen Of Egypt
Book:        Cleopatra
Author:      Abbott, Jacob
Date:        1900

Chapter X: Cleopatra And Antony

     How far Cleopatra was influenced, in her determination to espouse the
cause of Antony rather than that of Brutus and Cassius, in the civil war
described in the last chapter, by gratitude to Caesar, and how far, on the
other hand, by personal interest in Antony, the reader must judge.  Cleopatra
had seen Antony, it will be recollected, some years before, during his visit
to Egypt, when she was a young girl.  She was doubtless well acquainted with
his character.  It was a character peculiarly fitted, in some respects, to
captivate the imagination of a woman so ardent, and impulsive, and bold as
Cleopatra was fast becoming.

     Antony had, in fact, made himself an object of universal interest
throughout the world, by his wild and eccentric manners and reckless conduct,
and by the very extraordinary vicissitudes which had marked his career.  In
moral character he was as utterly abandoned and depraved as it was possible to
be.  In early life as has already been stated, he plunged into such a course
of dissipation and extravagance that he became utterly and hopelessly ruined;
or, rather, he would have been so, had he not, by the influence of that magic
power of fascination which such characters often possess, succeeded in gaining
a great ascendency over a young man of immense fortune, named Curio, who for a
time upheld him by becoming surety for his debts. This resource, however, soon
failed, and Antony was compelled to abandon Rome, and to live for some years
as a fugitive and exile, in dissolute wretchedness and want.  During all the
subsequent vicissitudes through which he passed in the course of his career,
the same habits of lavish expenditure continued, whenever he had funds at his
command.  This trait in his character took the form sometimes of a noble
generosity.  In his campaigns, the plunder which he acquired he usually
divided among his soldiers, reserving nothing for himself.  This made his men
enthusiastically devoted to him, and led them to consider his prodigality as a
virtue, even when they did not themselves derive any direct advantage from it.
A thousand stories were always in circulation in camp of acts on his part
illustrating his reckless disregard of the value of money, some ludicrous, and
all eccentric and strange.

     In his personal habits, too, he was as different as possible from other
men.  He prided himself on being descended from Hercules, and he affected a
style of dress and a general air and manner in accordance with the savage
character of this his pretended ancestor.  His features were sharp, his nose
was arched and prominent, and he wore his hair and beard very long - as long,
in fact, as he could make them grow.  These peculiarities imparted to his
countenance a very wild and ferocious expression.  He adopted a style of
dress, too, which, judged of with reference to the prevailing fashions of the
time, gave to his whole appearance a rough, savage, and reckless air.  His
manner and demeanor corresponded with his dress and appearance.  He lived in
habits of the most unreserved familiarity with his soldiers.  He associated
freely with them, ate and drank with them in the open air, and joined in their
noisy mirth and rude and boisterous hilarity.  His commanding powers of mind,
and the desperate recklessness of his courage, enabled him to do all this
without danger.  These qualities inspired in the minds of the soldiers a
feeling of profound respect for their commander; and this good opinion he was
enabled to retain, notwithstanding such habits of familiarity with his
inferiors as would have been fatal to the influence of an ordinary man.

     In the most prosperous portion of Antony's career - for example, during
the period immediately preceding the death of Caesar - he addicted himself to
vicious indulgences of the most open, public, and shameless character.  He had
around him a sort of court, formed of jesters, tumblers, mountebanks,
play-actors, and other similar characters of the lowest and most disreputable
class.  Many of these companions were singing and dancing girls, very
beautiful, and very highly accomplished in the arts of their respective
professions, but all totally corrupt and depraved.  Public sentiment, even in
that age and nation, strongly condemned this, conduct.  The people were
pagans, it is true, but it is a mistake to suppose that the formation of a
moral sentiment in the community against such vices as these is a work which
Christianity alone can perform.  There is a law of nature, in the form of an
instinct universal in the race, imperiously enjoining that the connection of
the sexes shall consist of the union of one man with one woman, and that woman
his wife, and very sternly prohibiting every other.  So that there has
probably never been a community in the world so corrupt, that a man could
practice in it such vices as those of Antony, without not only violating his
own sense of right and wrong, but also bringing upon himself the general
condemnation of those around him.

     Still, the world are prone to be very tolerant in respect to the vices of
the great.  Such exalted personages as Antony seem to be judged by a different
standard from common men.  Even in the countries where those who occupy high
stations of trust or of power are actually selected, for the purpose of being
placed there, by the voices of their fellow-men, all inquiry into the personal
character of a candidate is often suppressed, such inquiry being condemned as
wholly irrelevant and improper, and they who succeed in attaining to power
enjoy immunities in their elevation which are denied to common men.

     But, notwithstanding the influence of Antony's rank and power in
shielding him from public censure, he carried his excesses to such an extreme
that his conduct was very loudly and very generally condemned.  He would spend
all the night in carousals, and then, the next day, would appear in public,
staggering in the streets.  Sometimes he would enter the tribunals for the
transaction of business when he was so intoxicated that it would be necessary
for friends to come to his assistance to conduct him away.  In some of his
journeys in the neighborhood of Rome, he would take a troop of companions with
him of the worst possible character, and travel with them openly and without
shame.  There was a certain actress, named Cytheride, whom he made his
companion on one such occasion.  She was borne upon a litter in his train, and
he carried about with him a vast collection of gold and silver plate, and of
splendid table furniture, together with an endless supply of luxurious
articles of food and of wine, to provide for the entertainments and banquets
which he was to celebrate with her on the journey.  He would sometimes stop by
the road side, pitch his tents, establish his kitchens, set his cooks at work
to prepare a feast, spread his tables, and make a sumptuous banquet of the
most costly, complete, and ceremonious character - all to make men wonder at
the abundance and perfection of the means of luxury which he could carry with
him wherever he might go.  In fact, he always seemed to feel a special
pleasure in doing strange and extraordinary things in order to excite
surprise.  Once on a journey he had lions harnessed to his carts to draw his
baggage, in order to create a sensation.

     Notwithstanding the heedlessness with which Antony abandoned himself to
these luxurious pleasures when at Rome, no man could endure exposure and
hardsh