the Ionian Sea. The move forced Antony north. His infantry was not yet in place; he was wholly taken aback. Cleopatra attempted to calm him by making light of the enemy’s sudden presence in a fine natural port (it was probably modern Parga) on a spoon-shaped promontory. “What is there dreadful in Caesar’s sitting at a ladle?” she scoffed. Straightaway, Octavian offered battle, which Antony could not yet manage. His crews were incomplete. By an early morning feint he forced Octavian to withdraw. Weeks of taunts and skirmishes followed, as Octavian roamed freely among the harbors of western Greece, and as Antony settled his legions on a sandy spit of land at the southern entrance to the Ambracian Gulf. Actium offered an excellent harbor, if in a damp, desolate area; Antony and Cleopatra could not have been long in realizing that the swampy lowland, thick with ferns and grasses, was infinitely more suitable as a battle site than as a campsite. The weeks passed in attempted engagements and attenuated decisions. Octavian could not lure Antony out to sea. Antony could not coax Octavian out on land. He remained more intent on cutting Antony’s supply lines, at which, over the spring and early summer, he proved highly proficient. Cleopatra may have affected perfect insouciance about his landing but the truth was that in the wake of a series of inexplicable, slow-motion decisions—they may not have made sense even before Octavian’s eulogists got hold of them—Antony and Cleopatra began to cede the advantage. Meanwhile the question of strategy hung heavily over Antony’s head: to meet Octavian on land or at sea? For the most part the two armies glared at each other across the narrow strait, from one grassy promontory to the other.
From the distance Antony’s camp must have offered a splendid sight, with its vast and variegated armies, the flashes of gold-spangled purple-red robes. Towering Thracians in black tunics and bright armor mingled with Macedonians in fresh scarlet cloaks, Medians in richly colored vests. A Ptolemaic military cloak, woven with gold, might feature a royal portrait or a mythological scene. The scruffy Greek lowland blazed with costly equipment, with gleaming helmets and gilded breastplates, jeweled bridles, dyed plumes, decorated spears.* The bulk of the soldiers were Eastern, as were an increasing number of rowers, many of them raw recruits. With them assembled an ecumenical collection of arms: Thracian wicker shields and quivers joined Roman javelins and Cretan bows and long Macedonian pikes.
Cleopatra footed much of the bill but contributed something else too; unlike Antony, she could communicate with the assembled dignitaries of the East. She spoke the language of the Armenian cavalry, the Ethiopian infantry, the Median detachments, as well as that of royalty. There was a code of behavior among Hellenistic sovereigns. Most had experience of powerful queens. And Canidius had not misspoken. By her presence, Cleopatra reminded her fellow dynasts that they were battling for something other than a Roman republic, in which they had no interest. They had little sympathy for either Antony or Octavian, against either of whom they might just as easily have aligned, as they had aligned against Rome in 89, with Mithradates. Had she not launched herself directly into the heart of Roman affairs with her call on Caesar in 48, Cleopatra would have been in precisely their position. She and Antony turned away only one sovereign, naturally the most enthusiastic of the bunch. Herod arrived with money, a well-trained army, equipment, and a shipment of grain. He delivered as well some familiar advice. Were Antony only to murder Cleopatra and annex Egypt, his troubles would be over. Herod’s army and provisions remained but his stay in camp was brief. For his priceless counsel he was packed off to fight Malchus, the Nabatean king, said to be delinquent with his bitumen payments. Simultaneously Cleopatra ordered her general in that stony region to frustrate both monarchs’ efforts. She preferred that they destroy each other.
Closer up all was not quite so rosy. The wait—in a vast, multiethnic military camp, under less than salubrious conditions—took its toll. As the temperature rose, conditions deteriorated. Cleopatra’s presence did little for morale. No doubt accurately, Herod wrote his dismissal down to her. That she occupied a vital position in camp and did little to apologize for that position is clear; as Egypt’s commander in chief, she believed war preparations and operations to be her duty. She seems to have assumed that Antony was the only friend she needed. She was unwilling to be silenced, ironic given how little of her voice survives; there would be none of Queen Isabella of Spain’s deferential “May your Lordship pardon me for speaking of things which I do not understand.” It is impossible to say what came first, the Roman humiliation at Cleopatra’s presence, or Cleopatra’s superciliousness with the Romans. Antony’s officers were said to be ashamed of her and of her status as equal partner. His closest companions objected to her authority. She had backed herself into a corner: To relax her guard was to be sent home. To maintain it was to offend. She may have been rattled too. There were stormy scenes with Antony.
Cleopatra failed in particular to endear herself to Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus, arguably Antony’s most distinguished supporter. A proud Republican, Ahenobarbus had led the consuls who had fled to Ephesus the previous spring. He was resolute and incorruptible. From the start he and Cleopatra had trouble. He refused to address her by her title; to him she remained simply “Cleopatra.” She attempted to buy him off, only to discover that Ahenobarbus was as straight-spined as Plancus was invertebrate. True to his reputation, Ahenobarbus was vocal, too. He made no secret of his opinion that she was a liability. And he believed a war could be avoided. Implicated in and condemned for Caesar’s murder, later proscribed, Ahenobarbus had fought at Philippi against Antony. The two reconciled afterward, since which time Ahenobarbus had occupied every high office and counted among Antony’s most devoted adherents. He had been instrumental in opposing Octavian. He had fought to suppress the damaging news of the Donations. Already Ahenobarbus’s son was promised to one of Antony’s daughters. Together the two men had survived all kinds of adversity: They had been through Parthia together, where Ahenobarbus proved himself stalwart and a leader. When Antony had been too despondent to do so himself, Ahenobarbus had addressed the troops on their commander’s behalf. As morale deteriorated in Actium the senior statesman this time took a different route. In a small boat, he defected to Octavian. Antony was devastated. True to form, he sent his former colleague’s baggage, friends, and servants to join him. Cleopatra disapproved of his magnanimity.
She could not have been unaware of the discomfort her presence caused in the sweltering, mosquito-infested camp, where her retinue and tents made for a discordant sight, and where her immense flagship, the
Octavian had declared war on her alone. She had every reason to demand vengeance. She had been shunted aside by military advisers before, to wind up in the Sinai desert, homeless and disenfranchised. She had been ill served by intermediaries; she may have been unwilling to entrust Egypt’s fate to Antony alone. All was at stake: The future of the Ptolemaic dynasty hung in the balance. Were Octavian and Antony to come to terms now, she would be the price of that accord. The real mystery of 31 is less why Cleopatra remained than why—having expertly neutralized cultural collisions in Egypt, having artfully assuaged Roman egos—she neglected to work her charm on Antony’s officers. In camp she seems to have been an infuriating and exhausting presence. Many were treated to the scorn she had heaped on the straight-talking Geminius. Friends of Antony and Roman consuls alike suffered at her hands, universally reported to have been “abused by Cleopatra.” She was vindictive, peremptory, brittle. Experience had not made her any more tractable than she had been as a teenager, with her brothers’ advisers. She was after all accustomed to exercising supreme authority, poor at taking orders. Meanwhile morale plunged as Octavian’s blockade tightened around the gulf, as swarms of mosquitoes descended upon the camp, and as an epidemic—it was likely malaria—set in. Conditions were deplorable. Relief came only toward midday, when with a rustle the wind picked up from the west. For a few hours a fresh, brisk breeze swept in, growing stronger as it pivoted from west to north, to subside as the sun set.
Months passed in readiness and inactivity, and with them a gradual reordering of the odds. While the idea had presumably been to trap Octavian in the Ambracian Gulf, Antony and Cleopatra found themselves bottled up in the bright blue bay, a shifting of realities to which they were slow to adjust. Notes Plutarch: “The chief task of a good general is to force his enemies to give battle when he is superior to them, but not to be forced himself to do this when his forces are inferior.” Antony had long relinquished that advantage. By August he had no choice but to enlist whole towns to carry supplies overland to camp. Plutarch’s great-grandfather was among those miserably pressed into service, to make the trek over mountain paths to the gulf, sacks of wheat on their shoulders, whips at
