Augustus_ The Life of Rome's First Emperor - Anthony Everitt [94]
Octavian was not a man for acting in hot blood or on the spur of the moment, and his action was out of character. One wonders whether he and his advisers were looking in advance for an appropriate opportunity to offer a bravura exhibition of valor. It is noteworthy that he was well guarded at all times during the incident. Also, the seriousness of his injuries may have been exaggerated, for there is no record of a pause in the army’s onward march to allow time for them to heal.
In any event, the propaganda value of this event was substantial, and public opinion was impressed. The contemporary historian Livy remarked that Octavian’s “beauty of person [was] enhanced by blood and his dignitas by the danger in which he found himself.”
Throughout 35 B.C., Octavian kept as close an eye as practicable on Mark Antony’s activities, or lack of them, in the east. His worst fear was that Antony, who had not been in the capital since 39 B.C. and had time on his hands, might take it into his head to visit Rome. There he would be able to overshadow Octavian, who was becoming used to regarding the city as his exclusive patch. Worse yet, once Antony came back to Italy it is hard to see how Octavian could in practice prevent him from raising troops.
But Antony did not come. It may be that his presence was needed to prepare for a renewal of the Parthian war, even if a new expedition was to be postponed to 34 B.C. The more likely cause, though, was his increasingly strong relationship with Cleopatra. The triumvir and the queen were now a settled couple. It has been suggested that they married in 36, at the time of Antony’s territorial allocations; however, although a ceremony of some sort is reported, this seems unlikely, for both Romans and Greeks strongly disapproved of bigamy and (as we have seen) Romans did not recognize foreign marriages. Perhaps what was intended as a mystical partnership between the New Isis and the New Dionysus was maliciously misinterpreted in Rome as an earthly union. In 35, the queen gave birth to her fourth child, and her third by Antony, a boy called Ptolemy Philadelphus.
As he settled down to an indefinite reign as the de facto monarch of the east, amid the uncompetitive luxuries of Alexandria, Antony must have thought of Rome with annoyance and distaste. He could do without the scratchy tetchiness of triumviral politics. His supporters in the capital were perfectly capable of looking after his interests without him having to go there in person.
But was that all there was to be said about Antony’s continuing absence? Perhaps something more sinister was at work than his characteristic idleness. Information was coming in that the eastern portion of Rome’s empire was rearming. Antony commanded twenty-five legions, although after the Parthian disaster some were very weak in numbers. He had recently recruited five more, making a grand total of thirty legions.
All this could well have an obvious and innocent explanation—namely, that before he renewed the Parthian war Antony had to make good his losses, especially given that Octavian was continuing to withhold the Italian legions he had long promised. However, Antony was also investing heavily in warships. Tellingly, he issued a series of coins, each with the number of one of his legions and backed by a warship. What could he need a vast armada for, if not to invade the western empire?
However, if that was the idea, its execution would not be immediate, for the Parthian aftermath was attracting all Antony’s attention. In the spring of 34 B.C., the Romans stormed into Armenia. The king, who had betrayed Antony during the failed invasion, quickly