Back in Alexandria, though, it was time to celebrate.
Having dealt with the Iapudes, Octavian marched east to fight the Pannonian tribes in the interior beyond Illyricum. It is not entirely clear what they had done to deserve his attention. Dio has his own bleak take on the triumvir’s motives: “He had no complaint against them [the Pannonians], not having been wronged by them in any way, but he wanted to give his soldiers practice and to support them at the expense of an alien people.”
There is something in that, but it may also have occurred to Octavian and his military planners that control of the coastal strip of Illyricum would not of itself secure Rome’s dominance; permanent mastery demanded a defensible frontier. The obvious candidate was the river Danube, which bordered the far or northeastern end of Pannonia. Eventually, this meant that Pannonia would have to become a Roman province. However, that was a long-term aspiration; for now, Octavian probably wanted to spy out the land and estimate how difficult a permanent conquest might be.
The legions were making for the Pannonian fortress of Siscia, at the confluence of the Colapis and Savus (Save) rivers. Octavian hoped a display of force would suffice to elicit surrender. However, the infuriated tribesmen harassed the Romans mercilessly. In response, Octavian burned the villages and crops he came across and took all the booty that could be found.
On two sides, the Colapis and Savus made Siscia nearly impregnable, but on the third there was a gap between the rivers that was fortified with a palisade and a ditch. The Romans attacked simultaneously by water and on land. The defenders learned that the Romans had successfully brought over a number of tribes to their side; the news made them lose heart and they quickly negotiated a surrender. Meanwhile the Roman fleet had defeated the Adriatic pirates and killed or enslaved coastal tribes.
As the campaigning season of 35 drew to a close, Octavian was able to congratulate himself on a successful year. He left a garrison of more than two legions to hold Siscia, and returned to Rome to spend the winter on civilian business.
To have defeated some barbarian tribes was good, but hardly glamorous. He decided to stage an invasion of the island of Britannia (following up his adoptive father’s brief forays ten years earlier). It lay on the edge of the known world and its remoteness exerted a great fascination on the Roman mind; the conquest would be a coup.
Then, before the winter of 35–34 was over, a rumor filtered back to Rome that the garrison at Siscia had come under attack, so Octavian abandoned his plans and dutifully returned to Illyricum. Discovering that the tribal forces had been fought off, he traveled down to the south of the province, where he joined Agrippa and devoted the campaigning season to a major onslaught on one of Illyricum’s largest tribes, the Dalmatae. It was hard slogging in an inhospitable rocky landscape. Octavian was struck in the knee by a sling stone and laid up for several days.
Once recovered, he returned to Rome late in the autumn to ready himself for his second consulship, to begin on January 1, 33.
Shortly after his return to Egypt in 34 B.C., Antony staged an event that looked at first glance very like a triumphal procession. He rode into the city on a chariot, preceded by his Armenian prisoners of war, and made his way to a central square where the queen sat in splendor awaiting him. Banquets followed, accompanied by distributions of money and food.
When Octavian learned of this, he unscrupulously used it as a means of criticizing Antony. It was unheard-of and offensive for a Roman general to hold a triumph anywhere except in Rome. Evidence was building up that, in some way, Antony was going native—cutting loose from his romanitas, his Romanness, and behaving more and more like a grand Hellenistic monarch.
In fact, Antony seems to have been staging an exotic eastern spectacle, not mimicking a triumph. Rather than dressing as a Roman general, he presented himself as a human version of Dionysus. His head was bound with an ivy wreath, his body was enveloped in a robe of saffron and gold; he held the thyrsus (a fennel stalk topped with a pinecone or vine or ivy leaves, which Dionysus’ followers carried) and wore buskins (the raised boots used by actors in plays staged at the festival of Dionysus in Athens). He was reported as riding in the “Bacchic chariot”; this was traditionally drawn by big cats, such as leopards or panthers. By identifying himself with an appropriate divinity, Antony was merely continuing his policy of establishing a public persona that would appeal to the inhabitants of the eastern provinces.
A few days later, he presided over an even more unusual ceremony, which came to be known as the Donations of Alexandria. It took place in the city’s great Gymnasium, a splendid colonnaded building for athletic training and lectures on philosophy. A silver-gleaming dais with two golden thrones was erected, either in the open air in the palaistra (
When everyone had arrived and settled into their places, Antony stood up and delivered an address. Cleopatra, he said, had been married to Julius Caesar, and so Ptolemy Caesar was his legitimate son. This preposterous claim was aimed at undermining Octavian’s position. It ignored the existence of Caesar’s wife, Calpurnia, and of the Roman avoidance of marriage to foreigners. Perhaps what Antony had in mind was another symbolic or heavenly union between two gods.
He then proceeded to shower Cleopatra and the children with honors and territories. Alexander was to receive Armenia, Media, and all the land to the east as far as India—in other words, the as yet unconquered Parthian empire. Little Ptolemy Philadelphus was to become king of all the Syrian territories already awarded to Cleopatra, and overlord of the client kingdoms of Asia Minor. Cleopatra Selene, Alexander’s twin sister, received Cyrenaica (the eastern half of today’s Libya, abutting Egypt) and the island of Crete. Caesarion was declared king of kings, and Cleopatra (the mother) queen of kings.
At about this time, Antony issued a coin, a silver denarius, which graphically illustrated his partnership with Egypt’s female pharaoh. One side showed Antony’s bare head, and behind it the royal tiara of Armenia, with the message “Antony, after the conquest of Armenia.” Scandalously for Roman currency, which never depicted foreigners, the head of Cleopatra, diademed and with jewels in her hair, was on the other side, accompanied by the prow of a ship. The inscription read: “To Cleopatra, queen of kings and of her sons who are kings.”
What strategy underlay the Donations of Alexandria? Antony has not shared his ideas with posterity, and the literary sources mainly regurgitate the Octavian version. So we can only speculate.
It is important to be clear what Antony was not doing. He was not giving the eastern half of the Roman empire away for good to Cleopatra and her brood of little Ptolemies. This was no abdication. As triumvir and commander of the armies of Rome, Antony remained the ultimate authority, and behind him stood the Senate and people of Rome. What he gave, he could take back.