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 Antonia, with its ten banks of oars and carved and decorated bow, presumably evoked little pride. Rations were curtailed. The men were hungry, the mood sour. Cleopatra sat on a pile of closely guarded treasure. A Roman soldier liked to see his general eating stale bread and sleeping on a simple pallet. Cleopatra disturbed that equation. From all sides Antony—his tent positioned squarely at the center of the vast camp—heard that Cleopatra should be sent away, to which pleas he remained deaf. Even the trusted Canidius, who had earlier argued on her behalf, wanted her gone. She knew of the ridicule Fulvia had inspired. Even in Egypt, female commanders were not popular, as Cleopatra understood from her sister’s short career during the Alexandrian War. She had no experience of armed conflict on this scale. Herod’s theory was that Antony would not send her away as “his ears, it seems, were stopped by his infatuation.” Why, then, did she not step aside, as she had with Caesar?
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.