Plutarch: Lives of the noble Grecians and Romans
receive the enemy lying still as if they were at anchor, and
maintain the entrance of the port, which was a narrow and
difficult passage. Of Caesar they relate, that, leaving his
tent and going round, while it was yet dark, to visit the ships,
he met a man driving an ass, and asked him his name. He
answered him that his own name was "Fortunate, and my ass," says
he, "is called Conqueror." And afterwards, when he disposed
the beaks of the ships in that place in token of his victory,
the statue of this man and his ass in bronze were placed amongst
them. After examining the rest of his fleet, he went in a boat
to the right wing, and looked with much admiration at the enemy
lying perfectly still in the straits, in all appearance as if
they had been at anchor. For some considerable length of time
he actually thought they were so, and kept his own ships at
rest, at a distance of about eight furlongs from them. But
about noon a breeze sprang up from the sea, and Antony's men,
weary of expecting the enemy so long, and trusting to their
large tall vessels, as if they had been invincible, began to
advance the left squadron. Caesar was overjoyed to see them
move, and ordered his own right squadron to retire, that he
might entice them out to sea as far as he could, his design
being to sail round and round, and so with his light and
well-manned galleys to attack these huge vessels, which their
size and their want of men made slow to move and difficult to
manage.
When they engaged, there was no charging or striking of one ship
by another, because Antony's, by reason of their great bulk,
were incapable of the rapidity required to make the stroke
effectual, and, on the other side, Caesar's durst not charge
head to head on Antony's, which were all armed with solid masses
and spikes of brass; nor did they like even to run in on their
sides, which were so strongly built with great squared pieces of
timber, fastened together with iron bolts, that their vessels'
beaks would easily have been shattered upon them. So that the
engagement resembled a land fight, or, to speak yet more
properly, the attack and defense of a fortified place; for there
were always three or four vessels of Caesar's about one of
Antony's, pressing them with spears, javelins, poles, and
several inventions of fire, which they flung among them,
Antony's men using catapults also, to pour down missiles from
wooden towers. Agrippa drawing out the squadron under his
command to outflank the enemy, Publicola was obliged to observe
his motions, and gradually to break off from the middle
squadron, where some confusion and alarm ensued, while
Arruntius engaged them. But the fortune of the day was still
undecided, and the battle equal, when on a sudden Cleopatra's
sixty ships were seen hoisting sail and making out to sea in
full flight, right through the ships that were engaged. For
they were placed behind the great ships, which, in breaking
through, they put into disorder. The enemy was astonished to
see them sailing off with a fair wind towards Peloponnesus.
Here it was that Antony showed to all the world that he was no
longer actuated by the thoughts and motives of a commander or a
man, or indeed by his own judgment at all, and what was once
said as a jest, that the soul of a lover lives in some one
else's body, he proved to be a serious truth. For, as if he had
been born part of her, and must move with her wheresoever she
went, as soon as he saw her ship sailing away, he abandoned all
that were fighting and spending their lives for him, and put
himself aboard a galley of five ranks of oars, taking with him
only Alexander of Syria and Scellias, to follow her that had so
well begun his ruin and would hereafter accomplish it.
She, perceiving him to follow, gave the signal to come aboard.
So, as soon as he came up with them, he was taken into the ship.
But without seeing her or letting himself be seen by her, he
went forward by himself, and sat alone, without a word, in the
ship's prow, covering his face with his two hands. In the
meanwhile, some of Caesar's light Liburnian ships, that were in
pursuit, came in sight. But on Antony's commanding to face
about, they all gave back except Eurycles the Laconian, who
pressed on, shaking a lance from the deck, as if he meant to
hurl it at him. Antony, standing at the prow, demanded of him,
"Who is this that pursues Antony?" "I am," said he, "Eurycles,
the son of Lachares, armed with Caesar's fortune to revenge my
father's death." Lachares had been condemned for a robbery, and
beheaded by Antony's orders. However, Eurycles did not attack
Antony, but ran with his full force upon the other
admiral-galley (for there were two of them), and with the blow
turned her round, and took both her and another ship, in which
was a quantity of rich plate and furniture. So soon as Eurycles
was gone, Antony returned to his posture, and sat silent, and
thus he remained for three days, either in anger with Cleopatra,
or wishing not to upbraid her, at the end of which they touched
at Taenarus. Here the women of their company succeeded first in
bringing them to speak, and afterwards to eat and sleep
together. And, by this time, several of the ships of burden and
some of his friends began to come in to him from the rout,
bringing news of his fleet's being quite destroyed, but that the
land-forces, they thought, still stood firm. So that he sent
messengers to Canidius to march the army with all speed through
Macedonia into Asia. And, designing himself to go from Taenarus
into Africa, he gave one of the merchant ships, laden with a
large sum of money, and vessels of silver and gold of great
value, belonging to the royal collections, to his friends,
desiring them to share it amongst them, and provide for their
own safety. They refusing his kindness with tears in their
eyes, he comforted them with all the goodness and humanity
imaginable, entreating them to leave him, and wrote letters in
their behalf to Theophilus, his steward, at Corinth, that he
would provide for their security, and keep them concealed till
such time as they could make their peace with Caesar. This
Theophilus was the father of Hipparchus, who had such interest
with Antony, who was the first of all his freedmen that went
over to Caesar, and who settled afterwards at Corinth. In this
posture were affairs with Antony.
But at Actium, his fleet, after a long resistance to Caesar, and
suffering the most damage from a heavy sea that set in right
ahead, scarcely, at four in the afternoon, gave up the contest,
with the loss of not more than five thousand men killed, but of
three hundred ships taken, as Caesar himself has recorded. Only
few had known of Antony's flight; and those who were told of it
could not at first give any belief to so incredible a thing, as
that a general who had nineteen entire legions and twelve
thousand horse upon the sea-shore, could abandon all and fly
away; and he, above all, who had so often experienced both good
and evil fortune, and had in a thousand wars and battles been
inured to changes. His soldiers, howsoever would not give up
their desires and expectations, still fancying he would appear
from some part or other, and showed such a generous fidelity to
his service, that, when they were thoroughly assured that he was
fled in earnest, they kept themselves in a body seven days,
making no account of the messages that Caesar sent to them. But
at last, seeing that Canidius himself, who commanded them, was
fled from the camp by night, and that all their officers had
quite abandoned them, they gave way, and made their submission
to the conqueror. After this, Caesar set sail for Athens, where
he made a settlement with Greece, and distributed what remained
of the provision of corn that Antony had made for his army among
the cities, which were in a miserable condition, despoiled of
their money, their slaves, their horses, and beasts of service.
My great-grandfather Nicarchus used to relate, that the whole
body of the people of our city were put in requisition to carry
each one a certain measure of corn upon their shoulders to the
sea-side near Anticyra, men standing by to quicken them with the
lash. They had made one journey of the kind, but when they had
just measured out the corn and were putting it on their backs
for a second, news came of Antony's defeat, and so saved
Chaeronea, for all Antony's purveyors and soldiers fled upon the
news, and left them to divide the corn among themselves.
When Antony came into Africa, he sent on Cleopatra from
Paraetonium into Egypt, and stayed himself in the most entire
solitude that he could desire, roaming and wandering about with
only two friends, one a Greek, Aristocrates, a rhetorician, and
the other a Roman, Lucilius, of whom we have elsewhere spoken,
how, at Philippi, to give Brutus time to escape, he suffered
himself to be taken by the pursuers, pretending he was Brutus.
Antony gave him his life, and on this account he remained true
and faithful to him to the last.
But when also the officer who commanded for him in Africa, to
whose care he had committed all his forces there, took them over
to Caesar, he resolved to kill himself, but was hindered by his
friends. And coming to Alexandria, he found Cleopatra busied in
a most bold and wonderful enterprise. Over the small space of
land which divides the Red Sea from the sea near Egypt, which
may be considered also the boundary between Asia and Africa, and
in the narrowest place is not much above three hundred furlongs
across, over this neck of land Cleopatra had formed a project of
dragging her fleet, and setting it afloat in the Arabian Gulf,
thus with her soldiers and her treasure to secure herself a home
on the other side, where she might live in peace, far away from
war and slavery. But the first galleys which were carried over
being burnt by the Arabians of Petra, and Antony not knowing but
that the army before Actium still held together, she desisted
from her enterprise, and gave orders for the fortifying all the
approaches to Egypt. But Antony, leaving the city and the
conversation of his friends, built him a dwelling-place in the
water, near Pharos, upon a little mole which he cast up in the
sea, and there, secluding himself from the company of mankind,
said he desired nothing but to live the life of Timon; as,
indeed, his case was the same, and the ingratitude and injuries
which he suffered from those he had esteemed his friends, made
him hate and mistrust all mankind.
This Timon was a citizen of Athens, and lived much about the
Peloponnesian war, as may be seen by the comedies of
Aristophanes and Plato, in which he is ridiculed as the hater
and enemy of mankind. He avoided and repelled the approaches of
everyone, but embraced with kisses and the greatest show of
affection Alcibiades, then in his hot youth. And when Apemantus
was astonished, and demanded the reason, he replied that he knew
this young man would one day do infinite mischief to the
Athenians. He never admitted anyone into his company, except
at times this Apemantus, who was of the same sort of temper, and
was an imitator of his way of life. At the celebration of the
festival of flagons, these two kept the feast together, and
Apemantus saying to him, "What a pleasant party, Timon!" "It
would be," he answered, "if you were away." One day he got up
in a full assembly on the speaker's place, and when there was a
dead silence and great wonder at so unusual a sight, he said,
"Ye men of Athens, I have a little plot of ground, and in it
grows a fig-tree, on which many citizens have been pleased to
hang themselves; and now, having resolved to build in that
place, I wished to announce it publicly that any of you who may