Plutarch: Lives of the noble Grecians and Romans
head, was adjusting her mistress's diadem. And when one that
came in said angrily, "Was this well done of your lady,
Charmion?" "Extremely well," she answered, "and as became the
descendant of so many kings"; and as she said this, she fell
down dead by the bedside.
Some relate that an asp was brought in amongst those figs and
covered with the leaves, and that Cleopatra had arranged that it
might settle on her before she knew, but, when she took away
some of the figs and saw it, she said, "So here it is," and held
out her bare arm to be bitten. Others say that it was kept in a
vase, and that she vexed and pricked it with a golden spindle
till it seized her arm. But what really took place is known to
no one. Since it was also said that she carried poison in a
hollow bodkin, about which she wound her hair; yet there was not
so much as a spot found, or any symptom of poison upon her body,
nor was the asp seen within the monument; only something like
the trail of it was said to have been noticed on the sand by the
sea, on the part towards which the building faced and where the
windows were. Some relate that two faint puncture-marks were
found on Cleopatra's arm, and to this account Caesar seems to
have given credit; for in his triumph there was carried a figure
of Cleopatra, with an asp clinging to her. Such are the various
accounts. But Caesar, though much disappointed by her death,
yet could not but admire the greatness of her spirit, and gave
order that her body should he buried by Antony with royal
splendor and magnificence. Her women, also, received honorable
burial by his directions. Cleopatra had lived nine and thirty
years, during twenty-two of which she had reigned as queen, and
for fourteen had been Antony's partner in his empire. Antony,
according to some authorities, was fifty-three, according to
others, fifty-six years old. His statues were all thrown down,
but those of Cleopatra were left untouched; for Archibius, one
of her friends, gave Caesar two thousand talents to save them
from the fate of Antony's.
Antony left by his three wives seven children, of whom only
Antyllus, the eldest, was put to death by Caesar; Octavia took
the rest, and brought them up with her own. Cleopatra, his
daughter by Cleopatra, was given in marriage to Juba, the most
accomplished of kings; and Antony, his son by Fulvia, attained
such high favor, that whereas Agrippa was considered to hold the
first place with Caesar, and the sons of Livia the second, the
third, without dispute, was possessed by Antony. Octavia, also,
having had by her first husband, Marcellus, two daughters, and
one son named Marcellus, this son Caesar adopted, and gave him
his daughter in marriage; as did Octavia one of the daughters to
Agrippa. But Marcellus dying almost immediately after his
marriage, she, perceiving that her brother was at a loss to find
elsewhere any sure friend to be his son-in-law, was the first to
recommend that Agrippa should put away her daughter and marry
Julia. To this Caesar first, and then Agrippa himself, gave
assent; so Agrippa married Julia, and Octavia, receiving her
daughter, married her to the young Antony. Of the two daughters
whom Octavia had borne to Antony, the one was married to
Domitius Ahenobarbus; and the other, Antonia, famous for her
beauty and discretion, was married to Drusus, the son of Livia,
and step-son to Caesar. Of these parents were born Germanicus
and Claudius. Claudius reigned later; and of the children of
Germanicus, Caius, after a reign of distinction, was killed with
his wife and child; Agrippina, after bearing a son, Lucius
Domitius, to Ahenobarbus, was married to Claudius Caesar, who
adopted Domitius, giving him the name of Nero Germanicus. He
was emperor in our time, and put his mother to death, and with
his madness and folly came not far from ruining the Roman
empire, being Antony's descendant in the fifth generation.
COMPARISON OF DEMETRIUS AND ANTONY
As both are great examples of the vicissitudes of fortune, let
us first consider in what way they attained their power and
glory. Demetrius heired a kingdom already won for him by
Antigonus, the most powerful of the Successors, who, before
Demetrius grew to be a man, traversed with his armies and
subdued the greater part of Asia. Antony's father was well
enough in other respects, but was no warrior, and could bequeath
no great legacy of reputation to his son, who had the boldness,
nevertheless, to take upon him the government, to which birth
gave him no claim, which had been held by Caesar, and became the
inheritor of his great labors. And such power did he attain,
with only himself to thank for it, that, in a division of the
whole empire into two portions, he took and received the nobler
one; and, absent himself, by his mere subalterns and lieutenants
often defeated the Parthians, and drove the barbarous nations of
the Caucasus back to the Caspian Sea. Those very things that
procured him ill-repute bear witness to his greatness.
Antigonus considered Antipater's daughter Phila, in spite of the
disparity of her years, an advantageous match for Demetrius.
Antony was thought disgraced by his marriage with Cleopatra, a
queen superior in power and glory to all, except Arsaces, who
were kings in her time. Antony was so great as to be thought by
others worthy of higher things than his own desires.
As regards the right and justice of their aims at empire,
Demetrius need not be blamed for seeking to rule a people that
had always had a king to rule them. Antony, who enslaved the
Roman people, just liberated from the rule of Caesar, followed a
cruel and tyrannical object. His greatest and most illustrious
work, his successful war with Brutus and Cassius, was done to
crush the liberties of his country and of his fellow-citizens.
Demetrius, till he was driven to extremity, went on, without
intermission, maintaining liberty in Greece, and expelling the
foreign garrisons from the cities; not like Antony, whose boast
was to have slain in Macedonia those who had set up liberty in
Rome. As for the profusion and magnificence of his gifts,
one point for which Antony is lauded, Demetrius so far outdid
them, that what he gave to his enemies was far more than Antony
ever gave to his friends. Antony was renowned for giving Brutus
honorable burial; Demetrius did so to all the enemy's dead, and
sent the prisoners back to Ptolemy with money and presents.
Both were insolent in prosperity, and abandoned themselves to
luxuries and enjoyments. Yet it cannot be said that Demetrius,
in his revelings and dissipations, ever let slip the time for
action; pleasures with him attended only the superabundance of
his ease, and his Lamia, like that of the fable, belonged only
to his playful, half-waking, half-sleeping hours. When war
demanded his attention, his spear was not wreathed with ivy, nor
his helmet redolent of unguents; he did not come out to battle
from the women's chamber, but, hushing the bacchanal shouts and
putting an end to the orgies, he became at once, as Euripides
calls it, "the minister of the unpriestly Mars;" and, in short,
he never once incurred disaster through indolence or
self-indulgence. Whereas Antony, like Hercules in the picture
where Omphale is seen removing his club and stripping him of his
lion's skin, was over and over again disarmed by Cleopatra, and
beguiled away, while great actions and enterprises of the first
necessity fell, as it were, from his hands, to go with her to
the seashore of Canopus and Taphosiris, and play about. And in
the end, like another Paris, he left the battle to fly to her
arms; or rather, to say the truth, Paris fled when he was
already beaten; Antony fled first, and, to follow Cleopatra,
abandoned his victory.
There was no law to prevent Demetrius from marrying several
wives; from the time of Philip and Alexander, it had become
usual with Macedonian kings, and he did no more than was done by
Lysimachus and Ptolemy. And those he married he treated
honorably. But Antony, first of all, in marrying two wives at
once, did a thing which no Roman had ever allowed himself; and
then he drove away his lawful Roman wife to please the foreign
and unlawful woman. And so Demetrius incurred no harm at all;
Antony procured his ruin by his marriage. On the other hand, no
licentious act of Antony's can be charged with that impiety
which marks those of Demetrius. Historical writers tell us that
the very dogs are excluded from the whole Acropolis, because of
their gross, uncleanly habits. The very Parthenon itself saw
Demetrius consorting with harlots and debauching free women of
Athens. The vice of cruelty, also, remote as it seems from the
indulgence of voluptuous desires, must be attributed to him,
who, in the pursuit of his pleasures, allowed, or to say more
truly, compelled the death of the most beautiful and most chaste
of the Athenians, who found no way but this to escape his
violence. In one word, Antony himself suffered by his excesses,
and other people by those of Demetrius.
In his conduct to his parents, Demetrius was irreproachable.
Antony gave up his mother's brother, in order that he might have
leave to kill Cicero, this itself being so cruel and shocking an
act, that Antony would hardly be forgiven if Cicero's death had
been the price of this uncle's safety. In respect of breaches
of oaths and treaties, the seizure of Artabazes, and the
assassination of Alexander, Antony may urge the plea which no
one denies to be true, that Artabazes first abandoned and
betrayed him in Media; Demetrius is alleged by many to have
invented false pretexts for his act, and not to have retaliated
for injuries, but to have accused one whom he injured himself.
The achievements of Demetrius are all his own work. Antony's
noblest and greatest victories were won in his absence by his
lieutenants. For their final disasters they have both only to
thank themselves; not, however, in an equal degree. Demetrius
was deserted, the Macedonians revolted from him: Antony deserted
others, and ran away while men were fighting for him at the risk
of their lives. The fault to be found with the one is that he
had thus entirely alienated the affections of his soldiers; the
other's condemnation is that he abandoned so much love and faith
as he still possessed. We cannot admire the death of either,
but that of Demetrius excites our greater contempt. He let
himself become a prisoner, and was thankful to gain a three
years' accession of life in captivity. He was tamed like a wild
beast by his belly, and by wine; Antony took himself out of the
world in a cowardly, pitiful, and ignoble manner, but, still in
time to prevent the enemy having his person in their power.
DION
If it be true, Sosius Senecio, that, as Simonides tells us,
"Of the Corinthians Troy does not complain"
for having taken part with the Achaeans in the siege, because
the Trojans also had Corinthians (Glaucus, who sprang from
Corinth,) fighting bravely on their side, so also it may be
fairly said that neither Romans nor Greeks can quarrel with the
Academy, each nation being equally represented in the following
pair of lives, which will give an account of Brutus and of Dion,
-- Dion, who was Plato's own hearer, and Brutus, who was brought
up in his philosophy. They came from one and the selfsame
school, where they had been trained alike, to run the race of
honor; nor need we wonder that in the performance of actions
often most nearly allied and akin, they both bore evidence to
the truth of what their guide and teacher had said, that,
without the concurrence of power and success with justice and
prudence, public actions do not attain their proper, great, and