Isaac Asimov - Asimov’s Guide To Shakespear. Volume 1

Between this scene and the next, further crucial events take place.

Toward the end of 32 b.c. Octavius finally had the situation exactly where he wanted it. The Senate and the people had grown so exasperated that the former declared war against Cleopatra and the latter supported it avidly.

This was utterly clever. The war was not against Mark Antony, who could be pictured as a Roman general deceived and besotted by a wicked foreign queen; it was against the wicked foreign queen herself. It was not a civil war; it was a patriotic war against the dangerous kingdom of Egypt. (The fact that Egypt was helpless and harmless and that Cleopatra, minus Mark Antony, had no military power at all, could be ignored. The public knew nothing of that.)

Naturally, Mark Antony had to fight. But he had to fight now against Rome and on the side of the foreigner. Desperately he shifted his armies to Greece and prepared to invade Italy.

Cleopatra, in a decision as foolish as that of Octavius Caesar had been wise, decided to accompany Antony, and together they are now at Actium, a promontory in northwestern Greece.

The next scene, then, opens in Actium, where Cleopatra is raging against Enobarbus, who objects to her presence there. She points out that the war, after all, was declared against her:

—Act III, scene vii, lines 5-6

But Cleopatra was unintentionally fighting on Octavius Caesar's side in this respect. As a foreign queen, she was no more popular with Antony's soldiers than with the enemy.

Indeed, it is the spirit of Antony's forces that is their weakest point, and Octavius Caesar knows it. Anti-Cleopatra propaganda reaches them and the desertions are numerous. The men won't fight for an Egyptian against Rome. Antony's movements are slowed and made uncertain by the increasingly doubtful loyalty of his men.

Octavius Caesar's general, Agrippa, moves quickly, however. Where it had been Antony's hope to invade Italy, it was Agrippa instead who swept across from that peninsula and landed in Greece. Antony comes in with his general, Canidius, brooding about it:

—Act III, scene vii, lines 20-23

Tarentum and Brundusium are ports in the "heel" of Italy. The Ionian Sea is the stretch of water between southern Italy and western Greece. Toryne is a small harbor in northwestern Greece, thirty-five miles up the coast from Actium.

Octavius Caesar's rapid movement (or, rather, Agrippa's, in his name) has cut Antony's line of communication and put him in the peril of running short of supplies. It is to Antony's interest to force a land battle; he has eighty thousand troops to Octavius Caesar's seventy thousand and it is Antony who is the better tactician on land.

On the other hand, it is to Octavius Caesar's best interests to fight a sea battle. He has only four hundred ships to Antony's five hundred, but he still would have the advantage there. Enobarbus points this out to Antony, saying:

—Act III, scene vii, lines 34-38

The growing desertions from Antony's standards have left his ships shorthanded, and their crews have had to be fleshed out by the drafting of non-sailors from the surrounding population. And, of course, though you can force a man onto a ship, you cannot force him to be a sailor.

The logical course of action would have been to retreat inland and force Octavius to follow and then fight a land battle. Even an ordinary soldier begs him to take that strategy, saying:

—Act III, scene vii, lines 61-62

It is Cleopatra, though, who holds out strongly for a sea engagement. We can speculate why. The hardships of an army march might have excluded her and sent her back to Alexandria. A sea victory, on the other hand, would include the Egyptian fleet and entitle her to a share in the glory and the profits. She points out:

—Act III, scene vii, line 49

And Antony rejects the advice of his seasoned warriors, decides on the sea battle Cleopatra wants, and loses his last chance.

There follows the sea battle, the Battle of Actium, on September 2, 31 b.c. It is one of the crucial clashes of history.

The battle is, of course, not shown onstage, but Enobarbus supplies the vision of its crucial moment. In agony, he turns away from the sight:

—Act III, scene x, lines 1-3

When the battle began, Octavius' ships could at first make little impression on Antony's large vessels, and the battle seemed to be a useless one between maneuverability and power. Finally, though, Agrippa's superior seamanship maneuvered Antony's fleet into stretching its line, and Agrippa's ships began to dart through the openings that resulted, making straight for Cleopatra's fleet of sixty that lay in reserve.

At this point, Cleopatra ordered her flagship, the Antoniad (named in honor of Antony, of course), to turn and carry her to safety. The remainder of her fleet went with her.

The easy interpretation is that it was simply cowardice. Or perhaps the cowardice wasn't that simple; she felt the battle was lost and that retreat was necessary. She had to preserve herself from capture (with reason - for with her a captive the war would be lost), and also the treasure chest, which was aboard the ship.

Scarus, another officer, enters in wild passion, for even worse has developed. He tells Enobarbus that, once Cleopatra sailed away:

—Act III, scene x, lines 18-20

This is the point at which the world is lost and Antony is forever disgraced. There might be reasons for Cleopatra running away; the only reason for Antony is an impulse of love. This impulse might be understandable, even admirable, to romantics, and surely there is nothing so worth a sigh as to witness some great game tossed away for love.

Yet we must admit that however admirable it may be to ruin oneself for love, however noble to go down to personal death for love, it is not noble to cast away the lives and fortunes of thousands of others for love.

Antony abandoned a fleet that was fighting bravely on his behalf, and in the confusion and disheartenment that followed his flight, many men died who might have lived had he remained. What's more, he abandoned thousands of officers and men on the nearby mainland, who had been prepared to die for him, leaving them only the alternative of useless resistance or ignoble surrender.

We may understand Antony, but we cannot excuse him.

Antony well understood his own disgrace. After Actium, he played awhile with the idea (according to Plutarch) of retiring from the world in an agony of misanthropy and self-pity-like Timon of Athens. (It may have been the reading of this passage, indeed, that inspired Shakespeare to try his hand, rather unsuccessfully, at Timon of Athens immediately after he had finished Antony and Cleopatra.)