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

Cleopatra manages to calm down Antony at last and bring him to what senses remain in him.

Octavius Caesar's army is now just outside Alexandria and Antony decides to meet him in one last land fight. In fact, he even-as a gesture-offers to meet Octavius in single combat.

Octavius meets this challenge with characteristic contempt. He says to Maecenas:

—Act IV, scene i, lines 2-6

Actually, though one could not guess it from the play, eleven months have passed since the Battle of Actium. Octavius Caesar did not swoop down on Egypt at once. That could wait, for Antony and Cleopatra were helplessly penned up there.

Octavius first founded the city of Nicopolis ("City of Victory") near the site of the battle. Then he had to spend time reorganizing the affairs of the Eastern provinces that had been Antony's domain and were now his. (Egypt, be it remembered, had never, till then, been a Roman province, but was in theory an independent kingdom.)

Then he had to return to Rome to take care of pressing matters there. It was only in July 30 b.c. that he could sail his army to Egypt itself. By that tune Cleopatra was thirty-nine.

Antony and Cleopatra had spent the eleven-month respite in luxury as though they knew their time was limited and were determined to make the most of what was left. But now Octavius Caesar had come and the time for the final battle was at hand.

The eve of the last battle is a strange one. The soldiers hear mysterious music in the air and underground, moving away into the distance. One soldier guesses at the meaning:

—Act IV, scene iii, lines 15-16

This eerie tale is told by Plutarch and is the kind of legend that arises after the fact.

It is, of course, rather late in the day for Hercules to leave poor Antony. Hercules had clearly abandoned him on the eve of Actium.

Nor is it only Hercules that abandons Antony. The common soldier who had advised a land battle at Actium now meets Antony again. If that land battle had been fought, he says:

—Act IV, scene v, lines 4-6

Thus it is that Antony discovers that the rough and faithful Enobarbus has at last deserted him and gone over to Octavius Caesar's camp. But Antony, in adversity, always rises to heights of strength and nobility he cannot possibly reach in prosperity. He realizes that not Enobarbus' wickedness but his own follies have driven the soldier away. He is thinking perhaps that after his own desertion at Actium, no soldier owes him loyalty, and he says:

—Act IV, scene v, lines 16-17

And, having learned that Enobarbus has crept away so secretly as to have been unable to take with him his personal belongings and the money he has earned in the course of his labors, Antony says to his aide-de-camp:

—Act IV, scene v, lines 12-13

Shakespeare found the tale of this princely gesture in Plutarch and it is believable in Antony. He was lost, anyway, and it was the kind of quixotic gesture a man noble by fits would make. If it had been Octavius Caesar, we might suppose it to have been done out of a desire to punish the deserter, for punishment it most certainly turns out to be.

Enobarbus is already suffering over his betrayal, and realizes that the tardy converts to Octavius Caesar's cause are not truly trusted and are certainly not honored, but live in a kind of contemptible twilight. In the midst of his misgivings, he hears his property has been sent after him. Stupefied, he bursts out in agony:

—Act IV, scene vi, lines 30-34

In the last battle, despite everything, the advantage falls to Antony once more. He and his soldiers fight like madmen and his officer, Eros, rushes in to say:

—Act IV, scene vii, lines 11-12

But, alas, this is one of Shakespeare's few inventions of the play. There was no victory at this point. There wasn't even a true battle. Antony's remnant of an army gave in almost at once and Antony was penned up in Alexandria.

What Shakespeare wanted was one last unexpected uplift; one last illusion; one last hope of escape from the doom the lovers had madly woven about themselves; perhaps one sight of might-have-been for the land battle at Actium that had never come.

The victory serves also to add the last unbearable pang to Enobarbus' agony. Had those faithful to Antony had the courage and will to fight and win while he himself had slunk away, a coward traitor? He staggers into the night, crying:

—Act IV, scene ix, lines 18-23

And so, asking forgiveness from Antony alone, and content to have all the world besides scorn him, he dies. Yet he does not have his wish, for with Shakespeare's deathless music pleading his case, who can scorn him? No one!

Again, Shakespeare follows his sources in having Enobarbus die of heartbreak. From a historical standpoint, it is hard to believe in such a death, but here, as in so many cases, it is far better to romanticize with Shakespeare than be flat with history.

There is a sequel to the story that Shakespeare doesn't hint at, but one that should be mentioned if only to soften a little our regret at Enobarbus' fate.

Enobarbus had a son, Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus, who in later years served Octavius Caesar and who did well. This Lucius eventually married Antonia, who was Mark Antony's elder daughter by Octavia. They had a son, Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus (Enobarbus' grandson and namesake), who thus had both Enobarbus and Antony for grandfathers.

The younger Ahenobarbus married Agrippina, a great-granddaughter of Octavius Caesar and a great-granddaughter of Livia, the wife of Octavius Caesar, by her earlier marriage. Their son, the great-grandson of Antony and the great-grandson of Enobarbus, as well as the great-great-grandson of both Livia and Octavius Caesar himself, became the fifth Roman emperor in a.d. 54, eighty-four years after Enobarbus' death.

Could Enobarbus have suspected in his wildest dreams that a descendant of his would one day rule all Rome?

It is rather a shame to spoil the story by identifying this fifth emperor, the last of the house which Julius Caesar first brought to mastery in Rome, and who combined in himself the heritage of Octavius Caesar, his wife Livia, his sister Octavia, his enemy Antony, and his defected enemy, Enobarbus, but I must. The emperor was the infamous Nero, whose real name was Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus.

And now Shakespeare returns to history and lets Antony's forces betray him. Antony enters, shouting: