The Historians' History of the World 05

But this extravagant expenditure was not all; it belonged to some extent to the maintenance of a sultan, and impressed the eastern imagination. The effect of the East upon the character of Antony was damaging in that it robbed him of requisite elasticity. There are characters that only reach their full altitude under circumstances of prosperity, and in the absence of these wither and fall away as the flower that lacks sunlight; others again will nowhere prove so defective as when exposed to a succession of good fortune; their better self slides out of sight until it is again summoned into activity by dire need which alone can spur them to heroical endeavour. Antony’s was of the latter kind; he required pressure from outside to recover his elasticity and bring out his resources to the full. In the noise and pother of battle, in the dire need of retreat after the defeat of Mutina and the Median campaign he did great deeds, but with the termination of the danger, the activity which it had called forth came also to an end; he sank into Eastern torpidity from which nothing could rouse him. Political questions ceased to exist for him, whole months passed in which not even the current business of administration was despatched.

Labienus might overwhelm Syria and Asia with Parthian horsemen and drive back the Romans upon the islands; at the same time one ugly despatch after another might come from Italy whither he was urged to go and lend succour by his wife, his brother, his legates who struggled vainly with Cæsar’s power; but nothing availed to tear him away from his idle indulgences at Alexandria. At the very crisis of the rupture when all the peoples of the ancient world were arming themselves either for or against him, he withdrew to Samos to live a life of pleasure undisturbed by the clash of arms.

Here are examples enough to prove how he regarded his high place in the world, to what use he in reality put it for the pursuit of his private love affairs, how he accepted the privileges without recognising the responsibilities of his position.

He entirely lacked a sense of responsibility as a prince—the reproach weighs only too heavily upon him—and in a similar way, so little patriotic spirit for Rome survived in him during his life in the East, that he did not want even to leave his ashes to his fatherland. We miss in his indolent nature all joy in business and in those creative strokes that he still made every few years; he followed the impulses of the moment without reflecting what would be their ultimate consequences; this habit grew so natural to him that he followed it at Actium and plunged himself and his followers in ruin.

Paradoxical as it may sound, Antony was no more a genuine commander than a genuine statesman. As a subordinate officer of the dictator he won well-earned encomium. Once in the position of dictator himself and the difference, the great difference, is evident.

Certainly the victory at Philippi was exclusively due to him, but Cæsar’s party owed Philippi to the tactics, not to the strategy of Antony. He had to take battle upon ground chosen by the enemy, and had to thank his own bravery and his legions for victory. From this time forward, as the ancients have already contended, Antony only conquered through his subordinate officers, while, by himself, he was beaten. The honour of a triumph to which the subordinate officers could, strictly speaking, make no claims, was accorded to them, although with a less generous spirit than his colleague Cæsar showed; only in cases of immoderate success was his suspicion aroused and then he was led to thrust aside officers of too conspicuous good fortune like Ventidius. He alone must be made responsible for the disastrous issue of the Medo-Parthian campaign. The conception was wrong, the execution defective, in as much as the best time was over before he commenced operations. Before the last crisis of the war he again let the auspicious moment slip past him.

Instead of making rapid use of the advantage assured to him by the well-filled condition of his military exchequer and the forward condition of his armaments, instead of hurling his force upon Italy which could well have been overpowered in view of the scarcity of money and the deep disaffection that prevailed, he again frittered away the best time with Cleopatra in Samos and at last was compelled to postpone the decisive action, much to his own disadvantage, until the next year, thus losing the advantage in readiness of equipment which he had had over his opponent. Finally one may ask, did ever a general, who deserved the name of general, prematurely pronounce a battle to be lost, in which not only supremacy and life but the destiny of a whole world was at stake? But Antony loved to treat serious issues lightly and trifles as if they were of supreme importance.