Duane W. Roller

approach of Octavia as a major threat. She pressured Antonius by whatever
means possible to convince him that his relationship with Octavia
was purely a matter of political convenience but that the one with her
was actual love and aff ection. Plutarch described the queen’s convenient
tears, mood changes, and her embarkation on a weight-loss program,
this perhaps because she had just completed another pregnancy. Th ere
were even hints of suicide. How true all of this is cannot be determined,
for it fi ts too conveniently into Cleopatra’s formulaic role as a seductress,
and the account may be designed to explain Antonius’s rather enigmatic
actions thereaft er. Yet whether or not this portrait of the queen is accurate,
the situation prompted Antonius eff ectively to abandon his life in
Italy, thereby not only providing Octavian the opportunity to control
the dialogue (and public opinion) there, but eventually giving him no
alternative but Cleopatra, not only emotionally but fi nancially and militarily.
Had the triumvir spent some time during these years in Italy, the
outcome of his and the queen’s careers might have been quite diff erent.
41 Antonius thus told Octavia not to come east of Athens—although
accepting her supplies and men—actually a quite reasonable suggestion,
as previously, to keep his wife from entering a war zone. He then moved
from Alexandria to Antioch, perhaps accompanied by Cleopatra. But
for some reason he then abandoned campaigning for the year and
returned to Alexandria: it may be that although he had to make a gesture
in response to Octavia’s support, he had no real interest at this time in
another long and diffi cult military operation.
When Octavia returned to Rome, she was immediately cast by her
brother into the role of wronged victim and was told to leave Antonius’s
home and return to her own, something that she refused to do. Octavian
and Antonius were moving toward polarization: the last two years had
seen the elimination of all Octavian’s rivals in the west, including Sextus
Pompeius, the surviving son of Pompeius the Great, and the unfortunate
third member of the triumvirate, Lepidus. Th e former had fl ed to the East
and was playing a double game between Antonius and the Parthians, even
perhaps involving Cleopatra, an old family acquaintance. He was killed
that summer at Miletos. 42 Lepidus, aft er an ill-advised revolt in Sicily,
had been removed from the triumvirate—although its two surviving
members continued to call themselves triumvirs—and would live quietly
under guard for the remaining quarter-century of his life. By 35 b.c., the
Roman world was divided solely between Antonius and Octavian, with
the latter astutely using the treatment of his sister as a potent weapon.
98 Cleopatra