"...there was a noble dignity about Antony's appearance. His beard was well grown, his forehead broad, his nose aquiline, and these features combined to give him a certain bold and masculine look, which is found in the statues and portraits of Hercules . . . And indeed, it was these same "Herculean" qualities that the fastidious found so offensive - his swaggering air, his ribald talk, his fondness for carousing in public, sitting down by his men as they ate, or taking his food standing at the common mess-table . . . Besides this, his openhanded nature and the generosity with which he showered rewards upon his friends and his soldiers alike laid a splendid foundation when he first set out upon the road to power . . ." Plutarch, 4.

"Yesterday evening, Hirtius was at my house. He made Antony's disposition clear - as bad and treacherous as can be." Cicero, quoting Decimus Brutus, c. March 22, 44 BC. Letters to Atticus, 112.

The calm green basalt bust of Marc Antony, of 1st century Egyptian origin, does not reflect the Antony who was said in his own time (according to Plutarch) to resemble Hercules. The family even claimed Hercules as a distant ancestor. Yet, reading the sources of his life, Antony tends to assume a larger-than-life quality, rather like his purported ancestor; his virtues and vices alike somehow heroically ungovernable. He also proved himself far more capable than the foul-mouthed carouser and womanizer of legend, as Octavian Caesar would have been the first to point out.

The bulk of Antony's legend postdates Caesar's murder in 44 BC; his torrid romance with Cleopatra, the cutthroat civil war against Octavian/Augustus, Actium and his suicide, all occurred when Antony had reached well into middle age. Yet the later man of whom Shakespeare wrote so compellingly is clearly visible in the last years and days of Caesar's life.

Antony, according to Plutarch, came from a prominent Roman family allied to Caesar's through Marcus' mother, Julia. His grandfather, a famous orator, allied himself with Sulla and was, accordingly, executed by Marius. His own father died while Antony was a child; his mother then married Cornelius Lentulus, who was later executed by Cicero during the Catalinarian Conspiracy of 63 BC. Plutarch states that Antony always hated Cicero because he ordered his stepfather's death; he would, of course, later order the great orator's political murder.

From his teenage years onward, Plutarch states that Antony flourished in bad company and cultivated all the vices available to a prominent and rebellious young Roman with more passion than wealth, plunging with his friend Curio and Publius Clodius into a life of "...drinking bouts, love-affairs, and reckless spending" which rumor said had left him 250 talents (several million dollars) in debt before his early 20's. The making of Antony appears to have been the army. While staying in Greece to study rhetoric, Antony joined the legions of Gabinius to accompany a Roman force sailing for Syria. The young cavalry captain quickly distinguished himself for both courage and leadership. After fighting in Syria and Jerusalem, Gabinius' forces fought on behalf of the exiled king of Egypt, Ptolemy Auletes, and Antony achieved the highest success in the Army's campaigns en route to Alexandria (where he may have met the 14-year-old Cleopatra). His successes were such that "...he left a great name behind him among the Alexandrians, while his comrades in the Roman army looked up to him as a brilliant soldier." (Plutarch, 3).

CAESAR'S LOYAL KINSMAN

As a distant relation to Caesar, Antony was called out to join Caesar's staff in Gaul during the great campaigns from 54-50 BC, with short absences in Rome. He quickly proved that he was an excellent cavalry leader, just as he is said to have earned Caesar's irritation for his untamable personal habits. But Caesar would keep Antony by him until the end, when the wild cavalryman would show himself both hungry for the reins of Caesar's power and loyal to his kinsman's memory - which helped him achieve it.

As Civil War approached in 50 BC (Caesar's term in Gaul expiring with his enemies demanding he lay down all proconsular imperium) Antony followed Curio as tribune, fighting for Caesar's interests in the Senate. Plutarch states it was Antony who, in the tense senatorial meetings in the month before Caesar crossed the Rubicon, demanded a vote that both Pompey and Caesar lay down their armies; a vote which, if it had been followed by the Consuls, could have avoided the Civil War. But the vote was ignored and Antony's launched a violent attack on Caesar's opponents and was ejected from the Senate. He immediately raced to northern Italy, where he gave Caesar the precise justification - the flouting of a tribune by the Senate - needed to plausibly cross the Rubicon.

Antony was Caesar's most important lieutenant during the Civil War. Caesar, fighting against the Pompeians in Spain, gave him command of the troops and administration of Italy, although his administrative performance did not match his military talents.

As a soldier, however, when Caesar returned from Spain, it was Antony who forced the legions across the Ionian Sea to provide Caesar lifesaving reinforcements during the campaigns en route to Dyrrhachium; it was Antony who, commanding the left wing of the army (Caesar had the right) helped destroy Pompey's army. "In consequence, his reputation with the army was second only to Caesar's, and Caesar left no doubt as to his own opinion of Antony." When Caesar assumed the dictatorship, he gave the highest position under him to Antony alone. As Master of the Horse, Antony essentially ruled unchallenged in Italy in 47 BC; however, he soon proved his ineptness at administration, warring with Dolabella and his men in Rome, the conflict leading the murder of hundreds of Roman citizens in the forum itself. Caesar, in Africa, was not amused. When Caesar returned from Africa, he chose Lepidus, not Antony, as his consular colleague. Antony was removed from his position and was not taken back into Caesar's inner circle for almost two years.

Aureus issued while Antony was governing the East

Caesar did choose Antony as co-consul with him for 44 BC. It was Antony who, at the Lupercalia in February, 44, offered Caesar a (kingly) diadem, which Caesar was forced several times, with great publicity, to refuse. It is one of history's great mysteries: whether the Lupercalia fiasco was Antony's idea alone, or whether he was coached by Caesar. Within days the conspirators were gathering around Brutus: from the first there was discussion of whether to ask Antony to join in killing Caesar. In discussion, Trebonius said they should not ask Antony: he had sounded out Antony's interest in a possible assassination plot when Caesar returned from Spain the year before, and Antony "...had understood his drift...but had given him no encouragement; at the same time he had not reported the conversation to Caesar, but had faithfully kept it secret." Plutarch, 13. Another fascinating enigma is why Antony chose not to alert Caesar that conspirators were considering his murder as early as the year before the Ides of March; particularly when, shortly before March, Antony saw Caesar dismiss his bodyguard. It was Brutus' decision not to kill Antony as well as Caesar, a decision which Cicero bitterly regretted; "'Twas a fine deed, but half done! . . . Anyone could see that an heir to the throne was left behind." Cicero, Letters, 114-116.

While Antony was kept distracted outside the Senate house, Caesar was killed on March 15. Antony fled, disguising himself as a slave; yet within a day, seeing that no massacre of Caesar's adherents was underway, he sent his son to Brutus as a hostage and met with some of the assassins at his house. Yet it is impossible not to feel that Antony was merely biding his time; whether or not he felt true grief for Caesar's murder, there is little doubt he intended to move, quickly, to destroy the conspirators and establish himself in Caesar's place. After a long, pacific speech in the Senate by Cicero, Antony (as Consul) agreed that an amnesty would be declared against the "liberators" while at the same time all of Caesar's legislation would remain in place. Antony then arranged for Caesar's burial (having first secured both his papers and private treasure from Caesar's widow, Calpurnia). This is the second great mistake Brutus made; first to permit Antony to live; second, to permit him to speak during Caesar's funeral, a speech which likely changed history. Shakespeare's magnificent version of the speech was apparently no more electrifying than Antony's own words:

By the time the Forum mob had streamed off to attack the houses of the conspirators on that March night, Antony's position was immensely stronger. Within months, the various conspirators would be forced to leave Italy for their own safety. After months of hostile maneuvering, Octavian and Antony reconciled, formed the Second Triumvirate with Lepidus in 43, and "...divided the rule of the whole world between them as easily as if it had been a family inheritance." Plutarch, 19. One of the first "pricked for death" by the Triumvirs was Antony's old nemesis, Cicero, who had fearlessly and consistently opposed his personal ambitions since the Ides of March.

NOTHING LEFT REMARKABLE

Antony and the young Octavian now began the power dance that would end 13 years later with Antony and Cleopatra dead by their own hands and Octavian effectively the sole ruler of the Roman world. By then, most of the men who had surrounded or fought against Caesar were long dead.

Jupiter and his progeny, Vatican Museum. Photo by author.

Antony's marital adventures deserve some comment. He was married, among other women, to the amazing Fulvia, widow of Publius Clodius, widow of Curio, whose iron determination to be involved in her husband's political life Plutarch condescendingly describes as excellent training for Antony's subservient relationship with Cleopatra. As books could easily cover the ins and outs of his relationship with the Egyptian Queen, perhaps the kindest comment is that, in her company and with his children by her, Antony appears to have completely underestimated the opposition of the Roman people to "foreign ways." He also underestimated the remorseless effect of Octavian's propaganda that Antony was now no more than a vicious, wenching, aging second-rater who'd "gone native." Antony gave him plenty of ammunition; the battle of Actium was partly lost because many of Antony's troops deserted him for Octavian.

Yet while much of what Plutarch writes about Antony has the ring of truth - the great general destroyed by his own weaknesses - Antony was obviously a savvy and sophisticated politician who maintained strong support from the army and in the East almost to the end. He was remorseless himself (and brilliant) in snatching at power once Caesar was dead and gone. He was probably second only to Caesar in his military skills. There has never been any question about his personal courage and, in many cases, magnanimity, even when against his own interests. His administration in the East was effective and clear-sighted and, after his death, Augustus found it required few changes. By his marriage to Augustus' sister, Octavia, through his daughter, Antonia, he became the grandfather of the emperors Caligula, Claudius, and Nero. As Shakespeare said of another ambitious man, "Thou shalt get kings, though thou be none."