Free A History of the Wife by Marilyn Yalom

for the Egyptian queen. He was par- ticularly enraged by Antony’s will, which ordered that even if he died
    in Rome, his body, after being carried in state through the forum, should be sent to Cleopatra at Alexandria. Octavius charged Antony with many offenses, among them the gift to Cleopatra of the library at Pergamon with its 200,000 volumes. Equally telling was the charge that “at a great banquet, in the presence of many guests, he had risen up and rubbed her feet” and that he left a public trial at a crucial moment, when Cleopatra happened to pass by in her chair, so as “to follow at her side and attend her home.” Was this the conduct of a true Roman, for whom any public display of affection was considered inap- propriate?
    The war declared by Octavius ended in the shattering defeat of Antony and Cleopatra at Actium in 31 B . C . E . Fleeing to Alexandria, where they awaited the imminent arrival of Octavius, Antony and Cleopatra anticipated payment with their lives. Painful as it would be to die at the respective ages of fifty-two and thirty-nine, they did not want to be left to the mercy of Octavius. No, in true Roman fashion, Antony would commit suicide, and Cleopatra, no less conscious of her honor, would do the same. The story that has come down to us of their last moments, which may or may not be true, seeks to portray them not only as lovers to the end, but also as exemplary Roman spouses united in joint suicide.
    Antony is said to have committed suicide when he heard, mistak- enly, that Cleopatra was dead. In Plutarch’s account, he pierced his belly with his sword and lay down to die, but when he was told that the Queen was still alive, he asked to be taken to her. Cleopatra “laid him on the bed, tearing all her clothes, which she spread upon him; and, beating her breast with her hands, lacerating herself, and disfiguring her own face with the blood from his wounds, she called him her lord, her husband, her emperor... .”
    Cleopatra’s death was reported to be equally spectacular. Though she suffered the visit of Octavius and allowed him to believe she intended to go on living in the interest of her children, she, too, took her own life. According to the legend, she had an asp brought in hidden among a pile of figs. Then she provoked the asp to bite her. But even Plutarch wrote that “what really took place is known to no one.” Octavius, it appears, gave credit to the account of the asp bite, and “though much disappointed by her death, yet could not but admire the greatness of her spirit and gave order that her body should be buried by Antony
    with royal splendour and magnificence.”
    After their death, it was, ironically, Octavia who raised Antony’s chil- dren—not only the two daughters she had had with him, but also one of Antony’s sons from his marriage to Fulvia and the children of his union with Cleopatra! Octavia raised them all alongside her own three children from her prior marriages. When we look today at the com- plexities of “recombined” families, we do well to remember Octavia’s household and her responsibilities to the many orphans under her roof.

    The life of Mark Antony’s antagonist—Octavius/Augustus—provides another look at marriage at the highest level. His first marriage to Scri- bonia, who had already been married twice, was a political union that lasted only two years. After she gave birth to a daughter, Octavius divorced her because she couldn’t tolerate one of his favorite mistresses. At the same time, he fell so blindly in love with Livia that he brought her to his bed even while she was pregnant with her first husband’s child. Then he forced Livia’s husband to divorce her, and married her himself in 38 B . C . E ., three days after the child’s birth. During the rest of his rule—a full fifty-one years—Augustus remained married to Livia, despite the fact that they never produced a living child and heir together. And when he died in 14 C . E