Setting aside all sentimental factors in the situation, and leaving out of consideration for the moment all physical causes of the alliance, it will be seen that Antony’s position was now more satisfactory than was that of the often sorely perplexed Queen. By spending the winter at Alexandria the Roman Triumvir had kept himself aloof from the political troubles in Italy at a time when his presence at home might have complicated matters to his own disadvantage; he had obtained the full support of Egyptian wealth and Egyptian arms should he require them; and he had prepared the way for a definite marriage with Cleopatra at the moment when he should desire her partnership in the foundation of a great monarchy such as that for which Julius Cæsar had striven. He had not yet irrevocably compromised himself, and he was free to return to his Roman order of life with superficially clean hands. Nobody in Rome would think the less of him for having combined a certain amount of pleasure with the obvious business which had called him to Egypt; and his friends would certainly be as easily persuaded to accept the political excuses which he would advance for his lengthy residence in Alexandria as the Cæsarian party had been to admit those put forward by the great Dictator under very similar circumstances. Like Julius Cæsar and like Pompey, Antony was certainly justified in making himself the patron of the wealthy Egyptian court; and all Roman statesmen were aware how desirable it was at this juncture for a party leader to cement an alliance with the powerful Queen of that country.
On the part of Cleopatra, however, the circumstances were far less happy. She had staked all on the alliance with Antony--her personal honour and prestige as well as her dynasty’s future; and in return for her great gifts she must have been beginning to feel that she had received nothing save vague promises and unsatisfactory assurances. Without Antony’s help not only would she lose all hope of an Egypto-Roman throne for herself and her son Cæsarion, but she would inevitably fail to keep Egypt from absorption into the Roman dominions. There were only two mighty leaders at that time in the Roman world--Octavian and Antony; and Octavian was her relentless enemy, for the reason that her son Cæsarion was his rival in the claim on the Dictator’s worldly and political estate. Failing the support of Antony there were no means of retaining her country’s liberty, except perhaps by the desperate eventuality of some sort of alliance with Parthia. It must have occurred to her that Egypt, with its growing trade with southern India, might join forces with Parthia, whose influence in northern India must have been great, and might thus effect an amalgamation of nations hostile to Rome, which in a vast semicircle should include Egypt, Ethiopia, Arabia, Persia, India, Scythia, Parthia, Armenia, Syria, and perhaps Asia Minor. Such a combination might be expected to sweep Rome from the face of the earth; but the difficulties in the way of the huge union were almost insuperable, and the alliance with Antony was infinitely more tangible. Yet, towards the end of the winter, she must constantly have asked herself whether she could trust Antony, to whom she had given so much. She loved him, she had given herself to him; but she must have known him to be unreliable, inconsequent, and, in certain aspects, merely an overgrown boy. The stakes for which she was fighting were so absolutely essential to herself and to her country: the champion whose services she had enlisted was so light-hearted, so reluctant to pledge himself. And now that she was about to bear him a son, and thus to bring before his wayward notice the grave responsibilities which she felt he had so flippantly undertaken, would he stand by her as Cæsar had done, or would he desert her?