He hath whipped with rods; dares me to personal combat.
Caesar to Antony: let the old ruffian know I have many
other ways to die; meantime Laugh at his challenge.
- Act IV, scene i, lines 2-6
Actually, though one could not guess it from the play, eleven months have passed since the Battle of Actium. Octavius Caesar did not swoop down on Egypt at once. That could wait, for Antony and Cleopatra were helplessly penned up there.
Octavius first founded the city of Nicopolis ("City of Victory") near the site of the battle. Then he had to spend time reorganizing the affairs of the Eastern provinces that had been Antony's domain and were now his. (Egypt, be it remembered, had never, till then, been a Roman province, but was in theory an independent kingdom.)
Then he had to return to Rome to take care of pressing matters there. It was only in July 30 b.c. that he could sail his army to Egypt itself. By that tune Cleopatra was thirty-nine.
Antony and Cleopatra had spent the eleven-month respite in luxury as though they knew their time was limited and were determined to make the most of what was left. But now Octavius Caesar had come and the time for the final battle was at hand.
... the god Hercules...
The eve of the last battle is a strange one. The soldiers hear mysterious music in the air and underground, moving away into the distance. One soldier guesses at the meaning:
'Tis the god Hercules, whom Antony loved,
Now leaves him.
- Act IV, scene iii, lines 15-16
This eerie tale is told by Plutarch and is the kind of legend that arises after the fact.
It is, of course, rather late in the day for Hercules to leave poor Antony. Hercules had clearly abandoned him on the eve of Actium.
... send his treasure after.. .
Nor is it only Hercules that abandons Antony. The common soldier who had advised a land battle at Actium now meets Antony again. If that land battle had been fought, he says:
The kings that have revolted, and the soldier
That has this morning left thee, would have still
Followed thy heels.
- Act IV, scene v, lines 4-6
Thus it is that Antony discovers that the rough and faithful Enobarbus has at last deserted him and gone over to Octavius Caesar's camp. But Antony, in adversity, always rises to heights of strength and nobility he cannot possibly reach in prosperity. He realizes that not Enobarbus' wickedness but his own follies have driven the soldier away. He is thinking perhaps that after his own desertion at Actium, no soldier owes him loyalty, and he says:
O, my fortunes have
Corrupted honest men!
- Act IV, scene v, lines 16-17
And, having learned that Enobarbus has crept away so secretly as to have been unable to take with him his personal belongings and the money he has earned in the course of his labors, Antony says to his aide-de-camp:
Go, Eros, send his treasure after; do it,
Detain no jot, I charge thee.
- Act IV, scene v, lines 12-13
... alone the villain...
Shakespeare found the tale of this princely gesture in Plutarch and it is believable in Antony. He was lost, anyway, and it was the kind of quixotic gesture a man noble by fits would make. If it had been Octavius Caesar, we might suppose it to have been done out of a desire to punish the deserter, for punishment it most certainly turns out to be.
Enobarbus is already suffering over his betrayal, and realizes that the tardy converts to Octavius Caesar's cause are not truly trusted and are certainly not honored, but live in a kind of contemptible twilight. In the midst of his misgivings, he hears his property has been sent after him. Stupefied, he bursts out in agony:
/ am alone the villain of the earth,
And feel I am so most.
- Act IV, scene vi, lines 30-34
They are beaten...
In the last battle, despite everything, the advantage falls to Antony once more. He and his soldiers fight like madmen and his officer, Eros, rushes in to say:
They are beaten, sir, and our advantage serves
For a fair victory.
- Act IV, scene vii, lines 11-12
But, alas, this is one of Shakespeare's few inventions of the play. There was no victory at this point. There wasn't even a true battle. Antony's remnant of an army gave in almost at once and Antony was penned up in Alexandria.
What Shakespeare wanted was one last unexpected uplift; one last illusion; one last hope of escape from the doom the lovers had madly woven about themselves;