This is confirmed a few lines later, twice by Antony himself:
Messenger: News, my good lord, from Rome
Antony: Grates me! The sum.
(I.1.18-19)
In the above quote, Antony dismisses the messenger, who is bringing news from Rome, probably meaning Lepidus, Caesar, his wife Fulvia, or another important person. Whilst not only being rude, asking for the message to deliver in a shortened version is not what a member of the triumvirate should be doing. It is possible that Antony is just playing a game with Cleopatra, to show that he would prefer to spend time with her than worry about the problems back home. A soliloquy from Antony proves, probably, the second idea; that Antony is playing a game with Cleopatra, and really does care about Rome, just not as much as he does care about spending time with Cleopatra:
Let Rome in Tiber melt and the wide arch
Of the ranged empire fall! Here is my space.
Kingdoms are clay; our dungy earth alike
Feeds beast as man. The nobleness of life
Is to do thus, when such a mutual pair
And such a twain can do’t – in a world which I bind,
On pain of punishment, the world to weet
We stand up peerless. (I.i.35-42a)
Whilst an impressive-sounding speech, and eloquently put, it is unlikely that Antony really means that he does not care if Rome was to sink into the river, or if he lost all of his power; although his speech does nothing to make him sound more respectable.
When Antony hears of his wife’s death, and problems at home, he tells his assistant, Enobarbus to stop fooling around, and to get ready to leave for home:
Enobarbus: What’s your pleasure, sir?
Antony: I must with haste from hence...
Fulvia is dead.
Enobarbus: Fulvia?
Antony: Dead...
The business she hath broached in the state
Cannot endure my absence...
Our contriving friends in Rome
Petition us home. Sextus Pompeius
Hath given the dare to Caesar and commands
The empire of the sea...
Say our pleasure,
To such whose place us under us, requires
Our quick removal from hence.
Enobarbus: I shall do’t.
(I.ii.128-129, 154-155, 175-178b, 187-190)
Antony tells Enobarbus that his allies in Rome are planning on how to stop Pompey, who has taken control of the sea around Rome, and is threatening civil war. This sees a big change in Antony: instead of flirting and drinking with Cleopatra, he is absorbed by the politics of Rome, and the threats that they pose, which renders Philo’s opening speech, saying the Antony no longer cares about Rome, null and void.
A long exchange between Antony and Cleopatra follows, about the reasons for Antony going and how he will remain loyal to Cleopatra: how there is civil war in Rome (“Our Italy/ Shines o’er with civil swords;) how Fulvia’s death has affected him (“My more particular, / And that which most with you should safe my going, / is Fulvia’s death;”) and how Pompey’s actions force him to return (“Sextus Pompeius/ makes his approaches to the port of Rome.”)
The next major speech about Antony is given by Caesar, and oddly for him, despite the frequent criticisms, there is a section towards the end of the scene where Caesar commends Antony, when apostrophising him:
Caesar: From Alexandria
This is the news: he fishes, drinks, and wastes
The lamps of night in revel...
You shall find there
A man who is the abstract of all faults
That all men follow...
Antony,
Leave thy lascivious wassails...
It wounds thine honour that I speak it now –
Was borne so like a soldier that thy cheek
So much as lanked not.
(I.iv.3b-5a, 56b-57, 72)
Caesar pays tribute to Antony’s soldier-like nature, which Philo alluded to at the beginning of the play. When Antony was forced into the mountains, Caesar says, he fought harder to survive than some of the most savage peoples, which makes him the best soldier to lead the war, that Caesar now sees as inevitable, against Pompey, and that he is willing to put aside his differences, to work together against the common foe, Pompey.
All in all, despite being seen as someone who is used to the good life, and not doing much work, at the beginning of the play, we see Antony character, and our perceptions of him, change a lot, especially with Caesar’s praise.