Multimedia Mania/abacus-multimedia-mania.iso/dp/0096/00961.txt

Text File | 1993-07-27 | 35KB | 521 lines

$Unique_ID{bob00961}
$Pretitle{}
$Title{Plutarch's Lives
Part IV}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Plutarch}
$Affiliation{}
$Subject{antony
caesar
cleopatra
antony's
sea
himself
sent
upon
ships
enemy}
$Date{c75}
$Log{}
Title:       Plutarch's Lives
Book:        Antony
Author:      Plutarch
Date:        c75
Translation: Dryden, Arthur Hugh Clough

Part IV

     The speed and extent of Antony's preparations alarmed Caesar, who feared
he might be forced to fight the decisive battle that summer. For he wanted
many necessaries, and the people grudged very much to pay the taxes; freemen
being called upon to pay a fourth part of their incomes, and freed slaves an
eighth of their property, so that there were loud outcries against him, and
disturbances throughout all Italy. And this is looked upon as one of the
greatest of Antony's oversights, that he did not then press the war. For he
allowed time at once for Caesar to make his preparations, and for the
commotions to pass over. For while people were having their money called for,
they were mutinous and violent; but, having paid it, they held their peace,
Titius and Plancus, men of consular dignity and friends to Antony, having been
ill used by Cleopatra, whom they had most resisted in her design of being
present in the war, came over to Caesar, and gave information of the contents
of Antony's will, with which they were acquainted. It was deposited in the
hands of the vestal virgins, who refused to deliver it up, and sent Caesar
word, if he pleased, he should come and seize it himself, which he did. And,
reading it over to himself, he noted those places that were most for his
purpose, and, having summoned the senate, read them publicly. Many were
scandalized at the proceeding, thinking it out of reason and equity to call a
man to account for what was not to be until after his death. Caesar specially
pressed what Antony said in his will about his burial; for he had ordered that
even if he died in the city of Rome, his body, after being carried in state
through the forum, should be sent to Cleopatra at Alexandria. Calvisius, a
dependant of Caesar's, urged other charges in connection with Cleopatra
against Antony; that he had given her the library of Pergamus, containing two
hundred thousand distinct volumes; that at a great banquet, in the presence of
many guests, he had risen up and rubbed her feet, to fulfil some wager or
promise; that he had suffered the Ephesians to salute her as their queen; that
he had frequently at the public audience of kings and princes received amorous
messages written in tablets made of onyx and crystal, and read them openly on
the tribunal; that when Furnius, a man of great authority and eloquence among
the Romans, was pleading, Cleopatra happening to pass by in her chair, Antony
started up and left them in the middle of their cause, to follow at her side
and attend her home.

     Calvisius, however, was looked upon as the inventor of most of these
stories. Antony's friends went up and down the city to gain him credit, and
sent one of themselves, Geminius, to him to beg him to take heed, and not
allow himself to be deprived by vote of his authority, and proclaimed a public
enemy to the Roman state. But Geminius no sooner arrived in Greece but he was
looked upon as one of Octavia's spies; at their suppers he was made a
continual butt for mockery, and was put to sit in the least honorable places;
all which he bore very well, seeking only an occasion of speaking with Antony.
So, at supper, being told to say what business he came about, he answered he
would keep the rest for a soberer hour, but one thing he had to say, whether
full or fasting, that all would go well if Cleopatra would return to Egypt.
And on Antony showing his anger at it, "You have done well, Geminius," said
Cleopatra, "to tell your secret without being put to the rack." So Geminius,
after a few days, took occasion to make his escape and go to Rome. Many more
of Antony's friends were driven from him by the insolent usage they had from
Cleopatra's flatterers, amongst whom were Marcus Silanus and Dellius the
historian. And Dellius says he was afraid of his life, and that Glaucus, the
physician, informed him of Cleopatra's design against him. She was angry with
him for having said that Antony's friends were served with sour wine, while at
Rome Sarmentus, Caesar's little page (his delicia, as the Romans call it),
drank Falernian. ^11

[Footnote 11: Suetonius tells us that it was one of the habitual amusements of
Augustus to play and talk with children of this kind, who were sought out for
him chiefly in Syria and Mauritania. They were specially selected for their
smallness; but he had no liking for dwarfs or deformed children, who were
often kept by other great people in Rome as their playthings, so called,
delicia or deliciae, much in the same sense as the pet-bird of Catullus'
mistress, "Passer, deliciae meae puellae."]

     As soon as Caesar had completed his preparations, he had a decree made,
declaring war on Cleopatra, and depriving Antony of the authority which he had
let a woman exercise in his place. Caesar added that he had drunk potions that
had bereaved him of his senses, and that the generals they would have to fight
with would be Mardion the eunuch, Pothinus, Iras, Cleopatra's hair-dressing
girl, and Charmion, who were Antony's chief state-councillors.

     These prodigies are said to have announced the war. Pisaurum, where
Antony had settled a colony, on the Adriatic sea, was swallowed up by an
earthquake; sweat ran from one of the marble statues of Antony at Alba for
many days together, and, though frequently wiped off, did not stop. When he
himself was in the city of Patrae, the temple of Hercules was struck by
lightning, and, at Athens, the figure of Bacchus was torn by a violent wind
out of the Battle of the Giants, and laid flat upon the theatre; ^12 with both
which deities Antony claimed connection, professing to be descended from
Hercules, and from his imitating Bacchus in his way of living having received
the name of Young Bacchus. The same whirlwind at Athens also brought down,
from amongst many others which were not disturbed, the colossal statues of
Eumenes and Attalus, which were inscribed with Antony's name. And in
Cleopatra's admiral-galley, which was called the Antonias, a most inauspicious
omen occurred. Some swallows had built in the stern of the galley, but other
swallows came, beat the first away, and destroyed their nests.

[Footnote 12: The Battle of the Giants with the gods was a piece of sculpture
in the south wall of the Acropolis, just above the Dionysiac theatre in the
side of the rock underneath.]

     When the armaments gathered for the war, Antony had no less than five
hundred ships of war, including numerous galleys of eight and ten banks of
oars, as richly ornamented as if they were meant for a triumph. He had a
hundred thousand foot and twelve thousand horse. He had vassal kings
attending, Bocchus of Libya, Tarcondemus of the Upper Cilicia, Archelaus of
Cappadocia, Philadelphus of Paphlagonia, Mithridates of Commagene, and Sadalas
of Thrace; all these were with him in person. Out of Pontus Polemon sent him
considerable forces, as did also Malchus from Arabia, Herod the Jew, and
Amyntas, king of Lycaonia and Galatia; also the Median king sent some troops
to join him. Caesar had two hundred and fifty galleys of war, eighty thousand
foot, and horse about equal to the enemy. Antony's empire extended from
Euphrates and Armenia to the Ionian sea and the Illyrians; Caesar's from
Illyria to the westward ocean, and from the ocean all along the Tuscan and
Sicilian sea. Of Africa, Caesar had all the coast opposite to Italy, Gaul, and
Spain, as far as the Pillars of Hercules, and Antony the provinces from Cyrene
to Aethiopia.

     But so wholly was he now the mere appendage to the person of Cleopatra,
that, although he was much superior to the enemy in land-forces, yet, out of
complaisance to his mistress, he wished the victory to be gained by sea, and
that, too, when he could not but see how, for want of sailors, his captains,
all through unhappy Greece, were pressing every description of men, common
travellers and ass-drivers, harvest laborers, and boys, and for all this the
vessels had not their complements, but remained, most of them, ill-manned and
badly rowed. Caesar, on the other side, had ships that were built not for size
or show, but for service, not pompous galleys, but light, swift, and perfectly
manned; and from his headquarters at Tarentum and Brundusium he sent messages
to Antony not to protract the war, but come out with his forces; he would give
him secure roadsteads and ports for his fleet, and, for his land army to
disembark and pitch their camp, he would leave him as much ground in Italy,
inland from the sea, as a horse could traverse in a single course. Antony, on
the other side, with the like bold language, challenged him to a single
combat, though he were much the older; and, that being refused, proposed to
meet him in the Pharsalian fields, where Caesar and Pompey had fought before.
But whilst Antony lay with his fleet near Actium, where now stands Nicopolis,
Caesar seized his opportunity and crossed the Ionian sea, securing himself at
a place in Epirus called the Ladle. ^13 And when those about Antony were much
disturbed, their land-forces being a good way off, "Indeed," said Cleopatra,
in mockery, "we may well be fright-off, "Indeed," said Cleopatra, in mockery,
"we may well be frightened if Caesar has got hold of the Ladle!"

[Footnote 13: Toryne is the name which has this meaning.]

     On the morrow, Antony, seeing the enemy sailing up, and fearing lest his
ships might be taken for want of the soldiers to go on board of them, armed
all the rowers, and made a show upon the decks of being in readiness to fight;
the oars were mounted as if waiting to be put in motion, and the vessels
themselves drawn up to face the enemy on either side of the channel of Actium,
as though they were properly manned, and ready for an engagement. And Caesar,
deceived by this stratagem, retired. He was also thought to have shown
considerable skill in cutting off the water from the enemy by some lines of
trenches and forts, water not being plentiful anywhere else, nor very good.
And again, his conduct to Domitius was generous, much against the will of
Cleopatra. For when he had made his escape in a little boat to Caesar, having
then a fever upon him, although Antony could not but resent it highly, yet he
sent after him his whole equipage, with his friends and servants; and
Domitius, as if he would give a testimony to the world how repentant he had
become on his desertion and treachery being thus manifest, died soon after.
Among the kings also, Amyntas and Deiotarus went over to Caesar. And the fleet
was so unfortunate in every thing that was undertaken, and so unready on every
occasion, that Antony was driven again to put his confidence in the
land-forces. Canidius, too, who commanded the legions, when he saw how things
stood, changed his opinion, and now was of advice that Cleopatra should be
sent back, and that, retiring into Thrace or Macedonia, the quarrel should be
decided in a land fight. For Dicomes, also, the king of the Getae, promised to
come and join him with a great army, and it would not be any kind of
disparagement to him to yield the sea to Caesar, who, in the Sicilian wars,
had such long practice in ship-fighting; on the contrary, it would be simply
ridiculous for Antony, who was by land the most experienced commander living,
to make no use of his well-disciplined and numerous infantry, scattering and
wasting his forces by parcelling them out in the ships. But for all this,
Cleopatra prevailed that a sea-fight should determine all, having already an
eye to flight, and ordering all her affairs, not so as to assist in gaining a
victory, but to escape with the greatest safety from the first commencement of
a defeat.

     There were two long walls, extending from the camp to the station of the
ships, between which Antony used to pass to and fro without suspecting any
danger. But Caesar, upon the suggestion of a servant that it would not be
difficult to surprise him, laid an ambush, which, rising up somewhat too
hastily, seized the man that came just before him, he himself escaping
narrowly by flight.

     When it was resolved to stand to a fight at sea, they set fire to all the
Egyptian ships except sixty; and of these the best and largest, from ten banks
down to three, he manned with twenty thousand full-armed men, and two thousand
archers. Here it is related that a foot captain, one that had fought often
under Antony, and had his body all mangled with wounds, exclaimed, "O, my
general, what have our wounds and swords done to displease you, that you
should give your confidence to rotten timbers? Let Egyptians and Phoenicians
contend at sea, give us the land, where we know well how to die upon the spot
or gain the victory." To which he answered nothing, but, by his look and
motion of his hand seeming to bid him be of good courage, passed forwards,
having already, it would seem, no very sure hopes, since when the masters
proposed leaving the sails behind them, he commanded they should be put
aboard, "For we must not," said he, "let one enemy escape."

     That day and the three following the sea was so rough they could not
engage. But on the fifth there was a calm, and they fought; Antony commanding
with Publicola the right, and Coelius the left squadron, Marcus Octavius and
Marcus Instelus the centre. Caesar gave the charge of the left to Agrippa,
commanding in person on the right. As for the land-forces, Canidius was
general for Antony, Taurus for Caesar; both armies remaining drawn up in order
along the shore. Antony in a small boat went from one ship to another,
encouraging his soldiers, and bidding them stand firm, and fight as steadily
on their large ships as if they were on land. The masters he ordered that they
should receive the enemy lying still as if they were at anchor, and maintain
the entrance of the port, which was a narrow and difficult passage. Of Caesar
they relate, that, leaving his tent and going round, while it was yet dark, to
visit the ships, he met a man driving an ass, and asked him his name. He
answered him that his own name was "Fortunate, and my ass," says he, "is
called Conqueror." ^14 And afterwards, when he disposed the beaks of the ships
in that place in token of his victory, the statue of this man and his ass in
bronze were placed amongst them. After examining the rest of his fleet, he
went in a boat to the right wing, and looked with much admiration at the enemy
lying perfectly still in the straits, in all appearance as if they had been at
anchor. For some considerable length of time he actually thought they were so,
and kept his own ships at rest, at a distance of about eight furlongs from
them. But about noon a breeze sprang up from the sea, and Antony's men, weary
of expecting the enemy so long, and trusting to their large tall vessels, as
if they had been invincible, began to advance the left squadron. Caesar was
overjoyed to see them move, and ordered his own right squadron to retire, that
he might entice them out to sea as far as he could, his design being to sail
round and round, and so with his light and well-manned galleys to attack these
huge vessels, which their size and their want of men made slow to move and
difficult to manage.

[Footnote 14: Eutychus the name of the man, and Nicon that of the ass.]

     When they engaged, there was no charging or striking of one ship by
another, because Antony's, by reason of their great bulk, were incapable of
the rapidity required to make the stroke effectual, and, on the other side,
Caesar's durst not charge head to head on Antony's, which were all armed with
solid masses and spikes of brass; nor did they like even to run in on their
sides, which were so strongly built with great squared pieces of timber,
fastened together with iron bolts, that their vessels' beaks would easily have
been shattered upon them. So that the engagement resembled a land fight, or,
to speak yet more properly, the attack and defence of a fortified place; for
there were always three or four vessels of Caesar's about one of Antony's,
pressing them with spears, javelins, poles, and several inventions of fire,
which they flung among them, Antony's men using catapults also, to pour down
missiles from wooden towers. Agrippa drawing out the squadron under his
command to outflank the enemy, Publicola was obliged to observe his motions,
and gradually to break off from the middle squadron, where some confusion and
alarm ensued, while Arruntius ^15 engaged them. But the fortune of the day was
still undecided, and the battle equal, when on a sudden Cleopatra's sixty
ships were seen hoisting sail and making out to sea in full flight, right
through the ships that were engaged. For they were placed behind the great
ships, which, in breaking through, they put into disorder. The enemy was
astonished to see them sailing off with a fair wind towards Peloponnesus. Here
it was that Antony showed to all the world that he was no longer actuated by
the thoughts and motives of a commander or a man, or indeed by his own
judgment at all, and what was once said as a jest, that the soul of a lover
lives in some one else's body, he proved to be a serious truth. For, as if he
had been born part of her, and must move with her wheresoever she went, as
soon as he saw her ship sailing away, he abandoned all that were fighting and
spending their lives for him, and put himself aboard a galley of five ranks of
oars, taking with him only Alexander of Syria and Scellias, to follow her that
had so well begun his ruin and would hereafter accomplish it.

[Footnote 15: Arruntius commanded in Caesar's centre.]

     She, perceiving him to follow, gave the signal to come aboard. So, as
soon as he came up with them, he was taken into the ship. But without seeing
her or letting himself be seen by her, he went forward by himself, and sat
alone, without a word, in the ship's prow, covering his face with his two
hands. In the meanwhile, some of Caesar's light Liburnian ships, that were in
pursuit, came in sight. But on Antony's commanding to face about, they all
gave back except Eurycles the Laconian, who pressed on, shaking a lance from
the deck, as if he meant to hurl it at him. Antony, standing at the prow,
demanded of him, "Who is this that pursues Antony?" "I am," said he,
"Eurycles, the son of Lachares, armed with Caesar's fortune to revenge my
father's death." Lachares had been condemned for a robbery, and beheaded by
Antony's orders. However, Eurycles did not attack Antony, but ran with his
full force upon the other admiral-galley (for there were two of them), and
with the blow turned her round, and took both her and another ship, in which
was a quantity of rich plate and furniture. So soon as Eurycles was gone,
Antony returned to his posture, and sate silent, and thus he remained for
three days, either in anger with Cleopatra, or wishing not to upbraid her, at
the end of which they touched at Taenarus. Here the women of their company
succeeded first in bringing them to speak, and afterwards to eat and sleep
together. And, by this time several of the ships of burden and some of his
friends began to come in to him from the rout, bringing news of his fleet's
being quite destroyed, but that the land-forces, they thought, still stood
firm. So that he sent messengers to Canidius to march the army with all speed
through Macedonia into Asia. And, designing himself to go from Taenarus into
Africa, he gave one of the merchant ships, laden with a large sum of money,
and vessels of silver and gold of great value, belonging to the royal
collections, to his friends, desiring them to share it amongst them, and
provide for their own safety. They refusing his kindness with tears in their
eyes, he comforted them with all the goodness and humanity imaginable,
entreating them to leave him, and wrote letters in their behalf to Theophilus,
his steward, at Corinth, that he would provide for their security, and keep
them concealed till such time as they could make their peace with Caesar. This
Theophilus was the father of Hipparchus, who had such interest with Antony,
who was the first of all his freedmen that went over to Caesar, and who
settled afterwards at Corinth. In this posture were affairs with Antony.

     But at Actium, his fleet, after a long resistance to Caesar, and
suffering the most damage from a heavy sea that set in right ahead, scarcely,
at four in the afternoon, gave up the contest, with the loss of not more than
five thousand men killed, but of three hundred ships taken, as Caesar himself
has recorded. Only few had known of Antony's flight; and those who were told
of it could not at first give any belief to so incredible a thing, as that a
general who had nineteen entire legions and twelve thousand horse upon the
seashore, could abandon all and fly away; and he, above all, who had so often
experienced both good and evil fortune, and had in a thousand wars and battles
been inured to changes. His soldiers, however, would not give up their desires
and expectations, still fancying he would appear from some part or other, and
showed such a generous fidelity to his service, that, when they were
thoroughly assured that he was fled in earnest, they kept themselves in a body
seven days, making no account of the messages that Caesar sent to them. But at
last, seeing that Canidius himself, who commanded them, was fled from the camp
by night, and that all their officers had quite abandoned them, they gave way,
and made their submission to the conqueror. After this, Caesar set sail for
Athens, where he made a settlement with Greece, and distributed what remained
of the provision of corn that Antony had made for his army among the cities,
which were in a miserable condition, despoiled of their money, their slaves,
their horses, and beasts of service. My great grandfather Nicarchus used to
relate, that the whole body of the people of our city were put in requisition
to carry each one a certain measure of corn upon their shoulders to the
sea-side near Anticyra, men standing by to quicken them with the lash. They
had made one journey of the kind, but when they had just measured out the corn
and were putting it on their backs for a second, news came of Antony's defeat,
and so saved Chaeronea, for all Antony's purveyors and soldiers fled upon the
news, and left them to divide the corn among themselves.

     When Antony came into Africa, he sent on Cleopatra from Paraetonium into
Egypt, and staid himself in the most entire solitude that he could desire,
roaming and wandering about with only two friends, one a Greek, Aristocrates,
a rhetorician, and the other a Roman, Lucilius, of whom we have elsewhere
spoken, how, at Philippi, to give Brutus time to escape, he suffered himself
to be taken by the pursuers, pretending he was Brutus. Antony gave him his
life, and on this account he remained true and faithful to him to the last.

     But when also the officer who commanded for him in Africa, to whose care
he had committed all his forces there, took them over to Caesar, he resolved
to kill himself, but was hindered by his friends. And coming to Alexandria, he
found Cleopatra busied in a most bold and wonderful enterprise. Over the small
space of land which divides the Red Sea from the sea near Egypt, which may be
considered also the boundary between Asia and Africa, and in the narrowest
place is not much above three hundred furlongs across, over this neck of land
Cleopatra had formed a project of dragging her fleet, and setting it afloat in
the Arabian Gulf, thus with her soldiers and her treasure to secure herself a
home on the other side, where she might live in peace, far away from war and
slavery. But the first galleys which were carried over being burnt by the
Arabians of Petra, and Antony now knowing but that the army before Actium
still held together, she desisted from her enterprise, and gave orders for the
fortifying all the approaches to Egypt. But Antony, leaving the city and the
conversation of his friends, built him a dwelling-lace in the water, near
Pharos, upon a little mole which he cast up in the sea, and there, secluding
himself from the company of mankind, said he desired nothing but to live the
life of Timon; as, indeed, his case was the same, and the ingratitude and
injuries which he suffered from those he had esteemed his friends, made him
hate and mistrust all mankind.

     This Timon was a citizen of Athens, and lived much about the
Peloponnesian war, as may be seen by the comedies of Aristophanes and Plato,
in which he is ridiculed as the hater and enemy of mankind. He avoided and
repelled the approaches of every one, but embraced with kisses and the
greatest show of affection Alcibiades, then in his hot youth. And when
Apemantus was astonished, and demanded the reason, he replied that he knew
this young man would one day do infinite mischief to the Athenians. He never
admitted any one into his company, except at times this Apemantus, who was of
the same sort of temper, and was an imitator of his way of life. At the
celebration of the festival of flagons, ^16 these two kept the feast together,
and Apemantus saying to him, "What a pleasant party, Timon!" "It would be," he
answered, "if you were away." One day he got up in full assembly on the
speaker's place, and when there was a dead silence and great wonder at so
unusual a sight, he said, "Ye men of Athens, I have a little plot of ground,
and in it grows a fig-tree, on which many citizens have been pleased to hang
themselves; and now, having resolved to build in that place, I wished to
announce it publicly, that any of you who may be desirous may go and hang
yourselves before I cut it down." He died and was buried at Halae, near the
sea, where it so happened that, after his burial, a land-slip took place on
the point of the shore, and the sea, flowing in, surrounded his tomb, and made
it inaccessible to the foot of man. It bore this inscription: -

[Footnote 16: "The Flagons," or Choes, was the second day of the Anthesterian
feast of Bacchus, and was observed by the Anthenians as a special day of
conviviality, when they met in parties, and drank together.]

     "Here am I laid, my life is misery done.
     Ask not my name, I curse you every one."

     And this epitaph was made by himself while yet alive; that which is more
generally known is by Callimachus: -

     "Timon, the misanthrope, am I below.
     Go, and revile me, traveller, only go."

     Thus much of Timon, of whom much more might be said. Canidius now came,
bringing word in person of the loss of the army before Actium. Then he
received news that Herod of Judaea was gone over to Caesar with some legions
and cohorts, and that the other kings and princes were in like manner
deserting him, and that, out of Egypt, nothing stood by him. All this,
however, seemed not to disturb him, but as if he were glad to put away all
hope, that with it he might be rid of care, and leaving his habitation by the
sea, which he called the Timoneum, he was received by Cleopatra in the palace,
and set the whole city in to a course of feasting, drinking, and presents. The
son of Caesar and Cleopatra was registered among the youths, and Antyllus, his
own son by Fulvia, received the gown without the purple border, given to those
that are come of age; in honor of which the citizens of Alexandria did nothing
but feast and revel for many days. They themselves broke up the Order of the
Inimitable Livers, and constituted another in its place, not inferior in
splendor, luxury, and sumptuosity, calling it that of the Diers together. ^17
For all those that said they would die with Antony and Cleopatra gave in their
names, for the present passing their time in all manner of pleasures, and a
regular succession of banquets. But Cleopatra was busied in making a
collection of all varieties of poisonous drugs, and, in order to see which of
them were the least painful in the operation, she had them tried upon
prisoners condemned to die. But, finding that the quick poisons always worked
with sharp pains, and that the less painful were slow, she next tried venomous
animals, and watched with her own eyes whilst they were applied, one creature
to the body of another. This was her daily practice, and she pretty well
satisfied herself that nothing was comparable to the bite of the asp, which,
without convulsion or groaning, brought on a heavy drowsiness and lethargy,
with a gentle sweat on the face, the senses being stupefied by degrees; the
patient, in appearance, being sensible of no pain, but rather troubled to be
disturbed or awakened, like those that are in a profound natural sleep.

[Footnote 17: It was a name well known on the stage. There were two, if not
three, comedies, called the Synapothneskontes, and one of them had been
translated into Latin by Plautus, as the Commorientes.]

     At the same time, they sent ambassadors to Caesar into Asia, Cleopatra
asking for the kingdom of Egypt for her children, and Antony, that he might
have leave to live as a private man in Egypt, or, if that were thought too
much, that he might retire to Athens. In lack of friends, so many having
deserted, and others not being trusted, Euphronius, his son's tutor, was sent
on this embassy. For Alexas of Laodicea, who, by the recommendation of
Timagenes, became acquainted with Antony at Rome, and had been more powerful
with him than any Greek, and was, of all the instruments which Cleopatra made
use of to persuade Antony, the most violent, and the chief subverted of any
good thoughts that, from time to time, might rise in his mind in Octavia's
favor, had been sent before to dissuade Herod from desertion; but, betraying
his master, stayed with him, and, confiding in Herod's interest, had the
boldness to come into Caesar's presence. Herod, however, was not able to help
him, for he was immediately put in chains, and sent into his own country,
where, by Caesar's order, he was put to death. This reward of his treason
Alexas received while Antony was yet alive.

     Caesar would not listen to any proposals for Antony, but he made answer
to Cleopatra, that there was no reasonable favor which she might not expect,
if she put Antony to death, or expelled him from Egypt. He sent back with the
ambassadors his own freedman Thyrsus, a man of understanding, and not at all
ill-qualified for conveying the messages of a youthful general to a woman so
proud of her charms and possessed with opinion of the power of her beauty. But
by the long audiences he received from her, and the special honors which she
paid him, Antony's jealousy began to be awakened; he had him seized, whipped,
and sent back; writing Caesar word that the man's busy, impertinent ways had
provoked him; in his circumstances he could not be expected to be very
patient: "But if it offend you," he added, "you have got my freedman,
Hipparchus, with you; hang him up and scourge him to make us even," But
Cleopatra, after this, to clear herself, and to allay his jealousies, paid him
all the attentions imaginable. When her own birthday came, she kept it as was
suitable to their fallen fortunes; but his was observed with the utmost
prodigality of splendor and magnificence, so that many of the guests sate down
in want, and went home wealthy men. Meantime, continual letters came to Caesar
from Agrippa, telling him his presence was extremely required at Rome.

     And so the war was deferred for a season. But, the winter being over, he
began his march; he himself by Synia, and his captains through Africa.
Pelusium being taken, there went a report as if it had been delivered up to
Caesar by Selecus, not without the consent of Cleopatra; but she, to justify
herself, gave up into Antony's hands the wife and children of Seleucus to be
put to death. She had caused to be built, joining to the temple of Isis,
several tombs and monuments of wonderful height, and very remarkable for the
workmanship; thither she removed her treasure, her gold, silver, emeralds,
pearls, ebony, ivory, cinnamon, and, after all, a great quantity of torchwood
and tow. Upon which Caesar began to fear lest she should, in a desperate fit,
set all these riches on fire; and, therefore, while he was marching towards
the city with his army, he omitted no occasion of giving her new assurances of
his good intentions. He took up his position in the Hippodrome, where Antony
made a fierce sally upon him, routed his horse, and beat them back into their
trenches, and so returned with great satisfaction to the palace, where,
meeting Cleopatra, armed as he was, he kissed her, and commended to her favor
one of his men, who had most signalized himself in the fight, to whom she made
a present of a breastplate and helmet of gold; which he having received, went
that very night and deserted to Caesar.

     After this, Antony sent a new challenge to Caesar, to fight him hand to
hand; who made him answer that he might find several other ways to end his
life; and he, considering with himself that he could not die more honorably
than in battle, resolved to make an effort both by land and sea. At supper, it
is said, he bade his servants help him freely, and pour him out wine
plentifully, since to-morrow, perhaps, they should not do the same, but be
servants to a new master, whilst he should lie on the ground, a dead corpse,
and nothing, His friends that were about him wept to hear him talk so; which
he perceiving, told them he would not lead them to a battle in which he
expected rather an honorable death than either safety or victory. That night,
it is related, about the middle of it, when the whole city was in a deep
silence and general sadness, expecting the event of the next day, on a sudden
was heard the sound of all sorts of instruments, and voices singing in tune,
and the cry of a crowd of people shouting and dancing, like a troop of
bacchanals on its way. This tumultuous procession seemed to take its course
right through the middle of the city to the gate nearest the enemy; here it
became loudest, and suddenly passed out. People who reflected considered this
to signify that Bacchus, the god whom Antony had always made it his study to
copy and imitate, had now forsaken him.