THE LIFE AND TIMES OF MARC ANTHONY

CHAPTER XXI

Octavian's Invasion of Egypt and Death of Antony.

30 BC

I think it must have been m the month of March, 30 BC, that Antony came back to the palace. During the whole winter he had refused to concern himself with public affairs; but now he found that Cleopatra had busily engaged herself in the attempt to renew her friendships with foreign kings. The Orient was her liveliest hope, and it seems that, immediately on her return from Actium, she had sent her ambassadors to Media to ask for help, and that an answer had lately been received. It will be remembered that the ex-king Artavasdes of Armenia had been a prisoner in Alexandria since 34 BC; and it appears that the Median monarch, fearing that Octavian would restore this sovereign to his throne, had asked Cleopatra to put him to death as an earnest of her good will. This she had done, and had sent the head of the unfortunate Artavasdes to Media. At the same time it seems probable that she had arranged that her and Antony’s son, Alexander Helios, now nearly ten years of age, with his child-wife, the Median princess, Iotapa, should be sent presently to that country, so that they should be out of danger’s way; but for the time being these two children remained at the palace.

As to Caesarion, she had another scheme. She proposed to send him to Berenice, on the Red Sea coast, so that he might sail for India with the Egyptian merchants who each summer made the long journey to that country: she saw no other way of saving the boy’s life. She did not suppose that any harm would come to her other two children, Cleopara Selene, the twin-sister of Alexander, an the little Ptolemy who was but in his sixth year, and she had taken no steps for their safety, Antyllus, Antony’s son by Fulvia, was also in the palace; but in his case, also, she had not made any plans: he would have to take his chance.

But when Antony abandoned his hermit’s life, his mood was reckless and defiant, and he made short work of Cleopatra’s arrangements, which, indeed, had been to a great extent upset by the destruction of her ships by the Arabs. He appears to have told her that the only thing to do was to let Octavian understand that they would defend Egypt against him; and then, when the time came, they could offer to surrender on terms. If those terms were rejected, they ought, he said, to fight him to the death, here in Alexandria, and, in the last extreme, die by their own hand. He found no attraction in the thought of a perilous flight into far-off Oriental lands; and the only tolerable alternative to suicide, so far as he was concerned at any rate, was that of being allowed to retire into unmolested private life—a fate which had proved not at all unpleasant to his late colleague in the Triumvirate, Lepidus, who, after his defeat by Octavian, was now enjoying a comfortable rustication at Circeii (Circello), on the coast not far south of Rome. Either that or a last fight and suicide.

Orders were therefore given to put Alexandria into a state of defence, and to strengthen the eastern and western frontiers of Egypt; but in view of the possibility of making terms with Octavian, Antony advised his wife to hand over to her son, Caesarion, a fuller share of the sovereignty of the country, so that she herself might be free to retire into private life. Now it so happened that Caesarion’s seventeenth birthday, which, according to Egyptian custom, was his coming of age, was soon to occur; and Antony therefore suggested that this event should be celebrated with grand festivities and that instead of the boy being sent away into hiding, he should be displayed to the Egyptians as their full-grown King. The fifteenth birthday of Antyllus, his son by Fulvia, would fall at about the same time; and as this was the date at which a Roman youth assumed the toga virilis he proposed that the two events should be celebrated together.

He then called to him his former friends in Alexandria who had been members of his Amimetobioi or “Society of Inimitable Livers”, and invited them to form with him another club, the Synapothanoumei, or Society of Die-togethers”, the idea being that they should entertain one another in a round of wild parties, thus putting into operation the old formula “Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die”. The proposal was promptly taken up, and soon Antony had flung himself headlong into such dissipations as even he had not before indulged in. He must have been drunk nearly every night, but it is a question whether Cleopatra accompanied him into these smiling and reeling realms of oblivion. One still hoped that she would be able to make her peace with Octavian, and she desired to keep her wits about her for this purpose. At the same time, however, she experimented with various poisons, trying their effect upon animals and condemned criminals; and it is evident that she was preparing to die, though it is not clear in what manner this dark cloud which hung over her days affected her ability to throw herself into these macabre festivities.

Certainly her relations with her husband were not happy, save in those brief periods when their old love, which never died, broke out from the chaos of conflicting plans and interests to shine for a while like the sun on a stormy day. She was now in her fortieth year, and Antony’s fifty-third birthday was approaching: the resilience of youth had left them both, and, in the case of Antony, the fires of passion had perhaps given place to that kind of love which, in happier circumstances, would have carried their conjugal life through quarrels and flaring disputes to the comparative calm of a pleasant, if somewhat exhausted, autumnal devotion. They had been fated always to fight and to forgive, to hate and to love; and their relationship was still tumultuous, though now there was this difference, that, whereas before the catastrophe of Actium they were fighting each other chiefly over the means of obtaining world-dominion, they were today tragically bickering as to how best to ring down the curtain on the drama of their lives.

The birthday celebrations in honor of Caesarion and Antyllus kept the whole city in a state of festal uproar for many days; and Antony was once more hailed as the jovial and bibulous Dionysus, the lord of good-will, enthroned above the carnival, or trundled through the streets in his Bacchic chariot to the sound of clashing cymbals. His winter’s quiescence in his sea-girt hermitage was forgotten, or, maybe, was regarded, almost religiously, as a period of hibernal retirement ended by the return of spring; and few of the Alexandrians outside the circle of the court seem to have realized that these renewed antics were the dance of Death. But when the fun was over his troubles with Cleopatra broke out afresh, and during May and June the domestic situation was very strained.

King Herod, before making his peace with Octavian, had sent a confidential message to Antony strongly advising to kill Cleopatra in order to save his own skin; but Antony rejected this suggestion with abhorrence, and impulsively sent a letter to Octavian offering, magnificently, to kill himself if by this sacrifice the Queen’s life would be spared. There was a certain Roman senator, Publius Turullius, then seeking sanctuary in Alexandria, who had been one of the assassins of Caesar, and was, in fact, the last of the Dictator’s murderers still alive; and with a second letter Antony now sent the unfortunate man to Octavian for trial.

It has generally been assumed that this action was a craven attempt to curry favor; but actually Antony, who had abandoned all claim to authority outside Egypt and was seriously offering to commit suicide, seems only to have wished to show that he no longer regarded himself or his stepson, Caesarion, as Caesar’s representative and avenger—the right was now conceded to Octavian. The latter put the assassin to death, but made no reply to Antony’s accompanying letter, in which he had stated that he was willing to go into retirement in Egypt or Athens.

Meanwhile Cleopatra had notified Octavian that she had handed over her sovereign authority to a great extent to her son, and was likewise prepared to retire into private life; and without telling Antony, she had sent her crown and scepter to Octavian as a token of submission. To this Octavian replied in secret to her, saying “that there was no reasonable favor which she might not expect if she would put Antony to death”; but just as Antony had spurned the suggestion that he should murder her, so now she refused to entertain the thought of killing him. Nevertheless, rumors of these secret proposals got about, and, as a consequence, husband and wife regarded one another with cruel suspicion; and, indeed, no more pitiable situation can be imagined than this, that these two harassed lovers found themselves forced into mutual mistrust when in their hearts they each knew that the other was incapable of such treachery.

Presently Octavian sent a certain freedman of his, named Thyrus, to Alexandria to discuss terms with the Queen  and this man, ignoring Antony, held long and private conversations with Cleopatra, telling her that his master was really very sympathetically disposed towards her as the lady whom his uncle and adoptive father, Caesar, had loved, and hinting that he, Octavian, had been much attracted to her as a youth in Rome, when she was there with the Dictator, and might again come under the spell of her charms. Antony, of course, was infuriated by these lengthy interviews from which he was debarred, and, suddenly losing his temper, pounced upon Thyrus as he was leaving the Queen’s room, and gave him a horse-whipping, thereafter sending him back, black and blue, to Octavian with a droll message of apology for the beating. “The man’s busy impertinent ways provoked me”, he wrote, “and in my circumstances I cannot be expected to be very patient. However, if my action offends you, you have got my freedman, Hipparchus, with you: hang him up and beat him to make us quits”.

Cleopatra, being a woman, was stirred and delighted by her husband’s violent action, which must have revealed again to her, as it does to us, that unconquerable spontaneity of thought and deed, that devil-may-care humor, and that audacious courage which had once made him the hero of so many hearts; and thereafter their troubled relationship passed into a phase of mutual attachment wherein they appear to have behaved once more like young lovers.

His fifty-third birthday was now due; and Cleopatra “observed it with the utmost prodigality of splendor and mag­nificence”, making him feel again that he was indeed her chosen consort and the sharer of her destiny. Much of her former pride in him was aroused, moreover, by the news which now came to them of a very curious enterprise which was being undertaken on his behalf.

At Cyzicus (Kyzik) in Asia Minor, on the Sea of Marmara, there was a great school of gladiators who, at the time of the battle of Actium, were practicing for the triumphal games which they expected to be held to celebrate Antony’s anticipated victory over Octavian; but when, in September, they heard of their patrons flight to Egypt, they were at first dumbfounded, but at length decided to set out on the long march to Alexandria, to place themselves at Antony’s disposal, their love for him, as a leader after their own hearts, being steadfast even in the face of his astonishing behavior. They were several thousand strong, but when, in mid­winter, they reached Galatia their progress was obstructed by King Amyntas who had been restored to his kingdom by Octavian, and who now fought them in numerous battles. At last, however, they burst their way through that country, and so came into Cilicia, where, again, they were obliged to fight their way towards the east.

In the spring they reached Syria, whence they sent messengers to Antony begging him to come to them, and to let them be his bodyguard; but Octavian’s new Syrian governor intercepted the messengers, and it was, seemingly, not until the summer that Antony heard of their devoted offer. He could get no communication through to them, however, and in the end, thinking he had perished, they abandoned their march and wearily made their peace with Octavian, who gave them lands at Daphne, near Antioch, on which to settle; and it may be added that some time later their new patron, with his habitual cynicism, broke his pact with them, and either dispersed or killed them all. Their steadfast loyalty to Antony, however, was a proof of the high esteem in which he was held by men of brawn; and its effect was not lost upon Cleopatra. Antony might be in eclipse, but his stature was still that of a mighty warrior, and he was still the hero of a hundred tales.

At about the end of June news suddenly arrived that the enemy approaching from Cyrene and the west had seized the frontier fortress of Paraetonium; and thereupon Antony put a sudden end to the already declining frivolities of the palace and threw himself whole-heartedly into what he knew to be the last phase of the war. Embarking such troops as he could spare upon a squadron of Egyptian battleships, he sailed for the frontier and landed his men in the harbor of Paraetonium, thence marching through the little town up to the mud-brick fort which was held by the enemy. He had hoped that the Roman legionaries behind its walls, who were all old comrades of his, would listen to him if he spoke to them; and he therefore went forward alone, and, though exposed to their arrows, shouted out his greeting to them. The commanding-officer, however, gave orders to the trumpeters to sound a continuous fanfare, and thus his words went unheard.

Disappointed in this stratagem, he then led an assault upon the walls, but he was beaten back to his ships after a stiff fight, and many of these were burnt or captured. Escaping with the remainder he sailed again for Alexandria; but here he was received by the news that Pelusium, the powerful fortress guarding the eastern Egyptian frontier, had fallen to the advancing army commanded by Octavian. Soon a report came to his ears that this place had been surrendered at Cleopatra’s orders, and that she was playing into Octavian’s hands by secret arrangement. Antony could hardly believe it, but he furiously accused her of treachery, at which the distracted woman, who, apparently, was innocent of this baseness, ordered the arrest of the wife and children of the commander of the fortress, and handed them over to her husband to wreak his vengeance upon them if he so decided. He did not harm them, of course, and the domestic incident closed with yet another passionate reconciliation.

During July Octavian advanced to the outskirts of Alexandria; and at length, in the last days of that month sacred to the memory of Caesar, he pitched his camp outside the eastern walls of the capital. Antony at once led out a desperate sortie, drove in Octavian's advance-guard, and pursued them back to their main entrenchments. He was so elated by this little victory that, hastening back to the palace, he ran to Cleopatra, dressed as he was in his military armor, took her m his arms, and kissed her. He particularly recommended to her a certain officer who had distinguished himself in the fight, whereupon she presented the man with a helmet and breastplate of gold; but that very night the rewarded hero, fearing to lose tomorrow what he had gained today, deserted to the enemy.

Next morning Antony caused his archers to shoot into Octavian’s camp a number of arrows to which letters were attached, offering a large sum of money to all those who would come over to his side; but when these documents had failed to elicit any response, he made up his mind to risk all in a last battle by water and land. It is said that, in the event of defeat, he intended now to sail for Spain with Cleopatra, if there yet remained to him a ship and an open passageway out to sea; but it is more probable that both he and she exchanged a promise to die together, although, in the case of the Queen this tragic resolve must have been wrung from her by a sense of loyalty rather than by the conviction that there would then be no other escape. Octavian’s lying messages to her had even given her hope that her throne would not be taken from her.

There was, of course, very little chance of victory in battle against Octavian, and it was now arranged that Caesarion should slip out of the city and make his way to Upper Egypt, thence to sail for India if this throne were taken from him, or, alternatively, to return to Alexandria if Octavian should confirm to him the Egyptian sovereignty. The west side of the city, whence there was a desert highroad to the south, was still free of the enemy, as also was the south side, where Lake Mareotis provided a water­way to the Nile; and by one of these routes Caesar’s only son, so lately heir to the potential empire of the world, was packed off by night. It was too late now, however, to send Alexander Helios to Media and he and Antyilus remained with the other children in the palace.

On the following day, the last of the month of July, Antony sent a challenge to Octavian to fight a duel with him and thus to settle their quarrel without causing the loss of so many lives; but Octavian replied coldly that Antony might find many other ways of ending his life. Thereupon Antony decided to give battle on the following morning. He had at his disposal, it would seem, the Roman force which had been left in Alexandria while he and Cleopatra were in Greece; and there were also the Macedonian household-troops, the native Egyptian army, and certain mercenaries. There was, too, a small Egyptian and Roman fleet; and Antony proposed to divide his men, placing some upon the ships so that they could sail along the coast to disembark and attack Octavian in the rear, while the main force would make a sortie from the city and fall upon the enemy’s front. The invading army was not overwhelmingly large, and there was just a possibility that it would be defeated, while there was always the chance that the uncanny Octavian, whose menacing personality seemed to have spread itself over the whole earth, might be ignominiously killed in the fight and his power dissipated like a dream.

The prospects, however, were hardly cheerful, and that night at supper with the “Die-Togethers” Antony drank heavily, telling the servants to fill his cup liberally, since on the following day they might have a new master, while he himself might be lying dead upon the ground. “Tomorrow I may be a corpse, a nothing” he said; and, the wine having loosened his tongue, he talked to his friends in a vein of such tragic and eloquent sorrow that soon nearly the whole company was in tears. At this, however, he pulled himself together, and remarked that they need not grieve, since they might be sure that he would not be about to lead his men into battle at all if he were hoping for nothing more than an honorable death.

Unfortunately, history makes no mention of Cleopatra at this last banquet, and we only read that “he pitied her more than himself” - pregnant words, however, which indicate that his attitude towards her was now one of tender solicitude. He could not be sure that she would wish to die with him if the battle were to go against them, or even to escape with him if so events should shape themselves. He must have been haunted by the dread lest her woman’s courage should fail her, and lest she should make terms with Octavian, leaving him to end his life in solitude; and it may be supposed that his last hours with her were clouded by the suspicion that her endearments were false. Yet he could not blame her if in secret she were clinging to the hope of life; and he must have known that whereas he could say of her that she had been the ruin of his career, she could reply that he had proved himself a broken reed. Their high hopes, their vaunting ambitions, their career of splendor, had been brought to this sorry pass by their personal quarrels and ungovernable tempers: the fault was mutual, and recriminations were useless.

At about midnight, when the whole city was hushed and silent, and the sea wind had dropped, leaving the menaced capital breathless in the summer heat, there came to the palace the far-off sound of pipes and cymbals, of voices singing a Bacchanalian chant, and of dancing feet, moving along the Street of Canopus towards the gate which overlooked the enemy’s camp. Several persons heard the wild music, and listened m awe as at length it swelled out loudly from the direction of this gate, and then faded into the distance, as though the ghostly procession had passed out of the city. It may be that the noise came from some quarter where a drunken throng of soldiers or townspeople was passing the anxious night with music and song; but those who listened in the palace deemed it to be the unearthly clamor of the departure of Dionysus out of Antony’s life. The god whose incarnation he had been had gone from him, they said, and had betaken himself to Octavian.

At sunrise next morning, August 1st, BC 30, Antony led his men out to do battle with the enemy; and, standing on me high ground outside the city, he watched his fleet move out from the harbor to attack Octavian’s ships and to disembark the forces which were to menace the enemy’s rear. But as he watched, he saw the sailors of each fleet salute those of the other and come to rest side by side, evidently by a secret arrangement made between them. While he was still staring in dismay at this spectacle, his cavalry suddenly galloped forward before his eyes, and was received into Octavian’s lines. The enemy then advanced upon him, whereat his remaining troops fled back into the city, carrying him with them in their confused retreat, cursing them, as he went, for their refusal to obey his orders, and shouting at them his accusations of treachery. It was clear that the collapse was the result of a prearrangement with the enemy, and Antony made his way back to the palace, crying out that Cleopatra had betrayed him, and calling her every foul name he could lay his tongue to.

As he stormed into the building, she ran for her life to her unfinished mausoleum which stood on the far side of a courtyard, overlooking the sea. It was a stone structure of two storeys, there being, I suppose, a pillared hall on the ground level, wherein was her sarcophagus, and on the upper floor a series of rooms now furnished, perhaps, for the habitation of the superintendent of the builders whose work was not yet completed. Her two ladies, Iras and Charmion, and one eunuch, accompanied her; and, dashing into the mausoleum, they closed and bolted the great doors and heaped against them whatever heavy objects they could lay their hands on, thereafter mounting the stairs to the upper floor, from the windows of which they could observe something of what was going on in the courtyard, and palace.

It seems probable that the Queen was not responsible for the desertions, but she knew quite well that Antony would hardly be persuaded to think her innocent, and her flight was from his wrath, not from the enemy. Looking out of the window, one of her ladies called hysterically down to some servant or soldier below, telling him to go to Antony and to say that the Queen was about to kill herself; but the man in his excitement misunderstood the message, I suppose, for the news that she was dead was presently brought to Antony as, with two or three faithful officers, he paced about, sword in hand, waiting distractedly for events to shape themselves. At this He cried out: “Well, then, why wait longer? Fate has taken away the only thing for which I could say I still wanted to live”; and with these words he rushed to his own room, tearing off his armor as he went, and calling to his personal servant, Eros, to come to him.

He was heard then to speak aloud to Cleopatra, whose spirit he thought to be hovering near to him. “I am not unhappy to have lost you for a moment, Cleopatra my beloved” he said, “for I shall soon be with you; but what so shames me is that a famous soldier should be found to have had slower courage than a woman”. He then turned to Eros and, handing him his sword, ordered him to be his executioner; but the man snatched the weapon and stabbed himself to the heart with it, falling dead at his feet. “Well done, Eros!” Antony exclaimed, looking down at him in admiration, and picking up the dripping sword. “You have shown your master how to do what you had not the heart to do yourself”. Thereupon he plunged the blade into his own body, and fell back upon his bed, where he fainted away.

The wound, however, was not immediately mortal, and presently coming to his senses he entreated those who had gathered around him to put him out of his pain; but at this they all fled from the room leaving him groaning and struggling. Some of them ran to the mausoleum and called up to Cleopatra that Antony had stabbed himself but was still alive, and thereat, flinging up her arms and tearing her hair, she screamed to them to bring him to her. They hastened back, therefore, and told him that the Queen was not dead, but that she was calling for him; whereupon he immediately struggled to his feet, but falling back, gave orders to them to carry him to her, although every movement was agony to him.

In their arms they brought him in the great heat of this summer's morning to the door of the mausoleum, but this could not be opened, for the bolts had been shot too deep to be moved; and he was therefore laid upon the ground beneath the window of the upper room so that Cleopatra might speak to him. The mausoleum, however, as has been said, was still unfinished and as some ropes were hanging down from the roof where the builders had been working, it was suggested by somebody that he should be placed upon a stretcher and hauled up to the window. A few minutes later the Queen and her three attendants were frantically tugging and pulling at these ropes, while the dying man, lying half-conscious upon the lurching and bumping stretcher, scorched by die sun, tormented by the flies, and agonized by every jolt, ascended inch by inch towards them.

As he came near to the window he regained full consciousness, and, holding out his red-stained hands towards his wife, tried to raise himself up. Somehow, at last, they managed to drag him through the window and to lay him upon a couch, all covered with blood and dripping with sweat as he was, and writhing in agony. Cleopatra then flung her arms about him in a frenzy of grief, calling him her beloved husband, her lord, and her emperor; and it is said that in that last frightful reunion all their misfortunes, all their bitter misunderstandings, were forgotten: for these short minutes of life which remained to him only their deathless love was remembered, and he was at peace at last in the knowledge that they two, in spite of the cleavages of their many quarrels, were indeed one flesh. She brought a cup of wine, presently, for him to drink; and when he had drunk he gasped out some words of advice to her, telling her not to trust Octavian, but saying that he thought she had a chance to save her life.

“You must not pity me in this last turn of Fate” he whispered, as her hands mercilessly beat her breast and tore her hair, and she was shaken by the convulsions of her weeping. “You should rather be happy in the remembrance of our love and in the recollection that of all men I was once the most famous and the most powerful, and, now, at the end, have fallen not dishonorably, a Roman by a Roman vanquished”. A moment later he breathed his last.

The remainder of the pitiful tale may be told briefly. Octavian’s officers quickly arrived, and, climbing into the mausoleum through that same window, captured the Queen as she was about to stab herself with her dagger. Octavian presently entered the city, pardoned the inhabitants, and took possession of the palace; but he kept Cleopatra a close prisoner in the mausoleum, where for some days after she had attended, under a guard, her husband’s burial, she lay in a high fever brought on in part by the inflammation of her breasts caused by the blows she had rained upon herself in the paroxysms of her grief. He was very anxious to save her life so that he might exhibit her in his Triumph, and he fortified her with promises of leniency; but at last it became clear to her that his intentions were neither kindly nor merciful, and thereupon she resolved to die.

She asked permission, therefore, to be allowed to visit the tomb where Antony was buried; and this being granted, she went there on August 29th with her ladies, and, it would seem, with her private physician, Olympus, upon whose diary Plutarch has drawn in his account of her last days. “O, clearest Antony”, she said, when, in passionate tears, she had kissed his gravestone, “it is not long since with these hands I buried you; yet now I pay these last duties to you with a guard upon me, for fear that my natural griefs and sorrows should impair my servile body and make it less fit to be exhibited in their Triumph over me. Expect no further offering or libations from me, Antony: these are the last honors that Cleopatra will be able to pay to your memory, for she is to be hurried far away from you. Nothing could part us while we lived, but death seems to threaten to divide us. You, a Roman born, have found a grave in Egypt. I, an Egyptian born, am to seek that favor, and none but that, in your country. But if the gods below, with whom you now are dwelling, can or will do anything for me, since those above have betrayed us, do not allow your living wife to be abandoned; let me not be led in this Triumph to your shame; but hide me, hide me; bury me here with you. For amongst all my bitter misfortunes, nothing has been so terrible as this brief time that I have lived without you”.

That night she killed herself. 

Octavian had no mercy either upon Caesarion, whom he quickly caught, or upon Antyllus: both youths were put to death. The other children were spared, however, and eventually the little Cleopatra Selene was married by him to King Juba of Numidia and Mauretania, by whom she had a daughter, who married Felix, the governor of Judea in the reign of Nero—a personage who figures in the Biblical account of the life of St. Paul. Antony’s other children in Rome were brought up by the good Octavia, who lived on until BC 11. His son Julus rose to high favor, but was executed in BC 2 for his adultery with Octavian’s daughter, Julia. Antony’s daughter, Antonia the Elder, was married to Domitius Ahenobarbus, the son of that general of the same name who deserted Antony before Actium; and she became the grandmother both of the Empress Messalina and of the Emperor Nero. His other daughter Antonia, the Younger, married Drusus, the son of Octavian’s wife Livia, and was the mother of the Emperor Claudius and his brother Germanicus who was the father of the Emperor Caligula and of the Empress Agrippina, mother of Nero. Thus Antony’s aspirations toward a throne were realized in his descendants; and we see that he was fully justified in deeming the Roman Empire, in the last years of his life, ripe for monarchy. This throne was established by Octavian, who raised the title of Imperator or Emperor, to sovereign standing, and reigned under the name of Caesar Augustus until AD 14, when he died, full of years and honors, having successfully lived down the many disgraces of his youth.

Egypt, it may be added, became the personal estate of Octavian and, after him, of each succeeding Roman Emperor, who was in every case crowned by proxy as King or Pharaoh of that country.

Throughout the empire Antony’s statues were everywhere overthrown, and the inscriptions bearing his name were destroyed. His birthday was marked in the calendar as a day of ill-omen, and it was decreed that no member of his family henceforth should bear the name of Marcus. His memory was grossly maligned by contemporary writers, but even so we find in the words of Plutarch and other authors a little-concealed admiration for him: it is as though they were conscious that had he not been upset by a lovers’ quarrel at the time of the battle of Actium, he would in all probability have become the sole sovereign lord of the earth.