U. C. 718.

ed him, however, in the moment of danger; his baggage was captured; an army of 10,000 men, which he had left behind to cover it, was totally cut to pieces; the Parthians kept him closely blockaded, and cut off all his supplies. Praaspa, which he was laying siege to, was situated in the mountains, near which is the site of the present capital town of Tehran. Even Antony's confidence was dashed by the disheartening incidents of a siege in the elevated and chilly mountain ranges of these regions. Finding himself in danger, with his whole army, of perishing as ignominiously as Crassus had done before him, he finally raised the siege, and directed his march through the higher parts of Armenia, a land which Dio Cassius terms with justice one of perpetual ice. During this march, his army was continually on the point of disbanding; and had not the Parthians slaughtered all deserters ostentatiously in the sight of the Roman ranks, whole troops would have gone over en masse to the enemy. Octavius, in the mean time, was collecting an immense force; which was the more to be depended upon, as he either disbanded, or settled on lands, or put to the sword, mutinous spirits. He found occupation for the rest in regions inhabited by the most formidable enemies of the Roman name, in the mountains of Spain, in Gaul, in Pannonia, and Dalmatia, while Antony was engaged in a fresh enterprize on the Euphrates against his ex-ally the king of Armenia, to whom he mainly ascribed the loss of his Parthian expedition. As he durst not at once commence open hostilities on his ancient ally, he gave invitations to the Armenian monarch to meet him, first in Egypt, afterwards, having commenced his march on his dominions, in Nicopolis, that is to say, not far from the frontiers of his territory. As Antony approached the Armenian capital, Artaxata, the king, durst not provoke his enmity by showing unabated want of confidence in his protestations of friendship; he accordingly appeared in the camp; but was instantly made prisoner, and the fortresses in his dominions summoned in his name to surrender. However, the Roman general's expectations of getting possession of the treasures and the castles of Armenia, by virtue of the commands of the entrapped monarch, were baffled. But what he failed in compassing by fraud, he wrung by force. He occupied with his troops the whole of Armenia, dividing them in different stations; betrothed his son by Cleopatra with a Median princess; and, in alliance with the sovereign of Media, was about to attack the Parthians, when the enmity which Octavius had long nourished in secret against him burst out into overt acts of hostility.

The two rivals, Octavius and Antony, who, to a certain point, had pursued the same route, were at this time committed in widely different courses, which led to destinations as different-the one to destruction, the other to the sovereignty of the Roman world. Conscious of his own deficiencies, Octavius had raised Agrippa, a man of the lowest origin, from step to step to the highest public dignities, used his

“ Τό τε σύμπαν” says Appian, " πολιορκεῖν δοκῶν τὰ τών πολιορκεμίνων ἔπασχεν.” -Lib. xlix. c. 32.

↑ Appian. de Bell. Civ. lib. v. c. 128-130. Dio Cass. lib. xlix. c. 34--38.

services in the most difficult situations, and entrusted to him the chief command in the war with Sextus, although he was himself present. It was planned to attack Sicily from Italy, by sea and land, on two sides at once; on the third Lepidus was to land with the numerous African legions, and the main attack was conducted by Agrippa. Assailed at once on both sides, and equally incapable of daring resolution and timid prudence, Pompey was overthrown in a single engagement, fled to Asia, and met his death in Phrygia. Lepidus had hoped to share in the spoil, as he had shared in the victory: he was not only deceived in that hope, but lost what was already in his possession. No sooner had Octavius learned that Lepidus, without consulting him, had closed a treaty with the Pompeians, taken them under his protection, and even taken possession of Messina, than he went to his camp, regarding him as so utterly insignificant that his soldiers would desert him without ceremony. He deceived himself, it is true, in that point, and narrowly escaped the shots and swords of the soldiers, indignant at his audacity. As it soon, however, appeared that Lepidus durst not meet a decisive conflict, his troops were easily gained by Octavius, and deserted to the enemy with their standards and eagles. Lepidus was so truly insignificant that Octavius spared him, and did not even deprive him of the priestly office with which he had been invested; it being a Roman usage that the three chief sacerdotal dignities only expired with the life of him to whom they had been given.

To justify a predetermined rupture with Antony, Octavius took advantage of his levities in conduct. He refused to receive his noble consort, Octavia, who had travelled as far as Athens to join him with valuable presents, and quitted Armenia with no other aim than to visit Cleopatra in Egypt. Octavius had long and vainly endeavored to move the Roman senate, where Antony had many friends, to violent measures against him, till Antony himself declared war, and proceeded, still accompanied by Cleopatra, to Ephesus. Even then the senate declared war with Cleopatra, not with her paramour, and only recalled Antony from his Asiatic sovereignty.

The cause of this declaration of war, and of Antony's final ruin, was, in fact, Cleopatra, whose influence estranged his truest Roman friends from him. It was at her instigation he had formed that alliance with the Median prince, which Octavius put forward as a main charge against him. Antony's land force was in a very feeble condition the better troops unquestionably were those of his antagonist. Cleopatra and her courtly circle wasted his whole time, and kept soberer councils at a distance. However, at length he resolved to confide chiefly in his fleet, that, after a naval victory, he might lead his army direct to Italy, where he was well assured of an amicable reception. The presumption which on all occasions inebriated his mind did not desert him in the last decisive moments of his destiny, in which, to all appearance, he might have anticipated the enemy. He loitered and trifled at Ephesus; spent farther time in revels at Samos; held processions and feasts in Cleopatra's honor at Athens; and having, in

U. C.

722.

spite of these delays, reached the coast of Epirus with his land army and fleet before the autumn, instead of making any attempt to land on the coast of Italy, he let his fleet and army starve out the winter on the shores of Greece, delaying till the following year the issue of the contest, when that issue came to be tried under most unfavorable circumstances. Octavius landed in Epirus without meeting resistance; the armies were confronted with each other on the bay of Ambracia, and the hostile fleets came in sight near Actium.

312

HISTORY

O F ROME.

CHAPTER III.

FROM THE BATTLE OF ACTIUM TO THE REIGN OF TIBERIUS.

IN the engagement at Actium, Cleopatra had taken a separate station in a vessel easy to be distinguished by its royal ensigns. According to the commonly received account of the action, she took to flight so soon as its event appeared doubtful, and long before it really could be decided. Sixty ships followed her; and Antony no sooner perceived it, than he hastened after her, probably in hopes of bringing her back, but let himself be persuaded to enter her ship, and to accompany her flight before the day was hopeless. A very slight alteration of this story improves it probability, while it spoils its romance. Cleopatra, it would seem, took flight the moment it was visible that the fortune of the day turned against Antony; and was followed by the Egyptian division of the fleet. Upon this Antony, seeing that the remainder of his fleet, which had principally depended on its Egyptian auxiliaries, could no longer maintain the conflict, lost his presThe greater part of his fleet ence of mind, and fled in like manner. was destroyed; the legions, which he had not even informed of his movements, in part deserted to Octavius, and were in part dispersed by his forces. Octavius crossed over into Asia, where he found no resistance and no difficulty in crowning and deposing monarchs, taking possession of provinces, and laying towns under contribution;* while his friends Maecenas and Agrippa, whom he had sent to Italy to pacify the soldiers, found considerable obstacles to executing this commission. Disturbances in the neighborhood of Brundusium among the troops, whose rewards agrippa had been instructed to put off to another time, recalled the victor from Asia. But the disturbances in Italy having been stilled in less than a month, he hastened back to the east, expecting to find in Egypt more resistance than he afterwards met with. Cleopatra had just returned to Egypt, while Antony had betaken himself to the army assembled at Paratonium under Pinarius Scarpus. Here, however, neither he nor his emissaries found reception; he therefore hastened back to his paramour. Cleopatra intended to build a fleet on the Red Sea; but the Arabs, incited by Octavius's officers in Syria, burned the docks erected by her orders, while Octavius, with two armies, threatened the invasion of Egypt both on the side of Africa and Syria. The army destined to guard the African frontier against Octavius revolted: Antony and Cleopatra at one time gave themselves up to stupefying indulgences, at another treated with Octavius, who protracted the negotiations, to lull them into per

Dio Cass. Hist. Rom. lib. i. c. 2.

fect security. At length after long dallying and just at the moment when Octavius's army approached Alexandria from two sides, Antony rallied his faculties, and resolved to sell his life dear. His first attack on the advancing enemy turned out advantageously. He therefore resolved to make a fresh attempt by sea and land to repulse them; but the Egyptian fleet surrendered to the enemy without resistance, and his cavalry treacherously deserted just when their aid was wanting. Antony, apparently not without reason, suspected himself betrayed by Cleopatra. Nevertheless he wounded himself mortally on the intelligence that the queen had slain herself; and, discovering that the intelligence was premature, caused himself to be brought dying into her presence. Cleopatra was herself possessed of a sure poison, but would not use it till she had ascertained, on a personal interview with Octavius, what impression her charms had power to make on him. She soon, however, perceived that no strong passion could be aroused in Octavius, and observed that his orders indicated her destination to grace his triumph she frustrated his plan, therefore by suicide.

In like manner as Octavius, immediately on the death of the only two persons who could still offer him any resistance in any part of the Roman world, proceeded to arrange the affairs of Egypt, and of the whole east, as seemed best to himself and to those of whom he commonly asked council, in the same way it would have been desirable that he should have immediately given a new constitution or form of government to the empire, at whose head he now stood, instead of adhering scrupulously to old institutions and usages, the spirit of which had long fled. But his object was to veil the frightful novelty in the form of the empire, which must henceforth be a military monarchy. This, however, could be done only so long as the character of the ruler was as quiet and forbearing as his own. The moving principle of the new government will be presently seen to come prominently forward under his successor.

The administration of Egypt seems to have called forth the especial attention of Octavius; and he gave directions concerning it which differed altogether from his general provincial regulations. He prohibited Roman senators from visiting the country without special permission. This regulation, indeed, was in force with respect to all the provinces. But he also forbade the higher class of Egyptians from making any long sojourn in Rome. The motive of these restrictive measures, as well as of the abolition of all the rights of a free Grecian town, which had previously been enjoyed by Alexandria, including all assemblies of the people, of the council, and the freely elected public officers, may be found in the restless character of the Greek population of Lower Egypt, and especially of Alexandria; a city which, under the last Ptolemies, had been accustomed to give laws to its rulers, and which possessed immense wealth, and an enormous population.

From Egypt, Octavius travelled through Judea into Syria, and appointed the murderer of the last branch of the Asmonæan or Maccabæan house independent prince over part of Judæa. This was done, as appeared in the sequel, partly to reward Herod for the aid which