expenses; which may be judged of from the following cireum

stance.

A young Greek,* who went to Alexandria to study physic, upon the great noise those feasts made, had the curiosity to assure himself with his own eyes about them. Having been admitted into Antony's kitchen, he saw, amongst other things, eight wild boars roasting whole at the same time. Upon which he expressed surprise at the great number of guests that he supposed were to be at the supper. One of the officers could not forbear laughing, and told him, that they were not so many as he imagined, and that there would not be above a dozen in all; but that it was necessary every thing should be served in a degree of perfection, which every moment ceases and spoils. "For," added he, "it often happens that Antony will order his supper, and a moment after forbid it to be served, having entered into some conversation that diverts him For that reason, not one but many suppers are provided, because it is hard to know at what time he will think fit to have it set on table."

Cleopatra, lest Antony should escape her, never lost sight of him, nor quitted him day or night, but was always employed in diverting and retaining him in her chains. She played with him at dice, hunted with him, and, when he exercised his troops, was always present. Her sole attention was to amuse him agreeably, and not to leave him time to conceive the least disgust.

One day when he was fishing with an angle, and catched nothing, he was very much vexed on that account, because the queen was of the party, and he was unwilling to seem to want skill or good fortune in her presence. It therefore came into his thoughts to order fishermen to dive secretly under water, and to fasten to his hook some of their large fishes, which they had taken before. That order was executed inmediately, and Antony drew up his line veral times with a croat is at the end of it. This artifice did not escape the fair Egyptian. She affected great admiration and surprise at Antony's good fortune; but told her friends privately what had passed, and invited them to come the next day and be spectators of a like pleasantry. They did not fail. When they were all got into the fishing-boats, and Antony had thrown in his line, slie commanded one of her people to dive immediately into the water, to prevent Antony's divers, and to make fast a large salt fish, one of those that came from the kingdom of Pontus, to his hook. When Antony perceived his line had its load, he drew it up. It is easy to imagine what bursts of laughter arose at the sight of that salt fish; and Cleopatra said to him, " Leave the line, good general, to us, the kings and queens of Pharos and Canopus; your business is to fish for cities, kingdoms, and kings."

Whilst Antony amused himself in these puerile svorts and

* Plut. in Anton. p. 928.

trifling diversions, the news he received of Labienus's conquests, at the head of the Parthian army, awakened him from his lethargy, and obliged him to march against them. But having received advice, upon his route, of Fulvia's death, he returned to Rome, where ne reconciled himself to young Cæsar, whose sister Octavia he married, a woman of extraordinary merit, who was lately become a widow by the death of Marcellus. It was believed this marriage would make him forget Cleopatra. But

A. M. 3965.

Ant. J. C. 39.

having begun his march against the Parthians, his passion for the Egyptian, which had something of enchantment in it, rekindled with more violence than ever.

A. M. 3966.

This queen,* in the midst of the most violent Ant. J. C. 33. passions, and the intoxication of pleasures, still retained a taste for polite learning and the sciences. In the place where stood the famous library of Alexandria, which had been burnt some years before, as we have observed, she erected a new one, to the augmentation of which Antony very much contributed, by presenting her with the libraries of Pergamus, in which were above 200,000 volumes. She did not collect books merely for ornament; she made use of them. There were few barbarous nations to whom she spoke by an interpreter; she answered most of them in their own language, the Ethiopians, Troglodyte, Hebrews, Arabians, Syrians, Medes, Parthians. She knew, besides, several other languages; whereas the kings who had reigned before her in Egypt had scarcely been able to learn the Egyptian, and some of them had even forgotten the Macedonian, their natural tongue.

Cleopatra, pretending herself to be the lawful wife of Antony, saw him marry Octavia with great emotion, whom she looked upon as her rival. Antony, to appease her, was obliged to make her magnificent presents. He gave her Phoenicia, the Lower Syria, the isle of Cyprus, with a great part of Cilicia. To these he added part of Judea and Arabia. These great presents, which considerably abridged the extent of the empire, very much amicted the Romans, and they were no less offended at the excessive honours which he paid this foreign princess.

Two years passed, during which Antony made several voyages to Rome, and undertook some expeditions against the Parthians and Armenians, in which he acquired no great honour.

It was in one of these expeditions, that the temple of Anaïtis was plundered, a goddess much celebrated amongst a certain peo ple of Armenia. Her statue of massy gold was broken in pieces by the soldiers, with which several of them were considerably en riched. One of them, a veteran, who afterwards settled at Bologna, in Italy, had the good fortune to receive Augustus in his house, and to entertain him at supper. "Is it true," said that prince, dur ing the repast, talking of this story, "that the man who made the

Epiphan. de mens. et pond. † Plut. in Anton. p. 927.

Plin. l. xxxiii. c. 23,

first stroke at the statue of this goddess was immediately deprived of sight, lost the use of his limbs, and expired the same hour?" "If it were," replied the veteran with a smile, "I should not now have the honour of seeing Augustus beneath my roof, being myself the rash person who made the first attack upon her, which has been of great service to me. For, if I have any thing, I am entirely indebted for it to the good goddess; upon one of whose legs, my lord, you are now supping.'

A. M. 3969.

Antony, believing he had made every thing Ant. J. C. 35. secure in these countries, led back his troops. From his impatience to rejoin Cleopatra, he hastened his march so much, notwithstanding the rigour of the season, and the continual snows, that he lost 8000 men upon his route, and marched into Phoenicia with very few followers. He rested there in expecta-. tion of Cleopatra; and, as she was slow in coming, he fell into anxiety, grief, and languor, that visibly preyed upon him. She arrived at length with clothes and great sums of money for his troops.

Octavia, at the same time, had quitted Rome to join him, and was already arrived at Athens. Cleopatra rightly perceived that she came only to dispute Antony's heart with her. She was afraid that with her virtue, wisdom, and gravity of manners, if she had time to make use of her modest, but lively and insinuating attractions, to win her husband, that she would gain an absolute power over him. To avoid which danger, she affected to be dying for love of Antony; and with that view made herself lean and wan, by taking very little nourishment. Whenever he entered her apartment, she looked upon him with an air of surprise and amazement; and when he left her, seemed to languish with sorrow and dejection. She often contrived to appear bathed in tears, and at the same moment endeavoured to dry and conceal them, as if to hide from him her weakness and disorder. Antony, who feared nothing so much as occasioning the least uneasiness to Cleopatra, wrote letters to Octavia, to order her to stay for him at Athens, and to come no farther, because he was upon the point of undertaking some new expedition. And in fact, at the request of the king of the Medes, who promised him powerful succours, he was making' preparations to renew the war against the Parthians.

That virtuous Roman lady, dissembling the wrong he did her, sent to him to know where it would be agreeable to him to have the presents carried which she had designed for him, since he did not think fit to let her deliver them in person. Antony received this second compliment no better than the first; and Cleopatra, who had prevented his seeing Octavia, would not permit him to receive any thing from her. Octavia was obliged, therefore, to return to Rome, without having produced any other effect by her voyage,

Plut. in Anton. p. 939-942

than that of making Antony more inexcusable. This was what Cæsar desired, in order to have a just reason for breaking entirely

with him.

When Octavia came to Rome, Cæsar, professing a high resentment of the affront she had received, ordered her to quit Antony's house, and to go to her own. She answered, that she would not leave her husband's house, and that if he had no other reasons for a war with Antony than what related to her, she conjured him to renounce her interests. She accordingly always continued there, as if he had been present, and educated with great care and magnificence not only the children he had by her, but also those whom he had by Fulvia. What a contrast is here between Octavia and Cleopatra! In the midst of rebuffs and affronts, how worthy does the one seem of esteem and respect; and the other, with all her grandeur and magnificence, of contempt and abhorrence!

Cleopatra omitted no kind of arts to retain Antony in her chains. Tears, caresses, reproaches, menaces, all were employed. By dint of presents she had gained all who approached him, and in whom he placed most confidence. Those flatterers represented to him, in the strongest terms, that it would be absolutely cruel and inhuman to abandon Cleopatra in the mournful condition she then was; and that it would be the death of that unfortunate princess, who loved and lived for him alone. They softened and melted the heart of Antony so effectually, that, for fear of occasioning Cleopatra's death, he returned immediately to Alexandria, and put off the Medes to the following spring.

A. M. 3970. Ant. J. C. 34.

It was with great difficulty then that he resolved to leave Egypt, and remove himself from his dear Cleopatra. She agreed to attend him as far as the banks of the Euphrates.

A. M. 3971.

Ant. J. C. 33.

After having made himself master of Armenia, as much by treachery as force of arms, he returned to Alexandria, which he entered in triumph, dragging at his chariotwheels the king of Armenia, laden with chains of gold, and presented him in that condition to Cleopatra, who was pleased to see a captive king at her feet. He unbent his mind at leisure after his great fatigues in feasts and parties of pleasure, in which Cleopatra and himself passed days and nights. That vain Egyptian woman,* at one of these banquets, seeing Antony flushed with wine, presumed to ask him to give her the Roman empire, which he was not ashamed to promise her.

Before he set out on a new expedition, Antony, to bind the queen to him by new obligations, and to give her new proofs of his being entirely devoted to her, resolved to solemnize the coronation of her and her children. A throne of massy gold was erected for that

*Hæc mulier Ægyptia ab ebrio imperatore, pretium libidinum, Romanorum imperium petiit: et promisit Antonius. Flor. I. iv. c. 2.

purpose in the palace, the ascent to which was by several steps of silver. Antony was seated upon this throne, dressed in a purple robe, embroidered with gold, and with diamond buttons. On his side he wore a scimetar, after the Persian mode, the hilt and scab bard of which were loaded with precious stones; he had a diadem on his brows, and a sceptre of gold in his hand; in order, as he said, that in that equipage he might deserve to be the husband of a queen Cleopatra sat on his right hand in a brilliant robe, made of the precious linen which was appropriated to the use of the goddess Isis, whose name and habit she had the vanity to assume. Upon the samhe throne, but a little lower, sat Cæsarion, the son of Julius Cæsar and Cleopatra, and the two cther children, Alexander and Ptolemy, whom she had by Antony.

Every one having taken the place assigned him, the heralds, by the command of Antony, and in the presence of all the people, to whom the gates of the palace had been thrown open, proclaimed Cleopatra queen of Egypt, Cyprus, Libya, and Cole-syria, in conjunction with her son Caesarion. They afterwards proclaimed the other princes kings of kings; and declared, that, till they should possess a more ample inheritance, Antony gave Alexander, the eldest, the kingdoms of Armenia and Media, with that of Parthia, when he should have conquered it; and to the youngest, Ptolemy, the kingdoms of Syria, Phoenicia, and Cilicia. Those two young princes were dressed after the mode of the several countries over which they were to reign. After the proclamation, the three princes, rising from their seats, approached the throne, and, putting one knee to the ground, kissed the hands of Antony and Cleopatra. They had soon after a train assigned them, proportioned to their new dignity, and each his regiment of guards, drawn out of the principal families of his dominions.

Antony repaired early into Armenia, in order to act against the Parthians, and had already advanced as far as the banks of the Araxes; but the news of what was passing at Rome against him prevented his going on, and induced him to abandon the Parthian expedition. He immediately detached Canidius with sixteen legions to the coast of the Ionian Sea, and joined them himself soon after at Ephesus, where he might be ready to act in case of an open rupture between Cæsar and him; which there was great reason to expect.

Cleopatra was of the party; and that occasioned Antony's run His friends advised him to send her back to Alexandria, till the event of the war should be known. But that queen, apprehending that by Octavia's mediation he might come to an accommodation with Cæsar, gained Canidius, by dint of money, to speak in her favour to Antony, and to represent to him, that it was neither just to remove a princess from this war, who contributed so much towards it on her side, nor useful to himself; because her departure would discourage the Egyptians, of whom the greatest part of his