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versary to fly from Sicily to the Eastern sees. victory of his officer was crowned with the murder of Pompey at Miletus, by the officers of Antony.65

66

Before these fresh successes were all achieved, the triumvirate had been again renewed between the still resentful Antony and his more than ever aspiring colleague. It was agreed between them that their covenant should be prolonged for five years more, without disturbing Lepidus in the possession of Africa, where he had for some time resided, content, apparently, with his inferiority to his commanding associates. On being summoned, however, by Cæsar to take part in the campaign against Pompey, he suddenly determined to prove his own importance; and though he came over to Sicily, he did not put himself under Cæsar's orders, but, making himself master of several towns and garrisons, he turned against his colleague, claiming his rights as a Triumvir. But he was no match for the man he dared to rival; and, as if his pretension had been a dream, he waked to find himself before Cæsar, on his knees, deserted by his legions, deprived of his Sicilian cities and his African province, but graciously allowed to retain the pontificate at Rome.67

While Cæsar, putting Lepidus to shame and Pompey to flight, seized their resources in addition to his own, and at the same time rose to higher honors, or

Gaul and Germany; and now defeated Pompey.

65 A. C. 38-35. Vell. Pat., II. 79. Dion Cass., XLIX. 11, 18.

66 A. C. 37. Plut., Ant., 35. Dion Cass., XLVIII. 54. App., Bell. Civ., V. 93 et seq.

67 A. C. 36. Dion Cass., XLIX. 12. App., Bell. Civ., V. 126.

68

rather higher homage, than he had yet enjoyed at Rome, Antony, lapped in the tyranny and the debauchery which he esteemed beyond authority, was with Cleopatra in Egypt, fast sinking below the ambition from which his eyes and steps had often swerved.69 Yet the times were such that he could bear himself as though his capriciousness had been power and his sensuality greatness, in comparison with the utter humiliation of his countrymen or his allies.70 The contest between him and his warier colleague, often delayed, but long expected, was begun the year before the battle of Actium, when an accusation was undertaken against Cæsar by one of the Consuls, at Antony's instigation. But Cæsar was able to retort with charges which obliged his accuser to fly the city," and which were then so effectually supported by the unscrupulous publication of Antony's will," that the people were infuriated and the Senate driven to a declaration of war against Cleopatra and of deposition against Antony.73

If there were any left alive who had not yet made their submission to either of the combatants disput

68 Dion Cass., XLIX. 15, 16. App., Bell. Civ., V. 130-132. Besides his other achievements, Cæsar twice conducted his soldiers against the barbarians to the east and northeast of the Adriatic. Liv., Epit. CXXXI., CXXXII. App., De Reb. Illyr., 16 et seq.

69 See Plut., Ant., 24-29. 70 His inglorious expedition to Parthia (Plut., Ant., 37 et seq.) was but one of his errors. His

gifts to Cleopatra and the children whom she bore to him, his giving and taking away whole kingdoms in the East, were more serious charges against him at Rome. Plut., Ant., 36, 54. Liv., Epit. CXXXI. Dion Cass., XLIX. 32, 41, 50.

71 A. C. 32. Dion Cass., L. 2, 3. 72 Ibid. Plut., Ant., 58. 73 Dion Cass., L. 4. Plut., Ant., 66.

ing the undivided control of Rome, they must have desired the victory of the younger, whose practised self-possession and pretended self-denial showed favorably in contrast with the assumption and the distraction of the elder. On Antony's side were ranged the provinces of Greece, Thrace, Asia, Cyrene in Africa, together with Cleopatra's Egypt and various of the Eastern kingdoms;74 while Italy and all its islands, Illyria, Gaul, Spain, with northern and northwestern Africa, were under the command of Cæsar.75 The story of the war has no interest to redeem its usual accounts of disaster and blood. Cæsar, after repressing some tumults excited by his severe exactions in Italy, crossed from Brundusium, with large forces and the greater part of the Senate.76 The campaign began with the successes of Agrippa, the lieutenant without whom it does not appear that Cæsar would have long been a commander; and it was chiefly his ability, again, that insured the victory at Actium, where Antony appeared only as the paramour of Cleopatra, with whom he fled to Egypt, lost, and, in the sight even of his contemporaries, dishonored." Cæsar, after some operations in Greece and Asia, returned to Brundusium, where the Senate and great numbers of all classes from Rome attended him, as if to prove that he had only to show himself in Italy

74 The list of which is in Plut.,

Ant., 61.

75 Dion Cass., L. 6.

76 Plut., Ant., 58. Dion Cass., L. 10, 11.

See

77 Sept. 2, A. C. 31. Shakspeare's Antony and Cleopatra, Act III. sc. 8.

78 Dion Cass., LI. 4, 5.

to find it full of subjects. With them he tarried long enough to procure the money and the lands he required for his army; 79 and then proceeded in pursuit of Antony and Cleopatra, at whose death Egypt became a Roman province.80

Among the honors decreed to Cæsar, after his victories over Lepidus and Pompey, was one he had accepted with extraordinary gratification. It was an inscription upon a statue of himself to be placed in the Forum: "For Peace restored after long Warfare by Land and Sea." 81 The peace which followed upon his final victories was bereft of bloom and joy; for it was the prostration of a world that had once been comparatively free.

79 Donec desideria militum ordinarentur." Suet., Aug., 17.

80 A. C. 30. Dion Cass., LI.

17.

old.

Antony was fifty-one years
Cæsar was but thirty-three.

81 App., Bell. Civ., V. 130.

CHAPTER III.

AUGUSTUS THE EMPEROR.

"In the late times,' he said, 'those must be thankful who have saved life and limb.' SCOTT, Waverley, Chap. XLII.

"Nil patrium nisi nomen habet Romanus."-PROPERTIUS, Eleg., IV. 1. 37.

At the time when the victory of Actium and the submission of Egypt decided the supremacy of Cæsar throughout the Western world, there was living on a Sabine farm, sometimes, indeed, abandoned for the not distant city, a poet in the prime of life, who had studied at Athens and fought under Brutus at Philippi. Twelve years had effaced in the man the transient enthusiasm that had attracted the scarce grown youth to the cause professing freedom; and the protection of Cæsar or of Cæsar's friends was fresher in the memory of Horace than the vanity of Brutus or the devotedness of Cicero. "Now, then," he sang aloud, "quaff, -now touch the earth with agile feet,-now fill the temples of the gods with feasts!"1 The strains reëchoed throughout Rome, amid the shouts of the victorious soldiery and the three triumphal celebrations of the master for whom they

2

1 Hor., Carm., I. 37. Likewise another for Actium, and a third for IV. 5, and Epod., 9. Egypt. Dion Cass., LI. 21, 22. Vell. Pat., II. 89.

2 A. C. 29. One for Dalmatia,

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