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

72

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." 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 78 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.

77 Sept. 2, A. C. 31. See 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." 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!" 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,

had steeped their swords in blood. The temple of Janus was closed for the third time since its dedication, in sign of peace; and the joy of the troops, the people, and the poet found issue with the Senate in decreeing new honors to the conqueror.3 The only attempt against him, made by the son of his former colleague, Lepidus, was crushed before his return; and the few conspiracies of after years were equally unsuccessful. The cost of disturbing an Emperor had been proved by the fifteen years which intervened between the dreadful murder of the uncle and the magnificent entry of the nephew.

4

The victor himself was in some degree subdued by his success. The fate of the first Cæsar, occurring almost at the moment of his being left alone, as it were, in the world, may have given some anxiety to the second Cæsar, when he found himself in possession of the solitary power which he had long before determined to obtain. There was no further temptation, at all events, to cruelty or to conflict; and he who had been the most unpitying and the most covetous of the Triumvirs was desirous to become the peaceful and the placable sovereign. Once before pretending his willingness to resign the authority he held as Triumvir," he now professed to be in doubt concerning the retention of the dominion he alone controlled, and called his most trusted adherents, Agrippa and Mæcenas, to advise with him in his uncertainty.

3 Vell. Pat., II. 38. Dion Cass., LI. 19, 20.

5 After the flight of Sextus Pompey from Sicily. App., Bell. Civ.,

4 Suet, Aug., 19. Vell. Pat., II. 88. V. 132. Suet., Aug., 28.