WIVES Of THIS' C.ESARS. 599 



of an important adversary, whose eloquence however admirable 

 was unremittingly directed at his ruin ; but it was indeed the hatred 

 of a sordid spirit that could rejoice over the mangled members of a 

 lifeless foe, or offer mockery to the corpse of an opponent, who had 

 maintained the open tone of conscientious enmity. No argument can 

 justify the dissolute career of Antony, nor his desertion of the chaste 

 and generous Octavia,* whose virtues would have shone conspicuous 

 in the brightest eras of her sex. Yet Antony's obliquities will wear 

 a less repulsive character, if we reflect that the intellectual charms of 

 his Egyptian beauty were fully as despotic as her personal attrac- 

 tions. Cleopatra was endued with extraordinary talents ; she received, 

 without the aid of an interpreter, the ambassadors of seven nations, 

 who conferred with her in their respective languages : she associated 

 all the powers of pleasing, acquired and natural ; her taste was splen- 

 did and profuse ; the ardour of her attachment was enthusiastic ; and 

 every action of her life appeared to spring from generous impulse 

 and the spirit of magnificence. Yet Octavia, as Plutarch says, in 

 beauty was her equal ; and the disadvantage of superior age was on 

 the side of Cleopatra. Antony fatally atoned the errors of his infa- 

 tuation. While the cold and prudent youth of Caesar was devoted to 

 the solitary object of ambition, the veteran warrior was sunk in 

 amorous fruition ; and, as Antipho emphatically said, he offered at 

 the shrine of luxury the greatest of all sacrifices that of time. The 

 reproach of Antony's abandonment but ill became the lips of Caesar ; 

 yet the wily hypocrite, with a malicious skill, expatiated in the senate 

 on the shameful intercourse of Antony and Cleopatra, at the very 

 moment that the boy Sarmentus (so the historian Delius significantly 

 said) was drinking his Falernian at the Roman court. 



The death of Antony and Cleopatra was followed by the peace of 

 the Republic ; if the Republic, now the Roman empire, might be 

 called, with Caesar at its head, possessed of sovereign authority. On 

 his return to Rome he was preceded by the fame of his victorious 

 achievements ; his emissaries had prepared the public mind, and the 

 fickle multitude by acclamation hailed the conqueror of Antony the 

 master of the universe. His triumph, which continued three suc- 

 cessive days, was splendid and imposing. He triumphed on the first 

 day over Gaul, Pannonia, and Dalmatia ; on the second over Antony; 

 and on the third, in which the utmost pageantry and grandeur was 

 developed, he triumphed over Egypt. The effigy of Cleopatra, 

 wrought to very life, was prominent in the procession ; the asp, by 

 the venemous bite of which she died, was represented on her arm. 

 Before the chariot of the victor walked the twin children of the 

 Egyptian queen Alexander, whom she called the Sun, and Cleo- 

 patra, whom she named the Moon. In the order of the pageant, a 

 painted crocodile in golden chains presented the inscription " Ante, 

 me colligavit nemo.'' The means of recreation and festivity were be- 



* " Octavia, Atise et Octavii filia, soror August! ; primum Fausto Syllae des- 

 tinata, deinde Claudio Marcello et M. Antonio nupta ; faemina virtutum et 

 litterarum studiis commendatissima. Corinthii templum ei sacrarunt. De- 

 functam A. U. 743, laudavit Augustus." Stemma Caesar. Illust. 16. 



