263 



AOTOHID8, MARCUS. 



ANTONIUS, MARCUS. 



261 



against Catiline ; but on the day of the battle he was prevented, or 

 pretended to be prevented, by illness from appearing on the field, and 

 the command devolved upon his lieutenant, Petreius. On the termi- 

 nation of the war, he proceeded (B.C. 61) as proconsul to the province 

 of Macedonia, which had originally fallen to Cicero's lot, but had been 

 transferred by him to Antonius, from a patriotic desire to attach him 

 to the cause of his country. Such at least is the assertion of Cicero. 

 Antonius, on the contrary, gave out that it waa a matter of mere 

 bargain and sale, and that Cicero had stipulated for the payment in 

 return of a large sum of money, a charge which Cicero's ambiguous 

 language and conduct on the occasion seem not to discountenance. 

 To raise this money, Antonius was guilty of great extortion, and his 

 conduct gave such general dissatisfaction that, after holding the 

 government of the province for two years, he was formally brought 

 to trial, and, though defended by Cicero, was found guilty, and 

 condemned to perpetual exile. 



ANTO'XIUS, MARCUS, the orator, was born B.c. 142. In B.C. 99 

 he was the colleague of C. Postumius Albmus in the consulship ; and 

 in the following year he defended M. Aquilius on a charge of extortion 

 during the servile war in Sicily. In B.c. 97 he was censor, and he fell 

 a victim to the fury of Marius and Cinna, when they took forcible 

 possession of Rome in B.C. 87. His eloquence is celebrated by Cicero 

 in his ' Brutus,' chap. 37, 3S. Two of his sons appear prominently in 

 the history of Rome. 



ANTO'NIUS, MARCUS, son of the orator, and father of the 

 triumvir. After Mithridates had been subdued by Sulla, a general 

 system of piracy arose in the Grecian seas and the adjoining coasts, 

 and, in the year B.C. 75, Antonius was intrusted with the duty of 

 protecting all the coasts of the Mediterranean. Crete was the chief 

 scene of his operations, where, though his successes for a time gained 

 him the honorary title of Creticus, the outrages and extortions of 

 which he was guilty led at last to an insurrection in which he lost his 

 life, about B.C. 69 ; and the credit of reducing the island was reserved 

 for Metellus. 



ANTO'NIUS, MARCUS, the Triumvir, was the eon of M. Antonius, 

 mirnamed Creticus, and Julia, a member of the patrician house of the 

 Caesars, sister of L. Julius Caesar, the consul of H.C. 64. The year of 

 his birth is somewhat uncertain, being assigned by different authors to 

 B.C. 86, 83, and 81. His father dying while he was yet young, he 

 received the greater part of bis education under the direction of his 

 mother Julia, who was at that time married to Cornelius Lentulus. 



Gold. British Mnsr'im. Diameter doubled. 



Early in life Antony formed an acquaintance with young Curio, 

 which led him into a course of extravagant dissipation, and he wa<* 

 soon deeply involved ; but Curio, being surety for the debt, prevailed 

 upon his father, by the intercession of Cicero, to discharge it. Among 

 the Roman nobles who were put to death by Cicero as accomplices of 

 Catiline, one of the most distinguished was Antony's step-father, 

 Cornelius Lentulus, then prsctor of Rome. Antony attached himself 

 to Clodius when that powerful tribune was employed in bringing 

 Cicero to punishment ; but not approving of the violence to which 

 Clodius resorted, he went over to Greece, where he diligently applied 

 himself to the two pursuits most important to a Roman, oratory and 

 military science. From thence he was invited to join Gabinius, who 

 as proconsul of Syria was engaged in protecting his province from the 

 ravages of Aristobulus and his son Alexander (B.C. iJ7, 56). Antony in 

 this war commanded the cavalry, and evinced great spirit and military 

 talent. In the course of the following year Gabinius undertook to 

 restore Ptolemy Auletes to the throne of Egypt, and again the credit 

 of his success was chiefly due to Antony, who secured the only road 

 from Syria into Egypt, and made himself master of Pelusium. Gabinius 

 returned to Rome in the autumn of B.C. 54, but Antony, as soon as 

 hostilities ceased in Euypt, hastened to Gallia, the theatre of a still 

 more important war. In the year B.C. 2 we find Antony acting as 

 one of Caesar's lieutenants at the siege of Alesia. He now became a 

 candidate for the quaestornhip, and even aspired to a place in the 

 College of Augurs. His election to the quaestorship being completed, 

 he hastened back to Gallia, where at the close of the year he was left 

 by Ctesar at the capital of the yEdui in the command of the troops 

 there quartered. The following year he was employed under Caesar 

 in extinguishing the last embers of the Gallic war ; and BO fully had 



he gained the support of the general, that through his interest and 

 that of Curio he was elected early in B.C. 50 into the College of Augurs. 

 Through the influence of the same powerful friends Antony was raised 

 to the dignity of a tribune. The tribunes entered upon their office on 

 the 10th of December, whereas the consular authority commenced 

 upon the first day of the year. Antony employed this interval in 

 advocating the just rights of Csesar with the people. When the 

 kalends came, however, the senatorian party put to the vote the fatal 

 motion that Caesar should disband all his troops by a given day, or be 

 treated as a public enemy. Antony and his colleague Cassius inter- 

 posed their tribunitial veto, but the senate was now prepared to break 

 down all the popular barriers of the constitution ; the two tribunes 

 were allowed but six days to consider their veto, and on the 7th of 

 January the decree was passed which at once suspended all the laws 

 of the state, and gave to the senatorian party despotic and irrespon- 

 sible power over all the citizens. The tribunes fled in disguise to 

 Caesar, whose army in a few weeks drove the authors of the late 

 revolution from Italy. 



On the first expedition of Caesar into Spain, Antony was left in the 

 military command of Italy, which was again intrusted to him in the 

 winter of the same year, when Caesar crossed into Epirus. In the per- 

 formance of this duty he distinguished himself by his able defence of 

 Brundisium and its port against a Pompeian fleet under Libo, and soon 

 after he crossed the Adriatic with reinforcements for Csesar, and on 

 many occasions rendered the most efficient service. In the following 

 year Caesar, being appointed dictator, selected Antony as his Master 

 of the Horse. During this period he showed his firmness in checking 

 the violent proceedings of Dolabella. Plutarch indeed attributes his 

 conduct to a feeling of revenge, in consequence of a supposed intrigue 

 between Dolabella and his wife Antonia, for he had married his own 

 cousin, the daughter of C. Antonius Hybrida. He accordingly divorced 

 Antonia, and gave way to the most open licentiousness. At a subse- 

 quent period ho married Fulvia, the widow of Clodius. During the 

 second war in Spain (B.C. 45) against the sons of Pompey, when Cicero 

 was induced by some exaggerated accounts of their successes to 

 meditate an escape from Italy, he was checked by the interference of 

 Antony, whose letter on tbe occasion still exists. The next year 

 Antony was the colleague of Caesar in the consulship, but tbe sena- 

 torian party again dreamed of recovering their power, and the idle 

 affair of the Lupercalia was seized as a pretext for the conspiracy 

 against Caesar. Cicero has not scrupled to accuse Antony of joining 

 Trebonius in a conspiracy to murder Caesar, but we have the authority 

 of Trebonius himself, as reported by Plutarch, for saying that Antony 

 refused overtures on the subject made to him by Trebonius. As Antony 

 was not likely to join in assassinating Caesar, it was next proposed to 

 make him also a victim, but this was prevented by M. Brutus ; and it 

 was finally determined to engage him in conversation outside of the 

 senate-house while the assassination of Caesar was committed withiu. 



Antony saw that it was necessary to act guardedly with men who 

 accomplished their ends by assassination ; he therefore waited, knowing 

 that the people would soon recover from their first alarm, and rise 

 against the murderers of their benefactor. The real power of Antony 

 indeed lay in the detestation in which the senatorian oligarchy was 

 held. The self-styled patriots were soon afraid to appear in Rome, 

 and Antony, supported by his two brothers, Cains and Lucius, who 

 at this time held the offices of praetor and tribune respectively, had a 

 prospect of establishing himself in a station scarcely inferior to that 

 from which Caesar had been thrown down. But he found his most 

 powerful opponent in young Octavius (afterwards Augustus), the great- 

 nephew and adopted son of the late dictator, who with a skill beyond 

 his years managed to unite the support of the most opposite parties, 

 the oligarchy and the veterans. After numerous intrigues on all sides, 

 Antony left Home in October to meet at Brundisium four of tbe veteran 

 legions from Greece ; but Octavius, or, as he now called himself, Caesar, 

 found other veterans in the colonies of Campania ready to support one 

 who bore so auspicious a name ; and two of the four legions from 

 Greece suddenly passed over to him from Antony. Before the year 

 was closed hostilities commenced in the north of Italy, where Antony 

 besieged Decimus Brutus in Mutina. Three actions were fought, in 

 the second and third of which Antony was worsted. 



The senatorian party were already enjoying their triumph, when the 

 scene unexpectedly changed. The two consuls had fallen in the late 

 contest. Decimus Brutus, though relieved from the siege, was without 

 cavalry or commissariat, and unable to pursue; and Caesar, never 

 sincere in the cause of the senate, at last threw off the mask. Antony 

 was joined by Ventidius with three legions, by the troops of Lepidus, 

 and by the legions under the command of Plancus and Pollio. Thus 

 Antony, who had fled from Mutina, now retraced his steps across the 

 Alps at the head of seventeen legions, the greater part veterans, 

 leaving behind him six others to guard the important province of 

 Gallia. Decimus Brutus, on the other hand, had only ten legions to 

 oppose him. In th? mean while, Caesar had put an end to the equivocal 

 conduct of the senate by marching upon Rome, and extorting the 

 consular fasces. 



In the autumn of this year the celebrated triumvirate was estab- 

 lished between Antony, Lepidus, and Caesar. In the proscription, 

 which waa one of the first acts of the triumvirate, Antony, whose 

 conduct on so many occasions was distinguished for clemency and 



