[351] Charon was the ferryman over the river in the world below, which the dead had to pass; hence the application of the term is intelligible. The Romans’ expression was Orcini, from Orcus (Sueton. August. c. 35).
[352] See the Life of Cicero, c. 43, and Dion Cassius (xlv. 5) as to the matter of the inheritance. A person who accepted a Roman inheritance (hereditas) took it with all the debts: the heir (heres), so far as concerned the deceased’s property, credits and debts, was the same person as himself. There was no risk in taking the inheritance on account of debts, for Cæsar left enormous sums of money: the risk was in taking the name and with it the wealth and odium of the deceased. Cæsar might have declined the inheritance, for he was not bound by law to take it. Cæsar had three-fourths of the Dictator’s property, and Q. Pedius, also a great-nephew of the Dictator, had the remainder.
[353] See the Life of Cicero, c. 44.
[354] Consuls in B.C. 43. See the Life of Cicero, c. 45. As to the speech of Cicero, see Dion Cassius, xlv. 18, &c.
[355] Lepidus was in Gallia Narbonensis. He advanced towards Antonius as far as Forum Vocontiorum, and posted himself on the Argenteus, now the Argens. (Appian, Civil Wars, iii. 83; Dion. Cass. xlvi. 51, &c.; Letter of Munatius Plancus to Cicero, Ad Div. x. 17; Letter of Lepidus to Cicero, Ad Div. x. 34.) Lepidus and Antonius joined their forces on the 29th of May, and Lepidus informed the Senate of the event in a letter, which is extant (Cic. Ad Div. x. 35).
[356] Cotylon is “cupman,” or any equivalent term that will express a drinker.
[357] See the Life of Cicero, c. 46.
[358] Appian (Civil Wars, iv. 2) states how they divided the empire among them; and Dion Cassius, xlvi. 55.
[359] Cæsar was already betrothed to Servilia, the daughter of P. Servilius Isauricus. When he quarrelled with Fulvia, he sent her back to her mother, still a maid. (Dion Cass. xlvi. 56.)
[360] The number that was put to death was much larger than three hundred. Appian (Civil Wars, iv. 5) states the number of those who were proscribed and whose property was confiscated at about 300 senators and 2000 equites. The object of the proscription was to get rid of troublesome enemies and to raise money. The picture which Appian gives of the massacre is as horrible as the worst events of the French Revolution. He has drawn a striking picture by giving many individual instances. Dion Cassius (xlvii. 3-8) has also described the events of the proscription.
[361] This was a crime which would shock the Romans, for the Three not only seized deposits, which the depositary was legally bound to give to the owner, but they seized them in the hands of the Vestals, where they were protected by the sanctity of religion.
[362] Compare the Life of Brutus, c. 41, &c., as to the events in this chapter.
[363] See the Life of Brutus, c. 26, &c.
[364] Antonius crossed over to Asia in B.C. 41. In the latter part of B.C. 42, Cæsar was ill at Brundusium, and in B.C. 41 he was engaged in a civil war with L. Antonius, the brother of Marcus, and Fulvia the wife of Antonius. These are the civil commotions to which Plutarch alludes. Cæsar besieged L. Antonius in Perusia in B.C. 41, and took him prisoner.
[365] He was a prætor in B.C. 43, and consul in B.C. 39.
[366] The great distinctions that he received are recorded by Strabo (xiv. p. 648, ed. Casaub.). It is not in modern times only that dancers and fiddlers have received wealth and honours.
[367] The quotation is from the King Œdipus, v. 4.
[368] Bacchus had many names, as he had various qualities. As Omestes he was the “cruel;” and as Agrionius the “wild and savage.” One of his festivals was called Agrionia.
[369] He was an orator, and also something of a soldier, for he successfully opposed Labienus, B.C. 40, when he invaded Asia (c. 28).
[370] There are many ways of flattery, as there are many ways of doing various things. Plutarch here gives a hint, which persons in high places might find useful. Open flattery can only deceive a fool, and it is seldom addressed to any but a fool, unless the flatterer himself be so great a fool as not to know a wise man from a foolish: which is sometimes the case. But there is flattery, as Plutarch intimates, which addresses itself, not in the guise of flattery, but in the guise of truth, one of the characters of which is plain speaking. It is hard for a man in an exalted station to be always proof against flattery, for it is often not easy to detect it. Nor in the intercourse of daily life is it always easy to distinguish between him who gives you his honest advice and opinion, and him who gives it merely to please you, or, what is often worse, merely to please himself.
[371] Nothing is known of him, unless he be the person mentioned in c. 59. Kaltwasser conjectures that he may be the Dellius or Delius to whom Horace has addressed an ode. (Carm. iii. 2). See c. 1, note.
[372] Plutarch alludes to the passage in Homer (Iliad, xiv. 162) where Juno bedecks herself to captivate Jupiter.
[373] She was now about twenty-eight years of age. Kaltwasser suggests that the words “and Cnæus the son of Pompeius” must be an interpolation, because nothing is known of his amours with Cleopatra. But if this be so, other words which follow in the next sentence must have been altered when the interpolation was made.
[374] Antonius was at Tarsus on the river Cydnus when Cleopatra paid him this visit, B.C. 41. Shakespere has used this passage of Plutarch in his “Antony and Cleopatra,” act ii. sc. 2—
[375] Plutarch has given a long list of languages which this learned queen spoke. With Arabic and all the cognate dialects, it is probable enough that she was familiar, but we can hardly believe that she took pains to learn the barbarous language of the wretched Troglodytes, who lived in holes on the west coast of the Red Sea. Diodorus (iii. 32) describes their habits after the authority of Agatharchides.
Cleopatra’s face on the coins is not handsome. On some of them she is represented on the same coin with Antonius.
[376] He was a son of T. Labienus, who served under Cæsar in Gaul and afterwards went over to Pompeius (Life of Cæsar, c. 34). The father fell in the battle of Munda, B.C. 45.
Labienus, the son, was sent by the party of Brutus and Cassius to Parthia to get assistance from king Orodes. He heard of the battle of Philippi while he was in Parthia and before he had accomplished his mission; and he stayed with the Parthians. In the campaign here alluded to Labienus and the Parthians took Apameia and Antiocheia in Syria. Labienus, after invading the south-western part of Asia Minor (B.C. 40), was forced to fly before Ventidius; and he was seized in Cilicia by a freedman of Julius Cæsar. (Dion Cass. xlviii. 40.)
[377] Amphissa was a town of the Locri Ozolæ.
Philotas studied at Alexandria, which was then a great school of medicine. We have here an anecdote about Antonius which rests on more direct testimony than many well-received stories of modern days.
The bragging physician must have been a stupid fellow to be silenced by such a syllogism. I have translated πως πυρέττων, like Kaltwasser, “Wer einigermassen das Fieber hat,” &c., which is the correct translation.
The text probably means that Philotas was appointed physician to Antyllus.
[378] The passage to which Plutarch alludes is in the Gorgias, p. 464.
[379] A great trade was carried on in those times in dried fish from the Pontic or Black Sea. See Strabo, p. 320, ed. Casaub.
[380] It was near the end of B.C. 40 that Antonius was roused from his “sleep and drunken debauch.” He sailed from Alexandria to Tyrus in Phoenicia, and thence by way of Cyprus and Rhodes to Athens, where he saw Fulvia, who had escaped thither from Brundusium. He left her sick at Sikyon, and crossed from Corcyra (Corfu) to Italy. (Appian, Civil Wars, v. 52-55.) Brundusium shut her gates against him, on which he commenced the siege of the city. The war was stopped by the reconciliation that is mentioned in the text, to which the news of the death of Fulvia greatly contributed. Antonius had left her at Sikyon without taking leave of her, and vexation and disease put an end to her turbulent life. (Appian, Civil Wars, v. 59.)
[381] See the Life of Cicero, c. 44, note.
[382] The meeting with, Sextus Pompeius was in B.C. 39, at Cape Miseno, which is the northern point of the Gulf of Naples.
Sextus was the second son of Pompeius Magnus. He was now master of a large fleet, and having the command of the sea, he cut off the supplies from Rome. The consequence was a famine and riots in the city. (Appian, Civil Wars, v. 67, &c.) Antonius slaughtered many of the rioters, and their bodies were thrown into the Tiber. This restored order; “but the famine,” says Appian, “was at its height, and the people groaned and were quiet.”
[383] P. Ventidius Bassus was what the Romans call a “novus homo,” the first of his family who distinguished himself at Rome. He had the courage of a soldier and the talents of a true general. When a child he was made prisoner with his mother in the Marsian war (Dion Cass. xliii. 51), and he appeared in the triumphal procession of Pompeius Strabo (Dion Cass. xlix. 21). The captive lived to figure as the principal person in his own triumph, B.C. 38. In his youth he supported himself by a mean occupation. Hoche, when he was a common soldier, used to embroider waistcoats. Julius Cæsar discovered the talents of Bassus, and gave him employment suited to his abilities. In B.C. 43 he was Prætor and in the same year Consul Suffectus. (Drumann, Antonii, p. 439; Gell. xv. 4.)
[384] Cockfighting pleased a Roman, as it used to do an Englishman. The Athenians used to fight quails.
[385] The name is written indifferently Hyrodes or Orodes (see the Life of Crassus, c. 18).
Plutarch, on this as on many other occasions, takes no pains to state facts with accuracy. Labienus lost his life and the Parthians were defeated; and that was enough for his purpose. The facts are stated more circumstantially by Dion Cassius (xlviii. 40, 41).
[386] The president of the gymnastic exercises. Dion Cassius (xlviii. 39) tells us something that is characteristic of Antonius. The fulsome flattery of the Athenians gave him on this occasion the title of the young Bacchus, and they betrothed the goddess Minerva to him. Antonius said he was well content with the match; and to show that he was in earnest he demanded of them a contribution of one million drachmæ as a portion with his new wife. He thus fleeced them of about 2800l. sterling. No doubt Antonius relished the joke as well as the money.
[387] The sacred olive was in the Erektheium on the Acropolis of Athens. Pausanias (i. 28) mentions a fountain on the Acropolis near the Propylæa; and this is probably what Plutarch calls Clepsydra, or a water-clock. The name Clepsydra is given to a spring in Messenia by Pausanias (iv. 31). Kaltwasser supposes the name Clepsydra to have been given because such a spring was intermittent. Such a spring the younger Pliny describes (Ep. iv. 30).
[388] The defeat of Pacorus (B.C. 38) is told by Dion Cassius (xlix. 19). The ode of Horace (Carm. iii. 6) in which he mentions Pacorus seems to have been written before this victory, and after the defeat of Decidius Saxa (B.C. 40; Dion, xlviii. 25).
[389] Commagene on the west bordered on Cilicia and Cappadocia. The capital was Samosata, on the Euphrates, afterwards the birthplace of Lucian. This Antiochus was attacked by Pompeius B.C. 65, who concluded a peace with him and extended his dominions (Appian Mithrid. 106, &c.).
[390] C. Sossius was made governor of Syria and Cilicia by Antonius. He took the island and town of Aradus on the coast of Phoenice (B.C. 38); and captured Antigonus, the son of Aristobulus, in Jerusalem.
[391] P. Canidius Crassus. His campaign against the Iberi of Asia is described by Dion Cassius (xlix. 24).
[392] Antonius and Cæsar met at Tarentum (Taranto) in the spring of B.C. 37. The events of this meeting are circumstantially detailed by Appian (Civil Wars, v. 93, &c.). Dion Cassius (xlviii. 54) says that the meeting was in the winter.
[393] M. Vipsanius Agrippa, the constant friend of Cæsar, and afterwards the husband of his daughter Julia. Mæcenas, the patron of Virgil and Horace.
[394] Μυοπάρωνες are said to be light ships, such as pirates use, adapted for quick sailing.
[395] Cæsar spent this year in making preparation against Sextus Pompeius. In B.C. 36 Pompeius was defeated on the coast of Sicily. He fled into Asia, and was put to death at Miletus by M. Titius, who commanded under Antonius (Appian, Civil Wars, v. 97-121).
[396] The passage to which Plutarch alludes is in the Phædrus, p. 556.
[397] That is, the Ocean, as opposed to the Internal Sea or the Mediterranean. Kaltwasser proposes to alter the text to “internal sea,” for no sufficient reason.
[398] This was the Antigonus who fell into the hands of Sossius, when he took Jerusalem on the Sabbath, as Pompeius Magnus had done. (Life of Pompeius, 39; Dion Cassius, xlix. 22, and the notes of Reimarus.) Antigonus was tied to a stake and whipped before he was beheaded. The kingdom of Judæa was given to Herodes, the son of Antipater.
[399] Plutarch probably alludes to some laws of Solon against bastardy.
[400] A common name of the Parthian kings (see the Life of Crassus, c. 33). This Parthian war of Antonius took place in B.C. 36.
[401] See Plutarch’s Life of Themistocles, c. 29. It was an eastern fashion to grant a man a country, or a town and its district, for his maintenance and to administer. Fidelity to the giver was of course expected. The gift was a kind of fief.
[402] Among the Persians, and as it here appears among the Parthians, “to send a right hand” was an offer of peace and friendship (Xenophon, Anab. ii. 4, who uses the expression “right hands”).
[403] The desert tract in the northern part of Mesopotamia is meant.
[404] There is error as to the number of cavalry of Artavasdes either here or in c. 50. See the notes of Kaltwasser and Sintenis: and as to Artavasdes, Life of Crassus, c. 19, 33, and Dion Cassius, xlix. 25.
[405] No doubt Iberians of Spain are meant.
[406] Was the most south-western part of Media, and it comprehended the chief part of the modern Azerbijan.
[407] Dion Cassius (xlix. 25) names the place Phraaspa or Praaspa, which may be the right name. The position of the place and the direction of the march of Antonius are unknown.
[408] Was a king of Pontus: he was ransomed for a large sum of money. Reimarus says in a note to Dion Cassius (xlix. 25) that Plutarch states that Polemon was killed. The learned editor must have read this chapter carelessly.
[409] See Life of Crassus, c. 10.
[410] οἱ γνωριμώτατοι, which Kaltwasser translates “those who were most acquainted with the Romans;” and his translation may be right.
[411] Cn. Domitius Ahenobarbus, which is the Roman mode of writing the word. He was the son of Domitius who was taken by Cæsar in Corfinium (Life of Cæsar, c. 34); and he is the Domitius who deserted Antonius just before the battle of Actium (c. 63).
[412] The Mardi inhabited a tract on the south coast of the Caspian, where there was a river Mardus or Amardus.
Plutarch has derived his narrative of the retreat from some account by an eye-witness, but though it is striking as a picture, it is quite useless as a military history. The route is not designated any further than this, that Antonius had to pass through a plain and desert country. It is certain that he advanced considerably east of the Tigris, and he experienced the same difficulties that Crassus did in the northern part of Mesopotamia. (Strabo, p. 523, ed. Casaub. as to the narrative of Adelphius, and Casaubon’s note.)
[413] These were used by the slingers (funditores) in the Roman army.
[414] ἐπ’ οὐρὰν, Sintenis: but the MS. reading is ἀπ’ οὐρᾶς, “from the rear.” See the note of Schaefer, and of Sintenis.
[415] Contrary to Parthian practice. Compare the Life of Crassus, c. 27.
[416] These are the soldiers in full armour. Sintenis refers to the Life of Crassus, c. 25. See life of Antonius, c. 49, οἱ δὲ ὁπλῖται ... τοῖς θυρεοῖς.
[417] The Romans called this mode of defence Testudo, or tortoise. It is described by Dion Cassius (xlix. 30). The testudo was also used in assaulting a city or wall. A cut of one from the Antonine column is given in Smith’s Dict. of Antiquities, art. Testudo.
[418] The forty-eighth part of a medimnus. The medimnus is estimated at 11 gal. 7·1456 pints English. The drachma (Attic) is reckoned at about 9-3/4d. (Smith’s Dict. of Antiquities.) But the scarcity is best shown by the fact that barley bread was as dear as silver. Compare Xenophon (Anab. i. 5, 6) as to the prices in the army of Cyrus, when it was marching through the desert.
[419] The allusion is to the retreat of the Greeks in the army of Cyrus from the plain of Cunaxa over the highlands of Armenia to Trapezus (Trebizond); which is the main subject of the Anabasis of Xenophon.
[420] Salt streams occur on the high lands of Asia. Mannert, quoted by Kaltwasser, supposes that the stream here spoken of is one that flows near Tabriz and then joins another river. If this were the only salt stream that Antonius could meet with on his march, the conclusion of the German geographer might be admitted.
[421] The modern Aras. The main branch of the river rises in the same mountain mass in which a branch of the Euphrates rises, about 39° 47’ N. lat., 41° 9’ E. long. It joins the Cyrus or Kur, which comes from the Caucasus, about thirty miles above the entrance of the united stream into the Caspian Sea. Mannert, quoted by Kaltwasser, conjectures that Antonius crossed the river at Julfa (38° 54’ N. lat.). It is well to call it a conjecture. Any body may make another, with as much reason. Twenty-seven days’ march (c. 50) brought the Romans from Phraata to the Araxes, but the point of departure and the point where the army crossed the Araxes are both unknown.
[422] The second expedition of Antonius into Armenia was in B.C. 34, when he advanced to the Araxes. After the triumph, Artavasdes was kept in captivity, and he was put to death by Cleopatra in Egypt after the battle of Actium, B.C. 30 (Dion Cassius xlix. 41, &c).
[423] Compare Dion Cassius, xlix. 51.
[424] The name is written both Phraates and Phrates in the MSS.
[425] She went to Athens in B.C. 35.
[426] In B.C. 34, Antonius invaded Armenia and got Artavasdes the king into his power. The Median king with whom Antonius made this marriage alliance (B.C. 33) was also named Artavasdes. Alexander, the son of Antonius by Cleopatra, was married to Jotape, a daughter of this Median king.
[427] This is Plutarch’s word. Its precise meaning is not clear, but it may be collected from the context. It was something like a piece of theatrical pomp.
[428] Or Cidaris. (See Life of Pompeius, c. 33.) The Cittaris seems to be the higher and upright part of the tiara; and sometimes to be used in the same sense as tiara. The Causia was a Macedonian hat with a broad brim. (See Smith’s Dict. of Antiquities.)
[429] After the defeat of Sextus Pompeius, Lepidus made a claim to Sicily and attempted a campaign there against Cæsar. But this feeble man was compelled to surrender. He was deprived of all power, and sent to live in Italy. He still retained his office of Pontifex Maximus (Appian, Civil Wars, v. 126; Dion Cassius, xlix. 11).
[430] This is an emendation of Amiot in place of the corrupt word Laurians.
[431] The preparation was making in B.C. 32. Antonius spent the winter of this year at Patræ in Achæa.
[432] An account of these exactions is given by Dion Cassius (l. 10). They show to what a condition a people can be reduced by tyranny.
[433] Such is the nature of the people. It is hard to rouse them; and their patience is proved by all the facts of history.
[434] It was usual with the Romans, at least with men of rank, to deposit their wills with the Vestals for safe keeping.
[435] This great library at Alexandria is said to have been destroyed during the Alexandrine war. See the Life of Cæsar, c. 49.
[436] The translators are much puzzled to explain this. Kaltwasser conjectures that Antonius in consequence of losing some wager was required to do this servile act; and accordingly he translates part of the Greek text “in consequence of a wager that had been made.”
[437] The only person of the name who is known as an active partizan at this time was C. Furnius, tribune of the plebs, B.C. 50. He was a legatus under M. Antonius in Asia in B.C. 35. Here Plutarch represents him as a partizan of Cæsar. If Plutarch’s Furnius was the tribune, he must have changed sides already. As to his eloquence, there is no further evidence of it than what we have here.
[438] C. Calvisius Sabinus, who was consul B.C. 39 with L. Marcius Censorinus.
[439] The name occurs in Horace, 1 Sat. 5; but the two may be different persons. As to the Roman Deliciæ see the note of Coraes; and Suetonius, Augustus, c. 83.
[440] Dion Cassius (1. 4) also states that war was declared only against Cleopatra, but that Antonius was deprived of all the powers that had been given to him.
[441] Now Pesaro in Umbria.
[442] See Pausanias, i. 25. 2.
[443] The text of Bryan has, “and Deiotarus, king of the Galatians:” and Schaefer follows it. But see the note of Sintenis.
[444] Actium is a promontory on the southern side of the entrance of the Ambraciot Gulf, now the gulf of Arta. It is probably the point of land now called La Punta. The width of the entrance of the gulf is about half a mile. Nicopolis, “the city of Victory,” was built by Cæsar on the northern side of the gulf, a few miles from the site of Prevesa. The battle of Actium was fought on the 2nd of September, B.C. 31. It is more minutely described by Dion Cassius (l. 31, &c.; li. 1).
[445] This word means something to stir up a pot with, a ladle or something of the kind. The joke is as dull as it could be.
[446] Sintenis observes that Plutarch has here omitted to mention the place of Arruntius, who had the centre of Cæsar’s line (c. 66). C. Sossius commanded the left of the line of Antonius. Insteius is a Roman name, as appears from inscriptions. Taurus is T. Statilius Taurus.
[447] There is some confusion in the text here, but the general meaning is probably what I have given. See the note of Sintenis.
[448] These were light vessels adapted for quick evolutions. Horace, Epod. i., alludes to them:—
[449] Is the most southern point of the Peloponnesus, in Laconica. The modern name of Tænarus is Matapan or “head.”
[450] Dion Cassius (li. 2) gives an account of Cæsar’s behaviour after the battle. He exacted money from the cities; but Dion does not mention any particular cities.
[451] By “all the citizens” Plutarch means the citizens of his native town Chæronea. The people had to carry their burden a considerable distance, for this Antikyra was on the Corinthian gulf, nearly south of Delphi. This anecdote, which is supported by undoubted authority, is a good example of the sufferings of the people during this contest for power between two men.
[452] This was a town on the coast in the country called Marmarica. It had a port and was fortified, and thus served as a frontier post to Egypt against attacks from the west.
[453] See the Life of Brutus, c. 50.
[454] He was L. Pinarius Carpus, who had fought under him at Philippi. Carpus gave up his troops to Cornelius Gallus, who advanced upon him from the province Africa (Dion. Cass. 1. 5, where he is called Scarpus in the text of Reimarus).