The Project Gutenberg eBook of Plutarch's Lives, Translated from the Greek by Aubrey Stewart and George Long.

[455] Or “Sea that lies off Egypt,” that part of the Mediterranean which borders on Egypt. The width of the Isthmus is much more than 300 stadia: it is about seventy-two miles. Herodotus (ii. 158) states the width more correctly at one thousand stadia.

In this passage Plutarch calls the Red Sea both the Arabian gulf and the Erythra (Red), and in this he agrees with Herodotus. The Arabian Gulf or modern Red Sea was considered a part of the great Erythræan Sea or Indian Ocean. Herodotus (ii. 11) says that there is a gulf which runs into the land from the Erythræan sea; and this gulf he calls (ii. 11, 158) the Arabian gulf, which is now the Red Sea. See Anton, c. 3.

[456] See the Life of Pompeius, c. 41.

[457] The Pharos was an island opposite to Alexandria, and connected with it by a dike called Heptastadion, the length being seven stadia.

[458] Shakspere has made a play out of the meagre subject of Timon, and Lucian has a dialogue entitled “Timon or the Misanthropist.” (Comp. Strab. 794, ed. Cas.)

[459] This was the second day of the third Dionysiac festival, called the Anthesteria. The first day was Pithœgia (πιθοιγία) or the tapping of the jars of wine; and the second day, as the word Choes seems to import, was the cup day.

[460] This was Herodes I., son of Antipater, sometimes called the Great. He was not at the battle of Actium, but he sent aid to Antonius (c. 61).

[461] This was the toga virilis, or dress which denoted that a male was pubes, fourteen at least, and had attained full legal capacity. The prætexta, which was worn up to the time of assuming the toga virilis, had a broad purple border, by which the impubes was at once distinguished from other persons.

Cleopatra’s son, Cæsarion, was registered as an Alexandrine. The son of Antonius was treated as a Roman citizen.

[462] This seems to be the sense of the passage. The Greek for asp is aspis. Some suppose that it is the poisonous snake which the Arabs call El Haje, which measures from three to five feet in length. But this is rather too large to be put in a basket of figs.

[463] Conjectured by M. du Soul to be Alexander the Syrian, who has been mentioned before.

[464] He was a native of Alexandria, and had been carried prisoner to Rome by Gabinius. He obtained his freedom, and acquired celebrity as a rhetorician and historian. He was a favourite of Asinius Pollio and of Augustus; but he was too free-spoken for Augustus, who finally forbade him his house (Horat. 1. Ep. l, 19; and the note of Orelli). Life of Pompeius, c. 49.

Dion Cassius (li. 8), who believed every scandalous story, says that Cæsar made love to Cleopatra through the medium of Thyrsus.

[465] After the battle of Actium, Cæsar crossed over to Samos, where he spent the winter. He was recalled by the news of a mutiny among the soldiers, who had not received their promised reward. He returned to Brundusium, where he stayed twenty-seven days, and he went no further, for his appearance in Italy stopped the disturbance. He returned to Asia and marched through Syria to Egypt (Sueton. Aug. c. 17; Dion Cassius, li. 4).

[466] The shout of Bacchanals at the festivals. See the Ode of Horace (Carm. ii. 19):

Evoe, recenti mens trepidat metu.

[467] The fleet passed over to Cæsar on the 1st of August (Orosius, vi. 19). The treachery of Cleopatra is not improbable (Dion Cass. li. 10).

[468] Compare Dion Cassius, li. 10.

[469] His name was C. Proculeius. He appears to be the person to whom Horace alludes (Carm. ii. 2).

[470] Dion Cassius (li. 11) says that Cleopatra communicated to Cæsar the death of Antonius, which is not so probable as Plutarch’s narrative.

[471] C. Cornelius Gallus, a Roman Eques, who had advanced from the province Africa upon Egypt. He was afterwards governor of Egypt; but he incurred the displeasure of Augustus, and put an end to life B.C. 26. Gallus was a poet, and a friend of Virgil and Ovid. The tenth Eclogue of Virgil is addressed to Gallus.

[472] Said to have been a Stoic, and much admired by Augustus (Dion Cass. li. 16; Sueton. Aug. 89).

[473] Probably the same that is mentioned in the Life of Cato the Younger, c. 57.

[474] The circumstances of the death of Antyllus and Cæsarion are not told in the same way by Dion Cassius (li. 15). Antyllus had been betrothed to Cæsar’s daughter Julia in B.C. 36.

[475] The words are borrowed from Homer (Iliad, ii. 204):—

Οὐκ ἀγαθὸν πολυκοιρανίη.

There could be no reason for putting Cæsarion to death as a possible competitor with Cæsar at Rome, for he was not a Roman citizen. As it was Cæsar’s object to keep Egypt, Cæsarion would have been an obstacle there.

[476] There were, as usual in such matters, various versions of this interview: it was a fit subject for embellishment with the writers of spurious history. The account of Plutarch is much simpler and more natural than that of Dion Cassius (li. 12), which savours of the rhetorical.

[477] He was the son of P. Cornelius Dolabella, once the son-in-law of Cicero, and one of Cæsar’s murderers. His son P. Cornelius Dolabella was consul A.D. 10.

[478] The word “companions” represents the Roman “comites,” which has a technical meaning. Young men of rank, who were about the person of a commander, and formed a kind of staff, were his Comites. See Horat. I. Ep. 8.

[479] The story of Dion (li. 14) is that Cæsar, after he had seen the body, sent for the Psylli, serpent charmers, to suck out the poison (compare Lucan, Pharsal. ix. 925). If a person was not dead, it was supposed that the Psylli could extract the poison and save the life.

Dion Cassius also states that the true cause of Cleopatra’s death was unknown. One account was that she punctured her arm with a hair-pin (βελόνη) which was poisoned. But even as to the punctures on the arm, Plutarch does not seem to state positively that there were any. The “hollow comb” is hardly intelligible. Plutarch’s word is κνηστίς, “a scraping instrument of any kind.” One MS. has κιστίς, “a small coffer.” Strabo (p. 795, ed. Casaub.) doubts whether she perished by the bite of a serpent or by puncturing herself with a poisoned instrument. Propertius (iii. 11, 53) alludes to the image of Cleopatra, which was carried in the triumph—

Brachia spectavi sacris admorsa colubris
Et trahere occultum membra soporis iter.

An ancient marble at Rome represents Cleopatra with the asp on her arm. There was also a story of her applying it to the left breast.

Cleopatra was born in B.C. 69, and died in the latter part of B.C. 30. She was seventeen years of age when her father Ptolemæus Auletes died: and upon his death she governed jointly with her brother Ptolemæus, whose wife she was to be. Antonius first saw her when he was in Egypt with Gabinius, and he had not forgotten the impression which the young girl then made on him at the time when she visited him at Tarsus (Appian, Civil Wars, v. 8). Antonius was forty years old when he saw Cleopatra at Tarsus, B.C. 41, and he would therefore be in his fifty-second year at the time of his death (Clinton, Fasti).

[480] Octavia’s care of the children of Antonius is one of the beautiful traits of her character. She is one of those Roman women whose virtues command admiration.

Cleopatra, the daughter of Antonius and twin sister of Alexander, married Juba II., king of Numidia, by whom she had a son Ptolemæus, who succeeded his father, and a daughter Drusilla, who married Antonius Felix, the governor of Judæa. The two brothers of Cleopatra were Alexander and Ptolemæus.

Antonius, the son of Fulvia, was called Iulus Antonius. He married Marcella, one of the daughters of Octavia. In B.C. 10, Antonius was consul. He formed an adulterous intercourse with Julia, the daughter of Augustus, which cost him his life B.C. 2. Antonius was a poet, as it seems (Horat. Carm. iv. 2, and Orelli’s note).

The elder Antonia, the daughter of Octavia and Antonius, married L. Domitius Ahenobarbus, the son of Cneius, who deserted to Cæsar just before the battle of Actium. This Lucius had by Antonia a son, Cn. Domitius Ahenobarbus, who married Agrippina, the daughter of Cæsar Germanicus. Agrippina’s son, L. Domitius Ahenobarbus, was adopted by the emperor Claudius after his marriage with Agrippina, and Lucius then took the name of Nero Claudius Caesar Drusus. As the emperor Nero his infamy is imperishable.

The younger Antonia, the daughter of Octavia and Antonius, married Drusus, the second son of Tiberius Claudius Nero. Tiberius had divorced his wife Livia in order that Caesar Octavianus might become her husband. The virtues of Antonia are recorded by Plutarch and others: her beauty is testified by her handsome face on a medal.

The expression of Plutarch that Caius, by whom he means Caius Caligula, “ruled with distinction,” has caused the commentators some difficulty, and they have proposed to read ἐπιμανῶς, “like a madman” in place of ἐπιφανῶς, “with distinction.” Perhaps Plutarch’s meaning may be something like what I have given, and he may allude to the commencement of Caligula’s reign, which gave good hopes, as Suetonius shows. Some would get over the difficulty by giving to ἐπιφανῶς a different meaning from the common meaning. See Kaltwasser’s note.

A portrait of Antonius (see Notes to Brutus, c. 52) would be an idle impertinence. He is portrayed clear and distinct in this inimitable Life of Plutarch.

Here ends the Tragedy of Antonius and Cleopatra; and after it begins the Monarchy, as Plutarch would call it, or the sole rule of Augustus. See the Preface to the First Volume.

[482] The various stories about Plato’s slavery are discussed in Grote’s ‘History of Greece,’ part ii. ch. 53.

[483] Aristomache and Arete.

[484] Periodical northerly winds or monsoons.

[485] The ceremony of the libations seems to correspond to our “grace after meat.” See vol. i. Life of Perikles, ch. 7.

[486] Grote paraphrases this passage as follows:—“A little squadron was prepared, of no more than five merchantmen, two of them vessels of thirty oars, &c.” On consulting Liddell and Scott’s Lexicon, s.v. τριακόντορος, I find a reference to Thuc. iv. 9; where a Messenian pirate triaconter is spoken of, and for further information the reader is referred to the article “πεντηκόντορος (sc. ναῦς), ἡ, a ship of burden with fifty oars,” Pind. P. 4. 436, Eur. I.T. 1124, Thuc. i., 14, &c. But none of these passages bear out the sense of a “vessel of burden.” The passage in Pindar merely states that the snake which Jason slew was as big or bigger than a πεντηκόντορος. Herod, ii. 163, distinctly says “not ships of burden, but penteconters.” In Eur. I.T. 1124, the chorus merely remark that Iphigenia will be borne home by a penteconter, while Thucydides (i. 14) explicitly states that, many generations after the Trojan war, the chief navies of Greece consisted of but few triremes, and chiefly of “penteconters or of long ships equipped like them.” From these passages I am inclined to think that the true meaning of the passage is the literal one, that the soldiers were placed on board of two transports, that the two triaconters, or thirty-oared galleys, were ships of war and acted as convoy to them, and that the small vessel was intended for Dion and his friends to escape in if necessary. In Dem. Zen. a πεντηκόντορος undoubtedly is spoken of as a merchant vessel; but this does not prove that there were no war penteconters in Dion’s time.

[487] Kerkina and Kerkinitis, two low islands off the north coast of Africa, in the mouth of the Lesser Syrtis, united by a bridge and possessing a fine harbour. ‘Dictionary of Antiquities.’

[488] The Greek word is κοντός, which is singularly near in sound to the East Anglian “quant.”

[489] This seems to be the universally accepted emendation of the unmeaning words in the original text. Grote remarks “The statue and sacred ground of Apollo Temenites was the most remarkable feature in this portion of Syracuse, and would naturally be selected to furnish a name for the gate.” ‘Hist. of Greece,’ part ii. ch. lxxxiv. note.

[490] The main street of Achradina is spoken of by Cicero as broad, straight and long; which was unusual in an ancient Greek city. See Grote. ad. loc.

[491] The citadel of Syracuse was built upon the island of Ortygia, and was therefore easily cut off by a ditch and palisade across the narrow isthmus by which it was connected with the mainland.

[492] “He offered them what in modern times would be called a constitution.” Grote.

[493] On this passage Grote has the following note:—“Plutarch states that Herakleides brought only seven triremes. But the force stated by Diodorus (twenty triremes, three transports and 1500 soldiers) appears more probable. It is difficult otherwise to explain the number of ships which the Syracusans presently appear as possessing. Moreover, the great importance which Herakleides steps into, as opposed to Dion, is more easily accounted for.”

[494] The Syracusan cavalry was celebrated, and “the knights” here and elsewhere no doubt means Syracusan citizens, though at first this passage looks as if strangers were meant. See ch. 44, where the knights and leading citizens are mentioned together.

[495] I conceive that the “atrium” or “cavædium” of the house, that is, the interior peristyle or court surrounded with columns, is meant, and that Dion, sitting on one side of this room, saw the apparition behind the columns on the other. An outside portico was a very unusual appendage to a Greek house, and Dion’s house is said to have been especially simple and unpretending, whereas nearly all houses were built with an inner court or “patio,” with its roof supported by columns, and into which the other rooms of the house opened.

[496] L. Junius Brutus, consul B.C. 509, was a Patrician, and his race was extinct in his two sons (Liv. ii. 1-4; Drumann, Junii, p. 1; Dion Cassius, xliv. 12; Dionys. Hal. Antiq. Rom. v. 18).

[497] Servilia, the wife of M. Junius Brutus, the father of this Brutus, was the daughter of Livia, who was the sister of M. Livius Drusus, tribunus plebis B.C. 91. Livia married for her first husband M. Cato, by whom she had M. Cato Uticensis; for her second husband she had Q. Servilius Cæpio, by whom she became the mother of Servilia. M. Junius Brutus, the father of this Brutus, was the first husband of Servilia, who had by her second husband, D. Junius Silanus, two daughters. Her son Brutus was born in the autumn of B.C. 85. He was adopted by his uncle Q. Servilius Cæpio, whence he is sometimes called Cæpio, and Q. Cæpio Brutus on coins, public monuments, and in decrees (Drumann, Junii).

[498] Ahala was Magister Equitum to L. Quinctius Cincinnatus. The story belongs to B.C. 439; and it is told by Livius, iv. 13, 14. The true name of Mallius Spurius is Spurius Mælius.

[499] This passage is obscure in the original. The parentage of M. Junius Brutus, the father of this Brutus, does not appear to be ascertained.

[500] See the Life of Lucullus, c. 42.

[501] See the Life of Cicero, c. 4. Cicero mentions Ariston, which is probably the true name, in his Tusculanæ Quæstiones, v. 8.

[502] Nothing more is known of him.

[503] The original is obscure. See Sintenis, note; and Schæfer, note. Kaltwasser follows the reading πρὸς τὰς ἐξόδους, which he translates “für den Kriegsdienst.”

[504] See the Life of the Younger Cato, c. 35, &c.

[505] Coræs explains the original (σχολαστὴς) to mean “one who is engaged about learning and philosophy.”

[506] The father of this Brutus was of the faction of Marius, and tribunus plebis B.C. 83. After Sulla’s return he lost all power, and after Sulla’s death Pompeius (B.C. 77) marched against Brutus, who shut himself up in Mutina (Modena). A mutiny among his troops compelled him to open the gates, and Pompeius ordered him to be put to death, contrary to the promise which he had given (Life of Pompeius, c. 16).

The allusion at the beginning of this chapter is to the outbreak between Pompeius and Cæsar, B.C. 49.

[507] P. Sextius was governor of Cilicia. In the text of Plutarch Sicilia stands erroneously in place of Cilicia: this is probably an error of the copyists, who often confound these names (see Life of Pompeius, c. 61; Cicero, Ad Attic. viii. 14; ix. 7).

[508] Brutus was a great reader and a busy writer. Drumann (Junii, p. 37) gives a sketch of his literary activity. Such a trifle as an epitome of Polybius was probably only intended as a mere occupation to pass the time. The loss of it is not a matter of regret, any further than so far as it might have supplied some deficiencies in the present text of Polybius. Bacon (Advancement of Learning) describes epitomes thus: “As for the corruptions and moths of history, which are epitomes, the use of them deserveth to be banished, as all men of sound judgment have confessed; as those that have fretted and corroded the sound bodies of many excellent histories, and wrought them into base and unprofitable dregs.”

[509] The story of Cæsar receiving this note is told in the Life of Cato, c. 24. Cæsar was born on the 12th July, B.C. 100, which is a sufficient answer to the scandalous tale of his being the father of Brutus. That he may have had an adulterous commerce with Servilia in and before B.C. 63, the year of Catiline’s conspiracy, is probable enough.

[510] This was C. Cassius Longinus, who accompanied Crassus in his Parthian campaign (Life of Crassus, c. 18, &c.). After Cato had retired to Africa, Cassius made his peace with Cæsar (Dion Cassius, xlii. 13).

[511] Kaltwasser has adopted the correction of Moses du Soul, and has translated the passage “in Nikaea für den König Deiotarus.” The anecdote appears to refer clearly to king Deiotarus, as appears from Cicero’s Letters to Atticus (xiv. 1). See Drumann’s note, Junii, p. 25, note 83. Coræs would read Γαλατῶν for Λιβύων.

[512] This was the north part of Italy. Cæsar set out for his African campaign in B.C. 47. Brutus held Gallia in the year B.C. 46. See Drumann, Junii, p. 26, note 91, on the administration of Gallia by Brutus.

[513] Plutarch here alludes to the office of Prætor Urbanus, who, during the year of his office, was the chief person for the administration of justice. The number of prætors at this time was ten (Dion Cassius, xlii. 51), to which number they were increased from eight by Cæsar in B.C. 47. The Prætor Urbanus still held the first rank. The motive of Cæsar may have been, as Dion Cassius says, to oblige his dependents by giving them office and rank. Brutus was Prætor Urbanus in B.C. 44, the year of Cæsar’s assassination.

[514] This anecdote is told in Cæsar’s Life, c. 62.

[515] Q. Fufius Calenus was sent by Cæsar before the battle of Pharsalus to Greece (Life of Cæsar, c. 43). Megara made strong resistance to Calenus, and was treated with severity. Dion Cassius (xlii. 14) says nothing about the lions.

[516] See the Life of Sulla, c. 34, and note to c. 37; and the Life of Cæsar, c. 53, note.

[517] See the Life of Cæsar, c. 61, and Dion Cassius, xliv. 3, &c.

[518] His name was Quintus. Ligarius fought against Cæsar at the battle of Thapsus B.C. 46. He was taken prisoner and banished. He was prosecuted by Q. Delius Tubero for his conduct in Africa, and defended by Cicero in an extant speech. Ligarius obtained a pardon from Cæsar, and he repaid the dictator, like many others, by aiding in his murder. It seems pretty certain that he lost his life in the proscriptions of the Triumviri (Appian, Civil Wars, iv, 22, 23).

[519] Compare the Life of the Younger Cato, c. 65, 73; and as to Favonius, the same life.

[520] Q. Antistius Labeo was one of the hearers of Servius Sulpicins (Dig. i. tit. 2, s. 2, § 44), and himself a jurist, and the father of a more distinguished jurist, Antistius Labeo, who lived under Augustus. He was at the battle of Philippi, and after the defeat he killed himself, and was buried in a grave in his tent, which he had dug for the purpose (Appian, Civil Wars, iv. 135).

[521] See the Life of Cæsar, c. 64, and the note.

The signs of Cæsar’s death are mentioned in the Life of Cæsar, c. 63.

[522] Brutus was first married to Claudia, a daughter of Appius Claudius, consul B.C. 54. It was probably in B.C. 55, and after Cato’s death, that he put away Claudia, for which he was blamed (Cic. Ad Attic. xiii. 9), and married Porcia, the daughter of Cato, and widow of M. Calpurnius Bibulus, the colleague of Cæsar in the consulship B.C. 59. As to the affair of the wound, compare Dion Cassius (xliv. 13 &c.).

[523] This was the great architectural work of Pompeius (Life of Pompeius, c. 40, note).

[524] The same story is told by Appian (Civil Wars, ii. 115).

[525] The circumstances of Cæsar’s death are told in his Life, c. 66; where it is incorrectly said that Brutus Albinus engaged Antonius in conversation. To the authorities referred to in the note to c. 66 of the Life of Cæsar, add Cicero, Phillip. ii. 14, which is referred to by Kaltwasser.

[526] L. Munatius Plancus, who had received favours from Cæsar, and the province of Transalpine Gaul, with the exception of Narbonensis and Belgica B.C. 44.

As to the arrangement about the provinces after Cæsar’s death, see the Life of Antonius, c. 14.

[527] Compare the Life of Cæsar, c. 68, and the note.

[528] The allusion is to P. Clodius, who fell in a brawl with T. Annius Milo B.C. 52. See the Life of Cicero, c. 52.

[529] Compare the Life of Cæsar, c. 68.

[530] Now Porto d’Anzo, on the coast of Latium, thirty miles from Rome. It is now a poor place, with numerous remains of former buildings (Westphal, Die Römische Kampagne, and his two maps).

[531] These were the Ludi Apollinares (Dion, xlvii. 20), which Brutus had to superintend as Prætor Urbanus. The day of celebration was the fourth of Quintilis or Julius. The games were superintended by L. Antonius, the brother of Marcus, and the colleague of Brutus.

[532] Compare the Life of Cicero, c. 43, and notes; and the Life of Antonius, c. 16.

[533] Complaints like these, of the conduct of Cicero, appear in the sixteenth and seventeenth letters of the book which is entitled ‘M. Tullii Epistolarum ad Brutum Liber Singularis;’ but the genuineness of these letters is very doubtful. Plutarch himself (Brutus, 53) did not fully believe in the genuineness of all the letters attributed to Brutus.

[534] Elea, the Romans called this place Velia. It was on the coast of Lucania, in the modern province of Basilicata in the kingdom of Naples; and the remains are near Castella a mare della Brucca. Velia is often mentioned by Cicero, who set sail from thence when he intended to go to Greece (Life of Cicero, c. 43).

[535] The passages in Homer are, Iliad, vi. 429 and 491, the parting of Hector and Andromache. The old stories of Greece furnished the painter with excellent subjects, and the simplicity with which they treated them may be inferred from Plutarch’s description. The poet was here the real painter. The artist merely gave a sensuous form to the poet’s conception. The parting of Hector and Andromache is the subject of one of Schiller’s early poems.

[536] Dion Cassius (xlvii. 20) describes the reception of Brutus at Athens. The Athenians ordered bronze statues of Brutus and Cassius to be set up by the side of the statues of Harmodius and Aristogeiton, who had liberated Athens from the tyranny of the Peisistratidæ.

[537] See the Life of Pompeius, c. 75. Cicero’s son Marcus was attending the lectures of Cratippus B.C. 44, and also, as it appears, up to the time when Brutus came to Athens. Horace, who was now at Athens, also joined the side of Brutus, and was present at the battle of Philippi.

[538] A town near the southern point of Eubœa. The Roman commander who gave up the money, was the Quæstor M. Appuleius (Cicero, Philipp. x. 11). Plutarch in the next chapter calls him Antistius.

[539] These are the dying words of Patroclus (Iliad, xvi. 849). Apollo is Leto’s son.

[540] See the Life of Cicero, c. 43, note; and Dion Cassius (xlvii. 29, &c.).

[541] A town in Thessalia.

[542] Q. Hortensius Hortalus, the son of the orator Hortensius, who held the province of Macedonia (B.C. 44), in which Brutus was to succeed him. He was put to death by M. Antonius after the battle of Philippi (c. 28).

[543] This may be an error of Plutarch’s copyists. His name was P. Vatinius (Dion Cassius, xlvii. 21).

[544] The Greek soldiers suffered in this way in their retreat from Babylonia over the table-land of Armenia (Xenophon, Anabasis, iv. 5, 7). This bulimy is a different thing from that which modern writers call by that name, and which they describe as a “canine appetite, insatiable desire for food.” The nature of the appetite is exemplified by the instance of a man eating in one day four pounds of raw cow’s udder, ten pounds of raw beef, two pounds of candles, and drinking five bottles of porter (Penny Cyclopædia, art. Bulimia). The subject of Bulimia is discussed by Plutarch (Symposiaca, b. vi. Qu. 8).