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

[313] A dry measure, containing a sixth of a medimnus, or about 2 gallons.

[314] By the entrance commonly assigned to the principal person in a drama.—Thirlwall.

[315] Alexander, Antipater’s younger brother.

[316] Antigonus, surnamed Gonatas, afterwards King of Macedonia.

[317] He laid siege to Thebes, the only important city in Bœotia, which seems to have quickly recovered itself after its destruction by Alexander.

[318] O. Kardia.

[319] See vol. ii., Life of Pyrrhus, ch. 7.

[320] See ch. 10.

[321] Wife of Ptolemy, King of Egypt.

[322] B.C. 284.

[323] His death is told in the Life of Marius, c. 44.

[324] The Antonia Gens contained both Patricians and Plebeians. The cognomen of the Patrician Antonii was Merenda. M. Antonius Creticus, a son of Antonius the orator, belonged to the Patricians. In B.C. 74 he commanded a fleet in the Mediterranean against the pirates. He attacked the Cretans on the ground of their connection with Mithridates; but he lost a large part of his fleet, and his captured men were hung on the ropes of their own vessels. He died shortly after of shame and vexation. The surname Creticus was given him by way of mockery. According to Dion Cassius (xlv. 47) he died deeply in debt. He left three sons, Marcus, Caius and Lucius. His eldest son Marcus was probably born in B.C. 83.

[325] See the Life of Cicero, c. 22.

[326] C. Scribonius Curio, the son of a father of the same name. See the Life of Cæsar, c. 58. The amount of debt is stated by Cicero (Philipp. ii. 18) at the same sum, “sestertium sexagies.”

[327] He joined Aulus Gabinius at the end of B.C. 58. Gabinius and L. Calpurnius Piso were consuls in that year.

[328] He was king and high priest of the Jews. Pompeius had taken him prisoner and sent him to Rome, whence he contrived to make his escape, B.C. 57. Gabinius again sent him prisoner to Rome (Dion Cass. xxxvi. 15; xxxix. 55).

[329] Ptolemæus Auletes was the father of Cleopatra, and now an exile at Ephesus. His visit to Rome is mentioned in the Life of the younger Cato, c. 35, and in the Life of Pompeius, c. 49. During his exile his daughter Berenice reigned, and she was put to death by her father after his restoration.

[330] This Greek word literally signifies “outbreak.” It was the narrow passage by which the Serbonian lake was connected with the Mediterranean. This lake lay on the coast and on the line of march from Syria to Pelusium, the frontier town of Egypt on the east.

[331] Typhon, a brother of Osiris and Isis, was the evil deity of the Egyptians, but his influence in the time of Herodotus must have been small, as he was then buried under the Serbonian lake (Herodotus, iii. 5).

[332] The Greek name is Erythra, which may be translated Red: the Romans called the same sea Rubrum. In Herodotus the Red Sea is called the Arabian Gulf; and the Erythræan sea is the Indian Ocean. See the Life of Pompeius, c. 38.

[333] He was the son of Archelaus, the general of Mithridates. See the Life of Sulla, c. 23. He had become the husband of Berenice and shared the regal power with her. Probably Antonius had known Archelaus in his youth, for Archelaus the father went over from Mithridates to the Romans. Dion Cassius (xxxiv. 58) says that Gabinius put Archelaus to death after the capture of Alexandria. This Egyptian campaign belongs to B.C. 55.

[334] This characteristic appears on the coins of Antonius.

[335] Decies is literally “Ten times.” The phrase is “Decies sestertium,” which is a short way of expressing “ten times a hundred thousand sesterces.” When Plutarch says “five-and-twenty thousand,” he means drachmæ, as observed in previous notes, and he considers drachmæ as equivalent to Roman Denarii. Now a Denarius is four sesterces, and 25,000 Denarii = 1,000,000 sesterces, Kaltwasser suggests that in the Greek text “sestertium” has been accidentally omitted after “decies;” but “decies” is the reading of all the MSS., and it is sufficient.

[336] Antonius, after returning from Egypt in B.C. 54, went to Cæsar in Gaul, who was then in winter-quarters after his return from the second British expedition. In B.C. 53 Antonius was again at Rome, and in B.C. 52 he was a Quæstor, and returned to Cæsar in Gaul. In B.C. 50 he was again in Rome, in which year he was made Augur, and was elected Tribunus Plebis for the following year.

Compare with this chapter the Life of Pompeius, c. 58, and the Life of Cæsar, c. 31.

[337] Quintus Cassius Longinus is called by Cicero a brother of C. Cassius; but Drumann conjectures that he may have been a cousin. After the defeat of Afranius and Petreius by Cæsar B.C. 49, he was made Proprætor of Spain.

[338] This expression of Cicero occurs in his Second Philippic, c. 22: “ut Helena Trojanis, sic iste huic reipublicæ causa belli, causa pestis atque exitii fuit.” Plutarch’s remark on Cicero’s extravagant expression is just.

As to the events mentioned in this chapter, compare the Life of Cæsar, c. 34, &c.

[339] Cæsar returned from Iberia (Spain) before the end of B.C. 49. Early in B.C. 48 he crossed over from Brundusium to the Illyrian coast, where he was joined by Antonius and Fufius Calenus.

[340] Gabinius took his troops by land, and consequently had to march northwards along the Adriatic and round the northern point of it to reach Illyricum. From Plutarch’s narrative it would appear that he set out about the same time as Antonius. Drumann (Cornificii, 3) states that the time of his leaving Italy is incorrectly stated by Plutarch, Appian, and Dion Cassius (xlii. 11), and he places it after the battle of Pharsalus (B.C. 48). Gabinius, after a hard march, reached Salonæ in Dalmatia, where he was besieged by M. Octavius and died of disease.

[341] L. Scribonius Libo commanded the ships before Brundusium with the view of preventing Antonius from crossing over to Macedonia. He was the father-in-law of Sextus Pompeius, the son of Pompeius Magnus; and Cæsar Octavianus afterwards married Libo’s sister Scribonia, as a matter of policy.

[342] See the Life of Cæsar, c. 44.

[343] P. Cornelius Dolabella, the son-in-law of Cicero, who complains of his measures (Ep. Ad Attic. xi. 12, 14, 15; xiv. 21). Dolabella was in debt himself and wished to be relieved. If he had lived in England, he could easily have got relief. The story is told by Dion Cassius (xlii. 29). The Romans occasionally proposed sweeping measures for the settlement of accounts between debtor and creditor. A modern nation has a permanent court for “the relief of insolvent debtors;” and a few years ago a statute was passed in England (7 & 8 Vict. c. 96), which had the direct effect of cancelling all debts under 20l.; the debtors for whose relief it was passed were well pleased, but the creditors grumbled loudly, and it was amended. Those who blame the Roman system of an occasional settlement of debts, should examine the operation of a permanent law which has the same object; and they will be assisted in comparing English and Roman morality on this point by J.H. Elliott’s ‘Credit the Life of Commerce,’ London, Madden and Malcolm, 1845.

[344] Fadia was the first wife of Antonius. His cousin Antonia was the second. Cicero’s chief testimony against Antonius is contained in his Second Philippic, which is full of vulgar abuse, both true and false.

[345] She was sometimes called Volumnia, because she was a favourite of Volumnius. Cicero (Ad Div. ix. 26) speaks of dining in her company at the house of Volumnius Eutrapolus.

[346] Her first husband was P. Clodius, and she was his second wife. She had two children by Clodius, a son and a daughter. The daughter married Cæsar Octavianus B.C. 43 (c. 20). After the death of Clodius she married C. Scribonius Curio, the friend of Antonius, by whom she had one son, who was put to death by Cæsar after the battle of Actium. Curio perished in Africa B.C. 49. In B.C. 46 Antonius married Fulvia, after divorcing Antonia, and he had two sons by her. Fulvia was very rich.

[347] Cæsar returned from Iberia in the autumn of B.C. 45, after gaining the battle of Munda. He was consul for the fifth time in B.C. 44 with Antonius; and also Dictator with M. Æmilius Lepidus for his Magister Equitum.

[348] See the Life of Cæsar, c. 61.

[349] Compare the Life of Cæsar, c. 67, and of Brutus, c. 16.

[350] Compare the Life of Cæsar, c. 68, and of Brutus, c. 20. Dion Cassius (xliv. 36-49) has given a long oration which Antonius made on the occasion. It is not improbable that Dion may have had before him an oration attributed to Antonius; nor is it at all improbable that the speech of Antonius was published (Cic. Ad Attic. xiv. 11). Meyer (Oratorum Romanorum Frag. p. 455) considers this speech a fiction of Dion and to be pure declamation. He thinks that which Appian has made (Civil Wars, ii. 144, &c.) tolerably well adapted to the character of Antonius. Appian, we know, often followed very closely genuine documents. Shakespere has made a speech for Antonius (Julius Cæsar) which would have suited the occasion well.

[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—

“The barge she sat in, like a burnish’d throne,

Burnt on the water,” &c.

[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.