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The Greatness and Decline of Rome: Rome and Egypt
The Greatness and Decline of Rome Rome and Egypt Author:Guglielmo Ferrero Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA Deposition of Lepidus—Octavianns' change of front—Outward and personal causes of the change—Weakness and discredit of the tr... more »iumvirate—Political effects of the failure in Persia— The concessions of Octavianus to public opinion—His mode- rate and pacific policy—Antony on his return from Persia —The first Illyrian campaign of Octavianus—The death of Sextus Pompeius—Great projects and small events—Antony and Cleopatra—The Dalmatian war and the conquest of Armenia. After dismissing the Asiatic contingents and leaving the greater The deposition part of his soldiers in Armenia, Antony returned to Syria with- epl us" out delay ; there he learnt of the events which had taken place in Italy after the flight of Sextus Pompeius. Not only had Octavianus taken Sicily from Sextus Pompeius, but he had also taken Africa with its legions from Lepidus ; the triumvirate was at an end, as the removal of Lepidus now made it a duumvirate; Antony's colleague had thus an unexpected counterpoise to his own acquisition of Egypt. The course of events had been strangely precipitate. After the flight of Sextus, his eight legions were besieged at Messina by Agrippa, and Lepidus had opened negotiations with the two generals ; Agrippa had requested them to wait while he submitted their proposals to Octavianus, who was at Naulochus; Lepidus, however, had agreed to accept their surrender and had induced them to See Plutarch, Ant, 51, and Dion. xlix. 31, concerning the distribution of thirty-five drachmae per head, which Antony made to his legionaries, and concerning Cleopatra's financial help. The scantiness of the gift and the rumours that the money was supplied by Cleopatra, confirm the fact that Antony was in want of money and that financial difficulties were the c...« less