ast, and he rapidly acquired considerable reputation as
a soldier. Here is the picture that Plutarch draws of him: There was
something noble and dignified in his appearance. His handsome beard, his
broad forehead, his aquiline nose, gave him a manly look that resembled
the familiar statues and pictures of Hercules. There was indeed a legend
that the Antonii were descended from a son of Hercules; and this he was
anxious to support by his appearance and dress. Whenever he appeared in
public he had his tunic gired up to the hip, carried a great sword at
his side, and wore a rough cloak of Cilician hair. The habits too that
seemed vulgar to others--his boastfulness, his coarse humor, his
drinking bouts, the way he had of eating in public, taking his meals as
he stood from the soldiers' tables--had an astonishing effect in making
him popular with the soldiers. His bounty too, the help which he gave
with a liberal hand to comrades and friends, made his way to power easy.
On one occasion he directed that a present of three thousand pounds
should be given to a friend. His steward, aghast at the magnitude of the
sum, thought to bring it home to his master's mind by putting the actual
coin on a table. "What is this?" said Antony, as he happened to pass by.
"The money you bade me pay over," was the man's reply. "Why, I had
thought it would be ten times as much as this. This is but a trifle. Add
to it as much more."

When the civil war broke out, Antony joined the party of Caesar, who,
knowing his popularity with the troops, made him his second in command.
He did good service at Pharsalia, and while his chief went on to Egypt,
returned to Rome as his representative. There were afterwards
differences between the two; Caesar was offended at the open scandal of
Antony's manners and found him a troublesome adherent; Antony conceived
himself to be insufficiently rewarded for his services, especially when
he was called upon to pay for Pompey's confiscated property, which he
had bought. Their close alliance, however, had been renewed before
Caesar's death. That event made him the first man in Rome. The chief
instrument of his power was a strange one; the Senate, seeing that the
people of Rome gloved and admired the dead man, passed a resolution that
all the wishes which Caesar had left in writing should have the force of
law--and Antony had the custody of his papers. People laughed, and
called the documents "Letters from the Styx." There w