as recalled to Borne by political
dissensions there.

At this stage, however, it would seem that ambition was paramount with
him, not love; for his wife Fulvia having died, he did not marry
Cleopatra, but Octavia, sister of Octavius, his fellow-triumvir and
general rival. It was evidently from political considerations that he
married Octavia, who was a stately and noble woman, but tedious in her
dignity, and unattractive in her person. And what a commentary on Roman
rank! The sister of a Roman grandee seemed to the ambitious general a
greater match than the Queen of Egypt. How this must have piqued the
proud daughter of the Ptolemies,--that she, a queen, with all her
charms, was not the equal in the eyes of Antony to the sister of
Caesar's heir! But she knew her power, and stifled her resentment, and
waited for her time. She, too, had a political end to gain, and was too
politic to give way to anger and reproaches. She was anything but the
impulsive woman that some suppose,--but a great actress and artist, as
some women are when they would conquer, even in their loves, which, if
they do not feign, at least they know how to make appear greater than
they are. For about three years Antony cut loose from Cleopatra, and
pursued his military career in the East, as the rival of Octavius might,
having in view the sovereignty that Caesar had bequeathed to the
strongest man.

But his passion for Cleopatra could not long be suppressed, neither from
reasons of state nor from the respect he must have felt for the
admirable conduct of Octavia, who was devoted to him, and who was one of
the most magnanimous and reproachless women of antiquity. And surely he
must have had some great qualities to call out the love of the noblest
and proudest woman of the age, in spite of his many vices and his
abandonment to a mad passion, forgetful alike both of fame and duty. He
had not been two years in Athens, the headquarters of his Eastern
Department, before he was called upon to chastise the Parthians, who had
thrown off the Roman yoke and invaded other Roman provinces. But hardly
had he left Octavia, and set foot again in Asia, before he sent for his
Egyptian mistress, and loaded her with presents; not gold, and silver,
and precious stones, and silks, and curious works of art merely, but
whole provinces even,--Phoenicia, Syria, Cilicia, and a part of Judea
and Arabia,--provinces which belonged not to him, but to the Roman
Empire. How indignant