no longer suited him to court the favor of
her kinsman. To replace this second wife, he forcibly took away Livia
from her husband, T. Claudius Nero, though she was at that time pregnant
of her second son. But in this and other less pardonable immoralities
there was nothing to shock the feelings of Romans.

But Octavian never suffered pleasure to divert him from business. If he
could not be a successful general, he resolved at least to show that he
could be a hardy soldier. While Antony in his Egyptian palace was
neglecting the Parthian War, his rival led his legions in more than one
dangerous campaign against the barbarous Dalmatians and Pannonians, who
had been for some time infesting the province of Illyricum. In the year
B.C. 33 he announced that the limits of the empire had been extended
northward to the banks of the Save.

Octavian now began to feel that any appearance of friendship with Antony
was a source of weakness rather than of strength at Rome.
Misunderstandings had already broken out. Antony complained that
Octavian had given him no share in the provinces wrested from Sext.
Pompeius and Lepidus. Octavian retorted by accusing his colleague of
appropriating Egypt and Armenia, and of increasing Cleopatra's power at
the expense of the Roman Empire. Popular indignation rose to its height
when Plancus and Titius, who had been admitted to Antony's confidence,
passed over to Octavian, and disclosed the contents of their master's
will. In that document Antony ordered that his body should be buried at
Alexandria, in the mausoleum of Cleopatra. Men began to fancy that
Cleopatra had already planted her throne upon the Capitol. These
suspicions were sedulously encouraged by Octavian.

Before the close of B.C. 32, Octavian, by the authority of the senate,
declared war nominally against Cleopatra. Antony, roused from his sleep
by reports from Rome, passed over to Athens, issuing orders everywhere
to levy men and collect ships for the impending struggle. At Athens he
received news of the declaration of war, and replied by divorcing
Octavia. His fleet was ordered to assemble at Corcyra; and his legions
in the early spring prepared to pour into Epirus. He established his
head-quarters at Patrae on the Corinthian Gulf.

But Antony, though his fleet was superior to that of Octavian, allowed
Agrippa to sweep the Ionian Sea, and to take possession of Methone, in
Messenia, as a station for a flying squadron to intercept Antony