her society.

Meantime important events had been taking place in Italy. Octavian found
immense difficulties in satisfying the demands of the veterans. All
Italy was thrown into confusion. Though he expelled thousands from their
homes in Cisalpine Gaul, in order to give their farms to his soldiers,
they still clamored for more. Those who had obtained assignments of land
seized upon the property of their neighbors, and those who had not were
ready to rise in mutiny. The country people, who had been obliged to
yield their property to the rude soldiery, filled Italy with their
complaints, and flocked to Rome to implore in vain the protection of
Octavian. Even if he had the wish, he had not the power to control his
soldiers. Fulvia, the wife of Antony, who had remained behind in Italy,
resolved to avail herself of those elements of confusion, and crush
Octavian. She was a bold and ambitious woman; she saw that, sooner or
later, the struggle must come between her husband and Octavian; and, by
precipitating the war, she hoped to bring her husband to Italy, and thus
withdraw him from the influence of Cleopatra. L. Antonius, the brother
of the Triumvir, who was Consul this year (B.C. 41), entered into her
views. They proclaimed themselves the patrons of the unfortunate
Italians, and also promised to the discontented soldiery that the
Triumvir would recompense them with the spoils of Asia. By these means
they soon saw themselves at the head of a considerable force. They even
obtained possession of Rome. But Agrippa, the ablest general of
Octavian, forced them to quit the city, and pressed them so hard that
they were obliged to take refuge in Perusia (_Perugia_), one of the most
powerful cities of Etruria. Here they were besieged during the winter,
and suffered so dreadfully from famine that they found themselves
compelled to capitulate in the following spring. The lives of L.
Antonius and Fulvia were spared, but the chief citizens of Perusia
itself were put to death, and the town burnt to the ground.

While Antony's friends were thus unfortunate in Italy, his own forces
experienced a still greater disaster in the East. Q. Labienus, the son
of Caesar's old lieutenant in Gaul, had been sent by Brutus and Cassius
to seek aid from Orodes, the king of Parthia. He was in that country
when the news arrived of the battle of Philippi, and had remained there
up to the present time. The war in Italy, and Antony's indolence at
Alexandria,