operty and the dignity of Pontifex Maximus. He lived till B.C. 13.

In B.C. 35 Pompey crossed over from Lesbos to Asia, with the view of
seizing that province; but he was easily crushed by the lieutenants of
Antony, was taken prisoner as he attempted to escape to Armenia, and was
put to death at Miletus. By the death of Pompey and the deposition of
Lepidus, Antony and Octavian were now left without a rival, and Antony's
mad love for Cleopatra soon made Octavian the undisputed master of the
Roman world.

After Antony's marriage with Octavia in B.C. 40, he seems for a time to
have forgotten, or, at least, conquered the fascinations of the Egyptian
queen. For the next three years he resided in Athens with his wife; but
after his visit to Italy, and the renewal of the Triumvirate in B.C. 37,
he left Octavia behind at Tarentum, and determined to carry out his
long-projected campaign against the Parthians. As he approached Syria,
"that great evil," as Plutarch calls it, his passion for Cleopatra,
burst forth with more vehemence than ever. From this time she appears as
his evil genius. He summoned her to him at Laodicea, and loaded her with
honors and favors. He added to her dominions Phoenicia, Coele-Syria,
Cyprus, a large part of Cilicia, Palestine, and Arabia, and publicly
recognized the children she had borne him. Although he had collected a
large army to invade the Parthian empire, he was unable to tear himself
away from the enchantress, and did not commence his march till late in
the year. The expedition proved most disastrous; the army suffered from
want of provisions, and Antony found himself compelled to retreat. He
narrowly escaped the fate of Crassus, and it was with the utmost
difficulty that he succeeded in reaching the Armenian mountains, after
losing the best part of his troops.

Antony returned to Alexandria, and surrendered himself entirely to
Cleopatra. In B.C. 34 he made a short campaign into Armenia, and
succeeded in obtaining possession of Artavasdas, the Armenian king. He
carried him to Alexandria, and, to the great scandal of all the Romans,
entered the city in triumph, with all the pomp and ceremonial of the
Roman pageant. He now laid aside entirely the character of a Roman
citizen, and assumed the state and dress of an Eastern monarch. Instead
of the toga he wore a robe of purple, and his head was crowned with a
diadem. Sometimes he assumed the character of Osiris, while Cleopatra
appeared at his sid