Antony Good friends, sweet friends, let me not stir you up They, that have done this deed, are honorable; I come not, friends, to steal away your hearts; I am no orator, as Brutus is: But, as you know me all, a plain blunt man, That love my friend: and that they know full well I tell you that, which you yourselves do know; Show you sweet Cæsar's wounds, poor, poor dumb mouths, And Brutus Antony, there were an Antony In every wound of Cæsar, that should move We'll mutiny. 1 Citizen We'll burn the house of Brutus. 2 Citizen Away then, come, seek the conspirators. Antony Yet hear me, countrymen, yet hear me speak. Citizens Peace, ho! Hear Antony, most noble Antony. Why, friends, you go to do you know not what: Citizens Most true; the will; - let's stay, and hear the will. Antony Here is the will, and under Cæsar's seal. To every Roman citizen he gives, To every several man, seventy-five drachmas. 2 Citizen Most noble Cæsar! - we'll revenge his death. Moreover, he hath left you all his walks, Here was a Cæsar: When comes such another? 1 Citizen Never, never;- Come, away, away: We'll burn his body in the holy place, And with the brands fire the traitors' houses. Now let it work. Mischief, thou art afoot, Take thou what course thou wilt! He and Lepidus are at Cæsar's house. Antony And thither will I straight to visit him: He comes upon a wish. Fortune is merry, And in this mood will give us anything. Servant I heard him say, Brutus and Cassius Are rid like madmen through the gates of Rome. Antony Belike they had some notice of the people, How I had moved them. Bring me to Octavius. ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. BY PLUTARCH. [PLUTARCH: A Greek writer of biographies and miscellaneous works; born about A.D. 50. He came of a wealthy and distinguished family and received a careful philosophical training at Athens under the Peripatetic philosopher Ammonius. After this he made several journeys, and stayed a considerable time in Rome, where he enjoyed friendly intercourse with persons of distinction, and conducted the education of the future Emperor Hadrian. He died about A.D. 120 in his native town, in which he held the office of archon and priest of the Pythian Apollo. His fame as an author is founded upon the celebrated "Parallel Lives," consisting of the biographies of forty-six Greeks and Romans, divided into pairs. Each pair contains the life of a Greek and a Roman, and generally ends with a comparison of the two. Plutarch's other writings, short treatises on a great variety of subjects, are grouped under the title of "Morals."] THE grandfather of Antony was the famous pleader, whom Marius put to death for having taken part with Sylla. His father was Antony, surnamed of Crete, not very famous or distinguished in public life, but a worthy good man, and particularly remarkable for his liberality, as may appear from a single example. He was not very rich, and was for that reason checked in the exercise of his good nature by his wife. A friend that stood in need of money came to borrow of him. Money he had none, but he bade a servant bring him water in a silver basin, with which, when it was brought, he wetted his face, as if he meant to shave, and, sending away the servant upon another errand, gave his friend the basin, desiring him to turn it to his purpose. And when there was afterwards a great inquiry for it in the house, and his wife was in a very ill humor, and was going to put the servants one by one to the search, he acknowledged what he had done, and begged her pardon. Antony grew up a very beautiful youth, but by the worst of misfortunes he fell into the acquaintance and friendship of Curio, a man abandoned to his pleasures, who, to make Antony's dependence upon him a matter of greater necessity, plunged him into a life of drinking and dissipation, and led him through a course of such extravagance, that at that early age he ran into debt to the amount of two hundred and fifty talents [$300,000]. For this sum, Curio became his surety; on hearing which, the elder Curio, his father, drove Antony out of his house. After this, for some short time he took part with Clodius, the most insolent and outrageous demagogue of the time, in his course of violence and disorder; but getting weary before long of his madness, and apprehensive of the powerful party forming against him, he left Italy and traveled into Greece, where he spent his time in military exercises and in the study of eloquence. He took most to what was called the Asiatic taste in speaking, which was then at its height, and was in many ways suitable to his ostentatious, vaunting temper, full of empty flourishes and unsteady efforts for glory. In all the great and frequent skirmishes and battles, he gave continual proofs of his personal valor and military conduct. Nor was his humanity towards the deceased Archelaus less taken notice of. He had been formerly his guest and acquaintance, and as he was now compelled, he fought him bravely while alive; but on his death, sought out his body and buried it with royal honors. The consequence was that he left behind him a great name among the Alexandrians, and all who were serving in the Roman army looked upon him as a most gallant soldier. He had also a very good and noble appearance; his beard was well grown, his forehead large, and his nose aquiline, giving him altogether a bold, masculine look, that reminded people of the faces of Hercules in paintings and sculptures. It was moreover an ancient tradition that the Antonys were descended from Hercules, by a son called Anton; and this opinion he thought to give credit to also by the fashion of his dress. What might seem to some very insupportable, his vaunting, his raillery, his drinking in public, sitting down by the men as they were taking their food, and eating, as he stood, off the common soldiers' tables, made him the delight and pleasure of the army. In love affairs also he was very agreeable: he gained many friends by the assistance he gave them in theirs, and took other people's raillery upon his own with good humor. And his generous ways, his open and lavish hand in gifts and favors to his friends and fellow-soldiers, did a great deal for him in his first advance to power, and after he had become great, long maintained his fortunes when a thousand follies were hastening their overthrow. One instance of his liberality I must relate. He had ordered payment to one of his friends of twenty-five decies [over $1,000,000]; and his steward, wondering at the extravagance of the sum, laid all the silver in a heap, as he should pass by. Antony, seeing the heap, asked what it meant; his steward replied, "The money you have ordered to be given to your friend." So, perceiv ing the man's malice, said he: "I thought the decies had been much more: 'tis too little; let it be doubled." When the Roman state finally broke up into two hostile factions, the aristocratical party joining Pompey, who was in the city, and the popular side seeking help from Cæsar, who was at the head of an army in Gaul, Curio, the friend of Antony, having changed his party and devoted himself to Cæsar, brought over Antony also to his service. . Antony was not long in getting the hearts of the soldiers, joining with them in their exercises, and for the most part living amongst them, and making them presents to the utmost of his abilities; but with all others he was unpopular enough. He was too lazy to pay attention to the complaints of persons who were injured; he listened impatiently to petitions, and he had an ill name for familiarity with other people's wives. In short, the government of Cæsar (which, so far as he was concerned himself, seemed like anything rather than a tyranny) got a bad repute through his friends. And of these friends, Antony, as he had the largest trust and committed the greatest errors, was thought the most deeply in fault. . . . This triumvirate was very hateful to the Romans, and Antony most of all bore the blame, because he was older than Cæsar and had greater authority than Lepidus; and withal he was no sooner settled in his affairs, but he turned to his luxurious and dissolute way of living. Besides the ill reputation he gained by his general behavior, it was some considerable disadvantage to him his living in the house of Pompey the Great, who had been as much admired for his temperance and his sober, citizenlike habits of life, as ever he was for having triumphed three times. They could not without anger see the doors of that house shut against magistrates, officers, and envoys, who were shamefully refused admittance, while it was filled inside with players, jugglers, and drunken flatterers, upon whom were spent the greatest part of the wealth which violence and cruelty procured. For they did not limit themselves to the forfeiture of the estates of such as were proscribed, defrauding the widows and families, nor were they contented with laying on every possible kind of tax and imposition; but hearing that several sums of money were as well by strangers as citizens of Rome deposited with the vestal virgins, they went and took the money away by force. When it was manifest that nothing would ever be enough for Antony, Cæsar at last called for a division of property. VOL. V. -15 |