Which would be master? Although the real cause of the quarrel was the desire for supremacy, there was now great pretence of its being a struggle for ideals. The words "honour," "patriotism," a "return to republican institutions," were in the mouths of the people. It was difficult to choose between two competitors when each claimed to be fighting to save the honour of the country. Octavius lied when he declared that he was ready to lay aside his power; and Antony was not honest when he stood forth as the champion of liberty. As in the great contentions between Cæsar and Pompey, the public was divided, each voter selecting the chief who seemed most likely to advance his interests. The feeling was such that even the children had their share in it. Athenodorus tells of seeing two little street urchins in a vigorous fisticuff. "Why are you beating each other like that?" he asked. "We are playing; I am Octavius," replied one, who had just been chased to the edge of a ditch. "And I am Antony," joined in the other, tilting his little chin proudly.
Although the divorce had produced a most unfavourable impression and had lessened the number of Antony's partisans, yet public opinion was not altogether against him. His glorious past, his strength, his riches, made him an adversary to be feared, and one to be attacked only on ground that was wholly unprepared. To destroy his good name and to vilify him as the slave of Egypt's Queen was Octavius's policy.
However patient he had sworn to be, Octavius was growing tired of working underground like a mole, when suddenly the gods, who seemed on his side, sent him an unexpected assistant. Munatius Plancus, who in the Egyptian celebrations, clad in green silk and crowned with reeds, had played the role of Glaucus, "the handy man" as Cleopatra had scornfully called him, had just arrived in Rome. Whether from a desire to avenge his wounded vanity, or a capacity for seeing which way the wind was turning, this contemptible creature, suddenly separated from his former companions, told vile tales about them which made him a welcome guest in the halls of Rome. But this social success was not sufficient for a man as poverty-stricken as he was vulgar. He knew that a discovered treason would mean money to him, so he gained the ear of Octavius and told him about a document of great importance. It was the will which Antony had revised on the eve of his departure for Persia, a will making Cleopatra his sole heir, dividing the Oriental empire between her and her children, and, infatuated even in death, commanding that in whatever land he should die his body be transported to rest near his beloved mistress. Plancus did not have the actual document in his possession, for, faithful to his mission three years before, he had deposited it safely in the hands of the Vestal Virgins; but he knew every word of it and could reproduce it to the letter.