And Antony, again, although fond of banquets and ostentation, like other Roman nobles, and utterly unscrupulous and unprincipled, as Roman libertines were, was also general, statesman, and orator. He grew up amid the dangers and toils and privations of Caesar's camp. He was as greedy of honors as was his imperial master. He was a sunburnt and experienced commander, obliged to be on his guard, and ready for emergencies. No such man feels that he can afford to indulge his appetites, except on rare occasions. One of the leading peculiarities of all great generals has been their temperance. It marked Caesar, Charlemagne, Gustavus Adolphus, Frederic the Great, Cromwell, and Napoleon. When Alexander gave himself up to banquets, his conquests ended. Even such a self-indulgent, pleasure-seeking man as Louis XIV. always maintained the decencies of society amid his dissipated courtiers. We feel that a man who could discourse so eloquently as Antony did over the dead body of Caesar was something more than a sensualist or a demagogue. He was also the finest-looking man in Rome, reminding the people, it is said, of the busts of Hercules. He was lavish, like Caesar, but, like him, sought popularity, and cared but little what it cost. It is probable that Cicero painted him, in his famous philippics, in darker colors than he deserved, because he aimed to be Caesar's successor, as he probably would have been but for his infatuation for Cleopatra. Caesar sent him to Rome as master of the horse,--a position next in power to that of dictator. When Caesar was assassinated, Antony was the most powerful man of the empire. He was greater than any existing king; he was almost supreme. And after Caesar's death, when he divided his sovereignty of the world with Octavius and Lepidus, he had the fairest chance of becoming imperator. He had great military experience, the broad Orient as his domain, and half the legions of Rome under his control.
It was when this great man was Triumvir, sharing with only two others the empire of the world, and likely to overpower them, when he was in Asia consolidating and arranging the affairs of his vast department, that he met the woman who was the cause of all his calamities. He was then in Cilicia, and, with all the arrogance of a Roman general, had sent for the Queen of Egypt to appear before him and answer to an accusation of having rendered assistance to Cassius before the fatal battle of Philippi. He had already known and admired Cleopatra in Rome, and it is not improbable that she divined the secret of his judicial summons. His envoy, struck with her beauty and intelligence, advised her to appear in her best attire. Such a woman scarcely needed such a hint. So, making every preparation for her journey,--money, ornaments, gifts,--a kind of Queen of Sheba, a Zenobia in her pride and glory, a Queen Esther when she had invited the king and his minister to a banquet,--she came to the Cydnus, and ascended the river in a magnificent barge, such as had never been seen before, and prepared to meet her judge, not as a criminal, but as a conqueror, armed with those weapons that few mortals can resist.