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 in his last two years, Cæsar planned the conquest of Persia. Now the natural basis of operations for the conquest of Persia was to be found, not in Italy, but in Asia Minor, and if Persia had been conquered, it would not have been possible to govern in Rome an empire so immeasurably enlarged in the Orient. Everything therefore induces to the belief that this question was at least discussed in the coterie of the friends of Cæsar; and it was a serious question, because in it the traditions, the aspirations, the interests of Italy were in irreconcilable conflict with a supreme necessity of state which one day or other would impose itself, if some unforeseen event did not intervene to solve it.

In the light of these considerations, the conduct of Antony becomes very clear. The marriage at Antioch, by which he places Egypt under the Roman protectorate, is the decisive act of a policy that looks to transporting the centre of his government toward the Orient, to be able to accomplish more securely the conquest of Persia. Antony, the heir of Cæsar, the man who held the papers of the Dictator, who knew his hidden thoughts, who wished to complete the plans cut off by his death, proposes to conquer Persia; to conquer Persia, he must rely on the Oriental