Page:Plutarch's Lives (Clough, v.5, 1865).djvu/167

 ANTONY. 159 bis steward, -wondei-ing at the extravagance of the sum, laid all the silver in a heap, as he should pass hy. Anto- ny, seeing the heap, asked what it meant ; his steward replied, " The money you have ordered to be given to your friend." So, perceiving the man's malice, said he, " I thought the dccics had been much more ; 't is too lit- tle; let it be doubled." This, however, was at a later time. When the Roman state finally broke up into two hos- tile factions, the aristocratical jaarty joining Pompey, who was in the city, and the popular side seeking help from Ccesar, who was at the head of an army in Gaul, Curio, the friend of Antony, having changed his party and de- voted himself to C«sar, brought over Antony also to his service. And the influence which he gained with the people by his eloquence and by the money which waa supplied by Ctesar enabled him to make Antony, first, tribune of the people, and then, augur. And Antony's accession to office was at once of the o;reatest advantage to Coesar. In the first place, he resisted the consul Mar- cellus, who was putting under Pompey's orders the troops who Avere already collected, and was giving him power to raise new levies ; he, on the other hand, making an order that they should be sent into Syria to reinforce Bibulus, who was making war with the Parthians, and that no one should give in his name to serve under Pompey. Next, when the senators would not suffer Ctesar's letters to be received or read in the senate, by virtvie of his office he read them publicly, and succeeded so well, that many were brought to change their mind ; Caesar's demands, as they appeared in what he wrote, being but just and rea- sonable. At length, two questions being put in the sen- ate, the one, whether Pompey should dismiss his army, the other, if Caesar his, some were for the former, for the latter all, except some few, when Antony stood up