Page:Plutarch's Lives (Clough, v.5, 1865).djvu/168

 160 ANTONY. and put the question, if it would be agreeable to them that both Pompey and Cajsar should dismiss their armies. This projiosal met with the greatest approval, they gave him loud acclamations, and called for it to be put to the vote. But when the consuls would not have it so, Caesar's friends again made some new offers, very fair and equi- table, but were strongly opposed by Cato, and Antony himself was commanded to leave the senate by the consul Lentulus. So, leaving them with execrations, and dis- guising himself in a servant's dress, hiring a carriage with Quintus Cassius, he went straight away to Caesar, declar- ing at once, when they reached the camp, that affairs at Rome were conducted without any order or justice, that the privilege of speaking in the senate was denied the tribunes, and that he who spoke for common fair dealing was driven out and in danger of his life. Upon this, Coesar set his army in motion, and marched into Italy ; and for this reason it is that Cicero writes in his Philippics, that Antony was as much the cause of the civil war, as Helen was of the Trojan. But this is but a calumny. For Ctesar was not of so slight or weak a tem- per as to suffer himself to be carried away, by the indig- nation of the moment, into a civil war with his country, upon the sight of Antony and Cassius seeking refuge in his camp, meanly dressed and in a hired carriage, with- out ever having thought of it or taken any such reso- lution long before. This was to him, who wanted a pre- tence of declaring war, a fair and plausible occasion ; but the true motive that led him was the same that formerly led Alexander and Cyrus against all mankind, the un- quenchable thirst of empire, and the distracted ambition of being; the o-reatest man in the world, which was im- practicable for him, unless Pompey were put down. So soon, then, as he had advanced and occupied Rome, and driven Pompey out of Italy, he purposed first to go