Page:Plutarch's Lives (Clough, v.5, 1865).djvu/172

 164 ANTONY. a procession than the uses of a journey, at his having pavilions set up, and sumptuous morning repasts hiid out by river sides and in groves, at his having chariots drawn by hons, and common women and singing girls quartered upon the houses of serious fathers and mothers of fami- lies. And it seemed very unreasonable that Cfesar, out of Italy, should lodge in the open field, and, with great fatigue and danger, pursue the remainder of a hazardous war, whilst others, by favor of his authority, should insult the citizens with their impudent luxury. All this appears to have aggravated party quarrels in Rome, and to have encouraged the soldiers in acts of license and rapacity. And, accordingly, when Coesar came home, he acquitted Dolabella, and, being created the third time consul, took, not Antony, but Lepidus, for his colleague. Pompey's house being offered for sale, Antony bought it, and, when the price was demanded of him, loudly complained. This, he tells us himself, and be- cause he thought his former services had not been recom- pensed as they deserved, made him not follow Caesar with the army into Libya. However, Caesar, by dealing gently with his errors, seems to have succeeded in curing him of a good deal of his folly and extravagance. He gave up his former courses, and took a wife, Fulvia, the widow of Clodius the demagogue, a woman not born for spinning or housewifery, nor one that could be content with ruling a private husband, but prepared to govern a first magistrate, or give orders to a commander-in-chief. So that Cleopatra had great obligations to her for having taught Antony to be so good a servant, he coming to her hands tame and broken into entire obedience to the commands of a mistress. He used to play all sorts of sportive, boyish tricks, to keep Fulvia in good-humor. As, for example, when Caesar, after his victory in Sjjain, was on his return, Antony, among the rest, went out to