Page:Plutarch's Lives (Clough, v.5, 1865).djvu/199

 ANTONY. 191 whom there were very many, and the most considerable, Artavasdes, king of Armenia, who came at the head of six thousand horse and seven thousand foot), he made a general muster. There appeared sixty thousand Roman foot, ten thousand horse, Spaniards and Gauls, who counted as Romans ; and, of other nations, horse and foot, thirty thousand. And these great preparations, that 2Hit the Indians beyond Bactria into alarm, and made all Asia shake, were all, we are told, rendered useless to him be- cause of Cleopatra. For, in order to pass the winter with her, the war was pushed on before its due time ; and all he did was done without perfect consideration, as by a man who had no proper control over his faculties, who, under the effects of some drug or magic, was still looking back elsewhere, and whose object was much more to hasten his return than to conquer his enemies. For, first of all, when he should have taken up his winter-quarters in Armenia, to refresh his men, who were tired with long marches, having come at least eight thou- sand furlongs, and then have taken the advantage in the beginning of the spi'ing to invade Media, before the Parthians were out of winter-quarters, he had not patience to expect his time, but marched into the province of Atropatene, leaving Armenia on the left hand, and laid waste all that country. Secondly, his haste was so great, that he left behind the engines absolutely required for any siege, which followed the camp in three hundred wagons, and, among the rest, a ram eighty feet long ; none of which was it possible, if lost or damaged, to repair or to make the like, as the provinces of the upper Asia produce no trees long or hard enough for such uses. Nevertheless, he left them all behind, as a mere impedi- ment to his speed, in the charge of a detachment under the command of Statianus, the wagon-officer. He himself laid siege to Phraata, a principal city of the king of