Page:Plutarch's Lives (Clough, v.5, 1865).djvu/211

 ANTONY. 203 way. And, upon this advice, Antony, while it was yet da}^, broke up his camji, and the whole army marched forward without receiving any molestation from the Par- thians, though that night by their own doing was in effect the most wretched and terrible that they passed. For some of the men began to kill and plunder those whom they suspected to have any money, ransacked the baggage, and seized the money there. In the end, they laid hands on Antony's own equipage, and broke all his rich tables and cups, dividing the fragments amongst them. Antony, hearing such a noise and such a stirring to and fro all through the army, the belief prevailing that the enemy had routed and cut off a portion of the troops, called for one of his freedmen, then serving as one of his guards, Rhamnus by name, and made him take an oath that, whenever he should give him orders, he would- run his sword through his body and cut off his head, that he might not ftxU alive into the hands of the Parthians, nor, when dead, be recognized as the general. While he was in this consternation, and all his friends about him in tears, the Mardian came up, and gave them all new life. He convinced them, by the coolness and humidity of the air, which they could feel in breathing it, that the river which he had spoken of was now not far off, and the cal- culation of the time that had been required to reach it came, he said, to the same result, for the night was almost spent. And, at the same time, others came with infor- mation that all the confusion in the camp proceeded only from their own violence and robbery among themselveSo To compose this tumult, and bring them again into some order after their distraction, he commanded the signal to be given for a halt. Day began to break, and quiet and regularity were just reappearing, when the Parthian arrows began to fly among the rear, and the light armed troops were ordered