Page:Plutarch's Lives (Clough, v.5, 1865).djvu/235

 ANTONY. 227 Csesar would not listen to any proposals for Antony, but he made answer to Cleopatra, that there was no reasonable flivor which she might not expect, if she put Antony to death, or expelled him from Egypt. He sent back with the ambassadors his own freedman Thyrsus, a man of understanding, and not at all ill-qualified for con- veying the messages of a youthful general to a woman so proud of her charms and possessed with the opinion of the power of her beauty. But by the long audiences he re- ceived from her, and the special honors which she paid him, xlntony's jealousy began to be awakened ; he had him seized, whipped, and sent back ; writing Ctesar word that the man's busy, impertinent ways had provoked him ; in his chcumstances he could not be expected to be very patient : " But if it oflend you," he added, " you have got my freedman, Hipparchus, with 3-ou ; hang him up and scourge him to make us even." But Cleopatra, after this, to clear herself, and to allay his jealousies, paid him all the attentions imaginable. When her o^vn birth- day came, she kept it as was suitable to their follen fortunes ; but his was observed with the utmost prodigahty of splendor and magnificence, so that many of the guests sate doysra in want, and went home wealthy men. Mean- time, continual letters came to Cajsar from Agrippa, tell- ing him his presence was extremely required at Rome. And so the war was deferred for a season. But, the winter being over, he began his march ; he himself by S3'ria, and his captains through Africa. Pelusium being taken, there went a report as if it had been delivered up to Caesar by Seleucus not without the consent of Cleo- patra ; but she, to justify herself, gave up into Antony's hands the wife and children of Seleucus to be put to death. She had caused to be built, joining to the temple of Isis, several tombs and monuments of wonderful height, and very remarkable for the workmanship ; thither she