Page:The Children's Plutarch, Romans.djvu/197

 Antony was beaten, and fled. His soldiers passed the Alps on their way to Gaul. So hungry were they that they were glad to chew the bark of trees. The general shared their coarse food, eating bark or roots or tough meat, and drinking unclean water, and making no complaint. Men flocked to him in Gaul. He now felt he was as powerful as Octavius and Lepidus. This Lepidus had been one of Cæsar's stoutest captains.

At last the three rivals met on an island in the beautiful Rhine river, and they talked and argued, and planned how they should divide the Roman Empire between them. The old Roman Republic was coming to an end. Emperors were now to hold the sway, instead of consuls, for some hundreds of years.

But Antony was not earnest enough to keep a grip on his share of the empire. He ran after pleasures as little boys run after butterflies. It fell to his lot to govern Asia Minor. He entered the city of Ephesus as if he came with a show for a circus. Women dressed as priestesses of the wine-god Bacchus (Bak-kus) and men attired like wild satyrs of the woods marched and danced in procession. And the streets of the city were crowded with noisy revellers who wore ivory crowns, and waved spears garlanded with ivy, and made merry music on harps and flutes and