Page:Plutarch's Lives (Clough, v.5, 1865).djvu/220

212 ANTONY. to deliver it up, and sent Csesar word, if he pleased, he should come and seize it himself, which he did. And, reading it over to himself, he noted those places that were most for his purpose, and, having summoned the senate, read them publicly. Many were scandalized at the proceeding, thinking it out of reason and equity to call a m-an to account for what was not to be until after his death. Caesar specially pressed what Antony said in his will about his burial ; for he had ordered that even if he died in the city of Rome, his body, after being car- ried in state through the forum, should be sent to Cleo- patra at Alexandria. Calvisius, a dependant of CaBsar's, urged other charges in connection with Cleopatra against Antony ; that he had given her the library of Pergamus, containing two hundred thousand distinct volumes ; that at a great banquet, in the presence of many guests, he had risen up and rubbed her feet, to fulfil some wager or promise ; that he had suffered the Ephesians to salute her as their queen; that he had frequently at the public audience of kings and princes received amorous messages written in tablets made of onyx and crystal, and read them openly on the trilmnal ; that when Furnius, a man of great authority and eloquence among the Romans, was pleading, Cleopatra happening to pass by in her chair, Antony started up and left them in the middle of their cause, to follow at her side and attend her home. Calvisius, however, was looked upon as the inventor of most of these stories. Antony's friends went up and down the city to gain him credit, and sent one of them- selves, Geminius, to him, to beg him to take heed and not allow himself to be deprived by vote of his authority, and proclaimed a public enemy to the Roman state. But Geminius no sooner arrived in Greece but he was looked upon as one of Octavia's spies ; at their suppers he was made a continual butt for mockery, and was put to sit in