out from among the people—had been overwhelmed by the rising tide of vice, corruption, sensuality, and irreligion that had set in upon the capital.
To what length Antony would have gone in his career of usurpation it is difficult to say, had he not been opposed at this point by Caius Octavius,
the grand-nephew of Julius Cæsar, and the one whom he had named in his will as his heir and successor. Upon the Senate declaring in favor of Octavius, civil war immediately broke out between him and Antony and Lepidus. After several indecisive battles between the forces of the rival competitors, Octavius proposed to Antony and Lepidus a reconciliation. The three met on a small island in the Rhenus, a little stream in Northern Italy, and there formed a league known as the Second Triumvirate (43 B.C.).
The plans of the triumvirs were infamous. They first divided the world among themselves: Octavius was to have the government of the West; Antony, that of the East; while to Lepidus
