of this if you follow the simple chronological exposition of facts I shall give you. Antony makes the acquaintance of Cleopatra at Tarsus toward the end of 41 B.C., passes the winter of 41-40 with her at Alexandria; leaves her in the spring of 40 and stays away from her more than three years, till the autumn of 37. There is no proof that during this time Antony sighed for the Queen of Egypt as a lover far away; on the contrary, he attends, with alacrity worthy of praise, to preparing the conquest of Persia, to putting into execution the great design conceived by Cæsar, the plan of war that Antony had come upon among the papers of the Dictator the evening of the fifteenth of March, 44 B.C. All order social and political, the army, the state, public finance, wealth private and public, is going to pieces around him. The triumvirate power, built up on the uncertain foundation of these ruins, is tottering; Antony realises that only a great external success can give to him and his party the authority and the money necessary to establish a solid government, and resolves to enter into possession of the political legacy of his teacher and patron, taking up its central idea, the conquest of Persia.
The difficulties are grave. Soldiers are not wanting, but money. The revolution has ruined
