After Antony's marriage with Octavia in B.C. 40, he seems for a time to have forgotten, or, at least, conquered the fascinations of the Egyptian queen. For the next three years he resided in Athens with his wife; but after his visit to Italy, and the renewal of the Triumvirate in B.C. 37, he left Octavia behind at Tarentum, and determined to carry out his long-projected campaign against the Parthians. As he approached Syria, "that great evil," as Plutarch calls it, his passion for Cleopatra, burst forth with more vehemence than ever. From this time she appears as his evil genius. He summoned her to him at Laodicea, and loaded her with honors and favors. He added to her dominions Phoenicia, Coele-Syria, Cyprus, a large part of Cilicia, Palestine, and Arabia, and publicly recognized the children she had borne him. Although he had collected a large army to invade the Parthian empire, he was unable to tear himself away from the enchantress, and did not commence his march till late in the year. The expedition proved most disastrous; the army suffered from want of provisions, and Antony found himself compelled to retreat. He narrowly escaped the fate of Crassus, and it was with the utmost difficulty that he succeeded in reaching the Armenian mountains, after losing the best part of his troops. Antony returned to Alexandria, and surrendered himself entirely to Cleopatra. In B.C. 34 he made a short campaign into Armenia, and succeeded in obtaining possession of Artavasdas, the Armenian king. He carried him to Alexandria, and, to the great scandal of all the Romans, entered the city in triumph, with all the pomp and ceremonial of the Roman pageant. He now laid aside entirely the character of a Roman citizen, and assumed the state and dress of an Eastern monarch. Instead of the toga he wore a robe of purple, and his head was crowned with a diadem. Sometimes he assumed the character of Osiris, while Cleopatra appeared at his side as Isis. He gave the title of kings to Alexander and Ptolemy, his sons by Cleopatra. The Egyptian queen already dreamed of reigning over the Roman world. While Antony was disgusting the Romans and alienating his friends and supporters by his senseless follies, Octavian had been restoring order to Italy, and, by his wise and energetic administration, was slowly repairing the evils of the civil wars. In order to give security to the frontiers and employment to the troops, he attacked the barbarians on the north of Italy and Greece, and subdued the Iapydes, Pannonians, and Dalmatians. He carried on these wars in person, and won the affection of the soldiers by sharing their dangers and hardships.