On hearing of this outrageous plot, the Triumvir's friends were beside themselves with indignation. If Dellius, Capito, and Plancus, who lived chiefly by his favours, kept silence for fear of displeasing him, others, who were more independent, did not hesitate to express their opinions. The proposed marriage would be a revolutionary act, an unprecedented scandal which might well upset the whole Roman Government. Public opinion would be unanimous against this contempt for the oldest traditions. The Patricians would take the insult as a personal offence and would defend Octavia's cause; and as to Octavius, his fury over this affront to his sister would pass all bounds, and who could foresee the consequences? Antony, fully aware of the justice of these warnings, hesitated, tried to gain time. Whatever way he turned storms came down on him. By alarming Cleopatra, showing her the danger of a scandal when one is not strong enough to carry it over the heads of the people, he gained her consent, for the moment at least, to a middle course. The marriage would be celebrated, as he had promised, the official act would be inscribed on the civil registers at Antioch, as well as in Alexandria, but, until the termination of the war, there would be no official notification made to the Roman Senate. In this way, while he became the husband of the rich Egyptian, he would still remain the husband of the woman, whom, by lawful marriage, he had wedded according to the rites of the Latin monogamy. There was no justice in this, no consistency. It was not possible that the same man could bear the title of King of Egypt and of Imperator at the same time; that a Proconsul could arrogate to himself, as a satrap, the right to have more than one wife at any one time. But Cleopatra's lover had, for the time being, lost his senses. The good fortune which had followed him from his early youth, his habitual laxness of morals, made him accept the absurd, confound folly with reason. Not knowing which to choose he pretended to need all his titles. It was certainly not the moment to renounce the most important thing of all, the right to appear before his allies with the authority of Triumvir. He had neither the courage to decline the royal hand which was held out to him filled with love and treasure, nor to put away that other little hand which held his honour as a Roman. Intoxicated with his triumphs, having had no reverses to teach him moderation, his violent nature demanded life in its highest key. He would not be bound by any restriction. The whole world seemed to lie before him like a huge field whose entire harvest was his by right. To the kingdoms he had already given Cleopatra he added Crete, as a wedding gift, with its forests of maple and satinwood, of sandal and ebony; with its luxuriant larches whose branches swept the ground while waiting for the trunks to grow thick enough to furnish masts for the ships in the harbour.