The method of temporizing which Octavius embodied in his motto: "_Sat celeriter quidquid fiat satis bene,_" had up to that time been highly successful. Accordingly he proceeded slowly and, while waiting to attack his actual adversary, he commanded Theodorus to open a campaign of accusations against the Egyptian Queen. The Romans were always easily roused. Devoted to their capital city, it was enough for them to hear that it was in any way criticized: a suspicion, a suggestion, that it was in peril was sufficient to stir them profoundly. These proud citizens of Rome had the idea that all other great cities envied her and were anxious to overthrow her power. Carthage, Corinth, Athens, all in important positions, had in their turn fallen under suspicion. To-day all their instincts of defence were united against superb, preëminent Alexandria. There was a persistent rumour that Cleopatra was planning to transfer the world-capital from Rome to that city. This danger in itself would have bred hatred of her, but, in addition, there were the recent vile tales. Her extravagant luxury was especially distasteful to a people who made poverty almost a crime. In passing from mouth to mouth the incident of the pearls was naturally exaggerated. There was now an account of a bath, enriched each day by a mixture of gold and amber, to which the body of this courtesan owed the glowing warmth of colour which so enticed men's gaze. While this gossip was spreading among the Plebeians, Mæcenas was busy agitating the Intellectuals. He got together a group of literary men, and, with that ease of language and charm of persuasion that always carried conviction, he described Octavius as the coming master of the world. These men were quickly persuaded to use their pens to advance his cause. It was arranged to make conservatism, religion, devotion, social reform the fashion--all the ideals of which Cæsar's nephew was patron, as opposed to the Oriental usages to which Antony had become a convert. Virgil, in his delightful pastoral, was the first to carry out this project of Mæcenas's. His poems were of wide influence in reviving that taste for country life and love of the earth which the long wars had rudely interrupted. At the same time Horace put aside his Epodes on wine and women for the more serious Odes. Deploring the fatal power of women when in control of the Government by actual right or by their domination over the men who represented it, he gave an outline of the lives of women famous in history and legend, and set forth the inevitable misfortune that they had brought upon their countries. He adjured the people, in the name of their imperilled nation, to unite against the fatal Egyptian woman, the evil demon of the day.