Antony and Cleopatra passed at Athens the autumn of 32 and part of the winter of 31 B. C. Whilst their soldiers were exhausting all the cities of Greece by enormous requisitions, and completing their crews by means of the press-gang, dragging sons from their mothers, and husbands from their wives, the lovers continued to lead their gay life. Spectacles, public games, interminable feasts, and mad orgies incessantly succeeded each other. Jealous of the memory which Octavia had left in Athens, where her beauty was still talked of, Cleopatra would fain have effaced it by her pomp, her flatteries, and her largesses to the people. The Athenians, setting little value on honors, even now somewhat obsolete, which it was in their power to bestow, determined to offer Cleopatra the “Freedom of the City,” and decreed that a statue should be erected to her. The decree was presented to her by deputies, among whom figured Antony as an Athenian citizen. The document was read to the queen, after which her virtues and merits were eulogized in an eloquent address. The vanity of Cleopatra was gratified, but her hatred unappeased. She exacted from Antony his repudiation of Octavia, and that from Athens itself, that city where the couple had spent three happy years, he should send to Rome his command for her to depart from his house. Octavia quitted it, clad in mourning and weeping, and leading with her the two children of Antony. The unhappy woman loved him still.[13] [Illustration] VII. Antony had not abandoned his original design of preventing the combining of the forces of Octavius by carrying the war into Italy; but he had lost much time. In the spring of 31 B. C., his army and fleet being concentrated at Actium, at the mouth of the Gulf of Ambracia, he was preparing to join them when he learned that some Roman vessels were coasting the shores of Epirus. It was but the vanguard of Agrippa’s fleet, but the presence of this vanguard showed that the preparations of Octavius were in a very advanced state, if not complete. The time for surprising him was past. Antony decided, before forming new plans, to wait till the Romans should have defined their plan of the campaign. The fleet and the army, therefore, remained at Actium, but as the place was unwholesome and a stay there wearisome, Antony went to Patras with Cleopatra. Early in August he received the important news that the Roman fleet had just anchored off the coast of Epirus, that the troops were landing, and that Octavius was already at Toryne. Antony at once set out for Actium, much excited and very ill pleased that the enemy so quickly and so easily had taken up its position. Cleopatra jested with his uneasiness: “What a misfortune,” said she, “that Octavius should be sitting upon a dipper!”—in Greek Toryne means a dipper.