Instead of fighting, however, the three leaders met in secret conclave, and agreed to divide the power in Rome between them. This compact is known as the Second Triumvirate. Its members followed the example of Marius and Sulla, not that of Caesar, and resolved to extirpate their enemies. Each of them gave up personal friends to the vengeance of the others. Of their victims the most famous was Cicero, who had delivered his orations against Antony in aid of Octavius. The ambitious boy was base enough to yield his friend to the vengeance of the incensed Antony. No less than three hundred senators and two thousand knights fell victims to this new proscription, which while it lasted made a reign of terror in Rome. Brutus and Cassius had meanwhile made themselves masters of Greece and the eastern provinces of Rome, and were ready to meet the forces of the Triumvirate in the field. The decisive battle was fought on the field of Philippi in Northern Greece. The division of Cassius was defeated, and he killed himself in despair. Twenty days afterwards another battle was fought on the same field, in which Brutus was defeated, and likewise put an end to his life. The triumvirs were undisputed lords of Rome. The imperial rule of Caesar had lasted but a few months, and ended with his life. But with Octavius began an imperial era which lasted till the end of the dominion of Rome. _ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA._ The battles of Philippi and the death of Brutus and Cassius put an end to the republican party to whom Caesar owed his death. The whole realm was handed over to the imperial Triumvirate, who now made a new division of the vast Roman world. Antony took as his share all the mighty realm of the East; Octavius all the West. To Lepidus, whom his powerful confederates did not take the trouble to consult, only Africa was left. The after-career of Antony was a curious and impressive one. He loved a bewitching Egyptian queen, and for a false love lost the vast dominion he had won. The story is one of the most romantic and popular of all that have come to us from the past. It has been told in detail by Plutarch and richly dramatized by Shakespeare. We give it here in brief epitome. Fourteen years previously Antony had visited Alexandria, and had there seen the youthful Cleopatra, then a girl of fifteen, but already so beautiful and attractive that the susceptible Roman was deeply smitten with her charms. Later she had charmed Caesar, and now when the lord of the East set out on a tour of his new dominions, the love queen of Egypt left her capital for Cilicia with the purpose of making him her captive.