Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt, -30 B.C.; Egypt -- History -- 332-30 B.C. -- Biography; Queens -- Egypt -- Biography
Not far from the time of Cæsar's death, Antony was married. The name of
the lady was Fulvia. She was a widow at the time of her marriage with
Antony, and was a woman of very marked and decided character. She had led
a wild and irregular life previous to this time, but she conceived a very
strong attachment to her new husband, and devoted herself to him from the
time of her marriage with the most constant fidelity. She soon acquired a
very great ascendency over him, and was the means of effecting a very
considerable reform in his conduct and character. She was an ambitious and
aspiring woman, and made many very efficient and successful efforts to
promote the elevation and aggrandizement of her husband. She appeared,
also, to take a great pride and pleasure in exercising over him, herself,
a great personal control. She succeeded in these attempts in a manner that
surprised every body. It seemed astonishing to all mankind that such a
tiger as he had been could be subdued by any human power. Nor was it by
gentleness and mildness that Fulvia gained such power over her husband.
She was of a very stern and masculine character, and she seems to have
mastered Antony by surpassing him in the use of his own weapons. In fact,
instead of attempting to soothe and mollify him, she reduced him, it
seems, to the necessity of resorting to various contrivances to soften and
propitiate her. Once, for example, on his return from a campaign in which
he had been exposed to great dangers, he disguised himself and came home
at night in the garb of a courier bearing dispatches. He caused himself to
be ushered, muffled and disguised as he was, into Fulvia's apartments,
where he handed her some pretended letters, which, he said, were from her
husband; and while Fulvia was opening them in great excitement and
trepidation, he threw off his disguise, and revealed himself to her by
clasping her in his arms and kissing her in the midst of her amazement.
Antony's marriage with Fulvia, besides being the means of reforming his
morals in some degree, softened and civilized him in respect to his
manners. His dress and appearance now assumed a different character. In
fact, his political elevation after Cæsar's death soon became very
exalted, and the various democratic arts by which he had sought to raise
himself to it, being now no longer necessary, were, as usual in such
cases, gradually discarded. He lived in great style and splendor when at
Rome, and when absent from home, on his military campaigns, he began to
exhibit the same pomp and parade in his equipage and in his arrangements
as were usual in the camps of other Roman generals.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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