II. His wife was Julia of the family of the Cæsars, a woman who could compare with the noblest and most virtuous of that day. She brought up her son Antonius, having married after his father's death Cornelius Lentulus,[325] who was one of the conspirators with Catilina and was put to death by Cicero. This appears to be the reason and the foundation of the violent enmity between Antonius and Cicero. Now Antonius says that even the corpse of Lentulus was not given up to them until his mother begged it of the wife of Cicero. But this is manifestly false, for no one of those who were then punished by Cicero was deprived of interment. Antonius was of distinguished appearance in his youth, but his friendship and intimacy with Curio[326] fell upon him, as they say, like some pestilence, for Curio himself was intemperate in his pleasures, and he hurried Antonius, in order to make him more manageable, into drinking and the company of women and extravagant and licentious expenditure. All this brought on him a heavy debt, and out of all bounds for his age, of two hundred and fifty talents. Curio became security for all this, and when his father heard of it he banished Antonius from the house. Antonius for a short time mixed himself up with the violence of Clodius, the most daring and scandalous of the demagogues of the day, which was throwing every thing into confusion; but becoming soon satiated with that madness and being afraid of those who were combining against Clodius, he left Italy for Greece and spent some time there, exercising his body for military contests and practising oratory. He adopted what was called the Asiatic style of oratory, which flourished most at that time, and bore a great resemblance to his mode of life, which was boastful and swaggering and full of empty pride and irregular aspiration after distinction.