LXIX. When Antonius had reached the coast of Libya, and had sent Cleopatra forwards to Egypt from Parætonium,[452] he had his fill of solitude, wandering and rambling about with two friends, one a Greek, Aristokrates, a rhetorician, and the other a Roman, Lucilius,[453] about whom I have said elsewhere that at Philippi, in order that Brutus might escape, he had surrendered to the pursuers, pretending that he was Brutus, and his life being spared by Antonius on that account, he remained faithful to him and firm to the last critical times. When the general[454] to whom he had intrusted the troops in Libya had caused their defection, Antonius made an effort to kill himself, but he was prevented by his friends and conveyed to Alexandria, where he found Cleopatra contemplating a hazardous and great undertaking. The isthmus which separates the Red Sea from the sea of Egypt[455] and is considered to be the boundary between Asia and Libya, in the part where it is most contracted by the sea, and the width is least, is about three hundred stadia across; and here Cleopatra undertook to raise her ships out of the water and to drag them across the neck of land, and so bringing her ships into the Arabian gulf with much money and a large force, to settle beyond the limits of Egypt and to escape from slavery and war. But as the Arabs of Petra[456] burnt the first ships which were drawn up, and Antonius thought that the army at Actium still kept together, Cleopatra desisted from her design and guarded the approaches to Egypt. Antonius now leaving the city and the company of his friends, built for himself a dwelling in the sea, near the Pharos,[457] by throwing forward a mole into the water; and here he lived a fugitive from men, and he said that he was content with Timon's life and admired it, considering himself in like plight with Timon; for he too had been wronged by his friends and had experienced their ingratitude, and that therefore he distrusted and disliked all men.