The personal qualities of Antonius brought about the union of the Empire; so long as he served under the direction of the great Cæsar he passed for a politician and administrator, no less than for a dashing general; deprived of his great model, he quickly showed himself to be nothing but a greedy soldier. The East learned by successive bitter experiences what it lost in Cæsar; first came little Dolabella to harry Syria, then Cassius and even Brutus extorted all that they could lay their hands on in the rich cities of the Levant and Asia Minor; then came Antonius with further fines and confiscations; there was a general sense of relief when Cleopatra carried him off to Alexandria, only however to prompt him to fresh extortions. The alliance of Antony and Cleopatra was the salvation of the Roman Empire; it frightened the West into union, and its failure brought about the final submission of the East. This was no mere question of rivalry between two eminent Roman statesmen; it was a turning point in civilization; the issue was once again whether the Mediterranean was to be governed on Oriental or Western lines. The halo of not particularly edifying romance which shines round the figure of Cleopatra averts the attention from the statesman-like qualities which she really possessed; her residence in Rome in the capacity of Cæsar’s mistress was not a glorious episode in the career of the Egyptian Queen, but it taught her, as a similar experience had taught Juba, the weakness of Rome from an Oriental point of view. Cleopatra saw that Rome wanted a despot; on the death of her admirer she went back to Egypt to wait on events; when Antonius appeared in the East, she proposed to annex Italy through Antonius, as Cæsar had through herself annexed Egypt; but, like many others, she had misjudged the man; Antonius was no Cæsar; and though Cleopatra could form magnificent schemes of ambition, she lacked the self-control necessary to carry them out; unfortunately for herself, in the attempt to annex Antonius she fell violently in love with him, and statesmanship became a secondary consideration; she could not deny herself the companionship of her lover; he, too, more than once forgot all the duties of a soldier in his impatience to return to her arms. Their plans for extended conquests in the East were foiled by their maladministration; and even a temporary success proved in its results worse than a series of defeats; for Antonius celebrated his victory over the Parthians by parodying at Alexandria the solemn ritual of a triumph at Rome. This event, more even than a fleeting descent of Antonius at a previous date upon the coast of Iapygia in conjunction with Sextus Pompeius, consolidated the power of Octavian; he became no longer the leader of a party, but the representative of Latin civilization. Nor is it contrary to probability that the luxurious excesses of the Court at Alexandria, at Smyrna, at Samos,