The homage, shunn’d by modest virtue, pays,

And proves disloyal only in his praise.

Though great his sire, him greater we proclaim:

So Atreus yields to Agamemnon’s fame;

Achilles so superior honours won,

And Peleus must submit to Peleus’ son;

Examples yet more noble to disclose,

So Saturn was eclips’d, when Jove to empire rose:

Jove rules the heav’ns; the earth Augustus sways;

Each claims a monarch’s and a father’s praise.

Celestials, who for Rome your cares employ;

Ye gods, who guarded the remains of Troy;

Ye native gods, here born and fix’d by fate;

Quirinus, founder of the Roman state;

O parent Mars, from whom Quirinus sprung;

Chaste Vesta, Caesar’s household gods among

Most sacred held; domestic Phoebus, thou,

To whom with Vesta chaste alike we bow;

Great guardian of the high Tarpeïan rock;

And all ye pow’rs whom poets may invoke;

O, grant that day may claim our sorrows late,

When lov’d Augustus shall submit to fate;

Visit those seats where gods and heroes dwell;

And leave, in tears, the world he rul’d so well.

ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA

Life of Antony

Plutarch

Translated by Aubrey Stewart and George Long, 1892

In 31 BC, Antony (‘Antonius’) lost to Octavian (‘Caesar’), great-nephew of Julius Caesar, in a naval battle at Actium in western Greece. Here, one of Antony’s most trusted men, Canidius, informs him that he is now isolated. Antony’s response is to take comfort in his lover Cleopatra, ruler of Egypt, and the luxuries of her court. Their time is limited. The Greek writer Plutarch (AD 46–120), Antony’s biographer – and author of Parallel Lives (a collection of paired biographies of famous Greeks and Romans) – describes the lovers as the end draws near.