His troops, awaiting him on the Median frontier, accorded him, as always, an enthusiastic welcome. They were his old soldiers, who had often fought under his standards and were ready to follow wherever he led. They had implicit faith in him, understood the breadth of his ambitions, and were touched with the fire of his aspirations. They were confident that his fortune would be their fortune; that they would have, in their turn, quite as much glory and even more gold than the veterans of Cæsar had won.
Why should they not have believed in the success of their incomparable chief? Their hero, brave, alert, always on the spot when needed; a warlike genius, prompt in action, generous to a fault, never weary; who met good fortune and evil with the same indomitable smile!
This popularity was too precious for him to neglect any means of adding to it. Kindly always, he won hearts still more by his epicurean indulgences, which he allowed his subordinates to share with him. A lover of good living, he wanted happy faces around him. He confined his rigorous discipline to the time of action; in camp he authorized a freedom from restriction which was a new departure in the life of Roman soldiers. What a contrast between the old bands of Marius, valiant, it is true, but who marched under the lictor's whip, and the spontaneous zeal of Antony's troops, who were ready to suffer and to die for their leader! A striking instance of their devotion was shown in the reply made by his men in the passes of Armenia, where they were enduring the combined miseries of fatigue, hunger, and cold, to the envoys of Phraates, who approached them with perfidious offers of peace. "No," answered these loyal soldiers, turning their backs to the tempters, "we would rather eat bark and shells with Antony than abandon his cause."
The lieutenants were of the same mind. They sympathized with the splendid ambitions of their chief. Many of his officers had been taken into his confidence during the long night-watches in his tent, and these young men were imbued with the spirit of warfare and hoped to achieve brilliant records. The greater part of them had been impoverished by civil wars and revolutions, and they were counting on the fortunes of war to retrieve their losses, so they fought with the eager expectation of gamblers.
This was the material that Antony had collected for his first campaign into Persia; an invasion which in spite of wonderful deeds had brought him but scant success. At the outset, he had been compelled to tread cautiously in a country where the enemy had a powerful army already installed, whereas he had to bring his forces with him. Deceived alike by his naturally hopeful nature and by the reports which his couriers had brought after a superficial survey of conditions, he had imagined that the mere entrance of the Roman army into this ancient empire of Darius would make its worn-out granite walls crumble into dust.
When the real battles began he saw very clearly that the Medes, Parthians, and Armenians had lost none of their valour. He realized this cruelly at Phaaspa, where, by a totally unlooked-for turn of tactics, the enemy compelled him to alter his lines and raise the siege. More cruelly still was their prowess brought home to him during the retreat that he was forced to make at the beginning of winter, through a devastated country and under a shower of murderous arrows.
These calamities could have been avoided if his eagerness to return to Cleopatra had not made him hasten operations which required the most careful preparation. He came back from his festival of love, however, provided with new troops, reënforced artillery, and fresh supplies. The campaign met with greater success this time. He vanquished the Armenians, forced King Phraates to surrender to him the standards formerly set up by the legions of Crassus, and thus was able to send the Senate a glowing account of his movements, which passed in Rome for the flaming breath of victory.
While Antony in the plains of Erzerum was giving these proofs of his genius and daring, Octavius, no less determined to gain the supremacy, was seeking the means to place it within his grasp. War was not his strong point. At heart a coward, he preferred intrigue to action. He knew, however, that in Rome arms represented the standard of all grandeur, and he forced himself to consider them. Besides, circumstances left him no choice. His colleagues were at war; the one in Asia, the other in the African provinces. It rested with him to repulse the invasions of Sextus Pompey. By good luck, in spite of numerous defeats, his victory in Sicilian waters, whereby he won one hundred and sixty vessels from the pirate fleet, enabled him to announce before the Senate his delivery of the Republic from a formidable enemy, almost at the same hour that Antony sent word of his triumph in Persia.
However, neither of these victories was sufficiently important to give either Triumvir definite ascendancy over the other. But, preceded by the eagles of Crassus, whose downfall had been such a bitter blow to Roman pride, with the spoils that he had captured from the enemy, and leading among his captives the King Artabazes, together with his Queen and her children, Antony arrived at Rome. Crowned with golden laurels, driving along the Via Sacra in his chariot drawn by the four white horses that had borne Cæsar, Sulla, Marius, and the Scipios, he had addressed the crowd, saying: "I am master now, who knows who will come after me?"
It was not only in the army that Antony was popular. His good nature, his frankness, his consideration, and the scrupulous care that he gave to rewarding any service rendered him, had made friends for him everywhere, particularly among the townspeople. His absence, so far from destroying his prestige, had increased it, for in periods of unrest the people are apt to lay the blame of all mishaps on the Government in power, while they exaggerate the greatness of these who are gaining victories at a distance. If Antony had taken advantage of his opportunity and brought his trophies to Rome the day after his conquest of Media, and, like a good Roman citizen, prostrated himself before the statue of Jupiter, there is no doubt whatever that the imperial crown, refused to Cæsar, would have eventually been placed on his head. But, as wise old Homer has said, "What can be expected of a man who lets himself be the slave of a woman?"