Antony fled, but gathered a goodly army as he went, intending to return.
After some months of hard times passion cooled, and Antony, Octavius and Lepidus, the chief general of Octavius, met in the field for consultation. Swayed by the eloquence of Antony, who was still full of the precedents of the Great Cæsar, a Triumvirate was formed, and Antony, Octavius and Lepidus coolly sat down to divide the world between them.
One strong argument that Antony used for the necessity of this partnership was that Brutus and Cassius were just across in Macedonia, waiting and watching for the time when civil war would so weaken Rome that they could step in and claim their own.
Brutus and his fellow conspirators must be punished.
In two years from that time, they had performed their murderous deed; Cassius was killed at his own request by his servant, and Brutus had fallen on his sword to escape the sword of Mark Antony.
In the stress of defeat and impending calamity, Mark Antony was a great man; he could endure anything but success.
But now there were no more enemies to conquer: unlike Cæsar the Great he was no scholar, so books were not a solace; to build up and beautify a great State did not occur to him. His camp was turned into a place of mad riot and disorder. Harpers, dancers, buffoons and all the sodden splendor of the East made the nights echo with "shouts, sacrifices, songs and groans."
When Antony entered Ephesus the women went out to meet him in the undress of bacchanals, while troops of naked boys representing cupids, and men clothed like satyrs danced at the head of the procession. Everywhere were ivy crowns, spears wreathed with green, and harps, flutes, pipes, and human voices sang songs of praise to the great god Bacchus—for such Antony liked to be called.
Antony knew that between Cleopatra and Cæsar there had been a tender love. All the world that Cæsar ruled, Antony now ruled—or thought he did. In the intoxication of success he, too, would rule the heart that the great Cæsar had ruled. He would rule this proud heart or he would crush it beneath his heel.
He dispatched Dellius, his trusted secretary, to Alexandria, summoning the Queen to meet him at Cilicia, and give answer as to why she had given succor to the army of Cassius.