[330] This Greek word literally signifies “outbreak.” It was the narrow passage by which the Serbonian lake was connected with the Mediterranean. This lake lay on the coast and on the line of march from Syria to Pelusium, the frontier town of Egypt on the east.
[331] Typhon, a brother of Osiris and Isis, was the evil deity of the Egyptians, but his influence in the time of Herodotus must have been small, as he was then buried under the Serbonian lake (Herodotus, iii. 5).
[332] The Greek name is Erythra, which may be translated Red: the Romans called the same sea Rubrum. In Herodotus the Red Sea is called the Arabian Gulf; and the Erythræan sea is the Indian Ocean. See the Life of Pompeius, c. 38.
[333] He was the son of Archelaus, the general of Mithridates. See the Life of Sulla, c. 23. He had become the husband of Berenice and shared the regal power with her. Probably Antonius had known Archelaus in his youth, for Archelaus the father went over from Mithridates to the Romans. Dion Cassius (xxxiv. 58) says that Gabinius put Archelaus to death after the capture of Alexandria. This Egyptian campaign belongs to B.C. 55.
[334] This characteristic appears on the coins of Antonius.
[335] Decies is literally “Ten times.” The phrase is “Decies sestertium,” which is a short way of expressing “ten times a hundred thousand sesterces.” When Plutarch says “five-and-twenty thousand,” he means drachmæ, as observed in previous notes, and he considers drachmæ as equivalent to Roman Denarii. Now a Denarius is four sesterces, and 25,000 Denarii = 1,000,000 sesterces, Kaltwasser suggests that in the Greek text “sestertium” has been accidentally omitted after “decies;” but “decies” is the reading of all the MSS., and it is sufficient.
[336] Antonius, after returning from Egypt in B.C. 54, went to Cæsar in Gaul, who was then in winter-quarters after his return from the second British expedition. In B.C. 53 Antonius was again at Rome, and in B.C. 52 he was a Quæstor, and returned to Cæsar in Gaul. In B.C. 50 he was again in Rome, in which year he was made Augur, and was elected Tribunus Plebis for the following year.
Compare with this chapter the Life of Pompeius, c. 58, and the Life of Cæsar, c. 31.
[337] Quintus Cassius Longinus is called by Cicero a brother of C. Cassius; but Drumann conjectures that he may have been a cousin. After the defeat of Afranius and Petreius by Cæsar B.C. 49, he was made Proprætor of Spain.
[338] This expression of Cicero occurs in his Second Philippic, c. 22: “ut Helena Trojanis, sic iste huic reipublicæ causa belli, causa pestis atque exitii fuit.” Plutarch’s remark on Cicero’s extravagant expression is just.