[381] See the Life of Cicero, c. 44, note.
[382] The meeting with, Sextus Pompeius was in B.C. 39, at Cape Miseno, which is the northern point of the Gulf of Naples.
Sextus was the second son of Pompeius Magnus. He was now master of a large fleet, and having the command of the sea, he cut off the supplies from Rome. The consequence was a famine and riots in the city. (Appian, Civil Wars, v. 67, &c.) Antonius slaughtered many of the rioters, and their bodies were thrown into the Tiber. This restored order; “but the famine,” says Appian, “was at its height, and the people groaned and were quiet.”
[383] P. Ventidius Bassus was what the Romans call a “novus homo,” the first of his family who distinguished himself at Rome. He had the courage of a soldier and the talents of a true general. When a child he was made prisoner with his mother in the Marsian war (Dion Cass. xliii. 51), and he appeared in the triumphal procession of Pompeius Strabo (Dion Cass. xlix. 21). The captive lived to figure as the principal person in his own triumph, B.C. 38. In his youth he supported himself by a mean occupation. Hoche, when he was a common soldier, used to embroider waistcoats. Julius Cæsar discovered the talents of Bassus, and gave him employment suited to his abilities. In B.C. 43 he was Prætor and in the same year Consul Suffectus. (Drumann, Antonii, p. 439; Gell. xv. 4.)
[384] Cockfighting pleased a Roman, as it used to do an Englishman. The Athenians used to fight quails.
[385] The name is written indifferently Hyrodes or Orodes (see the Life of Crassus, c. 18).
Plutarch, on this as on many other occasions, takes no pains to state facts with accuracy. Labienus lost his life and the Parthians were defeated; and that was enough for his purpose. The facts are stated more circumstantially by Dion Cassius (xlviii. 40, 41).
[386] The president of the gymnastic exercises. Dion Cassius (xlviii. 39) tells us something that is characteristic of Antonius. The fulsome flattery of the Athenians gave him on this occasion the title of the young Bacchus, and they betrothed the goddess Minerva to him. Antonius said he was well content with the match; and to show that he was in earnest he demanded of them a contribution of one million drachmæ as a portion with his new wife. He thus fleeced them of about 2800l. sterling. No doubt Antonius relished the joke as well as the money.
[387] The sacred olive was in the Erektheium on the Acropolis of Athens. Pausanias (i. 28) mentions a fountain on the Acropolis near the Propylæa; and this is probably what Plutarch calls Clepsydra, or a water-clock. The name Clepsydra is given to a spring in Messenia by Pausanias (iv. 31). Kaltwasser supposes the name Clepsydra to have been given because such a spring was intermittent. Such a spring the younger Pliny describes (Ep. iv. 30).
[388] The defeat of Pacorus (B.C. 38) is told by Dion Cassius (xlix. 19). The ode of Horace (Carm. iii. 6) in which he mentions Pacorus seems to have been written before this victory, and after the defeat of Decidius Saxa (B.C. 40; Dion, xlviii. 25).