5. Lucius Antonius, youngest son of Marcus Antonius Creticus, and brother of the triumvir. In 44, as tribune of the people, he brought forward a law authorizing Caesar to nominate the chief magistrates during his absence from Rome. After the murder of Caesar, he supported his brother Marcus. He proposed an agrarian law in favour of the people and Caesar’s veterans, and took part in the operations at Mutina (43). In 41 he was consul, and had a dispute with Octavian, which led to the so-called Perusian War, in which he was supported by Fulvia (Mark Antony’s wife), who was anxious to recall her husband from Cleopatra’s court. Later, observing the bitter feelings that had been evoked by the distribution of land among the veterans of Caesar, Antonius and Fulvia changed their attitude, and stood forward as the defenders of those who had suffered from its operation. Antonius marched on Rome, drove out Lepidus, and promised the people that the triumvirate should be abolished. On the approach of Octavian, he retired to Perusia in Etruria, where he was besieged by three armies, and compelled to surrender (winter of 41). His life was spared, and he was sent by Octavian to Spain as governor. Nothing is known of the circumstances or date of his death. Cicero, in his Philippics, actuated in great measure by personal animosity, gives a highly unfavourable view of his character.
Appian, Bellum Civile, v. 14 ff.; Dio Cassius xlviii. 5-14.
6. Gaius Antonius, second son of Marcus Antonius Creticus, and brother of the triumvir. In 49 he was legate of Caesar and, with P. Cornelius Dolabella, was entrusted with the defence of Illyricum against the Pompeians. Dolabella’s fleet was destroyed; Antonius was shut up in the island of Curicta and forced to surrender. In 44 he was city praetor, his brothers Marcus and Lucius being consul and tribune respectively in the same year. Gaius was appointed to the province of Macedonia, but on his way thither fell into the hands of M. Junius Brutus on the coast of Illyria. Brutus at first treated him generously, but ultimately put him to death (42).
Plutarch, Brutus, 28; Dio Cassius xlvii. 21-24. On the whole family, see the articles in Pauly-Wissowa’s Realencyclopadie, i. pt. 2 (1894).
ANTONOMASIA, in rhetoric, the Greek term for a substitution of any epithet or phrase for a proper name; as “Pelides,” or “the son of Peleus,” for Achilles; “the Stagirite” for Aristotle; “the author of Paradise Lost” for Milton; “the little corporal” for Napoleon I.; “Macedonia’s madman” for Alexander the Great, &c. &c. The opposite substitution of a proper name for some generic term is also sometimes called antonomasia; as “a Cicero” for an orator.
ANTRAIGUES, EMMANUEL HENRI LOUIS ALEXANDRE DE LAUNAY, Comte D’ (c. 1755-1812), French publicist and political adventurer, was a nephew of François Emmanuel de Saint-Priest (1735-1821), one of the last ministers of Louis XVI. He was a cavalry captain, but, having little taste for the army, left it and travelled extensively, especially in the East. On his return to Paris, he sought the society of philosophers and artists, visited Voltaire at Ferney for three months, but was more attracted by J.J. Rousseau, with whom he became somewhat intimate. He published a Mémoire sur les états-généraux, supported the Revolution enthusiastically when it broke out, was elected deputy, and took the oath to the constitution; but he suddenly changed his mind completely, became a defender of the monarchy and emigrated in 1790. He was the secret agent of the comte de Provence (Louis XVIII.) at different courts of Europe, and at the same time received money from the courts he visited. He published a number of pamphlets, Des monstres ravagent partout, Point d’accommodement, &c. At Venice, where he was attaché to the Russian legation, he was arrested in 1797, but escaped to Russia. Sent as Russian attaché to Dresden, he published a violent pamphlet against Napoleon I., and was expelled by the Saxon government. He then went to London, and it was universally believed that he betrayed the secret articles of the treaty of Tilsit to the British cabinet, but his recent biographer, Pingaud, contests this. In 1812 he and his wife Madame Saint-Huberty, an operatic singer, were assassinated by an Italian servant whom they had dismissed. It has never been known whether the murder was committed from private or political motives.
See H. Vaschalde, Notice bibliographique sur Louis Alexandre de Launay, comte d’Antraigues, sa vie et ses oeuvres; Léonce Pingaud, Un Agent secret sous la révolution et l’empire, le comte d’Antraigues (Paris, 1893); Édouard de Goncourt, La Saint-Huberty et l’opéra au XVIIIe siècle.