Antony

This Apemantus alone of all men Timon would sometimes admit into his company, since Apemantus was like him and tried sometimes to imitate his mode of life; and once, at the festival of The Pitchers,[*](Choes-day, the second day of the great festival in honour of Dionysus called Anthesteria. It was a day of libations to the dead.) the two were feasting by themselves, and Apemantus said: Timon, what a fine symposium ours is! It would be, said Timon, if thou wert not here. We are told also that once when the Athenians were holding an assembly, he ascended the bema, and the strangeness of the thing caused deep silence and great expectancy;

then he said: I have a small building lot, men of Athens, and a fig-tree is growing in it, from which many of my fellow citizens have already hanged themselves. Accordingly, as I intend to build a house there, I wanted to give public notice to that effect, in order that all of you who desire to do so may hang yourselves before the fig-tree is cut down. After he had died and been buried at Halae near the sea, the shore in front of the tomb slipped away, and the water surrounded it and made it completely inaccessible to man.

The inscription on the tomb was:

1. Here, after snapping the thread of a wretched life, I lie.
2. Ye shall not learn my name, but my curses shall follow you.

1. Timon, hater of men, dwells here; so pass along;
2. Heap many curses on me, if thou wilt, only pass along.

These are a few things out of many concerning Timon. As for Antony, Canidius in person brought him word of the loss of his forces at Actium, and he heard that Herod the Jew, with sundry legions and cohorts, had gone over to Caesar, and that the other dynasts in like manner were deserting him and nothing longer remained of his power outside of Egypt.

However, none of these things greatly disturbed him, but, as if he gladly laid aside his hopes, that so he might lay aside his anxieties also, he forsook that dwelling of his in the sea, which he called Timoneum, and after he had been received into the palace by Cleopatra, turned the city to the enjoyment of suppers and drinking-bouts and distributions of gifts, inscribing in the list of ephebi[*](See the note on lxii. 1. Caesarion was to be educated as a Greek, Antyllus as a Roman.) the son of Cleopatra and Caesar,