Antony

Plutarch

Plutarch. Plutarch's Lives, Vol. IX. Perrin, Bernadotte, translator. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann Ltd., 1920.

The struggles which followed were many and continuous, and in all of them Antony distinguished himself. Twice, when Caesar’s men were in headlong flight, he met them, turned them back, forced them to stand and engage again their pursuers, and won the victory.

Accordingly, next to Caesar, he was the man most talked about in the camp. And Caesar showed plainly what opinion he had of him. For when he was about to fight the last and all-decisive battle at Pharsalus, he himself took the right wing, but he gave the command of the left to Antony, as the most capable officer under him.

And after the victory, when he had been proclaimed dictator, he himself pursued Pompey, but he chose Antony as his Master of Horse and sent him to Rome. This office is second in rank when the dictator is in the city; but when he is absent, it is the first and almost the only one. For only the tribuneship continues when a dictator has been chosen; all the other offices are abolished.

However, Dolabella, who was tribune at this time—a newcomer in politics who aimed at a new order of things, introduced a law for the abolition of debts, and tried to persuade Antony, who was his friend and always sought to please the multitude, to take common action with him in the measure. But Asinius and Trebellius advised Antony to the contrary, and, as chance would have it, a dire suspicion fell upon him that he was wronged as a husband by Dolabella.