many were their struggles against Didius, who hindered them while passing through.  They proved unable, after all, to make their way to Egypt.  Yet even when they had been encompassed on all sides, not even then would they accept any terms of surrender, though Didius made them many promises.  They sent for Antony, feeling that they could fight with him better in Syria:  then, when he neither came himself nor sent them any message, they decided that he had perished, and reluctantly made terms with the condition that they should never take part in a gladiatorial show.  They received from Didius Daphne, the suburb of Antioch, to dwell in, until the matter was called to Caesar’s attention.  Then they were tricked (somewhat later) by Messala and were sent in different directions under the pretext that they were to be enlisted in different legions and were in some convenient way destroyed.

[-8-] When Antony and Cleopatra heard from the envoys the commands which Caesar issued regarding them, they sent to him again.  The queen promised that she would give him large amounts of money.  Antony reminded him of their friendship and kinship, and also made a defence of his association with the Egyptian woman; he enumerated the occasions on which they had helped each other gain the objects of their loves,[70] and all the wanton pranks in which they two had shared as young men.  Finally he surrendered to him Publius Turullius, a senator, who had been an assassin of Caesar, but was then living with him as a friend.  He actually offered to commit suicide, if in that way Cleopatra might be saved.  Caesar put Turullius to death; it happened that this man had cut wood for the fleet from the forest of Asclepius in Cos, and by his punishment in the same place he was thought to have paid the penalty to the god.  But to Antony Caesar did not even then answer a word.  The latter consequently despatched a third embassy, sending him his son Antyllus with considerable gold coin.  His rival accepted the money, but sent the boy back empty-handed and gave him no answer.  To Cleopatra, however, as the first time so the second and the third time he sent many threats and promises alike.  Yet he was afraid, even so, that they might despair of in any way obtaining pardon from him and so hold out, and that they would survive by their own efforts, or set sail for Spain and Gaul, or destroy the money, the bulk of which he heard was immense.  Cleopatra had gathered it all in the monument she was constructing in the palace; and she threatened to burn all of it with her, in case she should miss the smallest of her demands.  Octavius sent therefore Thyrsus, a freedman of his, to speak to her kindly in every way and to tell her further that it so happened that he was in love with her.  He hoped at least by this means, since she thought she had the power to arouse passion in all mankind, that he might remove Antony from the scene and keep her and her money intact.  And so it proved.