Cleopatra began now to be afraid that she was to lose Antony again, and she at once began to resort to the usual artifices employed in such cases, in order to retain her power over him.  She said nothing, but assumed the appearance of one pining under the influence of some secret suffering or sorrow.  She contrived to be often surprised in tears.  In such cases she would hastily brush her tears away, and assume a countenance of smiles and good humor, as if making every effort to be happy, though really oppressed with a heavy burden of anxiety and grief.  When Antony was near her she would seem overjoyed at his presence, and gaze upon him with an expression of the most devoted fondness.  When absent from him, she spent her time alone, always silent and dejected, and often in tears; and she took care that the secret sorrows and sufferings that she endured should be duly made known to Antony, and that he should understand that they were all occasioned by her love for him, and by the danger which she apprehended that he was about to leave her.

The friends and secret agents of Cleopatra, who reported these things to Antony, made, moreover, direct representations to him, for the purpose of inclining his mind in her favor.  They had, in fact, the astonishing audacity to argue that Cleopatra’s claims upon Antony for a continuance of his love were paramount to those of Octavia.  She, that is, Octavia, had been his wife, they said, only for a very short time.  Cleopatra had been most devotedly attached to him for many years.  Octavia was married to him, they alleged, not under the impulse of love, but from political considerations alone, to please her brother, and to ratify and confirm a political league made with him.  Cleopatra, on the other hand, had given herself up to him in the most absolute and unconditional manner, under the influence solely of a personal affection which she could not control.  She had surrendered and sacrificed every thing to him.  For him she had lost her good name, alienated the affections of her subjects, made herself the object of reproach and censure to all mankind, and now she had left her native land to come and join him in his adverse fortunes.  Considering how much she had done, and suffered, and sacrificed for his sake, it would be extreme and unjustifiable cruelty in him to forsake her now.  She never would survive such an abandonment.  Her whole soul was so wrapped up in him, that she would pine away and die if he were now to forsake her.

Antony was distressed and agitated beyond measure by the entanglements in which he found that he was involved.  His duty, his inclination perhaps, certainly his ambition, and every dictate of prudence and policy required that he should break away from these snares at once and go to meet Octavia.  But the spell that bound him was too mighty to be dissolved.  He yielded to Cleopatra’s sorrows and tears.  He dispatched a messenger to Octavia, who had by this time reached Athens, in Greece, directing her not to come any farther.  Octavia, who seemed incapable of resentment or anger against her husband, sent back to ask what she should do with the troops, and money, and the military stores which she was bringing.  Antony directed her to leave them in Greece.  Octavia did so, and mournfully returned to her home.