After a time, Antony and Cleopatra, with a magnificent train of attendants, left Samos, and, passing across the Aegean Sea, landed in Greece, and advanced to Athens, while the fleet, proceeding westward from Samos, passed around Taenarus, the southern promontory of Greece, and then moved northward along the western coast of the peninsula.  Cleopatra wished to go to Athens for a special reason.  It was there that Octavia had stopped on her journey toward her husband with re-enforcements and aid; and while she was there, the people of Athens, pitying her sad condition, and admiring the noble spirit of mind which she displayed in her misfortunes, had paid her great attention, and during her stay among them had bestowed upon her many honors.  Cleopatra now wished to go to the same place, and to triumph over her rival there, by making so great a display of her wealth and magnificence, and of her ascendency over the mind of Antony, as should entirely transcend and outshine the more unassuming pretensions of Octavia.  She was not willing, it seems, to leave to the unhappy wife whom she had so cruelly wronged even the possession of a place in the hearts of the people of this foreign city, but must go and enviously strive to efface the impression which injured innocence had made, by an ostentatious exhibition of the triumphant prosperity of her own shameless wickedness.  She succeeded well in her plans.  The people of Athens were amazed and bewildered at the immense magnificence that Cleopatra exhibited before them.  She distributed vast sums of money among the people.  The city, in return, decreed to her the most exalted honors.  They sent a solemn embassy to her to present her with these decrees.  Antony himself, in the character of a citizen of Athens, was one of the embassadors.  Cleopatra received the deputation at her palace.  The reception was attended with the most splendid and imposing ceremonies.

One would have supposed that Cleopatra’s cruel and unnatural hostility to Octavia might now have been satisfied; but it was not.  Antony, while he was at Athens, and doubtless at Cleopatra’s instigation, sent a messenger to Rome with a notice of divorcement to Octavia, and with an order that she should leave his house.  Octavia obeyed.  She went forth from her home, taking the children with her, and bitterly lamenting her cruel destiny.

In the mean time, while all these events had been transpiring in the East, Octavius had been making his preparations for the coming crisis, and was now advancing with a powerful fleet across the sea.  He was armed with authority from the Roman Senate and people, for he had obtained from them a decree deposing Antony from his power.  The charges made against him all related to misdemeanors and offenses arising out of his connection with Cleopatra.  Octavius contrived to get possession of a will which Antony had written before leaving Rome, and which he had placed there in what he supposed a very sacred