When Antony reached the shore, he advanced to a certain sea-port, near Sidon, where Cleopatra was to land.  At the time of his arrival but a very small part of his army was left, and the few men that survived were in a miserably destitute condition.  Antony’s eagerness to see Cleopatra became more and more excited as the time drew nigh.  She did not come so soon as he had expected, and during the delay he seemed to pine away under the influence of love and sorrow.  He was silent, absent-minded, and sad.  He had no thoughts for any thing but the coming of Cleopatra, and felt no interest in any other plans.  He watched for her incessantly, and would sometimes leave his place at the table, in the midst of the supper, and go down alone to the shore, where he would stand gazing out upon the sea, and saying mournfully to himself, “Why does not she come?” The animosity and the ridicule which these things awakened against him, on the part of the army, were extreme; but he was so utterly infatuated that he disregarded all the manifestations of public sentiment around him, and continued to allow his mind to be wholly engrossed with the single idea of Cleopatra’s coming.

She arrived at last.  She brought a great supply of clothes and other necessaries for the use of Antony’s army, so that her coming not only gratified his love, but afforded him, also, a very essential relief, in respect to the military difficulties in which he was involved.

After some time spent in the enjoyment of the pleasure which being thus reunited to Cleopatra afforded him, Antony began again to think of the affairs of his government, which every month more and more imperiously demanded his attention.  He began to receive urgent calls from various quarters, rousing him to action.  In the mean time, Octavia—­who had been all this while waiting in distress and anxiety at Rome, hearing continually the most gloomy accounts of her husband’s affairs, and the most humiliating tidings in respect to his infatuated devotion to Cleopatra—­resolved to make one more effort to save him.  She interceded with her brother to allow her to raise troops and to collect supplies, and then proceed to the eastward to re-enforce him.  Octavius consented to this.  He, in fact, assisted Octavia in making her preparations.  It is said, however, that he was influenced in this plan by his confident belief that this noble attempt of his sister to reclaim her husband would fail, and that, by the failure of it, Antony would be put in the wrong, in the estimation of the Roman people, more absolutely and hopelessly than ever, and that the way would thus be prepared for his complete and final destruction.

Octavia was rejoiced to obtain her brother’s aid to her undertaking, whatever the motive might be which induced him to afford it.  She accordingly levied a considerable body of troops, raised a large sum of money, provided clothes, and tents, and military stores for the army; and when all was ready, she left Italy and put to sea, having previously dispatched a messenger to her husband to inform him that she was coming.