more.  He gave her at sundry times, as public marks of his love, many provinces of the Empire of Rome in the East.  He read her love-letters openly in his tribunal itself—­even while he was hearing and judging the causes of kings.  Nay, he left his tribunal, and one of the best Roman orators pleading before him, to follow her litter, in which she happened to be passing by at that time.  But, what was more grievous to me than all these demonstrations of his extravagant passion for that infamous woman, he had the assurance, in a letter to my brother, to call her his wife.  Which of you, ladies, could have patiently borne this treatment?

Arria.—­Not I, madam, in truth.  Had I been in your place, the dagger with which I pierced my own bosom to show my dear Paetus how easy it was to die, that dagger should I have plunged into Antony’s heart, if piety to the gods and a due respect to the purity of my own soul had not stopped my hand.  But I verily believe I should have killed myself; not, as I did, out of affection to my husband, but out of shame and indignation at the wrongs I endured.

Portia.—­I must own, Octavia, that to bear such usage was harder to a woman than to swallow fire.

Octavia.—­Yet I did bear it, madam, without even a complaint which could hurt or offend my husband.  Nay, more, at his return from his Parthian expedition, which his impatience to bear a long absence from Cleopatra had made unfortunate and inglorious, I went to meet him in Syria, and carried with me rich presents of clothes and money for his troops, a great number of horses, and two thousand chosen soldiers, equipped and armed like my brother’s Praetorian bands.  He sent to stop me at Athens because his mistress was then with him.  I obeyed his orders; but I wrote to him, by one of his most faithful friends, a letter full of resignation, and such a tenderness for him as I imagined might have power to touch his heart.  My envoy served me so well, he set my fidelity in so fair a light, and gave such reasons to Antony why he ought to see and receive me with kindness, that Cleopatra was alarmed.  All her arts were employed to prevent him from seeing me, and to draw him again into Egypt.  Those arts prevailed.  He sent me back into Italy, and gave himself up more absolutely than ever to the witchcraft of that Circe.  He added Africa to the States he had bestowed on her before, and declared Caesario, her spurious son by Julius Caesar, heir to all her dominions, except Phoenicia and Cilicia, which with the Upper Syria he gave to Ptolemy, his second son by her; and at the same time declared his eldest son by her, whom he had espoused to the Princess of Media, heir to that kingdom and King of Armenia; nay, and of the whole Parthian Empire which he meant to conquer for him.  The children I had brought him he entirely neglected as if they had been bastards.  I wept.  I lamented the wretched captivity he was in; but