Excerpt from The Greatness and Decline of Rome, Vol. 4 Unfortunately the dynastic marriage which this expedient involved could not be reconciled with the Roman constitution or with the nature of proconsular authority, transformed as both had been by a century of political upheaval. Marriage with Cleopatra at that moment was a most serious and revolu tionary act, even in so disturbed a period. It was a pro ceeding against every tradition of Roman policy, and it was performed precipitately, as a matter of little importance, in defiance of class and traditional prejudices and with a disregard of consequences which only the most brilliant success could have justified. Greater men thanantony, possibly even Caesar, would have hesitated. However, when he reached Corfu, Antony sent Octavia and her children back to Italy and sent Fonteius Capito to Alexandria with an invitation to Cleopatra to meet him in Syria1' His dominating but ill-balanced character, the extraordinary good fortune which he had enjoyed in recent years, the vast confusion Of an age when the impracticable might easily be mistaken for the actual, his foresight and at the same time his extravagant optimism induced him thus hurriedly to take a step which was to decide the whole of his future career. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.