From opposite sides approach the two triumvirs, each with friends, and each pretending to be deep in private discussion so that, for effect, he can seem to be ignoring the other.
Antony speaks first to the general at his side-his thoughts, to all appearances, on military matters in the East:
// we compose well here, to Parthia.
Hark, Ventidius.
- Act II, scene ii, lines 15-16a
Here he goes off, apparently, into military talk unheard by the audience and undoubtedly meant to impress Octavius.
Ventidius is Publius Ventidius Bassus, who in early life had been a poor man who made a living renting mules and carriages. He rose to become a general serving under Julius Caesar in Gaul and remained loyal to Julius Caesar during the war with Pompey. After the assassination of the great Julius, Ventidius served Mark Antony and has remained loyal to him since.
Maecenas; ask Agrippa
As for Octavius Caesar, he is speaking with two men. Of what we can't say, but it is probably politics. Octavius affects carelessness. All we hear him say is:
/ do not know, Maecenas; ask Agrippa.
- Act II, scene ii, lines 16b-17
Maecenas and Agrippa are Octavius Caesar's closest associates, then and afterward. Gaius Cilnius Maecenas was a man of peace. He was several years older than Octavius Caesar and had been a friend of his since the latter was a schoolboy. In later years Maecenas was always left at home to take care of Rome when Octavius Caesar was forced to be away on war or diplomacy. In his eventual retirement, Maecenas used the wealth he had gathered to support and patronize writers and artists. So earnestly did he do this and so great were those he helped that forever after a patron of the arts has been called "a Maecenas."
Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa, on the other hand, was the man of war, the good right arm of Octavius Caesar, the general who fought all his master's battles, and who made it possible for Octavius to win military victories. (Why didn't Agrippa win them for himself? Because he was intelligent enough to know that he needed Octavius' brain to direct his arm. In the same way, Mark Antony needed Julius Caesar's brain to direct his arm, but he never really understood that.)
Agrippa was the same age as Octavius Caesar, was with him at school when the news of the assassination of Julius Caesar had arrived, and went with him to Italy. He did not play much of a part in the war against the conspirators, for he was still young. After the Battle of Philippi, however, Agrippa began to shine. It was he, for instance, who led the armies that penned up Fulvia and Lucius Antonius in Perusia and then defeated them.
... time to wrangle ...
Softly and eagerly, Lepidus draws the two men together. Stiffly, they sit and confront each other. Each raises the matter of his grievances. Octavius Caesar has the better of this, for he can bring up the war fought against him by Fulvia and Lucius, claiming Antony set them on. Antony objects that the war was against his own policy, and ungallantly places full blame upon his dead wife, saying, in terms that must have raised a wry smile from many a husband in the audience:
As for my wife,
I would you had her spirit in such another.
The third o'the world is yours, which with a snaffle
You may pace easy, but not such a wife.
- Act II, scene ii, lines 65-68
Nevertheless, argumentation continues till Enobarbus roughly points out the necessity of a compromise, however insincere:
... if you borrow one another's love
for the instant, you may, when you hear
no more words of Pompey, return it again:
you shall have time to wrangle in when
you have nothing else to do.
- Act II, scene ii, lines 107-10
It doesn't make pleasant listening, but it is a fair appraisal of the situation. A practical means of accommodation must be sought.
Admired Octavia...
Agrippa comes up with a suggestion at once. He says to Octavius Caesar:
Thou hast a sister by the mother's side,
Admired Octavia: great Mark Antony
Is now a widower.
- Act II, scene ii, lines 123-25
This sounds as though Agrippa is referring to a half sister, but he isn't. Octavia is a daughter of the same mother as Octavius Caesar as well as of the same father.
Octavius Caesar had two sisters, both older than he. The older one, Octavia Major, was a half sister, by his father's first wife. The second, Octavia Minor, was a full sister and the one