The New Hudson Shakespeare · William Shakespeare
SCENE I. _Rome._ _A room in_ ANTONY'S _house_
ANTONY, OCTAVIUS, _and_ LEPIDUS, _seated at a table_ ANTONY. These many then shall die; their names are prick'd. OCTAVIUS. Your brother too must die; consent you, Lepidus? [Note: _Rome._ _A room ... house_ Ff omit.--ANTONY, OCTAVIUS ... _table_ Malone | Enter Antony, Octawius, and Lepidus. Ff.] [Note: SCENE I. The Folios give no indication of place, but that Shakespeare intended the scene to be in Rome is clear from ll. 10, 11, where Lepidus is sent to Cæsar's house and told that he will find his confederates "or here, or at the Capitol." In fact, however, the triumvirs, Octavius, Antonius, and Lepidus, met in November, B.C. 43, some nineteen months after the assassination of Cæsar, on a small island in the river Rhenus (now the Reno), near Bononia (Bologna). "All three met together in an island environed round about with a little river, and there remained three days together. Now, as touching all other matters they were easily agreed, and did divide all the empire of Rome between them, as if it had been their own inheritance. But yet they could hardly agree whom they would put to death: for every one of them would kill their enemies, and save their kinsmen and friends. Yet, at length, giving place to their greedy desire to be revenged of their enemies, they spurned all reverence of blood and holiness of friendship at their feet. For Cæsar left Cicero to Antonius's will; Antonius also forsook Lucius Cæsar, who was his uncle by his mother; and both of them together suffered Lepidus to kill his own brother Paulus. Yet some writers affirm that Cæsar and Antonius requested Paulus might be slain, and that Lepidus was contented with it."--Plutarch, _Marcus Antonius_.]
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.