Copyright

      HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd. 1 London Bridge Street London, SE1 9GF

       www.harpercollins.co.uk

      This paperback edition 2008

      First published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2007

      Copyright © Colleen McCullough 2007

      Colleen McCullough asserts the moral right to

      be identified as the author of this work

      A catalogue record for this book

      is available from the British Library

      This novel is entirely a work of fiction.

      The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are

      the work of the author’s imagination, and, while

      historical characters make appearances in the book,

      this is a fictionalised account.

      All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins ebooks.

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      Source ISBN: 9780007225804

       Ebook edition: September 2008 ISBN: 9780007283712

      Version: 2018-06-08

      MAPS

      For the unsinkable Anthony Cheetham with love and enormous respect

      CONTENTS

      Title Page Copyright Maps PART I Antony in the East 41–40 B.C. Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five PART II Octavian in the West 41–39 B.C. Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Chapter Ten PART III Victories and Defeats 39–37 B.C. Chapter Eleven Chapter Twelve Chapter Thirteen Chapter Fourteen Chapter Fifteen PART IV The Queen of Beasts 36–33 B.C. Chapter Sixteen Chapter Seventeen Chapter Eighteen Chapter Nineteen Chapter Twenty Chapter Twenty-One Chapter Twenty-Two Chapter Twenty-Three Chapter Twenty-Four PART V War 32–30 B.C. Chapter Twenty-Five Chapter Twenty-Six Chapter Twenty-Seven Chapter Twenty-Eight PART VI Metamorphosis 29–27 B.C. Chapter Twenty-Nine Glossary About the Author By the Same Author About the Publisher

      PART I

      Antony in the East

      41–40 B.C.

      ONE

      Quintus Dellius was not a warlike man, nor a warrior when in battle. Whenever possible he concentrated upon what he did best, namely to advise his superiors so subtly that they came to believe the ideas were genuinely theirs.

      So after Philippi, in which conflict he had neither distinguished himself nor displeased his commanders, Dellius decided to attach his meager person to Mark Antony and go east.

      It was never possible, Dellius reflected, to choose Rome; it always boiled down to choosing sides in the massive, convulsive struggles between men determined to control – no, be honest, Quintus Dellius! – determined to rule Rome. With the murder of Caesar by Brutus, Cassius and the rest, everyone had assumed that Caesar’s close cousin, Mark Antony, would inherit his name, his fortune, and his literally millions of clients. But what had Caesar done? Made a last will and testament that left everything to his eighteen-year-old great-nephew, Gaius Octavius! He hadn’t even mentioned Antony in that document, a blow from which Antony had never really recovered, so sure had he been that he would step into Caesar’s high red boots. And, typical Antony, he had made no plans to take second place. At first the youth everyone now called Octavian hadn’t worried him; Antony was a man in his prime, a famous general of troops and owner of a large faction in the Senate, whereas Octavian was a sickly

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