THE DIVINE HISTORY OF JESUS CHRIST

THE LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA, QUEEN OF EGYPT

PART II.

CLEOPATRA AND ANTONY

CHAPTER XX.

THE DEATH OF CLEOPATRA AND THE TRIUMPH OF OCTAVIAN.

THE ENDING OF A TRAGEDY

It was with the name of Cleopatra upon his lips that Antony re-entered Alexandria on the day of his death. With her name, however, was coupled not a blessing, but a curse. Once more he spoke of treachery; he had been betrayed by her to those against whom he was fighting for her sake. Whether Cleopatra saw him as he returned to the Palace, or whether she trusted only to reports as to his state of mind, she was so alarmed that, accompanied only by her women Iras and Charmion, she fled to the tomb which she had built near the Temple of Isis Lochias, and sent messengers to tell Antony that she was dead. This tomb was a large two-storied building, in which, it will be remembered, she had already gathered' her treasures so as to be able to destroy them all by fire if necessary. It had folding doors, secured by bolts and bars, which were now used to prevent any one entering. But Antony did not attempt to verify the news of Cleopatra’s death. He accepted the story of her suicide, and prepared to follow her example. Plutarch represents him as murmuring to himself :  “Why still delay, Antony, since Fate has taken away the one excuse for loving life?”. He then retired to his bedchamber with a faithful slave named Eros, whom he had already warned to be ready to perform the duty which was now required of him. As he took off the armour in which he had fought that morning, he apostrophised thus the woman whom he had so recently accused of betraying him:  “ Cleopatra, it is not at the loss of you I am grieved, for soon I shall come to the same place with you, but that I, being such a general, am proved inferior in courage to a woman.”

With this anticipation of his descendant Nero’s “Qualis artifex pereo!” Antony turned to Eros, and bade him do his duty. Eros drew his sword, but, instead of striking at his master, ran himself through and died. Looking down at the slave’s body at his feet, Antony cried: “Well done, Eros! What you cannot do for me yourself you teach me how to do.” With this he apparently tried to rip himself up, in the style of a Japanese committing seppuku or hara-kiri, and flung himself, wounded and senseless, on the bed. He had not, however, done his work so well as Eros, and, though his hurt was mortal, it was not immediately fatal. The flow of blood ceased, and he regained consciousness. Seeing people around him—they had perhaps come into the room attracted by the noise—he called to them to put an end to him. Instead of complying, they fled in terror, and left him writhing in agony.

At this point another messenger came from Cleopatra—Diomedes, her secretary—to inform him that she was not dead, and to bring him to her. Antony raised himself up, as if now he could still go on living, and called his slaves to carry him to where Cleopatra awaited him. On the way to the tomb he hastened their steps with prayers and threats, and when they arrived before the doors he was still breathing and conscious. The doors were not opened for him for fear, perhaps, of others beside him effecting an entry at the same time and seizing the treasures ; but Cleopatra herself looked out of a window in the upper story and let down ropes, which Antony’s slaves attached to the litter on which they had brought their master. Then, with the help of Iras and Charmion, she drew the litter up to the window. “ The eye-witnesses,” remarks Plutarch, “say that never was there a more piteous sight; for Antony was hauled up, stained with blood and wrestling against death, stretching out his hands toward Cleopatra as he hung in the air. It was no easy task for women ; and Cleopatra, with straining arms and contracted features, laboured at the ropes, while those below encouraged her and shared in her agony. When she had taken him in and laid him down, she rent her garments over him and beat her breasts, smearing her face with his blood, calling him lord and husband and general, and almost forgetting her own sorrows in lamentation for his.”

Plutarch somewhat mars the effect of his admirable narrative by representing Antony as finding time before he breathed his last breath to give Cleopatra advice as to how she might best look after her own honour, and to bid her, instead of lamenting his late misfortunes, think him happy for what he had achieved, and for his not ignoble end. Shakespeare, however, succeeded in embodying all Plutarch’s rhetoric in the death-scene in his fourth Act, down to the words :

I lived, the greatest prince o’ the world,

The noblest ; and do now not basely die

Nor cowardly put off my helmet to

My countryman—a Roman, by a Roman

Valiantly vanquished.

In this manner died Antony at the age of fifty-three, after a connection with the Egyptian queen lasting over twelve years, including the long interval in 40-36BCduring which he did not see her at all. It is perhaps unnecessary to add anything to what has been said of Antony already, particularly in Chapter VII, except to call attention to the way in which the last actions of his life support the idea of his mental decay. It is impossible to recognise the once great Triumvir in the hesitating bungler, complaining of treason, unable to exercise influence over his troops, unable to find the glorious death in battle of which he could talk over the wine the night before, unable even to direct his sword steadily against himself, and only saved from a truly sorry ending by the pathos which his reconciliation with Cleopatra lent to his final hour. In the close of his life there remains nothing which can arouse any admiration for Antony except the continuance of his affection for Cleopatra. But for this very infatuation, which inspired his countrymen with such disgust, the Antony of August 1st—the Antony, indeed, of the years 31-30—would seem but a futile and contemptible phantom lingering on in history after the disappearance of the hero whose name be bore.

Cleopatra’s situation was at this moment terrible in the extreme. The blood-stained body of her husband lay stretched upon the bed, covered by her torn garments which she had thrown over it. Charmion and Iras, her two waiting-women, were probably huddled in the corner of the room, beating their breasts and wailing as was the Greek habit at such a time. Below the open window a few Romans and Egyptians appear to have gathered in the sun-baked courtyard; and, I think, the ladders still rested against the wall where they had been placed by those who had helped to raise Antony up to the Queen. It must now have been early afternoon, and the sunlight of the August day, no doubt, beat into the room, lighting the disarranged furniture and revealing the wet blood-stains upon the tumbled carpets over which the dying man’s heavy body had been dragged. From the one side the surge of the sea penetrated into the chamber; from the other the shouts of Octavian’s soldiers and the clattering of their arms came to Cleopatra’s ears, telling her of the enemy’s arrival in the Palace. She might expect at any moment to be asked to surrender, and more than probably an attempt would be made to capture her by means of an entry through the window. She had determined, however, never to be made prisoner in this manner, and she had, no doubt, given it to be clearly understood that any effort to seize her would be her signal for firing the funeral pyre which had been erected in the adjoining room and destroying herself upon it. To be made a captive probably meant her degradation at Octavian’s Triumph and the loss of her throne; but to surrender by mutual arrangement might assure her personal safety and the continuity of her dynasty. With this in view, it seems likely that she now armed her two women to resist any assault upon the windows, and told them to warn all who attempted to climb the ladders that she, with her priceless jewellery and treasures, would be engulfed in the flames before ever they had reached to the level of her place of refuge.

Antony had been dead but a few minutes when Proculeius, of whom he had spoken to Cleopatra just before he expired, arrived upon the scene, demanding, in the name of Octavian, an audience with the Queen. He knocked upon the barred door of the main entrance to the mausoleum, calling upon Cleopatra to admit him, and the sound must have echoed through the hall below and come to her ears, where she listened at the top of the stairs, like some ominous summons from the powers of the Underworld; but, fearing that she might be taken prisoner, she did not dare open to him, even if she could have shot back the heavy bolts, and she must have paced to and fro beside her husband’s corpse in an agony of indecision. At last, however, she ran down the marble staircase to the dimly-lighted hall below, and, standing beside the barricade which she had constructed against the inner side of the door, called out to Proculeius by name. He answered her from the outside, and in this manner they held a short parley with one another, she offering to surrender if she could receive Octavian’s word that her Kingdom of Egypt would be given to her son Caesarion, and Proculeius replying only with the assurance that Octavian was to be trusted to act with clemency towards her. This was not satisfactory to her, and presently the Roman officer returned to his master, leaving Cleopatra undisturbed until late in the afternoon. He described the Queen’s situation to Octavian, and pointed out to him that it would probably not be difficult to effect an entrance to the mausoleum by means of the ladders, and that, with speed and a little manoeuvring, Cleopatra could be seized before she had time to fire the pyre. Thereupon Octavian sent him with Cornelius Gallus, who had now reached Alexandria, to attempt her capture, and the latter went straight to the door of the mausoleum, knocking upon it to summon the Queen. Cleopatra at once went down the stairs and entered into conversation with Cornelius Gallus through the closed door; and it would seem that her two women, perhaps eager to hear what was said, left their post at the window of the upper room and stood upon the steps behind her. As soon as the Queen was heard to be talking and reiterating her conditions of surrender, Proculeius ran round to the other side of the building, and, adjusting the ladders, climbed rapidly up to the window, followed by two other Roman officers. Entering the disordered room, he ran past the dead body of Antony and hurried down the stairs, at the bottom of which he encountered Charmion and Iras, while beyond them in the dim light of the hall he saw Cleopatra standing at the shut door, her back turned to him. One of the women uttered a cry, when she saw Proculeius, and called out to her mistress: “Unhappy Cleopatra, you are taken prisoner!” At this the Queen sprang round, and, seeing the Roman officer, snatched a dagger from its sheath at her waist and raised it for the stroke which should terminate the horror of her life. Proculeius, however, was too quick for her. He sprang at her with a force which must have hurled her back against the door, and, seizing her wrist, shook the dagger from her small hand. Then, holding her two arms at her side, he caused his men to shake her dress and to search her for hidden weapons or poison. “For shame, Cleopatra,” he said to her, scolding her for attempting to take her life; “you wrong yourself and Octavian very much in trying to rob him of so good an opportunity of showing his clemency, and you would make the world believe that the most humane of generals was a faithless and implacable enemy.” He then seems to have ordered his officers to remove the barriers and to open the door of the mausoleum, whereupon Cornelius Gallus and his men were able to assist him to guard the Queen and her two women. Shortly after this, Octavian’s freedman, Epaphroditus, arrived with orders to treat Cleopatra with all possible gentleness and civility, but to takS the strictest precautions to prevent her injuring herself; and, acting on these instructions, the Roman officers seem to have lodged the Queen under guard in one of the upper rooms of the mausoleum, after having made a thorough search for hidden weapons or poisons.

Just before sunset Octavian made his formal entry into Alexandria. He wished to impress the people of the city with the fact of his benevolent and peace-loving nature, and therefore he made a certain Alexandrian philosopher named Areius, for whom he had a liking, ride with him in his chariot. As the triumphal procession passed along the beautiful Street of Canopus, Octavian was seen by the agitated citizens to be holding the philosopher’s hand and talking to him in the most gentle manner. Stories soon went the rounds that when the conqueror had received the news of Antony’s death he had shed tears of sorrow, and had read over to his staff some of his enemy’s furious letters to him and his own moderate replies, thus showing how the quarrel had been forced upon him. Orders now seem to have been issued forbidding all outrage or looting; and presently the frightened Alexandrians ventured from their hiding places, most of the local magnates being ordered to gather themselves together in the Gymnasium. Here, in the twilight, Octavian rose to address them; and as he did so, they all prostrated themselves upon the ground before him in abject humiliation. Commanding them to rise, he told them that he freely acquitted them of all blame: firstly, in memory of the great Alexander who had founded their city; secondly, for the sake of the city itself which was so large and beautiful; thirdly, in honour of their god Serapis; and lastly, to gratify his dear friend Areius, at whose request he was about to spare many lives.

Having thus calmed the citizens, who now must have hailed him as a kind of deliverer and saviour, he retired to his quarters, whence, in his sardonic manner, he appears to have issued orders for the immediate slaughter of those members of the court of Cleopatra and Antony for whom Areius had not any particular liking. The unfortunate Antyllus, Antony’s son, having been betrayed to Octavian by his faithless tutor Theodorus, was at once put to death in the temple erected by Cleopatra to Julius Caesar, whither he had fled. As the executioner cut off the boy’s head, Theodorus contrived to steal a valuable jewel which hung round his neck; but the theft was discovered, and he was carried before Octavian, who ordered him to be crucified forthwith. A strict guard was set over the two children of Cleopatra, Ptolemy and Cleopatra Selene, who were still in Alexandria; and Octavian seems to have given Cleopatra to understand that if she attempted to kill herself he would put these two children to death. Thus he was able to assure himself that she would refrain from taking her life, for, as Plutarch says, “before such engines her purpose (to destroy herself) shook and gave way.”

Antony’s body was now, I suppose, prepared for burial. Though mummification was still often practised in Alexandria by Greeks and Egyptians, I do not think that any elaborate attempt was made to embalm the corpse, and it was probably ready for the funeral rites within a few days. Out of respect to the dead general a number of Roman officers and foreign potentates who were with Octavian’s army begged to be allowed to perform these rites at their own expense; but in deference to Cleopatra’s wishes the body was left in the Queen’s hands, and instructions were issued that her orders were to be obeyed in regard to the funeral. Thus Antony was buried, with every mark of royal splendour and pomp, in a tomb which had probably long been prepared for him, not far from his wife’s mausoleum. Cleopatra followed him to his grave, a tragic, piteous little figure, surrounded by a group of her lamenting ladies; and, while the priests burnt their incense and uttered their droning chants, the Queen’s fragile hands ruthlessly beat her breasts as she called upon the dead man by his name. In these last terrible hours only the happier character of her relationship with Antony was remembered, and the recollection of her many disagreements with him were banished from her mind by the piteous scenes of his death, and by the thought of his last tender words to her as he lay groaning upon her bed. In her extreme loneliness she must have now desired his buoyant company of earlier years with an intensity which she could hardly have felt during his lifetime; and it must have been difficult indeed for her to refrain from putting an end to her miserable life upon the grave of her dead lover. Yet Octavian’s threat in regard to her children held her hand; and, moreover, even in her utter distress, she had not yet abandoned her hope of saving Egypt from the clutch of Rome. Her own dominion, she knew, was over, and the best fate which she herself could hope for was that of an unmolested exile; yet Octavian’s attitude to her indicated in every way that he would be willing to leave the throne to her descendants. She did not know how falsely he was acting towards her, how he was making every effort to encourage hope in her heart in order that he might bring her alive to Rome to be exhibited in chains to the jeering populace. She did not understand that his messages of encouragement, and even of affection, to her were written with sardonic cunning, that his cheerful assurances in regard to her children were made at a time when he was probably actually sending messages post-haste to Berenice to attempt to recall Caesarion in order to put him to death. She did not understand Octavian’s character: perhaps she had never even seen him; and she hoped somehow to make a last appeal to him. She had played her wonderful game for the amalgamation of Egypt and Rome into one vast kingdom, ruled by her descendants and those of the great Julius Caesar, and she had lost. But there was yet hope that out of the general wreck she might save the one asset with which she had started her operations —the independent throne of Egypt; and to accomplish this she must live on for a while longer, and must face with bravery the nightmare of her existence.

Coming back, after the funeral, to her rooms in the mausoleum, wherein she had now decided to take up her residence, she fell into a high fever; and there upon her bed she lay in delirium for several days. She suffered, moreover, very considerable pain, due to the inflammation and ulceration caused by the blows which she had rained upon her delicate body in the abandonment of her despair. Over and over again she was heard to utter in her delirium the desolate cry, “I will not be exhibited in his Triumph,” and in her distress she begged repeatedly to be allowed to die. At one time she refused all food, and begged her doctor, a certain Olympus, to help her to pass quietly out of the world. Octavian, however, hearing of her increasing weakness, warned her once more that unless she made an effort to live he would not be lenient to her children; whereupon, as though galvanised into life by this pressure upon her maternal instincts, she made the necessary struggle to recover, obediently swallowing the medicine and stimulants which were given to her.

Thus the hot August days passed by, and at length the Queen, now fragile and haggard, was able to move about once more. Her age at this time was thirty-eight years, and she must have lost that freshness of youth which had been her notable quality; but her brilliant eyes had now perhaps gained in wonder by the pallor of her face, and the careless arrangement of her dark hair must have enhanced her tragic beauty. The seductive tones of her voice could not have been diminished, and that peculiar quality of elusiveness may well have been accentuated by her illness and by the nervous strain through which she had passed. Indeed, her personal charm was still so great that a certain Cornelius Dolabella, one of the Roman officers whose duty it was to keep watch over her, speedily became her devoted servant, and was induced to promise that he would report to her any plans in regard to her welfare which Octavian should disclose.

On August 28th, as she lay upon a small pallet-bed in the upper room, gazing in utter desolation, as I imagine, over the blue waters of the Mediterranean, her women ran in to her to tell her that Octavian had come to pay his respects to her. He had not yet visited her, for he had very correctly avoided her previous to and during Antony’s funeral; and since that time she had been too ill to receive him. Now, however, she was convalescent, and the conqueror had arrived unexpectedly to congratulate her, as etiquette demanded, upon her recovery. He walked into the room before the Queen had time to prepare herself; and Plutarch describes how, “on his entering, she sprang from her bed, having nothing on but the one garment next her body, and flung herself at his feet, her hair and face looking wild and disfigured, her voice trembling, and her eyes sunken and dark. The marks of the blows which she had rained upon herself were visible about her breast, and altogether her whole person seemed to be no less afflicted than was her spirit. But for all this, her old charm and the boldness of her youthful beauty had not wholly left her, and, in spite of her present condition, still shone out from within and allowed itself to appear in all the expressions of her face.”

The picture of the distraught little Queen, her dark hair tumbled over her face, her loose garment slipping from her white shoulders, as she crouches at the feet of this cold, unhealthy-looking man, who stands somewhat awkwardly before her, is one which must distress the mind of the historian who has watched the course of Cleopatra’s warfare against the representative of Rome. Yet in this scene we are able to discern her but stripped of the regal and formal accessories which have often caused her to appear more imposing and awe-inspiring than actually her character justified. She was essentially a woman, and now, in her condition of physical weakness, she acted precisely as any other overwrought member of her sex might have behaved under similar circumstances. Her wonderful pluck had almost deserted her, and her persistence of purpose was lost in the wreck of all her hopes. We have often heard her described as a calculating woman, who lived her life in studied and callous voluptuousness, and who died in unbending dignity ; but, as I have tried to indicate in this volume, the Queen’s nature was essentially feminine—highly-strung, and liable to rapid changes from joy to despair. Keen, independent, and fearless though she was, she was never a completely self-reliant woman, and in circumstances such as those which are now being recorded we obtain a view of her character, which shows her to have been capable of needing desperately the help and sympathy of others.

Octavian raised her to her feet, and, assisting her once more on to her bed, sat himself down beside her. At first she talked to him in a rambling manner, justifying her past movements, and attributing certain actions, such, I suppose, as her hiding in the mausoleum, to her fear of Antony; but when Octavian pointed out to her the discrepancies in her statements she made no longer any attempt to excuse her conduct, begging him only not to take her throne from her son, and telling him that she was willing enough to live if only he would insure the safety of her country and dynasty, and would be merciful to her children. Then, rising from the bed, she brought to Octavian a number of letters written to her by Julius Caesar, and also one or two portraits of him painted for her during his lifetime. “ You know,” she said, “ how much I was with your father, and you are aware that it was he who placed the crown of Egypt upon my head; but, so that you may know something of our private affairs, please read these letters. They are all written to me with his own hand.”

Octavian must have turned the letters over with some curiosity, but he does not seem to have shown a desire to read them; and, seeing this, Cleopatra cried: “Of what use are all these letters to me ? Yet I seem to see him living again in them.” The thought of her old lover and friend, and the memories recalled by the letters and portraits before her seem to have unnerved her; and, being in so overwrought and weak a condition, she now broke down completely. Between her sobs she was heard to exclaim, “Oh, I wish to God you were still alive,” as though referring to Julius Caesar.

Octavian appears to have consoled her as best he could; and at length she seems to have agreed that, in return for his clemency, she would place herself entirely in his hands, and would hand over to him without reserve all her property. One of her stewards, named Seleucus, happened to be awaiting her orders in the mausoleum at the time, and, sending for him, she told him to hand over to Octavian the list which they together had lately made of her jewellery and valuables, and which now lay with her other papers in the room. Seleucus seems to have read the document to Octavian; but, wishing to ingratiate himself with his new master, and thinking that loyalty to Cleopatra no longer paid, he volunteered the information that various articles were omitted from the list, and that the Queen was purposely secreting these for her own advantage. At this Cleopatra sprang from her bed, and, dashing at the astonished steward, seized him by the hair, shook him to and fro, and furiously slapped his face. So outraged and overwrought was she that she might well have done the man some serious injury had not Octavian, who could not refrain from laughing, withheld her and led her back to her seat “ Really it is very hard,” she exclaimed to her visitor, “ when you do me the honour to come to see me in this condition I am in, that I should be accused by one of my own servants of setting aside some women’s trinkets—not so as to adorn my unhappy self, you may be sure, but so that I might have some little presents by me to give to your sister Octavia and your wife Livia, that by their intercession I might hope to find you to some extent disposed to mercy.”

Caesar was delighted to hear her talk in this manner, for it seemed to indicate that she was desirous of continuing to live; and he was most anxious that she should do so, partly, as I have said, that he might have the satisfaction of parading her in chains through the streets of Rome, and partly, perhaps, in order to show, thereafter, his clemency and his respect to the late Dictator’s memory by refraining from putting her to death. He therefore told her that she might dispose of these articles of jewellery as she liked; and, promising that his usage of her would be merciful beyond her expectation, he brought his visit to a close, well satisfied that he had won her confidence, and that he had entirely deceived her. In this, however, he was mistaken, and he was himself deceived by her.

Cleopatra had observed from his words and manner that he wished to exhibit her in Rome, and that he had little intention of allowing her son Caesarion to reign in her place, but purposed to seize Egypt on behalf of Rome. Far from reassuring her, the interview had left her with the certainty that the doom of the dynasty was sealed; and already she saw clearly that there was nothing left for which to live. Presently a messenger from Cornelius Dolabella came to her, and broke the secret news to her that Octavian, finding her now recovered from her illness, had decided to ship her off to Rome with her two children in three days’ time or less. It is possible, also, that Dolabella was already able to tell her that there was no hope for her son Caesarion, for that Octavian had decided to kill him so soon as he could lay hands on him, realising, at the instance of his Alexandrian friend Areius, that it was unwise to leave at large one who claimed to be the rightful successor of the great Dictator.

On hearing this news the Queen determined to kill herself at once, for her despair was such that the fact of existence had become intolerable to her. In her mind she must have pictured Octavian’s Triumph in Rome, in which she and her children would figure as the chief exhibits. She would be led in chains up to the Capitol, even as she had watched her sister Arsinoe paraded in the Triumph of Julius Caesar; and she could hear in imagination the jeers and groans of the townspeople, who would not fail to remind her of her former boast that she would one day sit in royal judgment where then she would be standing in abject humiliation. The thought, which of itself was more than she could bear, was coupled with the certainty that, were she to prolong her life, she would have to suffer also the shock of her beloved son’s cruel murder, for already his death seemed inevitable.

Having therefore made up her mind, she sent a message to Octavian asking his permission for her to visit Antony’s tomb, in order to make the usual oblations to his spirit. This was granted to her, and upon the next morning, August 29th, she was carried in her litter to the grave, accompanied by her women. Arriving at the spot she threw herself upon the gravestone, embracing it in a very passion of woe. “Oh, dearest Antony,” she cried, the tears streaming down her face, “it is not long since with these hands I buried you. Then they were free; now I am a captive; and I pay these last duties to you with a guard upon me, for fear that my natural griefs and sorrows should impair my servile body and make it less fit to be exhibited in their Triumph over you. Expect no further offerings or libations from me, Antony; these are the last honours that Cleopatra will be able to pay to your memory, for she is to be hurried far away from you. Nothing could part us while we lived, but death seems to threaten to divide us. You, a Roman born, have found a grave in Egypt. I, an Egyptian, am to seek that favour, and none but that, in your country. But if the gods below, with whom you now are dwelling, can or will do anything for me, since those above have betrayed us, do not allow your living wife to be abandoned, let me not be led in Triumph to your shame; but hide me, hide me: bury me here with you. For amongst all my bitter misfortunes nothing has been so terrible as this brief time that I have lived away from you.”

For some moments she lay upon the tombstone passionately kissing it, her past quarrels with the dead man all forgotten in her desire for his companionship now in her loneliness, and only her earlier love for him being remembered in the tumult of her mind. Then, rising and placing some wreaths of flowers upon the grave, she entered her litter and was carried back to the mausoleum.

As soon as she had arrived she ordered her bath to be prepared, and having been washed and scented, her hair being carefully plaited around her head, she lay down upon a couch and partook of a sumptous meal. After this she wrote a short letter to Octavian, asking that she might be buried in the same tomb with Antony; and, this being despatched, she ordered everybody to leave the mausoleum with the exception of Charmion and Iras, as though she did not wish to be disturbed in her afternoon’s siesta. The doors were then closed, and the sentries mounted guard on the outside in the usual manner.

When Octavian read the letter which Cleopatra’s messenger had brought him, he realised at once what had happened, and hastened to the mausoleum. Changing his mind, however, he sent some of his officers in his place, who, on their arrival, found the sentries apprehensive of nothing. Bursting open the door they ran up the stairs to the upper chamber, and immediately their worst fears were realised. Cleopatra, already dead, lay stretched upon her bed of gold, arrayed in her Grecian robes of state, and decked with all her regal jewels, the royal diadem of the Ptolemies encircling her brow. Upon the floor at her feet Iris was just breathing her last; and Charmion, scarce able to stand, was tottering at the bedside, trying to adjust the Queen’s crown.

One of the Roman officers exclaimed angrily: “Charmion, was this well done of your lady?” Charmion, supporting herself beside the royal couch, turned her ashen face towards the speaker. “Very well done,” she gasped, “and as befitted the descendant of so many Kings”; and with these words she fell dead beside the Queen.

The Roman officers, having despatched messengers to inform Octavian of the tragedy, seem to have instituted an immediate inquiry as to the, means by which the deaths had taken place. At first the sentries could offer no information, but at length the fact was elicited that a peasant carrying a basket of figs had been allowed to enter the mausoleum, as it was understood that the fruit was for the Queen’s meal. The soldiers declared that they had lifted the leaves with which the fruit was covered and had remarked on the fineness of the figs, whereupon the peasant had laughed and had invited them to take some, which they had refused to do. It was perhaps known that Cleopatra had expressed a preference for death by the bite of an asp, and it was therefore thought that perhaps one of these small snakes had been brought to her concealed under the figs. A search was made for the snake, and one of the soldiers stated that he thought he saw a snake-track leading from the mausoleum over the sand towards the sea. An attendant who had admitted the peasant seems now to have reported that when Cleopatra saw the figs she exclaimed, “So here it is!” a piece of evidence which gave some colour to the theory. Others suggested that the asp had been kept at hand for some days in a vase, and that the Queen had, at the end, teased it until she had made it strike at her. An examination of the body showed nothing except two very slight marks upon the arm, which might possibly have been caused by the bite of a snake. On the other hand, it was suggested that the Queen might have carried some form of poison in a hollow hair-comb or other similar article ; and this theory must have received some support from the fact that there were the three deaths to account for.

Presently Octavian seems to have arrived, and he at once sent for snake-doctors, Psylli, to suck the poison from the wound; but they came too late to save her. Though Octavian expressed his great disappointment at her death, he could not refrain from showing his admiration for the manner in which it had occurred. Personally, he appears to have favoured the theory that her end was caused by the bite of the asp, and afterwards in his Triumph he caused a figure of Cleopatra to be exhibited with a snake about her arm. Though it is thus quite impossible to state with certainty how it occurred, there is no reason to contradict the now generally accepted story of the introduction of the asp in the basket of figs. I have no doubt that the Queen had other poisons in her possession, which were perhaps used by her two faithful women; and it is to be understood that the strategy of the figs, if employed at all, was resorted to only in order that she herself might die by the means which her earlier experiments had commended to her.

Octavian now gave orders that the Queen should be buried with full honours beside Antony, where she had wished to lie. He had sent messengers, it would seem, to Berenice to attempt to stop the departure of Caesarion for India, having heard, no doubt, that the young man had decided to remain in that town until the last possible moment. His tutor, Rhodon, counselled him to trust himself to Octavian; and, acting upon this advice, they returned to Alexandria, where they seem to have arrived very shortly after Cleopatra’s death. Octavian immediately ordered Caesar ion to be executed, his excuse being that it was dangerous for two Caesars to be in the world together; and thus died the last of the Ptolemaic Pharaohs of Egypt, the son and only real heir of the great Julius Caesar. The two other children who remained in the Palace, Ptolemy and Cleopatra Selene, were shipped off to Rome as soon as possible, and messengers seem to have been despatched to Media to take possession of Alexander Helios who had probably been sent thither, as we have already seen.

In my opinion, Octavian now decided to take over Egypt as a kind of personal possession. He did not wish to cause a revolution in the country by proclaiming it a Roman province; and he seems to have appreciated the ceaseless efforts of Cleopatra and her subjects to prevent the absorption of the kingdom in this manner. He therefore decided upon a novel course of action. While not allowing himself to be crowned as actual King of Egypt, he assumed that office by tacit agreement with the Egyptian priesthood. He seems to have claimed, in fact, to be heir to the throne of the Ptolemies. Julius Caesar had been recognised as Cleopatra’s husband in Egypt, and he, Octavian, was Caesar’s adopted son and heir. After the elimination of Cleopatra’s three surviving children he was, therefore, the rightful claimant to the Egyptian throne. The Egyptians at once accepted him as their sovereign, and upon the walls of their temples we constantly find his name inscribed in hieroglyphics as “King of Upper and Lower Egypt, Son of the Sun, Caesar, living for ever, beloved of Ptah and Isis.” He is also called by the title Autocrator, which he took over from Antony, and which, in the Egyptian inscriptions, was recognised as a kind of hereditary royal name, being written within the Pharaonic cartouche. His descendants, the Emperors of Rome, were thus successively Kings of Egypt, as though heads of the reigning dynasty; and each Emperor as he ascended the Roman throne was hailed as Monarch of Egypt, and was called in all Egyptian inscriptions “Pharaoh” and “Son of the Sun.” The Egyptians, therefore, with the acquiescence of Octavian, came to regard themselves not as vassals of Rome, but as subjects of their own King, who happened at the same time to be Emperor of Rome; and thus the great Egypto-Roman Empire for which Cleopatra had struggled actually came into existence. All Emperors of Rome came to be recognised in Egypt not as sovereigns of a foreign empire of which Egypt was a part, but as actual Pharaohs of Egyptian dominions of which Rome was a part.

The ancient dynasties had passed away, the Amenophis and Thutmosis family, the house of Rameses, the line of Psammetichus, and many another had disappeared. And now, in like manner, the house of the Ptolemies had fallen, and the throne of Egypt was occupied by the dynasty of the Caesars. This dynasty, as it were, supplied Rome with her monarchs; and the fact that Octavian was hailed by Egyptians as King of Egypt long before he was recognised by Romans as Emperor of Rome, gave the latter throne a kind of Pharaonic origin in the eyes of the vain Egyptians. It has usually been supposed that Egypt became a Roman province; but it was never declared to be such. Octavian arranged that it should be governed by a praefectus, who was to act in the manner of a viceroy, and he retained the greater part of the Ptolemaic revenues as his personal property.While later in Rome he pretended that Cleopatra’s kingdom had been annexed, in Egypt it was distinctly understood that the country was still a monarchy.

He treated the Queen’s memory with respect, since he was carrying on her line; and he would not allow her statues to be overthrown. All her splendid treasures, however, and the gold and silver plate and ornaments were melted down and converted into money with which to pay the Roman soldiers. The royal lands were seized, the palaces largely stripped of their wealth; and when at last Octavian returned to Rome in the spring of b.c. 29, he had become a fabulously rich man.

On August 13th, 14th, and 15th of the same year three great Triumphs were celebrated, the first day being devoted to the European conquests, the second to Actium, and the third to the Egyptian victory. A statue of Cleopatra, the asp clinging to her arm, was dragged through the streets of the capital, and the Queen’s twin children, Alexander Helios and Cleopatra Selene, were made to walk in captivity in the procession. Images representing Nilus and Egypt were carried along, and an enormous quantity of interesting loot was heaped up on the triumphal cars. The poet Propertius tells us how in fancy he saw “the necks of kings bound with golden chains, and the fleet of Actium sailing up the Via Sacra.” All men became unbalanced by enthusiasm, and stories derogatory to Cleopatra were spread on all sides. Horace, in a wonderful ode, expressed the public sentiments, and denounced the unfortunate Queen as an enemy of Rome. Honours were heaped upon Octavian; and soon afterwards he was given the title of Augustus, and was named Divi filius, as being heir of Divus Julius. He took great delight in lauding the memory of the great Dictator, who was now accepted as one of the gods of the Roman world; and it is a significant fact that he revived and reorganised the Lupercalia, as though he were in some manner honouring Caesar thereby.

Meanwhile the three children of Cleopatra and Antony found a generous refuge in the house of Octavia, Antony’s discarded wife. With admirable tact Octavian seems to have insisted upon this solution of the difficulty as to what to do with them. Their execution would have been deeply resented by the Egyptians, and, since Octavian was now posing as the legal heir to the throne of Egypt, the dynastic successor of Cleopatra, and not a foreign usurper, it was well that his own sister should look after these members of the royal family. Octavia, always meek and dutiful, accepted the arrangement nobly, and was probably unvaryingly kind to these children of her faithless husband, whom she brought up with her two daughters, Antonia Major and Minor, and Julius Antonius, the second son of Antony and Fulvia, and brother of the murdered Antyllus. When the little Cleopatra Selene grew up she was married to Juba, the King of Numidia, a learned and scholarly monarch, who was later made King of Mauretania. The son of this marriage was named Ptolemy, and succeeded his father about AD 19. He was murdered by Caligula, who, by the strange workings of Fate, was also a descendant of Antony. We do not know what became of Alexander Helios and his brother Ptolemy. Tacitus tells us that Antonius Felix, Procurator of Judaea under the Emperor Nero, married (as his second wife) Drusilla, a granddaughter of Cleopatra and Antony, who was probably another of the Mauretanian family. Octavia died in BC 11. Antony’s son, Julius Antonius, in BC 2, was put to death for his immoral relations with Octavian’s own daughter Julia, she herself being banished to the barren island of Pandateria. Octavian himself, covered with honours and full of years, died in AD. 14, being succeeded upon the thrones of Egypt and of Rome by Tiberius, his son.

During the latter part of the reign of Octavian, or Augustus, as one must call him, the influence of Alexandria upon the life of Rome began to be felt in an astonishing degree; and so greatly did Egyptian thought alter the conditions in the capital that it might well be fancied that the spirit of the dead Cleopatra was presiding over that throne which she had striven to ascend. Ferrero goes so far as to suggest that the main ideas of splendid monarchic government and sumptuous Oriental refinement which now developed in Rome were due to the direct influence of Alexandria, and perhaps to the fact that the new emperors were primarily Kings of Egypt. Alexandrian artists and artisans swarmed over the sea to Italy, and the hundreds of Romans who had snatched estates for themselves in Egypt travelled frequently to that country on business, and unconsciously familiarised themselves with its arts and crafts. Alexandrian sculpture and painting was seen in every villa, and the poetry and literature of the Alexandrian school were read by all fashionable persons. Every Roman wanted to employ Alexandrians to decorate his house, everybody studied the manners and refinements of the Graeco-Egyptians. The old austerity went to pieces before the buoyancy of Cleopatra’s subjects, just as the aloofness of London has disappeared under the Continental invasion of the last few years.

Thus it may be said that the Egypto-Roman Empire of Cleopatra’s dreams came to be founded in actual fact, with this difference, that its monarchs were sprung from’ the line of Octavian, Caesar’s nephew, and not from that of Caesarion, Caesar’s son. But while Egypt and Alexandria thus played such an important part in the creation of the Roman monarchy, the memory of Cleopatra, from whose brain and whose influence the new life had proceeded, was yearly more painfully vilified. She came to be the enemy of this Orientalised Rome, which still thought itself Occidental; and her struggle with Octavian was remembered as the evil crisis through which the party of the Caesars had passed. Abuse was heaped upon her, and stories were invented in regard to her licentious habits. It is upon this insecure basis that the world’s estimate of the character of Cleopatra is founded; and it is necessary for every student of these times at the outset of his studies to rid his mind of the impression which he will have obtained from these polluted sources. Having shut out from his memory the stinging words of Propertius and the fierce lines of Horace, written in the excess of his joy at the close of the period of warfare which had endangered his little country estate, the reader will be in a position to judge whether the interpretation of Cleopatra’s character and actions, which I have laid before him, is to be considered as unduly lenient, and whether I have made unfair use of the merciful prerogative of the historian, in behalf of an often lonely and sorely tried woman, who fought all her life for the fulfilment of a patriotic and splendid ambition, and who died in a manner “befitting the descendant of so many kings.”

CLEOPATRA THE GREAT