Cleopatra VII

“ The colors of this imitation of a hateful original [the oriental despot] were heightened by the demeanor of Cleopatra, who followed her lover to Rome at his invitation. She came with the younger Ptolemæus, who now shared her throne, and her ostensible object was to negotiate a treaty between her kingdom and the Commonwealth. While the Egyptian nation was formally admitted to the friendship and alliance of Rome, its sovereign was lodged in Cæsar's villa on the other side of the Tiber, and the statue of the most fascinating of women was erected in the temple of the Goddess of Love and Beauty. ”

“ A copper coin gives her as Isis with long curls and a band with corn. She seems to have been an able ruler and survived her husband some eight years, dying in 174 B. C. before she had fairly entered on middle life. There were several children of this marriage, and, as if for the bewilderment of students, the sons are called Ptolemy and the daughter Cleopatra. During the queen’s regency Egypt seems to have remained peaceful and we have no revolting tales of murder or general bloodshed. ”

“ In the mean time, while the civil war between Caesar and Pompey was raging, Ptolemy succeeded in maintaining his seat on the throne, by the aid of the Roman soldiers whom Antony and Gabinius had left him, for about three years. When he found himself drawing toward the close of life, the question arose to his mind to whom he should leave his kingdom. Cleopatra was the oldest child, and she was a princess of great promise, both in respect to mental endowments and personal charms. ”

“ Next morning it became known everywhere that Cleopatra had remained in Caesar's quarters through the night and that her enemies were now his enemies. In desperation they rushed upon his legions, casting aside all pretense of amity. There ensued a fierce contest, but the revolt was quenched in blood.
This was a crucial moment in Cleopatra's life. She had sacrificed all that a woman has to give; but she had not done so from any love of pleasure or from wantonness. She was queen of Egypt, and she had redeemed her kingdom and kept it by her sacrifice. One should not condemn her too severely. ”

“ PREFACE Of all the beautiful women of history, none has left us such convincing proofs of her charms as Cleopatra, for the tide of Rome's destiny, and, therefore, that of the world, turned aside because of her beauty. Julius Caesar, whose legions trampled the conquered world from Canopus to the Thames, capitulated to her, and Mark Antony threw a fleet, an empire and his own honor to the winds to follow her to his destruction. ”

“ Cleopatra stands among the few daughters of Eve pre-eminent for wit, charm, power and perhaps beauty, and to this must be added ambition and vice.
“The laughing queen who held the world’s great hands,” having won the heart of the world’s greatest rulers, yet lays her magic touch upon the centuries. Artists and writers have never tired of limning her personal charms and special characteristics. No colors have been too bright, none too dark to be used. ”

“ They change according to the pleasure of the supreme will. Instead of four, the Egyptians, as you know, have but three; in the palaces on the Nile they are countless. What is the meaning of this sudden entry of summer? Winter would have pleased me better."
The Queen—Iras knew not why—had changed her arrangements for Barine's reception. This vexed her, and her features assumed a gloomy, threatening expression as the young beauty, casting aside her cloak and kerchief, stood awaiting Cleopatra in a white robe of fine material and perfect fit. ”

“ Twenty thousand good and leal men are sworn to wait upon thy word, and at thy signal to rise as one, to put the Grecian to the sword, and with their blood and substance to build thee a throne set more surely on the soil of Khem than are its ancient pyramids—such a throne as shall even roll the Roman legions back. And for the signal, it shall be the death of that bold harlot, Cleopatra. Thou must compass her death, Harmachis, in such fashion as shall be shown to thee, and with her blood anoint the Royal throne of Egypt. ”

“ For years Cleopatra had been his inspiration, his passion, his lode-star; where else to fly he knew not, his old world was, all too deservedly, against him. Yet it was not now for joyance that he sought, though he followed her; he steeled his heart against her sorceries, and shut himself up in morbid communings with his own spirit. He would not see her and for some time it was in vain that her maidens pleaded with and tried to comfort him.
It seemed for the moment as if Cleopatra’s power, she who “governed men by change” had failed. Her heart cried out,
“Where is Mark Antony? ”

“ At this time Cleopatra was twenty-seven years of age—a period of life which modern physiologists have called the crisis in a woman's growth. She had never really loved before, since she had given herself to Caesar, not because she cared for him, but to save her kingdom. She now came into the presence of one whose manly beauty and strong passions were matched by her own subtlety and appealing charm. ”

“ A Hebe, sweet in years and looks, filled the wine cups of the King and Queen. Antony, lifting his, hesitated on the draught. His eyes, already inflamed, sought his partner’s, half covertly, half challengingly. Cleopatra laughed, and putting her glass to her full lips, drank. She followed a formula in doing so, conceding it agreeably to the very madness of his passion. He was haunted, since his defeat, with the thought that she would poison him to save herself. And yet he loved her. ”

“ He had been accustomed to regard Cleopatra as a mere child. Now that she was queen, he was very unwilling that the real power should pass into her hands. The jealousy and ill will which he felt toward her increased rapidly as he found, in the course of the first two or three years after her father's death, that she was advancing rapidly in strength of character, and in the influence and ascendency which she was acquiring over all around her. Her beauty, her accomplishments, and a certain indescribable charm which pervaded all her demeanor, combined to give her great personal power. ”

“ Ay, back to Abouthis, and from Abouthis to Alexandria, and from Alexandria to the Throne of thy fathers, Harmachis! Listen, now; things are thus: Thou knowest how Cleopatra, the Queen, fled into Syria when that false eunuch Pothinus set the will of her father Aulêtes at naught and raised her brother Ptolemy to the sole lordship of Egypt. ”

“ The victory which Caesar obtained in this battle and the death of Ptolemy ended the war. Nothing now remained but for him to place himself at the head of the combined forces and march back to Alexandria. The Egyptian forces which had been left there made no resistance, and he entered the city in triumph. He took Arsinoe prisoner. He decreed that Cleopatra should reign as queen, and that she should marry her youngest brother, the other Ptolemy,—a boy at this time about eleven years of age. A marriage with one so young was, of course, a mere form. ”

“ The radiant and splendid image of Cleopatra, with her golden-pointed diadem and her imperial purple, standing above a nation on their knees, illumined his nightly dreams and his waking thoughts. Like some imprudent man who has dared to look at the sun and forever thereafter beholds an impalpable blot floating before his eyes, so Meïamoun ever beheld Cleopatra. Eagles may gaze undazzled at the sun, but what diamond eye can with impunity fix itself upon a beautiful woman, a beautiful queen? ”

“ She is a speaking instance of the falsehood of a prevailing belief, that the intermarriage of near relations invariably produces a decadence in the human race. The whole dynasty of the Ptolemies contradicts this current theory, and exhibits in the last of the series the most signal exception. Cleopatra VI was descended from many generations of breeding-in, of which four exhibit marriages of full brother and sister. And yet she was deficient in no quality, physical or intellectual, which goes to make up a well-bred and well-developed human being. ”

“ But stop; she may have a hand in the game: the Queen trusted her as if she were her sister, her daughter. No one knows what she and Charmian are to her. They are called waiting-women, but are their sovereign’s dearest friends. When, on the departure of the fleet, Cleopatra was compelled to leave Iras here—she was ill with a fever—she gave her the charge of her children, even those whose beards were beginning to grow, the ‘King of kings’ Cæsarion, whose tutor punishes him for every act of disobedience ”

“ Since the emperor’s arrival in Alexandria he had not even expressed the intention of seeing her, and the harsh treatment, the rigorous seclusion, and the savage threats which she had to endure from him did not certainly indicate a man in love. Can it be said, however, that the prospect of the unexpected visit of Octavius aroused in Cleopatra, desperate as she was, no glimpse of hope, no fugitive vision of a throne, no last enthusiasm? that from her beautiful eyes shot no ray of half-seen triumph? ”

“ Cleopatra was married to her brother—yet, it is true, only a boy. He was about ten years old. She was herself about eighteen. They were both too young to govern; they could only reign. The affairs of the kingdom were, accordingly, conducted by two ministers whom their father had designated. These ministers were Pothinus, a eunuch, who was a sort of secretary of state, and Achillas, the commander-in-chief of the armies.
Thus, though Cleopatra, by these events, became nominally a queen, her real accession to the throne was not yet accomplished. ”

“ And with them dwelt every evil of that greater sort, which fearing nothing, and making a mock of laws, has taken empires for its place of play, and, smiling, watered the growth of its desires with the rich blood of men. In her breast they gathered, together fashioning that Cleopatra whom no man may draw, and yet whom no man, having seen, ever can forget. They fashioned her grand as the Spirit of Storm, lovely as Lightning, cruel as Pestilence, yet with a heart; and what she did is known. Woe to the world when such another comes to curse it! ”

“ Even after the lapse of many years the stone swung round, showing a little opening, through which a man might scarcely creep. As it swung, a mighty bat, white in colour as though with unreckoned age, and such as I had never seen before for bigness, for his measure was the measure of a hawk, flew forth and for a moment hovered over Cleopatra, then sailed slowly up and up in circles, till at last he was lost in the bright light of the moon.
But Cleopatra uttered a cry of terror, and the eunuch, who was watching, fell down in fear, believing it to be the guardian Spirit of the pyramid. ”

“ Mardion, the Keeper of the Seal, Archibius, and Iras were standing by the bridge a little in advance of the others, when voices were heard on the ship, and the Queen appeared, preceded by several lantern-bearers and followed by a numerous train of court officials, pages, maids, and female slaves. Cleopatra's little hand rested on Charmian's arm, as, with a haughty carriage of the head, she moved towards the shore. A thick veil covered her face, and a large, dark cloak concealed her figure. ”

“ Thus ended the great and famous battle of Philippi, celebrated in history as marking the termination of the great conflict between the friends and the enemies of Caesar, which agitated the world so deeply after the conqueror's death. This battle established the ascendency of Antony, and made him for a time the most conspicuous man, as Cleopatra was the most conspicuous woman, in the world. ”

“ But once established, be it said in passing, the foreigners have a full revenge accorded them; for in vain the native youth aspire, the freshest belles hover round the titled flames, not perhaps till their wings are singed, but till successive seasons have taught them that Cleopatra's beauty is useless without Cleopatra's pearls. ”

“ What Arsinoë, what Cleopatra, from the first to the last, had hesitated to murder a brother or a husband, to assume the throne, to raise and command armies, to discard or adopt a partner of her throne from caprice in policy, or policy in caprice? But hitherto this desperate gambling with life had been carried on in Egypt and Syria; the play had been with Hellenistic pawns—Egyptian or Syrian princes; the last Cleopatra came to play with Roman pieces, easier apparently to move than the others, but implying higher stakes, greater glory in the victory, greater disaster in the defeat. ”

“ In youth he is said to have been handsome, with a countenance full of sweet expression. His death occurred 146 B. C.
There were now again rival claimants for the throne, Euergetes II, Physcon, the brother of the late king, with whom the kingdom had been divided, and Ptolemy Philometor’s son, Ptolemy Neos, Philopator II, Ptolemy VIII, whose cause his mother Cleopatra II. espoused. But Physcon proved to be the more powerful and either [409] directly or indirectly murdered his young nephew, feeling that while the boy lived his own claim to the throne would not be secure. ”

“ And— [the writing continues] —to those who could take joy in such things, the sight must, indeed, have been a gallant one. For the stern of our galley was covered with sheets of beaten gold, the sails were of the scarlet of Tyre, and the oars of silver touched the water to a measure of music. And there, in the centre of the vessel, beneath an awning ablaze with gold embroidery, lay Cleopatra, attired as the Roman Venus (and surely Venus was not more fair!) , in thin robes of whitest silk, bound in beneath her breast with a golden girdle delicately graven over with scenes of love. ”