Part 7

To her sighs, her moans, the emperor made no reply, even avoiding looking at her and keeping his eyes fixed on the floor. He spoke only to reply, one by one, to all the arguments by which the queen sought to justify herself. Chilled by the impassibility of this man, who, without being at all moved by her misfortunes and her sufferings, was arguing with her like a schoolmaster, Cleopatra felt that she had nothing to hope. Again death appeared as the only liberator. Then she ceased her pleas, dried her tears, and, in order completely to deceive Octavius, she pretended to be resigned to everything, provided her life was spared. She handed him the list of her treasures, and entreated him to permit her to retain certain jewels that she might present them herself to Livia and Octavia in order to secure their protection. “Take courage, O woman!” said the emperor as he left her. “Be hopeful; no harm shall happen to you!”

Deceived by the pretended resignation of Cleopatra, Octavius no longer doubted that he would be able to exhibit to the Roman rabble the haughty queen of Egypt walking in chains before his triumphal car. He had not heard, as he left her, the last word uttered by Cleopatra, that word which, since the taking of Alexandria, she had incessantly repeated: Οἰ θριαμβεúσομαι! “I will not contribute to his triumph.”[15]

A few days after this interview, an intimate companion of Octavius, taking pity on such dire reverses, secretly revealed to Cleopatra that the next day she would be embarked for Rome. She asked to be allowed to go with her women to offer libations at the tomb of Antony. She was borne thither in a litter, being still too weak to walk. After pouring the wine and adjusting the crowns she kissed for the last time the sepulchral stone, saying: “O, beloved Antony, if thy gods have any power—for mine have betrayed me—do not abandon thy living wife. Do not let thyself be triumphed over, by making her at Rome take part in a disgraceful show. Hide me with thee under this earth of Egypt.”

On her return, Cleopatra went to the bath; her women arrayed her in her most magnificent robes, dressed her hair with care, and adjusted her royal crown. Cleopatra had ordered a splendid repast; her toilet ended, she was placed at the table. A countryman entered, carrying a basket. A soldier of the guard desiring to see the contents, the man opened it and showed some figs; and, the guard exclaiming at the beauty of them, he offered them some to taste. His good nature lulled all suspicion; he was allowed to pass. Cleopatra received the basket, sent to Octavius a letter she had written in the morning, and was then left alone with Iras and Charmion. She opened the basket and separated the figs, hoping to be stung unawares but the reptile was asleep. Cleopatra discovered it beneath the figs. “There it is, then!” cried she, and began to rouse it with a golden pin. The asp bit her on the arm.

Warned by the letter of Cleopatra, Octavius sent in haste to the apartments. His officers found the guards at their post, ignorant of what had occurred. They forced the door and beheld Cleopatra, clad in her royal robes, lying lifeless on her golden couch, and at her feet the corpse of Iras. Charmion was still alive; leaning over Cleopatra, she was arranging with her dying hands the diadem around the head of the queen. A soldier exclaimed in a voice of wrath: “Is this well done, Charmion?” “Yes,” said the dying Charmion, “it is well done, and worthy of a queen, the descendants of so many kings!”

Octavius put to death Cæsarion, the son of Cæsar and Cleopatra, but he was merciful to the dead body of the queen. Granting the mournful prayer she had made to him in her last letter, he permitted her to be buried beside Antony. He also granted honorable burial to the faithful slaves, Charmion and Iras, who had accompanied their mistress to the world of shadows.

By her suicide, Cleopatra escaped contributing to the triumph of Octavius,[16] but failing her person he had her effigy, and the statue of Cleopatra with a serpent wound about her arm was borne in the triumphal procession. Does it not seem that the statue of this illustrious queen, who had subdued the greatest of the Romans, who had made Rome tremble, and who preferred death to assisting at her own humiliation, had by her death triumphed over her conqueror, and still defied the senate and the people on the way to the Capitol?

We can easily conceive of Cleopatra as a great queen, the rival of the mythic Semiramis, and the elder sister of the Zenobias, the Isabellas, the Maria-Theresas, and the Catharines; but, in truth, only those queens are great who possess manly virtues, who rule nations and compel events as a great king might do. Cleopatra was too essentially a woman to be reckoned among these glorious androgynuses. If for twenty years she preserved her throne and maintained the independence of Egypt, it was done by mere womanly means—intrigue, gallantry, grace, and weakness which is also a grace. Her sole method of governing was, in reality, by becoming the mistress of Cæsar and the mistress of Mark Antony. It was the Roman sword that sustained the throne of the Lagidæ. When by the fault of Cleopatra the weapon was broken, the throne tottered and fell. Ambition, her only royal virtue, would have been limited to the exercise of her hereditary government if circumstances had not developed and exalted it.

Knowing herself weak, without genius and without mental force, she reckoned wholly on her lovers for the accomplishment of her designs, and it too often happened to this woman, fatal to others as to herself, to retard the execution of these, dominated, as she ever was, by the imperious desire of some entertainment or some pleasure. This queen had the recklessness of the courtesan; women of gallantry might have considered her their august and tragic ancestress. She only lived for love, pomp, and magnificence; wherefore, when her lover was slain, her beauty marred, her wealth lost, and her crown shattered, she found, to face death, the masculine courage which had failed her in life.

No, Cleopatra was not a great queen. But for her connection with Antony, she would be forgotten with Arsinoë or Berenice. If her renown is immortal, it is because she is the heroine of the most dramatic love-story of antiquity.

FOOTNOTES

[1] Cicero to Atticus.—In this letter, dated from Brundusium, June 14, 706 A. U. C., Cicero speaks of the long sojourn of Cæsar at Alexandria. There is thought to be much trouble there, “valde esse impedimentum.” This “impedimentum,” of which Cæsar makes no complaint, was Cleopatra.

[2] If this were true, Cleopatra would have been as fatal to Cæsar as she afterwards became to Antony.

[3] We must not judge Antony wholly by the passionate attacks of Cicero. Plutarch quotes a number of clever retorts of this brave and excellent soldier; and, in another order of ideas, his letter to Octavius and Hirtius, from which we find long extracts in the “Third Philippic,” is the work of a skillful politician as well as a model of wit.

[4] A curious inscription, discovered in Alexandria by M. C. Vescher, is as follows: “Antony the Great, the Inimitable.”

[5] Pliny, IX. 35. The legend is not so much of a myth as it appears. Pliny relates that Octavius, having found the second pearl in the treasury of Cleopatra, had it cut in two, and with it adorned the ears of the Pantheon Venus.

[6] Another incident, also related by Plutarch, says that Antony sometimes sought relaxation from the excesses of the “Life Inimitable” in more tranquil pleasures, such as angling. Vain even in trifles, and mortified if he caught nothing, he had fishes attached to his hook by a diver. The trick did not escape Cleopatra. The next day she had a salted fish fastened to his hook, which the triumvir drew gravely from the water amid shouts of laughter. From this time Antony renounced angling.

[7] Appian says positively that Antony was in love with Octavia.

[8] Like all the Ptolemies, the last of the Lagidæ was a great builder.

[9] Antony also made a gift to Cleopatra of the 300,000 manuscripts of the library of Pergamos, to replace a part of the volumes burned at Alexandria.

[10] Thirty-five drachmæ were given to each legionary, and a less sum to every soldier.

[11] The Egyptian, says Florus forcibly, demanded as the price of her favors, the Roman Empire from a drunken emperor: “Mulier ægyptia ab ebrio imperatore pretium libidinum Romanum Imperium petit.”

[12] These verses were written after the battle of Actium, 31 B. C., but they no less indicate the sentiments of the Romans at the commencement of the war. If this indignation and hatred obtained with such violence after the victory, what must they have been in the very hour of danger? Lucan says: “This woman, the reproach of Egypt, the fatal Erinys of Latium, incestuous daughter of the Ptolemies; who made the Capitol tremble with her sistra.”

[13] It therefore seems probable that it was in the autumn of 32 B. C. that Antony must have married Cleopatra.

[14] Dion says that Cleopatra betrayed Antony at Alexandria, as at Pelusium, and that she sent him word of her death that he might be urged to commit suicide, and his body given up to Octavius. Once for all, we take for authority Plutarch, who seems much more worthy of credit. The taking of Alexandria was on August 1, 30 B. C.

[15] The peculiar force of this verb in the passive form cannot be fitly rendered in a translation. It is, word for word, “I will not be triumphed.”

[16] Cleopatra died the 15th of August, 30 B. C.

Transcriber’s Notes

Punctuation and spelling were made consistent when a predominant preference was found in this book; otherwise they were not changed.

Simple typographical errors were corrected.

Ambiguous hyphens at the ends of lines were retained.

Table of Contents added by Transcriber and placed into the Public Domain.

The illustrations are decorative; the ones at the beginning of each chapter are headpieces.

Page 53: “the war of Persia” was printed that way.

Page 65: “ἐρω.μένην” was printed with the period.

Page 103: “Οἰ θριαμβεúσομαι” was printed that way.