598 WIVKS OF THE C^GSAUS. 



of tumultuous negociation followed between the queen and Caesar's 

 messengers. Cleopatra was secretly informed by Dolabella, and in- 

 deed she subsequently saw from her discourse with Caesar, that the 

 victor destined her to swell the glory of a Roman triumph. This 

 humiliation she determined to avert. By Octavius's permission, she 

 visited the place of Antony's interment, and kneeling at his tomb, ad- 

 dressed the manes of the dead ; first in the depth of love and tender- 

 ness, and lastly in the language of a heroine. The deities of Egypt 

 had forsaken her ! she implores the gods of Antony and Rome to 

 shield her from the ignominy of appearing, to her lord's disgrace, in 

 the triumph of the victor ; and exclaiming on the misery of life with- 

 out him, beseeches half his grave to hide her shame and her afflictions. 

 Having kissed a coronal of flowers and wetted it with plenteous 

 tears, she laid it on his tomb. 



On the evening of her death, she supped with her accustomed 

 splendour. An asp, the reptile she had chosen for her purpose, was 

 brought her by a peasant, under cover of some figs. Before retreat- 

 ing to her monument, she wrote to Caesar, who discovered in the 

 tone of her address an earnest of her secret resolution. He de- 

 spatched his guards in haste; but Cleopatra was no more. When 

 the doors of her apartment were burst open she was dead ; her beauty 

 yet was unimpaired.* She lay beneath a canopy of white Pelusian, 

 dropped with gems, upon a golden couch of gorgeous workmanship, 

 attired in all the ornaments of royalty. Her attendant Iras, too, was 

 lifeless at her feet ; and Charmian, barely able to support herself from 

 the approach of death, was striving to arrange a diadem on Cleopatra's 

 brows. 



In the last decisive struggle between Antony and Caesar, our in- 

 terest is strongly roused in favour of the former. There were certain 

 traits of generosity and heroism in the life of Antony, that naturally 

 beget our sorrow for his sad catastrophe. When placed in opposition 

 to that of Octavius, there is infinitely less to execrate and more to 

 pardon in his frailties; and the vices which induced his fall were of a 

 bloodless character. His youth had been corrupted in the profligate 

 society of Curio ; his early manhood was expended in the vitiating 

 scenes of civil war, in which perhaps, the cruelty and crimes of one 

 party of necessity became the defensive measures of the other. The 

 terrible example of the times of Marius and Sylla was a monitory 

 lesson, which prescribed the conduct of a chief, whose mercy might 

 be fatal to himself, if shewn to a remorseless or ungrateful adversary. 

 The scenes of the proscriptions had revealed the savage nature of the 

 Roman people : the generous clemency of Caesar had been followed 

 by assassination ; and experience seemed to justify the cruel maxim, 

 that the safety of a chief could be consulted but by the indiscriminate 

 extermination of his enemies. But there is one stain on the memory 

 of Antony, that no apology can soften his execrable vengeance upon 

 Cicero. He might have wished, and even have ordained, the death 



* The venom of the asp was conceived to be narcotic, and Floras compares 

 the death of Cleopatra to a sleep. " Admotisque ad venas serpentibus, sic 

 morte, quasi somno, soluta est." Epitom. 1. iv.c. 11. 



