290 



CLEOPATRA 



CLERGY 



brother, Ptolemy, who was also to be her husband, 

 in accordance with Egyptian custom. But she was 

 expelled from the throne by young Ptolemy's 

 guardians, Pothinus and Achillas, whereupon she 

 retreated into Syria to' raise troops, and was just 

 about to return" to reassert her rights when the 

 great Caesar arrived in Egypt in pursuit of Pompey. 

 Her charms quickly touched the susceptible heart 

 of Caesar, who warmly espoused her cause, and, 

 after the successful issue of the Alexandrine war, 

 in which Ptolemy fell, placed her again upon the 

 throne, this time with, as nominal colleague and 

 husband, a still younger brother, of Avhom she 

 soon rid herself by poison. Cleopatra bore a son to 

 CiEsar, who was called Caesarion (afterwards cut 

 off by Augustus), and soon followed her lover to 

 Rome, where she received such honours as were 

 but ill-pleasing to the Roman populace. In the 

 civil war after Caesar's murder, she hesitated 

 at first which side to take. After the battle of 

 Philippi, Antony summoned her to appear before 

 him at Tarsus in Cilicia, to give account of her 

 conduct. The ' serpent of old Nile ' sailed up the 

 river Cydnus to meet him, in a gorgeous galley, 

 arrayed as Venus rising from the sea, and accom- 

 panied with all the gorgeous and romantic splendour 

 of the East. She was then in her twenty-eighth 

 year, in the perfection of matured beauty, and 

 that, from her pure descent, almost certainly of 

 the best Greek type, spite of Shakespeare's 'gypsy's 

 lust,' Tennyson's 'swarthy' cheeks, and Gerdme's 

 typical Egyptian features. The splendour of her 

 beauty and her wit so fascinated the amorous 

 heart of Antony that he at once flung away for her 

 sake, duty, a Roman's pride, and at last all his 

 ambition and his life. They spent the next winter 

 at Alexandria, where they steeped their senses in the 

 most delirious revelries of reckless love. Antony, 

 although in the meantime he had returned to Rome 

 to marry Octavia, the sister of Octavianus, soon 

 returnea to the arms of Cleopatra, who met him 

 at Laodicea, in Syria (36 B.C.), and accompanied 

 him on his march to the Euphrates. From this 

 time his usual residence was with her at Alex- 

 andria, and here he heaped upon her and her 

 children the most extravagant gifts and honours. 

 His infatuated folly cost him all his popularity 

 at Rome, and weakened his energies for the in- 

 evitable struggle. It was at Cleopatra's instiga- 

 tion that Antony risked the great naval battle of 

 Actium, and when she fled with sixty ships, he 

 forgot everything else and flung away half the 

 world to follow her. When the conqueror appeared 

 before Alexandria, Cleopatra entered into private 

 negotiations with him for her own security ; while 

 Antony, who was at first indignant at her treachery, 

 being told that she had already killed herself, fell 

 upon his sword. Mortally wounded, and learning 

 tnat the report which he had heard was false, he 

 had himself carried into her presence, and died in 

 her arms. Octavianus, by artifice, now succeeded 

 in making the queen his prisoner. Finding that 

 she could not touch his colder heart, and too proud 

 to endure the thought that her life was sparea only 

 to grace her conqueror's triumph at Rome, she 

 took poison, or as it is said, killed herself by 

 causing an asp to bite her bosom (30 B.C.). Her 

 body was buried beside that of Antony, and the 

 good Octavia brought up the twin children she had 

 borne to Antony as if they had been her own. 



For Cleopatra, ' age cannot wither her ' the 

 fascination of her beauty and the rare romantic 

 interest of her story defy the touch of time. Helen 

 of Troy and Mary Stuart alone divide with her 

 that sovereignty over the imaginations of men that 

 survives across the centuries. To dramatist, to 

 poet, and to painter, she will continue to be all 

 that she was to Caesar and to Antony. 



Clepsydra (Gr., 'water-clock'), an instrument, 

 to measure time by the trickling or escape of water. 

 In Babylonia, India, and Egypt, the clepsydra was- 

 used from before the dawn of history, especially in 

 astronomical observations. A Hindu form of it. 

 was that of a copper basin put to float in a vessel, 

 so that by the gradual influx of water through an 

 aperture beneath, it should sink in a certain time. 

 A more common type is that referred to by Greek 

 and Latin writers, which resembled the modern 

 sand-glass, and was used in courts of law to limit 

 the length of the pleadings. Julius Caesar ( Com. 

 de Sell. Gall., lib. v. 13) speaks of measuring time 

 in Britain 'by accurate water-measures,' and some 

 commentators infer that the clepsydra was used 

 by the Britons. More probably, however, it was" 

 brought by the Romans, being regularly used in 

 their armies for allotting out the three hours' 

 watches. Pliny ascribes the invention of the 

 clepsydra to Scipio Nasica, but he, no doubt, 

 merely introduced it from Alexandria or Greece, 

 where it had already been greatly improved and 

 perfected. 



The general form of the clepsydra consisted 

 essentially of a float which slowly rose by the 

 trickling of water from above through a small hole 

 in a plate of metal. As the float rose it pointed 

 to a scale of hours at the side of the water-vessel, 

 or, in the more elaborate forms, moved a wheel by 

 means of a ratchet, and thus turned a hand on a 

 dial. The first great difficulty was to secure a 

 constant and uniform supply of water. This was 

 well and simply done by using an intermediate 

 cistern, so that, by means of a waste-pipe near 

 the surface, the water always remained at the 

 same level, even when the amount poured in ex- 

 ceeded the average. 



There remained a much greater difficulty, arising 

 from a fact often overlooked viz. that by the 

 Greek and Roman calendar the hour was not a 

 fixed space of time, being very much longer in 

 summer than in winter. A day meant the inter- 

 val from sunrise to sunset, and an hour being the 

 twelfth part of it was by no means so simple and 

 measurable a magnitude as the unit of time shown 

 on our modern dials. The problem of measuring 

 the hour, thus varying through the year, was 

 solved by Ctesibius of Alexandria, who invented 

 an elaborate self-adjusting mechanism. Clepsydra 

 was also the name given to an ancient musical 

 instrument, a hydraulic or water organ, described 

 by Athenseus. 



Clerc, JEAN LE. See LE CLERC. 



Clerestory, an upper row of windows rising 

 clear above the adjoining parts of the building, 

 but more probably so named as admitting clear- 

 ness or light. The term is particularly applied to 

 the windows in the upper part of the central nave 

 of churches ( see GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE ; and for 

 an illustration, the article BRISTOL). This mode 

 of lighting was also in use among the Romans. 

 See BASILICA. 



Clergy ( Gr. kleros, ' a lot, an inheritance ' ). The 

 word cleros occurs in the Septuagint as the equiv- 

 alent of the Hebrew nachalali, 'an inheritance,' 

 applied to the Jewish nation generally as peculiarly 

 the divine heritage (Deut. iv. 20; ix. 29), and to 

 the Levitical office specifically, as a 'spiritual' 

 heritage, distinguished from the temporal posses- 

 sions of the other tribes ( Deut. x. 9 ; xviii. 1-2 ). 

 In the New Testament it is found in cognate 

 senses applied to the Christian body or its several 

 congregations (1 Peter, v. 3, where the word is 

 plural), and to the apostolic office (Acts, i. 17, 25). 

 Hence the term was very generally applied to 

 the ministers of the Christian religion, as holders 

 of an allotted office, in contradistinction to the 



