CLEOPATRA. 



Cleopatra, midtt of hit lictort. The whole city flocked to tee this 

 ' ~~ work of enchantment, and flattery mixing itsrlf with the 

 public aitoniihment, spread the report, that Venut wai 

 cone on a visit to Bacchus, (designations tolerably cha- 

 racteristic of the partiei, ) to consult about the welfare 

 of Asia. The triumph of the Egyptian queen was as 

 rapid and at complete as the memorable victory of Czsar. 

 She came, taic, and conquered. The complaints, which 

 had been made against her, were forgotten in the fasci- 

 nations of h-r conversation, and the attractions of her 

 perton ; and Antony drunk the delicious poison, till he 

 neither had power nor inclination to snatch himself from 

 the witchery of her charms. He could deny her nothing, 

 however repugnant it might be to humanity, justice, or 

 religion. Pint, in Ant. 



At her request, assassins were sent to dispatch her 

 aister Arsinoe, who murdered her in the temple in which 

 ahe had taken refuge. To preserve Antony within her 

 toils, she kept him in a constant intoxication of various 

 pleasures, to which he had always been prone, though 

 till then he had been capable of great energy and judg- 

 ment, when roused into activity by the pressure of cir- 

 cumstances. At one of her entertainments, Antony ex- 

 pressing his astonishment at the vast number of golden 

 cups and vessels adorned with jewels, she immediately 

 ordered her servants to carry them all to his house as a 

 present. She wore in her ears two pendants of pearl, the 

 largest that had ever betn seen, each of them worth fif- 

 ty-two thousand pounds of our money. Pliny informs 

 us, that, on a certain occasion, she took one from her ear, 

 and, having dissolved it in vinegar, swallowed it, to show 

 how much she could afford to spend on one draught. 

 She was going to do the same with the other, when 

 Plancus prevented her, and saved the pearl, which was 

 afterwards carried to Rome by Augustus, and, being cut 

 in two, was formed into pendants for the Julian Venus. 



One is apt to be astonished at the boundless profusion 

 of this woman, and to wonder that she should make 

 such efforts to please Antony, when her personal charms 

 go readily ensured her conquest. But all this cxtrava- 

 pance was not thrown away ; she was buying provinces 

 and kingdoms: and the liberality, or rather the madness 

 of Antony, BOOH reimbursed her for all the wealth she 

 had expended to please him. 



Antony being obliged, by the state of his affairs, to 

 leave Tarsus, Cleopatra, having accompanied him as far 

 as Tyre, there took leave of him, and returned into 

 Egypt. But he could no longer exist without her ; ha- 

 ying therefore entrusted his affairs to his lieutenants, and 

 deserted the plans which he had in view, he followed 

 her forthwith into Egypt, where they spent the winter 

 together in the most disgraceful revelry and dissipation. 

 Whilst Antony was thus wasting his time in folly, Octa- 

 vianus was daily strengthening his interests in Italy, with- 

 out any one to oppose him, except Fulvia, the wife of 

 Antony, a woman of masculine spirit, who, notwith- 

 standing her husband's infidelity, exerted herself in se- 

 curing a powerful party in Rome. Antony found it 

 necessary to attend to his interests in that quarter, and 

 tailed towards Italy with two hundred ships, with the 

 intention of making war on his opponent. His wife 

 met him by the way, but he treated her with the utmost 

 neglect, and instead of commending her zeal, blamed 

 her for exciting unnecessary commotions. His cruelty 

 and infidelity broke her heart : and, on her death, a 

 match was proposed between Antony and Octavia, the 

 sister of Octavunu>, with a view to cement the existing 

 differences. Octavia was a woman of extraordinary me 

 rit, and Antony'* friindi entertained the hope that she 



would completely detach him from Cleopatra, at that Cleopatra 

 connection was universally considered as disgraceful, and s ""V^*' 

 was plainly foreseen to be pernicious in its consequences. 

 But having spent single winter with Octavia at Athens, 

 he hastened back to the scene of his former pleasures, 

 and devoted himself more absolutely than ever to the 

 charms of Cleopatra. As Antony was an excellent offi- 

 cer, he had an ambition common to all the great Roman 

 commanders, of conquering the Parthians. Having made 

 great preparations, he set out for this difficult expedi- 

 tion : but contrary to the advice of all his officers, he 

 sent for Cleopatra to join him in Syria. The delay which 

 her presence occasioned, ensured the failure of an enter- 

 prise which, when undertaken by other commanders, even 

 under the most auspicious circumstances, had never pro- 

 ved successful ; and Antony's hurry to tejoin Cleopatra, 

 nearly completed the destruction of the Roman army ; 

 for he lost sixty thousand men, chiefly by forced marches 

 over the mountains of Armenia, at that time covered 

 with snow. 



The fortunes of Antony and Cleopatra, from this pe- 

 riod, became so inseparably connected, that their his- 

 tory must be joined, though we should be forced to re- 

 peat some circumstances mentioned in a former article of 

 our work. Previously to Antony's setting out a second 

 time against the Parthians, he bestowed on Cleopatra 

 Cyrene, Cyprus, Crelo-Syria, Sturea, and Phenicia, 

 with a great part of Cilicia and Crete. Having taken 

 Artabazes, King of Armenia, prisoner, contrary to the 

 most solemn oaths and promises, he entered Alexandria 

 in triumph, which gave great offence to the Romans, 

 as they regarded a triumph as peculiar to the city of 

 Rome. 



The measure of Antony's follies was now nearly com- 

 plete : he ordered Cleopatra to assume the name of Isis, 

 whilst he took that of Osiris, and after that they always 

 affected to appear in public in the dress peculiar to these 

 deities. 



Octavianus artfully improved all these follies to his 

 own advantage, and the Roman people became at last 

 so exasperated, that he sought only a fair opportunity 

 of declaring war. With this view he sent his sister Oc- 

 tavia to join her husband, intending to make his rejec- 

 tion of her, which he anticipated, the ground of an 

 open quarrel. This produced the effect intended : as 

 soon as Cleopatra heard of her approach, (for she had 

 arrived at Athens on her way to Syria), she affected the 

 utmost despondency, that she might make Antony be- 

 lieve she was dying of love for him. She shed tear*, 

 that he might see her distress, and pretended to wipe 

 them away in haste, as if she wished to conceal them 

 and prevent him from being sharer in her pain. These 

 artifices succeeded, and Octavia was ordered back to 

 Rome. 



These, with other causes of grievance, completed the 

 rupture between Antony and his rival j and each party 

 now began to prepare vigorously for war. Antony and 

 Cleopatra hastened to Ephesus, where eight hundred 

 vessels were collected to support his cause. His friends 

 now represented the necessity of sending home Cleopa- 

 tra, to wait the event of the war. But she, afraid of 

 an accommodation between the two rivals, and of her 

 own exclusion from the affections of Antony by the re- 

 ception of Octavia, used every effort to defeat this mea- 

 sure, and at last succeeded in bribing Canidius, one of 

 Antony's chief adttscrs, to recommend her continuance 

 w-h the army. Siie now became jealous of all hi 

 friends, and was constantly employed either in under^ 

 niiiiing their influence, or iu endeavouring to drive them, 



