Cleopatra

Sunday April 22, 2007

CHAPTER VI.

CLEOPATRA AND Caesar.

Cleopatra's perplexity.--She resolves To go to Alexandria.--Cleopatra's

message to Caesar.--Caesar's reply.--Apollodorus's stratagem.--Cleopatra

and Caesar--First impressions.--Caesar's attachment.--Caesar's wife.--His

fondness for Cleopatra.--Cleopatra's foes.--She commits her cause to

Caesar.--Caesar's pretensions.--He sends for Ptolemy.--Ptolemy's

indignation.--His complaints against Caesar.--Great tumult in the

city.--Excitement of the populace.--Caesar's forces--Ptolemy made

prisoner.--Caesar's address to the people.--Its effects.--The mob

dispersed.--Caesar convenes an assembly.--Caesar's decision.

--Satisfaction of the assembly.--Festivals and rejoicings.

--Pothinus and Achillas.--Plot of Pothinus and Achillas.--Escape

of Achillas.--March of the Egyptian army.--Measures of Caesar.

--Murder of the messengers.--Intentions of Achillas--Cold-blooded

assassination.--Advance of Achillas--Caesar's arrangements for

defense.--Cleopatra and Ptolemy.--Double dealing of Pothinus.--He is

detected.--Pothinus beheaded--Arsinoe and Ganymede--Flight of

Arsinoe--She is proclaimed queen by the army.--Perplexity of the young

Ptolemy.

In the mean time, while the events related in the last chapter were

taking place at Alexandria, Cleopatra remained anxious and uneasy in her

camp, quite uncertain, for a time, what it was best for her to do. She

wished to be at Alexandria. She knew very well that Caesar's power in

controlling the course of affairs in Egypt would necessarily be supreme.

She was, of course, very earnest in her desire to be able to present her

cause before him. As it was, Ptolemy and Pothinus were in communication

with the arbiter, and, for aught she knew, assiduously cultivating his

favor, while she was far away, her cause unheard, her wrongs unknown,

and perhaps even her existence forgotten. Of course, under such

circumstances, she was very earnest to get to Alexandria.

But how to accomplish this purpose was a source of great perplexity. She

could not march thither at the head of an army, for the army of the king

was strongly intrenched at Pelusium, and effectually barred the way. She

could not attempt to pass alone, or with few attendants, through the

country, for every town and village was occupied with garrisons and

officers under the orders of Pothinus, and she would be certainly

intercepted. She had no fleet, and could not, therefore, make the

passage by sea. Besides, even if she could by any means reach the gates

of Alexandria, how was she to pass safely through the streets of the

city to the palace where Caesar resided, since the city, except in

Caesar's quarters, was wholly in the hands of Pothinus's government? The

difficulties in the way of accomplishing her object seemed thus almost

insurmountable.

She was, however, resolved to make the attempt. She sent a message to

Caesar, asking permission to appear before him and plead her own cause.

Caesar replied, urging her by all means to come. She took a single boat,

and with the smallest number of attendants possible, made her way along

the coast to Alexandria. The man on whom she principally relied in this

hazardous expedition was a domestic named Apollodorus. She had, however,

some other attendants besides. When the party reached Alexandria, they

waited until night, and then advanced to the foot of the walls of the

citadel. Here Apollodorus rolled the queen up in a piece of carpeting,

and, covering the whole package with a cloth, he tied it with a thong,

so as to give it the appearance of a bale of ordinary merchandise, and

then throwing the load across his shoulder, he advanced into the city.

Cleopatra was at this time about twenty-one years of age, but she was of

a slender and graceful form, and the burden was, consequently, not very

heavy. Apollodorus came to the gates of the palace where Caesar was

residing. The guards at the gates asked him what it was that he was

carrying. He said that it was a present for Caesar. So they allowed him

to pass, and the pretended porter carried his package safely in.

When it was unrolled, and Cleopatra came out to view, Caesar was

perfectly charmed with the spectacle. In fact, the various conflicting

emotions which she could not but feel under such circumstances as these,

imparted a double interest to her beautiful and expressive face, and to

her naturally bewitching manners. She was excited by the adventure

through which she had passed, and yet pleased with her narrow escape

from its dangers. The curiosity and interest which she felt on the one

hand, in respect to the great personage into whose presence she had been

thus strangely ushered, was very strong; but then, on the other hand, it

was chastened and subdued by that feeling of timidity which, in new and

unexpected situations like these, and under a consciousness of being the

object of eager observation to the other sex, is inseparable from the

nature of woman.

The conversation which Caesar held with Cleopatra deepened the impression

which her first appearance had made upon him. Her intelligence and

animation, the originality of her ideas, and the point and pertinency of

her mode of expressing them, made her, independently of her personal

charms, an exceedingly entertaining and agreeable companion. She, in

fact, completely won the great conqueror's heart; and, through the

strong attachment to her which he immediately formed, he became wholly

disqualified to act impartially between her and her brother in regard to

their respective rights to the crown. We call Ptolemy Cleopatra's

brother; for, though he was also, in fact, her husband, still, as he was

only ten or twelve years of age at the time of Cleopatra's expulsion

from Alexandria, the marriage had been probably regarded, thus far, only

as a mere matter of form. Caesar was now about fifty-two. He had a wife,

named Calpurnia, to whom he had been married about ten years. She was

living, at this time in an unostentatious and quiet manner at Rome. She

was a lady of an amiable and gentle character, devotedly attached to her

husband, patient and forbearing in respect to his faults, and often

anxious and unhappy at the thought of the difficulties and dangers in

which his ardent and unbounded ambition so often involved him.

Caesar immediately began to take a very strong interest in Cleopatra's

cause. He treated her personally with the fondest attention, and it was

impossible for her not to reciprocate in some degree the kind feeling

with which he regarded her. It was, in fact, something altogether new to

her to have a warm and devoted friend, espousing her cause, tendering

her protection, and seeking in every way to promote her happiness. Her

father had all his life neglected her. Her brother, of years and

understanding totally inferior to hers, whom she had been compelled to

make her husband, had become her mortal enemy. It is true that, in

depriving her of her inheritance and expelling her from her native land,

he had been only the tool and instrument of more designing men. This,

however, far from improving the point of view from which she regarded

him, made him appear not only hateful, but contemptible too. All the

officers of government, also, in the Alexandrian court had turned

against her, because they had supposed that they could control her

brother more easily if she were away. Thus she had always been

surrounded by selfish, mercenary, and implacable foes. Now, for the

first time, she seemed to have a friend. A protector had suddenly arisen

to support and defend her,--a man of very alluring person and manners,

of a very noble and generous spirit, and of the very highest station. He

loved her, and she could not refrain from loving him in return. She

committed her cause entirely into his hands, confided to him all her

interests, and gave herself up wholly into his power.

Nor was the unbounded confidence which she reposed in him undeserved, so

far as related to his efforts to restore her to her throne. The legions

which Caesar had sent for into Syria had not yet arrived, and his

situation in Alexandria was still very defenseless and very precarious.

He did not, however, on this account, abate in the least degree the

loftiness and self confidence of the position which he had assumed, but

he commenced immediately the work of securing Cleopatra's restoration.

This quiet assumption of the right and power to arbitrate and decide

such a question as that of the claim to the throne, in a country where

he had accidentally landed and found rival claimants disputing for the

succession, while he was still wholly destitute of the means of

enforcing the superiority which he so coolly assumed, marks the immense

ascendency which the Roman power had attained at this time in the

estimation of mankind, and is, besides, specially characteristic of the

genius and disposition of Caesar.

Very soon after Cleopatra had come to him, Caesar sent for the young

Ptolemy, and urged upon him the duty and expediency of restoring

Cleopatra. Ptolemy was beginning now to attain an age at which he might

be supposed to have some opinion of his own on such a question. He

declared himself utterly opposed to any such design. In the course of

the conversation he learned that Cleopatra had arrived at Alexandria,

and that she was then concealed in Caesar's palace. This intelligence

awakened in his mind the greatest excitement and indignation. He went

away from Caesar's presence in a rage. He tore the diadem which he was

accustomed to wear in the streets, from his head, threw it down, and

trampled it under his feet. He declared to the people that he was

betrayed, and displayed the most violent indications of vexation and

chagrin. The chief subject of his complaint, in the attempts which he

made to awaken the popular indignation against Caesar and the Romans, was

the disgraceful impropriety of the position which his sister had assumed

in surrendering herself as she had done to Caesar. It is most probable,

however, unless his character was very different from that of every

other Ptolemy in the line, that what really awakened his jealousy and

anger was fear of the commanding influence and power to which Cleopatra

was likely to attain through the agency of so distinguished a protector,

rather than any other consequences of his friendship, or any real

considerations of delicacy in respect to his sister's good name or his

own martial honor.

However this may be, Ptolemy, together with Pothinus and Achillas, and

all his other friends and adherents, who joined him in the terrible

outcry that he made against the coalition which he had discovered

between Cleopatra and Caesar, succeeded in producing a very general and

violent tumult throughout the city. The populace were aroused, and began

to assemble in great crowds, and full of indignation and anger. Some

knew the facts, and acted under something like an understanding of the

cause of their anger. Others only knew that the aim of this sudden

outbreak was to assault the Romans, and were ready, on any pretext,

known or unknown, to join in any deeds of violence directed against

these foreign intruders. There were others still, and these, probably,

far the larger portion, who knew nothing and understood nothing but that

there was to be tumult and a riot in and around the palaces, and were,

accordingly, eager to be there.

Ptolemy and his officers had no large body of troops in Alexandria; for

the events which had thus far occurred since Caesar's arrival had

succeeded each other so rapidly, that a very short time had yet elapsed,

and the main army remained still at Pelusium. The main force, therefore,

by which Caesar was now attacked, consisted of the population of the

city, headed, perhaps, by the few guards which the young king had at his

command.

Caesar, on his part, had but a small portion of his forces at the palace

where he was attacked. The rest were scattered about the city. He,

however, seems to have felt no alarm. He did not even confine himself to

acting on the defensive. He sent out a detachment of his soldiers with

orders to seize Ptolemy and bring him in a prisoner. Soldiers trained,

disciplined, and armed as the Roman veterans were, and nerved by the

ardor and enthusiasm which seemed always to animate troops which were

under Caesar's personal command, could accomplish almost any undertaking

against a mere populace, however numerous or however furiously excited

they might be. The soldiers sallied out, seized Ptolemy, and brought him

in.

The populace were at first astounded at the daring presumption of this

deed, and then exasperated at the indignity of it, considered as a

violation of the person of their sovereign. The tumult would have

greatly increased, had it not been that Caesar,--who had now attained all

his ends in thus having brought Cleopatra and Ptolemy both within his

power,--thought it most expedient to allay it. He accordingly ascended

to the window of a tower, or of some other elevated portion of his

palace, so high that missiles from the mob below could not reach him,

and began to make signals expressive of his wish to address them.

When silence was obtained, he made them a speech well calculated to

quiet the excitement. He told them that he did not pretend to any right

to judge between Cleopatra and Ptolemy as their superior, but only in

the performance of the duty solemnly assigned by Ptolemy Auletes, the

father, to the Roman people, whose representative he was. Other than

this he claimed no jurisdiction in the case; and his only wish, in the

discharge of the duty which devolved upon him to consider the cause, was

to settle the question in a manner just and equitable to all the parties

concerned, and thus arrest the progress of the civil war, which, if not

arrested, threatened to involve the country in the most terrible

calamities. He counseled them, therefore, to disperse, and no longer

disturb the peace of the city. He would immediately take measures for

trying the question between Cleopatra and Ptolemy, and he did not doubt,

but that they would all be satisfied with his decision.

This speech, made, as it was, in the eloquent and persuasive, and yet

dignified and imposing manner for which Caesar's harangues to turbulent

assemblies like these were so famed, produced a great effect. Some were

convinced, others were silenced; and those whose resentment and anger

were not appeased, found themselves deprived of their power by the

pacification of the rest. The mob was dispersed, and Ptolemy remained

with Cleopatra in Caesar's custody.

The next day, Caesar, according to his promise, convened an assembly of

the principal people of Alexandria and officers of state, and then

brought out Ptolemy and Cleopatra, that he might decide their cause. The

original will which Ptolemy Auletes had executed had been deposited in

the public archives of Alexandria, and carefully preserved there. An

authentic copy of it had been sent to Rome. Caesar caused the original

will to be brought out and read to the assembly. The provisions of it

were perfectly explicit and clear. It required that Cleopatra and

Ptolemy should be married, and then settled the sovereign power upon

them jointly, as king and queen. It recognized the Roman commonwealth as

the ally of Egypt, and constituted the Roman government the executor of

the will, and the guardian of the king and queen. In fact, so clear and

explicit was this document, that the simple reading of it seemed to be

of itself a decision of the question. When, therefore, Caesar announced

that, in his judgment, Cleopatra was entitled to share the supreme power

with Ptolemy, and that it was his duty, as the representative of the

Roman power and the executor of the will, to protect both the king and

the queen in their respective rights, there seemed to be nothing that

could be said against his decision.

Besides Cleopatra and Ptolemy, there were two other children of Ptolemy

Auletes in the royal family at this time. One was a girl, named Arsinoe.

The other, a boy, was, singularly enough, named, like his brother,

Ptolemy. These children were quite young, but Caesar thought that it

would perhaps gratify the Alexandrians, and lead them to acquiesce more

readily in his decision, if he were to make some royal provision for

them. He accordingly proposed to assign the island of Cyprus as a realm

for them. This was literally a gift, for Cyprus was at this time a Roman

possession.

The whole assembly seemed satisfied with this decision except Pothinus.

He had been so determined and inveterate an enemy to Cleopatra, that, as

he was well aware, her restoration must end in his downfall and ruin. He

went away from the assembly moodily determining that he would not submit

to the decision, but would immediately adopt efficient measures to

prevent its being carried into effect.

Caesar made arrangements for a series of festivals and celebrations, to

commemorate and confirm the reestablishment of a good understanding

between the king and the queen, and the consequent termination of the

war. Such celebrations, he judged, would have great influence in

removing any remaining animosities from the minds of the people, and

restore the dominion of a kind and friendly feeling throughout the city.

The people fell in with these measures, and cordially co-operated to

give them effect; but Pothinus and Achillas, though they suppressed all

outward expressions of discontent, made incessant efforts in secret to

organize a party, and to form plans for overthrowing the influence of

Caesar, and making Ptolemy again the sole and exclusive sovereign.

Pothinus represented to all whom he could induce to listen to him that

Caesar's real design was to make Cleopatra queen alone, and to depose

Ptolemy, and urged them to combine with him to resist a policy which

would end in bringing Egypt under the dominion of a woman. He also

formed a plan, in connection with Achillas, for ordering the army back

from Pelusium. The army consisted of thirty thousand men. If that army

could be brought to Alexandria and kept under Pothinus's orders, Caesar

and his three thousand Roman soldiers would be, they thought, wholly at

their mercy.

There was, however, one danger to be guarded against in ordering the

army to march toward the capital, and that was, that Ptolemy, while

under Caesar's influence, might open communication with the officers, and

so obtain command of its movements, and thwart all the conspirators'

designs. To prevent this, it was arranged between Pothinus and Achillas

that the latter should make his escape from Alexandria, proceed

immediately to the camp at Pelusium, resume the command of the troops

there, and conduct them himself to the capital; and that in all these

operations, and also subsequently on his arrival, he should obey no

orders unless they came to him through Pothinus himself.

Although sentinels and guards were probably stationed at the gates and

avenues leading from the city Achillas contrived to effect his escape

and to join the army. He placed himself at the head of the forces, and

commenced his march toward the capital. Pothinus remained all the time

within the city as a spy, pretending to acquiesce in Caesar's decision,

and to be on friendly terms with him, but really plotting for his

overthrow, and obtaining all the information which his position enabled

him to command, in order that he might co-operate with the army and

Achillas when they should arrive.

All these things were done with the utmost secrecy, and so cunning and

adroit were the conspirators in forming and executing their plots, that

Caesar seems to have had no knowledge of the measures which his enemies

were taking, until he suddenly heard that the main body of Ptolemy's

army was approaching the city, at least twenty thousand strong. In the

mean time, however, the forces which he had sent for from Syria had not

arrived, and no alternative was left but to defend the capital and

himself as well as he could with the very small force which he had at

his disposal.

He determined, however, first, to try the effect of orders sent out in

Ptolemy's name to forbid the approach of the army to the city. Two

officers were accordingly intrusted with these orders, and sent out to

communicate them to Achillas. The names of these officers were

Dioscorides and Serapion.

It shows in a very striking point of view to what an incredible

exaltation the authority and consequence of a sovereign king rose in

those ancient days, in the minds of men, that Achillas, at the moment

when these men made their appearance in the camp, bearing evidently some

command from Ptolemy in the city, considered it more prudent to kill

them at once, without hearing their message, rather than to allow the

orders to be delivered and then take the responsibility of disobeying

them. If he could succeed in marching to Alexandria and in taking

possession of the city, and then in expelling Caesar and Cleopatra and

restoring Ptolemy to the exclusive possession of the throne, he knew

very well that the king would rejoice in the result, and would overlook

all irregularities on his part in the means by which he had accomplished

it, short of absolute disobedience of a known command. Whatever might be

the commands that these messengers were bringing him, he supposed that

they doubtless originated, not in Ptolemy's own free will, but that they

were dictated by the authority of Caesar. Still, they would be commands

coming in Ptolemy's name, and the universal experience of officers

serving under the military despots of those ancient days showed that,

rather than to take the responsibility of directly disobeying a royal

order once received, it was safer to avoid receiving it by murdering the

messengers.

Achillas therefore directed the officers to be seized and slain. They

were accordingly taken off and speared by the soldiers, and then the

bodies were borne away. The soldiers, however, it was found, had not

done their work effectually. There was no interest for them in such a

cold-blooded assassination, and perhaps something like a sentiment of

compassion restrained their hands. At any rate, though both the men were

desperately wounded, one only died. The other lived and recovered.

Achillas continued to advance toward the city. Caesar, finding that the

crisis which was approaching was becoming very serious in its character,

took, himself, the whole command within the capital, and began to make

the best arrangements possible under the circumstances of the case to

defend himself there. His numbers were altogether too small to defend

the whole city against the overwhelming force which was advancing to

assail it. He accordingly intrenched his troops in the palaces and in

the citadel, and in such other parts of the city as it seemed

practicable to defend. He barricaded all the streets and avenues leading

to these points, and fortified the gates. Nor did he, while thus doing

all in his power to employ the insufficient means of defense already in

his hands to the best advantage, neglect the proper exertions for

obtaining succor from abroad. He sent off galleys to Syria, to Cyprus,

to Rhodes, and to every other point accessible from Alexandria where

Roman troops might be expected to be found, urging the authorities there

to forward re-enforcements to him with the utmost possible dispatch.

During all this time Cleopatra and Ptolemy remained in the palace with

Caesar, both ostensibly co-operating with him in his councils and

measures for defending the city from Achillas. Cleopatra, of course, was

sincere and in earnest in this co-operation; but Ptolemy's adhesion to

the common cause was very little to be relied upon. Although, situated

as he was, he was compelled to seem to be on Caesar's side, he must have

secretly desired that Achillas should succeed and Caesar's plans be

overthrown. Pothinus was more active, though not less cautious in his

hostility to them. He opened secret communication with Achillas, sending

him information, from time to time, of what took place within the walls,

and of the arrangements made there for the defense of the city against

him, and gave him also directions how to proceed. He was very wary and

sagacious in all these movements, feigning all the time to be on Caesar's

side. He pretended to be very zealously employed in aiding Caesar to

secure more effectually the various points where attacks were to be

expected, and in maturing and completing the arrangements for defense.

But, notwithstanding all his cunning, he was detected in his double

dealing, and his career was suddenly brought to a close, before the

great final conflict came on. There was a barber in Caesar's household,

who, for some cause or other, began to suspect Pothinus; and, having

little else to do, he employed himself in watching the eunuch's

movements and reporting them to Caesar. Caesar directed the barber to

continue his observations. He did so; his suspicions were soon

confirmed, and at length a letter, which Pothinus had written to

Achillas, was intercepted and brought to Caesar. This furnished the

necessary proof of what they called his guilt, and Caesar ordered him to

be beheaded.

This circumstance produced, of course, a great excitement within the

palace, for Pothinus had been for many years the great ruling minister

of state,--the king, in fact, in all but in name. His execution alarmed

a great many others, who, though in Caesar's power, were secretly wishing

that Achillas might prevail. Among those most disturbed by these fears

was a man named Ganymede. He was the officer who had charge of Arsinoe,

Cleopatra's sister. The arrangement which Caesar had proposed for

establishing her in conjunction with her brother Ptolemy over the island

of Cyprus had not gone into effect; for, immediately after the decision

of Caesar, the attention of all concerned had been wholly engrossed by

the tidings of the advance of the army, and by the busy preparations

which were required on all hands for the impending contest. Arsinoe,

therefore, with her governor Ganymede, remained in the palace. Ganymede

had joined Pothinus in his plots; and when Pothinus was beheaded, he

concluded that it would be safest for him to fly.

He accordingly resolved to make his escape from the city, taking Arsinoe

with him. It was a very hazardous attempt but he succeeded in

accomplishing it. Arsinoe was very willing to go, for she was now

beginning to be old enough to feel the impulse of that insatiable and

reckless ambition which seemed to form such an essential element in the

character of every son and daughter in the whole Ptolemaic line. She was

insignificant and powerless where she was, but at the head of the army

she might become immediately a queen.

It resulted, in the first instance, as she had anticipated. Achillas and

his army received her with acclamations. Under Ganymede's influence they

decided that, as all the other members of the royal family were in

durance, being held captive by a foreign general, who had by chance

obtained possession of the capital, and were thus incapacitated for

exercising the royal power, the crown devolved upon Arsinoe; and they

accordingly proclaimed her queen.

Every thing was now prepared for a desperate and determined contest for

the crown between Cleopatra, with Caesar for her minister and general, on

the one side, and Arsinoe, with Ganymede and Achillas for her chief

officers on the other. The young Ptolemy in the mean time, remained

Caesar's prisoner, confused with the intricacies in which the quarrel had

become involved, and scarcely knowing now what to wish in respect to the

issue of the contest. It was very difficult to foresee whether it would

be best for him that Cleopatra or that Arsinoe should succeed.

For You

Saturday April 21, 2007

CHAPTER V.

ACCESSION TO THE THRONE.

Cleopatra.--Excitement in Alexandria.--Ptolemy restored.--Acquiescence

of the people.--Festivities.--Popularity of Antony.--Antony's

generosity.--Anecdote.--Antony and Cleopatra.--Antony returns to

Rome.--Ptolemy's murders.--Pompey and Caesar.--Close of Ptolemy's

reign.--Settlement of the succession.--Accession of Cleopatra.--She is

married to her brother.--Pothinus, the eunuch.--His character and

government.--Machinations of Pothinus.--Cleopatra is expelled.

--Cleopatra's army.--Approaching contest.--Caesar and Pompey.

--Battle of Pharsalia.--Pompey at Pelusium.--Treachery of

Pothinus.--Caesar's pursuit of Pompey.--His danger.--Caesar at

Alexandria.--Astonishment of the Egyptians.--Caesar presented with

Pompey's head.--Pompey's seal.--Situation of Caesar.--His

demands.--Conduct of Pothinus.--Quarrels--Policy of Pothinus.

--Contentions.--Caesar sends to Syria for additional troops.

At the time when the unnatural quarrel between Cleopatra's father and

her sister was working its way toward its dreadful termination, as

related in the last chapter, she herself was residing at the royal

palace in Alexandria, a blooming and beautiful girl of about fifteen.

Fortunately for her, she was too young to take any active part

personally in the contention. Her two brothers were still younger than

herself. They all three remained, therefore, in the royal palaces, quiet

spectators of the revolution, without being either benefited or injured

by it. It is singular that the name of both the boys was Ptolemy.

The excitement in the city of Alexandria was intense and universal when

the Roman army entered it to reinstate Cleopatra's father upon his

throne. A very large portion of the inhabitants were pleased with having

the former king restored. In fact, it appears, by a retrospect of the

history of kings that when a legitimate hereditary sovereign or dynasty

is deposed and expelled by a rebellious population, no matter how

intolerable may have been the tyranny, or how atrocious the crimes by

which the patience of the subject was exhausted, the lapse of a very few

years is ordinarily sufficient to produce a very general readiness to

acquiesce in a restoration; and in this particular instance there had

been no such superiority in the government of Berenice, during the

period while her power continued, over that of her father, which she had

displaced, as to make this case an exception to the general rule. The

mass of the people, therefore--all those, especially, who had taken no

active part in Berenice's government--were ready to welcome Ptolemy back

to his capital. Those who had taken such a part were all summarily

executed by Ptolemy's orders.

There was, of course, a great excitement throughout the city on the

arrival of the Roman army. All the foreign influence and power which had

been exercised in Egypt thus far, and almost all the officers, whether

civil or military, had been Greek. The coming of the Romans was the

introduction of a new element of interest to add to the endless variety

of excitements which animated the capital.

The restoration of Ptolemy was celebrated with games, spectacles, and

festivities of every kind, and, of course, next to the king himself, the

chief center of interest and attraction in all these public rejoicings

would be the distinguished foreign generals by whose instrumentality the

end had been gained.

Mark Antony was a special object of public regard and admiration at the

time. His eccentric manners, his frank and honest air, his Roman

simplicity of dress and demeanor, made him conspicuous; and his

interposition to save the lives of the captured garrison of Pelusium,

and the interest which he took in rendering such distinguished funeral

honors to the enemy whom his army had slain in battle, impressed the

people with the idea of a certain nobleness and magnanimity in his

character, which, in spite of his faults, made him an object of general

admiration and applause. The very faults of such a man assume often, in

the eyes of the world, the guise and semblance of virtues. For example,

it is related of Antony that, at one time in the course of his life,

having a desire to make a present of some kind to a certain person, in

requital for a favor which he had received from him, he ordered his

treasurer to send a sum of money to his friend--and named for the sum to

be sent an amount considerably greater than was really required under

the circumstances of the case--acting thus, as he often did, under the

influence of a blind and uncalculating generosity. The treasurer, more

prudent than his master, wished to reduce the amount, but he did not

dare directly to propose a reduction; so he counted out the money, and

laid it in a pile in a place where Antony was to pass, thinking that

when Antony saw the amount, he would perceive that it was too great.

Antony, in passing by, asked what money that was. The treasurer said

that it was the sum that he had ordered to be sent as a present to such

a person, naming the individual intended. Antony was quick to perceive

the object of the treasurer's maneuver. He immediately replied, "Ah! is

that all? I thought the sum I named would make a better appearance than

that; send him double the amount."

To determine, under such circumstances as these, to double an

extravagance merely for the purpose of thwarting the honest attempt of a

faithful servant to diminish it, made, too, in so cautious and delicate

a way, is most certainly a fault. But it is one of those faults for

which the world, in all ages, will persist in admiring and praising the

perpetrator.

In a word, Antony became the object of general attention and favor

during his continuance at Alexandria. Whether he particularly attracted

Cleopatra's attention at this time or not does not appear. She, however,

strongly attracted _his._ He admired her blooming beauty, her

sprightliness and wit, and her various accomplishments. She was still,

however, so young--being but fifteen years of age, while Antony was

nearly thirty--that she probably made no very serious impression upon

him. A short time after this, Antony went back to Rome, and did not see

Cleopatra again for many years.

When the two Roman generals went away from Alexandria, they left a

considerable portion of the army behind them, under Ptolemy's command,

to aid him in keeping possession of his throne. Antony returned to Rome.

He had acquired great renown by his march across the desert, and by the

successful accomplishment of the invasion of Egypt and the restoration

of Ptolemy. His funds, too, were replenished by the vast sums paid to

him and to Gabinius by Ptolemy. The amount which Ptolemy is said to have

agreed to pay as the price of his restoration was two thousand

talents--equal to ten millions of dollars--a sum which shows on how

great a scale the operations of this celebrated campaign were conducted.

Ptolemy raised a large portion of the money required for his payments by

confiscating the estates belonging to those friends of Berenice's

government whom he ordered to be slain. It was said, in fact, that the

numbers were very much increased of those that were condemned to die, by

Ptolemy's standing in such urgent need of their property to meet his

obligations.

Antony, through the results of this campaign, found himself suddenly

raised from the position of a disgraced and homeless fugitive to that of

one of the most wealthy and renowned, and, consequently, one of the most

powerful personages in Rome. The great civil war broke out about this

time between Caesar and Pompey. Antony espoused the cause of Caesar.

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. Her

brothers were considerably younger than she. The claim of a son, though

younger, seemed to be naturally stronger than that of a daughter; but

the commanding talents and rising influence of Cleopatra appeared to

make it doubtful whether it would be safe to pass her by. The father

settled the question in the way in which such difficulties were usually

surmounted in the Ptolemy family. He ordained that Cleopatra should

marry the oldest of her brothers, and that they two should jointly

occupy the throne. Adhering also, still, to the idea of the alliance of

Egypt with Rome, which had been the leading principle of the whole

policy of his reign, he solemnly committed the execution of his will and

the guardianship of his children, by a provision of the instrument

itself, to the Roman Senate. The Senate accepted the appointment, and

appointed Pompey as the agent, on their part, to perform the duties of

the trust. The attention of Pompey was, immediately after that time, too

much engrossed by the civil war waged between himself, and Caesar, to

take any active steps in respect to the duties of his appointment. It

seemed, however, that none were necessary, for all parties in Alexandria

appeared disposed, after the death of the king, to acquiesce in the

arrangements which he had made, and to join in carrying them into

effect. 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. There were still

many difficulties and dangers to be passed through, before the period

arrived when she became really a sovereign. She did not, herself, make

any immediate attempt to hasten this period, but seems to have

acquiesced, on the other hand, very quietly, for a time, in the

arrangements which her father had made.

Pothinus was a eunuch. He had been, for a long time, an officer of

government under Ptolemy, the father. He was a proud, ambitious, and

domineering man, determined to rule, and very unscrupulous in respect to

the means which he adopted to accomplish his ends. 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. But, while these things awakened in other minds feelings

of interest in Cleopatra and attachment to her, they only increased the

jealousy and envy of Pothinus. Cleopatra was becoming his rival. He

endeavored to thwart and circumvent her. He acted toward her in a

haughty and overbearing manner, in order to keep her down to what he

considered her proper place as his ward; for he was yet the guardian

both of Cleopatra and her husband, and the regent of the realm.

Cleopatra had a great deal of what is sometimes called spirit, and her

resentment was aroused by this treatment. Pothinus took pains to enlist

her young husband, Ptolemy, on his side, as the quarrel advanced.

Ptolemy was younger, and of a character much less marked and decided

than Cleopatra. Pothinus saw that he could maintain control over him

much more easily and for a much longer time than over Cleopatra. He

contrived to awaken the young Ptolemy's jealousy of his wife's rising

influence, and to induce him to join in efforts to thwart and counteract

it. These attempts to turn her husband against her only aroused

Cleopatra's resentment the more. Hers was not a spirit to be coerced.

The palace was filled with the dissensions of the rivals. Pothinus and

Ptolemy began to take measures for securing the army on their side. An

open rupture finally ensued, and Cleopatra was expelled from the

kingdom.

She went to Syria. Syria was the nearest place of refuge, and then,

besides, it was the country from which the aid had been furnished by

which her father had been restored to the throne when he had been

expelled, in a similar manner, many years before. Her father, it is

true, had gone first to Rome; but the succors which he had negotiated

for had been sent from Syria. Cleopatra hoped to obtain the same

assistance by going directly there.

Nor was she disappointed. She obtained an army, and commenced her march

toward Egypt, following the same track which Antony and Gabinius had

pursued in coming to reinstate her father. Pothinus raised an army and

went forth to meet her. He took Achillas as the commander of the troops,

and the young Ptolemy as the nominal sovereign; while he, as the young

king's guardian and prime minister, exercised the real power. The troops

of Pothinus advanced to Pelusium. Here they met the forces of Cleopatra

coming from the east. The armies encamped not very far from each other,

and both sides began to prepare for battle.

The battle, however, was not fought. It was prevented by the occurrence

of certain great and unforeseen events which at this crisis suddenly

burst upon the scene of Egyptian history, and turned the whole current

of affairs into new and unexpected channels. The breaking out of the

civil war between the great Roman generals Caesar and Pompey, and their

respective partisans, has already been mentioned as having occurred soon

after the death of Cleopatra's father, and as having prevented Pompey

from undertaking the office of executor of the will. This war had been

raging ever since that time with terrible fury. Its distant thundering

had been heard even in Egypt, but it was too remote to awaken there any

special alarm. The immense armies of these two mighty conquerors had

moved slowly--like two ferocious birds of prey, flying through the air,

and fighting as they fly--across Italy into Greece, and from Greece,

through Macedon, into Thessaly, contending in dreadful struggles with

each other as they advanced, and trampling down and destroying every

thing in their way. At length a great final battle had been fought at

Pharsalia. Pompey had been totally defeated. He had fled to the

sea-shore, and there, with a few ships and a small number of followers,

he had pushed out upon the Mediterranean, not knowing whither to fly,

and overwhelmed with wretchedness and despair. Caesar followed him in

eager pursuit. He had a small fleet of galleys with him, on board of

which he had embarked two or three thousand men. This was a force

suitable, perhaps, for the pursuit of a fugitive, but wholly

insufficient for any other design.

Pompey thought of Ptolemy. He remembered the efforts which he himself

had made for the cause of Ptolemy Auletes, at Rome, and the success of

those efforts in securing that monarch's restoration--an event through

which alone the young Ptolemy had been enabled to attain the crown. He

came, therefore to Pelusium, and, anchoring his little fleet off the

shore, sent to the land to ask Ptolemy to receive and protect him.

Pothinus, who was really the commander in Ptolemy's army, made answer to

this application that Pompey should be received and protected, and that

he would send out a boat to bring him to the shore. Pompey felt some

misgivings in respect to this proffered hospitality, but he finally

concluded to go to the shore in the boat which Pothinus sent for him. As

soon as he landed, the Egyptians, by Pothinus's orders, stabbed and

beheaded him on the sand. Pothinus and his council had decided that this

would be the safest course. If they were to receive Pompey, they

reasoned, Caesar would be made their enemy; if they refused to receive

him, Pompey himself would be offended, and they did not know which of

the two it would be safe to displease; for they did not know in what

way, if both the generals were to be allowed to live, the war would

ultimately end. "But by killing Pompey," they said, "we shall be sure to

please Caesar and Pompey himself will _lie still."_

In the mean time, Caesar, not knowing to what part of Egypt Pompey had

fled, pressed on directly to Alexandria. He exposed himself to great

danger in so doing, for the forces under his command were not sufficient

to protect him in case of his becoming involved in difficulties with the

authorities there. Nor could he, when once arrived on the Egyptian

coast, easily go away again; for, at the season of the year in which

these events occurred, there was a periodical wind which blew steadily

toward that part of the coast, and, while it made it very easy for a

fleet of ships to go to Alexandria, rendered it almost impossible for

them to return.

Caesar was very little accustomed to shrink from danger in any of his

enterprises and plans, though still he was usually prudent and

circumspect. In this instance, however, his ardent interest in the

pursuit of Pompey overruled all considerations of personal safety. He

arrived at Alexandria, but he found that Pompey was not there. He

anchored his vessels in the port, landed his troops, and established

himself in the city. These two events, the assassination of one of the

great Roman generals on the eastern extremity of the coast, and the

arrival of the other, at the same moment, at Alexandria, on the western,

burst suddenly upon Egypt together, like simultaneous claps of thunder.

The tidings struck the whole country with astonishment, and immediately

engrossed universal attention. At the camps both of Cleopatra and

Ptolemy, at Pelusium, all was excitement and wonder. Instead of thinking

of a battle, both parties were wholly occupied in speculating on the

results which were likely to accrue, to one side or to the other, under

the totally new and unexpected aspect which public affairs had assumed.

Of course the thoughts of all were turned toward Alexandria. Pothinus

immediately proceeded to the city, taking with him the young king.

Achillas, too, either accompanied them, or followed soon afterward. They

carried with them the head of Pompey, which they had cut off on the

shore where they had killed him, and also a seal which they took from

his finger. When they arrived at Alexandria, they sent the head, wrapped

up in a cloth, and also the seal, as presents to Caesar. Accustomed as

they were to the brutal deeds and heartless cruelties of the Ptolemies,

they supposed that Caesar would exult at the spectacle of the dissevered

and ghastly head of his great rival and enemy. Instead of this, he was

shocked and displeased, and ordered the head to be buried with the most

solemn and imposing funeral ceremonies. He, however, accepted and kept

the seal. The device engraved upon it was a lion holding a sword in his

paw--a fit emblem of the characters of the men, who, though in many

respects magnanimous and just, had filled the whole world with the

terror of their quarrels.

The army of Ptolemy, while he himself and his immediate counselors went

to Alexandria, was left at Pelusium, under the command of other

officers, to watch Cleopatra. Cleopatra herself would have been pleased,

also, to repair to Alexandria and appeal to Caesar, if it had been in her

power to do so; but she was beyond the confines of the country, with a

powerful army of her enemies ready to intercept her on any attempt to

enter or pass through it. She remained, therefore, at Pelusium,

uncertain what to do.

In the mean time, Caesar soon found himself in a somewhat embarrassing

situation at Alexandria. He had been accustomed, for many years, to the

possession and the exercise of the most absolute and despotic power,

wherever he might be; and now that Pompey, his great rival, was dead, he

considered himself the monarch and master of the world. He had not,

however, at Alexandria, any means sufficient to maintain and enforce

such pretensions, and yet he was not of a spirit to abate, on that

account, in the slightest degree, the advancing of them. He established

himself in the palaces of Alexandria as if he were himself the king. He

moved, in state, through the streets of the city, at the head of his

guards, and displaying the customary emblems of supreme authority used

at Rome. He claimed the six thousand talents which Ptolemy Auletes had

formerly promised him for procuring a treaty of alliance with Rome, and

he called upon Pothinus to pay the balance due. He said, moreover, that

by the will of Auletes the Roman people had been made the executor; and

that it devolved upon him as the Roman consul, and, consequently, the

representative of the Roman people, to assume that trust, and in the

discharge of it to settle the dispute between Ptolemy and Cleopatra, and

he called upon Ptolemy to prepare and lay before him a statement of his

claims, and the grounds on which he maintained his right to the throne

to the exclusion of Cleopatra.

On the other hand, Pothinus, who had been as little accustomed to

acknowledge a superior as Caesar, though his supremacy and domination had

been exercised on a somewhat humbler scale, was obstinate and

pertinacious in resisting all these demands, though the means and

methods which he resorted to were of a character corresponding to his

weak and ignoble mind. He fomented quarrels in the streets between the

Alexandrian populace and Caesar's soldiers. He thought that, as the

number of troops under Caesar's command in the city, and of vessels in

the port, was small, he could tease and worry the Romans with impunity,

though he had not the courage openly to attack them. He pretended to be

a friend, or, at least, not an enemy, and yet he conducted himself

toward them in an overbearing and insolent manner. He had agreed to make

arrangements for supplying them with food, and he did this by procuring

damaged provisions of a most wretched quality; and when the soldiers

remonstrated, he said to them, that they who lived at other people's

cost had no right to complain of their fare. He caused wooden and

earthen vessels to be used in the palace, and said, in explanation, that

he had been compelled to sell all the gold and silver plate of the royal

household to meet the exactions of Caesar. He busied himself, too, about

the city, in endeavoring to excite odium against Caesar's proposal to

hear and decide the question at issue between Cleopatra and Ptolemy.

Ptolemy was a sovereign, he said, and was not amenable to any foreign

power whatever. Thus, without the courage or the energy to attempt any

open, manly, and effectual system of hostility, he contented himself

with making all the difficulty in his power, by urging an incessant

pressure of petty, vexatious, and provoking, but useless annoyances.

Caesar's demands may have been unjust, but they were bold, manly, and

undisguised. The eunuch may have been right in resisting them; but the

mode was so mean and contemptible, that mankind have always taken part

with Caesar in the sentiments which they have formed as spectators of the

contest.

With the very small force which Caesar had at his command, and shut up as

he was in the midst of a very great and powerful city, in which both the

garrison and the population were growing more and more hostile to him

every day, he soon found his situation was beginning to be attended with

very serious danger. He could not retire from the scene. He probably

would not have retired if he could have done so. He remained, therefore,

in the city, conducting himself all the time with prudence and

circumspection, but yet maintaining, as at first, the same air of

confident self-possession and superiority which always characterized his

demeanor. He, however, dispatched a messenger forthwith into Syria, the

nearest country under the Roman sway, with orders that several legions

which were posted there should be embarked and forwarded to Alexandria

with the utmost possible celerity.

For You

Friday April 20, 2007

CHAPTER IV.

CLEOPATRA'S FATHER.

Rome the rival of Alexandria.--Extent of their rule.--Extension of the

Roman empire.--Cleopatra's father.--Ptolemy's ignoble birth.--Caesar and

Pompey.--Ptolemy purchases the alliance of Rome.--Taxes to raise the

money.--Revolt at Alexandria.--Ptolemy's flight.--Berenice.--Her

marriage with Seleucus.--Cleopatra's early life.--Ptolemy an object of

contempt.--Ptolemy's interview with Cato.--Character of

Cato.--Ptolemy's reception.--Cato's advice to him.--Ptolemy arrives at

Rome.--His application to Pompey.--Action of the Roman senate.--Plans

for restoring Ptolemy.--Measures of Berenice.--Her embassage to

Rome.--Ptolemy's treachery.--Its consequences.--Opposition to

Ptolemy.--The prophecy.--Attempts to evade the oracle.--Gabinius

undertakes the cause.--Mark Antony.--His history and character.--Antony

in Greece.--He joins Gabinius.--Danger of crossing the deserts.--Armies

destroyed.--Mark Antony's character.--His personal appearance.--March

across the desert.--Pelusium taken.--March across the Delta.--Success

of the Romans.--Berenice a prisoner.--Fate of Archelaus.--Grief of

Antony.--Unnatural joy of Ptolemy.

When the time was approaching in which Cleopatra appeared upon the

stage, Rome was perhaps the only city that could be considered as the

rival of Alexandria, in the estimation of mankind, in respect to

interest and attractiveness as a capital. In one respect, Rome was

vastly superior to the Egyptian metropolis, and that was in the

magnitude and extent of the military power which it wielded among the

nations of the earth. Alexandria ruled over Egypt, and over a few of the

neighboring coasts and islands; but in the course of the three centuries

during which she had been acquiring her greatness and fame, the Roman

empire had extended itself over almost the whole civilized world. Egypt

had been, thus far, too remote to be directly reached; but the affairs

of Egypt itself became involved at length with the operations of the

Roman power, about the time of Cleopatra's birth, in a very striking and

peculiar manner; and as the consequences of the transaction were the

means of turning the whole course of the queen's subsequent history, a

narration of it is necessary to a proper understanding of the

circumstances under which she commenced her career. In fact, it was the

extension of the Roman empire to the limits of Egypt, and the

connections which thence arose between the leading Roman generals and

the Egyptian sovereign, which have made the story of this particular

queen so much more conspicuous, as an object of interest and attention

to mankind, than that of any other one of the ten Cleopatras who rose

successively in the same royal line.

Ptolemy Auletes, Cleopatra's father, was perhaps, in personal character,

the most dissipated, degraded, and corrupt of all the sovereigns in the

dynasty. He spent his whole time in vice and debauchery. The only honest

accomplishment that he seemed to possess was his skill in playing upon

the flute; of this he was very vain. He instituted musical contests, in

which the musical performers of Alexandria played for prizes and crowns;

and he himself was accustomed to enter the lists with the rest as a

competitor. The people of Alexandria, and the world in general,

considered such pursuits as these wholly unworthy the attention of the

representative of so illustrious a line of sovereigns, and the

abhorrence which they felt for the monarch's vices and crimes was

mingled with a feeling of contempt for the meanness of his ambition.

There was a doubt in respect to his title to the crown, for his birth,

on the mother's side, was irregular and ignoble. Instead, however, of

attempting to confirm and secure his possession of power by a vigorous

and prosperous administration of the government, he wholly abandoned all

concern in respect to the course of public affairs; and then, to guard

against the danger of being deposed, he conceived the plan of getting

himself recognized at Rome as one of the allies of the Roman people. If

this were once done, he supposed that the Roman government would feel

under an obligation to sustain him on his throne in the event of any

threatened danger.

The Roman government was a sort of republic, and the two most powerful

men in the state at this time were Pompey and Caesar. Caesar was in the

ascendency at Rome at the time that Ptolemy made his application for an

alliance. Pompey was absent in Asia Minor, being engaged in prosecuting

a war with Mithradates, a very powerful monarch, who was at that time

resisting the Roman power. Caesar was very deeply involved in debt, and

was, moreover, very much in need of money, not only for relief from

existing embarrassments, but as a means of subsequent expenditure, to

enable him to accomplish certain great political schemes which he was

entertaining. After many negotiations and delays, it was agreed that

Caesar would exert his influence to secure an alliance between the Roman

people and Ptolemy, on condition that Ptolemy paid him the sum of six

thousand talents, equal to about six millions of dollars. A part of the

money, Caesar said, was for Pompey.

The title of ally was conferred, and Ptolemy undertook to raise the

money which he had promised by increasing the taxes of his kingdom. The

measures, however, which he thus adopted for the purpose of making

himself the more secure in his possession of the throne, proved to be

the means of overthrowing him. The discontent and disaffection of his

people, which had been strong and universal before, though suppressed

and concealed, broke out now into open violence. That there should be

laid upon them, in addition to all their other burdens, these new

oppressions, heavier than those which they had endured before, and

exacted for such a purpose too, was not to be endured. To be compelled

to see their country sold on any terms to the Roman people was

sufficiently hard to bear; but to be forced to raise, themselves, and

pay the price of the transfer, was absolutely intolerable. Alexandria

commenced a revolt. Ptolemy was not a man to act decidedly against such

a demonstration, or, in fact, to evince either calmness or courage in

any emergency whatever. His first thought was to escape from Alexandria

to save his life. His second, to make the best of his way to Rome, to

call upon the Roman people to come to the succor of their ally!

Ptolemy left five children behind him in his flight The eldest was the

Princess Berenice, who had already reached maturity. The second was the

great Cleopatra, the subject of this history. Cleopatra was, at this

time, about eleven years old. There were also two sons, but they were

very young. One of them was named Ptolemy.

The Alexandrians determined on raising Berenice to the throne in her

father's place, as soon as his flight was known. They thought that the

sons were too young to attempt to reign in such an emergency, as it was

very probable that Auletes, the father, would attempt to recover his

kingdom. Berenice very readily accepted the honor and power which were

offered to her. She established herself in her father's palace, and

began her reign in great magnificence and splendor. In process of time

she thought that her position would be strengthened by a marriage with a

royal prince from some neighboring realm. She first sent embassadors to

make proposals to a prince of Syria named Antiochus. The embassadors

came back, bringing word that Antiochus was dead, but that he had a

brother named Seleucus, upon whom the succession fell. Berenice then

sent them back to make the same offers to him. He accepted the

proposals, came to Egypt, and he and Berenice were married. After trying

him for a while, Berenice found that, for some reason or other, she did

not like him as a husband, and, accordingly she caused him to be

strangled.

At length, after various other intrigues and much secret management,

Berenice succeeded in a second negotiation, and married a prince, or a

pretended prince, from some country of Asia Minor, whose name was

Archelaus. She was better pleased with this second husband than she had

been with the first, and she began, at last, to feel somewhat settled

and established on her throne, and to be prepared, as she thought, to

offer effectual resistance to her father in case he should ever attempt

to return.

It was in the midst of the scenes, and surrounded by the influences

which might be expected to prevail in the families of such a father and

such a sister, that Cleopatra spent those years of life in which the

character is formed. During all these revolutions, and exposed to all

these exhibitions of licentious wickedness, and of unnatural cruelty and

crime, she was growing up in the royal palaces a spirited and beautiful,

but indulged and neglected child.

In the mean time, Auletes, the father, went on toward Rome. So far as

his character and his story were known among the surrounding nations, he

was the object of universal obloquy, both on account of his previous

career of degrading vice, and now, still more, for this ignoble flight

from the difficulties in which his vices and crimes had involved him.

He stopped, on the way, at the island of Rhodes. It happened that Cato,

the great Roman philosopher and general, was at Rhodes at this time.

Cato was a man of stern, unbending virtue, and of great influence at

that period in public affairs. Ptolemy sent a messenger to inform Cato

of his arrival, supposing, of course, that the Roman general would

hasten, on hearing of the fact, to pay his respects to so great a

personage as he, a king of Egypt--a Ptolemy--though suffering under a

temporary reverse of fortune. Cato directed the messenger to reply that,

so far as he was aware, he had no particular business with Ptolemy.

"Say, however, to the king," he added, "that, if he has any business

with me, he may call and see me, if he pleases."

Ptolemy was obliged to suppress his resentment and submit. He thought it

very essential to the success of his plans that he should see Cato, and

secure, if possible, his interest and co-operation; and he consequently

made preparations for paying, instead of receiving, the visit, intending

to go in the greatest royal state that he could command. He accordingly

appeared at Cato's lodgings on the following day, magnificently dressed,

and accompanied by many attendants. Cato, who was dressed in the

plainest and most simple manner, and whose apartment was furnished in a

style corresponding with the severity of his character, did not even

rise when the king entered the room. He simply pointed with his hand,

and bade the visitor take a seat.

Ptolemy began to make a statement of his case, with a view to obtaining

Cato's influence with the Roman people to induce them to interpose in

his behalf. Cato, however, far from evincing any disposition to espouse

his visitor's cause, censured him, in the plainest terms, for having

abandoned his proper position in his own kingdom, to go and make himself

a victim and a prey for the insatiable avarice of the Roman leaders.

"You can do nothing at Rome," he said, "but by the influence of bribes;

and all the resources of Egypt will not be enough to satisfy the Roman

greediness for money." He concluded by recommending him to go back to

Alexandria, and rely for his hopes of extrication from the difficulties

which surrounded him on the exercise of his own energy and resolution

there.

Ptolemy was greatly abashed at this rebuff, but, on consultation with

his attendants and followers, it was decided to be too late now to

return. The whole party accordingly re-embarked on board their galleys,

and pursued their way to Rome.

Ptolemy found, on his arrival at the city, that Caesar was absent in

Gaul, while Pompey, on the other hand, who had returned victorious from

his campaigns against Mithradates, was now the great leader of influence

and power at the Capitol. This change of circumstances was not, however,

particularly unfavorable; for Ptolemy was on friendly terms with Pompey,

as he had been with Caesar. He had assisted him in his wars with

Mithradates by sending him a squadron of horse, in pursuance of his

policy of cultivating friendly relations with the Roman people by every

means in his power. Besides, Pompey had received a part of the money

which Ptolemy had paid to Caesar as the price of the Roman alliance, and

was to receive his share of the rest in case Ptolemy should ever be

restored. Pompey was accordingly interested in favoring the royal

fugitive's cause. He received him in his palace, entertained him in

magnificent style, and took immediate measures for bringing his cause

before the Roman Senate, urging upon that body the adoption of immediate

and vigorous measures for effecting his restoration, as an ally whom

they were bound to protect against his rebellious subjects. There was at

first some opposition in the Roman Senate against espousing the cause of

such a man, but it was soon put down, being overpowered in part by

Pompey's authority, and in part silenced by Ptolemy's promises and

bribes. The Senate determined to restore the king to his throne, and

began to make arrangements for carrying the measure into effect.

The Roman provinces nearest to Egypt were Cilicia and Syria, countries

situated on the eastern and northeastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea,

north of Judea. The forces stationed in these provinces would be, of

course, the most convenient for furnishing the necessary troops for the

expedition. The province of Cilicia was under the command of the consul

Lentulus. Lentulus was at this time at Rome; he had repaired to the

capital for some temporary purpose, leaving his province and the troops

stationed there under the command, for the time, of a sort of lieutenant

general named Gabinius. It was concluded that this Lentulus, with his

Syrian forces, should undertake the task of reinstating Ptolemy on his

throne.

While these plans and arrangements were yet immature, a circumstance

occurred which threatened, for a time, wholly to defeat them. It seems

that when Cleopatra's father first left Egypt, he had caused a report to

be circulated there that he had been killed in the revolt. The object of

this stratagem was to cover and conceal his flight. The government of

Berenice soon discovered the truth, and learned that the fugitive had

gone in the direction of Rome. They immediately inferred that he was

going to appeal to the Roman people for aid, and they determined that,

if that were the case, the Roman people, before deciding in his favor,

should have the opportunity to hear their side of the story as well as

his. They accordingly made preparations at once for sending a very

imposing embassage to Rome. The deputation consisted of more than a

hundred persons. The object of Berenice's government in sending so large

a number was not only to evince their respect for the Roman people, and

their sense of the magnitude of the question at issue, but also to guard

against any efforts that Ptolemy might make to intercept the embassage

on the way, or to buy off the members of it by bribes. The number,

however large as it was, proved insufficient to accomplish this purpose.

The whole Roman world was at this time in such a condition of disorder

and violence, in the hands of the desperate and reckless military

leaders who then bore sway, that there were everywhere abundant

facilities for the commission of any conceivable crime. Ptolemy

contrived, with the assistance of the fierce partisans who had espoused

his cause, and who were deeply interested in his success on account of

the rewards which were promised them, to waylay and destroy a large

proportion of this company before they reached Rome. Some were

assassinated; some were poisoned; some were tampered with and bought off

by bribes. A small remnant reached Rome; but they were so intimidated by

the dangers which surrounded them, that they did not dare to take any

public action in respect to the business which had been committed to

their charge. Ptolemy began to congratulate himself on having completely

circumvented his daughter in her efforts to protect herself against his

designs.

Instead of that, however, it soon proved that the effect of this

atrocious treachery was exactly the contrary of what its perpetrators

had expected. The knowledge of the facts became gradually extended among

the people of Rome and it awakened a universal indignation. The party

who had been originally opposed to Ptolemy's cause seized the

opportunity to renew their opposition; and they gained so much strength

from the general odium which Ptolemy's crimes had awakened, that Pompey

found it almost impossible to sustain his cause.

At length the party opposed to Ptolemy found, or pretended to find, in

certain sacred books, called the Sibylline Oracles, which were kept in

the custody of the priests, and were supposed to contain prophetic

intimations of the will of Heaven in respect to the conduct of public

affairs, the following passage:

_"If a king of Egypt should apply to you for aid, treat him in a

friendly manner, but do not furnish him with troops; for if you

do, you will incur great danger."_

This made new difficulty for Ptolemy's friends. They attempted, at

first, to evade this inspired injunction by denying the reality of it.

There was no such passage to be found, they said. It was all an

invention of their enemies. This point seems to have been overruled, and

then they attempted to give the passage some other than the obvious

interpretation. Finally they maintained that, although it prohibited

their furnishing Ptolemy himself with troops, it did not forbid their

sending an armed force into Egypt under leaders of their own. _That_

they could certainly do; and then, when the rebellion was suppressed,

and Berenice's government overthrown, they could invite Ptolemy to

return to his kingdom and resume his crown in a peaceful manner. This,

they alleged, would not be "furnishing him with troops," and, of course

would not be disobeying the oracle.

These attempts to evade the direction of the oracle on the part of

Ptolemy's friends, only made the debates and dissensions between them

and his enemies more violent than ever. Pompey made every effort in his

power to aid Ptolemy's cause; but Lentulus, after long hesitation and

delay, decided that it would not be safe for him to embark in it. At

length, however, Gabinius, the lieutenant who commanded in Syria, was

induced to undertake the enterprise. On certain promises which he

received from Ptolemy, to be performed in case he succeeded, and with a

certain encouragement, not very legal or regular, which Pompey gave him,

in respect to the employment of the Roman troops under his command, he

resolved to march to Egypt. His route, of course, would lie along the

shores of the Mediterranean Sea, and through the desert, to Pelusium,

which has already been mentioned as the frontier town on this side of

Egypt. From Pelusium he was to march through the heart of the Delta to

Alexandria, and, if successful in his invasion, overthrow the government

of Berenice and Archelaus, and then, inviting Ptolemy to return,

reinstate him on the throne.

In the prosecution of this dangerous enterprise, Gabinius relied

strongly on the assistance of a very remarkable man, then his second in

command, who afterward acted a very important part in the subsequent

history of Cleopatra. His name was Mark Antony. Antony was born in Rome,

of a very distinguished family, but his father died when he was very

young, and being left subsequently much to himself, he became a very

wild and dissolute young man. He wasted the property which his father

had left him in folly and vice; and then going on desperately in the

same career, he soon incurred enormous debts, and involved himself, in

consequence, in inextricable difficulties. His creditors continually

harassed him with importunities for money, and with suits at law to

compel payments which he had no means of making. He was likewise

incessantly pursued by the hostility of the many enemies that he had

made in the city by his violence and his crimes. At length he absconded,

and went to Greece.

Here Gabinius, when on his way to Syria, met him, and invited him to

join his army rather than to remain where he was in idleness and

destitution. Antony, who was as proud and lofty in spirit as he was

degraded in morals and condition, refused to do this unless Gabinius

would give him a command. Gabinius saw in the daring and reckless energy

which Antony manifested the indications of the class of qualities which

in those days made a successful soldier, and acceded to his terms. He

gave him the command of his cavalry. Antony distinguished himself in the

Syrian campaigns that followed, and was now full of eagerness to engage

in this Egyptian enterprise. In fact, it was mainly his zeal and

enthusiasm to embark in the undertaking which was the means of deciding

Gabinius to consent to Ptolemy's proposals.

The danger and difficulty which they considered as most to be

apprehended in the whole expedition was the getting across the desert to

Pelusium. In fact, the great protection of Egypt had always been her

isolation. The trackless and desolate sands, being wholly destitute of

water, and utterly void, could be traversed, even by a caravan of

peaceful travelers, only with great difficulty and danger. For an army

to attempt to cross them, exposed, as the troops would necessarily be,

to the assaults of enemies who might advance to meet them on the way,

and sure of encountering a terrible opposition from fresh and vigorous

bands when they should arrive--wayworn and exhausted by the physical

hardships of the way--at the borders of the inhabited country, was a

desperate undertaking. Many instances occurred in ancient times in which

vast bodies of troops, in attempting marches over the deserts by which

Egypt was surrounded, were wholly destroyed by famine or thirst, or

overwhelmed by storms of sand.

These difficulties and dangers, however, did not at all intimidate Mark

Antony. The anticipation, in fact, of the glory of surmounting them was

one of the main inducements which led him to embark in the enterprise.

The perils of the desert constituted one of the charms which made the

expedition so attractive. He placed himself, therefore, at the head of

his troop of cavalry, and set off across the sands in advance of

Gabinius, to take Pelusium, in order thus to open a way for the main

body of the army into Egypt. Ptolemy accompanied Antony. Gabinius was to

follow.

With all his faults, to call them by no severer name, Mark Antony

possessed certain great excellences of character. He was ardent, but

then he was cool, collected, and sagacious; and there was a certain

frank and manly generosity continually evincing itself in his conduct

and character which made him a great favorite among his men. He was at

this time about twenty-eight years old, of a tall and manly form, and of

an expressive and intellectual cast of countenance. His forehead was

high, his nose aquiline, and his eyes full of vivacity and life. He was

accustomed to dress in a very plain and careless manner, and he assumed

an air of the utmost familiarity and freedom in his intercourse with his

soldiers. He would join them in their sports, joke with them, and

good-naturedly receive their jokes in return; and take his meals,

standing with them around their rude tables, in the open field. Such

habits of intercourse with his men in a commander of ordinary character

would have been fatal to his ascendency over them; but in Mark Antony's

case, these frank and familiar manners seemed only to make the military

genius and the intellectual power which he possessed the more

conspicuous and the more universally admired.

Antony conducted his troop of horsemen across the desert in a very safe

and speedy manner, and arrived before Pelusium. The city was not

prepared to resist him. It surrendered at once, and the whole garrison

fell into his hands as prisoners of war. Ptolemy demanded that they

should all be immediately killed. They were rebels, he said, and, as

such, ought to be put to death. Antony, however, as might have been

expected from his character, absolutely refused to allow of any such

barbarity. Ptolemy, since the power was not yet in his hands, was

compelled to submit, and to postpone gratifying the spirit of vengeance

which had so long been slumbering in his breast to a future day. He

could the more patiently submit to this necessity, since it appeared

that the day of his complete and final triumph over his daughter and all

her adherents was now very nigh at hand.

In fact, Berenice and her government, when they heard of the arrival of

Antony and Ptolemy at Pelusium, of the fall of that city, and of the

approach of Gabinius with an overwhelming force of Roman soldiers, were

struck with dismay. Archelaus, the husband of Berenice, had been, in

former years, a personal friend of Antony's. Antony considered, in fact,

that they were friends still, though required by what the historian

calls their duty to fight each other for the possession of the kingdom.

The government of Berenice raised an army. Archelaus took command of it,

and advanced to meet the enemy. In the mean time, Gabinius arrived with

the main body of the Roman troops, and commenced his march, in

conjunction with Antony, toward the capital. As they were obliged to

make a circuit to the southward, in order to avoid the inlets and

lagoons which, on the northern coast of Egypt, penetrate for some

distance into the land, their course led them through the heart of the

Delta. Many battles were fought, the Romans every where gaining the

victory. The Egyptian soldiers were, in fact, discontented and mutinous,

perhaps, in part, because they considered the government on the side of

which they were compelled to engage as, after all a usurpation. At

length a great final battle was fought, which settled the controversy.

Archelaus was slain upon the field, and Berenice was taken prisoner;

their government was wholly overthrown, and the way was opened for the

march of the Roman armies to Alexandria.

Mark Antony, when judged by our standards, was certainly, as well as

Ptolemy, a depraved and vicious man; but his depravity was of a very

different type from that of Cleopatra's father. The difference in the

men, in one respect, was very clearly evinced by the objects toward

which their interest and attention were respectively turned after this

great battle. While the contest had been going on, the king and queen of

Egypt, Archelaus and Berenice, were, of course, in the view both of

Antony and Ptolemy, the two most conspicuous personages in the army of

their enemies; and while Antony would naturally watch with the greatest

interest the fate of his friend, the king, Ptolemy, would as naturally

follow with the highest concern the destiny of his daughter.

Accordingly, when the battle was over, while the mind of Ptolemy might,

as we should naturally expect, be chiefly occupied by the fact that his

_daughter_ was made a captive, Antony's, we might suppose, would be

engrossed by the tidings that his _friend_ had been slain.

The one rejoiced and the other mourned. Antony sought for the body of

his friend on the field of battle, and when it was found, he gave

himself wholly to the work of providing for it a most magnificent

burial. He seemed, at the funeral, to lament the death of his ancient

comrade with real and unaffected grief. Ptolemy, on the other hand, was

overwhelmed with joy at finding his daughter his captive. The

long-wished-for hour for the gratification of his revenge had come at

last, and the first use which he made of his power when he was put in

possession of it at Alexandria was to order his daughter to be beheaded.

For You

Thursday April 19, 2007

CHAPTER III.

ALEXANDRIA.

Internal administration of the Ptolemies.--Industry of the people.--Its

happy effects.--Idleness the parent of vice.--An idle aristocracy

generally vicious.--Degradation and vice.--Employment a cure for

both.--Greatness of Alexandria.--Situation of its port.--Warehouses and

granaries.--Business of the port.--Scenes within the city.--The natives

protected in their industry.--Public edifices.--The light-house.--Fame

of the light-house.--Its conspicuous position.--Mode of lighting the

tower.--Modern method--The architect of the Pharos.--His ingenious

stratagem.--Ruins of the Pharos.--The Alexandrian library.--Immense

magnitude of the library.--The Serapion.--The Serapis of Egypt.--The

Serapis of Greece.--Ptolemy's dream.--Importance of the

statue.--Ptolemy's proposal to the King of Sinope.--His ultimate

success.--Mode of obtaining books.--The Jewish Scriptures.--Seclusion of

the Jews.--Interest felt in their Scriptures.--Jewish slaves in

Egypt.--Ptolemy's designs.--Ptolemy liberates the slaves.--Their ransom

paid.--Ptolemy's success.--The Septuagint.--Early copies of the

Septuagint.--Present copies.--Various other plans of the

Ptolemies.--Means of raising money.--Heavy taxes.--Poverty of the

people.--Ancient and modern capitals.--Liberality of the

Ptolemies.--Splendor and renown of Alexandria.--Her great rival.

It must not be imagined by the reader that the scenes of vicious

indulgence, and reckless cruelty and crime, which were exhibited with

such dreadful frequency, and carried to such an enormous excess in the

palaces of the Egyptian kings, prevailed to the same extent throughout

the mass of the community during the period of their reign. The internal

administration of government, and the institutions by which the

industrial pursuits of the mass of the people were regulated, and peace

and order preserved, and justice enforced between man and man, were all

this time in the hands of men well qualified, on the whole, for the

trusts committed to their charge, and in a good degree faithful in the

performance of their duties; and thus the ordinary affairs of

government, and the general routine of domestic and social life, went

on, notwithstanding the profligacy of the kings, in a course of very

tolerable peace, prosperity, and happiness. During every one of the

three hundred years over which the history of the Ptolemies extends, the

whole length and breadth of the land of Egypt exhibited, with

comparatively few interruptions, one wide-spread scene of busy industry.

The inundations came at their appointed season, and then regularly

retired. The boundless fields which the waters had fertilized were then

every where tilled. The lands were plowed; the seed was sown; the canals

and water-courses, which ramified from the river in every direction over

the ground, were opened or closed, as the case required, to regulate the

irrigation. The inhabitants were busy, and, consequently, they were

virtuous. And as the sky of Egypt is seldom or never darkened by clouds

and storms, the scene presented to the eye the same unchanging aspect of

smiling verdure and beauty, day after day, and month after month, until

the ripened grain was gathered into the store-houses, and the land was

cleared for another inundation.

We say that the people were virtuous because they were busy; for there

is no principle of political economy more fully established than that

vice in the social state is the incident and symptom of idleness. It

prevails always in those classes of every great population who are

either released by the possession of fixed and unchangeable wealth from

the necessity, or excluded by their poverty and degradation from the

advantage, of useful employment. Wealth that is free, and subject to its

possessor's control, so that he can, if he will, occupy himself in the

management of it, while it sometimes may make individuals vicious, does

not generally corrupt classes of men, for it does not make them idle.

But wherever the institutions of a country are such as to create an

aristocratic class, whose incomes depend on entailed estates, or on

fixed and permanent annuities, so that the capital on which they live

can not afford them any mental occupation, they are doomed necessarily

to inaction and idleness. Vicious pleasures and indulgences are, with

such a class as a whole, the inevitable result; for the innocent

enjoyments of man are planned and designed by the Author of Nature only

for the intervals of rest and repose in a life of activity. They are

always found wholly insufficient to satisfy one who makes pleasure the

whole end and aim of his being.

In the same manner, if, either from the influence of the social

institutions of a country, or from the operation of natural causes which

human power is unable to control, there is a class of men too low, and

degraded, and miserable to be reached by the ordinary inducements to

daily toil, so certain are they to grow corrupt and depraved, that

degradation has become in all languages a term almost synonymous with

vice. There are many exceptions, it is true, to these general laws. Many

active men are very wicked; and there have been frequent instances of

the most exalted virtue among nobles and kings. Still, as a general law,

it is unquestionably true that vice is the incident of idleness; and the

sphere of vice, therefore, is at the top and at the bottom of society--

those being the regions in which idleness reigns. The great remedy, too,

for vice is employment. To make a community virtuous, it is essential

that all ranks and gradations of it, from the highest to the lowest,

should have something to do.

In accordance with these principles, we observe that, while the most

extreme and abominable wickedness seemed to hold continual and absolute

sway in the palaces of the Ptolemies, and among the nobles of their

courts, the working ministers of state, and the men on whom the actual

governmental functions devolved, discharged their duties with wisdom and

fidelity, and throughout all the ordinary ranks and gradations of

society there prevailed generally a very considerable degree of

industry, prosperity and happiness. This prosperity prevailed not only

in the rural districts of the Delta and along the valley of the Nile,

but also among the merchants, and navigators, and artisans of

Alexandria.

Alexandria became, in fact, very soon after it was founded, a very great

and busy city. Many things conspired to make it at once a great

commercial emporium. In the first place, it was the depot of export for

all the surplus grain and other agricultural produce which was raised in

such abundance along the Egyptian valley. This produce was brought down

in boats to the upper point of the Delta, where the branches of the

river divided, and thence down the Canopic branch to the city. The city

was not, in fact, situated directly upon this branch, but upon a narrow

tongue of land, at a little distance from it, near the sea. It was not

easy to enter the channel directly, on account of the bars and

sand-banks at its mouth, produced by the eternal conflict between the

waters of the river and the surges of the sea. The water was deep,

however, as Alexander's engineers had discovered, at the place where the

city was built, and, by establishing the port there, and then cutting a

canal across to the Nile, they were enabled to bring the river and the

sea at once into easy communication.

The produce of the valley was thus brought down the river and through

the canal to the city. Here immense warehouses and granaries were

erected for its reception, that it might be safely preserved until the

ships that came into the port were ready to take it away. These ships

came from Syria, from all the coasts of Asia Minor, from Greece, and

from Rome. They brought the agricultural productions of their own

countries, as well as articles of manufacture of various kinds; these

they sold to the merchants of Alexandria, and purchased the productions

of Egypt in return.

The port of Alexandria presented thus a constant picture of life and

animation. Merchant ships were continually coming and going, or lying at

anchor in the roadstead. Seamen were hoisting sails, or raising anchors,

or rowing their capacious galleys through the water, singing, as they

pulled, to the motion of the oars. Within the city there was the same

ceaseless activity. Here groups of men were unloading the canal boats

which had arrived from the river. There porters were transporting bales

of merchandise or sacks of grain from a warehouse to a pier, or from one

landing to another The occasional parading of the king's guards, or the

arrival and departure of ships of war to land or to take away bodies of

armed men, were occurrences that sometimes intervened to interrupt, or

as perhaps the people then would have said, to adorn this scene of

useful industry; and now and then, for a brief period, these peaceful

vocations would be wholly suspended and set aside by a revolt or by a

civil war, waged by rival brothers against each other, or instigated by

the conflicting claims of a mother and son. These interruptions,

however, were comparatively few, and, in ordinary cases, not of long

continuance. It was for the interest of all branches of the royal line

to do as little injury as possible to the commercial and agricultural

operations of the realm. In fact, it was on the prosperity of those

operations that the revenues depended. The rulers were well aware of

this, and so, however implacably two rival princes may have hated one

another, and however desperately each party may have struggled to

destroy all active combatants whom they should find in arms against

them, they were both under every possible inducement to spare the

private property and the lives of the peaceful population. This

population, in fact, engaged thus in profitable industry, constituted,

with the avails of their labors, the very estate for which the

combatants were contending.

Seeing the subject in this light, the Egyptian sovereigns, especially

Alexander and the earlier Ptolemies, made every effort in their power to

promote the commercial greatness of Alexandria. They built palaces, it

is true, but they also built warehouses.

One of the most expensive and celebrated of all the edifices that they

reared was the light-house which has been already alluded to. This

light-house was a lofty tower, built of white marble. It was situated

upon the island of Pharos, opposite to the city, and at some distance

from it. There was a sort of isthmus of shoals and sand-bars connecting

the island with the shore. Over these shallows a pier or causeway was

built, which finally became a broad and inhabited neck. The principal

part of the ancient city, however, was on the main land.

The curvature of the earth requires that a light-house on a coast should

have a considerable elevation, otherwise its summit would not appear

above the horizon, unless the mariner were very near. To attain this

elevation, the architects usually take advantage of some hill or cliff,

or rocky eminence near the shore. There was, however, no opportunity to

do this at Pharos; for the island was, like the main land, level and

low. The requisite elevation could only be attained, therefore, by the

masonry of an edifice, and the blocks of marble necessary for the work

had to be brought from a great distance. The Alexandrian light-house was

reared in the time of Ptolemy Philadelphus, the second monarch in the

line. No pains or expense were spared in its construction. The edifice,

when completed, was considered one of the seven wonders of the world. It

was indebted for its fame, however, in some degree, undoubtedly to the

conspicuousness of its situation, rising, as it did, at the entrance of

the greatest commercial emporium of its time, and standing there, like a

pillar of cloud by day and of fire by night, to attract the welcome gaze

of every wandering mariner whose ship came within its horizon, and to

awaken his gratitude by tendering him its guidance and dispelling his

fears.

The light at the top of the tower was produced by a fire, made of such

combustibles as would emit the brightest flame. This fire burned slowly

through the day, and then was kindled up anew when the sun went down,

and was continually replenished through the night with fresh supplies of

fuel. In modern times, a much more convenient and economical mode is

adopted to produce the requisite illumination. A great blazing lamp

burns brilliantly in the center of the lantern of the tower, and all

that part of the radiation from the flame which would naturally have

beamed upward, or downward, or laterally, or back toward the land, is so

turned by a curious system of reflectors and polyzonal lenses, most

ingeniously contrived and very exactly adjusted, as to be thrown forward

in one broad and thin, but brilliant sheet of light, which shoots out

where its radiance is needed, over the surface of the sea. Before these

inventions were perfected, far the largest portion of the light emitted

by the illumination of light-house towers streamed away wastefully in

landward directions, or was lost among the stars.

Of course, the glory of erecting such an edifice as the Pharos of

Alexandria, and of maintaining it in the performance of its functions,

was very great; the question might, however, very naturally arise

whether this glory was justly due to the architect through whose

scientific skill the work was actually accomplished, or to the monarch

by whose power and resources the architect was sustained. The name of

the architect was Sostratus. He was a Greek. The monarch was, as has

already been stated, the second Ptolemy, called commonly Ptolemy

Philadelphus. Ptolemy ordered that, in completing the tower, a marble

tablet should be built into the wall, at a suitable place near the

summit, and that a proper inscription should be carved upon it, with his

name as the builder of the edifice conspicuous thereon. Sostratus

preferred inserting his own name. He accordingly made the tablet and set

it in its place. He cut the inscription upon the face of it, in Greek

characters, with his own name as the author of the work. He did this

secretly, and then covered the face of the tablet with an artificial

composition, made with lime, to imitate the natural surface of the

stone. On this outer surface he cut a new inscription, in which he

inserted the name of the king. In process of time the lime moldered

away, the king's inscription disappeared, and his own, which

thenceforward continued as long as the building endured, came out to

view.

The Pharos was said to have been four hundred feet high. It was famed

throughout the world for many centuries; nothing, however, remains of it

now but a heap of useless and unmeaning ruins.

Besides the light that beamed from the summit of this lofty tower, there

was another center of radiance and illumination in ancient Alexandria,

which was in some respects still more conspicuous and renowned, namely,

an immense library and museum established and maintained by the

Ptolemies. The Museum, which was first established, was not, as its name

might now imply, a collection of curiosities, but an institution of

learning, consisting of a body of learned men, who devoted their time to

philosophical and scientific pursuits. The institution was richly

endowed, and magnificent buildings were erected for its use. The king

who established it began immediately to make a collection of books for

the use of the members of the institution. This was attended with great

expense, as every book that was added to the collection required to be

transcribed with a pen on parchment or papyrus with infinite labor and

care. Great numbers of scribes were constantly employed upon this work

at the Museum. The kings who were most interested in forming this

library would seize the books that were possessed by individual

scholars, or that were deposited in the various cities of their

dominions, and then, causing beautiful copies of them to be made by the

scribes of the Museum, they would retain the originals for the great

Alexandrian library, and give the copies to the men or the cities that

had been thus despoiled. In the same manner they would borrow, as they

called it, from all travelers who visited Egypt, any valuable books

which they might have in their possession, and, retaining the originals,

give them back copies instead.

In process of time the library increased to four hundred thousand

volumes. There was then no longer any room in the buildings of the

Museum for further additions. There was, however, in another part of the

city, a great temple called the Serapion. This temple was a very

magnificent edifice, or, rather, group of edifices, dedicated to the god

Serapis. The origin and history of this temple were very remarkable. The

legend was this:

It seems that one of the ancient and long-venerated gods of the

Egyptians was a deity named Serapis. He had been, among other

divinities, the object of Egyptian adoration ages before Alexandria was

built or the Ptolemies reigned. There was also, by a curious

coincidence, a statue of the same name at a great commercial town named

Sinope, which was built upon the extremity of a promontory which

projected from Asia Minor into the Euxine Sea. Sinope was, in some

sense, the Alexandria of the north, being the center and seat of a great

portion of the commerce of that quarter of the world.

The Serapis of Sinope was considered as the protecting deity of seamen,

and the navigators who came and went to and from the city made

sacrifices to him, and offered him oblations and prayers, believing that

they were, in a great measure, dependent upon some mysterious and

inscrutable power which he exercised for their safety in storms. They

carried the knowledge of his name, and tales of his imaginary

interpositions, to all the places that they visited; and thus the fame

of the god became extended, first, to all the coasts of the Euxine Sea,

and subsequently to distant provinces and kingdoms. The Serapis of

Sinope began to be considered every where as the tutelar god of seamen.

Accordingly, when the first of the Ptolemies was forming his various

plans for adorning and aggrandizing Alexandria, he received, he said,

one night, a divine intimation in a dream that he was to obtain the

statue of Serapis from Sinope, and set it up in Alexandria, in a

suitable temple which he was in the mean time to erect in honor of the

god. It is obvious that very great advantages to the city would result

from the accomplishment of this design. In the first place, a temple to

the god Serapis would be a new distinction for it in the minds of the

rural population, who would undoubtedly suppose that the deity honored

by it was their own ancient god. Then the whole maritime and nautical

interest of the world, which had been, accustomed to adore the god of

Sinope, would turn to Alexandria as the great center of religious

attraction, if their venerated idol could be carried and placed in a new

and magnificent temple built expressly for him there. Alexandria could

never be the chief naval port and station of the world, unless it

contained the sanctuary and shrine of the god of seamen.

Ptolemy sent accordingly to the King of Sinope and proposed to purchase

the idol. The embassage was, however, unsuccessful. The king refused to

give up the god. The negotiations were continued for two years, but all

in vain. At length, on account of some failure in the regular course of

the seasons on that coast, there was a famine there, which became

finally so severe that the people of the city were induced to consent to

give up their deity to the Egyptians in exchange for a supply of corn.

Ptolemy sent the corn and received the idol. He then built the temple,

which, when finished, surpassed in grandeur and magnificence almost

every sacred structure in the world.

It was in this temple that the successive additions to the Alexandrian

library were deposited, when the apartments of the Museum became full.

In the end there were four hundred thousand rolls or volumes in the

Museum, and three hundred thousand in the Serapion. The former was

called the parent library, and the latter, being, as it were, the

offspring of the first, was called the daughter.

Ptolemy Philadelphus, who interested himself very greatly in collecting

this library, wished to make it a complete collection of all the books

in the world. He employed scholars to read and study, and travelers to

make extensive tours, for the purpose of learning what books existed

among all the surrounding nations; and, when he learned of their

existence, he spared no pains or expense in attempting to procure either

the originals themselves, or the most perfect and authentic copies of

them. He sent to Athens and obtained the works of the most celebrated

Greek historians, and then causing, as in other cases, most beautiful

transcripts to be made, he sent the transcripts back to Athens, and a

very large sum of money with them as an equivalent for the difference of

value between originals and copies in such an exchange.

In the course of the inquiries which Ptolemy made into the literature of

the surrounding nations, in his search for accessions to his library, he

heard that the Jews had certain sacred writings in their temple at

Jerusalem, comprising a minute and extremely interesting history of

their nation from the earliest periods and also many other books of

sacred prophecy and poetry. These books, which were, in fact, the Hebrew

Scriptures of the Old Testament, were then wholly unknown to all nations

except the Jews, and among the Jews were known only to priests and

scholars. They were kept sacred at Jerusalem. The Jews would have

considered them as profaned in being exhibited to the view of pagan

nations. In fact, the learned men of other countries would not have been

able to read them; for the Jews secluded themselves so closely from the

rest of mankind, that their language was, in that age, scarcely ever

heard beyond the confines of Judea and Galilee.

Ptolemy very naturally thought that a copy of these sacred books would

be a great acquisition to his library. They constituted, in fact, the

whole literature of a nation which was, in some respects, the most

extraordinary that ever existed on the globe. Ptolemy conceived the

idea, also, of not only adding to his library a copy of these writings

in the original Hebrew, but of causing a translation of them to be made

into Greek, so that they might easily be read by the Greek and Roman

scholars who were drawn in great numbers to his capital by the libraries

and the learned institutions which he had established there. The first

thing to be effected, however, in accomplishing either of these plans,

was to obtain the consent of the Jewish authorities. They would probably

object to giving up any copy of their sacred writings at all.

There was one circumstance which led Ptolemy to imagine that the Jews

would, at that time particularly, be averse to granting any request of

such a nature coming from an Egyptian king, and that was, that during

certain wars which had taken place in previous reigns, a considerable

number of prisoners had been taken by the Egyptians, and had been

brought to Egypt as captives, where they had been sold to the

inhabitants, and were now scattered over the land as slaves. They were

employed as servile laborers in tilling the fields, or in turning

enormous wheels to pump up water from the Nile. The masters of these

hapless bondmen conceived, like other slave-holders, that they had a

right of property in their slaves. This was in some respects true, since

they had bought them of the government at the close of the war for a

consideration; and though they obviously derived from this circumstance

no valid proprietary right or claim as against the men personally, it

certainly would seem that it gave them a just claim against the

government of whom they bought, in case of subsequent manumission.

Ptolemy or his minister, for it can not now be known who was the real

actor in these transactions, determined on liberating these slaves and

sending them back to their native land, as a means of propitiating the

Jews and inclining them to listen favorably to the request which he was

about to prefer for a copy of their sacred writings. He, however, paid

to those who held the captives a very liberal sum for ransom. The

ancient historians, who never allow the interest of their narratives to

suffer for want of a proper amplification on their part of the scale on

which the deeds which they record were performed, say that the number of

slaves liberated on this occasion was a hundred and twenty thousand, and

the sum paid for them, as compensation to the owners, was six hundred

talents, equal to six hundred thousand dollars.[1]

[Footnote 1: It will be sufficiently accurate for the general

reader of history to consider the Greek talent, referred to in

such transactions as these, as equal in English money to two

hundred and fifty pounds, in American to a thousand dollars.

It is curious to observe that, large as the total was that was

paid for the liberation of these slaves, the amount paid for

each individual was, after all, only a sum equal to about five

dollars.]

And yet this was only a preliminary expense to pave the way for the

acquisition of a single series of books, to add to the variety of the

immense collection.

After the liberation and return of the captives, Ptolemy sent a splendid

embassage to Jerusalem, with very respectful letters to the high priest,

and with very magnificent presents. The embassadors were received with

the highest honors. The request of Ptolemy that he should be allowed to

take a copy of the sacred books for his library was very readily

granted. The priests caused copies to be made of all the sacred

writings. These copies were executed in the most magnificent style, and

were splendidly illuminated with letters of gold. The Jewish government

also, at Ptolemy's request, designated a company of Hebrew scholars, six

from each tribe--men learned in both the Greek and Hebrew languages--to

proceed to Alexandria, and there, at the Museum, to make a careful

translation of the Hebrew books into Greek. As there were twelve tribes,

and six translators chosen from each, there were seventy-two translators

in all. They made their translation, and it was called the _Septuagini_,

from the Latin _septuaginta duo_, which means seventy-two.

Although out of Judea there was no feeling of reverence for these Hebrew

Scriptures as books of divine authority, there was still a strong

interest felt in them as very entertaining and curious works of history,

by all the Greek and Roman scholars who frequented Alexandria to study

at the Museum. Copies were accordingly made of the Septuagint

translation, and were taken to other countries; and there, in process of

time, copies of the copies were made, until at length the work became

extensively circulated throughout the whole learned world. When,

finally, Christianity became extended over the Roman empire, the priests

and monks looked with even a stronger interest than the ancient scholars

had felt upon this early translation of so important a portion of the

sacred Scriptures. They made new copies for abbeys, monasteries, and

colleges; and when, at length, the art of printing was discovered, this

work was one of the first on which the magic power of typography was

tried. The original manuscript made by the scribes of the seventy-two,

and all the early transcripts which were made from it, have long since

been lost or destroyed; but, instead of them, we have now hundreds of

thousands of copies in compact printed volumes, scattered among the

public and private libraries of Christendom. In fact, now, after the

lapse of two thousand years, a copy of Ptolemy's Septuagint may be

obtained of any considerable bookseller in any country of the civilized

world; and though it required a national embassage, and an expenditure,

if the accounts are true, of more than a million of dollars, originally

to obtain it, it may be procured without difficulty now by two days'

wages of an ordinary laborer.

Besides the building of the Pharos, the Museum, and the Temple of

Serapis, the early Ptolemies formed and executed a great many other

plans tending to the same ends which the erection of these splendid

edifices was designed to secure, namely, to concentrate in Alexandria

all possible means of attraction, commercial, literary, and religious,

so as to make the city the great center of interest, and the common

resort for all mankind. They raised immense revenues for these and other

purposes by taxing heavily the whole agricultural produce of the valley

of the Nile. The inundations, by the boundless fertility which they

annually produced, supplied the royal treasuries. Thus the Abyssinian

rains at the sources of the Nile built the Pharos at its mouth, and

endowed the Alexandrian library.

The taxes laid upon the people of Egypt to supply the Ptolemies with

funds were, in fact, so heavy, that only the bare means of subsistence

were left to the mass of the agricultural population. In admiring the

greatness and glory of the city, therefore, we must remember that there

was a gloomy counterpart to its splendor in the very extended

destitution and poverty to which the mass of the people were everywhere

doomed. They lived in hamlets of wretched huts along the banks of the

river, in order that the capital might be splendidly adorned with

temples and palaces. They passed their lives in darkness and ignorance,

that seven hundred thousand volumes of expensive manuscripts might be

enrolled at the Museum for the use of foreign philosophers and scholars.

The policy of the Ptolemies was, perhaps, on the whole, the best, for

the general advancement and ultimate welfare of mankind, which could

have been pursued in the age in which they lived and acted; but, in

applauding the results which they attained, we must not wholly forget

the cost which they incurred in attaining them. At the same cost, we

could, at the present day, far surpass them. If the people of the United

States will surrender the comforts and conveniences which they

individually enjoy--if the farmers scattered in their comfortable homes

on the hill-sides and plains throughout the land will give up their

houses, their furniture, their carpets, their books, and the privileges

of their children, and then--withholding from the produce of their

annual toil only a sufficient reservation to sustain them and their

families through the year, in a life like that of a beast of burden,

spent in some miserable and naked hovel--send the rest to some

hereditary sovereign residing upon the Atlantic sea-board, that he may

build with the proceeds a splendid capital, they may have an Alexandria

now that will infinitely exceed the ancient city of the Ptolemies in

splendor and renown. The nation, too, would, in such a case, pay for its

metropolis the same price, precisely, that the ancient Egyptians paid

for theirs.

The Ptolemies expended the revenues which they raised by this taxation

mainly in a very liberal and enlightened manner, for the accomplishment

of the purposes which they had in view. The building of the Pharos, the

removal of the statue of Serapis, and the endowment of the Museum and

the library were great conceptions, and they were carried into effect in

the most complete and perfect manner. All the other operations which

they devised and executed for the extension and aggrandizement of the

city were conceived and executed in the same spirit of scientific and

enlightened liberality. Streets were opened; the most splendid palaces

were built; docks, piers and breakwaters were constructed, and

fortresses and towers were armed and garrisoned. Then every means was

employed to attract to the city a great concourse from all the most

highly-civilized nations then existing. The highest inducements were

offered to merchants, mechanics, and artisans to make the city their

abode. Poets, painters, sculptors, and scholars of every nation and

degree were made welcome, and every facility was afforded them for the

prosecution of their various pursuits. These plans were all eminently

successful. Alexandria rose rapidly to the highest consideration and

importance; and, at the time when Cleopatra--born to preside over this

scene of magnificence and splendor--came upon the stage, the city had

but one rival in the world. That rival was Rome.

For You

Wednesday April 18, 2007

CHAPTER II.

THE PTOLEMIES.

The dynasty of the Ptolemies.--The founder.--Philip of

Macedon.--Alexander.--The intrigue discovered.--Ptolemy

banished.--Accession of Alexander.--Ptolemy's elevation.--Death of

Alexander.--Ptolemy becomes King of Egypt.--Character of Ptolemy's

reign.--The Alexandrian library.--Abdication of Ptolemy.--Ptolemy

Philadelphus.--Death of Ptolemy.--Subsequent degeneracy of the

Ptolemies.--Incestuous marriages of the Ptolemy family.--Ptolemy

Physcon.--Origin of his name.--Circumstances of Physcon's

accession.--Cleopatra.--Physcon's brutal perfidity.--He marries his

wife's daughter.--Atrocities of Physcon.--His flight.--Cleopatra assumes

the government.--Her birth-day.--Barbarity of Physcon.--Grief of

Cleopatra.--General character of the Ptolemy family.--Lathyrus.

--Terrible quarrels with his mother.--Cruelties of Cleopatra.

--Alexander kills her.--Cleopatra a type of the family.--Her

two daughters.--Unnatural war.--Tryphena's hatred of her sister.--Taking

of Antioch.--Cleopatra flees to a temple.--Jealousy of Tryphena.--Her

resentment increases.--Cruel and sacrilegious murder.--The moral

condition of mankind not degenerating.

The founder of the dynasty of the Ptolemies--the ruler into whose hands

the kingdom of Egypt fell, as has already been stated, at the death of

Alexander the Great--was a Macedonian general in Alexander's army. The

circumstances of his birth, and the events which led to his entering

into the service of Alexander, were somewhat peculiar. His mother, whose

name was Arsinoe, was a personal favorite and companion of Philip, king

of Macedon, the father of Alexander. Philip at length gave Arsinoe in

marriage to a certain man of his court named Lagus. A very short time

after the marriage, Ptolemy was born. Philip treated the child with the

same consideration and favor that he had evinced toward the mother. The

boy was called the son of Lagus, but his position in the royal court of

Macedon was as high and honorable, and the attentions which he received

were as great, as he could have expected to enjoy if he had been in

reality a son of the king. As he grew up, he attained to official

stations of considerable responsibility and power.

In the course of time, a certain transaction occurred by means of which

Ptolemy involved himself in serious difficulty with Philip, though by

the same means he made Alexander very strongly his friend. There was a

province of the Persian empire called Caria, situated in the

southwestern part of Asia Minor. The governor of this province had

offered his daughter to Philip as the wife of one of his sons named

Aridaeus, the half brother of Alexander. Alexander's mother, who was not

the mother of Aridaeus, was jealous of this proposed marriage. She

thought that it was part of a scheme for bringing Aridaeus forward into

public notice, and finally making him the heir to Philip's throne;

whereas she was very earnest that this splendid inheritance should be

reserved for her own son. Accordingly, she proposed to Alexander that

they should send a secret embassage to the Persian governor, and

represent to him that it would be much better, both for him and for his

daughter, that she should have Alexander instead of Aridaeus for a

husband, and induce him, if possible, to demand of Philip that he should

make the change.

Alexander entered readily into this scheme, and various courtiers,

Ptolemy among the rest, undertook to aid him in the accomplishment of

it. The embassy was sent. The governor of Caria was very much pleased

with the change which they proposed to him. In fact, the whole plan

seemed to be going on very successfully toward its accomplishment, when,

by some means or other, Philip discovered the intrigue. He went

immediately into Alexander's apartment, highly excited with resentment

and anger. He had never intended to make Aridaeus, whose birth on the

mother's side was obscure and ignoble, the heir to his throne, and he

reproached Alexander in the bitterest terms for being of so debased and

degenerate a spirit as to desire to marry the daughter of a Persian

governor; a man who was, in fact, the mere slave, as he said, of a

barbarian king.

Alexander's scheme was thus totally defeated; and so displeased was his

father with the officers who had undertaken to aid him in the execution

of it, that he banished them all from the kingdom. Ptolemy, in

consequence of this decree, wandered about an exile from his country for

some years, until at length the death of Philip enabled Alexander to

recall him. Alexander succeeded his father as King of Macedon, and

immediately made Ptolemy one of his principal generals. Ptolemy rose, in

fact, to a very high command in the Macedonian army, and distinguished

himself very greatly in all the celebrated conqueror's subsequent

campaigns. In the Persian invasion, Ptolemy commanded one of the three

grand divisions of the army, and he rendered repeatedly the most signal

services to the cause of his master. He was employed on the most distant

and dangerous enterprises, and was often intrusted with the management

of affairs of the utmost importance. He was very successful in all his

undertakings. He conquered armies, reduced fortresses, negotiated

treaties, and evinced, in a word, the highest degree of military energy

and skill. He once saved Alexander's life by discovering and revealing a

dangerous conspiracy which had been formed against the king. Alexander

had the opportunity to requite this favor, through a divine

interposition vouchsafed to him, it was said, for the express purpose of

enabling him to evince his gratitude. Ptolemy had been wounded by a

poisoned arrow, and when all the remedies and antidotes of the

physicians had failed, and the patient was apparently about to die, an

effectual means of cure was revealed to Alexander in a dream, and

Ptolemy, in his turn, was saved.

At the great rejoicings at Susa, when Alexander's conquests were

completed, Ptolemy was honored with a golden crown, and he was married,

with great pomp and ceremony, to Artacama, the daughter of one of the

most distinguished Persian generals.

At length Alexander died suddenly, after a night of drinking and

carousal at Babylon. He had no son old enough to succeed him, and his

immense empire was divided among his generals. Ptolemy obtained Egypt

for his share. He repaired immediately to Alexandria, with a great army,

and a great number of Greek attendants and followers, and there

commenced a reign which continued, in great prosperity and splendor, for

forty years. The native Egyptians were reduced, of course, to subjection

and bondage. All the offices in the army, and all stations of trust and

responsibility in civil life, were filled by Greeks. Alexandria was a

Greek city, and it became at once one of the most important commercial

centers in all those seas. Greek and Roman travelers found now a

language spoken in Egypt which they could understand, and philosophers

and scholars could gratify the curiosity which they had so long felt, in

respect to the institutions, and monuments, and wonderful physical

characteristics of the country, with safety and pleasure. In a word, the

organization of a Greek government over the ancient kingdom, and the

establishment of the great commercial relations of the city of

Alexandria, conspired to bring Egypt out from its concealment and

seclusion, and to open it in some measure to the intercourse, as well as

to bring it more fully under the observation, of the rest of mankind.

Ptolemy, in fact, made it a special object of his policy to accomplish

these ends. He invited Greek scholars, philosophers, poets, and artists,

in great numbers, to come to Alexandria, and to make his capital their

abode. He collected an immense library, which subsequently, under the

name of the Alexandrian library, became one of the most celebrated

collections of books and manuscripts that was ever made. We shall have

occasion to refer more particularly to this library in the next chapter.

Besides prosecuting these splendid schemes for the aggrandizement of

Egypt, King Ptolemy was engaged, during almost the whole period of his

reign, in waging incessant wars with the surrounding nations. He engaged

in these wars, in part, for the purpose of extending the boundaries of

his empire, and in part for self-defense against the aggressions and

encroachments of other powers. He finally succeeded in establishing his

kingdom on the most stable and permanent basis, and then, when he was

drawing toward the close of his life, being in fact over eighty years of

age, he abdicated his throne in favor of his youngest son, whose name

was also Ptolemy, Ptolemy the father, the founder of the dynasty, is

known commonly in history by the name of Ptolemy Soter. His son is

called Ptolemy Philadelphia. This son, though the youngest, was

preferred to his brothers as heir to the throne on account of his being

the son of the most favored and beloved of the monarch's wives. The

determination of Soter to abdicate the throne himself arose from his

wish to put this favorite son in secure possession of it before his

death, in order to prevent the older brothers from disputing the

succession. The coronation of Philadelphus was made one of the most

magnificent and imposing ceremonies that royal pomp and parade ever

arranged. Two years afterward Ptolemy the father died, and was buried by

his son with a magnificence almost equal to that of his own coronation.

His body was deposited in a splendid mausoleum, which had been built for

the remains of Alexander; and so high was the veneration which was felt

by mankind for the greatness of his exploits and the splendor of his

reign, that divine honors were paid to his memory. Such was the origin

of the great dynasty of the Ptolemies.

Some of the early sovereigns of the line followed in some degree the

honorable example set them by the distinguished founder of it; but this

example was soon lost, and was succeeded by the most extreme degeneracy

and debasement. The successive sovereigns began soon to live and to

reign solely for the gratification of their own sensual propensities and

passions. Sensuality begins sometimes with kindness, but it ends always

in the most reckless and intolerable cruelty. The Ptolemies became, in

the end, the most abominable and terrible tyrants that the principle of

absolute and irresponsible power ever produced. There was one vice in

particular, a vice which they seem to have adopted from the Asiatic

nations of the Persian empire, that resulted in the most awful

consequences. This vice was incest.

The law of God, proclaimed not only in the Scriptures, but in the native

instincts of the human soul, forbids intermarriages among those

connected by close ties of consanguinity. The necessity for such a law

rests on considerations which can not here be fully explained. They are

considerations, however, which arise from causes inherent in the very

nature of man as a social being, and which are of universal, perpetual,

and insurmountable force. To guard his creatures against the deplorable

consequences, both physical and moral, which result from the practice of

such marriages, the great Author of Nature has implanted in every mind

an instinctive sense of their criminality, powerful enough to give

effectual warning of the danger, and so universal as to cause a distinct

condemnation of them to be recorded in almost every code of written law

that has ever been promulgated among mankind. The Persian sovereigns

were, however, above all law, and every species of incestuous marriage

was practiced by them without shame. The Ptolemies followed their

example.

One of the most striking exhibitions of the nature of incestuous

domestic life which is afforded by the whole dismal panorama of pagan

vice and crime, is presented in the history of the great-grandfather of

the Cleopatra who is the principal subject of this narrative. He was

Ptolemy Physcon, the seventh in the line. It is necessary to give some

particulars of his history and that of his family, in order to explain

the circumstances under which Cleopatra herself came upon the stage. The

name Physcon, which afterward became his historical designation, was

originally given him in contempt and derision. He was very small of

stature in respect to height, but his gluttony and sensuality had made

him immensely corpulent in body, so that he looked more like a monster

than a man. The term Physcon was a Greek word, which denoted

opprobriously the ridiculous figure that he made.

The circumstances of Ptolemy Physcon's accession to the throne afford

not only a striking illustration of his character, but a very faithful

though terrible picture of the manners and morals of the times. He had

been engaged in a long and cruel war with his brother, who was king

before him, in which war he had perpetrated all imaginable atrocities,

when at length his brother died, leaving as his survivors his wife, who

was also his sister, and a son who was yet a child. This son was

properly the heir to the crown. Physcon himself, being a brother, had no

claim, as against a son. The name of the queen was Cleopatra. This was,

in fact, a very common name among the princesses of the Ptolemaic line.

Cleopatra, besides her son, had a daughter, who was at this time a young

and beautiful girl. Her name was also Cleopatra. She was, of course, the

niece, as her mother was the sister, of Physcon.

The plan of Cleopatra the mother, after her husband's death, was to make

her son the king of Egypt, and to govern herself, as regent, until he

should become of age. The friends and adherents of Physcon, however,

formed a strong party in _his_ favor. They sent for him to come to

Alexandria to assert his claims to the throne. He came, and a new civil

war was on the point of breaking out between the brother and sister,

when at length the dispute was settled by a treaty, in which it was

stipulated that Physcon should marry Cleopatra, and be king; but that he

should make the son of Cleopatra by her former husband his heir. This

treaty was carried into effect so far as the celebration of the marriage

with the mother was concerned, and the establishment of Physcon upon the

throne. But the perfidious monster, instead of keeping his faith in

respect to the boy, determined to murder him; and so open and brutal

were his habits of violence and cruelty, that he undertook to perpetrate

the deed himself, in open day. The boy fled shrieking to the mother's

arms for protection, and Physcon stabbed and killed him there,

exhibiting the spectacle of a newly-married husband murdering the son of

his wife in her very arms!

It is easy to conceive what sort of affection would exist between a

husband and a wife after such transactions as these. In fact, there had

been no love between them from the beginning. The marriage had been

solely a political arrangement. Physcon hated his wife, and had murdered

her son, and then, as if to complete the exhibition of the brutal

lawlessness and capriciousness of his passions, he ended with falling in

love with her daughter. The beautiful girl looked upon this heartless

monster, as ugly and deformed in body as he was in mind, with absolute

horror. But she was wholly in his power. He compelled her, by violence,

to submit to his will. He repudiated the mother, and forced the daughter

to become his wife.

Physcon displayed the same qualities of brutal tyranny and cruelty in

the treatment of his subjects that he manifested in his own domestic

relations. The particulars we can not here give, but can only say that

his atrocities became at length absolutely intolerable, and a revolt so

formidable broke out, that he fled from the country. In fact he barely

escaped with his life, as the mob had surrounded the palace and were

setting it on fire, intending to burn the tyrant himself and all the

accomplices of his crimes together. Physcon, however, contrived to make

his escape. He fled to the island of Cyprus, taking with him a certain

beautiful boy, his son by the Cleopatra whom he had divorced; for they

had been married long enough before the divorce, to have a son. The name

of this boy was Memphitis. His mother was very tenderly attached to him,

and Physcon took him away on this very account, to keep him as a hostage

for his mother's good behavior. He fancied that, when he was gone, she

might possibly attempt to resume possession of the throne.

His expectations in this respect were realized. The people of Alexandria

rallied around Cleopatra, and called upon her to take the crown. She did

so, feeling, perhaps, some misgivings in respect to the danger which

such a step might possibly bring upon her absent boy. She quieted

herself, however, by the thought that he was in the hands of his own

father, and that he could not possibly come to harm.

After some little time had elapsed, and Cleopatra was beginning to be

well established in her possession of the supreme power at Alexandria,

her birth-day approached, and arrangements were made for celebrating it

in the most magnificent manner. When the day arrived, the whole city was

given up to festivities and rejoicing. Grand entertainments were given

in the palace, and games, spectacles, and plays in every variety, were

exhibited and performed in all quarters of the city. Cleopatra herself

was enjoying a magnificent entertainment, given to the lords and ladies

of the court and the officers of her army, in one of the royal palaces.

In the midst of this scene of festivity and pleasure, it was announced

to the queen that a large box had arrived for her. The box was brought

into the apartment. It had the appearance of containing some magnificent

present, sent in at that time by some friend in honor of the occasion.

The curiosity of the queen was excited to know what the mysterious

coffer might contain. She ordered it to be opened; and the guests

gathered around, each eager to obtain the first glimpse of the contents.

The lid was removed, and a cloth beneath it was raised, when, to the

unutterable horror of all who witnessed the spectacle, there was seen

the head and hands of Cleopatra's beautiful boy, lying among masses of

human flesh, which consisted of the rest of his body cut into pieces.

The head had been left entire, that the wretched mother might recognize

in the pale and lifeless features the countenance of her son. Physcon

had sent the box to Alexandria, with orders that it should be retained

until the evening of the birth-day, and then presented publicly to

Cleopatra in the midst of the festivities of the scene. The shrieks and

cries with which she filled the apartments of the palace at the first

sight of the dreadful spectacle, and the agony of long-continued and

inconsolable grief which followed, showed how well the cruel contrivance

of the tyrant was fitted to accomplish its end.

It gives us no pleasure to write, and we are sure it can give our

readers no pleasure to peruse, such shocking stories of bloody cruelty

as these. It is necessary, however, to a just appreciation of the

character of the great subject of this history, that we should

understand the nature of the domestic influences that reigned in the

family from which she sprung. In fact, it is due, as a matter of simple

justice to her, that we should know what these influences were, and what

were the examples set before her in her early life; since the privileges

and advantages which the young enjoy in their early years, and, on the

other hand, the evil influences under which they suffer, are to be taken

very seriously into the account when we are passing judgment upon the

follies and sins into which they subsequently fall.

The monster Physcon lived, it is true, two or three generations before

the great Cleopatra; but the character of the intermediate generations,

until the time of her birth, continued much the same. In fact, the

cruelty, corruption, and vice which reigned in every branch of the royal

family increased rather than diminished. The beautiful niece of Physcon,

who, at the time of her compulsory marriage with him, evinced such an

aversion to the monster, had become, at the period of her husband's

death, as great a monster of ambition, selfishness, and cruelty as he.

She had two sons, Lathyrus and Alexander. Physcon, when he died, left

the kingdom of Egypt to her by will, authorizing her to associate with

her in the government whichever of these two sons she might choose. The

oldest was best entitled to this privilege, by his priority of birth;

but she preferred the youngest, as she thought that her own power would

be more absolute in reigning in conjunction with him, since he would be

more completely under her control. The leading powers, however, in

Alexandria, resisted this plan, and insisted on Cleopatra's associating

her oldest son, Lathyrus, with her in the government of the realm. They

compelled her to recall Lathyrus from the banishment into which she had

sent him, and to put him nominally upon the throne. Cleopatra yielded to

this necessity, but she forced her son to repudiate his wife, and to

take, instead, another woman, whom she fancied she could make more

subservient to her will. The mother and the son went on together for a

time, Lathyrus being nominally king, though her determination that she

would rule, and his struggles to resist her intolerable tyranny, made

their wretched household the scene of terrible a perpetual quarrels. At

last Cleopatra seized a number of Lathyrus's servants, the eunuchs who

were employed in various offices about the palace, and after wounding

and mutilating them in a horrible manner, she exhibited them to the

populace, saying that it was Lathyrus that had inflicted the cruel

injuries upon the sufferers, and calling upon them to arise and punish

him for his crimes. In this and in other similar ways she awakened among

the people of the court and of the city such an animosity against

Lathyrus, that they expelled him from the country. There followed a long

series of cruel and bloody wars, between the mother and the son in the

course of which each party perpetrated against the other almost every

imaginable deed of atrocity and crime. Alexander, the youngest son was

so afraid of his terrible mother, that he did not dare to remain in

Alexandria with her, but went into a sort of banishment of his own

accord. He, however, finally returned to Egypt. His mother immediately

supposed that he was intending to disturb her possession of power, and

resolved to destroy him. He became acquainted with her designs, and,

grown desperate by the long-continued pressure of her intolerable

tyranny, he resolved to bring the anxiety and terror in which he lived

to an end by killing her. This he did, and then fled the country.

Lathyrus, his brother, then returned, and reigned for the rest of his

days in a tolerable degree of quietness and peace. At length Lathyrus

died, and left the kingdom to his son, Ptolemy Auletes, who was the

great Cleopatra's father.

We can not soften the picture which is exhibited to our view in the

history of this celebrated family, by regarding the mother of Auletes,

in the masculine and merciless trails and principles which she displayed

so energetically throughout her terrible career, as an exception to the

general character of the princesses who appeared from time to time in

the line. In ambition, selfishness, unnatural and reckless cruelty, and

utter disregard of every virtuous principle and of every domestic tie,

she was but the type and representative of all the rest.

She had two daughters, for example, who were the consistent and worthy

followers of such a mother. A passage in the lives of these sisters

illustrates very forcibly the kind of sisterly affection which prevailed

in the family of the Ptolemies. The case was this:

There were two princes of Syria, a country lying northeast of the

Mediterranean Sea, and so not very far from Egypt, who, though they were

brothers, were in a state of most deadly hostility to each other. One

had attempted to poison the other, and afterward a war had broken out

between them, and all Syria was suffering from the ravages of their

armies. One of the sisters, of whom we have been speaking, married one

of these princes. Her name was Tryphena. After some time, but yet while

the unnatural war was still raging between the two brothers, Cleopatra,

the other sister--the same Cleopatra, in fact, that had been divorced

from Lathyrus at the instance of his mother--espoused the other brother.

Tryphena was exceedingly incensed against Cleopatra for marrying her

husband's mortal foe, and the implacable hostility and hate of the

sisters was thenceforth added to that which the brothers had before

exhibited, to complete the display of unnatural and parricidal passion

which this shameful contest presented to the world.

In fact, Tryphena from this time seemed to feel a new and highly-excited

interest in the contest, from her eager desire to revenge herself on her

sister. She watched the progress of it, and took an active part in

pressing forward the active prosecution of the war. The party of her

husband, either from this or some other causes, seemed to be gaining the

day. The husband of Cleopatra was driven from one part of the country to

another, and at length, in order to provide for the security of his

wife, he left her in Antioch, a large and strongly-fortified city, where

he supposed that she would be safe, while he himself was engaged in

prosecuting the war in other quarters where his presence seemed to be

required.

On learning that her sister was at Antioch, Tryphena urged her husband

to attack the place. He accordingly advanced with a strong detachment of

the army, and besieged and took the city. Cleopatra would, of course,

have fallen into his hands as a captive; but, to escape this fate, she

fled to a temple for refuge. A temple was considered, in those days, an

inviolable sanctuary. The soldiers accordingly left her there. Tryphena,

however, made a request that her husband would deliver the unhappy

fugitive into her hands. She was determined, she said, to kill her. Her

husband remonstrated with her against this atrocious proposal. "It would

be a wholly useless act of cruelty," said he, "to destroy her life. She

can do us no possible harm in the future progress of the war, while to

murder her under these circumstances will only exasperate her husband

and her friends, and nerve them with new strength for the remainder of

the contest. And then, besides, she has taken refuge in a temple; and if

we violate that sanctuary, we shall incur, by such an act of sacrilege,

the implacable displeasure of Heaven. Consider, too, that she is your

sister, and for you to kill her would be to commit an unnatural and

wholly inexcusable crime."

So saying, he commanded Tryphena to say no more upon the subject, for he

would on no account consent that Cleopatra should suffer any injury

whatever.

This refusal on the part of her husband to comply with her request only

inflamed Tryphena's insane resentment and anger the more. In fact, the

earnestness with which he espoused her sister's cause, and the interest

which he seemed to feel in her fate, aroused Tryphena's jealousy. She

believed, or pretended to believe, that her husband was influenced by a

sentiment of love in so warmly defending her. The object of her hate,

from being simply an enemy, became now, in her view, a rival, and she

resolved that, at all hazards, she should be destroyed. She accordingly

ordered a body of desperate soldiers to break into the temple and seize

her. Cleopatra fled in terror to the altar, and clung to it with such

convulsive force that the soldiers cut her hands off before they could

tear her away, and then, maddened by her resistance and the sight of

blood, they stabbed her again and again upon the floor of the temple,

where she fell. The appalling shrieks with which the wretched victim

filled the air in the first moments of her flight and her terror,

subsided, as her life ebbed away, into the most awful imprecations of

the judgments of Heaven upon the head of the unnatural sister whose

implacable hate had destroyed her.

Notwithstanding the specimens that we have thus given of the character

and action of this extraordinary family, the government of this dynasty,

extending, as it did, through the reigns of thirteen sovereigns and over

a period of nearly three hundred years, has always been considered one

of the most liberal, enlightened, and prosperous of all the governments

of ancient times. We shall have something to say in the next chapter in

respect to the internal condition of the country while these violent men

were upon the throne. In the mean time, we will here only add, that

whoever is inclined, in observing the ambition, the selfishness, the

party spirit, the unworthy intrigues, and the irregularities of moral

conduct, which modern rulers and statesmen sometimes exhibit to mankind

in their personal and political career, to believe in a retrogression

and degeneracy of national character as the world advances in age, will

be very effectually undeceived by reading attentively a full history of

this celebrated dynasty, and reflecting, as he reads, that the narrative

presents, on the whole, a fair and honest exhibition of the general

character of the men by whom, in ancient times, the world was governed.

Makers of History

CLEOPATRA

BY

JACOB ABBOTT

[Illustration: CLEOPATRA.]

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. Disarmed at

last before the frigid Octavius, she found her peerless body measured by

the cold eye of her captor only for the triumphal procession, and the

friendly asp alone spared her Rome's crowning ignominy.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER

I. THE VALLEY OF THE NILE

II. THE PTOLEMIES

III. ALEXANDRIA

IV. CLEOPATRA'S FATHER

V. ACCESSION TO THE THRONE

VI. CLEOPATRA AND CAESAR

VII. THE ALEXANDRINE WAR

VIII. CLEOPATRA A QUEEN

IX. THE BATTLE OF PHILIPPI

X. CLEOPATRA AND ANTONY

XI. THE BATTLE OF ACTIUM

XII. THE END OF CLEOPATRA

ILLUSTRATIONS

CLEOPATRA

MEETING OF CLEOPATRA AND ANTONY

CLEOPATRA TESTING THE POISON UPON THE SLAVES

[Illustration: Map--'Scene of CLEOPATRA'S HISTORY']

CHAPTER I.

THE VALLEY OF THE NILE.

The parentage and birth of Cleopatra.--Cleopatra's residence in

Egypt.--Physical aspect of Egypt.--The eagle's wings and

science.--Physical peculiarities of Egypt connected with the laws of

rain.--General laws of rain.--Causes which modify the quantity of

rain.--Striking contrasts.--Rainless regions.--Great rainless region of

Asia and Africa.--The Andes.--Map of the rainless region.--Valley of the

Nile.--The Red Sea.--The oases.--Siweh.--Mountains of the Moon.--The

River Nile.--Incessant rains.--Inundation of the Nile.--Course of the

river.--Subsidence of the waters.--Luxuriant vegetation.--Absence of

forests.--Great antiquity of Egypt.--Her monuments.--The Delta of the

Nile.--The Delta as seen from the sea.--Pelusiac mouth of the Nile.--The

Canopic mouth.--Ancient Egypt.--The Pyramids.--Conquests of the Persians

and Macedonians.--The Ptolemies.--Founding of Alexandria.--The Pharos.

The story of Cleopatra is a story of crime. It is a narrative of the

course and the consequences of unlawful love. In her strange and

romantic history we see this passion portrayed with the most complete

and graphic fidelity in all its influences and effects; its

uncontrollable impulses, its intoxicating joys, its reckless and mad

career, and the dreadful remorse and ultimate despair and ruin in which

it always and inevitably ends.

Cleopatra was by birth an Egyptian; by ancestry and descent she was a

Greek. Thus, while Alexandria and the Delta of the Nile formed the scene

of the most important events and incidents of her history, it was the

blood of Macedon which flowed in her veins. Her character and action are

marked by the genius, the courage, the originality, and the

impulsiveness pertaining to the stock from which she sprung. The events

of her history, on the other hand, and the peculiar character of her

adventures, her sufferings, and her sins, were determined by the

circumstances with which she was surrounded, and the influences which

were brought to bear upon her in the soft and voluptuous clime where the

scenes of her early life were laid.

Egypt has always been considered as physically the most remarkable

country on the globe. It is a long and narrow valley of verdure and

fruitfulness, completely insulated from the rest of the habitable world.

It is more completely insulated, in fact, than any literal island could

be, inasmuch as deserts are more impassable than seas. The very

existence of Egypt is a most extraordinary phenomenon. If we could but

soar with the wings of an eagle into the air, and look down upon the

scene, so as to observe the operation of that grand and yet simple

process by which this long and wonderful valley, teeming so profusely

with animal and vegetable life, has been formed, and is annually

revivified and renewed, in the midst of surrounding wastes of silence,

desolation, and death, we should gaze upon it with never-ceasing

admiration and pleasure. We have not the wings of the eagle, but the

generalizations of science furnish us with a sort of substitute for

them.

The long series of patient, careful, and sagacious observations, which

have been continued now for two thousand years, bring us results, by

means of which, through our powers of mental conception, we may take a

comprehensive survey of the whole scene, analogous, in some respects, to

that which direct and actual vision would afford us, if we could look

down upon it from the eagle's point of view. It is, however, somewhat

humiliating to our pride of intellect to reflect that long-continued

philosophical investigations and learned scientific research are, in

such a case as this, after all, in some sense, only a sort of substitute

for wings. A human mind connected with a pair of eagle's wings would

have solved the mystery of Egypt in a week; whereas science, philosophy,

and research, confined to the surface of the ground, have been occupied

for twenty centuries in accomplishing the undertaking.

It is found at last that both the existence of Egypt itself, and its

strange insulation in the midst of boundless tracts of dry and barren

sand, depend upon certain remarkable results of the general laws of

rain. The water which is taken up by the atmosphere from the surface of

the sea and of the land by evaporation, falls again, under certain

circumstances, in showers of rain, the frequency and copiousness of

which vary very much in different portions of the earth. As a general

principle, rains are much more frequent and abundant near the equator

than in temperate climes, and they grow less and less so as we approach

the poles. This might naturally have been expected; for, under the

burning sun of the equator, the evaporation of water must necessarily go

on with immensely greater rapidity than in the colder zones, and all the

water which is taken up must, of course, again come down.

It is not, however, wholly by the latitude of the region in which the

evaporation takes place that the quantity of rain which falls from the

atmosphere is determined; for the condition on which the falling back,

in rain, of the water which has been taken up by evaporation mainly

depends, is the cooling of the atmospheric stratum which contains it;

and this effect is produced in very various ways, and many different

causes operate to modify it. Sometimes the stratum is cooled by being

wafted over ranges of mountains, sometimes by encountering and becoming

mingled with cooler currents of air; and sometimes, again, by being

driven in winds toward a higher, and, consequently, cooler latitude. If,

on the other hand, air moves from cold mountains toward warm and sunny

plains, or from higher latitudes to lower, or if, among the various

currents into which it falls, it becomes mixed with air warmer than

itself, its capacity for containing vapor in solution is increased, and,

consequently, instead of releasing its hold upon the waters which it has

already in possession, it becomes thirsty for more. It moves over a

country, under these circumstances, as a warm and drying wind. Under a

reverse of circumstances it would have formed drifting mists, or,

perhaps, even copious showers of rain.

It will be evident, from these considerations, that the frequency of the

showers, and the quantity of the rain which will fall, in the various

regions respectively which the surface of the earth presents, must

depend on the combined influence of many causes, such as the warmth of

the climate, the proximity and the direction of mountains and of seas,

the character of the prevailing winds, and the reflecting qualities of

the soil. These and other similar causes, it is found, do, in fact,

produce a vast difference in the quantity of rain which falls in

different regions. In the northern part of South America, where the land

is bordered on every hand by vast tropical seas, which load the hot and

thirsty air with vapor, and where the mighty Cordillera of the Andes

rears its icy summits to chill and precipitate the vapors again, a

quantity of rain amounting to more than ten feet in perpendicular height

falls in a year. At St. Petersburg, on the other hand, the quantity thus

falling in a year is but little more than one foot. The immense deluge

which pours down from the clouds in South America would, if the water

were to remain where it fell, wholly submerge and inundate the country.

As it is, in flowing off through the valleys to the sea, the united

torrents form the greatest river on the globe--the Amazon; and the

vegetation, stimulated by the heat, and nourished by the abundant and

incessant supplies of moisture, becomes so rank, and loads the earth

with such an entangled and matted mass of trunks, and stems, and twining

wreaths and vines, that man is almost excluded from the scene. The

boundless forests become a vast and almost impenetrable jungle,

abandoned to wild beasts, noxious reptiles, and huge and ferocious birds

of prey.

Of course, the district of St. Petersburg, with its icy winter, its low

and powerless sun, and its twelve inches of annual rain, must

necessarily present, in all its phenomena of vegetable and animal life,

a striking contrast to the exuberant prolificness of New Grenada. It is,

however, after all, not absolutely the opposite extreme. There are

certain regions on the surface of the earth that are actually rainless;

and it is these which present us with the true and real contrast to the

luxuriant vegetation and teeming life of the country of the Amazon. In

these rainless regions all is necessarily silence, desolation, and

death. No plant can grow; no animal can live. Man, too, is forever and

hopelessly excluded. If the exuberant abundance of animal and vegetable

life shut him out, in some measure, from regions which an excess of heat

and moisture render too prolific, the total absence of them still more

effectually forbids him a home in these. They become, therefore, vast

wastes of dry and barren sands in which no root can find nourishment,

and of dreary rocks to which not even a lichen can cling.

The most extensive and remarkable rainless region on the earth is a vast

tract extending through the interior and northern part of Africa, and

the southwestern part of Asia. The Red Sea penetrates into this tract

from the south, and thus breaks the outline and continuity of its form,

without, however, altering, or essentially modifying its character. It

divides it, however, and to the different portions which this division

forms, different names have been given. The Asiatic portion is called

Arabia Deserta; the African tract has received the name of Sahara; while

between these two, in the neighborhood of Egypt, the barren region is

called simply _the desert_. The whole tract is marked, however,

throughout, with one all-pervading character: the absence of vegetable,

and, consequently, of animal life, on account of the absence of rain.

The rising of a range of lofty mountains in the center of it, to produce

a precipitation of moisture from the air, would probably transform the

whole of the vast waste into as verdant, and fertile, and populous a

region as any on the globe.

[Illustration: VALLEY OF THE NILE]

As it is, there are no such mountains. The whole tract is nearly level,

and so little elevated above the sea, that, at the distance of many

hundred miles in the interior, the land rises only to the height of a

few hundred feet above the surface of the Mediterranean; whereas in New

Grenada, at less than one hundred miles from the sea, the chain of the

Andes rises to elevations of from ten to fifteen thousand feet. Such an

ascent as that of a few hundred feet in hundreds of miles would be

wholly imperceptible to any ordinary mode of observation; and the great

rainless region, accordingly, of Africa and Asia is, as it appears to

the traveler, one vast plain, a thousand miles wide and five thousand

miles long, with only one considerable interruption to the dead monotony

which reigns, with that exception, every where over the immense expanse

of silence and solitude. The single interval of fruitfulness and life is

the valley of the Nile.

There are, however, in fact, three interruptions to the continuity of

this plain, though only one of them constitutes any considerable

interruption to its barrenness. They are all of them valleys, extending

from north to south, and lying side by side. The most easterly of these

valleys is so deep that the waters of the ocean flow into it from the

south, forming a long and narrow inlet called the Red Sea. As this inlet

communicates freely with the ocean, it is always nearly of the same

level, and as the evaporation from it is not sufficient to produce rain,

it does not even fertilize its own shores. Its presence varies the

dreary scenery of the landscape, it is true, by giving us surging waters

to look upon instead of driving sands; but this is all. With the

exception of the spectacle of an English steamer passing, at weary

intervals, over its dreary expanse, and some moldering remains of

ancient cities on its eastern shore, it affords scarcely any indications

of life. It does very little, therefore, to relieve the monotonous

aspect of solitude and desolation which reigns over the region into

which it has intruded.

The most westerly of the three valleys to which we have alluded is only

a slight depression of the surface of the land marked by a line of

_oases_. The depression is not sufficient to admit the waters of the

Mediterranean, nor are there any rains over any portion of the valley

which it forms sufficient to make it the bed of a stream. Springs issue,

however, here and there, in several places, from the ground, and,

percolating through the sands along the valley, give fertility to little

dells, long and narrow, which, by the contrast that they form with the

surrounding desolation, seem to the traveler to possess the verdure and

beauty of Paradise. There is a line of these oases extending along this

westerly depression, and some of them are of considerable extent. The

oasis of Siweh, on which stood the far-famed temple of Jupiter Ammon,

was many miles in extent, and was said to have contained in ancient

times a population of eight thousand souls. Thus, while the most

easterly of the three valleys which we have named was sunk so low as to

admit the ocean to flow freely into it, the most westerly was so

slightly depressed that it gained only a circumscribed and limited

fertility through the springs, which, in the lowest portions of it,

oozed from the ground. The third valley--the central one--remains now to

be described.

The reader will observe, by referring once more to the map, that south

of the great rainless region of which we are speaking, there lie groups

and ranges of mountains in Abyssinia, called the Mountains of the Moon.

These mountains are near the equator, and the relation which they

sustain to the surrounding seas, and to currents of wind which blow in

that quarter of the world, is such, that they bring down from the

atmosphere, especially in certain seasons of the year, vast and

continual torrents of rain. The water which thus falls drenches the

mountain sides and deluges the valleys. There is a great portion of it

which can not flow to the southward or eastward toward the sea, as the

whole country consists, in those directions, of continuous tracts of

elevated land. The rush of water thus turns to the northward, and,

pressing on across the desert through the great central valley which we

have referred to above, it finds an outlet, at last, in the

Mediterranean, at a point two thousand miles distant from the place

where the immense condenser drew it from the skies. The river thus

created is the Nile. It is formed, in a word, by the surplus waters of a

district inundated with rains, in their progress across a rainless

desert, seeking the sea.

If the surplus of water upon the Abyssinian mountains had been constant

and uniform, the stream, in its passage across the desert, would have

communicated very little fertility to the barren sands which it

traversed. The immediate banks of the river would have, perhaps, been

fringed with verdure, but the influence of the irrigation would have

extended no farther than the water itself could have reached, by

percolation through the sand. But the flow of the water is not thus

uniform and steady. In a certain season of the year the rains are

incessant, and they descend with such abundance and profusion as almost

to inundate the districts where they fall. Immense torrents stream down

the mountain sides; the valleys are deluged; plains turn into morasses,

and morasses into lakes. In a word, the country becomes half submerged,

and the accumulated mass of waters would rush with great force and

violence down the central valley of the desert, which forms their only

outlet, if the passage were narrow, and if it made any considerable

descent in its course to the sea. It is, however, not narrow, and the

descent is very small. The depression in the surface of the desert,

through which the water flows, is from five to ten miles wide, and,

though it is nearly two thousand miles from the rainy district across

the desert to the sea, the country for the whole distance is almost

level. There is only sufficient descent, especially for the last

thousand miles, to determine a very gentle current to the northward in

the waters of the stream.

Under these circumstances, the immense quantity of water which falls in

the rainy district in these inundating tropical showers, expands over

the whole valley, and forms for a time an immense lake, extending in

length across the whole breadth of the desert. This lake is, of course,

from five to ten miles wide, and a thousand miles long. The water in it

is shallow and turbid, and it has a gentle current toward the north. The

rains, at length, in a great measure cease; but it requires some months

for the water to run off and leave the valley dry. As soon as it is

gone, there springs up from the whole surface of the ground which has

been thus submerged a most rank and luxuriant vegetation.

This vegetation, now wholly regulated and controlled by the hand of man,

must have been, in its original and primeval state, of a very peculiar

character. It must have consisted of such plants only as could exist

under the condition of having the soil in Which they grew laid, for a

quarter of the year, wholly under water. This circumstance, probably,

prevented the valley of the Nile from having been, like other fertile

tracts of land, encumbered, in its native state, with forests. For the

same reason, wild beasts could never have haunted it. There were no

forests to shelter them, and no refuge or retreat for them but the dry

and barren desert, during the period of the annual inundations. This

most extraordinary valley seems thus to have been formed and preserved

by Nature herself for the special possession of man. She herself seems

to have held it in reserve for him from the very morning of creation,

refusing admission into it to every plant and every animal that might

hinder or disturb his occupancy and control. And if he were to abandon

it now for a thousand years, and then return to it once more, he would

find it just as he left it, ready for his immediate possession. There

would be no wild beasts that he must first expel, and no tangled forests

would have sprung up, that his ax must first remove. Nature is the

husbandman who keeps this garden of the world in order, and the means

and machinery by which she operates are the grand evaporating surfaces

of the seas, the beams of the tropical sun, the lofty summits of the

Abyssinian Mountains, and, as the product and result of all this

instrumentality, great periodical inundations of summer rain.

For these or some other reasons Egypt has been occupied by man from the

most remote antiquity. The oldest records of the human race, made three

thousand years ago, speak of Egypt as ancient then, when they were

written. Not only is Tradition silent, but even Fable herself does not

attempt to tell the story of the origin of her population. Here stand

the oldest and most enduring monuments that human power has ever been

able to raise. It is, however, somewhat humiliating to the pride of the

race to reflect that the loftiest and proudest, as well as the most

permanent and stable of all the works which man has ever accomplished,

are but the incidents and adjuncts of a thin stratum of alluvial

fertility, left upon the sands by the subsiding waters of summer

showers.

The most important portion of the alluvion of the Nile is the northern

portion, where the valley widens and opens toward the sea, forming a

triangular plain of about one hundred miles in length on each of the

sides, over which the waters of the river flow in a great number of

separate creeks and channels. The whole area forms a vast meadow,

intersected every where with slow-flowing streams of water, and

presenting on its surface the most enchanting pictures of fertility,

abundance, and beauty. This region is called the Delta of the Nile.

The sea upon the coast is shallow, and the fertile country formed by the

deposits of the river seems to have projected somewhat beyond the line

of the coast; although, as the land has not advanced perceptibly for the

last eighteen hundred years, it may be somewhat doubtful whether the

whole of the apparent protrusion is not due to the natural conformation

of the coast, rather than to any changes made by the action of the

river.

The Delta of the Nile is so level itself, and so little raised above the

level of the Mediterranean, that the land seems almost a continuation of

the same surface with the sea, only, instead of blue waters topped with

white-crested waves, we have broad tracts of waving grain, and gentle

swells of land crowned with hamlets and villages. In approaching the

coast, the navigator has no distant view of all this verdure and beauty.

It lies so low that it continues beneath the horizon until the ship is

close upon the shore. The first landmarks, in fact, which the seaman

makes, are the tops of trees growing apparently out of the water, or the

summit of an obelisk, or the capital of a pillar, marking the site of

some ancient and dilapidated city.

The most easterly of the channels by which the waters of the river find

their way through the Delta to the sea, is called, as it will be seen

marked upon the map, the Pelusiac branch. It forms almost the boundary

of the fertile region of the Delta on the eastern side. There was an

ancient city named Pelusium near the mouth of it. This was, of course,

the first Egyptian city reached by those who arrived by land from the

eastward, traveling along the shores of the Mediterranean Sea. On

account of its thus marking the eastern frontier of the country, it

became a point of great importance, and is often mentioned in the

histories of ancient times.

The westernmost mouth of the Nile, on the other hand, was called the

Canopic mouth. The distance along the coast from the Canopic mouth to

Pelusium was about a hundred miles. The outline of the coast was

formerly, as it still continues to be, very irregular, and the water

shallow. Extended banks of sand protruded into the sea, and the sea

itself, as if in retaliation, formed innumerable creeks, and inlets, and

lagoons in the land. Along this irregular and uncertain boundary the

waters of the Nile and the surges of the Mediterranean kept up an

eternal war, with energies so nearly equal, that now, after the lapse of

eighteen hundred years since the state of the contest began to be

recorded, neither side has been found to have gained any perceptible

advantage over the other. The river brings the sands down, and the sea

drives them incessantly back, keeping the whole line of the shore in

such a condition as to make it extremely dangerous and difficult of

access to man.

It will be obvious, from this description of the valley of the Nile,

that it formed a country which in ancient times isolated and secluded,

in a very striking manner, from all the rest of the world. It was wholly

shut in by deserts, on every side, by land; and the shoals, and

sand-bars, and other dangers of navigation which marked the line of the

coast, seemed to forbid approach by sea. Here it remained for many ages,

under the rule of its own native ancient kings. Its population was

peaceful and industrious. Its scholars were famed throughout the world

for their learning, their science, and their philosophy.

It was in these ages, before other nations had intruded upon its

peaceful seclusion, that the Pyramids were built, and the enormous

monoliths carved, and those vast temples reared whose ruined columns are

now the wonder of mankind. During these remote ages, too, Egypt was, as

now, the land of perpetual fertility and abundance. There would always

be corn in Egypt, wherever else famine might rage. The neighboring

nations and tribes in Arabia, Palestine, and Syria, found their way to

it, accordingly, across the deserts on the eastern side, when driven by

want, and thus opened a way of communication. At length the Persian

monarchs, after extending their empire westward to the Mediterranean,

found access by the same road to Pelusium, and thence overran and

conquered the country. At last, about two hundred and fifty years before

the time of Cleopatra, Alexander the Great, when he subverted the

Persian empire, took possession of Egypt, and annexed it, among the

other Persian provinces, to his own dominions. At the division of

Alexander's empire, after his death, Egypt fell to one of his generals,

named Ptolemy. Ptolemy made it his kingdom, and left it, at his death,

to his heirs. A long line of sovereigns succeeded him, known in history

as the dynasty of the Ptolemies--Greek princes, reigning over an

Egyptian realm. Cleopatra was the daughter of the eleventh in the line.

The capital of the Ptolemies was Alexandria. Until the time of

Alexander's conquest, Egypt had no sea-port. There were several

landing-places along the coast, but no proper harbor. In fact Egypt had

then so little commercial intercourse with the rest of the world, that

she scarcely needed any. Alexander's engineers, however, in exploring

the shore, found a point not far from the Canopic mouth of the Nile

where the water was deep, and where there was an anchorage ground

protected by an island. Alexander founded a city there, which he called

by his own name. He perfected the harbor by artificial excavations and

embankments. A lofty light-house was reared, which formed a landmark by

day, and exhibited a blazing star by night to guide the galleys of the

Mediterranean in. A canal was made to connect the port with the Nile,

and warehouses were erected to contain the stores of merchandise. In a

word, Alexandria became at once a great commercial capital. It was the

seat, for several centuries, of the magnificent government of the

Ptolemies; and so well was its situation chosen for the purposes

intended, that it still continues, after the lapse of twenty centuries

of revolution and change, one of the principal emporiums of the commerce

of the East.