voted herself eagerly enough to the events occurring in the world
and to statecraft. She was familiar with everything in Rome, the desires
and struggles of the contending parties, as well as the characters of the
men who were directing affairs, their qualities, views, and aims.

"She followed Antony's career with the interest of love, for she had
bestowed on him the first affection of her young heart. She had expected
the greatest achievements, but his subsequent course seemed to belie
these lofty hopes. A tinge of scorn coloured her remarks concerning him
at that time, but here also her heart had its share.

"Pompey, to whom her father owed his restoration to the throne, she
considered a lucky man, rather than a great and wise one. Of Julius
Caesar, on the contrary, long before she met him, she spoke with ardent
enthusiasm, though she knew that he would gladly have made Egypt a Roman
province. The greatest deed which she expected from the energetic Julius
was that he would abolish the republic, which she hated, and soar upward
to tyrannize over the arrogant rulers of the world--only she would fain
have seen Antony in his place. How often in those days she used magic art
to assure herself of his future! Her father was interested in these
things, especially as, through them, and the power of the mighty Isis, he
expected to obtain relief from his many and severe sufferings.

"Cleopatra's brothers were still mere boys, completely dependent upon
their guardian, Pothinus, to whom the King left the care of the
government, and their tutor, Theodotus, a clever but unprincipled
rhetorician. These two men and Achillas, the commander of the troops,
would gladly have aided Dionysus, the King's oldest male heir, to obtain
the control of the state, in order afterwards to rule him, but the
flute-player baffled their plans. You know that in his last will he made
Cleopatra, his favourite child, his successor, but her brother Dionysus
was to share the throne as her husband. This caused much scandal in Rome,
though it was an old custom of the house of Ptolemy, and suited the
Egyptians.

"The flute-player died. Cleopatra became Queen, and at the same time the
wife of a husband ten years old, for whom she did not even possess the
natural gift of sisterly tenderness. But with the obstinate child who had
been told by his counsellors that the right to rule should be his alone,
she also married the former governors of the country.

"Then be