mired sovereign transformed
Alexandria into a house of mourning. Obsequies of unprecedented
magnificence and solemnity, at which many tears of sincere grief flowed,
honoured her memory. One of Octavianus's most brilliant plans was
frustrated by her death, and he had raved furiously when he read the
letter in which Cleopatra, with her own hand, informed him of her
intention to die. But he owed it to his reputation for generosity to
grant her a funeral worthy of her rank. To the dead, who had ceased to be
dangerous, he was ready to show an excess of magnanimity.

The treatment which he accorded to Cleopatra's children also won the
world's admiration. His sister Octavia received them into her own house
and intrusted their education to Archibius.

When the order to destroy the statues of Antony and Cleopatra was issued,
Octavianus gave his contemporaries another proof of his disposition to be
lenient, for he ordered that the numerous statues of the Queen in
Alexandria and Egypt should be preserved. True, he had been influenced by
the large sum of two thousand talents paid by an Alexandrian to secure
this act of generosity. Archibius was the name of the rare friend who had
impoverished himself to render this service to the memory of the beloved
dead.

In later times the statues of the unfortunate Queen adorned the places
where they had been erected.

The sarcophagi of Cleopatra and Mark Antony, by whose side rested Iras
and Charmian, were constantly heaped with flowers and offerings to the
dead. The women of Alexandria, especially, went to the tomb of their
beloved Queen as if it were a pilgrimage; but in after-days faithful
mourners also came from a distance to visit it, among them the children
of the famous lovers whom death here united--Cleopatra Selene, now the
wife of the learned Numidian Prince Juba, Helios Antony, and Alexander,
who had reached manhood. Their friend and teacher, Archibius, accompanied
them. He taught them to hold their mother's memory dear, and had so
reared them that, in their maturity, he could lead them with head erect
to the sarcophagus of the friend who had confided them to his charge.

ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:

Pain is the inseparable companion of love

ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS FOR THE COMPLETE CLEOPATRA:

Aspect obnoxious to the gaze will pour water on the fire
Contempt had become too deep for hate
Epicurus, who believed that with death all things