and disorder. Harpers, dancers, buffoons and all the sodden
splendor of the East made the nights echo with "shouts, sacrifices,
songs and groans."

When Antony entered Ephesus the women went out to meet him in the
undress of bacchanals, while troops of naked boys representing cupids,
and men clothed like satyrs danced at the head of the procession.
Everywhere were ivy crowns, spears wreathed with green, and harps,
flutes, pipes, and human voices sang songs of praise to the great god
Bacchus--for such Antony liked to be called.

Antony knew that between Cleopatra and Caesar there had been a tender
love. All the world that Caesar ruled, Antony now ruled--or thought he
did. In the intoxication of success he, too, would rule the heart that
the great Caesar had ruled. He would rule this proud heart or he would
crush it beneath his heel.

He dispatched Dellius, his trusted secretary, to Alexandria, summoning
the Queen to meet him at Cilicia, and give answer as to why she had
given succor to the army of Cassius.

The charge was preposterous, and if sincere, shows the drunken condition
of Antony's mind. Cleopatra loved Caesar--he was to her the King of
Kings, the one supreme and god-like man of earth. Her studious and
splendid mind had matched his own; this cold, scholarly man of fifty-two
had been her mate--the lover of her soul. Scarcely five short years
before, she had attended him on his journey as he went away, and there
on the banks of the Nile as they parted, her unborn babe responded to
the stress of parting, no less than she.

Afterward she had followed him to Rome that he might see his son,
Caesario.

She was in Rome when Brutus and Cassius struck their fatal blows, and
had fled, disguised, her baby in her arms--refusing to trust the
precious life in the hands of hirelings.

And now that she should be accused of giving help to the murderer of her
joy! She had execrated and despised Cassius, and now she hated, no less,
the man who had wrongfully accused her.

But he was dictator--his summons must be obeyed. She would obey it, but
she would humiliate him.

Antony waited at Cilicia on the day appointed, but Cleopatra did not
appear. He waited two days--three--and very leisurely, up the river, the
galleys of Cleopatra came.

But she did not come as suppliant.

Her curiously carved galley was studded with nails of gold; the oars
were all tipped with silver; the sails were of purple silk. The rowers
kept tim