th soldiers came to clear the road, clad, after
the Roman fashion, in breast-plates of chain-armour. After them marched
heralds enjoining silence (at which the population sung and shouted all
the more loudly), and crying that Cleopatra, the Queen, was coming.
Then followed a thousand Cilician skirmishers, a thousand Thracians, a
thousand Macedonians, and a thousand Gauls, each armed after the fashion
of their country. Then passed five hundred men of those who are called
the Fenced Horsemen, for both men and horses were altogether covered
with mail. Next came youths and maidens sumptuously draped and wearing
golden crowns, and with them images symbolising Day and Night, Morning
and Noon, the Heavens and the Earth. After these walked many fair women,
pouring perfumes on the road, and others scattering blooming flowers.
Now there rose a great shout of "Cleopatra! Cleopatra!" and I held my
breath and bent forward to see her who dared to put on the robes of
Isis.

But at that moment the multitude so gathered and thickened in front of
where I was that I could no longer clearly see. So in my eagerness
I leapt over the barrier of the scaffolding, and, being very strong,
pushed my way through the crowd till I reached the foremost rank. And
as I did so, Nubian slaves armed with thick staves and crowned with
ivy-leaves ran up, striking the people. One man I noted more especially,
for he was a giant, and, being strong, was insolent beyond measure,
smiting the people without cause, as, indeed, is the wont of low persons
set in authority. For a woman stood near to me, an Egyptian by her face,
bearing a child in her arms, whom the man, seeing that she was weak,
struck on the head with his rod so that she fell prone, and the people
murmured. But at the sight my blood rushed of a sudden through my veins
and drowned my reason. I held in my hand a staff of olive-wood from
Cyprus, and as the black brute laughed at the sight of the stricken
woman and her babe rolling on the ground, I swung the staff aloft and
smote. So shrewdly did I strike, that the tough rod split upon the
giant's shoulders and the blood spurted forth, staining his trailing
leaves of ivy.

Then, with a shriek of pain and fury--for those who smite love not that
they be smitten--he turned and sprang at me! And all the people round
gave back, save only the woman who could not rise, leaving us two in a
ring as it were. On he came with a rush, and, as he came, being now mad,