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 began a period of sore suffering. Her life was a perpetual battle
against notorious intrigues, the worst of which owed their origin to her
sister. Arsinoe had surrounded herself with a court of her own, managed
by the eunuch Ganymedes, an experienced commander, and at the same time
a shrewd adviser, wholly devoted to her interest. He understood how to
bring her into close relations with Pothinus and other rulers of the
state, and thus at last united all who possessed any power in the royal
palace in an endeavour to thrust Cleopatra from the throne. Pothinus,
Theodotus, and Achillas hated her because she saw their failings and
made them feel the superiority of her intellect. Their combined
efforts might have succeeded in overthrowing her before, had not
the Alexandrians, headed by the Ephebi, over whom I still had some
influence, stood by her so steadfastly. Whoever could still be classed
as a youth glowed with enthusiasm for her, and most of the Macedonian
nobles in the body-guard would have gone to death for her sake, though
she had forced them to gaze hopelessly up to her as if she were some
unapproachable goddess.

"When her father died she was seventeen, but she knew how to resist
oppressors and foes as if she were a man. My sister, Charmian, whom she
had ap