. 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.

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