s in many conjectures of his own, as if they were
ascertained facts.

The colors of this imitation of a hateful original [the oriental despot]
were heightened by the demeanor of Cleopatra, who followed her lover to
Rome at his invitation. She came with the younger Ptolemaeus, who now
shared her throne, and her ostensible object was to negotiate a treaty
between her kingdom and the Commonwealth. While the Egyptian nation was
formally admitted to the friendship and alliance of Rome, its sovereign
was lodged in Caesar's villa on the other side of the Tiber, and the
statue of the most fascinating of women was erected in the temple of the
Goddess of Love and Beauty. The connection which subsisted between her
and the dictator was unblushingly avowed. Public opinion demanded no
concessions to its delicacy; the feelings of the injured Calpurnia had
been blunted by repeated outrage, and Cleopatra was encouraged to
proclaim openly that her child Caesarion was the son of her Roman
admirer. A tribune, named Helvius Cinna, ventured, it is said, to assert
among his friends that he was prepared to propose a law, with the
dictator's sanction, to enable him to marry more wives than one, for the
sake of progeny, and to disregard in his choice the legitimate
qualification of Roman descent. The Romans, however, were spared this
last insult to their prejudices. The queen of Egypt felt bitterly the
scorn with which she was popularly regarded as the representative of an
effeminate and licentious people. It is not improbable that she employed
her fatal influence to withdraw her lover from the Roman capital, and
urged him to schemes of oriental conquest to bring him more completely
within her toils. In the mean while the haughtiness of her demeanor
corresponded with the splendid anticipations in which she indulged. She
held a court in the suburbs of the city, at which the adherents of the
dictator's policy were not the only attendants. Even his opponents and
concealed enemies were glad to bask in the sunshine of her smiles.

When Caesar was assassinated, she was still at Rome, and had some wild
hopes of having her son recognized by the Caesareans. But failing in this
she escaped secretly, and sailed to Egypt, not without causing
satisfaction to cautious men like Cicero that she was gone. The passage
in which he seems to allude to a rumor that she was about to have
another child--another misfortune to the State--does not bear that
interpretatio