women's beauty is most splendid and their
intellects are in full maturity. She made great preparation for her
journey, of money, gifts, and ornaments of value, such as so wealthy a
kingdom might afford, but she brought with her her surest hopes in her
own magic arts and charms.

"She received several letters, both from Antony and from his friends, to
summon her, but she took no account of these orders; and at last, as if
in mockery of them, she came sailing up the river Cydnus, in a barge
with gilded stern and outspread sails of purple, while oars of silver
beat time to the music of flutes and fifes and harps. She herself lay
all along, under a canopy of cloth of gold, dressed as Venus in a
picture, and beautiful young boys, like painted cupids, stood on each
side to fan her. Her maids were dressed like sea nymphs and graces, some
steering at the rudder, some working at the ropes.[71] The perfumes
diffused themselves from the vessel to the shore, which was covered with
multitudes, part following the galley up the river on either bank, part
running out of the city to see the sight. The market-place was quite
emptied, and Antony at last was left alone sitting upon the tribunal,
while the word went through all the multitude that Venus was come to
feast with Bacchus, for the common good of Asia.[72] On her arrival,
Antony sent to invite her to supper. She thought it fitter he should
come to her; so, willing to show his good humor and courtesy, he
complied, and went. He found the preparations to receive him magnificent
beyond expression, but nothing so admirable as the great number of
lights, for on a sudden there was let down altogether so great a number
of branches with lights in them so ingeniously disposed, some in squares
and some in circles, that the whole thing was a spectacle that has
seldom been equalled for beauty."

[Footnote 71: There was no Egyptian feature in this show, which was
purely Hellenistic.]

[Footnote 72: How easily such a belief started up in the minds of a
crowd in the Asia Minor of that day appears from Acts xiv. 11 _seq_.,
where the crowd at Iconium, on seeing a cripple cured, at once exclaim
that the gods are come down to them in the likeness of men, and call
Barnabas Jupiter, and Paul Mercurius, because he was the chief speaker,
bringing sacrifices to offer to the apostles.]

"The next day Antony invited her to supper, and was very desirous to
outdo her as well in magnificence as contrivance