the middle of their cause, to
follow at her side and attend her home."[75]

[Footnote 75: Plutarch: _Antony_.]

When war was declared, Antony sought to gain the support of the East in
the conflict. He made alliance with a Median king who betrothed his
daughter to Cleopatra's infant son Alexander; but he made the fatal
mistake of allowing Cleopatra to accompany him to Samos, where he
gathered his army, and even to Actium, where she led the way in flying
from the fight, and so persuading the infatuated Antony to leave his
army and join in her disgraceful escape.

Historians have regarded this act of Cleopatra as the mere cowardice of
a woman who feared to look upon an armed conflict and join in the din of
battle. But she was surely made of sterner stuff. She had probably
computed with the utmost care the chances of the rivals, and had made up
her mind that, in spite of Antony's gallantry, his cause was lost.[76]
If she fought out the battle with her strong contingent of ships, she
would probably fall into Octavian's hands as a prisoner, and would have
no choice between suicide or death in the Roman prison, after being
exhibited to the mob in Octavian's triumph. There was no chance whatever
that she would have been spared, as was her sister Arsinoe after Julius
Caesar's triumph, nor would such clemency be less hateful than death. But
there was still a chance, if Antony were killed or taken prisoner, that
she might negotiate with the victor as queen of Egypt, with her fleet,
army, and treasures intact, and who could tell what effect her charms,
though now full ripe, might have upon the conqueror? Two great Romans
had yielded to her, why not the third, who seemed a smaller man?

[Footnote 76: Dion says that Antony was of the same opinion, and went
into the battle intending to fly; but this does not agree with his
character or with the facts.]

This view implies that she was already false to Antony, and it may well
be asked how such a charge is compatible with the affecting scenes which
followed at Alexandria, where her policy seemed defeated by her passion,
and she felt her old love too strong even for her heartless ambition? I
will say in answer that there is no more frequent anomaly in the
psychology of female love than a strong passion coexisting with selfish
ambition, so that each takes the lead in turn; nay, even the
consciousness of treachery may so intensify the passion as to make a
woman embrace with keener tra