d to
lessen the sufferings in that city. The citizens of Alexandria on those
years received from the government a smaller gift of corn than usual,
and the Jews then felt their altered rank in the state. They were
told that they were not citizens, and accordingly received no portion
whatever out of the public granaries, but were left like the Egyptians
to take care of themselves. From this time forward there was an
unceasing quarrel between Greeks and Jews in the city of Alexandria.

Cleopatra, who held her power at the pleasure of the Roman legions,
spared no pains to please Antony. She had borne him first a son named
Ptolemy, and then a son and daughter, twins, Alexander Helius and
Cleopatra Selene, or _Sun_ and _Moon_. She gamed, she drank, she hunted,
she reviewed the troops with him, and, to humour his coarser tastes, she
followed him, in his midnight rambles through the city, in the dress of
a servant; and nothing that youth, beauty, wealth, and elegance could do
to throw a cloak over the grossness of vice and crime was forgotten by
her. The biographer thought it waste of time to mention all Cleopatra's
arts and Antony's follies, but the story of his fishing was not to be
forgotten. One day, when sitting in the boat with her, he caught but
little, and was vexed at her seeing his want of success. So he ordered
one of his men to dive into the water and put upon his hook a fish which
had been before taken. Cleopatra, however, saw what was being done, and
quietly took the hint for a joke of her own. The next day she brought a
larger number of friends to see the fishing, and, when Antony let down
his line, she ordered one of her divers to put on the hook a salted
fish. The line was then drawn up and the fish landed amid no little
mirth of their friends; and Cleopatra playfully consoled him, saying:
"Well, general, you may leave fishing to us petty princes of Pharos and
Canopus; your game is cities, provinces, and kingdoms."

Antony's eldest son by Fulvia came to Alexandria at this time, and lived
in the same princely style with his father. Philotas the physician lived
in his service, and one day at supper when Philotas silenced a tiresome
talker with a foolish sophism the young Antony gave him as a reward the
whole sideboard of plate. But in the middle of this gaiety and feasting
Antony was recalled to Europe by letters which told him that his wife
and brother had been driven out of Rome by Octavianus. Before, however,