Cape of Actium. In
the midst, either fright or treachery made Cleopatra sail away, and all
the Egyptian ships with her, so that Antonius turned at once and fled
with her. They tried to raise the East in their favor, but all their
allies deserted them, and their soldiers went over to Alexandria, where
Octavianus followed them. Then Cleopatra betrayed her lover, and put
into the hands of Octavianus the ships in which he might have fled. He
killed himself, and Cleopatra surrendered, hoping to charm young
Octavianus as she had done Julius and Antonius, but when she saw him
grave and unmoved, and found he meant to exhibit her in his triumph, she
went to the tomb of Antonius and crowned it with flowers. The next day
she was found on her couch, in her royal robes, dead, and her two maids
dying too. "Is this well?" asked the man who found her. "It is well for
the daughter of kings," said her maid with her last breath. Cleopatra
had long made experiments on easy ways of death, and it was believed
that an asp was brought to her in a basket of figs as the means of her
death.

[Illustration: CAIUS OCTAVIUS.]

CHAPTER XXX.

CAESAR AUGUSTUS.

B.C. 33--A.D. 14.

The death of Antonius ended the fierce struggles which had torn Rome so
long. Octavianus was left alone; all the men who had striven for the old
government were dead, and those who were left were worn out and only
longed for rest. They had found that he was kind and friendly, and
trusted to him thankfully, nay, were ready to treat him as a kind of
god. The old frame of constitution went on as usual; there was still a
Senate, still consuls, and all the other magistrates, but Caesar
Octavianus had the power belonging to each gathered in one. He was
prince of the Senate, which gave him rule in the city; praetor, which
made him judge, and gave him a special guard of soldiers called the
Praetorian Guard to execute justice; and tribune of the people, which
made him their voice; and even after his triumph he was still imperator,
or general of the army. This word becomes in English, emperor, but it
meant at this time merely commander-in-chief. He was also Pontifex
Maximus, as Julius Caesar had been; and there was a general feeling that
he was something sacred and set apart as the ruler and peace-maker; and,
as he shared this feeling himself, he took the name of Augustus, which
is the one by which he is always known.

[Illustration: STATUE OF AUGUSTUS AT THE VATICAN.