h due reference to the times in which she lived, to the
family influences which moulded her early years, and to the degeneracy
of the Ptolemies to which she fell heir, she must rank as one of the
best of her dynasty. Horace, the Roman poet, called Cleopatra: "_non
humilis mulier_ [a woman capable of no baseness];" and the phrase gains
in importance from the fact that it occurs in the hymn which the poet
dedicated to Octavius in honor of his victory over Antony and Cleopatra.
In thus characterizing, in such an ode, the victor's foe, Horace gives
us an estimate of the "Serpent of the Nile" which may stand as an
epitome of her character and as a just claim to the partial respect and
admiration of posterity.

"Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale
Her infinite variety."

Cleopatra's intimate relations with Rome's greatest men, and the
conversion of her kingdom into a Roman province after her death, but
emphasize the fact that all Hellenistic lands were at that time in the
power of Rome and that the period of Graeco-Roman culture had begun much
earlier. In B.C. 146 had occurred the destruction of Corinth and the
absorption of Old Greece into a part of the Roman province of Macedon,
and from that time Rome exerted a marked influence over the social life
of Hellas. One of the chief characteristics of this age was the freer
life of women of all classes. Even in Athens and Boeotia, the mistress
of the house obtained her rights as mother and hostess. Perhaps it was
in imitation of what they saw in Rome, perhaps it was merely the natural
process of evolution, but, at any rate, the recognition of the
capabilities and the elevated position of woman was general. Plutarch is
the best chronicler of Greek life in the first century after the
Christian era, and his works abound in precepts on the relations of the
sexes, in whose equality he was a firm believer, and on the proper
training and education of woman. His own wife, Timoxena, paid visits and
received guests even when her husband was absent, shared fully the
intellectual life of her husband, and took part in all his public
interests.

The age was mending its manners. New ideas were prevailing among men.
Woman was becoming more and more fully a factor in the world. Yet, for
her complete emancipation, there was need of a new dogma, a great
revelation, which would bring about startling reforms in the moral and
social life of mankind. Already "the Word had been made