younger brother, and, after
remaining for some time longer in Egypt, he set out on his return
to Rome.

[Illustration: Cleopatra's Barge]

[Sidenote: Subsequent adventures of Cleopatra.]

The subsequent adventures of Cleopatra were as romantic as to have given
her name a very wide celebrity. The lives of the virtuous pass smoothly
and happily away, but the tale, when told to others, possesses but
little interest or attraction; while those of the wicked, whose days are
spent in wretchedness and despair, and are thus full of misery to the
actors themselves, afford to the rest of mankind a high degree of
pleasure, from the dramatic interest of the story.

[Sidenote: Her splendid barge.]
[Sidenote: Anthony and Octavius.]
[Sidenote: Death of Cleopatra.]

Cleopatra led a life of splendid sin, and, of course, of splendid
misery. She visited Caesar in Rome after his return thither. Caesar
received her magnificently, and paid her all possible honors; but the
people of Rome regarded her with strong reprobation. When her young
brother, whom Caesar had made her partner on the throne, was old enough
to claim his share, she poisoned him. After Caesar's death, she went
from Alexandria to Syria to meet Antony, one of Caesar's successors, in
a galley or barge, which was so rich, so splendid, so magnificently
furnished and adorned, that it was famed throughout the world as
Cleopatra's barge. A great many beautiful vessels have since been called
by the same name. Cleopatra connected herself with Antony, who became
infatuated with her beauty and her various charms as Caesar had been.
After a great variety of romantic adventures, Antony was defeated in
battle by his great rival Octavius, and, supposing that he had been
betrayed by Cleopatra, he pursued her to Egypt, intending to kill her.
She hid herself in a sepulcher, spreading a report that she had
committed suicide, and then Antony stabbed himself in a fit of remorse
and despair. Before he died, he learned that Cleopatra was alive, and he
caused himself to be carried into her presence and died in her arms.
Cleopatra then fell into the hands of Octavius, who intended to carry
her to Rome to grace his triumph. To save herself from this humiliation,
and weary with a life which, full of sin as it had been, was a constant
series of sufferings, she determined to die. A servant brought in an asp
for her, concealed in a vase of flowers, at a great banquet. She laid
the poisonous reptile