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Makers of History

CLEOPATRA

BY

JACOB ABBOTT






[Illustration: CLEOPATRA.]




PREFACE

Of all the beautiful women of history, none has left us such convincing
proofs of her charms as Cleopatra, for the tide of Rome's destiny, and,
therefore, that of the world, turned aside because of her beauty. Julius
Caesar, whose legions trampled the conquered world from Canopus to the
Thames, capitulated to her, and Mark Antony threw a fleet, an empire and
his own honor to the winds to follow her to his destruction. Disarmed at
last before the frigid Octavius, she found her peerless body measured by
the cold eye of her captor only for the triumphal procession, and the
friendly asp alone spared her Rome's crowning ignominy.


TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER

   I.  THE VALLEY OF THE NILE

  II.  THE PTOLEMIES

 III.  ALEXANDRIA

  IV.  CLEOPATRA'S FATHER

   V.  ACCESSION TO THE THRONE

  VI.  CLEOPATRA AND CAESAR

 VII.  THE ALEXANDRINE WAR

VIII.  CLEOPATRA A QUEEN

  IX.  THE BATTLE OF PHILIPPI

   X.  CLEOPATRA AND ANTONY

  XI.  THE BATTLE OF ACTIUM

 XII.  THE END OF CLEOPATRA


ILLUSTRATIONS


CLEOPATRA

MEETING OF CLEOPATRA AND ANTONY

CLEOPATRA TESTING THE POISON UPON THE SLAVES



[Illustration: Map--'Scene of CLEOPATRA'S HISTORY']




CHAPTER I.

THE VALLEY OF THE NILE.

The parentage and birth of Cleopatra.--Cleopatra's residence in
Egypt.--Physical aspect of Egypt.--The eagle's wings and
science.--Physical peculiarities of Egypt connected with the laws of
rain.--General laws of rain.--Causes which modify the quantity of
rain.--Striking contrasts.--Rainless regions.--Great rainless region of
Asia and Africa.--The Andes.--Map of the rainless region.--Valley of the
Nile.--The Red Sea.--The oases.--Siweh.--Mountains of the Moon.--The
River Nile.--Incessant rains.--Inundation of the Nile.--Course of the
river.--Subsidence of the waters.--Luxuriant vegetation.--Absence of
forests.--Great antiquity of Egypt.--Her monuments.--The Delta of the
Nile.--The Delta as seen from the sea.--Pelusiac mouth of the Nile.--The
Canopic mouth.--Ancient Egypt.--The Pyramids.--Conquests of the Persians
and Macedonians.--The Ptolemies.--Founding of Alexandria.--The Pharos.

The story of Cleopatra is a story of crime. It is a narrative of the
course and the consequences of unlawful love. In her strange and
romantic history we see this passion portrayed with the most complete
and graphic fidelity in all its influences and effects; its
uncontrollable impulses, its intoxicating joys, its reckless and mad
career, and the dreadful remorse and ultimate despair and ruin in which
it always and inevitably ends.

Cleopatra was by birth an Egyptian; by ancestry and descent she was a
Greek. Thus, while Alexandria and the Delta of the Nile formed the scene
of the most important events and incidents of her history, it was the
blood of Macedon which flowed in her veins. Her character and action are
marked by the genius, the courage, the originality, and the
impulsiveness pertaining to the stock from which she sprung. The events
of her history, on the other hand, and the peculiar character of her
adventures, her sufferings, and her sins, were determined by the
circumstances with which she was surrounded, and the influences which
were brought to bear upon her in the soft and voluptuous clime where the
scenes of her early life were laid.

Egypt has always been considered as physically the most remarkable
country on the globe. It is a long and narrow valley of verdure and
fruitfulness, completely insulated from the rest of the habitable world.
It is more completely insulated, in fact, than any literal island could
be, inasmuch as deserts are more impassable than seas. The very
existence of Egypt is a most extraordinary phenomenon. If we could but
soar with the wings of an eagle into the air, and look down upon the
scene, so as to observe the operation of that grand and yet simple
process by which this long