Cæsar was now eager to secure Cleopatra’s person. He sent Gallus to her with soothing messages, which he delivered to her at the porch. But while he was speaking with her C. Proculeius entered by a window, seized the queen, and conveyed her to the Palace, where she was allowed her usual attendants and all the paraphernalia of royalty. Of the two accounts of Cæsar’s interview with her the more picturesque one is given by the usually prosaic Dio. He found her looking charming in her mourning, surrounded by likenesses of various kinds of the great Iulius, and in the bosom of her dress a packet of letters received from him. On his entrance she rose with a blush and greeted him as her lord and master. She pleaded that Iulius had always honoured her and acknowledged her as queen. She read affectionate passages from his letters, which she kissed passionately with tears streaming from her eyes, being at the same time careful to put respectful admiration and affection for Cæsar himself into her looks and the tone of her voice. Cæsar quite appreciated the drama thus played for his behoof, but feigned unconsciousness, keeping his eyes fixed on the ground and saying nothing but: “Courage, madam! Do not be alarmed, for no harm will happen to you.” He said no word, however, as to her retention of royal power, nor did his voice betray the least tenderness. In an agony of disappointment she flung herself at his feet and besought him by the memory of his father to allow her to die and share Antony’s tomb. Cæsar made no reply except once more to bid her not be alarmed; but he gave orders that though allowed her usual attendants she was to be closely watched. Cleopatra understood only too well that the intention was to take her to Rome that she might adorn the victor’s triumph. But in order to secure greater freedom she feigned submission and to be busied in collecting presents to take to Livia. Having thus diminished the vigilance of Epaphroditus and her other guards, she some days afterwards made a parade of writing a letter to Cæsar, which she induced Epaphroditus to convey. When he returned, however, he found the queen, decked in royal robes, lying dead with two of her waiting women dead or dying by her side. “No one knows for certain,” says Dio, “how she died. Some say that a venomous snake was conveyed to her in a water-vessel or in some flowers. Others that the long pin with which she fastened her hair had a poisoned point, with which she pricked her arm.” Plutarch, with a like expression of doubt, says that the snake was conveyed in a basket of figs; and that on receiving the letter brought by Epaphroditus Cæsar understood her purpose and hurried to the Palace to prevent it, and even summoned some of the mysterious Psylli—snake charmers and curers—to suck out the poison.[213] But in spite of his disappointment, he admired her spirit and gave her a royal funeral. Perhaps after all he felt relieved of a difficulty. According to Plutarch she had shown him that she was not to be easily managed. At the end of her conversation with Cæsar, he says, she handed him a schedule of the royal treasures. But when one of her stewards or treasurers remarked that she was keeping back certain sums, the enraged queen sprang up, clutched his hair, and beat his face with her fists. When Cæsar smiled and tried to pacify her, she exclaimed: “A pretty thing, Cæsar, that you should visit and address me with honour in my fallen state, and that one of my own slaves should malign me! If I have set apart certain women’s ornaments, it was not for myself, but for Octavia and Livia, that they might soften your heart to me.”
It would be pleasanter if the death of Cleopatra and the confiscation of her treasury were the end of the story. But the executions of the two poor boys, Cæsarion and Antyllus, were acts of cold-blooded cruelty. The former, who could not have been more than sixteen, had been sent by his mother with a large supply of money to Æthiopia, but was betrayed by his pædagogus, overtaken by Cæsar’s soldiers, and put to death. The young Antonius (or Antyllus) begged hard for his life, and fled for safety to the heroum of the divine Iulius, constructed by Cleopatra, but was dragged away and killed. He could at most have been no more than fourteen, and had in childhood been betrothed to Cæsar’s infant daughter, Iulia. Perhaps the pretensions of Cæsarion to the paternity of Cæsar, and his acknowledgment as heir to the throne of Egypt, made his death inevitable; but the extreme youth of Antyllus and his helplessness might have pleaded for him. The rest of Antony’s children were protected by Octavia, and brought up as became their rank.
It is impossible not to feel some sympathy for Antony, who had thus flung away fame and life for a woman’s love. But it was doubtless a happy thing for the world that the direction of affairs fell to the cautious Augustus rather than to him. He had some attractive qualities, but no virtues. Boundless self-indulgence in a ruler more than outweighs good-nature or liberality. It brings more suffering to subjects than the occasional gratification caused by the latter qualities can compensate. His scheme for erecting a series of semi-independent kingdoms in the East would almost certainly have been the cause of endless troubles. He was not more than fifty-three at his death, but there were signs of a great decay of energy and activity. The people thought of him—
“As of a Prince whose manhood was all gone,
And molten down in mere uxoriousness.”
And undoubtedly, if instead of spending a winter in Samos in luxury and riot and part of another at Athens in much the same way, he had begun his attack on Cæsar a year earlier, the result might have been different. But he let the occasion slip and found, as others have done, that the head of Time is bald at the back.
Obv.: Head of Augustus. Rev.: The Sphinx.
Obv.: Heads of Augustus and Agrippa. Rev.: Crocodile and Palm. Colonia Nemausi (Nismes).
Obv.: Head of Augustus. Rev.: Triumphal Arch, celebrating the reconstruction of the roads.