And in the following year messengers came to me from Cleopatra, bearing a sealed roll and great gifts. I opened the roll, and read this in it:
“Cleopatra to Olympus, the learned Egyptian who dwells in the Valley of Death by Tápé—
“The fame of thy renown, O learned Olympus, hath reached our ears. Tell thou, then, this to us, and if thou tellest aright greater honour and wealth shalt thou have than any in Egypt: How shall we win back the love of noble Antony, who is bewitched of cunning Octavia, and tarries long from us?”
Now, in this I saw the hand of Charmion, who had made my renown known to Cleopatra.
All that night I took counsel with my wisdom, and on the morrow wrote my answer as it was put into my heart to the destruction of Cleopatra and Antony. And thus I wrote:
“Olympus the Egyptian to Cleopatra the Queen—
“Go forth into Syria with one who shall be sent to lead thee; thus shalt thou win Antony to thy arms again, and with him gifts more great than thou canst dream.”
And with this letter I dismissed the messengers, bidding them share the presents sent by Cleopatra among their company.
So they went wondering.
But Cleopatra, seizing on the advice to which her passion prompted her, departed straightway with Fonteius Capito into Syria, and there the thing came about as I had foretold, for Antony was subdued of her and gave her the greater part of Cilicia, the ocean shore of Arabia Nabathæa, the balm-bearing provinces of Judæa, the province of Phoenicia, the province of Coele-Syria, the rich isle of Cyprus, and all the library of Pergamus. And to the twin children that, with the son Ptolemy, Cleopatra had borne to Antony, he impiously gave the names of “Kings, the Children of Kings”—of Alexander Helios, as the Greeks name the sun, and of Cleopatra Selene, the moon, the long-winged.