He went further still; he erected in the temple of Venus the golden statue of Cleopatra, thus adding to the insult to the Roman people the outrage to the Roman gods. It was not enough that Cæsar for love of Cleopatra had not reduced Egypt to a Roman province; not enough that he had installed this foreigner in Rome, in his villa on the banks of the Tiber, and that he lavished on her every mark of honor and every testimony of love;—now he dedicated, in the temple of a national divinity, the statue of this prostitute of Alexandria, this barbarous queen of the land of magicians, of thaumaturgy [wonder-working], of eunuchs, of servile dwellers by the Nile, these worshipers of stuffed birds and gods with the heads of beasts. Men asked each other where the infatuation of Cæsar would end. It was reported that the dictator was preparing to propose, by the tribune Helvius Cinna, a law which would permit him to espouse as many wives as he desired in order to beget children by them. It was said that he was about to recognize the son of Cleopatra as his heir, and still further, that after having exhausted Italy in levies of men and money he would leave the government of Rome in the hands of his creatures and transfer the seat of empire to Alexandria. These rumors aroused all minds against Cæsar, and, if we may credit Dion, tended to arm his assassins against him (to furnish the dagger to slay him).[2] Notwithstanding this hostility, Cleopatra was not deserted in the villa on the Tiber. To please the divine Julius, to approach him more intimately, the Cæsarians controlled their antipathy and frequently visited the beautiful queen. To this court of Egypt transported to the banks of the Tiber came Mark Antony, Dolabella, Lepidus, then general-of-horse; Oppius Curio, Cornelius Balbus, Helvius Cinna, Matius, the prætor Vendidius, Trebonius, and others. Side by side with the partisans of Cæsar were also some of his secret enemies, such as Atticus, a celebrated silver merchant with great interests in Egypt, and others whom he had won over, like Cicero. The latter while making his peace with Cæsar did not forget his master-passion, love of books and of curiosities. An insatiable collector, he thought to enrich his library at Tusculum without loosing his purse-strings, and requested Cleopatra to send for him to Alexandria, where such treasures abounded, for a few Greek manuscripts and Egyptian antiquities. The queen promised willingly, and one of her officers, Aumonius, who, formerly an ambassador of Ptolemy Auletes to Rome, had there known Cicero, undertook the commission; but whether through forgetfulness or negligence the promised gifts came not, and Cicero preserved so deep an enmity to the queen in consequence that he afterwards wrote to Atticus, “I hate the queen (odi reginam),” giving as his only reason for this aversion the failure of the royal promise. The former consul had also received an affront from Sarapion, one of Cleopatra’s officers. This man had gone to his house, and when Cicero asked him what he wished he had replied rudely: “I seek Atticus,” and at once departed. How often does the ill-conduct of upper servants create a prejudice against the great.
The assassination of Cæsar, which struck Cleopatra like a thunderbolt, would have been the destruction of all her hopes if one could lose hope at twenty-five. Cæsar dead, there was nothing to detain her in Rome, and she did not feel safe in this hostile city amid the bloody scenes of the parricidal days. She prepared to depart, but Antony having entertained for a moment the weak desire of opposing to Octavius as Cæsar’s heir the little Cæsarion, Cleopatra remained in Rome until the middle of April. When the queen perceived that this project was finally abandoned, she hastened to depart from the city where she had experienced so much contempt and which she quitted with rage in her heart.
IV.
Cleopatra reëntered Alexandria without opposition, but the civil war which threatened between the adherents of Cæsar and the republicans made her situation difficult and her crown precarious. The ally of the Roman people, she could not remain neutral in the struggle; but at the risk of the victors’, whoever they might be, making her pay the penalty of her desertion by annexing Egypt to the empire, she inclined to the Triumvirs; for the partisans of Cæsar had been less inimical to her while in Rome, and Antony, through policy indeed, rather than friendship, had spoken in favor of her son’s succession. On the other hand, if the Triumvirs possessed the West, their adversaries were almost the masters of the East, and directly threatened Egypt. At the very commencement of hostilities Cassius, who with eight legions occupied Syria, called upon Cleopatra to send him reënforcements, and almost at the same time one of the lieutenants of Antony, Dolabella, besieged in Laodicea, addressed the same demand to her.
Cassius was seemingly victorious, Dolabella the reverse; prudence would have advised to side with the former, nevertheless Cleopatra remained faithful to her tacit alliance with the Cæsarians. Four Roman legions, two left by Cæsar and two composed of the veterans of Gabinius, were stationed at Alexandria. The queen commanded them to set out for Laodicea, but the envoy of Dolabella, Allienus, who had taken the command of these troops, came upon the army of Cassius in Syria. Whether from pusillanimity or premeditated treachery, Allienus united his legions with those of the enemy against whom he was leading them, and only a single Egyptian squadron, which Cleopatra had also despatched to Laodicea, reached Antony.
Soon after the departure of the legions, 43 B. C., the young king Ptolemy died suddenly. Cleopatra was accused of having him poisoned. This crime, which is far from being authenticated, is by no means improbable. It may be that when Cleopatra by the departure of the Roman soldiers found herself without any reliable troops, she dreaded either a conspiracy in the palace or an insurrection which would drive her from the throne to place on it her brother. Six years previously the same circumstance had resulted to the advantage of her other brother, and Cleopatra had nearly fallen a victim. Immediately on the death of Ptolemy XIII., the queen took as the sharer of the throne her young son Ptolemy-Cæsarion, then four years of age.
Stationed at Cyprus was an Egytian fleet. Cassius sent orders direct to the navarch Sarapion, who commanded it, to unite with the republican fleet, and the latter obeyed without even referring to his sovereign. Not satisfied with the four legions and the squadron which he had already received from Cleopatra, much against her will, indeed, Cassius again sent her word to furnish him new supplies of troops, ships, provisions, and money. The queen, who feared an invasion, which she was without forces to repel, sought to temporize. She expressed her regrets to Cassius that she could not at once send him aid, Egypt being ruined by famine and pestilence. Famine indeed reigned there by reason of an insufficient inundation of the Nile, but Egypt was not ruined for all that, and whilst Cleopatra was evading the demands of Cassius she was preparing a new fleet to assist the Triumvirs. Cassius was not deceived by the diplomacy of Cleopatra’s envoy. He determined to invade Egypt. He had already set out on his march when Brutus, on the approach of the army of Antony, summoned him into Macedonia. Then Cleopatra sent her fleet to join the party of the Cæsarians, but on the way this fleet was dispersed and almost utterly destroyed by a tempest. Throughout this war ill-fortune seemed to pursue Cleopatra—with the best will to second the Triumvirs she had been able to give them almost no assistance; on the contrary, she had furnished reënforcements to the republicans, who, well knowing that these reënforcements had been most unwillingly supplied, desired to take vengeance for her reluctance.