CLEOPATRA A QUEEN.
The war by which Cæsar reinstated Cleopatra upon the throne was not one of
very long duration. Cæsar arrived in Egypt in pursuit of Pompey about the
1st of August; the war was ended and Cleopatra established in secure
possession by the end of January; so that the conflict, violent as it was
while it continued, was very brief, the peaceful and commercial pursuits
of the Alexandrians having been interrupted by it only for a few months.
Nor did either the war itself, or the derangements consequent upon it,
extend very far into the interior of the country. The city of Alexandria
itself and the neighboring coasts were the chief scenes of the contest
until Mithradates arrived at Pelusium. He, it is true, marched across the
Delta, and the final battle was fought in the interior of the country. It
was, however, after all, but a very small portion of the Egyptian
territory that was directly affected by the war. The great mass of the
people, occupying the rich and fertile tracts which bordered the various
branches of the Nile, and the long and verdant valley which extended so
far into the heart of the continent, knew nothing of the conflict but by
vague and distant rumors. The pursuits of the agricultural population went
on, all the time, as steadily and prosperously as ever; so that when the
conflict was ended, and Cleopatra entered upon the quiet and peaceful
possession of her power, she found that the resources of her empire were
very little impaired.
She availed herself, accordingly, of the revenues which poured in very
abundantly upon her, to enter upon a career of the greatest luxury,
magnificence, and splendor. The injuries which had been done to the
palaces and other public edifices of Alexandria by the fire, and by the
military operations of the siege, were repaired. The bridges which had
been broken down were rebuilt. The canals which had been obstructed were
opened again. The sea-water was shut off from the palace cisterns; the
rubbish of demolished houses was removed; the barricades were cleared from
the streets; and the injuries which the palaces had suffered, either from
the violence of military engines or the rough occupation of the Roman
soldiery, were repaired. In a word, the city was speedily restored once
more, so far as was possible, to its former order and beauty. The five
hundred thousand manuscripts of the Alexandrian library, which had been
burned, could not, indeed, be restored; but, in all other respects, the
city soon resumed in appearance all its former splendor. Even in respect
to the library, Cleopatra made an effort to retrieve the loss. She
repaired the ruined buildings, and afterward, in the course of her life,
she brought together, it was said, in a manner hereafter to be described,
one or two hundred thousand rolls of manuscripts, as the commencement of a
new collection. The new library, however, never acquired the fame and
distinction that had pertained to the old.
The former sovereigns of Egypt, Cleopatra's ancestors, had generally, as
has already been shown, devoted the immense revenues which they extorted
from the agriculturalists of the valley of the Nile to purposes of
ambition. Cleopatra seemed now disposed to expend them in luxury and
pleasure. They, the Ptolemies, had employed their resources in erecting
vast structures, or founding magnificent institutions at Alexandria, to
add to the glory of the city, and to widen and extend their own fame.
Cleopatra, on the other hand, as was, perhaps, naturally to be expected of
a young, beautiful, and impulsive woman, suddenly raised to so conspicuous
a position, and to the possession of such unbounded wealth and power,
expended her royal revenues in plans of personal display, and in scenes of
festivity, gayety, and enjoyment. She adorned her palaces, built
magnificent barges for pleasure excursions on the Nile, and expended
enormous sums for dress, for equipages, and for sumptuous entertainments.
In fact, so lavish were her expenditures for these and similar purposes
during the early years of her reign, that she is considered as having
carried the extravagance of sensual luxury and personal display and
splendor beyond the limits that had ever before or have ever since been
attained.
Whatever of simplicity of character, and of gentleness and kindness of
spirit she might have possessed in her earlier years, of course gradually
disappeared under the influences of such a course of life as she now was
leading. She was beautiful and fascinating still, but she began to grow
selfish, heartless, and designing. Her little brother--he was but eleven
years of age, it will be recollected, when Cæsar arranged the marriage
between them--was an object of jealousy to her. He was now, of course, too
young to take any actual share in the exercise of the royal power, or to
interfere at all in his sister's plans or pleasures. But then he was
growing older. In a few years he would be fifteen--which was the period of
life fixed upon by Cæsar's arrangements, and, in fact, by the laws and
usages of the Egyptian kingdom--when he was to come into possession of
power as king, and as the husband of Cleopatra. Cleopatra was extremely
unwilling that the change in her relations to him and to the government,
which this period was to bring, should take place. Accordingly, just
before the time arrived, she caused him to be poisoned. His death released
her, as she had intended, from all restraints, and thereafter she
continued to reign alone. During the remainder of her life, so far as the
enjoyment of wealth and power, and of all other elements of external
prosperity could go, Cleopatra's career was one of uninterrupted success.
She had no conscientious scruples to interfere with the most full and
unrestrained indulgence of every propensity of her heart, and the means of
indulgence were before her in the most unlimited profusion. The only bar
to her happiness was the impossibility of satisfying the impulses and
passions of the human soul, when they once break over the bounds which the
laws both of God and of nature ordain for restraining them.
In the mean time, while Cleopatra was spending the early years of her
reign in all this luxury and splendor, Cæsar was pursuing his career, as
the conqueror of the world, in the most successful manner. On the death of
Pompey, he would naturally have succeeded at once to the enjoyment of the
supreme power; but his delay in Egypt, and the extent to which it was
known that he was entangled with Cleopatra, encouraged and strengthened
his enemies in various parts of the world. In fact, a revolt which broke
out in Asia Minor, and which it was absolutely necessary that he should
proceed at once to quell, was the immediate cause of his leaving Egypt at
last. Other plans for making head against Cæsar's power were formed in
Spain, in Africa, and in Italy. His military skill and energy, however,
were so great, and the ascendency which he exercised over the minds of men
by his personal presence was so unbounded, and so astonishing, moreover,
was the celerity with which he moved from continent to continent, and
from kingdom to kingdom, that in a very short period from the time of his
leaving Egypt, he had conducted most brilliant and successful campaigns in
all the three quarters of the world then known, had put down effectually
all opposition to his power, and then had returned to Rome the
acknowledged master of the world. Cleopatra, who had, of course, watched
his career during all this time with great pride and pleasure, concluded,
at last, to go to Rome and make a visit to him there.
The people of Rome were, however, not prepared to receive her very
cordially. It was an age in which vice of every kind was regarded with
great indulgence, but the moral instincts of mankind were too strong to be
wholly blinded to the true character of so conspicuous an example of
wickedness as this. Arsinoë was at Rome, too, during this period of
Cæsar's life. He had brought her there, it will be recollected, on his
return from Egypt, as a prisoner, and as a trophy of his victory. His
design was, in fact, to reserve her as a captive to grace his _triumph_.
A triumph, according to the usages of the ancient Romans, was a grand
celebration decreed by the senate to great military commanders of the
highest rank, when they returned from distant campaigns in which they had
made great conquests or gained extraordinary victories. Cæsar concentrated
all his triumphs into one. They were celebrated on his return to Rome for
the last time, after having completed the conquest of the world. The
processions of this triumph occupied four days. In fact, there were four
triumphs, one on each day for the four days. The wars and conquests which
these ovations were intended to celebrate were those of Gaul, of Egypt, of
Asia, and of Africa; and the processions on the several days consisted of
endless trains of prisoners, trophies, arms, banners, pictures, images,
convoys of wagons loaded with plunder, captive princes and princesses,
animals, wild and tame, and every thing else which the conqueror had been
able to bring home with him from his campaigns, to excite the curiosity or
the admiration of the people of the city, and illustrate the magnitude of
his exploits. Of course, the Roman generals, when engaged in distant
foreign wars, were ambitious of bringing back as many distinguished
captives and as much public plunder as they were able to obtain, in order
to add to the variety and splendor of the triumphal procession by which
their victories were to be honored on their return. It was with this view
that Cæsar brought Arsinoë from Egypt; and he had retained her as his
captive at Rome until his conquests were completed and the time for his
triumph arrived. She, of course, formed a part of the triumphal train on
the _Egyptian_ day. She walked immediately before the chariot in which
Cæsar rode. She was in chains, like any other captive, though her chains,
in honor of her lofty rank, were made of gold.
[Illustration: CLEOPATRA'S SISTER IN THE TRIUMPHAL PROCESSION.]
The effect, however, upon the Roman population of seeing the unhappy
princess, overwhelmed as she was with sorrow and chagrin, as she moved
slowly along in the train, among the other emblems and trophies of
violence and plunder, proved to be by no means favorable to Cæsar. The
populace were inclined to pity her, and to sympathize with her in her
sufferings. The sight of her distress recalled, too, to their minds the
dereliction from duty of which Cæsar had been guilty of in his yielding to
the enticements of Cleopatra, and remaining so long in Egypt to the
neglect of his proper duties as a Roman minister of state. In a word, the
tide of admiration for Cæsar's military exploits which had been setting
so strongly in his favor, seemed inclined to turn, and the city was filled
with murmurs against him even in the midst of his triumphs.
In fact, the pride and vainglory which led Cæsar to make his triumphs more
splendid and imposing than any former conqueror had ever enjoyed, caused
him to overact his part so as to produce effects the reverse of his
intentions. The case of Arsinoë was one example of this. Instead of
impressing the people with a sense of the greatness of his exploits in
Egypt, in deposing one queen and bringing her captive to Rome, in order
that he might place another upon the throne in her stead, it only
reproduced anew the censures and criminations which he had deserved by his
actions there, but which, had it not been for the pitiable spectacle of
Arsinoë in the train, might have been forgotten.
There were other examples of a similar character. There were the feasts,
for instance. From the plunder which Cæsar had obtained in his various
campaigns, he expended the most enormous sums in making feasts and
spectacles for the populace at the time of his triumph. A large portion of
the populace was pleased, it is true, with the boundless indulgences thus
offered to them; but the better part of the Roman people were indignant
at the waste and extravagance which were every where displayed. For many
days the whole city of Rome presented to the view nothing but one
wide-spread scene of riot and debauchery. The people, instead of being
pleased with this abundance, said that Cæsar must have practiced the most
extreme and lawless extortion to have obtained the vast amount of money
necessary to enable him to supply such unbounded and reckless waste.
There was another way, too, by which Cæsar turned public opinion strongly
against himself, by the very means which he adopted for creating a
sentiment in his favor. The Romans, among the other barbarous amusements
which were practiced in the city, were specially fond of combats. These
combats were of various kinds. They were fought sometimes between
ferocious beasts of the same or of different species, as dogs against each
other, or against bulls, lions, or tigers. Any animals, in fact, were
employed for this purpose, that could be teased or goaded into anger and
ferocity in a fight. Sometimes men were employed in these combats--captive
soldiers, that had been taken in war, and brought to Rome to fight in the
amphitheaters there as gladiators. These men were compelled to contend
sometimes with wild beasts, and sometimes with one another. Cæsar, knowing
how highly the Roman assemblies enjoyed such scenes, determined to afford
them the indulgence on a most magnificent scale, supposing, of course,
that the greater and the more dreadful the fight, the higher would be the
pleasure which the spectators would enjoy in witnessing it. Accordingly,
in making preparations for the festivities attending his triumph, he
caused a large artificial lake to be formed at a convenient place in the
vicinity of Rome, where it could be surrounded by the populace of the
city, and there he made arrangements for a naval battle. A great number of
galleys were introduced into the lake. They were of the usual size
employed in war. These galleys were manned with numerous soldiers. Tyrian
captives were put upon one side, and Egyptian upon the other; and when all
was ready, the two squadrons were ordered to approach and fight a real
naval battle for the amusement of the enormous throngs of spectators that
were assembled around. As the nations from which the combatants in this
conflict were respectively taken were hostile to each other, and as the
men fought, of course, for their lives, the engagement was attended with
the usual horrors of a desperate naval encounter. Hundreds were slain. The
dead bodies of the combatants fell from the galleys into the lake, and the
waters of it were dyed with their blood.
There were land combats, too, on the same grand scale. In one of them five
hundred foot soldiers, twenty elephants, and a troop of thirty horse were
engaged on each side. This combat, therefore, was an action greater, in
respect to the number of the combatants, than the famous battle of
Lexington, which marked the commencement of the American war; and in
respect to the slaughter which took place, it was very probably ten times
greater. The horror of these scenes proved to be too much even for the
populace, fierce and merciless as it was, which they were intended to
amuse. Cæsar, in his eagerness to outdo all former exhibitions and shows,
went beyond the limits within which the seeing of men butchered in bloody
combats and dying in agony and despair would serve for a pleasure and a
pastime. The people were shocked; and condemnations of Cæsar's cruelty
were added to the other suppressed reproaches and criminations which every
where arose.
Cleopatra, during her visit to Rome, lived openly with Cæsar at his
residence, and this excited very general displeasure. In fact, while the
people pitied Arsinoë, Cleopatra, notwithstanding her beauty and her
thousand personal accomplishments and charms, was an object of general
displeasure, so far as public attention was turned toward her at all. The
public mind was, however, much engrossed by the great political movements
made by Cæsar and the ends toward which he seemed to be aiming. Men
accused him of designing to be made a king. Parties were formed for and
against him; and though men did not dare openly to utter their sentiments,
their passions became the more violent in proportion to the external force
by which they were suppressed. Mark Antony was at Rome at this time. He
warmly espoused Cæsar's cause, and encouraged his design of making himself
king. He once, in fact, offered to place a royal diadem upon Cæsar's head
at some public celebration; but the marks of public disapprobation which
the act elicited caused him to desist.
At length, however, the time arrived when Cæsar determined to cause
himself to be proclaimed king. He took advantage of a certain remarkable
conjuncture of public affairs, which can not here be particularly
described, but which seemed to him specially to favor his designs, and
arrangements were made for having him invested with the regal power by the
senate. The murmurs and the discontent of the people at the indications
that the time for the realization of their fears was drawing nigh, became
more and more audible, and at length a conspiracy was formed to put an end
to the danger by destroying the ambitious aspirant's life. Two stern and
determined men, Brutus and Cassius, were the leaders of this conspiracy.
They matured their plans, organized their band of associates, provided
themselves secretly with arms, and when the senate convened, on the day in
which the decisive vote was to have been passed, Cæsar himself presiding,
they came up boldly around him in his presidential chair, and murdered him
with their daggers.
Antony, from whom the plans of the conspirators had been kept profoundly
secret, stood by, looking on stupefied and confounded while the deed was
done, but utterly unable to render his friend any protection.
Cleopatra immediately fled from the city and returned to Egypt.
Arsinoë had gone away before. Cæsar, either taking pity on her
misfortunes, or impelled, perhaps, by the force of public sentiment, which
seemed inclined to take part with her against him, set her at liberty
immediately after the ceremonies of his triumph were over. He would not,
however, allow her to return into Egypt, for fear, probably, that she
might in some way or other be the means of disturbing the government of
Cleopatra. She proceeded, accordingly, into Syria, no longer as a captive,
but still as an exile from her native land. We shall hereafter learn what
became of her there.
Calpurnia mourned the death of her husband with sincere and unaffected
grief. She bore the wrongs which she suffered as a wife with a very
patient and unrepining spirit, and loved her husband with the most devoted
attachment to the end. Nothing can be more affecting than the proofs of
her tender and anxious regard on the night immediately preceding the
assassination. There were certain slight and obscure indications of danger
which her watchful devotion to her husband led her to observe, though they
eluded the notice of all Cæsar's other friends, and they filled her with
apprehension and anxiety; and when at length the bloody body was brought
home to her from the senate-house, she was overwhelmed with grief and
despair.
She had no children. She accordingly looked upon Mark Antony as her
nearest friend and protector, and in the confusion and terror which
prevailed the next day in the city, she hastily packed together the money
and other valuables contained in the house, and all her husband's books
and papers, and sent them to Antony for safe keeping.