The Best of the Bureau/The_Best_of_the_Bureau_Bureau_Development_Inc._1992.iso/dp/0000/00008.txt

Text File | 1992-08-07 | 28KB | 436 lines

$Unique_ID{bob00008}
$Pretitle{}
$Title{History Of Cleopatra, Queen Of Egypt
Chapter VI: Cleopatra And Caesar}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Abbott, Jacob}
$Affiliation{}
$Subject{caesar
ptolemy
cleopatra
city
caesar's
achillas
alexandria
time
pothinus
army
see
pictures
see
figures
}
$Date{1900}
$Log{See Cleopatra In Palace*0000801.scf
}
Title:       History Of Cleopatra, Queen Of Egypt
Book:        Cleopatra
Author:      Abbott, Jacob
Date:        1900

Chapter VI: Cleopatra And Caesar

     In the mean time, while the events related in the last chapter were
taking place at Alexandria, Cleopatra remained anxious and uneasy in her camp,
quite uncertain, for a time, what it was best for her to do.  She wished to be
at Alexandria.  She knew very well that Caesar's power in controlling the
course of affairs in Egypt would necessarily be supreme.  She was, of course,
very earnest in her desire to be able to present her cause before him.  As it
was, Ptolemy and Pothinus were in communication with the arbiter, and, for
aught she knew, assiduously cultivating his favor, while she was far away, her
cause unheard, her wrongs unknown, and perhaps even her existence forgotten.
Of course, under such circumstances, she was very earnest to get to
Alexandria.

     But how to accomplish this purpose was a source of great perplexity. She
could not march thither at the head of an army, for the army of the king was
strongly intrenched at Pelusium, and effectually barred the way.  She could
not attempt to pass alone, or with few attendants, through the country, for
every town and village was occupied with garrisons and officers under the
orders of Pothinus, and she would be certainly intercepted.  She had no fleet,
and could not, therefore, make the passage by sea.  Besides, even if she could
by any means reach the gates of Alexandria, how was she to pass safely through
the streets of the city to the palace where Caesar resided, since the city,
except in Caesar's quarters, was wholly in the hands of Pothinus's government?
The difficulties in the way of accomplishing her object seemed thus almost
insurmountable.

     She was, however, resolved to make the attempt.  She sent a message to
Caesar, asking permission to appear before him and plead her own cause. Caesar
replied, urging her by all means to come.  She took a single boat, and with
the smallest number of attendants possible, made her way along the coast to
Alexandria.  The man on whom she principally relied in this hazardous
expedition was a domestic named Apollodorus.  She had, however, some other
attendants besides.  When the party reached Alexandria, they waited until
night, and then advanced to the foot of the walls of the citadel.  Here
Apollodorus rolled the queen up in a piece of carpeting, and, covering the
whole package with a cloth, he tied it with a thong, so as to give it the
appearance of a bale of ordinary merchandise, and then throwing the load
across his shoulder, he advanced into the city.  Cleopatra was at this time
about twenty-one years of age, but she was of a slender and graceful form, and
the burden was, consequently, not very heavy.  Apollodorus came to the gates
of the palace where Caesar was residing.  The guards at the gates asked him
what it was that he was carrying.  He said that it was a present for Caesar.
So they allowed him to pass, and the pretended porter carried his package
safely in.

     When it was unrolled, and Cleopatra came out to view, Caesar was
perfectly charmed with the spectacle.  In fact, the various conflicting
emotions which she could not but feel under such circumstances as these,
imparted a double interest to her beautiful and expressive face, and to her
naturally bewitching manners.  She was excited by the adventure through which
she had passed, and yet pleased with her narrow escape from its dangers.  The
curiosity and interest which she felt on the one hand, in respect to the great
personage into whose presence she had been thus strangely ushered, was very
strong; but then, on the other, it was chastened and subdued by that feeling
of timidity which, in new and unexpected situations like these, and under a
consciousness of being the object of eager observation to the other sex, is
inseparable from the nature of woman.

     The conversation which Caesar held with Cleopatra deepened the impression
which her first appearance had made upon him.  Her intelligence and animation,
the originality of her ideas, and the point and pertinency of her mode of
expressing them, made her, independently of her personal charms, an
exceedingly entertaining and agreeable companion.  She, in fact, completely
won the great conqueror's heart; and, through the strong attachment to her
which he immediately formed, he became wholly disqualified to act impartially
between her and her brother in regard to their respective rights to the crown.
We call Ptolemy Cleopatra's brother; for, though he was also, in fact, her
husband, still, as he was only ten or twelve years of age at the time of
Cleopatra's expulsion from Alexandria, the marriage had been probably
regarded, thus far, only as a mere matter of form.  Caesar was now about
fifty-two.  He had a wife, named Calpurnia, to whom he had been married about
ten years.  She was living, at this time, in an unostentatious and quiet
manner at Rome.  She was a lady of an amiable and gentle character, devotedly
attached to her husband, patient and forbearing in respect to his faults, and
often anxious and unhappy at the thought of the difficulties and dangers in
which his ardent and unbounded ambition so often involved him.

     Caesar immediately began to take a very strong interest in Cleopatra's
cause.  He treated her personally with the fondest attention, and it was
impossible for her not to reciprocate in some degree the kind feeling with
which he regarded her.  It was, in fact, something altogether new to her to
have a warm and devoted friend, espousing her cause, tendering her protection,
and seeking in every way to promote her happiness.  Her father had all his
life neglected her.  Her brother, of years and understanding totally inferior
to hers, whom she had been compelled to make her husband, had become her
mortal enemy.  It is true that, in depriving her of her inheritance and
expelling her from her native land, he had been only the too and instrument of
more designing men.  This, however, far from improving the point of view from
which she regarded him, made him appear not only hateful, but contemptible
too.  All the officers of government, also, in the Alexandrian court had
turned against her, because they had supposed that they could control her
brother more easily if she were away.  Thus she had always been surrounded by
selfish, mercenary, and implacable foes.  Now, for the first time, she seemed
to have a friend.  A protector had suddenly arisen to support and defend her -
a man of very alluring person and manners, of a very noble and generous
spirit, and of the very highest station.  He loved her, and she could not
refrain from loving him in return.  She committed her cause entirely into his
hands, confided to him all her interests, and gave herself up wholly into his
power.

     Nor was the unbounded confidence which she reposed in him undeserved, so
far as related to his efforts to restore her to her throne.  The legions which
Caesar had sent for into Syria had not yet arrived, and his situation in
Alexandria was still very defenseless and very precarious.  He did not,
however, on this account, abate in the least degree the loftiness and
self-confidence of the position which he had assumed, but he commenced
immediately the work of securing Cleopatra's restoration.  This quiet
assumption of the right and power to arbitrate and decide such a question as
that of the claim to the throne, in a country where he had accidentally landed
and found rival claimants disputing for the succession, while he was still
wholly destitute of the means of enforcing the superiority which he so coolly