's Ancient History, Biographic
Universelle. Mr. Froude alludes to Cicero in his Life of Caesar, taking
nearly the same view as Forsyth.

CLEOPATRA.

69-30 B.C.

THE WOMAN OF PAGANISM.

It is my object in this lecture to present the condition of woman under
the influences of Paganism, before Christianity enfranchised and
elevated her. As a type of the Pagan woman I select Cleopatra, partly
because she was famous, and partly because she possessed traits and
accomplishments which made her interesting in spite of the vices which
degraded her. She was a queen, the heir of a long line of kings, and
ruled over an ancient and highly civilized country. She was
intellectual, accomplished, beautiful, and fascinating. She lived in one
of the most interesting capitals of the ancient world, and by birth she
was more Greek than she was African or Oriental. She lived, too, in a
great age, when Rome had nearly conquered the world; when Roman senators
and generals had more power than kings; when Grecian arts and literature
were copied by the imperial Romans; when the rich and fortunate were
luxurious and ostentatious beyond all precedent; when life had reached
the highest point of material splendor, and yet when luxury had not
destroyed military virtues or undermined the strength of the empire. The
"eternal city" then numbered millions of people, and was the grandest
capital ever seen on this earth, since everything was there
concentrated,--the spoils of the world, riches immeasurable, literature
and art, palaces and temples, power unlimited,--the proudest centre of
civilization which then existed, and a civilization which in its
material aspects has not since been surpassed. The civilized world was
then most emphatically Pagan, in both spirit and forms. Religion as a
controlling influence was dead. Only a very few among speculative
philosophers believed in any god, except in a degrading sense,--as a
blind inexorable fate, or an impersonation of the powers of Nature. The
future state was a most perplexing uncertainty. Epicurean
self-indulgence and material prosperity were regarded as the greatest
good; and as doubt of the darkest kind hung over the future, the body
was necessarily regarded as of more value than the soul. In fact, it was
only the body which Paganism recognized as a reality; the soul, God, and
immortality were virtually everywhere ignored.

It was in this godless, yet brilliant, age that Cleopatra appears u