man in Rome,
reminding the people, it is said, of the busts of Hercules. He was
lavish, like Caesar, but, like him, sought popularity, and cared but
little what it cost. It is probable that Cicero painted him, in his
famous philippics, in darker colors than he deserved, because he aimed
to be Caesar's successor, as he probably would have been but for his
infatuation for Cleopatra. Caesar sent him to Rome as master of the
horse,--a position next in power to that of dictator. When Caesar was
assassinated, Antony was the most powerful man of the empire. He was
greater than any existing king; he was almost supreme. And after
Caesar's death, when he divided his sovereignty of the world with
Octavius and Lepidus, he had the fairest chance of becoming imperator.
He had great military experience, the broad Orient as his domain, and
half the legions of Rome under his control.

It was when this great man was Triumvir, sharing with only two others
the empire of the world, and likely to overpower them, when he was in
Asia consolidating and arranging the affairs of his vast department,
that he met the woman who was the cause of all his calamities. He was
then in Cilicia, and, with all the arrogance of a Roman general, had
sent for the Queen of Egypt to appear before him and answer to an
accusation of having rendered assistance to Cassius before the fatal
battle of Philippi. He had already known and admired Cleopatra in Rome,
and it is not improbable that she divined the secret of his judicial
summons. His envoy, struck with her beauty and intelligence, advised her
to appear in her best attire. Such a woman scarcely needed such a hint.
So, making every preparation for her journey,--money, ornaments,
gifts,--a kind of Queen of Sheba, a Zenobia in her pride and glory, a
Queen Esther when she had invited the king and his minister to a
banquet,--she came to the Cydnus, and ascended the river in a
magnificent barge, such as had never been seen before, and prepared to
meet her judge, not as a criminal, but as a conqueror, armed with those
weapons that few mortals can resist.

"The barge she sat in, like a burnish'd throne,
Burn'd on the water; the poop was beaten gold;
Purple the sails, and so perfumed that
The winds were love-sick with them: the oars were silver,
Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke, and made
The water, which they beat, to follow faster,
As amorous of their strokes. For her own pe