n one of the coldest, most politic, and most astute men that ever
lived. And the disappointment that followed her defeat--that she could
not enslave another conqueror--was greater than the grief for Antony.
Nor during her whole career do we see any signs of that sorrow and
humility which, it would seem, should mark a woman who has made so great
and fatal a mistake,--cut off hopelessly from the respect of the world
and the peace of her own soul. We see grief, rage, despair, in her
miserable end, as we see pride and shamefacedness in her gilded life,
but not remorse or shame. And when she dies by her own hand, it is not
in madness, but to escape humiliation. Suicide was one of the worst
features of Pagan antiquity. It was a base and cowardly reluctance to
meet the evils of life, as much as indifference to the future and a
blunted moral sense.

So much for the woman herself, her selfish spirit, her vile career; but
as Cleopatra is one of the best known and most striking examples of a
Pagan woman, with qualities and in circumstances peculiarly
characteristic of Paganism, I must make a few remarks on these points.

One of the most noticeable of these is that immorality seems to have
been no bar to social position. Some of those who were most attractive
and sought after were notoriously immoral. Aspasia, whom Socrates and
Pericles equally admired, and whose house was the resort of poets,
philosophers, statesmen, and artists, and who is said to have been one
of the most cultivated women of antiquity, bore a sullied name. Sappho,
who was ever exalted by Grecian poets for the sweetness of her verses,
attempted to reconcile a life of pleasure with a life of letters, and
threw herself into the sea because of a disappointed passion. Lais, a
professional courtesan, was the associate of kings and sages as well as
the idol of poets and priests. Agrippina, whose very name is infamy, was
the admiration of courtiers and statesmen. Lucilla, who armed her
assassins against her own brother, seems to have ruled the court of
Marcus Aurelius.

And all these women, and more who could be mentioned, were--like
Cleopatra--cultivated, intellectual, and brilliant. They seem to have
reigned for their social fascinations as much as by their physical
beauty. Hence, that class of women who with us are shunned and excluded
from society were not only flattered and honored, but the class itself
seems to have been recruited by those who were the most attr