crifice?"

Before Cleopatra had time to answer this question another trumpet-blast
was heard, and she exclaimed: "That is Philometor, come to fetch us to
the banquet. I will ere long give the Roman the opportunity of defending
himself, though--in spite of your accusations--I trust him entirely. This
morning I asked him solemnly whether it was true that he was in love with
his friend's charming Hebe, and he denied it in his firm and manly way,
and his replies were admirable and worthy of the noblest mind, when I
ventured to doubt his sincerity. He takes truth more seriously than you
do. He regards it not only as beautiful and right to be truthful, he
says, but as prudent too; for lies can only procure us a small
short-lived advantage, as transitory as the mists of night which vanish
as soon as the sun appears, while truth is like the sunlight itself,
which as often as it is dimmed by clouds reappears again and again. And,
he says, what makes a liar so particularly contemptible in his eyes is,
that to attain his end, he must be constantly declaring and repeating the
horror he has of those who are and do the very same thing as he himself.
The ruler of a state cannot always be truthful, and I often have failed
in truth; but my intercourse with Publius has aroused much that is good
in me, and which had been slumbering with closed eyes; and if this man
should prove to be the same as all the rest of you, then I will follow
your road, Euergetes, and laugh at virtue and truth, and set the busts of
Aristippus and Strato on the pedestals where those of Zeno and
Antisthenes now stand."

"You mean to have the busts of the philosophers moved again?" asked King
Philometor, who, as he entered the tent, had heard the queen's last
words. "And Aristippus is to have the place of honor? I have no
objection--though he teaches that man must subjugate matter and not
become subject to it.--["Mihi res, non me rebus subjungere."]--This
indeed is easier to say than to do, and there is no man to whom it is
more impossible than to a king who has to keep on good terms with Greeks
and Egyptians, as we have, and with Rome as well. And besides all this to
avoid quarrelling with a jealous brother, who shares our kingdom! If men
could only know how much they would have to do as kings only in reading
and writing, they would take care never to struggle for a crown! Up to
this last half hour I have been examining and deciding applications and
petitions. Hav