d not paralyze his strength and cautious
deliberation. No! He had never been greater; never proved the power of
his genius so magnificently. And against what superior power, what hatred
he contended! I myself saw the young King, when he heard that Cleopatra
had succeeded in entering the palace and meeting Caesar, rush into the
street, fairly crazed by rage, tear the diadem from his head, hurl it on
the pavement, and shriek to the passers-by that he was betrayed, until
Caesar's soldiers forced him back into the palace, and dispersed the mob.

"Arsinoe had received more than she could venture to expect; but she was
again most deeply angered. After Caesar's entry into the palace, she had
received him as Queen, and hoped everything from his favour. Then her
hated sister had come and, as so often happened, she was forgotten for
Cleopatra's sake.

"This was too much, and with the eunuch Ganymedes, her confidant, and--as
I have already said--an able warrior, she left the palace and joined the
dictator's foes.

"There were severe battles on land and sea; in the streets of the city,
for the drinkable water excavated by the foe; and against the
conflagration which destroyed part of the Bruchium and the library of the
museum. Yet, half dead with thirst, barely escaped from drowning,
threatened on all sides by fierce hatred, he stood firm, and remained
victor also in the open field, after the young King had placed himself at
the head of the Egyptians and collected an army.

"You know that the boy was drowned in the flight.

"In battle and mortal peril, amid blood and the clank of arms, Caesar and
Cleopatra spent half a year ere they were permitted to pluck the fruit of
their common labour. The dictator now made her Queen of Egypt, and gave
her, as co-regent, her youngest brother, a boy not half her own age. To
Arsinoe he granted the life she had forfeited, but sent her to Italy.

"Peace followed the victory. Now, it is true, grave duties must have
summoned the statesman back to Rome, but he tarried three full months
longer.

"Whoever knows the life of the ambitious Julius, and is aware what this
delay might have cost him, may well strike his brow with his hand, and
ask, 'Is it true and possible that he used this precious time to take a
trip with the woman he loved up the Nile, to the island of Isis, which is
so dear to the Queen, to the extreme southern frontier of the country?'
Yet it was so, and I myself went in the second