n whom she found
a second brother and fully trusted, she spoke of these sorrowful things
only in guarded allusions. I know that she understood what was passing
fully and perfectly, and how deeply she felt it; but pain placed itself
between her and the 'chief good,' and she mastered it. And when she sat
at work, with what tenacious power the delicate creature struggled until
she had conquered the hardest task and outstripped Charmian and even me!

"In those days I understood why, among the gods, a maiden rules over
learning, and why she is armed with the weapons of war. You have heard
how many languages Cleopatra speaks. A remark of Timagenes had fallen
into her soul like a seed. 'With every language you learn,' he had said,
'you will gain a nation.' But there were many peoples in her father's
kingdom, and when she was Queen they must all love her. True, she began
with the tongue of the conquerors, not the conquered. So it happened
that we first learned Lucretius, who reproduces in verse the doctrines
of Epicurus. My father was our teacher, and the second year she read
Lucretius as if it were a Greek book. She had only half known Egyptian;
now she speedily acquired it. During our stay at Philae she found a
troglodyte who was induced to teach her his language. There were Jews
enough here in Alexandria to instruct her in theirs, and she also
learned its kindred tongue, Arabic.

"When, many years later, she visited Antony at Tarsus, the warriors
imagined that some piece of Egyptian magic was at work, for she
addressed each commander in his own tongue, and talked with him as if
she were a native of the same country.

"It was the same with everything. She outstripped us in every branch
of study. To her burning ambition it would have been unbearable to lag
behind.

"The Roman Lucretius became her favourite poet, although she was no more
friendly to his nation than I, but the self-conscious power of the foe
pleased her, and once I heard her exclaim 'Ah! if the Egyptians were
Romans, I would give up our garden for Berenike's throne.'

"Lucretius constantly led her back to Epicurus, and awakened a severe
conflict in her unresting mind. You probably know that he teaches that
life in itself is not so great a blessing that it must be deemed a
misfortune not to live. It is only spoiled by having death appear to
us as the greatest of misfortunes. Only the soul which ceases to regard
death as a misfortune finds peace. Whoever know