n. As he says not a word concerning the young king Ptolemy,
we may assume that the youth was already dead, and that he died at Rome.
The common belief was that Cleopatra poisoned him as soon as his
increasing years made him troublesome to her. In her reign four years
are assigned to a joint rule with her elder brother, four more to that
with her younger, so that this latter must have died in the same year as
Caesar.

Cleopatra, watching from Egypt the great civil war which ensued,
summoned and commanded by the various leaders to send aid in ships and
money, threatened with plunder and confiscation by those who were now
exhausting Asia Minor and the islands with monstrous exactions, had
ample occupation for her talents in steering safely among these constant
dangers. Appian says she pleaded famine and pestilence in her country in
declining the demands of Cassius for subsidies. The latter was on the
point of invading Egypt, at the moment denuded of defending forces and
_wasted with famine_, when he was summoned to Philippi by Brutus.

It was not till B.C. 41, after the decisive battle of Philippi, that the
victorious Antony, turning to subdue the East to the Caesarean cause,
held his _joyeuse entree_ into Ephesus, and then proceeded to drain all
Asia Minor of money for the satisfaction of his greedy legionaries and
his own still more greedy vices. Reaching Cilicia, he sent an order to
the queen of Egypt to come before him and explain her conduct during the
late war, for she was reported to have sent aid to Cassius. The sequel
may be told in Plutarch's famous narrative:

"Dellius, who was sent on this message, had no sooner seen her face, and
remarked her adroitness and subtlety in speech, than he felt convinced
that Antony would not so much as think of giving any molestation to a
woman like this. On the contrary, she would be the first in favor with
him. So he set himself at once to pay his court to the Egyptian, and
gave her his advice, 'to go,' in the Homeric style, to Cilicia, 'in her
best attire,' and bade her fear nothing from Antony, the gentlest and
kindest of soldiers. She had some faith in the words of Dellius, but
more in her own attractions, which, having formerly recommended her to
Caesar and the young Cnaeus Pompey, she did not doubt might yet prove
more successful with Antony. Their acquaintance was with her when a
girl, young, and ignorant of the world, but she was to meet Antony in
the time of life when