h was just off the water
front,) and destroyed it. Next he attacked the Egyptian army, drove
the soldiers into the Nile, drowned Ptolemy, and established a new
government under Cleopatra, the sister of the late king. Just then word
reached him that Pharnaces, the son and heir of Mithridates, had gone
on the war-path. Caesar marched northward, defeated Pharnaces in a war
which lasted five days, sent word of his victory to Rome in the famous
sentence "veni, vidi, vici," which is Latin for "I came, I saw, I
conquered," and returned to Egypt where he fell desperately in love with
Cleopatra, who followed him to Rome when he returned to take charge of
the government, in the year 46. He marched at the head of not less than
four different victory-parades, having won four different campaigns.

Then Caesar appeared in the Senate to report upon his adventures, and
the grateful Senate made him "dictator" for ten years. It was a fatal
step.

The new dictator made serious attempts to reform the Roman state.
He made it possible for freemen to become members of the Senate. He
conferred the rights of citizenship upon distant communities as had been
done in the early days of Roman history. He permitted "foreigners" to
exercise influence upon the government. He reformed the administration
of the distant provinces which certain aristocratic families had come to
regard as their private possessions. In short he did many things for
the good of the majority of the people but which made him thoroughly
unpopular with the most powerful men in the state. Half a hundred young
aristocrats formed a plot "to save the Republic." On the Ides of March
(the fifteenth of March according to that new calendar which Caesar had
brought with him from Egypt) Caesar was murdered when he entered the
Senate. Once more Rome was without a master.

There were two men who tried to continue the tradition of Caesar's
glory. One was Antony, his former secretary. The other was Octavian,
Caesar's grand-nephew and heir to his estate. Octavian remained in
Rome, but Antony went to Egypt to be near Cleopatra with whom he too had
fallen in love, as seems to have been the habit of Roman generals.

A war broke out between the two. In the battle of Actium, Octavian
defeated Antony. Antony killed himself and Cleopatra was left alone to
face the enemy. She tried very hard to make Octavian her third Roman
conquest. When she saw that she could make no impression upon this very
prou