If Cleopatra stands above all others it is because she possessed in a higher degree that sovereign gift that transforms the dullness of every-day life and creates an atmosphere of rose and gold. History shows her as crafty, diplomatic, frivolous, generous; capable of horrible cruelties; coveting the whole world; a prey to ambition, yet flinging it all away for the sake of her lover's kiss. But history gives us only half the picture. Its frame is too narrow to hold it all. It is to Imagination and her winged daughters, Poetry and Legend, that we have to look for the whole. The asp with which Shakespeare encircled Cleopatra's arm has made her more famous than her own great plan to wipe out Rome and put Alexandria in its place. The noted sonnet, which shows her in her silver trireme, on the waters of the Cydnus, Dont le sillage laisse un parfum d'encensoir, Avec les sons de flutes et des frissons de soie. shows us more vividly her manner of living, than do all the erudite volumes concerning her life. Notwithstanding all the splendid efforts to portray her that have been already made, will the Public pardon my attempt to add another taper to light the mysterious ways of that wonderful woman, who, with a lotus flower in her hand, still stands with Antony, weaving the enchanting mists of romance and breathing the warm breath of passion over the crumbling ruins of the world? CONTENTS I. Julius Cæsar II. Alexandria III. Mark Antony IV. Cleopatra V. The Inimitables VI. Antony's Wives VII. The Marriage at Antioch VIII. The Two Rivals IX. Actium X. The Death THE LIFE AND DEATH OF CLEOPATRA I JULIUS CÆSAR It was about seven o'clock. On the crowded docks of Alexandria the sailors were unloading the last bales of merchandise. Swiftly, like belated birds, the fishing boats dropped anchor at the old wharves in Eunostus harbour. It was almost dark when the last vessel slipped in stealthily. A man stepped down, broad-shouldered, covered from head to foot with a dark cloak, his traveller's cap pulled down to his ears. With the utmost care he helped a woman to land, a woman so young, so light-footed, that she seemed almost a child. But, though barely seventeen years of age, would any one have called Cleopatra a child? The wife for two years of the brother, whom the dynastic law had compelled her to marry on the death of her father; cast off by her perfidious consort, sent into exile and, coming back to-night under the care of Apollodorus, she had undoubtedly a store of experience extraordinary for her age. One wonders how her impressions would have compared with those of the average girl, for Cleopatra had grown up in a shamelessly corrupt court and was the daughter of Ptolemy Auletes, that remarkable dilettante king who had met the uproar of revolution and foreign invasion with the persistent playing of his flute.