She called the cup-bearer, who stood always near, and signalled to him to re-fill her cup. This golden cup, a marvel of workmanship, was supposed to have belonged to Pericles. In any case it had been carved by one of the best artists of his epoch. A troop of archers adorned it, and the handle was in the form of a beautiful woman. All eyes were fixed on Cleopatra. What was she about to do? What miracle was to happen? For astonishing things were always expected of her. Turning toward Antony she raised the cup to her lips, and with an expression half humorous, half solemn, said: "Look carefully. When I have drunk this, my wager will be won." At the same time she fastened one of the pearls and let it fall to the bottom of the foaming cup, where it was quickly dissolved. Cries of horror went up, as in the face of an irreparable disaster. Having emptied the cup, Cleopatra made ready, for a second sacrifice. Antony seized her wrist. "Spare your jewels," he cried; "I acknowledge my defeat." The Queen hesitated; and he added, "Phoenicia is yours!" What was the use of doubling the sacrifice? It was said that in memory of that evening Cleopatra always wore the odd pearl in her bosom. Octavius found it there after her death. It was in the shape of a tear, an enormous tear, as though all the tears that those beautiful, closed eyes had shed were gathered together in it. Thinking that no woman, not even Livia, was worthy of such a jewel, or fearing that it would bring him misfortune, the conqueror of Actium carried it off as an offering to Venus. "Thus," says Pliny, in melancholy vein, as he was dreaming one day in the temple, "the half of one of those suppers at Alexandria is to-day the ornament of a goddess." Had Antony forgotten that he was Triumvir? Did he not remember that the life of all men, especially that of a ruler, is a hard and continuous struggle? Not altogether; but, without questioning whether the moment was propitious, unmindful of the disturbing news of troubles in Italy, and of the incursions of the Parthians into Asia Minor, led by the traitor Labismus, he still dallied. He knew that some day he would be forced to take command of his troops, but the life of a conqueror slips by very quickly when he is in the arms of a beautiful woman. While waiting, enmeshed, entangled, like a prey, he was verily a captive; but the bands that held him were too delightful for him to make the slightest effort to break them. When stung by conscience he comforted himself with the reflection that he would know how to get away when it was actually necessary.