Aphrodite rose radiant from the sea: Cleopatra less pretendingly from a sack; but Cæsar was none the less moved at the surprise and ravished with the apparition. Cleopatra, who was then nineteen, was in the flower of her marvelous and seductive beauty. Dion Cassius calls the queen of Egypt the most beautiful of women, but Plutarch finds one epithet insufficient to depict her, and expresses himself thus: “There was nothing so incomparable in her beauty as to compel admiration; but by the charm of her physiognomy, the grace of her whole person, the fascination of her presence, Cleopatra left a sting in the soul.” This is her veritable portrait. Cleopatra did not possess supreme beauty, she possessed supreme seductiveness. As Victor Hugo said of a celebrated theatrical character, “She is not pretty, she is worse,” which suggestive expression may well apply to Cleopatra. Plutarch adds, and his testimony is confirmed by Dion, that Cleopatra spoke in a melodious voice and with infinite sweetness. This information is valuable in a psychological point of view. Certes, this charm of voice, divine gift so rarely bestowed, this pure and winning caress, this ever new delight was not one of the least attractions of the Siren of the Nile. This first interview between Cæsar and Cleopatra probably extended far into the night. It is certain that, with the earliest dawn, Cæsar sent for Ptolemy, and told him he must be reconciled to his sister and associate her in the government. “In one night,” says Dion Cassius, “Cæsar had become the advocate of her of whom he had erewhile thought himself the judge.” Ptolemy was resisting the thinly disguised commands of the consul, when Cleopatra appearing, the young king, mad with rage, cast his crown at the feet of Cæsar and rushed from the palace uttering the cry: “Treason! treason! to arms!” The mob, excited by his cries, rose and marched on the palace. Cæsar feeling himself too weak to resist (he had but a handful of legionaries about him) ascended one of the terraces and harangued the multitude from a distance. He succeeded in restoring a calm by his promises of satisfying the Egyptians in their demands. Just at this time his legionaries arrived from the camp, surrounded the young prince, separated him from his partisans, and with every mark of respect reinstated him willy-nilly in the palace where he might serve as a hostage for Cæsar. The next day the people were assembled in the public square, and Cæsar, accompanied by Ptolemy and Cleopatra, went thither in great state with his escort of lictors. Every Roman was under arms, ready to suppress the first symptom of sedition. Cæsar read aloud the testament of Ptolemy Auletes, and declared solemnly in the name of the Roman people that he would insist on carrying out the last will of the late king. By this the two elder of his children were to reign conjointly over Egypt. As for the other two children of the king, he, Cæsar, made them a gift of the island of