Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustrations. See 40205-h.htm or 40205-h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/40205/40205-h/40205-h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/40205/40205-h.zip) Images of the original pages are available through Internet Archive. See http://archive.org/details/historyofcleopat00abbo [Illustration: SCENE OF CLEOPATRA'S HISTORY] HISTORY OF CLEOPATRA, QUEEN OF EGYPT. by JACOB ABBOTT. With Engravings. New York: Harper & Brothers, Publishers. 1854. Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year one thousand eight hundred and fifty-one, by Harper & Brothers, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the Southern District of New York. PREFACE. In selecting the subjects for the successive volumes of this series, it has been the object of the author to look for the names of those great personages whose histories constitute useful, and not merely entertaining, knowledge. There are certain names which are familiar, as names, to all mankind; and every person who seeks for any degree of mental cultivation, feels desirous of informing himself of the leading outlines of their history, that he may know, in brief, what it was in their characters or their doings which has given them so widely-extended a fame. This knowledge, which it seems incumbent on every one to obtain in respect to such personages as Hannibal, Alexander, Cæsar, Cleopatra, Darius, Xerxes, Alfred, William the Conqueror, Queen Elizabeth, and Mary, queen of Scots, it is the design and object of these volumes to communicate, in a faithful, and, at the same time, if possible, in an attractive manner. Consequently, great historical names alone are selected; and it has been the writer's aim to present the prominent and leading traits in their characters, and all the important events in their lives, in a bold and free manner, and yet in the plain and simple language which is so obviously required in works which aim at permanent and practical usefulness. CONTENTS. Chapter Page I. THE VALLEY OF THE NILE 13 II. THE PTOLEMIES 35 III. ALEXANDRIA 61 IV. CLEOPATRA'S FATHER 87 V. ACCESSION TO THE THRONE 112 VI. CLEOPATRA AND CÆSAR 132 VII. THE ALEXANDRINE WAR 157 VIII. CLEOPATRA A QUEEN 181 IX. THE BATTLE OF PHILIPPI 200 X. CLEOPATRA AND ANTONY 225 XI. THE BATTLE OF ACTIUM 256 XII. THE END OF CLEOPATRA 286 ENGRAVINGS. Page MAP, SCENE OF CLEOPATRA'S HISTORY _Frontispiece._ MAP, THE RAINLESS REGION 21 MAP, THE DELTA OF THE NILE 29