Greece -- Biography -- Early works to 1800; Rome -- Biography -- Early works to 1800
LXXXII. Now Cæsar put Cæsarion to death after the death of Cleopatra.
Though many asked for the body of Antonius to bury it, both kings and
commanders, Cæsar did not take it from Cleopatra, but it was interred by
her own hands sumptuously and royally, and she received for that purpose
all that she wished. In consequence of so much grief and pain, for her
breasts were inflamed by the blows that she had inflicted and were sore,
and a fever coming on, she gladly availed herself of this pretext for
abstaining from food and with the design of releasing herself from life
without hindrance. There was a physician with whom she was familiar,
Olympus, to whom she told the truth, and she had him for her adviser and
assistant in accomplishing her death, as Olympus said in a history of
these transactions which he published. Cæsar suspecting her design,
plied her with threats and alarms about her children, by which Cleopatra
was thrown down as by engines of war, and she gave up her body to be
treated and nourished as it was wished.
LXXXIII. Cæsar himself came a few days after to see her and pacify
her.[476] Cleopatra happened to be lying on a mattress meanly dressed,
and as he entered she sprang up in a single vest and fell at his feet
with her head and face in the greatest disorder, her voice trembling and
her eyes weakened by weeping. There were also visible many marks of the
blows inflicted on her breast; and in fine her body seemed in no respect
to be in better plight than her mind. Yet that charm and that saucy
confidence in her beauty were not completely extinguished, but, though
she was in such a condition, shone forth from within and showed
themselves in the expression of her countenance. When Cæsar had bid her
lie down and had seated himself near her, she began to touch upon a kind
of justification, and endeavoured to turn all that had happened upon
necessity and fear of Antonius; but as Cæsar on each point met her with
an answer, being confuted, she all at once changed her manner to move
him by pity and by prayers, as a person would do who clung most closely
to life. Finally she handed to him a list of all the treasures that she
had; and when Seleukus, one of her stewards, declared that she was
hiding and secreting some things, she sprang up and laying hold of his
hair, belaboured him with many blows on the face. As Cæsar smiled and
stopped her, she said, "But is it not scandalous, Cæsar, that you have
condescended to come to me and speak to me in my wretched condition, and
my slaves make it a matter of charge against me if I have reserved some
female ornaments, not for myself forsooth, wretch that I am, but that I
may give a few things to Octavia and your wife Livia, and so through
their means make you more favourable to me and more mild." Cæsar was
pleased with these words, being fully assured that she wished to live.
Accordingly, after saying that he left these matters to her care and
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