body in such manner that the mother might recognize her son, and the fiend-like monster, in sending this ghastly gift, had commanded that it should be presented to his former wife as a birthday token, and that it should only be opened in the presence of her guests. Such were some of the shocking deeds performed by members of the family of the famous Cleopatra. No wonder that her nature, inherited from such inhuman monsters, was not free from barbarous instincts. The father of the illustrious Cleopatra was little better than his revolting predecessors. Blood, murder, and intrigue, and all crimes and vices formed his inheritance, handed down by his grandfather, the fiendish Physcon. The younger Cleopatra, whom Physcon married for his second wife, became such an inhuman being of atrocity and crime that she was put to death by one of her sons, whose destruction she had planned in order to seize the throne. The mother of Auletes, the father of the great Cleopatra, was merciless and wicked, like the rest of the line, disregarding every virtuous principle and family tie. Her daughters were worthy followers of her atrocious example, and at length one murdered the other in jealous hate. Such was the bloody and shocking family record which the world-renowned Cleopatra inherited, together with the throne of one of the most powerful and remarkable nations of the earth. Her father followed in the same bloody footsteps. Having been dethroned by his subjects, who hated him on account of his atrocious vices,—for this Ptolemy Auletes was one of the most dissipated and corrupt of all the sovereigns of that dynasty,—he fled to Rome to obtain aid to recover his throne. The Egyptian people, meanwhile, had made his eldest daughter, Berenice, queen. Auletes, having at length raised an army with the help of Pompey, the Roman general, who espoused his cause, returned to Alexandria, defeated the Egyptians, and recovered his throne; and immediately thereupon put his eldest daughter, Berenice, to death. When Cleopatra was about eighteen years of age, her father died, having left a will by which the throne of Egypt was to be held by Cleopatra and her younger brother Ptolemy, who were to marry each other and reign conjointly.