She was now twenty-five years of age. Her oriental beauty was at its height of splendor. Her mind was mature, and her wit was unequalled. These costly entertainments continued every day; and on one occasion, when Antony playfully reproached her for her extravagance, and said that it would not be possible to fare in a more costly manner, Cleopatra laughingly declared that the dinner of the next day should cost ten thousand sestertia, equal to three hundred thousand dollars. Antony would not believe this surprising statement, and made a wager with her that she could not fulfil her promise. When he arrived with his generals the next day, he did not perceive any seeming added magnificence; and when Antony laughingly told her, that according to his reckoning of the cost of the viands and service, she had lost her wager, she replied, that she should herself soon eat and drink the ten thousand sestertia. She wore in her ears two pearls, the largest known in the world, which she had inherited with her crown and kingdom. These two pearls were valued at two hundred and twenty-two thousand dollars apiece. Dryden, alluding to these jewels of Cleopatra, wrote, “Each pendant in her ear shall be a province.” When the next course was served, a servant set before her a glass of vinegar. She thereupon took one of the ear-rings from her ear, and dropped it into the vinegar, and when the pearl was dissolved, she drank the liquid. As she was about to sacrifice also the other magnificent jewel, one of the guests snatched it from her hand, exclaiming that she had won the wager. This rescued pearl was afterwards taken to Rome, and there cut in two and made into a pair of ear-rings for the statue of Venus in the Pantheon at Rome. And the fame of the wager made the two half-pearls as valuable as the two whole ones had been. Cleopatra was also a beautiful singer, and she now employed all the arts of her beauty and mind to the task of completely subduing the will and the heart of the great Roman general, who was soon so entirely ensnared by this enchanting sorceress, that he forgot all about his wife, whom he had left in Rome, and also his duties of country, and even his glories of war; and thus this old warrior became a willing captive to the spell of Cleopatra, who persuaded him to follow her to Alexandria, and there he gave himself up to every kind of idle amusement and the most profligate dissipation.