THE
NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE.
| No. 64.] | MAY 1, 1819. |
[Vol. XI.
|
ORIGINAL COMMUNICATIONS.
ON THE LIFE AND CHARACTER OF CLEOPATRA. BY MADAME LA BARONNE DE STAEL HOLSTEIN.
CLEOPATRA, Queen of Egypt, was the daughter of Ptolemy XII. (Auletes). By her father’s will she became, at the age of seventeen, heiress to the throne, conjointly with her brother Ptolemy XIII. to whom, according to the Egyptian custom, she was to be married. Being older than her brother, she thought herself entitled to wield the sceptre alone; but the young king, instigated by his courtiers, attempted to exclude Cleopatra from the throne; and the princess was under the necessity of retiring to Syria, where she levied an army to march against her brother. About this period, Pompey was assassinated by order of Ptolemy; and Cæsar, though he had little cause to regret being delivered from so powerful an adversary, conceived the deepest hatred and contempt towards the Egyptian prince. Cæsar possessed virtues and passions, which frequently carried him away even from the views of his own interest; and he succeeded in his enterprises rather through genius than calculation. Ptolemy Auletes had appointed the Roman people tutor to his children. Cæsar, in his quality of dictator, assumed the power of exercising every authority, and declared himself the arbiter of the differences existing between Ptolemy and Cleopatra. The princess anxiously wished to dispatch to Alexandria some individual competent to take up her defence; but Cæsar advised her to proceed thither herself without delay. Fearing lest she might be recognised on entering the city, she requested Apollodorus, the friend in whom she reposed most confidence, to wrap her up in a carpet, and thus convey her unobserved into Cæsar’s chamber. By this bold stratagem she won the heart of the conqueror.
According to Plutarch, Appian of Alexandria, and Dion Cassius, Cleopatra was not strikingly beautiful; but her talent and grace diffused so many charms over her person, that it was impossible not to admire her. She spoke several languages, possessed extensive general knowledge, and, above all, excelled in the art of pleasing. Her oriental education had imbued her with a taste for magnificence, which subdued the imagination; and, from her constant relations with Greece, she had acquired the more potent charms of the language and seductions of that nation. Cæsar was so enchanted with her, that, on the following day, he insisted that her brother should divide the throne, and become reconciled to her. The young prince was astonished to learn that Cleopatra had visited the palace of Cæsar, and well knowing the means by which she had seduced her judge, he immediately hastened to the city, declaring that he was betrayed. He thus excited an insurrection, which Caesar was only enabled to quell, by proving to the people that he had merely executed the will of Ptolemy. But the eunuch Pothinus, whose plans were frustrated by this reconciliation, in concert with Achilles, an Egyptian general, secretly advanced with a number of troops to surprise Cæsar, who was attended only by a small force. Though besieged in his palace, the dictator defended himself until, by receiving a reinforcement from Syria, he defeated the Egyptians. This occasioned the death of Ptolemy, who, from the mortification of this defeat, drowned himself in the Nile. Then Caesar was enabled to crown Cleopatra without opposition; he placed her on the throne, and having given her in marriage to her younger brother, who was then only eleven years of age, he departed, though reluctantly, to subdue the remains of Pompey’s party. Shortly afterwards Cleopatra was delivered of a son, whom she named Cæsarion. On her return to Rome (46 years A. C.) Cæsar received her, together with her youthful husband, in his own palace; he classed them among the friends of the Roman people, and placed golden statues of Cleopatra beside those of Venus, in the temple which he erected to the Goddess of Love. These honors gave offence to the Romans. The Queen of Egypt shortly after returned to her own states, where, in order to become absolute mistress of the kingdom, she administered poison to Ptolemy, who had, by that time, attained his fourteenth year.
When the death of Cæsar gave rise
