Dio's Rome, Volume 3 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 327 pages of information about Dio's Rome, Volume 3.

Dio's Rome, Volume 3 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 327 pages of information about Dio's Rome, Volume 3.
or in any case to sail to Spain.  Cleopatra seeing this caused the ships to desert and she herself rushed suddenly into the mausoleum pretending that she feared Caesar and desired by some means to destroy herself before capture, but really as an invitation to Antony to enter there also.  He had an inkling that he was being betrayed, but his infatuation would not allow him to believe it, and, as one might say, he pitied her more than himself.  Cleopatra was fully aware of this and hoped that if he should be informed that she was dead, he would not prolong his life but meet death at once.  Accordingly, she hastened into the monument with one eunuch and two female attendants and from there sent a message to him to the effect that she had passed away.  When he heard it, he did not delay, but was seized with a desire to follow her in death.  Then first he asked one of the bystanders to slay him, but the man drew a sword and despatched himself.  Wishing to imitate his courage Antony gave himself a wound and fell upon his face, causing the bystanders to think that he was dead.  An outcry was raised at his deed, and Cleopatra hearing it leaned out over the top of the monument.  By a certain contrivance its doors once closed could not be opened again, but above, near the ceiling, it had not yet been completed.  That was where they saw her leaning out and some began to utter shouts that reached the ears of Antony.  He, learning that she survived, stood up as if he had still the power to live; but a great gush of blood from his wound made him despair of rescue and he besought those present to carry him to the monument and to hoist him by the ropes that were hanging there to elevate stone blocks.  This was done and he died there on Cleopatra’s bosom.

[-11-] She now began to feel confidence in Caesar and immediately made him aware of what had taken place, but did not feel altogether confident that she would experience no harm.  Hence she kept herself within the structure, in order that if there should be no other motive for her preservation, she might at least purchase pardon and her sovereignty through fear about her money.  Even then in such depths of calamity she remembered that she was queen, and chose rather to die with the name and dignities of a sovereign than to live as an ordinary person.  It should be stated that she kept fire on hand to use upon her money and asps and other reptiles to use upon herself, and that she had tried the latter on human beings to see in what way they killed in each case.  Caesar was anxious to make himself master of her treasures, to seize her alive, and to take her back for his triumph.  However, as he had given her a kind of pledge, he did not wish to appear to have acted personally as an impostor, since this would prevent him from treating her as a captive and to a certain extent subdued against her will.  He therefore sent to her Gaius Proculeius, a knight, and Epaphroditus, a freedman, giving them directions what they must say and do.  So they

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Dio's Rome, Volume 3 from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.