in that city.  The citizens of Alexandria on those years received from the government a smaller gift of corn than usual, and the Jews then felt their altered rank in the state.  They were told that they were not citizens, and accordingly received no portion whatever out of the public granaries, but were left like the Egyptians to take care of themselves.  From this time forward there was an unceasing quarrel between Greeks and Jews in the city of Alexandria.

Cleopatra, who held her power at the pleasure of the Roman legions, spared no pains to please Antony.  She had borne him first a son named Ptolemy, and then a son and daughter, twins, Alexander Helius and Cleopatra Selene, or Sun and Moon.  She gamed, she drank, she hunted, she reviewed the troops with him, and, to humour his coarser tastes, she followed him, in his midnight rambles through the city, in the dress of a servant; and nothing that youth, beauty, wealth, and elegance could do to throw a cloak over the grossness of vice and crime was forgotten by her.  The biographer thought it waste of time to mention all Cleopatra’s arts and Antony’s follies, but the story of his fishing was not to be forgotten.  One day, when sitting in the boat with her, he caught but little, and was vexed at her seeing his want of success.  So he ordered one of his men to dive into the water and put upon his hook a fish which had been before taken.  Cleopatra, however, saw what was being done, and quietly took the hint for a joke of her own.  The next day she brought a larger number of friends to see the fishing, and, when Antony let down his line, she ordered one of her divers to put on the hook a salted fish.  The line was then drawn up and the fish landed amid no little mirth of their friends; and Cleopatra playfully consoled him, saying:  “Well, general, you may leave fishing to us petty princes of Pharos and Canopus; your game is cities, provinces, and kingdoms.”

Antony’s eldest son by Fulvia came to Alexandria at this time, and lived in the same princely style with his father.  Philotas the physician lived in his service, and one day at supper when Philotas silenced a tiresome talker with a foolish sophism the young Antony gave him as a reward the whole sideboard of plate.  But in the middle of this gaiety and feasting Antony was recalled to Europe by letters which told him that his wife and brother had been driven out of Rome by Octavianus.  Before, however, he reached Rome his wife Fulvia was dead; and, wishing to strengthen his party, he at once married Octavia, the sister of Octavianus and widow of Marcellus.