raised it to his lips to drink, when she hastily caught hold of his hand.  “Now,” said she, “I am the enemy against whom you have latterly been so careful.  If I could have endured to live without you, that draught would have given me the opportunity.”  She then ordered the wine to be taken to one of the condemned criminals, and sent Antony out to see that the man died on drinking it.

On the early coins of Cleopatra we see her head on the one side and the eagle or the cornucopia on the other side, with the name of “Queen Cleopatra.”  After she had borne Antony children, we find the words round their heads, “Of Antony, on the conquest of Armenia;” “Of Cleopatra the queen, and of the kings the children of kings.”  On the later coins we find the head of Antony joined with hers, as king and queen, and he is styled “the emperor” and she “the young goddess.”  Cleopatra was perhaps the last Greek sovereign that bore the title of god.  Nor did it seem unsuitable to her, so common had the Greeks of Asia and Egypt made that epithet, by giving it to their kings, and even to their kings’ families and favourites.  But the use of the word made no change in their religious opinions; they never for a moment supposed that the persons whom they so styled had any share in the creation and government of the world.

[Illustration:  347.jpg LATER COIN OF CLEOPATRA AND ANTONY.]

The death of Julius Caesar and afterwards of Brutus and Cassius had left Antony with the chief sway in the Roman world; but his life of pleasure in Egypt had done much to forfeit it; and Octavianus, afterwards called Augustus, had been for some time rising in power against him.  His party, however, was still strong enough in Rome to choose for consul his friend Soslus, who put the head of Antony on one side of his coins, and the Egyptian eagle and thunderbolt on the other.  Soon afterwards Antony was himself chosen as consul elect for the coming year, and he then struck his last coins in Egypt.  The rude copper coins have on one side the name of “The queen, the young goddess,” and on the other side of “Antony, Consul a third time.”  But he never was consul for the third time; before the day of entering on the office he was made an enemy of Rome by the senate.  Octavianus, however, would not declare war against him, but declared war against Cleopatra, or rather, as he said, against Mardion her slave, Iris her waiting-woman, and Charmion, another favourite woman; for these had the chief management of Antony’s affairs.

At the beginning of the year B.C. 31, which was to end with the battle of Actium, Octavianus held Italy, Gaul, Spain, and Carthage, with an army of eighty thousand foot, twelve thousand horse, and a fleet of two hundred and fifty ships:  Antony held Egypt, Ethiopia, and Cyrene, with one hundred thousand foot, twelve thousand horse, and five hundred ships; he was followed by the kings of Africa, Upper Cilicia,