And in the following year messengers came to me from Cleopatra, bearing a sealed roll and great gifts.  I opened the roll, and read this in it: 

“Cleopatra to Olympus, the learned Egyptian who dwells in the Valley of Death by Tape—­

“The fame of thy renown, O learned Olympus, hath reached our ears.  Tell thou, then, this to us, and if thou tellest aright greater honour and wealth shalt thou have than any in Egypt:  How shall we win back the love of noble Antony, who is bewitched of cunning Octavia, and tarries long from us?”

Now, in this I saw the hand of Charmion, who had made my renown known to Cleopatra.

All that night I took counsel with my wisdom, and on the morrow wrote my answer as it was put into my heart to the destruction of Cleopatra and Antony.  And thus I wrote: 

“Olympus the Egyptian to Cleopatra the Queen—­

“Go forth into Syria with one who shall be sent to lead thee; thus shalt thou win Antony to thy arms again, and with him gifts more great than thou canst dream.”

And with this letter I dismissed the messengers, bidding them share the presents sent by Cleopatra among their company.

So they went wondering.

But Cleopatra, seizing on the advice to which her passion prompted her, departed straightway with Fonteius Capito into Syria, and there the thing came about as I had foretold, for Antony was subdued of her and gave her the greater part of Cilicia, the ocean shore of Arabia Nabathaea, the balm-bearing provinces of Judaea, the province of Phoenicia, the province of Coele-Syria, the rich isle of Cyprus, and all the library of Pergamus.  And to the twin children that, with the son Ptolemy, Cleopatra had borne to Antony, he impiously gave the names of “Kings, the Children of Kings”—­of Alexander Helios, as the Greeks name the sun, and of Cleopatra Selene, the moon, the long-winged.

These things then came to pass.

Now on her return to Alexandria Cleopatra sent me great gifts, of which I would have none, and prayed me, the learned Olympus, to come to her at Alexandria; but it was not yet time, and I would not.  But thereafter she and Antony sent many times to me for counsel, and I ever counselled them to their ruin, nor did my prophecies fail.

Thus the long years rolled away, and I, the hermit Olympus, the dweller in a tomb, the eater of bread and the drinker of water, by strength of the wisdom that was given me of the avenging Power, became once more great in Khem.  For I grew ever wiser as I trampled the desires of the flesh beneath my feet and turned my eyes to heaven.

At length eight full years were accomplished.  The war with the Parthians had come and gone, and Artavasdes, King of Armenia, had been led in triumph through the streets of Alexandria.  Cleopatra had visited Samos and Athens; and, by her counselling, the noble Octavia had been driven, like some discarded concubine, from the house of Antony at Rome.  And now, at the last, the measure of the folly of Antony was full even to the brim.  For this Master of the World had no longer the good gift of reason; he was lost in Cleopatra as I had been lost.  Therefore, in the event, Octavianus declared war against him.