Cleopatra was a politician as well as a luxurious beauty, and it may have been her supreme aim to secure the independence of Egypt.

If Cleopatra had been Mark Antony's most bitter foe, she could not more surely have lured him on to utter, hopeless ruin.

Cæsar completes his conquest of Gaul. Cleopatra, on the death of her father, Ptolemy Auletes, becomes queen of Egypt.

Cleopatra and St. Hedwiga, Madame de Stael and the Princess, are merely different manifestations of the same self- willed and proud longing of woman to unsex herself, and realise, single and self-sustained, some distorted and partial notion of her own as to what the "angelic life" should be.

Cleopatra was the oldest child, and she was a princess of great promise, both in respect to mental endowments and personal charms.

Cleopatra was becoming his rival.

Cleopatra was a wretch.

So we have a right to presume that Cleopatra, when she first appeared upon the stage of history as a girl of fourteen, was simply a very beautiful and accomplished Greek princess, who could speak several languages with fluency, as precocious as Elizabeth of England, skilled in music, conversant with history, and surrounded with eminent masters.

Cleopatra was an extraordinary person.

Cleopatra was twenty-eight years of age when she first met Antony,"a period of life," says Plutarch, "when woman's beauty is most splendid, and her intellect is in full maturity."

This battle established the ascendency of Antony, and made him for a time the most conspicuous man, as Cleopatra was the most conspicuous woman, in the world.

The Egyptian portrait is likely to confirm in the spectator's mind the impression derived from Shakespeare's play, that Cleopatra was a swarthy Egyptian, in strong contrast to the fair Roman ladies, and suggesting a wide difference of race.

Cleopatra was the daughter of the eleventh in the line.