series of sufferings, she determined to die. A servant brought in an asp
for her, concealed in a vase of flowers, at a great banquet. She laid
the poisonous reptile on her naked arm, and died immediately of the bite
which it inflicted.



CHAPTER X.

CAESAR IMPERATOR.

[Sidenote: Caesar again at Rome.]
[Sidenote: Combinations against him.]
[Sidenote: Veni, vidi, vici.]

Although Pompey himself had been killed, and the army under his
immediate command entirely annihilated, Caesar did not find that the
empire was yet completely submissive to his sway. As the tidings of his
conquests spread over the vast and distant regions which were under the
Roman rule--although the story itself of his exploits might have been
exaggerated--the impression produced by his power lost something of its
strength, as men generally have little dread of remote danger. While he
was in Egypt, there were three great concentrations of power formed
against him in other quarters of the globe: in Asia Minor, in Africa,
and in Spain. In putting down these three great and formidable arrays of
opposition, Caesar made an exhibition to the world of that astonishing
promptness and celerity of military action on which his fame as a
general so much depends. He went first to Asia Minor, and fought a great
and decisive battle there, in a manner so sudden and unexpected to the
forces that opposed him that they found themselves defeated almost