entire length ran two great boulevards, shaded and diversified by
mighty trees and parterres of multicolored flowers, amid which
fountains plashed and costly marbles gleamed. One-fifth of the
whole city was known as the Royal Residence. In it were the
palaces of the reigning family, the great museum, and the famous
library which the Arabs later burned. There were parks and gardens
brilliant with tropical foliage and adorned with the masterpieces
of Grecian sculpture, while sphinxes and obelisks gave a
suggestion of Oriental strangeness. As one looked seaward his eye
beheld over the blue water the snow-white rocks of the sheltering
island, Pharos, on which was reared a lighthouse four hundred feet
in height and justly numbered among the seven wonders of the
world. Altogether, Alexandria was a city of wealth, of beauty, of
stirring life, of excitement, and of pleasure. Ferrero has aptly
likened it to Paris--not so much the Paris of to-day as the Paris
of forty years ago, when the Second Empire flourished in all its
splendor as the home of joy and strange delights.

Over the country of which Alexandria was the capital Cleopatra
came to reign at seventeen. Following the odd custom which the
Greek dynasty of the Ptolemies had inherited from their Egyptian
predecessors, she was betrothed to her own brother. He, however,
was a mere child of less than twelve, and was under the control of
evil counselors, who, in his name, gained control of the capital
and drove Cleopatra into exile. Until then she had been a mere
girl; but now the spirit of a woman who was wronged blazed up in
her and called out all her latent powers. Hastening to Syria, she
gathered about herself an army and led it against her foes.

But meanwhile Julius Caesar, the greatest man of ancient times,