fought with very different weapons, and Cleopatra conquered. The revel,
the dream began again. Then came Actium, the disenchantment, the
awakening, the fall, the flight from the world. Our object was not to
let him relapse into intoxication, to rouse the hero's strength and
courage from their slumber, render him for love's sake a fellow-combatant
in the common cause.

"But he had become accustomed to see in her the giver of ecstasy. The
only thing that he still desired was to drain the cup of pleasure in her
society till all was over. She sees this, grieves over it, and leaves no
means of rousing him to fresh energy untried; yet how rarely he rallies
his powers to earnest labour!

"While she is fortifying the mouths of the Nile and the frontiers of the
country, building ship after ship, arming and negotiating, she can not
resist him when he summons her to new pleasures.

"Though so many of the traits which rendered him great and noble have
vanished, she can not give up the old love and clings steadfastly to him
because, because--I know not why. A woman's loving heart does not
question motives and laws. Besides, he is the father of her children
and, in playing with them, he regains the old joyousness of mood so
enthralling to the heart.

"Since Archibius has taken charge of them, they can dispense with
Euphronion, their tutor. The clever man knows Rome, Octavianus, and
those who surround him, so he was chosen as an envoy. His object was to
induce the conqueror to transfer the sovereignty of Egypt to the boys
Antonius Helios, and Alexander, but Caesar vouchsafed no answer to the
mediator in Antony's affairs--nay, did not even grant him an audience.