her power of imagining gloomy events. Her brother Arius and his sons
were concealed in the house of a friend, for they seemed threatened by a
serious peril. Hitherto Antony had generously borne the philosopher no
ill-will on the score of his intimate relations with Octavianus; but now
that Octavianus was encamped outside the city, the house of the man who,
during the latter's years of education, had been his mentor and
counsellor, and later a greatly valued friend, was watched, by Mardion's
orders, by the Scythian guard. He and his family were forbidden to enter
the city, and his escape to his friend had been effected under cover of
the darkness and with great danger.

The anxious woman feared the worst for her brother if Mark Antony should
conquer, and yet, with her whole heart, she wished the Queen to gain the
victory. She, who always feared the worst, saw in imagination the
fortunes of war change--and there was reason for the belief. The bold
general who had gained so many victories, and whom the defeat of Actium
had only humbled, was said to have regained his former elasticity. He
had dashed forward at the head of his men with the heroic courage of
former days--nay, with reckless impetuosity. Rumour reported that, with
the huge sword he wielded, he had dealt from his powerful charger blows
as terrible as those inflicted five-and-twenty years before when, not far
from the same spot, he struck Archelaus on the head. The statement that,
in his golden armour, with the gold helmet framing his bearded face, he
resembled his ancestor Herakles, was confirmed by Charmian, who had been
borne quickly hither by a pair of the Queen's swift horses. Cleopatra
might need her soon, yet she had left the Lochias to question the father
about many things concerning the young mother and her boy, who was
already dear to her as the first grandson of the man whose suit, it is
true, she had rejected, but to whom she owed the delicious consciousness
of having loved and been loved in the springtime of life.