Chapter II: Part 2

It is not for me to tell the history of Caesar's Gallic wars. Suffice it to say that in eight years he had penetrated what is now Switzerland, France, Germany and England. Everywhere he left monuments of his greatness in the way of splendid highways, baths, aqueducts and temples. Colonies of settlers from the packed population of Rome followed the victors.

An army left to itself after conquest will settle down to riot and mad surfeit, but this man kept his forces strong by keeping them at work--discipline was never relaxed, yet there was such kindness and care for his men that no mutiny ever made head.

Caesar became immensely rich--his debts were now all paid--the treasure returned to Rome did the general coffers fill, his name and fame were blazoned on the Roman streets.

When he returned he knew, and had always known, it would be as a conquering hero. Pompey and Crassus did not wish Caesar to return. He was still governor of Gaul and should stay there. They made him governor--he must do as they required--they sent him his orders. "The die is cast," said Caesar on reading the message. Immediately he crossed the Rubicon.

An army fights for a leader, not a cause. The leader's cause is theirs. Caesar had led his men to victory, and he had done it with a comparatively small degree of danger. He never made an attack until every expedient for peace was exhausted. He sent word to each barbaric tribe to come in and be lovingly annexed, or else be annexed willy-nilly. He won, but through diplomacy where it was possible. When he did strike, it was quickly, unexpectedly and hard. The priest was as great a strategist as he was a diplomat. He pardoned his opposers when they would lay down their arms--he wanted success, not vengeance. But always he gave his soldiers the credit.

They were loyal to him.

Pompey and Crassus could not oppose a man like this--they fled.

Caesar's most faithful and trusted colleague was Mark Antony, seventeen years his junior--a slashing, dashing, audacious, exuberant fellow.

Caesar became dictator, really king or emperor. He ruled with moderation, wisely and well. He wore the purple robe of authority, but refused the crown. He was honored, revered, beloved. The habit of the Pontiff still clung to him--he called the people, "My children."

The imperturbable calm of the man of God was upon him. His courage was unimpeachable, but caution preserved him from personal strife. That he could ever be approached by one and all was his pride.

But clouds were beginning to gather.

He had pardoned his enemies, but they had not forgiven him.

There were whisperings that he was getting ready to assume the office of emperor. At a certain parade when Caesar sat upon the raised seat, reviewing the passing procession, Mark Antony, the exuberant, left his place in the ranks, and climbing to the platform, tried to crown his beloved leader with laurel. Caesar had smilingly declined the honor, amid the plaudits of the crowd.

Some said this whole episode was planned to test the temper of the populace.

Another cause of offense was that, some time before, Caesar had spent several months in Alexandria at the court of Cleopatra. And now the young and beautiful queen had arrived in Rome, and Caesar had appeared with her at public gatherings. She had with her a boy, two years old, by name Caesario.

This Egyptian child, said the conspirators, was to be the future Emperor of Rome. To meet this accusation Caesar made his will and provided that his grand-nephew, Octavius Caesar, should be his adopted son and heir. But this was declared a ruse.

The murmurings grew louder.

Sixty senators combined to assassinate Caesar. The high position of these men made them safe--by standing together they would be secure.

Caesar was warned, but declined to take the matter seriously. He neither would arm himself nor allow guards to attend him.

On the Fifteenth of March, B. C. Forty-four, as Caesar entered the Senate the rebels crowded upon him under the pretense of handing him a petition, and at a sign fell upon him. Twenty-three of the conspirators got close enough to send their envious daggers home.

Brutus dipped his sword in the flowing blood, and waving the weapon aloft cried, "Liberty is restored!"

Two days later, Mark Antony, standing by the dead body of his beloved chief, sadly mused:

"Thou art the ruins of the noblest man
That ever lived in the tide of times."

* * * * *

Caesar died aged fifty-six. Mark Antony, his executor, occupying the office next in importance, was thirty-nine.

In point of physique Mark Antony far surpassed Caesar: they were the same height, but Antony was almost heroic in stature and carriage, muscular and athletic. His face was comely: his nose large and straight; his eyes set wide apart; his manner martial. If he lacked in intellect, in appearance he held averages good.

Antony had occupied the high offices of questor and tribune, the first calling for literary ability, the second for skill as an orator. Caesar, the wise and diplomatic, had chosen Mark Antony as his Secretary of State on account of his peculiar fitness, especially in representing the Government at public functions. Antony had a handsome presence, a gracious tongue, and was a skilled and ready writer. Caesar himself was too great a man to be much in evidence.

In passing it is well to note that all the tales as to the dissipation and profligacy of Mark Antony in his early days come from the "Philippics" of Cicero, who made the mistake of executing Lentulus, the step-father of Mark Antony, and then felt called upon forever after to condemn the entire family. "Philippics" are always a form of self-vindication.

However, it need not be put forward that Mark Antony was by any means a paragon of virtue--a man who has been successively and successfully soldier, lawyer, politician, judge, rhetorician and diplomat is what he is. Rome was the ruler of the world; Caesar was the undisputed greatest man of Rome; and Mark Antony was the right hand of Caesar.

At the decisive battle of Pharsalia, Caesar had chosen Mark Antony to lead the left wing while he himself led the right. More than once Mark Antony had stopped the Roman army in its flight and had turned defeat into victory. In the battle with Aristobulus he was the first to scale the wall.

His personal valor was beyond cavil--he had distinguished himself in every battle in which he had taken part.

It was the first intent of the conspirators that Caesar and Antony should die together, but the fear was that the envious hate of the people toward Caesar would be neutralized by the love the soldiers bore both Caesar and Antony. So they counted on the cupidity and ambition of Antony to keep the soldiers in subjection.

Antony was kept out of the plot, and when the blow was struck he was detained at his office by pretended visitors who wanted a hearing.

When news came to him that Caesar was dead, he fled, thinking that massacre would follow. But the next day he returned and held audience with the rebels.

Antony was too close a follower of Caesar to depart from his methods. Naturally he was hasty and impulsive; but now, everything he did was in imitation of the great man he had loved.

Caesar always pardoned. Antony listened to the argument of Brutus that Caesar had been removed for the good of Rome. Brutus proposed that Antony should fill Caesar's place as Consul or nominal dictator; and in return Brutus and Cassius were to be made governors of certain provinces--amnesty was to be given to all who were in the plot.

Antony agreed, and at once the Assembly was called and a law passed tendering pardon to all concerned--thus was civil war averted. Caesar was dead, but Rome was safe.

The funeral of Caesar was to occur the next day. It was to be the funeral of a private citizen--the honor of a public funeral-pyre was not to be his. Brutus would say a few words, and Antony, as the closest friend of the dead, would also speak--the body would be buried and all would go on in peace.

Antony had done what he had because it was the only thing he could do. To be successor of Caesar filled his ambition to the brim--but to win the purple by a compromise with the murderers! It turned his soul to gall.

At the funeral of Caesar the Forum was crowded to every corner with a subdued, dejected, breathless throng. People spoke in whispers--no one felt safe--the air was stifled and poisoned with fear and fever.

Brutus spoke first: we do not know his exact words, but we know the temper of the man, and his mental attitude.

Mark Antony had kept the peace, but if he could only feel that the people were with him he would drive the sixty plotting conspirators before him like chaff before the whirlwind.

He would then be Caesar's successor because he had avenged his death.

The orator must show no passion until he has aroused passion in the hearer--oratory is a collaboration. The orator is the active principle--the audience the passive.

Mark Antony, the practised orator, begins with simple propositions to which all agree. Gradually he sends out quivering feelers--the response returns--he continues, the audience answers back--he plays upon their emotion, and soon only one mind is supreme, and that is his own.

We know what he did and how he did it, but his words are lost. Shakespeare, the man of imagination, supplies them.

The plotters have made their defense--it is accepted.

Antony, too, defends them--he repeats that they are honorable men, and to reiterate that a man is honorable is to admit that possibly he is not. The act of defense implies guilt--and to turn defense into accusation through pity and love for the one wronged is the supreme task of oratory.

From love of Caesar to hate for Brutus and Cassius is but a step. Panic takes the place of confidence among the conspirators--they slink away. The spirit of the mob is uppermost--the only honor left to Caesar is the funeral-pyre. Benches are torn up, windows pulled from their fastenings, every available combustible is added to the pile, and the body of Caesar--he alone calm and untroubled amid all this mad mob--is placed upon this improvised throne of death. Torches flare and the pile is soon in flames.

Night comes on, and the same torches that touched to red the funeral-couch of Caesar hunt out the houses of the conspirators who killed him.

But the conspirators have fled.

One man is supreme, and that man is Mark Antony.

* * * * *

To maintain a high position requires the skill of a harlequin. It is an abnormality that any man should long tower above his fellows.

For a few short weeks Mark Antony was the pride and pet of Rome. He gave fetes, contests, processions and entertainments of lavish kind. "These things are pleasant, but they have to be paid for," said Cicero.

Then came from Illyria, Octavius Caesar, aged nineteen, the adopted son of Caesar the Great, and claimed his patrimony.

Antony laughed at the stripling, and thought to bribe him with a fete in his honor and a promise, and in the meantime a clerkship where there was no work to speak of and pay in inverse ratio.

The boy was weak in body and commonplace in mind--in way of culture he had been overtrained--but he was stubborn.

Mark Antony lived so much on the surface of things that he never imagined there was a strong party pushing the "Young Augustus" forward.

Finally Antony became impatient with the importuning young man, and threatened to send him on his way with a guard at his heels to see that he did not return.

At once a storm broke over the head of Antony. It came from a seemingly clear sky--Antony had to flee, not Octavius.

The soldiers of the Great Caesar had been remembered in his will with seventy-five drachmas to every man, and the will must stand or fall as an entirety. Caesar had provided that Octavius should be his successor--this will must be respected. Cicero was the man who made the argument. The army was with the will of the dead man, rather than with the ambition of the living.

Antony fled, but gathered a goodly army as he went, intending to return.

After some months of hard times passion cooled, and Antony, Octavius and Lepidus, the chief general of Octavius, met in the field for consultation. Swayed by the eloquence of Antony, who was still full of the precedents of the Great Caesar, a Triumvirate was formed, and Antony, Octavius and Lepidus coolly sat down to divide the world between them.

One strong argument that Antony used for the necessity of this partnership was that Brutus and Cassius were just across in Macedonia, waiting and watching for the time when civil war would so weaken Rome that they could step in and claim their own.

Brutus and his fellow conspirators must be punished.

In two years from that time, they had performed their murderous deed; Cassius was killed at his own request by his servant, and Brutus had fallen on his sword to escape the sword of Mark Antony.

In the stress of defeat and impending calamity, Mark Antony was a great man; he could endure anything but success.

But now there were no more enemies to conquer: unlike Caesar the Great he was no scholar, so books were not a solace; to build up and beautify a great State did not occur to him. His camp was turned into a place of mad riot and disorder. Harpers, dancers, buffoons and all the sodden splendor of the East made the nights echo with "shouts, sacrifices, songs and groans."

When Antony entered Ephesus the women went out to meet him in the undress of bacchanals, while troops of naked boys representing cupids, and men clothed like satyrs danced at the head of the procession. Everywhere were ivy crowns, spears wreathed with green, and harps, flutes, pipes, and human voices sang songs of praise to the great god Bacchus--for such Antony liked to be called.

Antony knew that between Cleopatra and Caesar there had been a tender love. All the world that Caesar ruled, Antony now ruled--or thought he did. In the intoxication of success he, too, would rule the heart that the great Caesar had ruled. He would rule this proud heart or he would crush it beneath his heel.

He dispatched Dellius, his trusted secretary, to Alexandria, summoning the Queen to meet him at Cilicia, and give answer as to why she had given succor to the army of Cassius.

The charge was preposterous, and if sincere, shows the drunken condition of Antony's mind. Cleopatra loved Caesar--he was to her the King of Kings, the one supreme and god-like man of earth. Her studious and splendid mind had matched his own; this cold, scholarly man of fifty-two had been her mate--the lover of her soul. Scarcely five short years before, she had attended him on his journey as he went away, and there on the banks of the Nile as they parted, her unborn babe responded to the stress of parting, no less than she.

Afterward she had followed him to Rome that he might see his son, Caesario.

She was in Rome when Brutus and Cassius struck their fatal blows, and had fled, disguised, her baby in her arms--refusing to trust the precious life in the hands of hirelings.

And now that she should be accused of giving help to the murderer of her joy! She had execrated and despised Cassius, and now she hated, no less, the man who had wrongfully accused her.

But he was dictator--his summons must be obeyed. She would obey it, but she would humiliate him.

Antony waited at Cilicia on the day appointed, but Cleopatra did not appear. He waited two days--three--and very leisurely, up the river, the galleys of Cleopatra came.

But she did not come as suppliant.

Her curiously carved galley was studded with nails of gold; the oars were all tipped with silver; the sails were of purple silk. The rowers kept time to the music of flutes. The Queen in the gauzy dress of Venus reclined under a canopy, fanned by cupids. Her maids were dressed like the Graces, and fragrance of burning incense diffused the shores.

The whole city went down the river to meet this most gorgeous pageant, and Antony the proud was left at the tribunal alone.

On her arrival Cleopatra sent official word of her presence. Antony sent back word that she should come to him.

She responded that if he wished to see her he should call and pay his respects.

He went down to the riverside and was astonished at the dazzling, twinkling lights and all the magnificence that his eyes beheld. Very soon he was convinced that in elegance and magnificence he could not cope with this Egyptian queen.

The personal beauty of Cleopatra was not great. Many of her maids outshone her. Her power lay in her wit and wondrous mind. She adapted herself to conditions; and on every theme and topic that the conversation might take, she was at home.

Her voice was marvelously musical, and was so modulated that it seemed like an instrument of many strings. She spoke all languages, and therefore had no use for interpreters.

When she met Antony she quickly took the measure of the man. She fell at once into his coarse soldier ways, and answered him jest for jest.

Antony was at first astonished, then subdued, next entranced--a woman who could be the comrade of a man she had never seen before! She had the intellect of a man and all the luscious weaknesses of a woman.

Cleopatra had come hating this man Antony, and to her surprise she found him endurable--and more. Besides that, she had cause to be grateful to him--he had destroyed those conspirators who had killed her Caesar--her King of Kings.

She ordered her retinue to make ready to return. The prows were turned toward Alexandria; and aboard the galley of the Queen, beneath the silken canopy, at the feet of Cleopatra, reclined the great Mark Antony.

* * * * *

The subject is set forth in Byron's masterly phrase, "Man's love is of man's life a thing apart; 'tis woman's whole existence." Still, I suppose it will not be disputed that much depends upon the man and--the woman.

In this instance we have a strong, wilful, ambitious and masculine man. Up to the time he met Cleopatra, love was of his life apart; after this, it was his whole existence. When they first met there at Cilicia, Antony was past forty; she was twenty-five.

Plutarch tells us that Fulvia, the wife of Antony, an earnest and excellent woman, had tried to discipline him. The result was that, instead of bringing him over to her way of thinking, she had separated him from her.

Cleopatra ruled the man by entwining her spirit with his--mixing the very fibers of their being--fastening her soul to his with hoops of steel. She became a necessity to him--a part and parcel of the fabric of his life. Together they attended to all the affairs of State. They were one in all the games and sports. The exuberant animal spirits of Antony occasionally found vent in roaming the streets of Alexandria at dead of night, rushing into houses and pulling people out of bed, and then absconding before they were well awake. In these nocturnal pranks, Cleopatra often attended him, dressed like a boy. Once they both got well pummeled, and deservedly, but they stood the drubbing rather than reveal their identity.

The story of their fishing together, and Antony making all the catch has been often told. He had a skilful diver go down every now and then and place a fish on his hook. Finally, when he grew beautifully boastful, as successful fishermen are apt to do, Cleopatra had her diver go down and attach a large Newfoundland salt codfish to his hook, which when pulled up before the company turned the laugh, and in the guise of jest taught the man a useful lesson. Antony should have known better than to try to deceive a woman like that--other men have tried it before and since.

But all this horseplay was not to the higher taste of Cleopatra--with Caesar, she would never have done it.

It is the man who gives the key to conduct in marriage, not the woman; the partnership is successful only as a woman conforms her life to his. If she can joyfully mingle her life with his, destiny smiles in benediction and they become necessary to each other. If she grudgingly gives, conforming outwardly, with mental reservations, she droops, and spirit flagellates the body until it sickens, dies. If she holds out firmly upon principle, intent on preserving her individuality, the man, if small, sickens and dies; if great he finds companionship elsewhere, and leaves her to develop her individuality alone--which she never does. One of three things happens to her: she dies, lapses into nullity, or finds a mate whose nature is sufficiently like her own that they can blend.

Cleopatra was a greater woman, far, than Antony was a man. But she conformed her life to his and counted it joy. She was capable of better things, but she waived them all, as strong women do and have done since the world began. Love is woman's whole existence--sometimes. But love was not Cleopatra's whole existence, any more than it is the sole existence of the silken Sara, whose prototype she was. Cleopatra loved power first, afterward she loved love. By attaching to herself a man of power both ambitions were realized.

Two years had gone by, and Antony still remained at Alexandria. Importunities, requests and orders had all failed to move him to return. The days passed in the routine affairs of State, hunting, fishing, excursions, fetes and games. Antony and Cleopatra were not separated night or day.

Suddenly news of serious import came: Fulvia, and Lucius, the brother of Antony, had rebelled against Caesar and had gathered an army to fight him.

Antony was sore distressed, and started at once to the scene of the difficulty. Fulvia's side of the story was never told, for before Antony arrived in Italy she was dead.

Octavius Caesar came out to meet Antony and they met as friends. According to Caesar the whole thing had been planned by Fulvia as a scheme to lure her lord from the arms of Cleopatra. And anyway the plan had worked. The Triumvirate still existed--although Lepidus had practically been reduced to the rank of a private citizen.

Antony and Caesar would now rule the world as one, and to cement the bond Antony should take the sister of Octavius to wife. Knowing full well the relationship of Antony and Cleopatra, she consented to the arrangement, and the marriage ceremony was duly performed.

Antony was the head of the Roman army and to a great degree the actual ruler. Power was too unequally divided between him and Caesar for either to be happy--they quarreled like boys at play.

Antony was restless, uneasy, impatient. Octavia tried to keep the peace, but her kindly offices only made matters worse.

War broke out between Rome and certain tribes in the East, and Antony took the field. Octavia importuned her liege that she might attend him, and he finally consented. She went as far as Athens, then across to Macedonia, and here Antony sent her home to her brother that she might escape the dangers of the desert.

Antony followed the enemy down into Syria; and there sent for Cleopatra, that he might consult with her about joining the forces of Egypt with those of Rome to crush the barbarians.

Cleopatra came on, the consultation followed, and it was decided that when Caesar the Great--the god-like man whose memory they mutually revered--said, "War is a foolish business," he was right. They would let the barbarians slide--if they deserved punishment, the gods would look after the case. If the barbarians did not need punishment, then they should go free.

Tents were struck, pack-camels were loaded, horses were saddled, and the caravan started for Alexandria. By the side of the camel that carried the queen, quietly stepped the proud barb that bore Mark Antony.

* * * * *

Cleopatra and Antony ruled Egypt together for fourteen years. The country had prospered, even in spite of the extravagance of its governors, and the Egyptians had shown a pride in their Roman ruler, as if he had done them great honor to remain and be one with them.

Caesario was approaching manhood--his mother's heart was centering her ambition in him--she called him her King of Kings, the name she had given to his father. Antony was fond of the young man, and put him forward at public fetes even in advance of Cleopatra, his daughter, and Alexander and Ptolemy, his twin boys by the same mother. In playful paraphrase of Cleopatra, Antony called her the Queen of Kings, and also the Mother of Kings.

Word reached Rome that these children of Cleopatra were being trained as if they were to rule the world--perhaps it was so to be! Octavius Caesar scowled. For Antony to wed his sister, and then desert her, and bring up a brood of barbarians to menace the State, was a serious offense.

An order was sent commanding Antony to return--requests and prayer all having proved futile and fruitless.

Antony had turned into fifty; his hair and beard were whitening with the frost of years. Cleopatra was near forty--devoted to her children, being their nurse, instructor, teacher.

The books refer to the life of Antony and Cleopatra as being given over to sensuality, licentiousness, profligacy. Just a word here to state this fact: sensuality alone sickens and turns to satiety ere a single moon has run her course. Sensuality was a factor in the bond, because sensuality is a part of life; but sensuality alone soon separates a man and a woman--it does not long unite. The bond that united Antony and Cleopatra can not be disposed of by either the words "sensuality" or "licentiousness"--some other term here applies: make it what you wish.

A copy of Antony's will had been stolen from the Alexandria archives and carried to Rome by traitors in the hope of personal reward. Caesar read the will to Senate. One clause of it was particularly offensive to Caesar: it provided that on the death of Antony, wherever it might occur, his body should be carried to Cleopatra. The will also provided that the children of Cleopatra should be provided for first, and afterward the children of Fulvia and Octavia.

The Roman Senate heard the will, and declared Mark Antony an outlaw--a public enemy.

Erelong Caesar himself took the field and the Roman legions were pressing down upon Egypt. The renegade Mark Antony was fighting for his life. For a time he was successful, but youth was no longer his, the spring had gone out of his veins, and pride and prosperity had pushed him toward fatty degeneration.

His soldiers lost faith in him, and turned to the powerful name of Caesar--a name to conjure with. A battle had been arranged between the fleet of Mark Antony and that of Caesar. Mark Antony stood upon a hillside, overlooking the sea, and saw the valiant fleet approach, in battle-array, the ships of the enemy. The two fleets met, hailed each other in friendly manner with their oars, turned and together sailed away.

On shore the cavalry had done the same as the soldiers on the sea--the infantry were routed.

Mark Antony was undone--he made his way back to the city, and as usual sought Cleopatra. The palace was deserted, save for a few servants. They said that the Queen had sent the children away some days before, and she was in the mausoleum.

To the unhappy man this meant that she was dead. He demanded that his one faithful valet, known by the fanciful name of Eros, should keep his promise and kill him. Eros drew his sword, and Antony bared his breast, but instead of striking the sword into the vitals of his master, Eros plunged the blade into his own body, and fell at his master's feet.

At which Mark Antony exclaimed, "This was well done, Eros--thy heart would not permit thee to kill thy master, but thou hast set him an example!" So saying, he plunged his sword into his bowels.

The wound was not deep enough to cause immediate death, and Antony begged the gathered attendants to kill him.

Word had been carried to Cleopatra, who had moved into her mausoleum for safety. This monument and tomb had been erected some years before; it was made of square blocks of solid stone, and was the stoutest building in Alexandria. While Antony was outside the walls fighting, Cleopatra had carried into this building all of her jewelry, plate, costly silks, gold, silver, pearls, her private records and most valuable books. She had also carried into the mausoleum a large quantity of flax and several torches.

The intent was that, if Antony were defeated and the city taken by Caesar, the conqueror should not take the Queen alive, neither should he have her treasure. With her two women, Iras and Charmion, she entered the tomb, all agreeing that when the worst came they would fire the flax and die together.

When the Queen heard that Antony was at death's door she ordered that he should be brought to her. He was carried on a litter to the iron gate of the tomb; but she, fearing treachery, would not unbar the door. Cords were let down from a window above, and the Queen and her two women, with much effort, drew the sorely stricken man up, and lifted him through the window.

Cleopatra embraced him, calling him her lord, her life, her king, her husband. She tried to stanch his wound, but the death-rattle was already in his throat. "Do not grieve," he said; "remember our love--remember, too, I fought like a Roman and have been overcome only by a Roman!"

And so holding him in her arms, Antony died.

When Caesar heard that his enemy was dead, he put on mourning for the man who had been his comrade and colleague, and sent messages of condolence to Cleopatra. He set apart a day for the funeral and ordered that the day should be sacred, and Cleopatra should not be disturbed in any way.

Cleopatra prepared the body for burial with her own hands, dug the grave alone, and with her women laid the body to rest, and she alone gave the funeral address.

Caesar was gentle, gracious, kind. Assurances came that he would do neither the city nor the Queen the slightest harm.

Cleopatra demanded Egypt for her children, and for herself she wished only the privilege of living with her grief in obscurity. Caesar would make no promises for her children, but as for herself she should still be Queen--they were of one age--why should not Caesar and Cleopatra still rule, just as, indeed, a Caesar had ruled before!

But this woman had loved the Great Caesar, and now her heart was in the grave with Mark Antony--she scorned the soft, insinuating promises.

She clothed herself in her most costly robes, wearing the pearls and gems that Antony had given her, and upon her head was the diadem that proclaimed her Queen. A courier from Caesar's camp knocked at the door of the mausoleum, but he knocked in vain.

Finally a ladder was procured, and he climbed to the window through which the body of Antony had been lifted.

In the lower room he saw the Queen seated in her golden chair of state, robed and serene, dead. At her feet lay Iras, lifeless. The faithful Charmion stood as if in waiting at the back of her mistress' chair, giving a final touch to the diadem that sat upon the coils of her lustrous hair.

The messenger from Caesar stood in the door aghast--orders had been given that Cleopatra should not be harmed, neither should she be allowed to harm herself.

Now she had escaped!

"Charmion!" called the man in stern rebuke. "How was this done?"

"Done, sir," said Charmion, "as became a daughter of the King of Egypt."

As the woman spoke the words she reeled, caught at the chair, fell, and was dead.

Some said these women had taken a deadly poison invented by Cleopatra and held against this day; others, still, told of how a countryman had brought a basket of figs, by appointment, covered over with green leaves, and in the basket was hidden an asp, that deadliest of serpents. Cleopatra had placed the asp in her bosom, and the other women had followed her example.

Caesar, still wearing mourning for Mark Antony, went into retirement and for three days refused all visitors. But first he ordered that the body of Cleopatra, clothed as she had died, in her royal robes, should be placed in the grave beside the body of Mark Antony.

And it was so done.

SAVONAROLA

Some have narrowed their minds, and so fettered them with the
chains of antiquity that not only do they refuse to speak save as
the ancients spake, but they refuse to think save as the ancients
thought. God speaks to us, too, and the best thoughts are those now
being vouchsafed to us. We will excel the ancients!

--_Savonarola_

The wise ones say with a sigh, Genius does not reproduce itself. But let us take heart and remember that mediocrity does not always do so, either. Men of genius have often been the sons of commonplace parents--no hovel is safe from it.

The father of Girolamo Savonarola was a trifler, a spendthrift and a profligate. Yet he proved a potent teacher for his son, pressing his lessons home by the law of antithesis. The sons of dissipated fathers are often temperance fanatics.

The character of Savonarola's mother can be best gauged by the letters written to her by her son. Many of these have come down to us, and they breathe a love that is very gentle, very tender and yet very profound. That this woman had an intellect which went to the heart of things is shown in these letters: we write for those who understand, and the person to whom a letter is written gives the key that calls forth its quality. Great love-letters are written only to great women.

But the best teacher young Girolamo had was Doctor Michael Savonarola, his grandfather, who was a physician of Padua, and a man of much wisdom and common-sense, besides. Between the old man and his grandchild there was a very tender sentiment, that soon formed itself into an abiding bond. Together they rambled along the banks of the Po, climbed the hills in springtime looking for the first flowers, made collections of butterflies, and caught the sunlight in their hearts as it streamed across the valleys as the shadows lengthened. On these solitary little journeys they usually carried a copy of Saint Thomas Aquinas, and seated on a rock the old man would read to the boy lying on the grass at his feet. In a year or two the boy did the reading, and would expound the words of the Saint as he went along.

The old grandfather was all bound up in this slim, delicate youngster, with the olive complexion and sober ways. There were brothers and sisters at home--big and strong--but this boy was different. He was not handsome enough to be much of a favorite with girls, nor strong enough to win the boys, and so he and the grandfather were chums together.

This thought of aloofness, of being peculiar, was first fostered in the lad's mind by the old man. It wasn't exactly a healthy condition. The old man taught the boy to play the flute, and together they constructed a set of pipes--the pipes o' Pan--and out along the river they would play, when they grew tired of reading, and listen for the echo that came across the water.

"There are voices calling to me," said the boy looking up at the old man, one day, as they rested by the bank.

"Yes, I believe it--you must listen for the Voice," said the old man.

And so the idea became rooted in the lad's mind that he was in touch with another world, and was a being set apart.

"Lord, teach me the way my soul should walk!" was his prayer. Doubt and distrust filled his mind, and his nights were filled with fear. This child without sin believed himself to be a sinner.

But this feeling was all forgotten when another companion came to join them in their walks. This was a girl about the same age as Girolamo. She was the child of a neighbor--one of the Strozzi family. The Strozzi belonged to the nobility, and the Savonarolas were only peasants, yet with children there is no caste. So this trinity of boy, girl and grandfather was very happy. The old man taught his pupils to observe the birds and bees, to make tracings of the flowers, and to listen to the notes he played on the pipes, so as to call them all by name. And then there was always the Saint Thomas Aquinas to fall back upon should outward nature fail.

But there came a day when the boy and the girl ceased to walk hand in hand, and instead of the delight and abandon of childhood there was hesitation and aloofness.

When the parents of the girl forbade her playing with the boy, reminding her of the difference in their station, and she came by stealth to bid the old man and her playmate Girolamo good-by, the pride in the boy's heart flamed up: he clenched his fist--and feeling spent itself in tears.

When he looked up the girl was gone--they were never to meet again.

The grief of the boy pierced the heart of the old man, and he murmured, "Joy liveth yet for a day, but the sorrow of man abideth forever."

Doubt and fear assailed the lad.

The efforts of his grandfather to interest him in the study of his own profession of medicine failed. Religious brooding filled his days, and he became pale and weak from fasting.

He had grown in stature, but the gauntness of his face made his coarse features stand out so, that he was almost repulsive. But this homeliness was relieved by the big, lustrous, brown eyes--eyes that challenged and beseeched in turn.

The youth was now a young man--eighteen summers lay behind--when he disappeared from home.

Soon came a letter from Bologna in which Girolamo explained at length to his mother that the world's wickedness was to him intolerable, its ambition ashes, and its hopes not worth striving for. He had entered the monastery of Saint Dominico, and to save his family the pain of parting he had stolen quietly away. "I have harkened to the Voice," he said.

* * * * *

Savonarola remained in the monastery at Bologna for six years, scarcely passing beyond its walls. These were years of ceaseless study, writing, meditation--work. He sought the most menial occupations--doing tasks that others cautiously evaded. His simplicity, earnestness and austerity won the love and admiration of the monks, and they sought to make life more congenial to him, by advancing him to the office of teacher to the novitiates.

He declared his unfitness to teach, and it was an imperative order, and not a suggestion, that forced him to forsake the business of scrubbing corridors on hands and knees, and array himself in the white robe of a teacher and reader.

The office of teacher and that of orator are not far apart--it is all a matter of expression. The first requisite in expression is animation--you must feel in order to impart feeling. No drowsy, lazy, disinterested, half-hearted, preoccupied, selfish, trifling person can teach--to teach you must have life, and life in abundance. You must have abandon--you must project yourself, and inundate the room with your presence. To infuse life, and a desire to remember, to know, to become, into a class of a dozen pupils, is to reveal the power of an orator. If you can fire the minds of a few with your own spirit, you can, probably, also fuse and weld a thousand in the same way.

Savonarola taught his little class of novitiates, and soon the older monks dropped in to hear the discourse. A larger room was necessary, and in a short time the semi-weekly informal talk resolved itself into a lecture, and every seat was occupied when it was known that Brother Girolamo would speak.

This success suggested to the Prior that Savonarola be sent out to preach in the churches round about, and it was so done.

But outside the monastery Savonarola was not a success: he was precise, exact, and labored to make himself understood--freedom had not yet come to him.

But let us wait!

One of America's greatest preachers was well past forty before he evolved abandon, swung himself clear, and put out for open sea. Uncertainty and anxiety are death to oratory.

In every monastery there are two classes of men--the religious, the sincere, the earnest, the austere; and the fat, lazy, profligate and licentious.

And the proportion of the first class to the second changes just in proportion as the monastery is successful--to succeed in Nature is to die. The fruit much loved by the sun rots first. The early monasteries were mendicant institutions, and for mendicancy to grow rich is an anomaly that carries a penalty. A successful beggar is apt to be haughty, arrogant, dictatorial--from a humble request for alms to a demand for your purse is but a step. In either case the man wants something that is not his--there are three ways to get it: earn it, beg it, seize it. The first method is absurd--to dig I am ashamed--the second, easy; the last is best of all, provided objection is not too strenuous. Beggars a-horseback are knights of the road.

That which comes easy, goes easy, and so it is the most natural thing in the world for a monk to become a connoisseur of wines, an expert gourmet, a sensualist who plays the limit. The monastic impulse begins in the beautiful desire for solitude--to be alone with God--and ere it runs its gamut dips deep into license and wallows in folly.

The austere monk leaves woman out, the other kind enslaves her: both are wrong, for man can never advance and leave woman behind. God never intended that man, made in His image, should be either a beast or a fool.

And here we are wiser than Savonarola--noble, honest and splendid man that he was. He saw the wickedness of the world and sought to shun it by fleeing to a monastery. There he saw the wickedness of the monastery, and there being no place to flee he sought to purify it. And at the same time he sought to purify and better the world by standing outside of the world.

The history of the Church is a history of endeavor to keep it from drifting into the thing it professes not to be--concrete selfishness. The Church began in humility and simplicity, and when it became successful, behold it became a thing of pomp, pride, processional, crowns, jewels, rich robes and a power that used itself to subjugate and subdue, instead of to uplift and lead by love and pity.

Oh, the shame of it!

And Savonarola saw these things--saw them to the exclusion of everything else--and his cry continually was for a return to the religion of Jesus the Carpenter, the Man who gave his life that others might live.

The Christ spirit filled the heart of Savonarola. His soul was wrung with pity for the poor, the unfortunate, the oppressed; and he had sufficient insight into economics to know that where greed, gluttony and idleness abound, there too stalk oppression, suffering and death. The palaces of the rich are built on the bones of the poor.

Others, high in Church authority, saw these things, too, and knew, no less than Savonarola, the need of reform--they gloried in his ringing words of warning, and they admired no less his example of austerity.

They could not do the needed work--perhaps he could do a little, at least.

And so he was transferred to Saint Mark's Monastery at Florence--the place that needed him most.

Florence was the acknowledged seat of art and polite learning of all Italy, and Saint Mark's was the chief glory of the Church in Florence.

Florence was prosperous and so was Saint Mark's, and have we not said that there is something in pure prosperity that taints the soul?

Savonarola was sent to Saint Mark's merely as a teacher and lecturer. Bologna was full of gloom and grime--the bestiality there was untamed. Here everything was gilded, gracious and good to look upon. The cloister-walks were embowered in climbing roses, the walls decorated fresh from the brush of Fra Angelico, and the fountains in the gardens, adorned by naked cupids, sent their sparkling beads aloft to greet the sunlight.

Brother Girolamo had never seen such beauty before--its gracious essence enfolded him round, and for a few short hours lifted that dead weight of abiding melancholy from his soul.

When he lectured he was surprised to find many fashionable ladies in his audience: learning was evidently a fad. He saw that it was expected that he should be amusing, diverting, and incidentally, instructive. He had only one mode of preaching--this was earnest exhortation to a higher life, the life of austerity, simplicity and nearness to God, by laboring to benefit His children.

He mumbled through his lecture and retired, abashed and humiliated.

* * * * *

It was the year Fourteen Hundred Eighty-two, and the whole world was athrill with thought and feeling. Lorenzo the Magnificent was at the very height of his power and popularity; printing-presses gave letters an impetus; art flourished; the people were dazzled by display and were dipping deep into the love of pleasure. The austerity of Christian religion had glided off by imperceptible degrees into pagan pageantry, and the song of bacchanals filled the streets at midnight.

Lorenzo did for the world a great and splendid work--for one thing, he discovered Michelangelo--and the encouragement he gave to the arts made Florence the beautiful dream in stone that she is even to this day.

The world needs the Lorenzos and the world needs, too, the Savonarolas--they form an Opposition of Forces that holds the balance true. Power left to itself attains a terrific impetus: a governor is needed, and it was Savonarola who tempered and tamed the excesses of the Medici.

In Fourteen Hundred Eighty-three Savonarola was appointed Lenten preacher at the Church of Saint Lorenzo in Florence. His exhortations were plain, homely, blunt--his voice uncertain, and his ugly features at times inclined his fashionable auditors to unseemly smiles. When ugliness forgets itself and gives off the flash of the spirit, it becomes magnificent--takes upon itself a halo--but this was not yet to be.

The orator must subdue his audience or it will subdue him.

Savonarola retired to his cloister-cell, whipped and discouraged. He took no part in the festivals and fetes: the Gardens of Lorenzo were not for him; the society of the smooth and cultured lovers of art and literature was beyond his pale. Being incapable by temperament of mixing in the whirl of pleasure, he found a satisfaction in keeping out of it, thus proving his humanity. Not being able to have a thing, we scorn it. Men who can not dance are apt to regard dancing as sinful.

Savonarola saw things as a countryman sees them when he goes to a great city for the first time.

There is much that is wrong--very much that is wasteful, extravagant, absurd and pernicious, but it is not all base, and the visitor is apt to err in his conclusions, especially if he be of an intense and ascetic type.

Savonarola was sick at heart, sick in body--fasts and vigils had done their sure and certain work for nerves and digestion. He saw visions and heard voices, and in the Book of Revelation he discovered the symbols of prophesy that foretold the doom of Florence. He felt that he was divinely inspired.

In the outside world he saw only the worst--and this was well.

He believed that he was one sent from God to cleanse the Church of its iniquities--and he was right.

These madmen are needed--Nature demands them, and so God makes them to order. They are ignorant of what the many know, and this is their advantage; they are blind to all but a few things, and therein lies their power.

The belief in his mission filled the heart of Savonarola. Gradually he gained ground, made head, and the Prior of Saint Mark's did what the Prior of Saint Dominico's had done at Bologna--he sent the man out on preaching tours among the churches and monasteries. The austerity and purity of his character, the sublimity of his faith, and his relentless war upon the extravagance of the times, made his presence valuable to the Church. Then in all personal relationships the man was most lovable--gentle, sympathetic, kind. Wherever he went his influence was for the best.

Power plus came to him for the first time at Brescia in Fourteen Hundred Eighty-six. The sermon he gave was one he had given many times; in fact, he never had but one theme: flee from the wrath to come, and accept the pardon of the gentle Christ ere it is too late--ere it is too late.

Much of what passes for oratory is merely talk, lecture, harangue and argument. These things may all be very useful, and surely they have their place in the world of work and business, but oratory is another thing. Oratory is the impassioned outpouring of a heart--a heart full to bursting: it is the absolute giving of soul to soul.

Every great speech is an evolution--it must be given many times before it becomes a part of the man himself. Oratory is the ability to weld a mass of people into absolutely one mood. To do this the orator must lose himself in his subject--he must cast expediency to the winds. And more than this, his theme must always be an appeal for humanity. Invective, threat, challenge, all play their parts, but love is the great recurring theme that winds in and out through every great sermon or oration. Pathos is only possible where there is great love, and pathos is always present in the oration that subdues, that convinces, that wins, and sends men to their knees in abandonment of their own wills. The audience is the female element--the orator the male, and love is the theme. The orator comes in the name of God to give protection--freedom.

Usually the great orator is on the losing side. And this excites on the part of the audience the feminine attribute of pity, and pity fused with admiration gives us love--thus does love act and react on love.

Oratory supplies the most sublime gratification which the gods have to give. To subdue the audience and blend mind with mind affords an intoxication beyond the ambrosia of Elysium. When Sophocles pictured the god Mercury seizing upon the fairest daughter of Earth and carrying her away through the realms of space, he had in mind the power of the orator, which through love lifts up humanity and sways men by a burst of feeling that brooks no resistance.

Oratory is the child of democracy--it pleads for the weak, for the many against the few--and no great speech was ever yet made save in behalf of mankind. The orator feels their joys, their sorrows, their hopes, their desires, their aspirations, their sufferings and pains. They may have wandered far, but his arms are open wide for their return. Here alone does soul respond to soul. And it is love, alone, that fuses feeling so that all are of one mind and mood. Oratory is an exercise of power.

But oratory, like all sublime pleasures, pays its penalty--this way madness lies. The great orator has ever been a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. Oratory points the martyr's path; it leads by the thorn road; and those who have trod the way have carried the cross with bleeding feet, and deep into their side has been thrust the spear.

* * * * *

It was not until his fortieth year that Savonarola attained that self-sufficiency and complete self-reliance that marks a man who is fit for martyrdom. Courage comes only to those who have done the thing before.

By this time Savonarola had achieved enemies, and several dignitaries had done him the honor of publicly answering him. His invective was against the sins of Church and Society, but his enemies, instead of defending their cause, did the very natural thing of inveighing against Savonarola.