Page:A Biographical Dictionary of the Celebrated Women of Every Age and Country (1804).djvu/287

Rh drowned. Upon which Cæsar settled the kingdom upon Cleopatra and the surviving Ptolemy, her younger brother, then but eleven years old, as king and queen; which was in effect putting the whole power into her hands; for when he became 15, and thereby capable of sharing the royal authority, she poisoned him, and reigned alone over Egypt.

The younger sister, named Arsinoe, siding in the war with her brother Ptolemy, was taken prisoner by Cæsar, and carried to Rome, in order to grace his triumph. He afterwards dismissed her, but would not suffer her to return to Egypt, lest she should disturb Cleopatra's government; so she settled in Asia. There Antony found her after the battle of Philippi; and, at the request of her sister, caused her to be put to death.

It was for the sake of Cleopatra that Cæsar entered into this war, when he had but a very inconsiderable force with him, and staid much longer in Egypt than his affairs could well admit. Suetonius reports that he went up the Nile with her in a magnificent galley, and that he had gone as far as Ethiopia, if his army had not refused to follow him. She had by him a son, named Cæsarion, and followed him to Rome, where he was killed in the senate-house; at which she was so terrified that she fled with the utmost precipitation. Her authority and credit with Cæsar, in whose house she lodged, had made her insolence intolerable to the Romans. Cicero had a conference with her in Cæsar's gardens; where, he tells us, the haughtiness of her behaviour gave him no small offence. Afterwards she applied to him, by her agents, in a particular suit she was recommending to the senate; but he refused to interfere in her favour. After