Читать книгу Cleopatra онлайн

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But, though barely seventeen years of age, would any one have called Cleopatra a child? The wife for two years of the brother, whom the dynastic law had compelled her to marry on the death of her father; cast off by her perfidious consort, sent into exile and, coming back to-night under the care of Apollodorus, she had undoubtedly a store of experience extraordinary for her age. One wonders how her impressions would have compared with those of the average girl, for Cleopatra had grown up in a shamelessly corrupt court and was the daughter of Ptolemy Auletes, that remarkable dilettante king who had met the uproar of revolution and foreign invasion with the persistent playing of his flute.

Descendant of a race cultivated to the last degree, proficient herself in literature and art, with a thorough education, this young girl's outlook on life was one of unusual breadth. At the time when other girls, just released from the women's quarters, still revered virtue and dreamed of pleasure, she had already the inclination to beguile and to rule. With liberal views, she looked things squarely in the face; she fully recognized the value of men, and whether in serving or in pleasing them, had a spirit of rare understanding, keen and comprehensive.