In the mean time, Octavius took formal possession of the city, marching
in at the head of his troops with the most imposing pomp and parade. A
chair of state, magnificently decorated, was set up for him on a high
elevation in a public square; and here he sat, with circles of guards
around him, while the people of the city, assembled before him in the
dress of suppliants, and kneeling upon the pavement, begged his
forgiveness, and implore him to spare the city. These petitions the
great conqueror graciously condescended to grant.
Many of the princes and generals who had served under Antony came next
to beg the body of their commander, that they might give it an honorable
burial. These requests, however, Octavius would not accede to, saying
that he could not take the body away from Cleopatra. He, however, gave
Cleopatra leave to make such arrangements for the obsequies as she
thought fit, and allowed her to appropriate such sums of money from her
treasures for this purpose as she desired. Cleopatra accordingly made
the necessary arrangements, and superintended the execution of them;
not, however, with any degree of calmness and composure, but in a state,
on the contrary, of extreme agitation and distress. In fact, she had
been living now so long under the unlimited and unrestrained dominion of
caprice and passion, that reason was pretty effectually dethroned, and
all self-control was gone. She was now nearly forty years of age, and,
though traces of her inexpressible beauty remained, her bloom was faded,
and her countenance was wan with the effects of weeping, anxiety, and
despair. She was, in a word, both in body and mind, only the wreck and
ruin of what she once had been.
