THE GATEWAY TO EGYPT

the Egyptians, and subsequently the city became one of the Christian centres of the world. Here Hypatia lived, and here, as she was about to enter a heathen temple to worship, the Christian monks, led by Peter the Reader, tore her from her chariot and massacred her. They scraped her live flesh from her bones with oyster shells, and then tore her body limb from limb.

Here, too, Cleopatra corrupted Caesar and later brought Marc Antony to a suicidal grave. There are carvings of the enchantress of the Nile still to be seen on some of the Egyptian temples far up the river valley. I have a photo¬ graph of one which is in good preservation in the Temple of

Denderah. Its features are Greek rather than Egyptian, for she was more of a Greek than a Simon-pure daughter of the Nile. She was not noted for beauty, but she had such wonderful charm of manner, sweetness of voice, and bril¬ liancy of intellect, that she was able to allure and captivate the greatest men of her time.

Cleopatra’s first Roman lover was Julius Caesar, who came to Alexandria to settle the claims of herself and her brother to the throne of Egypt. Her father, who was one of the Ptolemies, had at his death left his throne to her younger brother and herself, and according to the custom the two were to marry and reign together. One of the brother’s guardians, however, had dethroned and ban¬ ished Cleopatra. She was not in Egypt when Caesar came. It is not known whether it was at Caesar’s re¬ quest or not, but the story goes that she secretly made her way back to Alexandria, and was carried inside a roll of rich Syrian rugs on the back of a servant to Caesar’s apartments. Thus she was presented to the mighty Roman and so delighted him that he restored her to the

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