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15Thus Antony and Cleopatra, who had caused many evils to the Egyptians and many to the Romans, made war and met their death in the manner I have described; and they were both embalmed in the same fashion and buried in the same tomb. Their qualities of character and the fortunes of their lives were as follows. 2Antony had no superior in comprehending his duty, yet he committed many acts of folly. He sometimes distinguished himself for bravery, yet often failed through cowardice. He was characterized equally by greatness of soul and by servility of mind. He would plunder the property of others and would squander his own. 3He showed compassion to many without cause and punished even more without justice. Consequently, though he rose from utter weakness to great power, and from the depths of poverty to great riches, he derived no profit from either circumstance, but after hoping to gain single-handed the empire of the Romans, he took his own life. 4Cleopatra was of insatiable passion and insatiable avarice; she was swayed often by laudable ambition, but often by overweening effrontery. By love she gained the title of Queen of the Egyptians, and when she hoped by the same means to win also that of Queen of the Romans, she failed of this and lost the other besides. She captivated the two greatest Romans of her day, and because of the third she destroyed herself.
5Such were these two and such was their end. Of their children, Antyllus was slain immediately, though he was betrothed to the daughter of Caesar and had taken refuge in his father’s shrine, which Cleopatra had built; and Caesarion while fleeing to Ethiopia was overtaken on the road and murdered. 6Cleopatra was married to Juba, the son of Juba; for to this man who had been brought up in Italy and had been with him on campaigns, Caesar gave both the maid and the kingdom of his fathers, and as a favour to them spared the lives of Alexander and Ptolemy. 7To his nieces, the daughters whom Octavia had had by Antony and had reared, he assigned money from their father’s estate. He also ordered Antony’s freedmen to give at once to Iullus, the son of Antony and Fulvia, everything which by law they would have been required to bequeath him at their death.
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