18 - Beacon Lights of History - Ancient Achievements by John Lord

In the third installment of the Beacon Lights of History series, Lord delves into the remarkable achievements of the ancient world, exploring pivotal developments in law, the fine arts, and science. He brings to life iconic figures such as Cicero and Cleopatra, revealing their enduring impact on history. Summary by KHand.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Section eighteen of Beacon Lights of History, Volume three, Ancient
Achievements by John Lord. This LibriVox recording is in the
public domain. Recording by k Hand Cleopatra, Part one, sixty
nine to thirty b c. The Woman of Paganism. It
is my object in this lecture to present the condition

(00:22):
of woman under the influences of Paganism before Christianity enfranchised
and elevated her as a type of the pagan woman.
I select Cleopatra partly because she was famous, and partly
because she possessed traits and accomplishments which made her interesting
in spite of the vices which degraded her. She was
a queen, the heir of a long line of kings,

(00:44):
and ruled over an ancient and highly civilized country. She
was intellectual, accomplished, beautiful, and fascinating. She lived in one
of the most interesting capitals of the ancient world, and
by birth she was more Greek than she was African
or Oriental. She lived to in a great age, when
Rome had nearly conquered the world, when Roman senators and

(01:05):
generals had more power than kings, when Grecian arts and
literature were copied by the imperial Romans, when the rich
and fortunate were luxurious and ostentatious, beyond all precedent, when
life had reached the highest point of material splendor, and
yet when luxury had not destroyed military virtues or undermined
the strength of the empire. The Eternal City then numbered

(01:28):
millions of people, and was the grandest capital ever seen
on this earth, since everything was there concentrated, the spoils
of the world, riches, immeasurable literature in art, palaces and temples,
power unlimited, the proudest center of civilization which then existed,
and a civilization which, in its material aspects has not

(01:49):
since been surpassed. The civilized world was then most emphatically
pagan in both spirit and forms. Religion as a controlling
influence was dead. Only a very few among speculative philosophers
believed in any God, except in a degrading sense, as
a blind, inexorable fate or an impersonation of the powers

(02:10):
of nature. The future state was a most perplexing uncertainty.
Epicurean self indulgence, and material prosperity were regarded as the
greatest good, and as doubt of the darkest kind hung
over the future. The body was necessarily regarded as of
more value than the soul. In fact, it was only
the body which paganism recognized as a reality. The soul,

(02:32):
God and immortality were virtually everywhere ignored. It was in
this godless yet brilliant age that Cleopatra appears upon the stage,
having been born sixty nine years before Christ, about a
century before the new revolutionary religion was proclaimed in Judea.
Her father was a Ptolemae, and she succeeded him on
the throne of Egypt when quite young, the last of

(02:54):
a famous dynasty that had reigned nearly three hundred years.
The Ptolemies, descended from one of Alexander's generals, reigned in
great magnificence at Alexandria, which was the commercial center of
the world, whose ships whitened the Mediterranean, that great inland lake,
as it were in the center of the Roman Empire,
around whose shores were countless cities and villas and works

(03:16):
of art. Alexandria was a city of schools, of libraries
and museums, of temples, and of palaces, as well as
a mart of commerce. Its famous library was the largest
in the world and was the pride of the age
and of the Empire. Learned men from all countries came
to this capital to study science, philosophy, and art. It

(03:36):
was virtually a Grecian city, and the language of the
leading people was Greek. It was rivaled in provincial magnificence
only by Antioch, the seat of the old Syrian civilization,
also a Greek capital, so far as the governing classes
could make it one. Greece politically ruined, still sent forth
those influences which made her civilization potent in every land. Cleopatra,

(03:58):
the last of the line of greciansig sovereigns in Egypt,
was essentially Greek in her features, her language, and her manners.
There was nothing African about her, as we understand the
term African, except that her complexion may have been darkened
by the intermarriage of the Ptolemies. And I have often
wondered why so learned and classical a man as Story
should have given to this queen in his famous statue,

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such thick lips and African features, which no more marked
her than Indian features mark the family of the Braganzas
on the throne of Brazil. She was not even Coptic,
like Athanasius in Saint Augustine on the ancient coins and metals.
Her features are severely classical. Nor is it probable that
any of the peculiarities of the ancient Egyptian kings marked

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the dynasty of the Ptolemies. No purely Egyptian customs lingered
in the palaces of Alexandria. The old deities of Isis
and Osiris gave place to the worship of Jupiter, Minerva,
and Venus. The wonders of pristine Egypt were confined to
Memphis and Thebes, and the dilapidated cities of the Nile.
The mysteries of the antique Egyptian temples were no more

(05:03):
known to the learned and mercantile citizen of Alexandria than
they are to us. The Pyramids were as much a
wonder then as now. The priests and jugglers alike mingled
in the crowd of Jews, Syrians, Romans, Greeks, Parthians, Arabs
who congregated in this learned and mercantile city. So we
have a right to presume that Cleopatra, when she first

(05:25):
appeared upon the stage of history as a girl of fourteen,
was simply a very beautiful and accomplished Greek princess who
could speak several languages with fluency, as precocious as Elizabeth
of England, skilled in music, conversant with history, and surrounded
with eminent masters. She was only twenty one when she
was an object of attraction to Caesar than in the

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midst of his triumphs. How remarkable must have been her
fascinations if at that age she could have diverted, even
for a time, the great captain from his conquests and
chained him to her side. That refined and intellectual old
veteran of fifty, with the whole world at his feet,
loaded down with the cares of government, as temperate as
he was, ambitious and bent on new conquests, would not

(06:07):
have been chained and enthralled by a girl of twenty one,
however beautiful, had she not been as remarkable for intellect
and culture as she was for beauty, Nor is it
likely that Cleopatra would have devoted herself to this weather
beaten old general had she not hoped to gain something
from him besides caresses, namely the confirmation of her authority
as a queen. She also may have had some patriotic

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motives touching the political independence of her country. Left by
her father's will at the age of eighteen, joint heir
of the Egyptian throne with her brother Ptolemy, she soon
found herself expelled from the capital by him and the
leading generals of the army because they did not relish
her precocious activity in government. Her gathered adherents had made
but little advance toward regaining her rights when in August

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forty eight, Caesar landed in pursuit of POMPEII, whom he
had defeated at Pharsalia. Pompey's assassination left Caesar free, and
he proceeded to Alexandria to establish himself for the winter. Here,
the wily and beautiful young exile sought him and won
his interest and his affection. After some months of revelry
and luxury, Caesar left Egypt in forty seven to chastise

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in Eastern Rebel and was in forty six followed to
Rome by Cleopatra, who remained there in splendid state until
the assassination of Caesar drove her back to Egypt. Her
whole subsequent life showed her to be as cunning and politic,
as she was luxurious and pleasure seeking. Possibly she may
have loved so interesting and brilliant a man as the
Great Caesar, aside from the admiration of his position, but

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he never became her slave, although it was believed one
hundred years after his death that she was actually living
in his house when he was assassinated, and was the
mother of his son Cesarean. But Frauda doubts this, and
the probabilities are that he is correct, for like Macaulay,
he is not apt to be wrong in facts, but
only in the way he puts them. Cleopatra was twenty

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eight years of age when she first met Antony, a
period of life, says Plutarch, when woman's beauty is most
splendid and her intellect is in full maturity. We have
no account of the style of her beauty, except that
it was transcendent, absolutely irresistible, with such a variety of
expression as to be called infinite. As already remarked from
the long residence of her family in Egypt and inner

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marriages with foreigners, her complexion may have been darker than
that of either Persians or Greeks. It probably resembled that
of Queen esther more than that of Aspasia in that
dark richness and voluptuousness which to some have such attractions,
But in grace and vivacity. She was purely Grecian, not
like a blooming Eastern bride, languid and passive and effeminate,

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but bright, witty, and intellectual. Shakespeare paints her as full
of lively sallies, with the power of adapting herself to
circumstances with tact and good nature, like a Madame Racamier
or a Maintanon, rather than like a monte spin or
a pompadour. Although her nature was passionate, her man enticing,
and her habits luxurious, she did not weary or satiate

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like a mere sensual beauty. Age cannot wither her nor
custom stale her infinite variety. She certainly had the power
of retaining the conquest she had won, which rarely happens
except with those who are gifted with intellectual, radiance and freshness.
She had her hold on Antony for eleven years, when
he was burdened with great public cares and duties, and

(09:26):
when he was forty two years of age. Such a
superior man as he was intellectually and after Caesar, the
leading man of the Empire, a statesman as well as
a soldier, would not have been enslaved so long by
Cleopatra had she not possessed remarkable gifts and attainments, like
those famous women who reigned in the courts of the
Bourbones in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and who, by

(09:48):
their wit and social fascinations, gathered around to their thrones
the most distinguished men of France and made them friends
as well as admirers. The pompadors of the world have
only a brief reign and at last become repulsive. But Cleopatra,
like Maintenon, was always attractive, although she could not lay
claim to the virtues of the latter. She was as

(10:09):
politic as the French beauty, and as full of expedients
to please her lord. She may have reveled in the
banquets she prepared for Antony as Esther did in those
she prepared for Xerxes, but with the same intent to
please him rather than herself, and when from his weakness
those political favors which in his calmer hours he might
have shrunk from granting. Cleopatra was a politician as well

(10:32):
as a luxurious beauty, and it may have been her
supreme aim to secure the independence of Egypt. She wished
to beguile Antony, as she had sought to beguile Caesar,
since they were the masters of the world and had
it in their power to crush her sovereignty and reduce
her realm to a mere province of the empire. Nor
is there evidence that in the magnificent banquets she gave

(10:52):
to the Roman general she ever lost her self control.
She drank and made him drink, but retained her wits,
laughing him out of pa and laughing him into patients,
ascendant over him by raillery, irony and wit and antony again.
Although fond of banquets and ostentation like other Roman nobles,
and utterly unscrupulous and unprincipled as Roman libertines were, was

(11:16):
also general, statesman and orator. He grew up amid the dangers,
in toils and privations of Severazer's camp. He was as
greedy of honor as was his imperial master. He was
a sunburnt and experienced commander, obliged to be on his
guard and ready for emergencies. No such man feels that
he can afford to indulge his appetites except on rare occasions.

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One of the leading peculiarities of all great generals has
been their temperance. It marked Caesar, Charlemagne, Gustavus, Adolphus, Frederick
the Great, Cromwell, and Napoleon. When Alexander gave himself up
to banquets, his conquests ended. Even such a self indulgent,
pleasure seeking man, as Louis the fourteenth, always maintained the

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decencies of society amid his dissipated courtiers. We feel that
a man who could discourse so eloquently as Antony did
over the dead body of Caesar was something more than
a sensualist or a demagogue. He was also the finest
looking man in Rome, reminding the people. It is said
of the busts of Hercules. He was lavish like Caesar,
but like him, sought popularity and cared but little what

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it cost. It was probably that Cicero painted him in
his famous Philippics in darker colors than he deserved, because
he aimed to be Caesar's successor, as he probably would
have been but for his infatuation for Cleopatra. Caesar sent
him to Rome as master of the horse, a position
next in power to that of the dictator. When Caesar

(12:40):
was assassinated, Antony was the most powerful man of the empire.
He was greater than any existing king. He was almost supreme,
and after Caesar's death, when he divided his sovereignty of
the world with Octavius and Lepidus, he had the fairest
chance of becoming imperator. He had great military experience, the
broad orientede his domain, and half the legions of Rome

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under his control. It was when this great man was triumphvir,
sharing with only two others the empire of the world,
and likely to overpower them, when he was in Asia,
consolidating and arranging the affairs of his vast department, that
he met the woman who was the cause of all
his calamities. He was then in Sicilia, and with all
the arrogance of a Roman general, had sent for the

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Queen of Egypt to appear before him and answer to
an accusation of having rendered assistance to Cassius before the
fatal Battle of Philippi. He had already known and admired
Cleopatra in Rome, and it is not improbable that she
divined the secret of his judicial summons. His envoy, struck
with her beauty and intelligence, advised her to appear in
her best attire. Such a woman scarcely needed such a hint,

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so in making every preparation for her journey, money, ornaments, gifts.
A kind of queen of Sheba, a zenobia in her
pride and glory, a queen esther. When she had invited
the king and his minister to a banquet, she became
the Sidnus and ascended the river in a magnificent barge,
such as had never been seen before, and prepared to

(14:07):
meet her judge, not as a criminal, but as a conqueror,
armed with those weapons that few mortals can resist. The
barge she sat in like a burnished throne, burned on
the water. The poop was beaten, gold purpled the sails,
and so perfumed that the winds were lovesick with them.
The oars were silver, which, to the tune of flutes,

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kept stroke and made the water which they beat to
follow faster as amorous of their strokes. For her own passion,
it beggared all description. She did lie in her pavilion
cloth of gold, of tissue, or picturing that venus where
we see the fancy outwork nature. On each side her
stood pretty dimpled boys, smiling like cupids, with diverse colored fans.

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Her gentle woman, like the narridies, so many mermaids tended
her in the eyes. At the helm, a seeming mermaid
steers from the barge. A strange invisible perfume hits the
scents of the adjacent wharves. The city cast her people
out upon her, and Antony, enthroned in the market place,
did sit alone, whistling to the air, which but for vacancy,

(15:18):
had gone to gaze on Cleopatra too, and made a
gap in nature. On arrival of this siren Queen, Antony
had invited her to supper, the dinner of the Romans,
but she, with woman's instinct, had declined till he should
come to her, And he, with the urbanity of a
polished and noble for such he probably was complied, and

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found a banquet which astonished even him, accustomed as he
was to senatorial magnificence, and which with all the treasures
of the East, he could not rival. From that fatal
hour he was enslaved. She conquered him, not merely by
her display and her dazzling beauty, but by her wit,
her very tones were music. So accomplish was she in languages,

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that without interpreters she conversed not only with Greeks and Latins,
but with Ethiopians, Jews, Arabians, Syrians, Medes, and Parthians. So
dazzled and bewitched was Antony that instead of continuing the
duties of his great position, he returned with Cleopatra to Alexandria,
there to keep holiday and squander riches, and still worse

(16:22):
his precious time to the shame and scandal of Rome.
Inglorious and without excuse, a samson at the feet of
Delilah were a Hercules, throwing away his club to seize
the distaff of own failie, confessing to the potency of
that mysterious charm which the sage at the court of
an Eastern prince pronounced the strongest power on earth. Never

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was a strong man more enthralled than was Antony by
this bewitching woman, who exhausted every art to please him.
She played at dice with him, drank with him, hunted
with him, rambled with him, jested with him, angled with him,
flattering and reproving him by always having some new device
of pleasure to gratify his senses or stimulate his curiosity.

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Thus passed the winter of forty one and forty, and
in the spring he was recalled to Bourne by political
dissensions there. At this stage, however, it would seem that
ambition was paramount with him, not love for his wife,
Fulvia having died, he did not marry Cleopatra, but Octavia,
sister of Octavius, his fellow triumvir and general rival. It

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was evidently from political considerations that he married Octavia, who
was a stately and noble woman, but tedious in her
dignity and unattractive in her person. And what a great
commentary on Roman rank. The sister of a Roman grandee
seemed to the ambitious general a greater match than the
queen of Egypt. How this must have piqued the proud
daughter of the Ptolemies, that she, a queen with all

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her charms, was not the equal in the eye of Antony,
to the sister of Caesar's heir. But she knew her
power and stifled her resentment and waited for her time.
She too had a political end to gain, and was
too politic to give way to anger and reproaches. She
was anything but the impulsive woman that some suppose, but
a great actress and artist, as some women are when

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they would conquer, even in their loves, which if they
do not feign, at least they know how to make
appear greater than they are. For about three years, Antony
cut loose from Cleopatra and pursued his military career in
the East as the rival of Octavius might, having in
view the sovereignty that Caesar had bequeathed to the strongest man.
But his passion for Cleopatra could not long be suppressed,

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neither from reasons of state, nor from the respect he
must have felt for the admirable conduct of Octavia, who
was devoted to him, and who was one of the
most magnanimous and reproachless women of antiquity. And surely he
must have had some great qualities to call out the
love of the noblest and proudest woman of the age
in spite of his many vices and his abandonment to
a mad passion forgetful alike both of fame and do.

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He had not been two years in Athens, the headquarters
of his Eastern department, before he was called upon to
chastise the Parthians, who had thrown off the Roman yoke
and invaded other Roman provinces. But hardly had he left
Octavia and set foot again in Asia before he sent
for his Egyptian mistress and loaded her with presents, not
gold and silver and precious stones and silks and curious

(19:22):
works of art merely, but whole provinces, even Phoenicia, Syria, Secilia,
and a part of Judea and Arabia provinces which belonged
not to him but to the Roman Empire. How indignant
must have been the Roman people when they heard of
such lavish presents, and presents which he had no right
to give. And when the artful Cleopatra fainted illness on

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the approach of Octavia, pretending to be dying of love,
and wasting her body by fasting and weeping by turns,
and perhaps tearing her hair in a seeming paroxysm of grief,
for an actress can do even this, Antony was totally
disarmed and gave up his Parthia expedition altogether, which was
treason to the state, and returned to Alexandria more submissive

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than ever. This abandonment of duty and official trust, disgusted
and incensed the Romans, so that his cause was weakened.
Octavius became stronger every day, and now resolved on reigning alone.
This meant another civil war. How strong the party of
Antony must have been to keep together and sustain him
amid such scandals, treasons, and disgrace. Antony, perceiving a desperate

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contest before him ending in his supremacy or ruin, put
forth all his energies, assisted by the contributions of Cleopatra,
who furnished two hundred ships and twenty thousand talents about
twenty million dollars. He had five hundred war vessels besides galleys,
one hundred thousand foot and twelve thousand horse, one of
the largest armies that any Roman general had ever commanded,

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and he was attended by vassal kings from the east.
The forces of Octavius were not so large, though better disciplined,
nor was he a match for Antony and military experience. Antony,
with his superior forces, wished to fight upon the land,
but against his better judgment, was overruled by Cleopatra, who,
having re enforced him with sixty galleys, urged him to

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contend upon the sea. The rivals met at Actium, where
was fought one of the great decisive battles of the world.
For a while, the fortunes of the day were doubtful.
When Cleopatra, from some unexplained motive, or from panic, or
possibly from a calculating policy, was seen sailing away with
her ships for Egypt. And what was still more extraordinary,

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Antony abandoned his fleet and followed her. Had he been
defeated on the sea, he still had superior forces on
the land, and was a match for Octavius. His infatuation
ended in a weakness difficult to comprehend in a successful
Roman general. And never was infatuation followed by more tragic consequences.
Was this madness sent upon him by that awful power,

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who control the fate of war and the destinies of nations?
Who sent madness upon Nebecinezzar, who blinded Napoleon at the
very summit of his greatness? May not that memorable defeat
have been so ordered by Providence to give consolidation and
peace and prosperity to the Roman Empire, so long groaning
under the complicated miseries of anarchy and civil war if

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an imperial government was necessary for the existing political and
social condition of the Roman world, and this is maintained
by most historians, how fortunate it was that the Empire
fell into the hands of a man whose subsequent policy
was peace, the development of resources of nations, and a
vigorous administration of government. It is generally conceded that the
reign of Octavius, or as he is more generally known,

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Augustus Caesar, was able, enlightened, and efficient. He laid down
the policy which succeeding emperors pursued, and which resulted in
the peace and prosperity of the Roman world until vices
prepared the way for violence. Augustus was a great organizer,
and the machinery of government which he and his ministers
perfected kept the Empire together until it was overrun by

(23:06):
the new Germanic races. Had Antony conquered a actium, the
destinies of the Empire might have been far different. But
for two hundred years the world never saw a more
efficient central power than that exercised by the Roman emperors
or by their ministers. Imperialism at last proved fatal to
genius and the higher interests of mankind. But imperialism was

(23:27):
the creation of Julius Caesar as a real or supposed necessity.
It was efficiently and beneficiently continued by his grand nephew Augustus,
and its consolidated strength became an established institution which the
civilized world quietly accepted. The Battle of Actium virtually settled
the civil war and the fortunes of Antony, although he
afterwards fought bravely and energetically, but all to no purpose.

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And then at last his eyes were opened, and Shakespeare
makes him bitterly exclaim, all is lost. This foul Egyptian
hath betrayed me, betrayed I am o, this false soul
of Egypt. And with his ruin, the ruin of his
paramour was also settled. Yet her resources were not utterly exhausted.

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She retired into a castle or mausoleum she had prepared
for herself in case of necessity, with her most valuable treasures,
and set messengers to Antony, who reported to him that
she was dead, that she had killed herself in despair.
He believed it. All his wrath now vanished. In his grief,
he could not live, or did not wish to live
without her, and he fell upon his own sword. The

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wound was mortal, but death did not immediately follow. He
lived to learn that Cleopatra had again deceived him that
she was still alive, even amid the agonies of the
shadow of death. And in view of this latest fatal
lie of hers, he did not upbraid her, but ordered
his servants to bear him to her retreat. Covered with blood,
the dying general was drawn up by ropes and through

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a window, the only entrance to the Queen's retreat that
was left unbarred into her presence and soon expired. Shakespeare
has Antony greet Cleopatra with the words I am dying
Egypt Dying. This suggestive theme has been enlarged in a
modern song of pathetic eloquence, I am dying Egypt dying

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Ebbs the crimson life tied fast, and the dark Plutonian
shadows gather on the evening blast. Let thine arms, o
queen enfold me, Hush thy sobs, and bow thine ear.
Listen to the great heart secrets thou and thou alone
must hear. Should the base Plebeian rabble dare assail my

(25:38):
name at Rome, where my noble spouse Octavia weeps within
her widowed home. Seek her, say, the gods bear witness, altars, augurs,
circling wings, that her blood with mine commingled, yet shall
mount the throne of kings. As for thee star eyed Egyptian,
glorious sorceress of the Nile light the path to Stygian horrors.

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With the splendors of thy smile, I can scorn the
Senate's triumphs, triumphing in love like thine. Ah. No more
amid the battle, shall my heart exulting swell isis and
Osiris guard thee Cleopatra Rome farewell. End of section eighteen.