remain on the land and fight the principal battle there.  But Cleopatra would not consent to this.  She urged him to give Octavius battle at sea.  The motive which induced her to do this has been supposed to be her wish to provide a more sure way of escape in case of an unfavorable issue to the conflict.  She thought that in her galleys she could make sail at once across the sea to Alexandria in case of defeat, whereas she knew not what would become of her if beaten at the head of an army on the land.  The ablest counselors and chief officers in the army urged Antony very strongly not to trust himself to the sea.  To all their arguments and remonstrances, however, Antony turned a deaf ear.  Cleopatra must be allowed to have her way.  On the morning of the battle, when the ships were drawn up in array, Cleopatra held the command of a division of fifty or sixty Egyptian vessels, which were all completely manned, and well equipped with masts and sails.  She took good care to have every thing in perfect order for flight, in case flight should prove to be necessary.  With these ships she took a station in reserve, and for a time remained there a quiet witness of the battle.  The ships of Octavius advanced to the attack of those of Antony, and the men fought from deck to deck with spears, boarding-pikes, flaming darts, and every other destructive missile which the military art had then devised.  Antony’s ships had to contend against great disadvantages.  They were not only outnumbered by those of Octavius, but were far surpassed by them in the efficiency with which they were manned and armed.  Still, it was a very obstinate conflict.  Cleopatra, however, did not wait to see how it was to be finally decided.  As Antony’s forces did not immediately gain the victory, she soon began to yield to her fears in respect to the result, and, finally, fell into a panic and resolved to fly.  She ordered the oars to be manned and the sails to be hoisted, and then forcing her way through a portion of the fleet that was engaged in the contest, and throwing the vessels into confusion as she passed, she succeeded in getting to sea, and then pressed on, under full sail, down the coast to the southward.  Antony, as soon as he perceived that she was going, abandoning every other thought, and impelled by his insane devotedness to her, hastily called up a galley of five banks of oarsmen to pull with all their force after Cleopatra’s flying squadron.

Cleopatra, looking back from the deck of her vessel, saw this swift galley pressing on toward her.  She raised a signal at the stern of the vessel which she was in, that Antony might know for which of the fifty flying ships he was to steer.  Guided by the signal, Antony came up to the vessel, and the sailors hoisted him up the side and helped him in.  Cleopatra had, however, disappeared.  Overcome with shame and confusion, she did not dare, it seems, to meet the look of the wretched victim of her arts whom she had now irretrievably ruined.  Antony did not seek her.  He did not speak a word.  He went forward to the prow of the ship, and, throwing himself down there alone, pressed his head between his hands, and seemed stunned and stupefied, and utterly overwhelmed with horror and despair.