The treatment which he accorded to Cleopatra’s children also won the world’s admiration.  His sister Octavia received them into her own house and intrusted their education to Archibius.

When the order to destroy the statues of Antony and Cleopatra was issued, Octavianus gave his contemporaries another proof of his disposition to be lenient, for he ordered that the numerous statues of the Queen in Alexandria and Egypt should be preserved.  True, he had been influenced by the large sum of two thousand talents paid by an Alexandrian to secure this act of generosity.  Archibius was the name of the rare friend who had impoverished himself to render this service to the memory of the beloved dead.

In later times the statues of the unfortunate Queen adorned the places where they had been erected.

The sarcophagi of Cleopatra and Mark Antony, by whose side rested Iras and Charmian, were constantly heaped with flowers and offerings to the dead.  The women of Alexandria, especially, went to the tomb of their beloved Queen as if it were a pilgrimage; but in after-days faithful mourners also came from a distance to visit it, among them the children of the famous lovers whom death here united—­Cleopatra Selene, now the wife of the learned Numidian Prince Juba, Helios Antony, and Alexander, who had reached manhood.  Their friend and teacher, Archibius, accompanied them.  He taught them to hold their mother’s memory dear, and had so reared them that, in their maturity, he could lead them with head erect to the sarcophagus of the friend who had confided them to his charge.

     ETEXT editor’s bookmarks: 

     Pain is the inseparable companion of love

     ETEXT editor’s bookmarks for the complete Cleopatra: 

     Aspect obnoxious to the gaze will pour water on the fire
     Contempt had become too deep for hate
     Epicurus, who believed that with death all things ended
     Everything that exists moves onward to destruction and decay
     Fairest dreams of childhood were surpassed
     From Epicurus to Aristippus, is but a short step
     Golden chariot drawn by tamed lions
     Jealousy has a thousand eyes
     Life had fulfilled its pledges
     No, she was not created to grow old
     Nothing in life is either great or small
     Pain is the inseparable companion of love
     Preferred a winding path to a straight one
     Priests:  in order to curb the unruly conduct of the populace
     See facts as they are and treat them like figures in a sum
     Shadow of the candlestick caught her eye before the light
     She would not purchase a few more years of valueless life
     Soul which ceases to regard death as a misfortune finds peace
     To govern the world one must have less need of sleep
     Trouble does not enhance beauty
     Until neither knew which was the giver and which the receiver
     What changes so quickly as joy and sorrow
     Without heeding the opinion of mortals
     Zeus does not hear the vows of lovers