The Jewish King, therefore, giving up his treacherous scheme, politely escorted Cleopatra to the frontier fortress of Pelusium, and thus she came unscathed to Alexandria, where she settled down to await the birth of her fourth child. It is perhaps worth noting that she is said to have brought back to Egypt from Jericho many cuttings of the balsam shrubs, and planted them at Heliopolis, near the modern Cairo.[98] The Queen’s mind must now have been full of optimism. Antony had collected an enormous army, and already, she supposed, he must have penetrated far into Parthia. In spite of her previous fears, she now expected that he would return to her covered with glory, having opened the road through Persia to India and the fabulous East. Rome would hail him as their hero and idol, and the unpopular Octavian would sink into insignificance. Then he would claim for himself and for her the throne of the West as well as that of the Orient, and at last her little son Cæsarion, as their heir, would come into his own.
With such hopes as these to support her, Cleopatra passed through her time of waiting; and in the late autumn she gave birth to a boy, whom she named Ptolemy, according to the custom of her house. But ere she had yet fully recovered her strength she received despatches from Antony, breaking to her the appalling news that his campaign had been a disastrous failure, and that he had reached northern Syria with only a remnant of his grand army, clad in rags, emaciated by hunger and illness, and totally lacking in funds. He implored her to come to his aid, and to bring him money wherewith to pay his disheartened soldiers, and he told her that he would await her coming upon the Syrian coast somewhere between Sidon and Berytus.
Once more the unfortunate Queen’s hopes were dashed to the ground; but pluckily rising to the occasion, she collected money, clothes, and munitions of war, and set out with all possible speed to her husband’s relief.