Cleopatra [antikvár]

FOREWORD CLEOPATRA, that curiously perverse fígure, that incarnation of fatal passión, what was she like? A combination of pride and frailty, adored and despised. Plutarch said that "Her charm entered into men's very souls," and Horace thanked the gods for delivering the earth from that <íFatalej Monstrum It is not the gigantic outlines graven on the dusty walls of the temple at Dendera that will reveal the mystery of Cleopatra; nor yet those bronzé medals from Syracuse, with their curious hieratic profiles; disguised by these gross images who would recognize the intelligence, the passión, the daring, the flame, the storm, the witchery, that were united in that "serpent of old Nile"? If only somé masterpiece of Greek sculpture had been preserved! If we possessed that statue made at Caesar's orders by the sculptor, Timomachus! or that cherished treasure which a rich citizen of Alexandria offered Cassar Augustus two thousand talents to leave untouched! But all these portraits have disappeared. Poor as we are in material we can only divine what she really was in appearance and in character. It is not certain that she was beautiful, at least not of that sensuous type of beauty which has been gen-