WAS CLEOPATRA BEAUTIFUL?

Dominion, Volume 2, Issue 589, 18 August 1909, Page 3

WAS CLEOPATRA BEAUTIFUL?

. FApTS-POIIiIT'TO'THE CONTRARY..;.' ; fArchaeologists, : writes' the. great Italian historian,; : .G-uslielnio.;FerrerQi 1 have, 'discovered on some'old. coins .portraits, of-, Cleopatra', -and now, critics have confronted these portraits.with the pqetio descriptions of Cleopatra', given,by. Roman historians,-and fhave found tbat.'in, these;.desoriptiona. there wai at -Jeast .lnuPh;-' fancy, ;.In the, portraits we do,not see 'tiel countenance,of a Yenus, delicate, nor;'even the fine' and:. sensuous of a Marquise.de Pompadour; but a face flesby, ahd,,as : tile French would;say, bouffie,,,with a powerful aquiline, nosei; .'the I face of a woman on'in,'years, ambitious, imperious,.'which recalls the face of Maria Theresa. , It will be" said that judgments on beauty are pei-sona!; that"Antony; who. sa.w'-her.'alive, -cdiild judge better than 'we who-see/her-portraits half-faded out by the ■centuries; that ;the attractive power of a -woman omaiiates not' only from corporeal beauty, but, :: al6o,' and yet'more, from her spirit; -The' taste , of Cleopatra, her" vivacity, her cleverness, her;exquisite', art- in conver'satiPti; are acclaimed 'by all. , . -, ■;She : had only been'"married a month, and was -extreinoly .'jealous".of. her. handsome -husbands .He-added to-her agony by constantly admiring one'eharnjing. frieiid oranother. -To-day, the climax had been.reached, for, on examinirig his' blotting-pad, she ' had- clearly deciphered "Bar,ling;" 6Q-'shewas going home. He entered the' room, and, seeing -her'.tragic expression, demanded an'explanation'.'. Hearing it, ho first looked '.puzzled, then bursting out lsiuglrinr. took from his pocket a letter he hud forgotten to post to his uncle , at "Darlington."