e so than the granite statues in the Vatican are portraits of
Philadelphus and Arsinoe. The artist had probably never seen the Queen,
and if he had, it would not have produced the slightest alteration in
his drawing.

Plutarch expressly says that it was not in peerless beauty that her
fascination lay, but in the combination of more than average beauty with
many other personal attractions. The Egyptian portrait is likely to
confirm in the spectator's mind the impression derived from
Shakespeare's play, that Cleopatra was a swarthy Egyptian, in strong
contrast to the fair Roman ladies, and suggesting a wide difference of
race. She was no more an Egyptian than she was an Indian, but a pure
Macedonian, of a race akin to, and perhaps fairer than, the Greeks.

No sooner had Antony reached Syria than the fell influence of the
Egyptian Queen revived. In the words of Plutarch:

"But the mischief that thus long had lain still, the passion for
Cleopatra, which better thoughts had seemed to have lulled and charmed
into oblivion, upon his approach to Syria, gathered strength again, and
broke out into a flame. And in fine, like Plato's restive and rebellious
horse of the human soul, flinging off all good and wholesome counsel and
breaking fairly loose, he sent Fonteius Capito to bring Cleopatra into
Syria; to whom at her arrival he made no small or trifling
present--Phoenicia, Coele-Syria, Cyprus, great part of Cilicia, that
side of Judea which produces balm, that part of Arabia where the
Nabathaeans extend to the outer sea--profuse gifts which much displeased
the Romans. For although he had invested several private persons with
great governments and kingdoms, and bereaved many kings of theirs, as
Antigonus of Judea, whose head he caused to be struck off--the first
example of that punishment being inflicted on a king--yet nothing stung
the Romans like the shame of these honors paid to Cleopatra. Their
dissatisfaction was augmented also by his acknowledging as his own the
twin children he had by her, giving them the names of Alexander and
Cleopatra, and adding, as their surnames, the titles of Sun and Moon."

After much dallying the triumvir really started for the wild East,
whither it is not our business to follow him. Cleopatra he sent home to
Egypt, to await his victorious return, and it was on this occasion that
she came in state to Jerusalem to visit Herod the Great--probably the
most brilliant scene of the kind which had take