In regard to Cleopatra, especially, life was surrounded with an
atmosphere of romance bordering on the fabulous. Even her bitterest foes
admire her beauty and rare gifts of intellect. Her character, on the
contrary, presents one of the most difficult problems of psychology. The
servility of Roman poets and authors, who were unwilling frankly to
acknowledge the light emanating so brilliantly from the foe of the state
and the Imperator, solved it to her disadvantage. Everything that bore
the name of Egyptian was hateful or suspicious to the Roman, and it was
hard to forgive this woman, born on the banks of the Nile, for having
seen Julius Caesar at her feet and compelled Mark Antony to do her
bidding. Other historians, Plutarch at their head, explained the enigma
more justly, and in many respects in her favour.

It was a delightful task to the author to scan more closely the
personality of the hapless Queen, and from the wealth of existing
information shape for himself a creature in whom he could believe. Years
elapsed ere he succeeded; but now that he views the completed picture, he
thinks that many persons might be disposed to object to the brightness of
his colours. Yet it would not be difficult for the writer to justify
every shade which he has used. If, during his creative work, he learned
to love his heroine, it was because, the more distinctly he conjured
before his mind the image of this wonderful woman, the more keenly he
felt and the more distinctly he perceived how fully she merited not only
sympathy and admiration, but, in spite of all her sins and weaknesses,
the self-sacrificing affection which she inspired in so many hearts.

It was an author of no less importance than Horace who called Cleopatra
"non humilis mulier"--a woman capable of no baseness. But the phrase
gains its greatest importance from the fact that it adorns the hymn which
the poet dedicated to Octavianus and his victory over Antony and