One hundred years ago
WE perceive that Sarah Bernhardt, in her new representation of Cleopatra, has departed from the traditional idea of the Queen's physique, and appears with auburn or reddish-brown hair. That is probably an innovation in the direction of accuracy, the xanthous type certainly existing, and being highly admired in Greece; but why does not the great actress go a step farther? She represents Cleopatra as 'bronzed,' her traditional colour; but where is the probability of that? Europeans do not change their colour in the East, nor has Egypt blackened the Copts; and Cleopatra was a pure Greek, a descen- dant of the Heracleidae (Ptolemy Soter having been a son of Philip), and heiress of a house so anxious for the purity of its blood that it disregarded the human law against incestuous marriages. The great probability is, that she was very like a modern Parisienne, with an ea- ger, mobile face, not beautiful at all in the sculptor's sense, but with a certain magnetic attractiveness, intensely felt by Roman nobles like Caesar and Antony .
The Spectator, 25 October 1890
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