SYLLA.

THE famous dictator Sylla considered himself, and was regarded by others, as a beauty. He had yellow hair, with a complexion in which red and white were strangely contrasted. His eyes were of a lively blue, and fierce and threatening. Owing to the mixture of colours in his face, Plutarch, from whom we have these particulars about Sylla's person, tells us that a satirist of the time compared it to a mulberry strewed with flour. Sylla, who believed himself to be the handsomest man of his time, grounded his claims mainly on his fine hair. When the soothsayers announced that the troubles of

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Rome were to be settled by a man of courage and superior beauty, Sylla declared that this could be none other than himself; "for my golden hair," he said, "sufficiently proves my beauty; and after what I have achieved, I need not hesitate in avowing myself a man of courage."*

Sylla was reckoned the most fortunate man of his times; and we find from the excuse which a woman made for touching him with her hand, as he sat in the theatre, that it was with the ancients, as it is with the moderns, considered lucky to touch a lucky person. From youth to age, he was an indiscreet admirer of female beauty, and was passionately beloved by the sex. Plutarch appears to be right in believing that he was not naturally cruel, notwithstanding the crimes into which his position and desire to rule drove him. His passion for a country life, and his actual retirement from the city, and his pursuit of rural sports and fishing, are curious traits in his character.

*Plutarch, "Sylla."

CLEOPATRA.

THE charms of Cleopatra, the renowned Queen of Egypt, are more celebrated than the beauty of any other woman named in history, with the exception of Helen of Troy. Historians, hearing of her fascinations, have attributed them all to mere face and form. Thus Dion assumes that she was the most beautiful of all women. Yet, though her perfections affected the course of this world's history, there is reason to believe the testimony of Plutarch, that the beauty of her face and figure was not remarkable beyond that of women of whose attractions less has been said and written. In

stature she was small. Michelet calls her "a little wonder;" and, in his usual picturesque style, in allusion to her having got herself conveyed to Cæsar when he was in Alexandria, in a bundle of clothes, says, "The height of her who was carried to Cæsar, wrapped up in a bundle upon the shoulders of Apollodorus, could not have been very imposing." The heads of Cleopatra, on medals and coins, represent her as bearing a considerable resemblance in features to her second lover, Antony. As in him, the chin and nose are rather hooked, threatening an unpleasant approximation at an early age. The nose of Cleopatra is also not so decidedly feminine as a sound taste would demand.

All accounts, however, agree in attributing to Cleopatra an infinite variety of accomplishments, the rarest literary acquirements, a knowledge of languages only equalled in ancient times by that attributed to Mithridates, the marvellous King of Pontus, the finest taste in the arts, an unexplainable grace in her manners, the most bewitching powers of conversa

tion, and a tone of voice which made those powers irresistible. Dion, who says that she excelled all other women in elegance of form, tells us that there was such a grace in her voice, that with whatever man she spoke, she could wheedle him with this charm, and could draw any one, however averse to love by nature or years, to be enamoured of her.*

Cleopatra was in her twentieth year when she captivated Julius Cæsar; and she was twenty-five when Antony became her admirer. Antony, however, it is stated by Appian, when he was general of the horse in Egypt, under Gabinius, had seen Cleopatra, then a child, and conceived a love for her. At her death she was in her fortieth year, and it is evident that at that age she did not despair of charming Augustus; and if she failed there, it is not fair to attribute her want of success to any decay in her powers of pleasing, but to her having, in that selfish and cold-blooded politician, the very worst subject possible to work upon.

* Dion Cassius, "Hist. Rom." lib. XLII, c. 42, p. 201. † Appian, "De Bell. Civ." lib. v, c. 8.