"Cleopatra on the Appian Way". Gustave Boulanger (1824-88)
For her own person, it beggared all description : she did lie in her pavilion [cloth of gold and tissue], o 'er-picturing that Venus where we see the fancy outwork Nature: on each side her stood pretty dimpled boys, like smiling Cupids, with divers-colored fans, whose wind did seem to glow the delicate cheek which they did cool.''
In praise of the beauty of that charming Oriental wench Cleopatra, songsters have sung, poets have "poeted," and artists have ''arted" far more than necessary. All the princes of Rome were in love with her, and would it be a slander to say that she was in love with them all? Antony sent away his own wife, and yielded himself completely to her influence. Pompey, the idol of the Roman people, was not altogether free from entanglement in the meshes of her wizard web; and as for the great Julius Caesar, her love ran riot with his reason. Cleopatra was the daughter of Ptolemy Auletes, and was born in the year 69 B. C. At the age of seventeen she was left heir of the kingdom of Egypt, of which she was soon deprived by her guardians. Caesar espoused her cause, defended her in Alexandria, and when he returned to Rome she followed him thither, in company with her little brother, to whom according to Egyptian custom she had been married. She soon disposed of the youngster by poison, and then lived with her Roman lover, much to the scandal of his fellow-citizens. It was upon the occasion of this visit to Rome that she made her famous entry into the Seven Hills over the Appian Way — that most celebrated of the ancient Roman roads.
Gustav Rodolphe Boulanger was fellow-pupil with Gerome in the school of Paul Delaroche, and in style is little less forcible than his associate. "St. Sebastian Appearing to the Emperor Maximian," "The Summer Bath at Pompeii," and many other products of his brush have won for him a favorable reputation among lovers of Art.
（This text is a digital copy of a book, "Franklin Edson Belden：Historic Men and Scenes". This book, published in 1898, is already in the public domain.）