or
Ptolemy Soter by the sculptor Bryaxis, and then executed in ivory and
gold.

Everything that met the eye in this hall was splendid, costly, and above
all of a genial aspect, even before Cleopatra had come to the throne; and
she--here as in her own apartments--had added the busts of the greatest
Greek philosophers and poets, from Thales of Miletus down to Strato, who
raised chance to fill the throne of God, and from Hesiod to Callimachus;
she too had placed the tragic mask side by side with the comic, for at
her table--she was wont to say--she desired to see no one who could not
enjoy grave and wise discourse more than eating, drinking, and laughter.

Instead of assisting at the banquet, as other ladies used, seated on a
chair or at the foot of her husband's couch, she reclined on a couch of
her own, behind which stood busts of Sappho the poetess, and Aspasia the
friend of Pericles.

Though she made no pretensions to be regarded as a philosopher nor even
as a poetess, she asserted her right to be considered a finished
connoisseur in the arts of poetry and music; and if she preferred
reclining to sitting how should she have done otherwise, since she was
fully aware how well it became her to extend herself in a picturesque
attitude on her cushions, and to support her head on her arm as it rested
on the back of her couch; for that arm, though not strictly speaking
beautiful, always displayed the finest specimens of Alexandrian
workmanship in gem-cutting and goldsmiths' work.

But, in fact, she selected a reclining posture particularly for the sake
of showing her feet; not a woman in Egypt or Greece had a smaller or more
finely formed foot than she. For this reason her sandals were so made
that when she stood or walked they protected only the soles of her feet,
and her slender white toes with the roseate nails and their polished
white half-moons were left uncovered.

At the banquet she put off her shoes altogether, as the men did; hiding
her feet at first however, and not displaying them till she thought the
marks left on her tender skin by the straps of the sandals had completely
disappeared.

Eulaeus was the greatest admirer of these feet; not, as he averred, on
account of their beauty, but because the play of the queen's toes showed
him exactly what was passing in her mind, when he was quite unable to
detect what was agitating her soul in the expression of her mouth and
eyes, well practised in the arts of dissim