Did Cleopatra Play Billiards?

The Billiard Times. May 1911

In almost every book on billiards one comes across the Shakespearian quotation, in which the bard of Avon makes Cleopatra exclaim — “Let us to billiards. Come, Charmian.” But the best authorities on Shakespeare agree that the allusion to the Egyptian queen playing the game is a glaring anachronism, suggested to the poet by the fact that billiards was quite ashionable among the beauties of Elizabeth’s Court.