In movies with historical settings or context, the historical accuracy is often sacrificed for the sake of a visually appealing film. From the time that film first came into prominence as an art form, filmmakers have preferred aesthetics over a historically accurate movie.  

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In a modern sense, movies are often more highly rated if they have more drama or action and a lot of history does not fit into that box of a highly rated movie. Most people find history slow or boring, and if a filmmaker were to put that as their main point, their ratings would probably be low. Therefore, if a movie-maker would like to create a historical movie, they take only the most exciting aspects and put them into their movie. 

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Audiences, who were watching films when cinema was a relatively new art, were more willing to watch a slower paced movie as they had been used to live theater. Cinema, at the time, was theater but on a screen that could be viewed by more people. The historical films of the time do not sacrifice historical accuracy as modern historical films do. Modern films, such as Hercules, sacrifice historical accuracy for the sake of a film that will draw in the audience, while Cleopatra builds on historical accuracy for the very same reason.