What do cleopatra look like

Though the answer to the question "What did Cleopatra look like? Few monuments of Cleopatra remain because, although she captured the heart of Caesar and Antony, it was Octavian Augustus who became the first emperor of Rome following the assassination of Caesar and the suicide of Antony.

Augustus sealed the fate of Cleopatra, destroyed her reputation, and took control of Ptolemaic Egypt. Cleopatra did get the last laugh, however, when she managed to commit suicide, instead of letting Augustus lead her as a prisoner through the streets of Rome in a victory parade. This black basalt statue of Cleopatra, housed at the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia, may give a clue as to what she looked like. A series of pictures of Cleopatra show her as popular culture imagines and Egyptian stone workers have portrayed her.

This particular picture shows the heads of the Ptolemies, the Macedonian rulers of Egypt, following the death of Alexander the Great. In the movies, Theda Bara Theodosia Burr Goodman , a cinematic sex symbol of the silent film era, played a glamorous, alluring Cleopatra.

In the s, the glamorous Elizabeth Taylor and her twice-husband, Richard Burton, portrayed the love story of Antony and Cleopatra in a production that won four Academy Awards. An Egyptian relief carving shows Cleopatra with a solar disk on her head.

The carving, located on left side of a wall at a temple at Dendera on the west bank of the Nile River in Egypt, is one of the few images that bear her name, according to National Geographic :.

Julius Caesar met Cleopatra for the first time in 48 B. Cleopatra arranged to meet Caesar "under intimate terms" by having herself rolled up in a carpet that was delivered to his quarters, according to San Jose State University, which adds:. This image, called "The Interview of Augustus and Cleopatra," is housed at the British Museum, which describes the scene:. Behind Cleopatra stand two attendants, while on the far right is a table with an ornate box as well as a classical statue on the left.

When Cleopatra decided to commit suicide rather than surrender to Augustus, she chose the dramatic method of putting an asp to her chest—at least according to legend. This etching, created between and , and also housed at the British Museum, shows Cleopatra on her bed, holding a snake and about to commit suicide, the museum website notes. A dead enslaved person is pictured on the floor in the foreground, and a weeping servant is in the background to the right. Her family hailed not from the land it governed but from Macedonia, which has led many researchers to believe her skin was light — as European art has always depicted her — not dark like that of the native Egyptians.

Others point to uncertainties in her family tree. Still others note that Macedonia, along with the rest of the Hellenic world, was not exclusively white — so her European descent did not preclude blackness. Most recently, the casting of Israeli actress Gal Gadot as the queen in an upcoming film met with disappointment and outrage from critics who hoped to see a woman of African heritage fill the role. But the concept of a dark-skinned Cleopatra originated much earlier, when the 19th-century artist William Wetmore Story sculpted her with black features as an abolitionist statement.

Wanting the public to believe it was she who persuaded the virtuous Caesar and Antony to turn on their own country, they painted her as a foreign temptress. Plutarch, in his Life of Antony , is more restrained. She spoke many languages and was talented in all the ways expected of a male ruler. We may never be sure of what Cleopatra looked like, but the basic facts of her life are clear. Augustus may have molded her story, but this implies he considered her a threat grave enough to warrant his slander.

It seems he also inadvertently helped to secure her place in eternity. After 2, years, for whatever reason, each generation still fixates anew on the queen, recreating her to suit its needs. As a result, her fame stretches ever deeper into her afterlife. Register or Log In. The Magazine Shop. Power grabs and murder plots were as much a Ptolemaic tradition as family marriage, and Cleopatra and her brothers and sisters were no different.

Her first sibling-husband, Ptolemy XIII, ran her out of Egypt after she tried to take sole possession of the throne, and the pair later faced off in a civil war. Cleopatra regained the upper hand by teaming with Julius Caesar , and Ptolemy drowned in the Nile River after being defeated in battle. Following the war, Cleopatra remarried to her younger brother Ptolemy XIV, but she is believed to have had him murdered in a bid to make her son her co-ruler. In 41 B. Cleopatra believed herself to be a living goddess, and she often used clever stagecraft to woo potential allies and reinforce her divine status.

A famous example of her flair for the dramatic came in 48 B. Caesar was dazzled by the sight of the young queen in her royal garb, and the two soon became allies and lovers. Cleopatra later employed a similar bit of theater in her 41 B.

When summoned to meet the Roman Triumvir in Tarsus, she is said to have arrived on a golden barge adorned with purple sails and rowed by oars made of silver. Cleopatra had been made up to look like the goddess Aphrodite, and she sat beneath a gilded canopy while attendants dressed as cupids fanned her and burned sweet-smelling incense.