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Was Cleopatra Beautiful? (1997)
- Koshkin 8y agoWas G. J. Caesar beautiful? Was he also strong, smart, cunning, wise, etc.?
- daniel-cussen 8y agoThere's statues of him for you to judge for yourself. He looked alright in my opinion. Notably, however, he was self-conscious about his baldness. According to Suetonius, combed his remaining hair all the way forwards sometimes, perhaps the original "combover." He also wrote a book called "The Conquest of Gaul" which should give a good idea about his character.
- lawlessone 8y agoHe would have access to food and nutrition many others didn't , he and Cleopatra probably looked healthier than most.. well maybe not her if the stuff about ancient Egyptian lineages is true..
- muro 8y agoWhat ancient Egyptian lineages - she was Greek.
- vondur 8y agoMaybe referring to the fact of the intermarriage practiced by the Ptolomeic dynasty. (Brother and sister marriage)
- lawlessone 8y agoI was, i didn't know she was Greek.
- ryanx435 8y agoThe conquest of Gaul is one of the best history books I've ever read, even with it's inherent bias and self promotion.
- jacobolus 8y agoApparently he was also self-conscious about his other hair. > In Suetonius' Life of Julius Caesar. 119 CE. > "XLV. He [Caesar] was so nice in the care of his person, that he not only kept the hair of his head closely cut and had his face smoothly shaved, but (31) even caused the hair on other parts of the body to be plucked out by the roots, a practice for which some persons rallied him." https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1ffj0w/what_were_the_common_roman_customs_for_men/caa3d6o/ https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1ffj0w/what_...
- SilasX 8y agoWell... I'm not sure that counts, since court sculptors are going to make him look as good as possible, even at the expense of realism. Remember how Oliver Cromwell had to insist on being portrayed "warts and all"? (Yes, the quote itself is probably apocryphal, but his painting did show blemishes in a way that wasn't typical for VIP portraiture.)
- siidooloo 8y agoIn the republican era realism was prized. Politicians wanted their portraits more warts and all to make them seem like one of the people. In the Imperial era propaganda changed and sculpture started becoming more abstract to make politicians seem more perfect and indestructible. Cleopatras portraits are probably idealized. Caesar’s are probably fairly accurate.
- ralusek 8y agoI think the OPs implication is "why do we care about if Cleopatra was beautiful, do we likewise care if a male emperor was attractive?"
- dfxm12 8y agoIf OP is genuinely wondering that, I guess OP didn't read the article. I'd also point OP towards all the (no pun intended) snake oil beauty products and techniques that bear Cleopatra's name, e.g.: http://www.stylecraze.com/articles/cleopatra-beauty-secrets/ http://www.stylecraze.com/articles/cleopatra-beauty-secrets/
- coldtea 8y agoBecause we never signed any contract that said that in society both sexes will be interested in the same things, including being interested in the same attributes of the other sex.
- ralusek 8y agoI'm not implying that we did, I was just clarifying after seeing two responses to the OP that seemingly missed the point they were trying to make.
- Koshkin 8y agoso, sexism is still a thing
- coldtea 8y agoSo, "sexism" is meaningless as a catch-all accusation. It's a throught stopper. Viewing others as sexual objects, for example, is fine when looking for a sexual encounter (whether you're a man or a woman or non-binary or whatever). Not every relation has to be "meaningful" or a long-term commitment. This is something young people revolted to earn in the 50s and 60s, and apparently our neo-puritan 80s and onwards breathen forgot. On the other hand, viewing others as sexual objects, is not fine on e.g. a job interview -- but that's another case altogether. People of different sexes having different preferences is also a statistical reality (statistical meaning it's not some property that holds for absolutely every member of a respective set). We can say they shouldn't, but we can't finger point and accuse a girl because she reads Cosmopolitan, or to a boy because he reads some bodybuilding website. Their tastes might be cliche, but they are what they are. And nobody can objectively measure what's a legitimate preference and what's not, except by having some non-verified prior that men and women should absolutely have the same tastes in aggregate, and if they're not, that's some social distortion right there.
- godelmachine 8y agoMy roomie once told he applied snake venom to his hair on Cleopatra's suggestion. You know what they say about desperate times!
- yk 8y agoWell attributing Roman statues is hard, in particular because every single collector, antiques dealer and museum curator in the last 2000 years had a strong incentive to identify his statue as one of the big guys. [0] And additionally, they come from a tradition of visual representation, where the easiest attribution is always Alexander, when he was depicted with rams horns. [1] [0] Except if there is an antique inscription, which there isn't if the statues is supposed to depict Caesar. Mary Beard has an entire, and quite entertaining lecture on the topic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-JelaK-bAA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-JelaK-bAA [1] For example: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Alexander_coin,_British_Museum.jpg https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Alexander_coin,_Brit...
- bytematic 8y agocunning surely
- t3f 8y agoThis was a recent topic [0] on the "Our Fake History" podcast [1] too. Worth a listen if you're looking for something new. Wonder if that inspired the OP? [0] http://ourfakehistory.com/index.php/episodes/episode-62-what-should-we-believe-about-cleopatra-part-i/ http://ourfakehistory.com/index.php/episodes/episode-62-what... [1] http://ourfakehistory.com/ http://ourfakehistory.com/
- Jun8 8y agoAFAIK, there's considerable debate whether she was physically exceptionally beautiful or not, but to me the important bit about her is this (from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_life_of_Cleopatra_VII https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_life_of_Cleopatra_VII): In contrast, Cleopatra could understand and speak multiple languages by adulthood, including Egyptian, Ethiopian, Trogodyte, Hebrew (or Aramaic), Arabic, the Syrian language (perhaps Syriac), Median, Parthian, and Latin, although her Roman colleagues would have preferred to speak with her in her native Koine Greek. She was the first (only?) Ptolemic ruler who bothered to learn Egyptian. In my book that makes her incredibly attractive! And consider this: Julius Caesar was no inexperienced youth when it came to women (some details here: https://www.history.com/news/5-things-you-might-not-know-about-julius-caesar https://www.history.com/news/5-things-you-might-not-know-abo...). Mere beauty would not have been enough to impress him that quickly.
- xytop 8y agoAren't all those languages, except Latin, are similar and are in fact arabic dialects?
- PeCaN 8y agoNo, not at all. Egyptian is its own branch of the Afro-Asiatic languages, not particularly close to any Semitic language and today preserved in the form of Coptic as a liturgical language. Ethiopian (presumably referring to Ge'ez) is a Semitic language but not particularly close to Arabic, and certainly not an Arabic dialect. I don't think anyone knows what Trogodyte was. It may have been related to one of these other languages or it may have been totally different. Hebrew, Arabic, and Aramaic (of which Syriac is a dialect) are all somewhat close but not mutually intelligible (they're more different than the Romance languages). Median and Parthian are both Northwestern Iranian (Indo-European) languages, but it's not clear how similar they would've been at the time. Regardless, they're far from "arabic dialects", not sharing any common ancestors with Arabic within the last ten thousand years or so. I don't know if you missed that she also spoke Koine Greek, but I think you probably know it's not an Arabic dialect.
- 8y ago
- godelmachine 8y agoWhat a co-incidence I crossed this question when I am reading "Titans of History" by Simon Sebag Montefiore. Here's how he describes her at one point - "She was probably not beautiful-her nose was aquiline, her chin pointed-but she possessed a ruthless aura like Caesar himself and shared a taste for sexual theater and adventurous politics"
- WhompingWindows 8y agoThe piece itself seems to contradict its own raison d'etre: "Rather than ask whether Cleopatra was beautiful, a question that cannot be answered in any event, one should ask whether she was desirable." Clearly, due to the legacy of her charmingness and communicative powers, the answer to that is yes. Since "beauty" is a social construct that is somewhat impervious to even objective analyses, I doubt that any analysis of ancient sources such as busts or anecdotal accounts could be accurate. We know that eye-witness testimony is inaccurate and unreliable today, therefore why should we trust it from ancient times? Well, it's the only source available, which is both a good and bad excuse. In the end, I think it's sufficient to say: Cleoparta certainly had a profound effect, whether or not that was due to her beauty, her charisma, or if mythologized. She has entered the public consciousness and is unlikely to leave it.
- narag 8y agoSince "beauty" is a social construct... When did that happen?
- kankroc 8y agoNot OP, but considering that what is considered varies greatly between country, usually based on what is rare (think fat in Africa vs skinny in the US) and that we don't have a general agreement on what is objectively beautiful it is safe to say that it is indeed a social construct.
- pavel_lishin 8y agoHappens about once a decade or so. Look at fashion trends; look at the women being portrayed as desirable in music videos. Hell, look at the different genres of music videos. The type of women Sir Mixalot was singing about have an entirely different type of beauty from the kind that appear in goth and punk videos.
- dionidium 8y agoYou're talking about fashion, not beauty. When I see 70s-era pictures of a beautiful girl (in bell-bottoms, with flowers in her ridiculously-tapered hair) I think her fashion looks silly, but I have no trouble recognizing the physical aspects of her face that made her attractive over timelines of at least centuries.
- asdf1234tx 8y agoI guess we could speculate that she wasn't bad looking at all, but not drop dead gorgeous, either. But I think it's true that in general, personality can make a huge difference for both men and women. A captivating, engaging personality, combined with intelligence is a powerful thing.
- nyc111 8y agoInteresting subject. We can try to know if Cleopatra was beautiful by investigating what we mean by “beautiful” today. I think that we are not talking about beauty but about attractiveness. Or we may say that these words are synonymes. So the first thing we notice is that beauty has nothing to do with facial features. So, Cleopatra’s bust shown in the article, even if it’s her likeness, is hot much help. Unless a woman has grotesques features as if she came out of a Goya drawing, any woman can be made bautiful by make up and by what she wears regardless of the shape of her nose or her lips or her eyes. This is a given. We know this because there is no standard of beauty as in Greek sculptures. Such a woman does not exist. Beauty is not a question of perfect proportions. Look at the pictures of Marie-Antoinette. She had an army of maids who cared for her hair, her make up, her nails... she was the most maintenence-extensive woman in the world. Her dresses alone supported many tailors in Paris. Her perfumes, her jewelry... she was a fashion industry on her own. But all other women on the land, except other royals and semi royals, looked like peasants. And now look at women today. There is a beauty and maintenance industry serving all women. French revolution democratized beauty industry. Real slogan of the revolution must have been: Liberté, égalité, fraternité, beauté. What was only available to Marie-Antoinette is available to every woman today. They say that French peasant women were the initiary and sole beneficiary of the French revolution. (Peasant women were in front lines of the crowd who stormed Bastille.) There is some truth to this. Because women were jealous of Marie-Antoinette not because she said “let them eat cake” but because she was so well maintained. Before Marie-Antoinette there was the oldest certified beauty, the so- called Knidos Afrodite who was famous for covering her front with her hand in the most suggestive way. She was the initiator of women’s art of revealing by hiding. So Marie-Antoinette was beautiful in most expensive and expansive way but Knidos Afrodite was beautiful in her nakedness. Therefore, a woman can be beautiful in myriad ways. Also a woman you are courting may appear so beautiful and attractive and irresistible but a year after you got married she may lose all of her attractiveness and became the Mommy. As they say, beauty is in the eyes of the beholder. Now I am not sure if Cleopatra used make up. Probably she did. But I’m sure she used theatrical outfits and made grand entrances. She must have used exotic perfumes. So in her case too her facial features are not relevant. She knew how to show herself as attractive. Furthermore, as much as powerful men are attractive to women, powerful women are attractive to men. And she was an Egytian queen! You cannot get more powerful than that? More importantly perhaps, royals of those times were experts in propaganda. After all these kings and queens sold themselves to the people as representatives of Gods on earth. Or they even claimed to be Gods themselves. Alexander the Great marketed himself as a powerful God destined to conquer the entire world and he was so succesful that most cities surrendered just by hearing his name. Similarly, Cleopatra must have marketed herself as the most beautiful woman on earth. And when men lucky enough to have her intimate presence no doubt saw Cleopatra the myth rather than an ordinary woman. Another mystery is that some women have something called “sex appeal.” We don’t know what this is or how it is obtained. Some women have it, others don’t. Sophia Loren had it. Maybe Cleopatra had it too, who knows. Also women at Clopatra’s time were slaves. They were literally men’s slaves. They were not even allowed to leave the house. They cooked, they cleaned and gave birth for the man to continue his line. So women were dirty. Their prime was probably between the age of 14 and 18 after that they were old and ugly. Don’t forget that they didn’t have dentists then. Even kings and queens had missing teeth. Women did not wear bras. So women at home, even royal woman at home in Rome, might not be as well-maintened and attractive as Cleopatra. Don’t underestimate also the exoticness factor. Consider Matisse’s odalisque paintings. They were exotic. For Europeans the idea of a harem was exotic. Therefore, many European men made trips to the east imagining that women there looked like odalisques in a Matisse paintings. Of course they were disappointed. Cleopatra was exotic for European men she aimed at. She must have emphisized her exoticness. So what about naked Cleopatra? Was she beautiful? Does it matter that she was or was not beautiful at that stage, in the bedroom? She was -I am sorry to put it in a slangy way- nothing more than a huge conquest for Ceasar or Mark Anthony. So beauty appears to be irrelavant. What is relevant is to package oneself -as a woman- as a prize most difficult to conquer. It’s really marketing, as all women know. Because women know that, when naked they are more or less the same. They need to differentiate themselves by creating a story irresistable to men they target. I’m sure Cleopatra was a master of manipulation and knew how to use her self-promotion and marketing powers to get what she wanted. So, what I’m trying to say is that this is a very complicated subject. But I believe that attractiveness has nothing to do with facial features. And some women do not want to be called beautiful or attractive and may be offended if you call them beautiful.
- gymshoes 8y agoIsn't the concept of beauty different in each culture and time period and even the person who perceives? This was also a time where media had not set standards for what "beautiful" should look like