Was Cleopatra beautiful?

I woke up this morning to the seven o' clock news and to the revelation (thanks to the "new" discovery of a Roman coin in a Newcastle collection) that Cleopatra was not, after all, drop-dead gorgeous. This coin - which made not it only into the Today programme, but also most national newspapers, including a full page in the Guardian - shows a nasty jowly Mark Antony on one side and a decidedly middle-aged, not to say frankly ugly, Cleopatra on the other.

Of course, Classicists live by every puff on the oxygen of publicity that they can get. So the headline billing for the first century BC cheered me up in a way. But this "exclusive" (reassuring as it might have been to most women in the land on Valentine's day) was also puzzling. That's largely because it is not a "new" discovery at all. This particular specimen of the coin might only recently have seen the light in Newcastle, but as a type it's long been very well known -- and there are loads of examples of this and other very similar coin images found across the world. The picture shows one like the Newcastle type, and you can find a whole array of others nicely illustrated in the catalogue of a British Museum "Cleopatra" exhibition, held a few years ago (edited by Susan Walker and Peter Higgs). In almost none does the queen match up to the Elizabeth Taylor image. More like Edna Everage.

When classicists get their teeth into these coins they usually have more interesting questions to ask than simply "was she really pretty or not?" . One question is how far such tiny images are life-like anyway (compare our own queen -- she never ever looked like the chocolate-box teenager which was until recently her standard coin portrait). Another is how far even full-sized Roman portraits can be taken as "drawn from life". Another is what kind of conventions were at play in the ancient world for representing the anomaly of the "powerful woman". As Susan Walker points out in the catalogue, the earliest representation of Cleopatra (in Pharaonic style) shows her as a man.

So my second, curmudgeonly, thought by ten past seven was "why waste an interesting topic with a Valentine's day laugh about Cleopatra's nose?"

But that was too severe. If Cleopatra can make it to news headlines after 2000 years, then good luck to her. And good luck to the excellent Shefton Museum in Newcastle -- which deserves to be better known, and no doubt now will be.

Comments

[Mike]

Whoa!!!
Maybe the engraver was a comedian or caricature artist?
Mike

[US Gold Coins]

Wow, if you are looking at these coin pictures I don't think you could say that she was beautiful. Hopefully, the artist just wasnt very good.

Who knows the true story behind how Cleopatra Died. Some say she got a snake bite.Or staped her self because she thought her husband died .And the her brother tryed to stop her from attemped sewaside.

[Mary]

In answer to Richard Kell it's not unusual for there to be this kind of 'misfit' in the striking of Roman coins -- it was a slightly less precise science in antiquity.

[Richard Kell]

Nice coin, tho as a toolmaker why is the punch / stamp so off centre?

[alex d-f]

Obviously these coins were given away free with an early number of Viz magazine. I presume this is also the origin of the Elgin marbles which were then taken to Shropshire before Greek legionaries from nearby Roman Chester raided them and took them to Athens.

[Lord Truth]

The reason why these coins were found "up north" is clear.They in fact show Andy Capp and his fearsome wife.Andy or Anty as he was known is apparently being offered a foaming tankard of his favourite Newcastle Brown to fortify him as his aghast mouth shows as he returns skint from another night out.

These very interesting coins suggest that the popular historical /artistic presentation of Anthony and Cleopatra- ie that he was some kind of feebly besotted luxury loving pansy ,was current at the actual time and the coins -which would not surely have been issued without the personal authority of the parties are deliberately intended to counter that image with exagerrated expressions of fearsomeness.
It would be interesting to know exactly when they were issued

[Claire]

I wondered whether she was being represented as a man on the coins. Both above portaits look like guys to me.

[Xjy]

What Liz had that Cleopatra had was *presence*. You don't spellbind characters like JC and MA without charisma. Sheherazade and Aspasia in one - plus POWER over the richest province in the empire. Liz has the flashing eyes and the sense of drama to carry off that fantastic juggernaut entry into JC's presence in the film. She fills the whole set with her spirit. Cleopatra must have done the same.

But what worries me a bit is that nobody nowadays bothers about the Greek aspect of it all. The Greek name and lineage, the Hellenicism. It's all pharaohs and hieroglyphics. Egypt was Rome's backyard, not African exoticism.

The coin looks a bit roughly stamped - was it gold, silver, other?

[arindam bandyopadhaya]

Did Liz Taylor do full justice to Cleopatra? Cleopatra was the most cerebral of women on either side of the Mediterranean and her real beauty lay in her brains.

[melp]

Beauty and attractiveness are not the same thing. Wasn't Cleopatra known to have been highly intelligent, witty and articulate? She was reported to be highly charismatic, which is by far more attractive than simple regularity of features...