Cleopatra and Antony Coin

[shipperx]

In real life, they weren't quite so attractive as on Rome.  Neat article.

Comments

[petzipellepingo.livejournal.com]

Points to icon and nods.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

Marc Antony also rocks facial hair.

[sp23.livejournal.com]

Hee. Yeah, I remember seeing other coins or whatnot with her likeness and it's like, this? This is the woman that caused a civil war in Rome? She's no Elizabeth Taylor. :)

[paratti.livejournal.com]

But she did have huge tracts of land.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

She also had a navy and a kingdom. Those things would up her attraction.

[sp23.livejournal.com]

And that's almost as attractive to a man as big boobs. ;D

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

Well, to be fair to Cleopatra, most of the ancient sources didn't describe her as Helen of Troy. She tended to be called brilliant and fascinating.

[nmissi.livejournal.com]

if I recall, there was a campaign to make her seem more like a respectable roman matron. So I wouldn't count on the coin being an accurate depiction. It may be Antony-propaganda, to counteract the roman perception of a seductress.

That said, the most contemporary accounts talk about her beautiful voice, her intelligence, and her charisma... not her looks. She may have been homely; we'll likely never know.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

Aren't there relatively contemporary sources that didn't describe her as beautiful, but that she was fascinating and charismatic?

[queenofattolia.livejournal.com]

Fascinating - thanks for the link. Standards of beauty may have been completely different from ours back then, but, well...I dunno. Both of them look seriously fugly on this coin. However, I noice that Augustus Caesar is always depicted (in statues, busts and on coins) as a rather handsome man, so maybe this says something about the balance of power at the time.

At any rate, this is a very interesting little footnote.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

Well, to be fair, I think that casting of coins would be imperfect to begin with. That said, I think most ancient historical sources refer to her more in the form of being brilliant and charismatic instead of physically beautiful, though, as others have pointed out, her being the ruler of a country probably didn't hurt.

[rahirah]

I wonder how accurate those are. A lot of ancient art is more iconic than naturalistic (though Roman art tends to be more naturalistic than most.) If, at that time, a hook nose was considered indicative of a commanding personality, the artist may well have given all rulers hook noses...

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

Though most Roman (or rather Greek slaves turned into Roman artists) had a tendency to try to idealize their subjects. That said, they hadn't discovered perspective yet so that might have some influence over it.