But her beauty, said Greek historian Plutarch, was not "the sort that would astound those who saw her interaction with her was captivating, and her appearance, along with her persuasiveness in discussion and her character that accompanied every interchange, was stimulating. Certainly she possessed the ability to roil passions in two powerful Roman men: Julius Caesar, with whom she had one son and Mark Antony, who would be her lover for more than a decade and the father of three more children. Unauthorized use is prohibited.Īncient historians praised her allure, not her looks. There is an unrevealing 20-foot-tall relief on a temple at Dendera, and museums display a few marble busts, most of which may not even be of Cleopatra.
What images do exist are based on unflattering silhouettes on coins. Yet if she is everywhere, Cleopatra is also nowhere, obscured in what biographer Michael Grant called the "fog of fiction and vituperation which has surrounded her personality from her own lifetime onwards." Despite her reputed powers of seduction, there is no reliable depiction of her face. She starred in at least seven films an upcoming version will feature Angelina Jolie. To a recent best-selling biography add-from 1540 to 1905-five ballets, 45 operas, and 77 plays. When not serving as a Rorschach test of male fixations, Cleopatra is an inexhaustible muse. In the memorable phrase of critic Harold Bloom, she was the "world's first celebrity." If history is a stage, no actress was ever so versatile: royal daughter, royal mother, royal sister from a family that makes the Sopranos look like the Waltons. Today the woman who ruled as the last pharaoh of Egypt and who is alleged to have tested toxic potions on prisoners is instead poisoning her subjects as the most popular brand of cigarettes in the Middle East. Her "bath rituals and decadent lifestyle" are credited with inspiring a perfume. She is orbiting the sun as the asteroid 216 Kleopatra.
Where, oh where is Cleopatra? She's everywhere, of course-her name immortalized by slot machines, board games, dry cleaners, exotic dancers, and even a Mediterranean pollution-monitoring project. This story appears in the July 2011 issue of National Geographic magazine.