Coin shows Cleopatra's ugly truth

[Pantagathus]

Antony and Cleopatra, one of history's most romantic couples, were not the great beauties that Hollywood would have us believe, academics have said.

 

A study of a 2,000-year-old silver coin found the Egyptian queen, famously portrayed by Elizabeth Taylor, had a pointed chin, thin lips and sharp nose. Her Roman lover, played by Richard Burton, had bulging eyes, thick neck and a hook nose...

 

Full Story Here

[Ursus]

So there was no physical attraction. Antony wanted Cleo for Egypt's wealth and the potency of the Hellenistic monarchy. Cleo wanted Antony for the legions of Rome.

 

Or maybe what the coin doesn't reveal is that Cleo had "great big tracts of land" to quote Monty Python.

[Pantagathus]

There is one other possibility...

 

The coin artist sucked!

[M. Porcius Cato]

There's a third possibility too. Antony and Cleopatra were ugly, but ugly people can be romantics too. It's not a pretty possibility--but between the coins and the historical accounts, it fits the data.

[Pantagathus]

In all seriousness, I very much agree with you Cato

[Julius Ratus]

It had to be the "huge tracts of land" that attracted Antony, looking at coins again, Octavia looked a hell of a lot better than Cleo.

 

[P.Clodius]

needed plastic surgery

[DecimusCaesar]

Perhaps she should have gone to India! Afterall they were practicing plastic surgery in that country in the first century AD. I think Michael Grant discusses Cleopatra's looks in his book. Then again it's hard to say, seeing as some busts show her looking rather demure, while others are more stylized and reflect a New Kingdom type look.

[caldrail]

I've read accounts of cleopatra that suggest she wasn't a supermodel. However, she was an egyptian queen and power attracts doesn't it?

 

Images on coins are a bit suspect I think. The scale of the relief is small and it depends on the skill of coin maker as to whether it actually bears any resemblance.

 

My guess is that despite her imperfections, she nonetheless had a personality that mattered.

[Northern Neil]

I've just had a look at the picture of the coin. She closely resembles the woman who works in the local laundrette - even down to the hair rollers! My guess is that the tracts of land were too huge to adequately manage too! Seriously, though, both images of Antony look pretty similar, and I have seen other images on coins of Cleopatra, and they too resemble the laundrette woman, so I think the images are perhaps fairly accurate.

Edited February 15, 2007 by Northern Neil

[Andrew Dalby]

... Images on coins are a bit suspect I think. The scale of the relief is small and it depends on the skill of coin maker as to whether it actually bears any resemblance.

 

My guess is that despite her imperfections, she nonetheless had a personality that mattered.

 

I'm quite sure that's true. As for the coin thing, there is another point. The coin that got into the news this week (for no very special reason!) is a fairly worn specimen. Hellenistic and Roman coins of that period were modelled in very high relief, so when they became partly worn and discoloured the result might be not what the artist had first thought of. Cleopatra's lined face (irregular discoloration) and bony chin (heavy wear) are partly explained by this.

[Rameses the Great]

Cleopatra was not really beautiful, just very seductive.

[votadini]

Cleopatra was not really beautiful, just very seductive.

 

If she looked anything akin to the coin (or the woman at Northern Neil's launderette) she must have been VERY seductive

[Kosmo]

She had a long list of "conquests" so she might had something interesting.

At the period there were a large number of informal relations between roman elites and hellenistic rulers (including Cato' son and the wife of the Cappadocian king and Caesar with the king of Bythnia)

[spittle]

Wasn't she the product of a limited gene pool?

I read the Ptolemy's had been 'keeping it in the family' for generations.

With that pedigree its surprizing she didn't look like Monty Burns.

 

So The Launderette Lady from Barrow-in-Furness would be a more realistic Cleo (than Liz Taylor or Amanda Barrie).

Who would be an appropriate Mark Antony?

 

I'm thinking of Marty Feldman (?). The fella with the bulging eyes off of Young Frankenstein.