What Did Cleopatra’s Real Face Look Like?

The allure of Cleopatra, the last pharaoh of Egypt, has captivated the imagination of historians, artists, and storytellers for centuries. Yet, one enduring mystery remains at the heart of her legend: What did Cleopatra really look like? 

Despite the vast body of information about her reign and exploits, the physical appearance of this iconic figure remains shrouded in mystery. From her ethnicity to her beauty, uncover the historical accounts and long standing controversies surrounding Cleopatra's real face. 

Cleopatra VII, often simply referred to as Cleopatra, was a prominent historical figure who ruled Egypt during the Ptolemaic dynasty. She was known for her intelligence, charisma, and political acumen, which played a crucial role in her ability to maintain power in a tumultuous era.

Cleopatra was born in 69 B.C.E. in the city of Alexandria, a prominent center of culture and power in the ancient world. She became the queen of Egypt at a young age, following a complex family lineage.

Cleopatra had notable relationships with two prominent figures in history, Julius Caesar and Mark Antony. Her political reign began to take shape when she formed an alliance with Julius Caesar in 48 B.C.E. Their romantic relationship and the birth of their son, Caesarion, solidified her position as the ruler of Egypt. 

After Caesar's assassination, Cleopatra married Mark Antony, one of the most powerful figures in Rome. Her involvement with Antony further strengthened her political influence. They had three children together.

Cleopatra died on Aug. 10, 30 B.C.E. Her death occurred following the defeat of her forces by Octavian (later known as the Emperor Augustus) in the naval Battle of Actium. After the battle, Cleopatra and Antony faced a hopeless situation, and both took their own lives. 

Cleopatra is said to have died by allowing herself to be bitten by an asp, a venomous snake, in an act of suicide. This event marked the end of the Ptolemaic rule in Egypt and the beginning of Egypt as a province of the Roman Empire.

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Cleopatra's real face remains a subject of intrigue and debate, contrasting with the familiar trope of her being a seductive queen of the Nile, a cunning charmer, deploying her supreme loveliness like a political weapon. Historians doubt she ruled exclusively by means of physical beauty and sexual prowess, as her Roman enemies implied.

Cleopatra has been widely characterized as using her beauty for power and is often portrayed as a seductive and alluring figure in various artistic and literary works. And she’s not the only one. Throughout history, female rulers have often been accused of using their sexuality to maintain control. 

Historians recognize this as the concept of the “whore queen”; for example, after Mary Stuart fell from power in the 1500s, as she was being led to prison, a crowd of disenchanted Scots cried, “Burn the whore!" The Romans tried a similar tactic with Cleopatra. Their smear campaign shaped a legacy, founded upon her looks, that still fascinates us two millennia later, leading many to wonder what Cleopatra really looked like.

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Cleopatra’s portrayal in film — epitomized by Elizabeth Taylor’s 1963 performance — is that of a buxom, sultry femme fatale, her steamy eyes wing-tipped and her raven hair falling lushly around her shoulders. She reclines sensually in revealing gowns. She greets her Roman lovers, Caesar and Mark Antony, with palpable, barely suppressed passion. 

Such characters play well on screen. But based on the few surviving clues to Cleopatra’s actual appearance, modern historians doubt she resembled this caricature. 

Scholars have searched for the visage behind the legend, but it’s often impossible to verify a historical figure’s image. Cleopatra's body has never been discovered. Most surviving paintings and sculptures of her are anachronistic inventions, more telling of their own times than of the subject herself. 

Even contemporary works can deceive, says Egyptologist Robert Bianchi, overlaid as they are “with political or ideological concerns.”

In short, Bianchi says, for Cleopatra “there is nothing that approaches the Western concept of a portrait in either ancient Egyptian or ancient Greek art.” 

Among the most promising potential leads as to what Cleopatra looked like are coins minted during her reign — portrayals that are far from Hollywood’s glamorous visions.

No two coins are quite alike, but in many, the most prominent features are an aquiline nose and a jutting chin. She wears her curly hair not in bangs but in the popular melon style of the time, tied in a bun at the base of her skull. Even these coins come with red flags, though. During her marriage with Mark Antony, a silver denarius coin was issued to pay his troops. Each side of the coin bears one of their faces, and hers seems exaggeratedly Romanized to match his.

Unambiguous representations of Cleopatra are notably found in Egyptian reliefs designed in the pharaonic style — designed, perhaps unrealistically, for the eyes of her subjects. In these colossal stone canvases, she’s more god than human. A few late-Hellenic marble busts dating to her lifetime may depict the queen, but none are inscribed with her name. (The hair in these matches the coins, but the nose and chin are less pronounced.)

Even if sketchy sources collectively offer some idea of her appearance, they probably can’t tell whether she was “beautiful” — whatever that means. They certainly can’t tell us what Caesar or Antony saw in her. 

Besides, some scholars argue, the whole preoccupation with her allure is inappropriate — no different from overanalyzing the physique of a modern female leader. “Why are we so obsessed with talking about whether she was attractive or not,” asks Egyptologist Sally-Ann Ashton, “when really we should be looking at her as a strong and influential ruler from 2,000 years ago?”

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Cleopatra’s immense power came from her position in Egypt’s long-ruling Ptolemaic dynasty. The question of her appearance is somewhat entangled with that identity. Her family hailed not from the land it governed but from Macedonia, which has led many researchers to believe her skin was light — as European art has always depicted her — not dark like that of the native Egyptians. Some, such as Cleopatra biographer Michael Grant, are adamant that she had “not a drop of Egyptian blood in her veins.”

Scholars often point to uncertainties in Cleopatra’s family tree. The lineage of her father, Ptolemy XII, a pharaoh himself, is well-documented; her mother’s, not so much. In fact, no one is sure of her mother’s identity, and even less so of her grandparents’. Still others note that Macedonia, along with the rest of the Hellenic world, was not exclusively white — so her European descent did not preclude Blackness.

The uncertainty surrounding Cleopatra's ethnicity has made her into an unlikely proxy for today’s cultural debates. Most recently, the casting of Israeli actress Gal Gadot as the queen in an upcoming film met with disappointment and outrage from critics who hoped to see a woman of African heritage fill the role. But the concept of a dark-skinned Cleopatra originated much earlier, when the 19th-century artist William Wetmore Story sculpted her with Black features as an abolitionist statement.

The notion of Cleopatra being Black has been the subject of cultural interpretations, including some that align with the Afrocentrist movement, which seeks to highlight the contributions and influence of African and African-descendant cultures. 

To cultural historian Mary Hamer, it’s no wonder an ancient queen stands at the center of a modern battle between classicists and the Afrocentrist movement. After all, she was perhaps the worthiest adversary of a budding Roman Empire, and in that way, she influenced Europe’s path to domination at the outset. 

When people ask whether Cleopatra was Black, Hamer writes, “it seems understood that to answer in the affirmative might put the entire structure of Western civilization into question.” It would mean that, at a pivotal moment in European (read: white and patriarchal) history, the political universe revolved around a Black woman.

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The perception of Cleopatra's beauty varies in historical accounts. Some sources, particularly those from antiquity, describe her as a woman of great beauty. The final hints in the quest for Cleopatra’s countenance come from the writings of Romans in the centuries after her death, though some show obvious bias. 

Her reputation was largely defined by Augustus, Rome’s first emperor. After the republic’s civil war, when he needed to justify the violence he’d waged against his Roman brothers, he and his allies found a scapegoat in Cleopatra. Wanting the public to believe it was she who persuaded the virtuous Caesar and Antony to turn on their own country, they painted her as a foreign temptress.

Sextus Propertius, a Roman poet from the 1st century B.C.E., mentioned Cleopatra in some of his poems. One of his references to Cleopatra can be found in his collection of elegies. Known as a propagandist, he branded Cleopatra the meretrix regina, or “whore queen.” 

Later classical historians bring more impartiality and nuance, but they disagree on Cleopatra’s beauty. Cassius Dio, in his Roman History, calls her “a woman of surpassing beauty,” and adds that “when she was in the prime of her youth, she was most striking.” This fits the standard narrative. 

Plutarch, in his Life of Antony, doesn't find Cleopatra's beauty extraordinary, but he emphasizes her irresistible charm, her stimulating presence, and the sweetness in her voice. He also notes her linguistic abilities, her proficiency in skills typically associated with male rulers, her cleverness, and intellect.

William Shakespeare, in his play Antony and Cleopatra, portrayed Cleopatra as a multifaceted character: “She is cunning past man’s thoughts,” the bard writes. Shakespeare's portrayal of Cleopatra has contributed to her legendary status as a powerful and enigmatic figure in literature and theater.

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We may never be sure of what Cleopatra looked like, but the basic facts of her life are clear. As Ashton says, “I’d rather look at the hard evidence.” She wielded as much power as nearly anyone in the ancient Mediterranean and ruled over one of its greatest kingdoms. Augustus may have molded her story, but this implies he considered her a threat grave enough to warrant his slander.

It seems he also inadvertently helped to secure her place in eternity. After 2,000 years, for whatever reason, each generation still fixates anew on the queen, recreating her to suit its needs. “The demands of the moment have always determined Cleopatra’s image,” Hamer writes. As a result, her fame stretches ever deeper into her afterlife. Shakespeare, musing more than 400 years ago, couldn’t have known how truly he spoke: “Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale / Her infinite variety.”

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This article was originally published on Jan. 11, 2021 and has since been updated by the Discover staff.