by Pat Brown
When Alexander had conquered Egypt (which consisted only of a two-day marginal resistance at the border in Pelusium), he was pretty much welcomed by the Egyptians as the lesser of two evils considering their hatred of being under the Persian thumb, whose domination had gone on for the better part of two centuries. Alexander was feted as pharaoh at Memphis, where he did sacrifice to the gods and was considered a hero to the people for freeing them from their oppressors. During his short four months in Egypt, Alexander set up his plan for moving the capital to his new choice of location at Alexandria. He also took a trip into the desert to Siwa, where he met with priests and went into the temple to worship Amun (the Egyptian form of Zeus, whom he was to be considered the son of), thereby further fulfilling his religious role as a leader of the Egyptian people. It is said that he had an ulterior motive in wanting to consult with the oracle on personal issues and to foretell of his future. For Alexander, who already felt a strong sense of being descended from the gods, it wasn’t that big a leap to make. Then he left Egypt, putting a couple of governors in charge, and continued on with his efforts at world domination.
The governor of Egyptian ancestry soon resigned, leaving just the Persian Doloaspis to manage the civil part of the country along with a Greek named Kleomenes, who handled Egyptian finances. But then Doloaspis was pushed aside by Kleomenes, and so the latter ended up as the satrap, the lone governor, which meant he ran the country for the next eight years and pretty much succeeded in moving the country back toward a dictatorship in spite of Alexander’s efforts to leave a more democratic government in place.
After Ptolemy I was given the go-ahead to move in and take over as satrap in Egypt, he first made a deal with Kleomenes, then swiftly dispatched him, taking total leadership of Egypt for himself in 323 BCE. Meanwhile, one of Alexander’s generals ignored the king’s last wish to be buried in Siwa in Egypt, where he had talked to the oracle of Amun, and was instead taking the body back to Macedonia. Ptolemy I stole Alexander’s body and had it interred in Memphis (not quite what Alexander wanted). Having brought the great Alexander cum almost Egyptian pharaoh with him, and cleverly appeasing the high priesthood of Egypt, Ptolemy I’s transition from satrap to pharaoh was accomplished without much objection from the Egyptians. He became the first true Macedonian-Greek pharaoh and, with a country of his own, he settled in at age forty-four and ruled until his death forty years later.
One could say the Egyptians were fortunate at that time in history to have Ptolemy I and his sons, Ptolemy II and Ptolemy III, as their pharaohs. All of these men were educated, forward thinking, and relatively tolerant of Egyptians handling a good portion of the country’s day-to-day business. As J. G. Manning points out in his book The Last Pharaohs, “the Ptolemies governed their core territory by exercising power not over society, but rather through it.”2 In other words, the Ptolemies hybridized their rule, combining suitable features of both the Egyptian style of monarchy and priesthoods; allowing for the people to retain their own religion, customs, agricultural systems, and local political structures throughout the country; and having Egyptian law and Egyptian judges rule over their daily lives. The Macedonian-Greeks took over the financial end of things, handling taxation, policing, managing large construction projects, overseeing expansion, and commanding the military, essentially controlling the resources of the country while letting the citizens continue on in their normal fashion.
Ptolemy I put his experience as a Macedonian general to use, but not in the same manner as Alexander. It was not his wish to obtain a huge empire but to secure Egypt and make it a self-sufficient and wealthy kingdom in the eastern Mediterranean. In 313 BCE, he took over Cyprus, then strategic locations in Anatolia and the Aegean and Cyrenaica. He expanded into Palestine and Lower Nubia. In this way, he created a buffer for Egypt on all sides and protected land and sea trade routes. Since Egypt was not involved in fighting wars at home, this allowed for much domestic progress to be made in agriculture and trade.
Vast changes came with the first three Ptolemaic rulers. Ptolemy I developed a coinage that he then required to be the only one used for trade in his region. Road networks throughout Egypt, pursued aggressively by Ptolemy II, allowed for rapid development of trade, especially in gold and ivory. The introduction of wheat made Egypt the breadbasket of the entire region. And, it is said by some early historians, Ptolemy II reopened the canal of the Persian emperor Darius I, which stretched thirty-five miles from present-day Bubastis (a city on the Nile that is thirty-nine miles northeast of Cairo) until it reached the then more southerly Bitter Lakes that led to the Red Sea. This added trade route no doubt greatly helped increase the wealth of Egypt. Sadly, from the fourth Ptolemy on down to Cleopatra’s father, Egypt declined due to incompetence and domestic revolts until it had to depend on Roman assistance for survival. The canal that so enhanced the country’s economy fell into disrepair, silted over, and could no longer be used by the time of Cleopatra’s reign.
However, when Cleopatra was born, in spite of all the country’s problems, she grew up in incredible wealth in the most fabulous city in the world. Alexandria was really a separate entity from the rest of Egypt, a polyglot of nationalities that were educated, cultured, and heavily Greek and Jewish. The Ptolemaic pharaoh and the Greek ruling class, the Greek soldiers, and the Greek merchants lived the good life in Alexandria while the native Egyptian peasants tilled the soil like they had done for centuries. Like a gated community, the transplanted Greek-Macedonians lived the high life and used the rest of Egypt as their source of food, wealth, and labor.
I decided to take a break from my examination of the written details of Ptolemaic history and put myself back into the physical world of Alexandria. I left the library and took a long walk over to the hill to where Pompey’s Pillar (which Pompey didn’t build and really has nothing to do with him) remains intact, an elevated historical site where Alexandria’s ancient acropolis used to stand. Entering the site, I stood beside the pillar and looked down over the city. I mentally superimposed the Alexandria of the last century before the Common Era over what I saw in front of me; it must have been an incredible sight. I could only imagine the extraordinary luxury that surrounded Cleopatra, even for royalty. Not only were the palace and its grounds stunning, so was the rest of the city, with amenities far beyond what the world had seen anywhere until that day.
The year was 69 BCE and it was now time for Cleopatra to enter the scene.
Let me quickly address the parentage of Cleopatra VII and put an end to the theory that has been bandied about in the recent decades that Cleopatra was not a full Macedonian-Greek but a half-Greek and half-Nubian-Egyptian, that she was not the daughter of her father, Auletes, and his wife, but of her father and a black handmaiden whose company he enjoyed on some randy Alexandrian evening. Clearly the desire of some to add the brilliant queen to the history of people of color who lived in or descended from Africa is evident. I think this is perfectly understandable; with so much history focused on the achievements of Europeans and Caucasians, it would be inspiring that such an illustrious ruler could be claimed as nonwhite and add a dash of black pride to this time in history. But there is no particular evidence to support the claim that Cleopatra was half-black and not a Mediterranean Greek, in spite of certain arguments that this is what we should believe.
The most often used “evidence” that Cleopatra was at least partially black would be the artistic relief made of her at Dendera, a temple in Upper Egypt. Her profile shows African features, a wider nose than one would see on a Greek, and a generally non-European appearance. Yet those reliefs were never intended to portray the true appearances of the kings and queens of Egypt but were representations of the history of the ruling pharaohs and their supernatural connection to the gods. The relief of Cleopatra on the Temple of Hathor at Dendera shows her as Isis, which the other Cleopatras, I through VI, also had their “likenesses” sculpted as. No one has questioned the heredity of the other Cleopatras as being any lineage other
than Macedonian, so there is no reason to suddenly assign African genes to the last Cleopatra simply because the relief said to represent her displays some African features. Even Plutarch, who wrote of Cleopatra’s features, did not attempt to portray her as a member of a black or brown race, nor did he infer that she was not a true Ptolemy and not a fully Macedonian-descended queen. He could have used her mixed race in either a positive or a negative way—to downplay her acceptability to Romans and Greeks or to paint her as an exotic, sexually promiscuous siren, a woman from one of those supposed “races with looser morals.”
For her beauty, as we are told, was in itself not altogether incomparable, nor such as to strike those who saw her.1
In fact, we can see from this simple statement of Plutarch’s that Cleopatra was quite normal to look at; there was nothing particularly unusual to be noted about her appearance. She was not a great beauty and had no unusual skin color, nothing to make her stand out from other Macedonian women, from the other Ptolemaic queens, and certainly not to men seeking sexually exciting experiences. Cleopatra was just average in appearance to those who met her. It was how she enhanced that appearance—her very alluring personality, her exceptional mind and palaver—that raised her above other women of her time, that entranced the men who spent time in her company.
Plutarch goes on to explain what was special about Cleopatra:
For her beauty, as we are told, was in itself not altogether incomparable, nor such as to strike those who saw her; but converse with her had an irresistible charm, and her presence, combined with the persuasiveness of her discourse and the character which was somehow diffused about her behaviour towards others, had something stimulating about it. There was sweetness also in the tones of her voice; and her tongue, like an instrument of many strings, she could readily turn to whatever language she pleased.2
Some will point out that Plutarch stresses her beauty at another point in his writing of the Life of Antony with this quote:
Judging by the proofs which she had had before this of the effect of her beauty upon Caius Caesar and Gnaeus the son of Pompey, she had hopes that she would more easily bring Antony to her feet. For Caesar and Pompey had known her when she was still a girl and inexperienced in affairs, but she was going to visit Antony at the very time when women have the most brilliant beauty and are at the acme of intellectual power.3
Interestingly, Cassius Dio also speaks of Cleopatra’s beauty:
For she was a woman of surpassing beauty, and at that time, when she was in the prime of her youth, she was most striking; she also possessed a most charming voice and a knowledge of how to make herself agreeable to every one. Being brilliant to look upon and to listen to, with the power to subjugate every one, even a love-sated man already past his prime, she thought that it would be in keeping with her rôle to meet Caesar, and she reposed in her beauty all her claims to the throne.4
However, it is important to recognize that young women with incredible access to the most beautiful of gowns and jewels, and endowed with an artistic skill in the use of makeup as Cleopatra was known to possess, could be made to look quite lovely with all those accoutrements. In fact, all one needs to do now to understand this is to watch a makeover show on television; a good wardrobe and a top hair stylist and makeup artist can make a not-so-beautiful woman quite stunning. Cassius Dio points out that Caesar was past his prime at age fifty-four, and a girl as young as Cleopatra—age twenty-one when she met him—was bound to look pretty ripe and pleasing to the eye. By the time she met Mark Antony, Plutarch points out, Cleopatra would certainly have been mature enough to know how to work her wiles and make herself extremely attractive to her prey. So, likely not a true beauty, but not unattractive either, and with youth, intelligence, charm, and money, there is no doubt that Cleopatra was quite an alluring woman of her time.
It is worth mentioning that of the statues of Cleopatra made after her death and found in the museums of Rome and Berlin, not one of them shows her as an “African” queen; they all show her to be Mediterranean and looking quite similar to the other men and women sculpted from the same period. She may well have had somewhat of an olive-skinned complexion, but then so would many Macedonians. This could hardly be construed as evidence that she was the child of a mixed-race couple. And if she were, wouldn’t Octavian, who was her biggest detractor and enemy and who put out many an insult concerning the queen in an attempt to degrade her in the eyes of the Romans, jump on the opportunity to claim she was less than white and ridicule her as the offspring of the lowly peasant class, the “natives” of Egypt, the illegitimate child of a slave woman? In this profiler’s opinion, absolutely.
Most of these statues do not show Cleopatra to be a great beauty, but range from depicting her as tolerably decent-looking to lovely-enough. It wasn’t until later in history when artists whitened her skin to resemble marble, exposed her breasts, draped her in diaphanous finery, and positioned her in sensual poses that Cleopatra became the foxy lady we envisage today. In none of these early renderings is she ever shown as being of Nubian descent. These portrayals of Cleopatra as black have cropped up only in the most recent decades and, like that of the black Jesus, serve more as a philosophical and cultural icon than a historic one.
The only real clue to what Cleopatra looked like, tangible evidence as opposed to mere rumor or stories passed down over the years, would come from the coins she issued during her years as pharaoh. There is nothing in the profile of her face on the money that would suggest she was a woman of color; in fact, she has a hooked nose, which is more common to Mediterranean people than those of sub-Sahara Africa. The Ptolemy line appeared to be endowed with a long, hooking nose, but it is hard to say whether the coinage represented Cleopatra’s exact facial features. After all, coins were a method of advertising the person in power, and the profile of the queen was intended to show omnipotence, not necessarily her true appearance or her beauty. It is interesting to note that none of the coinage bearing Cleopatra’s name and likeness show her as an Egyptian pharaoh/goddess/Isis, as she is represented on the walls of the temple in Dendera, but always as a Greek with a Macedonian-Greek appearance and a Greek hairstyle. Clearly, these diametrically opposed portrayals of Cleopatra serve as propaganda to their respective audiences, and neither is overly concerned with a literal representation of her appearance.
Some argue that had Cleopatra not been a beauty, Julius Caesar and Mark Antony would not have been so taken with her and history might have turned out differently. I disagree. Cleopatra, the great city of Alexandria, and the Ptolemaic treasury were a package deal, and if Cleopatra weren’t quite as charismatic or tolerable to look upon, both men might still have attached themselves to her due to the other benefits that came along with her person. That Cleopatra was actually attractive enough, witty, and beguiling certainly made things a bit easier for her and, perhaps, her influence on the men was improved due to these advantages. The more arrows one has in one’s quiver, the more one has to work with, so it is hard to believe that Cleopatra’s attractiveness, of whatever type or extent, didn’t play some part in her success with the two men with whom she partnered.
There is another piece of “evidence” often brought up to support a Nubian-Egyptian background, namely that Cleopatra VII was purportedly the first pharaoh to speak the Egyptian language, a rarity that questions the purpose of her doing so. On this, Plutarch writes:
She could readily turn to whatever language she pleased, so that in her interviews with Barbarians she very seldom had need of an interpreter, but made her replies to most of them herself and unassisted, whether they were Ethiopians, Troglodytes, Hebrews, Arabians, Syrians, Medes or Parthians. Nay, it is said that she knew the speech of many other peoples also, although the kings of Egypt before her had not even made an effort to learn the native language, and some actually gave up their Macedonian dialect.5
I find this passage from Plutarch humorous due to its incredible exaggeration. He clearly states that all the previous Pto
lemies spoke Greek, not the educated dialect but the Macedonian bastardization of the language, and none of them bothered learning the language of their subjects. Yet, along comes Cleopatra, taught by the finest of tutors in the culturally cosmopolitan Mediterranean capital of Alexandria, and she learns to speak a half dozen languages or more and is fluent in the language of the commoners. If the previous pharaohs did not feel the need to lower themselves to the level of the populace to gain their favor, why would Cleopatra? After all, the Egyptian rulers were gods and goddesses, and they would hardly be expected to speak the language of mere mortals, especially that of the common people. Some try to claim that Cleopatra was different from the other Cleopatras, more involved with the Egyptian-speaking population, and that speaking the language is proof she is half-Nubian and most likely learned the language from her mother. I can follow the logic here, but there really is no proof that Cleopatra spent more time with the regular folk or had any particular caring for them than the other pharaohs. I think circular logic is actually employed here: Cleopatra spoke an Egyptian language because of her mother and, therefore, cared about the people because she was one of them; and we have proof she was one of them because she spoke their language, which she must have learned from her mother! This is most likely wishful thinking, since the historical record shows Cleopatra to be as disinterested in the lives of the common people as her predecessors.
If it were true that Cleopatra had mixed blood and was so exotic, whether those at the time viewed this as a positive or a negative, such a deviation from the Macedonian-Greek lineage would surely have been the talk of the town. Such unusual features would likely be exaggerated in those sculptures of her and in writings about her, and yet such gossip about Cleopatra being a dark-skinned anomaly of a Ptolemy is nonexistent. And, to reiterate the most important proof of Cleopatra’s Macedonian appearance is Octavian himself, Cleopatra’s archenemy, who spent much time slandering Cleopatra, claiming to the Roman people that she was a loose-living vixen, a witch who destroyed good Roman men with her clever wiles. Surely he would have worked overtime on his insults had she actually been an illegitimate child born of a Nubian servant and not of royal lineage at all. Yet, in spite of all the attacks Octavian made on Cleopatra’s character, he never claimed she wasn’t a Macedonian Ptolemy; he understood quite well that imperialists who conquer countries don’t just “go native.” Ruling classes remain ruling classes and Cleopatra was clearly from that stratus of society.
