What makes cleopatra so special

Her ancestors came from a long line of rulers that began with Ptolemy the First and ended with Cleopatra. This family is known as the Ptolemies. Although Cleopatra ruled Egypt, she was not Egyptian. She was Macedonian Greek. Her first language was Greek, but historians say she spoke eight others including Hebrew, Latin, Parthian and Egyptian.

Cleopatra became queen of Egypt at the age of eighteen. Egyptian tradition required that a female rule alongside a male family member. She ruled jointly, first with her younger brother, Ptolemy the Thirteenth. She was also married to him. After his death, Cleopatra ruled with her other brother Ptolemy the Fourteenth. Later she ordered that he be killed. They were also well known for their murderous aims and often plotted to kill one another to gain power. So Cleopatra ordered that her sister be killed.

Cleopatra was not interested in sharing power and was not going to risk any threats from her family members. The Romans had taken control of most of Europe and parts of North Africa. Cleopatra had good reason to be concerned that Rome would try to take over Egypt.

She offered them her financial support and resources such as grain, warships and soldiers. Egypt was an extremely rich country, and Rome began to depend on its wealth. Throughout her more than twenty years as ruler, she kept Egypt allied with, but independent from, Rome. She had been exiled by her brother Ptolemy the Thirteenth and was fighting to take back power. Rome was going through a period of civil war. Pompey the Great and Julius Caesar were fighting each other for control of Rome.

After Pompey was murdered, Cleopatra decided it was important to make friends with Caesar for her safety and that of her country. And upon his victory, Caesar gave control of Egypt back to Cleopatra. Cleopatra knew this child would deepen ties between Rome and Egypt. Ancient Egyptian civilisation is rich and mysterious with distinctive visual imagery and strange animal-headed gods.

The exotic differences of the society have always intrigued the western imagination and so they continue to ensure that this is a popular unit with both teachers and children.

There are plentiful resources with new finds being literally unearthed each year. Many museums, even relatively small local ones, have Ancient Egyptian artefacts — perhaps even a mummy! In addition,Ancient Egypt is a feature of popular culture with films, games and graphic novels. It is no surprise therefore that it continues to be the most popular choice within the Ancient civilisations theme. The characteristic "melon" hairstyle has the hair braided dividing it into sections like the markings of a melon and pulled back into a bun wound at the nape of the neck, leaving space above the forehead for short curly bangs.

The elaborate coiffure likely was introduced to Rome by her visit there in BC but stigmatized after the defeat of Antony and Cleopatra at Actium in 31 BC. A more austere and modest hairstyle was adopted, one consistent with the conservative republic and the modest image of women dictated by the new moralism of Augustus. The first-century BC marble bust on the right is one of the few other portraits thought to represent the queen and identified as such in Found at the Villa dei Quintilii on the Via Appia in , it, too, has the broad band of the diadem diadema and, although it is impossible to say, may be a Roman copy of the gilded bronze statue of Cleopatra in the Temple of Venus Genetrix, the first time that an image of an individual had been placed next to that of a god.

The knot nodus on her head may be the remnant of a crown or some other attribute, or even a knotted lock of hair. The nose is missing, which makes it difficult to judge the beauty of the queen. The silver tetradrachm on the left provides an exceptionally clear portrait of Cleopatra, whose appearance usually is distorted due to wear. The coin was struck in Antioch sometime after her marriage to Antony in 37 BC, when she was about thirty-two years old. But it is not necessarily an accurate depiction of the queen, whose aquiline nose and prominent chin likely have been influenced by portraits of Antony himself, following an artistic convention that the wife assimilate the appearance of her husband to better suggest their mutual harmony.

Certainly, the hooked nose, which is straight in earlier coin issues, is reminiscent of Antony's own cf. Plutarch, Life of Antony , IV. Ironically, what he means is that, had her nose been smaller, she would have lacked the dominance and strength of character which, in the physiognomy of the seventeenth century or, indeed, the nineteenth , a large nose symbolized. It is a salutary reminder that the aesthetics of beauty change over time and place.

Rather than ask whether Cleopatra was beautiful , a question that cannot be answered in any event, one should ask whether she was desirable. The plaster cast of the Vatican Cleopatra left , which was taken in the Staatliche Antikensammlungen Berlin , shows the queen to good effect and may have been sculpted when she was in Rome. Here, one can appreciate how young Cleopatra was, only about twenty-one when she first met Caesar in 48 BC. He was more than thirty years her senior and to stay in Egypt until the next year, when she gave birth to Caesarion "little Caesar".

That year too, her brother drowned in the Nile during the Alexandrian War and Cleopatra became sole ruler. She then duly married her other younger brother Ptolemy XIV but he died at her instigation in 44 BC, just months after Caesar himself had been assassinated. Caesarian then became nominal ruler as Ptolemy XV, the last of that royal lineage, until his own death in 30 BC, just days after that of his mother.

The original bust right is relegated to a corner of the Museo Gregoriano Profano, which is closed to the public because there is not the staff to supervise it. After repeated visits, a sympathetic guard did allow supervised access for this photograph to be taken. Its placement against a back wall in front of a window does not present the queen to advantage, as can be seen from the weathered left cheek.