Cleopatra: Did you mean...?

Coin portraits in particular show how Cleopatra wanted to be presented. Though varied in their facial features, her portraits emphasize her position of power as Ptolemaic queen. Sculptural portrait attributed to Cleopatra (Gregorian Profane...

Ancient portraits of Cleopatra depict her assertive, but certainly not unattractive features. The wide royal headband (diadēma) and traditional wavy coiffure express her sovereignty based on her Lagid descent. Silver tetradrachm struck...

Ptolemy XIII Theos Philopator (The Father-loving God, born 62/61 BCE, died 47 BCE) was pharaoh of Egypt from 51 BCE until his death. His reign began as co-ruler with his sister, the famous Cleopatra VII, following the wishes of their father...

Painting by Reginald Arthur from 1892 CE, depicting the legendary death of Cleopatra by snakebite.

“The nose of Cleopatra: if it had been shorter, the whole face of the earth would have changed” ~ Blaise Pascal, Pensées 162. On the basis of portrait coins struck by Cleopatra, philosophers such as Blaise Pascal (1623-1662 CE) assumed...

A face re-creation based on, the Bust of Cleopatra VII (l. c. 69-30 BCE, r. 51-30 BCE), that is a granite bust currently on display in the Gallery of Ancient Egypt at the Royal Ontario Museum. It is believed to have been discovered in Alexandria...

The Second Triumvirate was a political association of convenience between three of Rome's most powerful figures: Mark Antony, Lepidus, and Octavian in the 1st century BCE. Following the assassination of Julius Caesar the three vowed revenge...

Cleopatra Before Caesar by Jean-Léon Gérôme, oil on canvas, 1866. Cleopatra confronts Gaius Julius Caesar after emerging from a roll of carpet. The Egyptian Queen had been driven from the palace in Alexandria by her brother/husband Ptolemy...

This black basalt statue from Egypt portrays the Ptolemaic queen Cleopatra VII as Isis-Aphrodite (c. 51-30 BCE). Most Ptolemaic queens associated themselves with the goddess but none more famously than Cleopatra. In her own lifetime, she...

In the comic Asterix and Cleopatra (1963), Caesar exclaims, “she is kind, but the spices that easily go up her nose... she is pretty, too, though!” The joke (translated in the English edition as “only her nose is so easily put out of joint”...