The Library › Reel II · The Queen Bee

Was Cleopatra famously beautiful?

Plutarch, the fullest ancient source, says her beauty was ‘not altogether incomparable, nor such as to strike those who saw her.’ What made her irresistible, he says, was her conversation, her presence and the sweetness of her voice. Her own coin portraits show strong, not dainty, features. The great-beauty Cleopatra is mostly a product of later painters, playwrights and film.

The receipts

1. Plutarch, Life of Antony, 27 (Loeb translation), LacusCurtius, University of Chicago

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