Who Was Cleopatra?

Above is a video clip called Cleopatra Portrayed On Stage and Screen 1890-2005. You might be surprised and baffled by who has portrayed her.

People the world over know of the last pharaoh of Egypt, Cleopatra VII (69-30 BC) who was the mistress and later wife of the two great Roman powerhouses of their epoch Julius Caesar and Mark Antony. In mainstream history she is usually seen as a Hellenistic or ruler of Greek origin of Egypt. Her great, great, great, grandfather was one of Alexander the Great’s generals named Ptolemy. Ptolemy happens to be one of my longtime favorite names, but I found a list of horrific baby names online last week, and Ptolemy was one of them because the author of the list says it is impossible to pronounce. Ptolemy was a native of Macedon (Greek Macedonia) like his friend Alexander. Ptolemy is pronounced (ta-la-May), which is not so difficult. The “p” is silent. When Ptolemy established his dynasty in Egypt, later Ptolemaic rulers of Egypt are said to have taken up the practice of the native Egyptian rulers by marrying their siblings. The Ptolemies evolved into Egyptians to gain the trust of their populace. They dressed, lived, and worshipped like the Egyptians. Since it is not known whom the original Ptolemy and others of his lineage may have married, it is highly possible that Cleopatra was not 100% Greek as some scholars stress.

The dispute about what “race” Cleopatra belonged to raged for a number of years in the black community here in the US. Some Africans-Americans were very vocal against Hollywood’s repeated depiction of Cleopatra as a white woman. The debate raged especially throughout the 1970s and 80s during the period when the concepts of Black Nationalism and Afrocentricism were en vogue. The desire to prove that black people had made great contributions to history even before millions were shipped to the states as slaves receded into the distance once hip hop culture took predominance.

Scholar, author, journalist, and historian Joel Augustus Rogers or J.A. Rogers, as usually listed on his books, was a huge promoter of Afrocentric scholarship. In his book World’ Great Men of Color, Volume 1 he wrote,

“Until the rise of the doctrine of white superiority Cleopatra was generally pictured as colored. Shakespeare in the opening lines of his Antony and Cleopatra calls her “tawny.”

In this book’s biographical sketch of Cleopatra, Rogers writes about the surprise introductory meeting between Caesar and Cleopatra when Rome’s strongman

“gasped as the silken covering stirred and a laughing brown-skinned girl with crinkly hair and voluptuous figure, nude to the waist, stood before him.”

So was Cleopatra black or brown with Semitic features like some east and north Africans, or a lighter Semite like many Arabs, or Mediterranean looking?

Some books and documentaries in the last decade or so have questioned was she as beautiful as Liz Taylor’s version. Writers have claimed that Caesar and Antony were both more captivated by her inner spirit and intellect than her outer beauty. A. J. Rogers writes,

“She on her side, if not the most beautiful woman of her time, was perhaps the most captivating, the most learned, and the most witty. It is said that she spoke Greek, Egyptian, Latin, Ethiopian, Hebrew, Arabic, and Syrian fluently, as well as several African dialects.”

The Greek historian Plutarch wrote this about Cleopatra,

"There was a sweetness, also in the tones of her voice and her tongue, like an instrument of many strings, she could easily turn into whatever language she pleaded. She talked to her many subjects in all their languages, not needing an interpreter."

Here she is on a coin and her likeness as bust.

Though I love Elizabeth Taylor in the role, my ideal Cleopatra, at least in appearance, is Chilean actress Leonor Varela who played the last pharaoh of Egypt in the 1999 film Cleopatra with Timothy Dalton as Caesar and Billy Zane as Mark Antony. The film was based on Margaret George’s novel the Memoirs of Cleopatra which I had read shortly before the movie premiered on television.

This clip features scenes from the movie with Varela.

Here is my favorite scene from the 1963 film version of Cleopatra's life.


What color do I think Cleopatra was? I am unsure about the matter, and I do not present myself as an expert because I am not. All I will say is that once I asked an Ethiopian friend what color she thought Cleopatra might have been after the 1999 version of the queen’s life had been aired on television. My friend gave me the Sphinx-like answer, “She was African.”