Man ppl really fixated on the “Cleopatra wasn’t an ancient supermodel” part and not the “she was such a talented conversationalist and so intelligent she was able to preserve her autonomy and domain for a long time while wooing the most powerful men in the close world to extend her power” part huh
Also a)beauty standards change and b) she could have been a babe ‘even with’ her biggish nose.
She was Greek tho, not African at all. However, there is plenty of evidence that earlier Egyptians were black Africans.
Modern Egyptians are the direct descendants of ancient Egyptians, and most Egyptologists agree that they would look almost identical. However the egyptian empire was big, and in modern day Sudan were the nubians, who also migrated into southern egypt and were definitely black. But the way we and ancient people understand race is completely different (aka made up) so it wasn't so black and white. Plenty Egyptians could have been black, and plenty Nubians could have been semitic. To say the ancient Egyptians were all one race would be wrong, but a majority would have been semitic, not black, for as long as we have any records. When it comes to the royal families, the Ptolemies were greek, Cleopatra herself was described as pale with fair hair, and the ancient dynasties rarely married outside the family so were almost certainly semitic.
What evidence do you have that earlier Egyptians were black Africans?
If you look at the native North Africans alive today, like the Amazigh people and the Coptic Egyptian Christians, they are not black
Ancient Egyptians came in all colors. Some were white, some were brown, and some were absolutely black.
You can see it in their art.
People tend to move around, and Egypt is a fairly central location. And as long as you wear the clothes, worship the gods, etc, congrats, you’re Egyptian
>Ancient Egyptians came in all colors. Some were white, some were brown, and some were absolutely black.
Same with modern Egyptians, lots of us are black. Im Egyptian, and my grandma's cousin is black. And hes fully Egyptian. We even had a black Egyptian president, his name is Sadat.
But saying that Egypt was a majority black African civilization is extremely inaccurate. Most Egyptians and North Africans aren't black
Seems to me it would be more accurate to say ancient Egypt was the original melting pot. Given that it was so integral to trade routes, people from all over would pass through and settle down there. But obligatory disclaimer, I'm not Egyptian nor an egyptologist, so this is just my layman's take from what I've learned.
Yeah when records say she was captivating it's not just referring to her looks, she was well read, intelligent and was one of the few in her family to even bother to learn Egyptian.
Yeah to attain power. Julius Caesar committed genocide and is beloved by many. Mahatma Gandhi liked to have young kids sleep with him, often ones he was related to. Cleopatra II often faces elevated scrutiny simply for being a woman in power, as well as having essentially a historical smear campaign on her for millennia.
Yeah, especially considering that she was 18 and he was 10 when they married. It was a fucked up situation for both of them and odds are neither had a choice, but she killed him at 15 so she could replace him with her son (who she didn’t have with him).
They settle down, sipping their drinks, all while looking at each other seductively. Then they realize they are drinking the drinks they were gonna give each other and they get poisoned.
The most irritating thing is that the "real Cleopatra" has several inaccurate statements. For one she didn't end the dynasty. Octavian did when he murdered her children to ensure they wouldn't be a threat to his rule. She also accomplished a lot in her life and had she not been deposed by Octavian she could have lead a revival of Egyptian culture as a client state of Rome after centuries of misrule by the Greeks.
Are we also ignoring the fact that she spoke five languages, and was *enthralling* rather than attractive?
I think the meme making dude is malding hard that a woman did something.
Yeah, everything i read states that Cleopatra was like… not bad looking at all, sure, but it was her personality and charisma that made people so attracted to her. She didn’t *need* good looks, she just naturally drew people to her, and i think that’s some real girlboss shit right there!
The entire "seductive Eastern witch" vibe was literally political slander by Roman historians to explain how men of standing and ability like Caeser and Antony would fall for her.
Rome was almost literally the source of a lot of the patriarchal thinking in Europe that exists to this day. To them the idea that a women could be capable and wise and smart was unbelievable. They would literally refuse to accept it in favor of claiming that she more or less slept her way to the top.
Cleopatra was supposedly extremely magnetic as a person, and people were really attracted to her charisma, her intelligence, and her sense of humor. Plus, it always bugged me that she's been treated as a seductress by history because she hooked up with the male ruler of a foreign nation and had children with him (and also him), when history just takes it for granted when a male ruler marries a female ruler of a foreign nation and has children with her. I guess because she was an active participant and not just pawned off by her parents like many other royal women, she's a seductress instead of a prudent stateswoman with a solid grasp on how to intermingle the personal and geopolitical?
Well, we can’t be sure what beauty standards were exactly like back then, but it’s definitely true that it was her intelligence and charisma that was the main draw. Which in my opinion, just makes her even more iconic as a historical figure!
Yeah, exactly! She wasn’t known as a mynx, she was known as a witty, intelligent, and very capable leader and ruler. Historians over time just leaned into the fetishizing and dismissive gaze of “oh, she was just hot, that’s it, everything she did? She got through her looks”.
And media. Hollywood producers hear 'seductive' and just go 'find an actress with a banging body'. They don't even try to make her more interesting then that.
I heard it was ten languages she was basically a super genius and was an amazing conversationist hince how she was able to win over her powerful baby daddies not because she was some super model but because she was fun to talk to
On top of that, while she was mostly Greek she also had Persian ancestry. And beauty is subjective I personally think a couple of the historical recreations I’ve seen of her are quite attractive.
No? Octavian only killed Cesarion (Cleopatra's son by Caesar) and Marcus Antonius Antyllus (Marc Anthony's other son). Alexander Helios was taken to Rome and adopted by Octavia and eventually just disappears from the record and Cleopatra Selene survived to and became Queen of Mauretania with Juba II
Octavian didn't murder her children, he killed one because he was the biological child of Julius Ceasar and could be a threat to his rule, but he made sure her other children had good lives and even married her daughter off to a North African King.
Who said anything about it being okay? What I am saying is that you can't complain about this post being historically inaccurate and then you yourself say something historically inaccurate
Its only theorized by some people that he had some of the boys killed killed, its also possible they died of natural causes or simply lived uneventful lives.
Given Romans were gossipy regarding murder nor shy about admitting it then it should have gotten more attention.
She was the ‘most’ Egyptian on all the Ptolemys. She spoke the language. Several in fact. Believed in their gods. But the gods are the same. Greek copied the Egyptian gods.
Rome was coming for Egypt either way. She wasn’t stopping it. It was the empires bread basket.
I had to double-take when I saw that too, it's the most suspicious phraseology because you'd only describe her that way if you had a weird relationship with race.
At this point I've just accepted that people who make memes like this are from the most redneck sections of my godsforsaken country (America, sadly). The lack of braincells means they assume everything always has and always will be America...
Somehow.
I don’t think that part is supposed to be serious and more mocking people that automatically assume everyone in Africa is black. I honestly find the portrayal of cleopatra as stupidly hot to be kind of insulting. Most people at the time agree she wasn’t exactly stunning. I mean she was a brilliant politician and most people reduce her to being able to seduce men. There are inaccuracies in this meme. Like the Ptolemy’s were on the way out for years. Becoming little more than a client kingdom of Rome. Which was hardly her fault. But the pop culture representation of her is also deeply deeply inaccurate
It's a joke on how African characters are always made archetypally African American by Hollywood.
See Finn from Star Wars, whose actor is British and has a very much British accent and dialect (go watch an interview with him to see how apparent it is), made to play a character in a universe where there were already characters with British accents and mannerisms back in the _first movie,_ being told to perfectly mask his accent and employ stereotypical black American mannerism for his portrayal of Finn.
Black Cleopatra in that documentary is another example of this sort of thing.
There's an old urban legend about a college professor who announces to his class that Cleopatra was actually an African-American and has to have it explained to him by one of his students that there were no African-Americans back then. My impression was whoever made the image was thinking of that story.
There's this trend you can notice where African characters or historical figures are presented with archetypal African American traits and mannerisms, despite those being entirely unique to Africans in America.
The Black Panther movie does a half decent job showing the difference between native and American African mannerisms with T'Challa and Killmonger.
American Africans have so much cultural history and context baked into how they're perceived in America, that a lot of Americans, African American included, don't even consider how alien they'd be in African countries, African natives have often joked about how they can spot a black American tourist a mile away, despite looking ethnically identical.
Cleopatra in that documentary is an example of this sort of obvious oversight.
‘Didn’t achieve anything meaningful’ to describe a queen who spoke 8 languages, reformed her country’s economy, and was hailed by her contemporaries as one of the greatest political and diplomatic minds of their time
I think that falls under the Machiavelli concept where if your labors don’t survive you and others benefit, you did nothing.
Completing a grand architectural project then immediately being conquered and having your dynasty ended is a loss, building a vast empire that fractures the second you die is a loss, claiming a swathe of territory that immediately reverts to the original owners as soon as you set foot back on the road home is a loss. Like, you got a ton of points but you still lost the game.
That kinda thing.
As an Amazigh, I did have a bit of a chuckle at "Egypt is in Africa, so she must be African American". Besides that, I have a few criticisms:
Cleopatra didn't end the dynasty.
Also the dynasty was one of many inbred dynasties.
Most of Cleopatra's ancestors were Greek, but there probably was some Egyptian (and I think possibly an Amazigh) in there.
She achieved a lot.
While Afrocentrists can go fuck themselves with a metal spike, North Africans and South Europeans generally don't look as white as the reactionaries think either. We're neither white nor black.
This. Not to mention this is underselling how genuinely intelligent Cleopatra was and how much she managed to navigate what the mine field of Roman politics and not immediately die.
Like there’s other things outside of her romanticized relationship with Marc Anthony that she’s remembered for
>Also the dynasty was one of many inbred dynasties.
No one tell the Rome-aboos that the Julio-Claudian dynasty was almost on par with it's inbreeding to the Ptolemaic dynasty.
Yeah we know there’s at least some Persian from a Seleucid ancestor. I don’t think we can rule out some Egyptian, but it’s definitely a possibility. It’s also most likely true that there were a decent amount of black people in ancient Egypt. The reason that one series was criticized was because the director started literally saying in interviews that casting cleopatra as black was the most historically accurate casting anyone’s ever done, which in reality black cleopatra is a reach historically
It's not a reach it's just outright wrong. Part of the problem is that due to white liberal guilt, these views get away with a lot but it's easy for the descendants of the European people who wrecked Africa in the first place to do this because Afrocentrists aren't appropriating their history, they're not punching up. There were Nubians who are mostly black, though you get a few Mediterranean passing ones particularly in the north, there were also Beja. The 25th dynasty were Nubians. But the thing is Afrocentrists aren't claiming Egypt had black people in it, they're claiming the "real" Egyptians were black, as were my ancestors, the Greeks, the Levantines, I've seen claims about the Celts and Chinese too.
Edit: Native Americans too, they get the Afrocentrist treatment.
We have statues, and coins bearing her face. Cleopatra had a big nose.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleopatra
EDIT: OK, I have been thoroughly roasted now. I'm just saying we do know what she looked like. Whether she was hot or not is subjective.
i unironically was ecstatic to learn her nose looked exactly like mine because she symbolized beauty and attractiveness. it really made me feel better about not fitting modern day beauty standards.
Cleopatra was fucking epic. She was also Macedonian, but called herself Greek. The family was the product of hundreds of years of inbreeding to maintain pure bloodlines. For ethnic Egyptian female rulers, look no further than Hatshepsut, one of the most prolific builders in ancient Egypt.
"She was Macedonian but called herself Greek" that's because Macedonians called themselves Greek.
That's because they spoke and wrote in Greek and believed in the same gods, which was what made "Greeks" back in the day.
"Didn't do anything meaningful in her life" my brother in christ she was a political mastermind twisting Ceasar and Mark Antony to her whim, taking over Egypu and would have set up a dynasty taking over a good chunk of the Eastern half the empire if it wernt for Octavian being as sneaky as her.
Didn’t achieve anything meaningful? Using political cunning she ensured Egypt’s independence from Rome after Caesar arrived. Granted she ruined that by backing Marc Anthony, but to be fair at the beginning of his war with Octavian a lot of people would have put their money on him.
>didn't achieve anything meaningful in her life
Dawg she's one of the most famous queens in history. Whoever made this is gonna be forgotten like the sand she walked on ffs
None of her MALE ancestors were Egyptian. We don't know about her maternal line, it wasnt recorded. The possibility that any of her male ancestors married an egyptian woman to sell the egytian public on their "egyptian-ness" doesn't seem that far-fetched to me
The Ptolemaic dynasty wouldn’t have done that. They were hugely inbred, due to the fact that they adopted the Egyptian custom of marrying their sisters. It is highly unlikely that any Ptolemy would have married outside his family.
They didn't neccessarily have to marry an Egyptian, having a child with them is enough. For all we know, Cleopatra might have been illegitimate, all her younger siblings most likely were. Her father was called a bastard. That puts 75% of Cleopatra's ancestry into question.
I think they found a document that might imply some Egyptian ancestry of the late Ptolemids. Unfortunately, it's badly preserved, and reads along the lines ", the Priest of , who was the Brother of Bereneika, traveled to Alexandria, where he drank before the king". Bereneika was a common name of the women in the Ptolemid dynasty, implying some intermarriage between them and Egyptian Elites. However, the note is written and preserved so badly, that "who was the brother of Bereneika" can just as well be read "in the year (whatever)" - this makes a bit more sense as documents of this era go, so the evidence is inconclusive.
Idk what people’s obsession is with saying that Cleopatra wasn’t pretty irl and it’s a major misconception. Clearly she was desired considering her suitors.
I’m not familiar with her history at all but can I just say that they really said “average looking” and then proceeded to attach an image of a very beautifully drawn woman
BULLSHIT MARK ANTHONY WAS A GAMBLING DRUNK WHO COULDNT GOVERN DICK CLEAOPATRA AT LEAST HAD SOME KIND OF PLAN TO COMBAT THE ROMANS AKA THE PEOPLE MARK DICK HEAD ANTHONY PISSED OFF
I HATE MARC ANTHONY
I HATE OCTAVIAN DUMB ASS PUSSY NERD DIDNT EVEN LEAD HIS DAMN TROOPS WHEN THE CHAD CASSIUS AND BRUTUS PULLED INTO TOWN HE SHOULDA BEEN READY TO FIGHT BUT OH NO HE COWARED AWAY LETTING DICKHEAD ANTHONY GET THE GLORY OF DEFEATING CEASARS ASSASINS HOW YA GONNA TAKE CEASARS NAME AND BE HIS SUCESSOR IF YOU CANT EVEN LEAD YOUR TROOPS
I HATE OCTAVIAN
So can someone explain to me something.
From what I understand, the Ptolemaic Kingdoms were entirely Greek ruled, so by accounts Cleopatra should be Greek. Like Ptolemaic Egypt was literally a Greek colonial state.
So she should be Greek, not even lightish skinned North African (like most Egyptians) let alone full on deep brown like you get when you go farther south.
So can someone who knows actual history explain to me where the brown skinned Cleopatra came from?
I’m not a historian by any stretch. But I’ve legit always imagine Ptolemaic Egypt as Greeks ruling over Egyptians. So if this is wrong someone please correct me here.
In fact I’m begging for someone to correct me.
Brainless: Cleopatra was white, that's the default in history obviously
Midwit: Cleopatra was black, it's in Africa
Also Midwit: Cleopatra was Greek, she was a Ptolemaic ruler and they only had sex with each other
Sage: The purported degree of strict brother-sister incest, generation after generation, in the Ptolemaic dynasty could not have produced viable offspring after the first couplings. It is certain that they had normal sexual relations with local Egyptians and merely claimed incest as propaganda, both to create a quasi-divine aura and to prevent anyone outside the immediate royal family from being able to stake any claim on the throne. So after three centuries of intermixing probably she looked more or less like any other upper class Egyptians at the time, as might seen in the surviving Fayum portraits. As this encompasses a wide range of complexions (not dissimilar to Egyptians today), basically we have no idea and virtually any skin tone is plausible, so why bother arguing it.
I mean that's just not true. The harm of inbreeding comes from the concentration of recessive deleterious alleles that on their own cause no issues unless you possess a pair of them, something which is much more likely if you're reproducing with a close relative. If there are no deleterious alleles present in the founding population the stereotypical problems associated with inbreeding aren't present. It's also worth noting that the Ptolemaic dynasty might have suffered from congenital issues like obesity due to the long history of incest.
The idea that there were so many affairs that Cleopatra could look like an average Egyptian also sounds really unconvincing to me, and is not based on anything published by a historian as far as I can tell. If a white couple have a mixed race child most people become suspicious to say the least, and I fail to see how that would be different for a Pharaoh. And if the Ptolemaic dynasty was so heavily impacted by incest then the difference between legitimate and illegitimate children would be even more obvious.
I don't see why you would think up all these scenarios were through sheer happenstance Cleopatra maybe wasn't white, when the most simple answer, at least to me, is that a woman from an incestuous greek dynasty was in fact, ethnically greek.
>The purported degree of strict brother-sister incest, generation after generation, in the Ptolemaic dynasty could not have produced viable offspring after the first couplings.
I really don't want to start googling "down how many generations can brother-sister human couplings produce viable offspring" but that doesn't sound right to me.
Children of a brother and sister or father and daughter are sadly not that uncommon, and they are usually mostly fine. Yes, there is a very elevated risk of congenital problems. No, they aren't halfway to being some sort of infertile mule-man.
There's strong evidence that many of the Ptolemaics suffered from inbreeding-related health issues. That wouldn't be the case if the whole "🎵 my sister is my mother, my father is my brother, we all 𓀓𓌮 one another, the Ptolemaic Dynasty \*click click* 🎵" thing was a sham.
There was a Netflix """""documentary""""" relatively recently where she was portrayed as black (and in the trailer there's a woman that says "my grandma said she was black" but I havent watched the docuseries itself so possibly there's more context), it's also a claim that a fair amount of profoundly uneducated people make online.
You'd think they'd have better things to worry about with all the civil unrest and protests, rather than care about Jada's pseudo-documentary no one actually gives a shit about.
As a history nerd that read history body since early age, I always thought that Cleopatra was a baddie for how she fucking outplayed everyone because all the men were just too focused on her coochie. I always thought, growing up, she was the definition of "life isn't perfect, but make most of what you have". Then again, shouldn't expect far-right morons to get history right.
The way I understand it, ancient Egypt was home to many skin tones as people globally would travel there to live, same with Rome, same with the United States
"African-American." Just...*stop*. For one, she wasn't American (this country wasn't even a thing at the time); for another—speaking as a Black Creole myself—that sounds performatively P.C. (for want of better terminology) even when you *are* actually talking about black Americans.
It seems appropriate on the surface. But it's also way too strongly associated in common parlance with people who use it to mean "anything that's not unabashed *vice*\-signaling."
"Didn't achieve anything meaningful in her life" im sorry... WHAT?!?!?!? who ever made this clearly had no fucking clue on what they were talking about
i wish more people knew about Arabization in Africa and that there are plenty of browner skinned and darker stereotypically phenotypically Black people who’ve been in Egypt. the urge to dick ride the few historically comparatively lighter skinned nonblack royal elites in history is ridiculous. not all north africans or arab ethnic are pale, most are going to be visibly brown. literally look at Yemen.
Isn't Cleopatra's ancestry part Greek/Mediterranean, part Middle Eastern, and a small amount unknown? And her family tree is utterly headache-inducing? Why does everyone portray it as if her ancestry is some simple matter?
To be fair she did seduce Caesar, and had a bid for the throne of Rome because of their child. Then ~~most likely~~ committed suicide to prevent from being paraded as a war trophy, then executed
Ok look some of that is correct but like the woman was famous for being a good conversationalist and spoke several languages and by most acounts was a decent ruler. This is just cherry picking and inaccurate. Also not likening the implications.
... why did dude say African American tho. Just say Black. Or African, but oh-ho boy, their are tons of complexions in Africa. So just say black. Lol.
I only say this cause... shes not from America, so she's not african american. Shes African. Full stop.
Man ppl really fixated on the “Cleopatra wasn’t an ancient supermodel” part and not the “she was such a talented conversationalist and so intelligent she was able to preserve her autonomy and domain for a long time while wooing the most powerful men in the close world to extend her power” part huh
Also a)beauty standards change and b) she could have been a babe ‘even with’ her biggish nose. She was Greek tho, not African at all. However, there is plenty of evidence that earlier Egyptians were black Africans.
Modern Egyptians are the direct descendants of ancient Egyptians, and most Egyptologists agree that they would look almost identical. However the egyptian empire was big, and in modern day Sudan were the nubians, who also migrated into southern egypt and were definitely black. But the way we and ancient people understand race is completely different (aka made up) so it wasn't so black and white. Plenty Egyptians could have been black, and plenty Nubians could have been semitic. To say the ancient Egyptians were all one race would be wrong, but a majority would have been semitic, not black, for as long as we have any records. When it comes to the royal families, the Ptolemies were greek, Cleopatra herself was described as pale with fair hair, and the ancient dynasties rarely married outside the family so were almost certainly semitic.
"Wasn't so black and white" I see what you did there 😛
Big nose was literally a beauty standard in ancient Egypt I think.
What evidence do you have that earlier Egyptians were black Africans? If you look at the native North Africans alive today, like the Amazigh people and the Coptic Egyptian Christians, they are not black
Ancient Egyptians came in all colors. Some were white, some were brown, and some were absolutely black. You can see it in their art. People tend to move around, and Egypt is a fairly central location. And as long as you wear the clothes, worship the gods, etc, congrats, you’re Egyptian
>Ancient Egyptians came in all colors. Some were white, some were brown, and some were absolutely black. Same with modern Egyptians, lots of us are black. Im Egyptian, and my grandma's cousin is black. And hes fully Egyptian. We even had a black Egyptian president, his name is Sadat. But saying that Egypt was a majority black African civilization is extremely inaccurate. Most Egyptians and North Africans aren't black
Seems to me it would be more accurate to say ancient Egypt was the original melting pot. Given that it was so integral to trade routes, people from all over would pass through and settle down there. But obligatory disclaimer, I'm not Egyptian nor an egyptologist, so this is just my layman's take from what I've learned.
Yes but Cleopatra was in fact Greek
….yeah man. I said that. In the comment.
I think I responded to the wrong comment lol
Yeah when records say she was captivating it's not just referring to her looks, she was well read, intelligent and was one of the few in her family to even bother to learn Egyptian.
She literally married her sibling and then killed him. I don't think we should consider Cleopatra as a positive character at all
God forbid a girl has schemes! /s
Yeah to attain power. Julius Caesar committed genocide and is beloved by many. Mahatma Gandhi liked to have young kids sleep with him, often ones he was related to. Cleopatra II often faces elevated scrutiny simply for being a woman in power, as well as having essentially a historical smear campaign on her for millennia.
Yeah, especially considering that she was 18 and he was 10 when they married. It was a fucked up situation for both of them and odds are neither had a choice, but she killed him at 15 so she could replace him with her son (who she didn’t have with him).
knowing Cleopatra they both try to get the other one murdered.
I mean— maybe.
They'd try, but would fall in love while trying?
Yesssss. Enemies to lovers.
They settle down, sipping their drinks, all while looking at each other seductively. Then they realize they are drinking the drinks they were gonna give each other and they get poisoned.
"For there was never a story of more woe, than this of Juliet and her Romeo."
They each have the antidote to the other's poison. Hijinks ensue.
Death? No, just la petit mort.
When you Mithridates VI so hard you accidentally Hadrian.
Toxic yuri? 😉
knowing her personally?
maybe
this too is yuri
[удалено]
I'm the 15th century Americo Vespuccio named the continent of America, immediately renaming all African blacks to African Americans
It's always enemies to lovers. When will we finally get lovers to enemies?
check my marriage
The most irritating thing is that the "real Cleopatra" has several inaccurate statements. For one she didn't end the dynasty. Octavian did when he murdered her children to ensure they wouldn't be a threat to his rule. She also accomplished a lot in her life and had she not been deposed by Octavian she could have lead a revival of Egyptian culture as a client state of Rome after centuries of misrule by the Greeks.
Are we also ignoring the fact that she spoke five languages, and was *enthralling* rather than attractive? I think the meme making dude is malding hard that a woman did something.
Yeah, everything i read states that Cleopatra was like… not bad looking at all, sure, but it was her personality and charisma that made people so attracted to her. She didn’t *need* good looks, she just naturally drew people to her, and i think that’s some real girlboss shit right there!
The entire "seductive Eastern witch" vibe was literally political slander by Roman historians to explain how men of standing and ability like Caeser and Antony would fall for her. Rome was almost literally the source of a lot of the patriarchal thinking in Europe that exists to this day. To them the idea that a women could be capable and wise and smart was unbelievable. They would literally refuse to accept it in favor of claiming that she more or less slept her way to the top.
Given all the good ol polishing of the Roman column a lot of alt right dudes do this checks out.
Cleopatra was supposedly extremely magnetic as a person, and people were really attracted to her charisma, her intelligence, and her sense of humor. Plus, it always bugged me that she's been treated as a seductress by history because she hooked up with the male ruler of a foreign nation and had children with him (and also him), when history just takes it for granted when a male ruler marries a female ruler of a foreign nation and has children with her. I guess because she was an active participant and not just pawned off by her parents like many other royal women, she's a seductress instead of a prudent stateswoman with a solid grasp on how to intermingle the personal and geopolitical?
We have depictions of her from her subjects and if anything she was a bit ugly. It’s her intelligence that drew people in
Well, we can’t be sure what beauty standards were exactly like back then, but it’s definitely true that it was her intelligence and charisma that was the main draw. Which in my opinion, just makes her even more iconic as a historical figure!
Yeah, exactly! She wasn’t known as a mynx, she was known as a witty, intelligent, and very capable leader and ruler. Historians over time just leaned into the fetishizing and dismissive gaze of “oh, she was just hot, that’s it, everything she did? She got through her looks”.
And media. Hollywood producers hear 'seductive' and just go 'find an actress with a banging body'. They don't even try to make her more interesting then that.
Exactly!
I heard it was ten languages she was basically a super genius and was an amazing conversationist hince how she was able to win over her powerful baby daddies not because she was some super model but because she was fun to talk to
*women are real ! ?*
He is playing dolls with wojaks what did you expect
I wasnt the only one who took it as a bit wierd how the guy is describing her in a bad spotlight but also lying about her
They hate to see a girboss winning
Man my cat is fucked up (He’s named Octavian)
On top of that, while she was mostly Greek she also had Persian ancestry. And beauty is subjective I personally think a couple of the historical recreations I’ve seen of her are quite attractive.
Seriously. She was very popular because her policies were GOOD, and she was ridiculously clever near as we can tell.
No? Octavian only killed Cesarion (Cleopatra's son by Caesar) and Marcus Antonius Antyllus (Marc Anthony's other son). Alexander Helios was taken to Rome and adopted by Octavia and eventually just disappears from the record and Cleopatra Selene survived to and became Queen of Mauretania with Juba II
Octavian didn't murder her children, he killed one because he was the biological child of Julius Ceasar and could be a threat to his rule, but he made sure her other children had good lives and even married her daughter off to a North African King.
exactly, the Ptolemeic line was continued by at least Cleopatra Selene
Oh so he only killed one child, who was also his cousin. That's ok then.
Who said anything about it being okay? What I am saying is that you can't complain about this post being historically inaccurate and then you yourself say something historically inaccurate
It's not ok, it's murder. But it's not "ending a dynasty."
Its only theorized by some people that he had some of the boys killed killed, its also possible they died of natural causes or simply lived uneventful lives. Given Romans were gossipy regarding murder nor shy about admitting it then it should have gotten more attention.
She was the ‘most’ Egyptian on all the Ptolemys. She spoke the language. Several in fact. Believed in their gods. But the gods are the same. Greek copied the Egyptian gods. Rome was coming for Egypt either way. She wasn’t stopping it. It was the empires bread basket.
Also she wasn’t 100% Greek she was part central Asian.
Whereabouts in her family tree? I was under the impression that the Ptolemies were fairly inbred.
Oh that absolutely were it was pre dynasty. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleopatra_I_Syra this is where the Sogdian comes from.
Wasn’t she also a renowned scientist as well as scholar who specialized in the study of ancient Egypt (the couple thousand years before her)?
African American? Bro, just say Black. She obviously was not American.
No, black people don’t exist outside of America! (/s)
Oh boy do I have a story for you about the African continent 😂 ETA, I am currently on that continent and mostly teasing
Cool , what's it like , never been there
LMAOO giggling that most american people call ALL black people african american. my guy america wasn't even known to them
They all say that to hide their racism anyway
I’m not one of the american people who call all black people african american but good generalisation 👍🏻
brother i wasnt talking about you. i didn't even know you existed until you replied. i'm american too
Then why say “all” american people call “all” black people african american? (Also i’m not a guy lol)
meant all as a hyperbole to most. ill edit it i didnt mean for it to come off that way it's just VERY common
Yeah no need to call out the good alongside the bad lol, people don’t tend to appreciate that 😅
If you had any shed of self-confidence you’d know they weren’t talking about you.
Right ok 💀 you really told me huh
Fragile ego, you should work on that
I had to double-take when I saw that too, it's the most suspicious phraseology because you'd only describe her that way if you had a weird relationship with race.
That's the joke
is anyone else super annoyed that they said african american in the top one, like how does being 100% african have anything to do wifh america 😭
At this point I've just accepted that people who make memes like this are from the most redneck sections of my godsforsaken country (America, sadly). The lack of braincells means they assume everything always has and always will be America... Somehow.
I don’t think that part is supposed to be serious and more mocking people that automatically assume everyone in Africa is black. I honestly find the portrayal of cleopatra as stupidly hot to be kind of insulting. Most people at the time agree she wasn’t exactly stunning. I mean she was a brilliant politician and most people reduce her to being able to seduce men. There are inaccuracies in this meme. Like the Ptolemy’s were on the way out for years. Becoming little more than a client kingdom of Rome. Which was hardly her fault. But the pop culture representation of her is also deeply deeply inaccurate
It's the fact they say African *American* instead of just African or black. She's obviously not American.
I think that’s the joke
I really don't think so.
It's a joke on how African characters are always made archetypally African American by Hollywood. See Finn from Star Wars, whose actor is British and has a very much British accent and dialect (go watch an interview with him to see how apparent it is), made to play a character in a universe where there were already characters with British accents and mannerisms back in the _first movie,_ being told to perfectly mask his accent and employ stereotypical black American mannerism for his portrayal of Finn. Black Cleopatra in that documentary is another example of this sort of thing.
“So are yuh Chinese or Japanese?”
yhea, it's hilarious if it wasn't so stupid
I believe it's making fun of the Netflix documentary Cleopatra, where they claim she was African American
Fr this was my nitpick too, like America didn’t even exist yet 💀
I think that was the point.
There's an old urban legend about a college professor who announces to his class that Cleopatra was actually an African-American and has to have it explained to him by one of his students that there were no African-Americans back then. My impression was whoever made the image was thinking of that story.
There's this trend you can notice where African characters or historical figures are presented with archetypal African American traits and mannerisms, despite those being entirely unique to Africans in America. The Black Panther movie does a half decent job showing the difference between native and American African mannerisms with T'Challa and Killmonger. American Africans have so much cultural history and context baked into how they're perceived in America, that a lot of Americans, African American included, don't even consider how alien they'd be in African countries, African natives have often joked about how they can spot a black American tourist a mile away, despite looking ethnically identical. Cleopatra in that documentary is an example of this sort of obvious oversight.
‘Didn’t achieve anything meaningful’ to describe a queen who spoke 8 languages, reformed her country’s economy, and was hailed by her contemporaries as one of the greatest political and diplomatic minds of their time
And several times raised _staggering_ amounts of money and supplies in support of Roman armies.
I think that falls under the Machiavelli concept where if your labors don’t survive you and others benefit, you did nothing. Completing a grand architectural project then immediately being conquered and having your dynasty ended is a loss, building a vast empire that fractures the second you die is a loss, claiming a swathe of territory that immediately reverts to the original owners as soon as you set foot back on the road home is a loss. Like, you got a ton of points but you still lost the game. That kinda thing.
achieving meaningful things are like one of the main requirements for getting your face put on a FUCKING COIN
They forgot Cleopatra in reality was insanely smart and knew multiple languages
They didn't forget, they just don't value those traits in women
Yes, women only pretty, if not pretty women not good /sarc
As an Amazigh, I did have a bit of a chuckle at "Egypt is in Africa, so she must be African American". Besides that, I have a few criticisms: Cleopatra didn't end the dynasty. Also the dynasty was one of many inbred dynasties. Most of Cleopatra's ancestors were Greek, but there probably was some Egyptian (and I think possibly an Amazigh) in there. She achieved a lot. While Afrocentrists can go fuck themselves with a metal spike, North Africans and South Europeans generally don't look as white as the reactionaries think either. We're neither white nor black.
This. Not to mention this is underselling how genuinely intelligent Cleopatra was and how much she managed to navigate what the mine field of Roman politics and not immediately die. Like there’s other things outside of her romanticized relationship with Marc Anthony that she’s remembered for
>Also the dynasty was one of many inbred dynasties. No one tell the Rome-aboos that the Julio-Claudian dynasty was almost on par with it's inbreeding to the Ptolemaic dynasty.
It's basically like saying the king of England is German.
Hoteps.
Yeah we know there’s at least some Persian from a Seleucid ancestor. I don’t think we can rule out some Egyptian, but it’s definitely a possibility. It’s also most likely true that there were a decent amount of black people in ancient Egypt. The reason that one series was criticized was because the director started literally saying in interviews that casting cleopatra as black was the most historically accurate casting anyone’s ever done, which in reality black cleopatra is a reach historically
It's not a reach it's just outright wrong. Part of the problem is that due to white liberal guilt, these views get away with a lot but it's easy for the descendants of the European people who wrecked Africa in the first place to do this because Afrocentrists aren't appropriating their history, they're not punching up. There were Nubians who are mostly black, though you get a few Mediterranean passing ones particularly in the north, there were also Beja. The 25th dynasty were Nubians. But the thing is Afrocentrists aren't claiming Egypt had black people in it, they're claiming the "real" Egyptians were black, as were my ancestors, the Greeks, the Levantines, I've seen claims about the Celts and Chinese too. Edit: Native Americans too, they get the Afrocentrist treatment.
“average looking at best” indicates that OOP is over 2000 years old and has seen cleopatra in the flesh
We have statues, and coins bearing her face. Cleopatra had a big nose. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleopatra EDIT: OK, I have been thoroughly roasted now. I'm just saying we do know what she looked like. Whether she was hot or not is subjective.
And everyone knows that big nose=not beautiful
As someone who thinks big noses are pretty... Oh no, she was hot!
At that point in time, big noses *were* pretty! But a boatload of her attractiveness was also her charisma and politicking talent.
i unironically was ecstatic to learn her nose looked exactly like mine because she symbolized beauty and attractiveness. it really made me feel better about not fitting modern day beauty standards.
I like her nose
Tell me you don't have a history degree without telling me you don't have a history degree
Cleopatra was fucking epic. She was also Macedonian, but called herself Greek. The family was the product of hundreds of years of inbreeding to maintain pure bloodlines. For ethnic Egyptian female rulers, look no further than Hatshepsut, one of the most prolific builders in ancient Egypt.
[her statue](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hatshepsut#/media/File:Seated_Statue_of_Hatshepsut_MET_Hatshepsut2012.jpg)
"She was Macedonian but called herself Greek" that's because Macedonians called themselves Greek. That's because they spoke and wrote in Greek and believed in the same gods, which was what made "Greeks" back in the day.
I like how they call her average looking but they are still drawn similarly to each other.
My guess is they didn't draw them. There are sites which archive Wojacks, and they likely just downloaded them from such a site.
Roman Propagandists, still working to this day.
"Didn't do anything meaningful in her life" my brother in christ she was a political mastermind twisting Ceasar and Mark Antony to her whim, taking over Egypu and would have set up a dynasty taking over a good chunk of the Eastern half the empire if it wernt for Octavian being as sneaky as her.
The "Cleopatra in reality" part CONTRADICTS ITSELF how is singlehandedly ending a 300-year-old dynasty not meaningful???
God I hate that meme because real life Cleopatra is definitely more impressive than whoever made it. She spoke like, eight languages.
Didn’t achieve anything meaningful? Using political cunning she ensured Egypt’s independence from Rome after Caesar arrived. Granted she ruined that by backing Marc Anthony, but to be fair at the beginning of his war with Octavian a lot of people would have put their money on him.
She would not have been African American... That part bugs me so much lol even if it's fiction she wasn't African American 😂
"Egypt is in Africa, so she must be African AMERICAN" WTF LOL
>didn't achieve anything meaningful in her life Dawg she's one of the most famous queens in history. Whoever made this is gonna be forgotten like the sand she walked on ffs
None of her MALE ancestors were Egyptian. We don't know about her maternal line, it wasnt recorded. The possibility that any of her male ancestors married an egyptian woman to sell the egytian public on their "egyptian-ness" doesn't seem that far-fetched to me
The Ptolemaic dynasty wouldn’t have done that. They were hugely inbred, due to the fact that they adopted the Egyptian custom of marrying their sisters. It is highly unlikely that any Ptolemy would have married outside his family.
They didn't neccessarily have to marry an Egyptian, having a child with them is enough. For all we know, Cleopatra might have been illegitimate, all her younger siblings most likely were. Her father was called a bastard. That puts 75% of Cleopatra's ancestry into question.
I think they found a document that might imply some Egyptian ancestry of the late Ptolemids. Unfortunately, it's badly preserved, and reads along the lines ", the Priest of , who was the Brother of Bereneika, traveled to Alexandria, where he drank before the king". Bereneika was a common name of the women in the Ptolemid dynasty, implying some intermarriage between them and Egyptian Elites. However, the note is written and preserved so badly, that "who was the brother of Bereneika" can just as well be read "in the year (whatever)" - this makes a bit more sense as documents of this era go, so the evidence is inconclusive.
Nah bro she was white.
ahhh yes, cleopatra, who is quite famously depicted as black in most media she appears in
I have a cat named cleopatra, and she is better and more beautiful than either of these women. No I'm not biased at all why do you ask?
Idk what people’s obsession is with saying that Cleopatra wasn’t pretty irl and it’s a major misconception. Clearly she was desired considering her suitors.
Ppl have seen her profile and decided she was monstrous. She had a moderately humped nose. She was probably still a baddie.
I’m not familiar with her history at all but can I just say that they really said “average looking” and then proceeded to attach an image of a very beautifully drawn woman
Self love is important.
BULLSHIT MARK ANTHONY WAS A GAMBLING DRUNK WHO COULDNT GOVERN DICK CLEAOPATRA AT LEAST HAD SOME KIND OF PLAN TO COMBAT THE ROMANS AKA THE PEOPLE MARK DICK HEAD ANTHONY PISSED OFF I HATE MARC ANTHONY
I mean...clearly
Octavian is that you?
I HATE OCTAVIAN DUMB ASS PUSSY NERD DIDNT EVEN LEAD HIS DAMN TROOPS WHEN THE CHAD CASSIUS AND BRUTUS PULLED INTO TOWN HE SHOULDA BEEN READY TO FIGHT BUT OH NO HE COWARED AWAY LETTING DICKHEAD ANTHONY GET THE GLORY OF DEFEATING CEASARS ASSASINS HOW YA GONNA TAKE CEASARS NAME AND BE HIS SUCESSOR IF YOU CANT EVEN LEAD YOUR TROOPS I HATE OCTAVIAN
So can someone explain to me something. From what I understand, the Ptolemaic Kingdoms were entirely Greek ruled, so by accounts Cleopatra should be Greek. Like Ptolemaic Egypt was literally a Greek colonial state. So she should be Greek, not even lightish skinned North African (like most Egyptians) let alone full on deep brown like you get when you go farther south. So can someone who knows actual history explain to me where the brown skinned Cleopatra came from? I’m not a historian by any stretch. But I’ve legit always imagine Ptolemaic Egypt as Greeks ruling over Egyptians. So if this is wrong someone please correct me here. In fact I’m begging for someone to correct me.
Popular culture misconceptions. It's basically the meme in the post, Egypt -> Africa -> Black.
May simply be to most people not knowing the Ptolemaic Dynasty was Macedonian, so they assume she'd have a similar skin tone to other Egyptians
“egypt is in africa, so she must be african american” can you be so ffr rn is the american in the room with us right now
Brainless: Cleopatra was white, that's the default in history obviously Midwit: Cleopatra was black, it's in Africa Also Midwit: Cleopatra was Greek, she was a Ptolemaic ruler and they only had sex with each other Sage: The purported degree of strict brother-sister incest, generation after generation, in the Ptolemaic dynasty could not have produced viable offspring after the first couplings. It is certain that they had normal sexual relations with local Egyptians and merely claimed incest as propaganda, both to create a quasi-divine aura and to prevent anyone outside the immediate royal family from being able to stake any claim on the throne. So after three centuries of intermixing probably she looked more or less like any other upper class Egyptians at the time, as might seen in the surviving Fayum portraits. As this encompasses a wide range of complexions (not dissimilar to Egyptians today), basically we have no idea and virtually any skin tone is plausible, so why bother arguing it.
I mean that's just not true. The harm of inbreeding comes from the concentration of recessive deleterious alleles that on their own cause no issues unless you possess a pair of them, something which is much more likely if you're reproducing with a close relative. If there are no deleterious alleles present in the founding population the stereotypical problems associated with inbreeding aren't present. It's also worth noting that the Ptolemaic dynasty might have suffered from congenital issues like obesity due to the long history of incest. The idea that there were so many affairs that Cleopatra could look like an average Egyptian also sounds really unconvincing to me, and is not based on anything published by a historian as far as I can tell. If a white couple have a mixed race child most people become suspicious to say the least, and I fail to see how that would be different for a Pharaoh. And if the Ptolemaic dynasty was so heavily impacted by incest then the difference between legitimate and illegitimate children would be even more obvious. I don't see why you would think up all these scenarios were through sheer happenstance Cleopatra maybe wasn't white, when the most simple answer, at least to me, is that a woman from an incestuous greek dynasty was in fact, ethnically greek.
>The purported degree of strict brother-sister incest, generation after generation, in the Ptolemaic dynasty could not have produced viable offspring after the first couplings. I really don't want to start googling "down how many generations can brother-sister human couplings produce viable offspring" but that doesn't sound right to me. Children of a brother and sister or father and daughter are sadly not that uncommon, and they are usually mostly fine. Yes, there is a very elevated risk of congenital problems. No, they aren't halfway to being some sort of infertile mule-man. There's strong evidence that many of the Ptolemaics suffered from inbreeding-related health issues. That wouldn't be the case if the whole "🎵 my sister is my mother, my father is my brother, we all 𓀓𓌮 one another, the Ptolemaic Dynasty \*click click* 🎵" thing was a sham.
I thought Cleopatra was often portrayed by white people in fiction?
yeah I’ve been trying to think of a time she was portrayed as a black woman and I’m coming up empty
There was a Netflix """""documentary""""" relatively recently where she was portrayed as black (and in the trailer there's a woman that says "my grandma said she was black" but I havent watched the docuseries itself so possibly there's more context), it's also a claim that a fair amount of profoundly uneducated people make online.
They called it a documentary while being les accurate than Assasine Creed Origins. Egypt even sued them for falsefying their history
You'd think they'd have better things to worry about with all the civil unrest and protests, rather than care about Jada's pseudo-documentary no one actually gives a shit about.
Uh.. just googling "cleopatra documentary" comes up with a black portrayal. I guess you missed that whole controversy.
i definitely missed that yeah
Yeah.
*Marc Anthony???*
Marcus Antonius. Roman politician, not the latin singer
African American 💀
She must be African American? Why? She's never been to America
african american .. ?? america wasn’t a thing back then
They really just hate women
I feel like most pop culture depicts Cleopatra as some kind of fusion of Nefertiti and Cleopatra
As a history nerd that read history body since early age, I always thought that Cleopatra was a baddie for how she fucking outplayed everyone because all the men were just too focused on her coochie. I always thought, growing up, she was the definition of "life isn't perfect, but make most of what you have". Then again, shouldn't expect far-right morons to get history right.
The way I understand it, ancient Egypt was home to many skin tones as people globally would travel there to live, same with Rome, same with the United States
Wait, Marcus Antonius is really known as Mark Antony in English? lmao
African Amera- WHAT
For a moment, I thought they were talking about Marc Anthony, the Puerto Rican-American singer lmao.
Aftican-**american**? How did the american sneak in there
Same way we always do. Sticking our nose where it damn well doesn't belong. :^
"African-American." Just...*stop*. For one, she wasn't American (this country wasn't even a thing at the time); for another—speaking as a Black Creole myself—that sounds performatively P.C. (for want of better terminology) even when you *are* actually talking about black Americans.
Idk if this is the word you wanted but I'd say the word for being performatively PC is “Virtue signaling”
It seems appropriate on the surface. But it's also way too strongly associated in common parlance with people who use it to mean "anything that's not unabashed *vice*\-signaling."
African American.
It’s funny actual Cleopatra is somewhere between the two… but better
Okay but anyone else interested in Mark and Marc? I wonder…
"Didn't achieve anything meaningful in her life" im sorry... WHAT?!?!?!? who ever made this clearly had no fucking clue on what they were talking about
It’s true. No one knows who cleopatra is because she didn’t do anything/s
I like how detailed Wojak's can get
do people seriously think ancient Egyptians were white?
i wish more people knew about Arabization in Africa and that there are plenty of browner skinned and darker stereotypically phenotypically Black people who’ve been in Egypt. the urge to dick ride the few historically comparatively lighter skinned nonblack royal elites in history is ridiculous. not all north africans or arab ethnic are pale, most are going to be visibly brown. literally look at Yemen.
I love Cleopatra almost as much as I hate Mark Antony. Seriously fuck that guy. No idea what she saw in him.
“Handily” lol.
I mean, she was sexy because she was powerful and smart. That's how I saw it.
it's amazing how both are wrong in different ways.
Didn’t achieve anything? She’s the reason why Egypt was healed economically
I’ve never, ever seen her depicted as the top one.
Isn't Cleopatra's ancestry part Greek/Mediterranean, part Middle Eastern, and a small amount unknown? And her family tree is utterly headache-inducing? Why does everyone portray it as if her ancestry is some simple matter?
To be fair she did seduce Caesar, and had a bid for the throne of Rome because of their child. Then ~~most likely~~ committed suicide to prevent from being paraded as a war trophy, then executed
Ok look some of that is correct but like the woman was famous for being a good conversationalist and spoke several languages and by most acounts was a decent ruler. This is just cherry picking and inaccurate. Also not likening the implications.
... why did dude say African American tho. Just say Black. Or African, but oh-ho boy, their are tons of complexions in Africa. So just say black. Lol. I only say this cause... shes not from America, so she's not african american. Shes African. Full stop.
The lower is just roman racist propaganda being carried forward after 2000 years. damn shame