THE BRITISH MUSEUM

C L E O PAT R A O F E G Y P T:
FROM HISTORY TO MYTH
This tour features some of the highlights of the exhibition, giving a brief history of
Cleopatra's tumultuous life.
BP was the international sponsor of Cleopatra of Egypt: from History to Myth
(12 April - 26 August 2001) which was organized by The British Museum in
collaboration with the Fondazione Memmo, Rome.

C L E O PAT R A O F E G Y P T: F R O M H I S T O R Y
TO MYTH
Fabled for her sexual allure and cunning intelligence, Cleopatra
VII of Egypt has fascinated generations of admirers and
detractors since her life ended in suicide in 30 BC. This
intriguing exhibition at The British Museum focused on
Cleopatra, last of the Ptolemaic monarchs, Macedonian Greeks
who had ruled Egypt since the death of Alexander the Great in
323 BC. The exhibition traced Cleopatra's life as queen of Egypt
and her liaisons with the two great Roman leaders of the day,
Julius Caesar and Mark Antony. The myth and iconic status of
Cleopatra is also examined, largely through the representation
of the queen in European art from the Renaissance to today.

MARBLE PORTRAIT OF
A L E X A N D E R T H E G R E AT
Forefather of the Ptolemaic dynasty
Cleopatra was the last sovereign of the Ptolemaic dynasty that ruled
Egypt for around 300 years. After Alexander's death in 323 BC,
Ptolemy, one of Alexander's Macedonian generals, was given Egypt
in the division of his empire. From the time Ptolemy I Soter
('Saviour') declared himself king in 305/304 BC, Alexander was
worshipped as a god and as the forefather of the Ptolemaic dynasty.
This portrait of the great leader was acquired in Alexandria, the city
that Alexander had founded after he conquered Egypt in 332 BC,
and the eventual site of his (still undiscovered) tomb.
Alexander was always shown clean-shaven, whereas all previous
portraits of Greek statesmen or rulers had beards. This royal fashion
lasted for almost five hundred years and almost all of the Hellenistic
Greek kings and Roman emperors until Hadrian (AD 117-38) were
portrayed beardless. Alexander was the first king to wear the royal
diadem, a band of cloth tied around the hair that was to become the
symbol of Hellenistic Greek kingship.
Earlier portraits of Alexander, in heroic style, look more mature than
the portraits made after his death, such as this example. These show
a more youthful, though perhaps more god-like character. He has
longer hair, a more dynamic tilt of the head and an upward gaze.

Height: 37.000 cm
GR 1872.5-15.1 (Sculpture 1857)
On display: Room 22: Alexander the Great

F R A G M E N T O F A B A S A LT
E G Y P T I A N - S T Y L E S TAT U E O F
PTOLEMY I
Founder of Cleopatra's dynasty

The founder of the Ptolemaic dynasty ruled Egypt as

Ptolemy I Soter ('Saviour') with his sister-wife, Berenike I,
until his death in 283 BC. At his death he left a very
prosperous kingdom. He also founded the Museum
(Mouseion), a cultural centre for scholars and artists, and
established the famous library at Alexandria.
The nemes headdress and the uraeus identify the subject of
the statue as a ruler. The mouth has drill holes in the
corners, forcing the lips into a wide smile, an expression
characteristic of portraits of the Thirtieth Dynasty (380-343
BC) and the early Ptolemaic period. Other characteristics of
sculpture of this period are the wide, fleshy nose, cheeks
and chin, and the large, fleshy ears.
It is said that this scultpure was found in the lining of a well
in the Nile Delta. It was acquired by The British Museum
with a number of other objects, but unfortunately the site
was not named and it has been suggested that the story of
its discovery was fabricated to increase interest in the piece.

Height: 64.000 cm
Width: 66.000 cm
EA 1641

B L A C K B A S A LT S TAT U E
O F C L E O PAT R A V I I
2001 Hermitage Museum

Black basalt statue of Cleopatra VII: The queen as goddess

The existence of numerous statues representing Ptolemaic royal

women reflects the important role that the queens played in the
dynastic cult, where living rulers were promoted and worshipped.
Cleopatra VII called herself Nea (the new) Isis, after her father,
Ptolemy XII, who called himself Neos (the new) Dionysos.
This is one of the best-preserved images of a Ptolemaic queen. It is
one of a number of statues - with the queen wearing a corkscrew wig
and holding a cornucopia - that probably served as cult statues of the
deified queens. The figure is clearly Egyptian in style, though with
Greek attributes (the cornucopia and knotted dress). The front of the
headdress is decorated with a uraeus, the symbol of Egyptian royalty.
The triple form is unique to Cleopatra.
At the end of Plutarch's Life of Antony, the Roman biographer records
that a wealthy Alexandrian named Archibios paid Cleopatra's
victorious enemy Octavian the enormous sum of 2,000 talents to save
the statues of the queen in Egypt. It is possible that this is a survivor
of the images so saved. To a Roman it would have meant very little.
To an Egyptian, it was a sacred object, and the scale of the figure
suggests that it could have been placed in a shrine. As late as AD
373, when Egypt was nominally Christian, we hear of statues of
Cleopatra being gilded. A Coptic Christian bishop and an Arab
historian later remembered Cleopatra as 'the last of the wise Greeks'.

B L U E G L A S S I N TA G L I O W I T H A
P O R T R A I T O F C L E O PAT R A V I I
Intaglio with a portrait of Cleopatra VII 1st century BC

'Lady of the Two Lands'

Cleopatra was born in 69-68 BC. When Ptolemy XII Auletes (the
'flute-player') died in 51 BC, the 18-year-old Cleopatra and her
brother Ptolemy XIII, aged ten, were named as his successors.
Following tradition, they were required to marry. As the seventh of
her name (meaning 'her father's glory'), she became Cleopatra VII,
and like earlier queens, she was titled 'Lady of the Two Lands', that
is, Upper and Lower Egypt.
This engraved glass gem, now very worn, could have been used as a
seal, indicating an official or loyal individual's allegiance to
Cleopatra.
The portrait features are relatively clear and show a full face, with
straight nose and a strong chin with a down-turned mouth.
However, portrait features are often distorted when produced on
such a small scale, and it is the hairstyle and broad royal diadem in
particular which indicate that this representation is of Cleopatra VII.
As can be expected, she presents herself as a Hellenistic Greek
queen. The hair is tied back in a bun in the usual Greek manner, and
the dress is also Greek in style, with folds of drapery clearly visible.
However, remarkably, this Greek image is combined with the
Egyptian royal symbol of a triple uraeus on her head. This feature
usually occurs on Egyptian-style images of Cleopatra.

Length: 1.300 cm
GR 1923.4-1.676 (Gem 3085)

LIMESTONE HEAD OF A WOMAN

R E S E M B L I N G C L E O PAT R A V I I
In July 46 BC Caesar returned to Rome after his successful campaign
in Africa. During the triumphal celebrations Cleopatra travelled to the
city, seeking a formal treaty of friendship with the Roman people. The
queen lived luxuriously as a guest in one of Caesar's villas, an exotic
addition to the somewhat conservative life of the republican city. Her
notoriety, as Caesar's lover and mother of his infant son, and her
public appearances may have influenced women's fashions and
hairstyles. Her presence in Rome certainly revived cults of certain
Egyptian deities such as Isis, with whom Cleopatra was associated.
Caesar also made the controversial gesture of having a golden statue
of Cleopatra erected in the Temple of Venus Genetrix, divine founder
of his family, in his new forum in the centre of Rome.
Cleopatra's image is well known from coins issued during her lifetime, and comparable portraits in stone. This limestone head was
once considered to be a portrait, but is now thought to show a
woman who modelled herself on Cleopatra, perhaps even one of the
entourage who travelled to Rome with her from Egypt. The woman's
hairstyle is similar to that of Cleopatra on her coins, but more
elaborately dressed in a series of twisted braids that are coiled up at
the back. More importantly, the head lacks the royal diadem, a band
of cloth tied at the back of the head that had been used to denote
royalty since Alexander the Great 300 years earlier.

Height: 28.000 cm
Castellani Collection
GR 1879.7-12.15 (Sculpture 1873)
On display: Room 70: Roman Empire

GREEN BASANITE BUST

OF JULIUS CAESAR
2001 Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

In September 48 BC Julius Caesar arrived at Alexandria. His only

serious rival, the Roman general Pompey, had sought refuge there after
defeat by Caesar's troops at Pharsalus in Greece. Pompey believed
that Cleopatra's brother-husband, Ptolemy XIII, would support him,
but, seeking to gain favour with Caesar, the young king's advisors
ordered his assassination. Earlier in the year Cleopatra had been forced
to flee Alexandria after the same clique had encouraged rivalry
between the royal couple. She was poised to try and re-take her realm,
but was stopped at Mount Casius by Ptolemy's troops. Meanwhile, one
of the advisors, Theodotus, sent Pompey's head and ring to Caesar as
tribute.
Caesar entered the city as a conqueror, and summoned both Cleopatra
and her brother in order to settle the conflict between them. Though
initially cautious, Cleopatra did come to Alexandria, but fearing her
brother's spies, in secret by night, and according to Plutarch, wrapped
'in a coverlet'. Caesar and Cleopatra became lovers, famously
travelling up the Nile in a display of force, accompanied by huge
numbers of Roman troops. At this time their son Caesarion ('little
Caesar') was conceived. Caesar moved on to other battlefields and
other women, leaving Cleopatra installed as queen of Egypt with three
Roman legions to support her. Killed in the fighting, Ptolemy XIII was
succeeded by a second younger brother, Ptolemy XIV.
This portrait is most likely an image of Caesar made fifty years or more
after his murder in 44 BC. The stone is from Wadi Hamamat in Upper
Egypt, and the facial structure, with high cheekbones and prominent
chin, is reminiscent of many Egyptian portraits.

R E D J A S P E R I N TA G L I O : P O R T R A I T
HEAD OF MARK ANTONY
Red jasper intaglio

On Caesar's assassination on 15 March 44 BC, Cleopatra had lost

her powerful ally. Hearing that Caesar had left nothing for her and
their son Caesarion, Cleopatra fled Rome with her child and
husband (her second brother, now Ptolemy XIV), returning to an
Egypt ridden with famine and plague.
Two men competed to succeed Caesar: his right-hand man and
the designated consul, Mark Antony, and Caesar's adopted son
and legal heir, Octavian. In 41 BC Mark Antony began an alliance,
as much romantic as military, with Cleopatra. In 40 BC, twin
children were born, but Antony deserted Cleopatra for a
politically advantageous marriage with Octavian's sister Octavia.
Three years and two daughters later, Octavia in her turn was
abandoned for Cleopatra, with whom Antony stayed until their
deaths in 30 BC.
The engraver of this intaglio has cut an exceptionally clear profile
portrait of Mark Antony with long tousled hair, the locks carefully
delineated, and no beard. The nose is hooked, the slightly open
mouth down-turned, and the chin prominent. The features
resemble those of Antony on some of his coin portraits, and the
image ends at the neck. The intaglio may have been used as a
seal by one of Antony's supporters.

Length: 14.000 mm
Width: 10.000 mm
Blacas Collection
GR 1867. 5-7.724 (Gem 1966)

S I LV E R D E N A R I U S O F C L E O PAT R A V I I A N D M A R K A N T O N Y
As Antony and Cleopatra moved gradually westwards in 32-31 BC towards their showdown with Octavian at
Actium, a number of cities responded in their coinage to their presence. In this respect, coinage was just one
element in a whole array of honours that could be granted to powerful individuals.
This extraordinary coin shows Cleopatra and Antony looking remarkably alike. Antony was said to remind people
of the Greek hero Herakles in paintings and sculptures, with '... a very good and noble appearance; his beard was
not unsightly, his forehead broad, and his nose aquiline' (Plutarch, Life of Antony, 4). However, here his portrait
seems to have picked up Ptolemaic features, specifically the strong projecting chin of Ptolemy I, the founder of
Cleopatra's dynasty, and the hooked noses of Cleopatra and her father Ptolemy XII.
Through Antony's protection, Cleopatra was trying to secure the future of her kingdom and restore the Ptolemaic
empire. Such coins raise the question of just who was using whom during the 30s BC. Recent study has revealed
that, contrary to what was accepted before, the image of Cleopatra is on the obverse (front) of the coin, while
that of Antony is on the reverse; this could be seen as significant in itself.

!
Diameter: 18.000 mm
Weight: 3.900 g
De Salis Gift
CM 1860.3-28.21
(BMCRR The East 180)
Room 70: Roman Empire

BRONZE PROW FROM A

B O AT O R S M A L L S H I P
Mark Antony and Cleopatra were eventually defeated by Octavian
(later Emperor Augustus) at the naval Battle of Actium in 31 BC.
Mark Antony led a force of 75,000 legionaries, 25,000 auxiliary
troops, 12,000 cavalry and 500 warships (200 of which were
Egyptian). Cleopatra led her personal squadron of 60 warships.
Antony set up camp at Actium, on the west coast of Greece, on
the southern side of a strait leading from the Ionian Sea into the
Ambracian Gulf. Octavian, with 400 ships and 80,000 infantry,
arrived from the north and, by occupying Patrae (modern Patras)
and Corinth, cut Antony's southward communications with Egypt
via the Peloponnese. Octavian's naval commander Marcus Agrippa
also cut Antony's supply route by sea. Antony and Cleopatra
managed to escape from this trap and reached Alexandria, but
Octavian pursued them, capturing the city in 30 BC.
It has always been assumed that this prow comes from a sunken
ship that participated in the Battle of Actium. It must have been a
relatively minor vessel, because the medallion bust and figure are
small, and would not have had a strong visual impact on a large
warship.
The bust shows a figure wearing a helmet and an aegis strapped
under the arms and over the shoulders. The figure probably
represents the goddess Athena.

Length: 47.500 cm
Gift of H.M. Queen Victoria
GR 1872.12.14.1 (Bronze 830)

T E R R A C O T TA L A M P W I T H
A C A R I C AT U R E D S C E N E
After Antony and Cleopatra's suicides in 30 BC, Octavian began a
campaign to discredit the memory of the foreign queen who had
come so close to toppling Rome. Unable to attack his adoptive father
Caesar, Octavian had Caesarion assassinated, and concentrated his
venom on Cleopatra's relationship with Antony, who, he claimed, had
been unmanned by the 'harlot of Canopus'. Even long after her
death, when Antony's descendants by his brief marriage to Octavia
had brought the Roman imperial court into disrepute, Cleopatra's
memory was still attacked. The excesses of Nero's court may have
prompted the crude pornographic cartoon on this Roman lamp,
often identified as Cleopatra.
It is perhaps significant that this type of lamp, of Italian manufacture,
is well represented among the finds from military sites along the
Rhine-Danube frontier: did the exuberantly erotic Cleopatra serve as
a soldier's pin-up, at the same time reminding them of their sacred
duty to save the manhood of Rome from the amorous clutches of
foreign queens?
The top is decorated with a crocodile, symbolic of Egypt. Rising from
the animal's tail is a huge human phallus on which sits the naked
queen with her hair drawn back in a bun. She holds a palm-branch in
her left hand; behind her plants, probably intended to be nilotic (of
the Nile), rise up.

Length: 9.200 cm
Gift of George Witt
GR 1865.11-18.249 (Lamp Q 900)

T E R R A C O T TA ' C A M PA N A '
RELIEF WITH A NILOTIC SCENE
This relief panel represents a lighthearted Roman
interpretation of an Egyptian scene. The panel is divided in
two as if the scene were witnessed through an arcade,
though the scenes should probably be read continuously,
starting from the fluted pilaster on the left. In the upper left
panel is a hut thatched with reeds; a stork is perched on its
roof, and another stork struts on a low wall to the left.
Below, a crocodile crouches perilously on a branch over
turbulent waters. At the base of the panel, beneath a lotus
with curling stem, is a baying hippopotamus.
The scene continues to the right, with a second crocodile
on a sandbank. Above, two men pole and paddle a boat.
The man wielding the paddle on the left has shaggy hair, a
long caricatured nose, and exaggerated musculature. The
older man with the pole to the right was intended as a
pygmy, naked and again with exaggerated musculature.
They sail past a small building, probably a shrine.
The plaque is one of a number decorated with very similar
scenes: On two reliefs (now in Copenhagen and Leiden) the
fence to the left of the round hut has been transformed into
a bed, on which reclines a woman, partially draped with her
buttocks exposed and hair tumbling on her shoulders,
looking at a statuette of Priapus.
Though dwarfs and pygmies appear associated with Egypt
in classical and Hellenistic Greek art, the Campana panels
represent a lighthearted Roman interpretation of an
Egyptian scene, the elements of mockery and sexual
titillation perhaps recalling the defeat of Cleopatra.

Height: 47.500 cm
Width: 60.000 cm
Thickness: 3.500 cm
Townley Collection
GR 1805.7-3.317 (Terracotta D 633)

C H E L S E A P O R C E L A I N ' C L E O PAT R A ' V A S E S

These vases are painted over the glaze in enamel colours against a dark blue ground with the Death
of Cleopatra after a painting by Gaspar Netscher (1639-84) engraved by J.G. Wille (1715-1808) and the
Death of Harmonia after Jean-Baptiste-Marie Pierre (1713-89).
Harmonia, shown on one vase in the act of killing herself, was the child of Mars (Mark Antony's patron
god) and Venus (Cleopatra's patron goddess), and so stands for Cleopatra. The other vase depicts the
discovery of the dead Cleopatra by Octavian and Dolabella. The dead woman at her feet is her maid
Iras.
The scene of the death of Cleopatra is based on Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra (V.2). David
Garrick had presented an adapted version of the play at Drury Lane in 1759, but it was not a success.
Performances were given throughout the eighteenth century of John Dryden's All for Love (1678), and
this may have been how the English public absorbed the story of Cleopatra.
It was without doubt popular, as there are various medallions and figures of the Egyptian queen made
by Josiah Wedgwood and others from the early 1770s. By the end of the eighteenth century there was
a market in Britain for relatively inexpensive ceramic representations of Cleopatra, some of which may
have been exported to North America.

!
Height: 19.700 cm
Diameter: 13.300 cm (with handles)
M&ME 1763,4-15,1-2 (Porcelain Catalogue II 28)
Room 46: Europe 1400-1800

C L E O PAT R A D R O P P I N G T H E
PEARL INTO THE WINE, A
RED CHALK DRAWING
William Kent, Cleopatra dropping the pearl into the wine, Italy, about
AD 1710-1720

As the story goes, Cleopatra invited Mark Antony to compete with

her in providing a banquet, boasting that whatever he spent she
would outdo him. When it came to her turn, Cleopatra simply
removed a splendid pearl earring and tossed it into a goblet of wine
in front of her. According to Pliny, the pearl magically dissolved in the
wine, which Cleopatra then drank. But for the protests of the
onlookers, including Mark Antony's, she would have followed with
the pair, which, like the first, was worth 100,000 sesterces.
In William Kent's drawing Cleopatra holds an enormous pearl
towards a classical drinking cup, opening her hand so that we may
see its great size. The mood of ostentatious consumption is captured
in the queen's luxurious clothes and the voluminously draped
setting. Beside the throne, a voluptuous female figure, apparently a
statuette, evokes Cleopatra's sensuality.
Cleopatra's extravagance was one of two themes (the other being
her suicide) popular with European artists from the Renaissance
onwards. Both are drawn from the Roman view of Cleopatra, as
mediated through Antony's biographer Plutarch. Cleopatra was seen
as a powerful, manipulative and ultimately tragic queen who lost all
her riches for love of Antony.

Height: 364.000 mm
Width: 257.000 mm
PD 1954-2-13-5