Word: caesares
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...most famous figures of ancient history, a name synonymous with beauty, yet no one knows what she really looked like. A Macedonian Greek, she ruled Egypt and was known for her liaisons-political and romantic-with the two great Roman leaders of her time, Julius Caesar and Mark Antony. Her legend-wrapped in intrigue, conflict and romance-lives on to this day. As Shakespeare wrote of Cleopatra: "Age cannot wither her nor custom stale her infinite variety...
...public view for the first time is an 80-cm granite head-believed to represent Ptolemy XV Caesar (Caesarion), Cleopatra's son by Julius Caesar-found in the harbor at Alexandria, Cleopatra's capital, by French archaeologists in 1997. Side by side are three smaller marble heads from the city-of the Greek god Serapis and two Ptolemaic rulers-that probably have not been displayed together for two millennia...
...know about Cleopatra comes from later Roman writers," including Plutarch, says Higgs, "and it's nearly all negative." That "prudish and snobbish" Romans would see Egypt's queen as a barbarian and a seductress is unsurprising, he adds, given that "she had taken away from them both Julius Caesar and Mark Antony." Still, says Higgs, even Cleopatra's critics acknowledged that she had some admirable qualities. Apart from her beauty, she is said to have been a humorous and charming conversationalist. Intelligent and savvy, she was a skilled diplomat who spoke several languages-and was clearly loved by Caesar...
...Images of Cleopatra's great loves and political allies, Caesar and Antony, are included in the exhibition, but perhaps more interesting than any sculpted head is a joke in stone dating from 34 B.C. Inscribed in Greek on a basalt statue base found at Alexandria is a reference to "Antony, the Great, lover without peer." The text, says Higgs, contains a pun relating to the "Association of Inimitable Livers," which Plu- tarch wrote was a group established by the high-living Antony and Cleopatra in cosmopolitan Alexandria. Antony the inimitable liver became Antony the inimitable lover, both in the brothels...
...inimitable living and dramatic demise made Egypt's exotic queen an icon-to many, the first female superstar. For several hundred years from the time of Caesar, Cleopatra and all things Egyptian intrigued even those Romans who demonized her, influencing style, customs and culture. By the early Renaissance in Europe, with its revival of interest in classical traditions, Cleopatra again became a subject of art, literature and fashion. Her luxurious banquet for Antony, his death, her grief at his tomb and her own death all are represented in paintings and sketches in the exhibition, as well as on a variety...