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Mythological Figures: Cleopatra (5E)
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<blockquote data-quote="Jay Verkuilen" data-source="post: 7769424" data-attributes="member: 6873517"><p>Yeah, that picture makes her look rather Northern European or at least Italian. As was the case with a lot of pictures from the Renaissance and immediate period after, which took some pretty major liberties, sometimes showing historical figures like Alexander or Saint George in armor from the High Middle Ages. </p><p></p><p>One more thing need to bear in mind is that women in antiquity are often referred to as "great beauties" by period authors who would not actually know what they looked like. The same applied to Hypatia of Alexandria four hundred years later, along with many other historical women. "Beauty" either could have a much broader meaning or there may be a general assumption "well she's important enough for me to write about so she <em>must</em> be a knockout, too...." Your guess is as good as anyone else's but I bet it's some from Column A and some from Column B. </p><p></p><p>Unfortunately, like many historical figures <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleopatra" target="_blank">Cleopatra</a> often a canvas onto which later eras have projected their anxieties and aspirations. It's not entirely clear what she looked like but claims like "oh she was Nubian" or the like are just factually incorrect as far as we know. She was of Macedonian ancestry--- so think Balkans, although even that's tricky because that whole area has been pretty <em>heavily</em> mixed in the intervening two millennia. The Ptolemaic dynasty had worked pretty hard to keep to themselves genetically distinct (aka inbred) and had stayed pretty distinct from their Egyptian subjects culturally. As I recall, Cleopatra was the first to learn the language. In any event, high Charisma totally fits her. I could make a case for Cleopatra having a 20 given that not one but two men threw away empires for her! In 5E, Charisma isn't really the character's appearance anyway, but the force of their personality.</p><p></p><p>The link has a picture which might be reasonably accurate, portraying her with fairly pale skin---not unusual given the propensity for the wealthy to avoid the sun---red hair, and a fairly prominent nose. This is the picture from Wikipedia (and hence public domain) that is believed to be contemporary of her:</p><p></p><p>[ATTACH]104123[/ATTACH]</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Jay Verkuilen, post: 7769424, member: 6873517"] Yeah, that picture makes her look rather Northern European or at least Italian. As was the case with a lot of pictures from the Renaissance and immediate period after, which took some pretty major liberties, sometimes showing historical figures like Alexander or Saint George in armor from the High Middle Ages. One more thing need to bear in mind is that women in antiquity are often referred to as "great beauties" by period authors who would not actually know what they looked like. The same applied to Hypatia of Alexandria four hundred years later, along with many other historical women. "Beauty" either could have a much broader meaning or there may be a general assumption "well she's important enough for me to write about so she [I]must[/I] be a knockout, too...." Your guess is as good as anyone else's but I bet it's some from Column A and some from Column B. Unfortunately, like many historical figures [URL="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleopatra"]Cleopatra[/URL] often a canvas onto which later eras have projected their anxieties and aspirations. It's not entirely clear what she looked like but claims like "oh she was Nubian" or the like are just factually incorrect as far as we know. She was of Macedonian ancestry--- so think Balkans, although even that's tricky because that whole area has been pretty [I]heavily[/I] mixed in the intervening two millennia. The Ptolemaic dynasty had worked pretty hard to keep to themselves genetically distinct (aka inbred) and had stayed pretty distinct from their Egyptian subjects culturally. As I recall, Cleopatra was the first to learn the language. In any event, high Charisma totally fits her. I could make a case for Cleopatra having a 20 given that not one but two men threw away empires for her! In 5E, Charisma isn't really the character's appearance anyway, but the force of their personality. The link has a picture which might be reasonably accurate, portraying her with fairly pale skin---not unusual given the propensity for the wealthy to avoid the sun---red hair, and a fairly prominent nose. This is the picture from Wikipedia (and hence public domain) that is believed to be contemporary of her: [ATTACH=CONFIG]104123[/ATTACH] [/QUOTE]
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