Posted on 02/14/2007 10:45:05 AM PST by dead
The image of Cleopatra on the silver denarius of dated to 32BC, being displayed t Newcastle
University, Newcastle, England. Wednesday Feb. 14, 2007. So maybe Mark Antony loved
Cleopatra for her mind. That is the conclusion drawn by academics at the University of Newcastle
from a Roman denarius which depicts the celebrated queen of Egypt as a sharp-nosed, thin-
lipped woman with a protruding chin. In short, a fair match for the hook-nosed, thick-necked Mark
Antony on the obverse. (AP Photo/Scott Heppell)
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I may be wrong, but I don't imagine soldiers are pinning up this . . . |
Possibly, or could be that they reworked the headshot to make her look like the Roman image of her.
these hips are big hips
they need space to
move around in.
they don't fit into little
pretty places. these hips
are free hips.
they don't like to be held back.
these hips have never been enslaved,
they go where they want to go
they do what they want to do.
these hips are mighty hips.
these hips are magic hips.
I have known them
to put a spell on a man and
spin him like a top!
Lucille Clifton (quoted in chapter 23)
And big hooters. Maybe she had big hooters.
Did they have the ability to accurately portray her?
But she had a cute asp.
Only upon dart boards.
Awh, man...that's going to give me nightmares...
Even with Bush's Tax Cuts I can't scrape two Cleopatras togehter. ;-)
"...I tend to believe that each generation gets progressively more attractive."
Man, I think the opposite. Some of the famous Anciant Greek art certainly showed women as very beautiful in a timeless way. Some of the waistlines were slender.
The Maja Desnuda by Goya in 1797 sure beats Paris Hilton and Jessica Simpson.
They are downrange I bet...
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Used to be? Most black and Latino guys prefer a gal with a little junk in the trunk. Even among us white guys, Kate Moss is hardly the feminine ideal. We like the squeezable bits.
But you're right that corpulent, zaftig or Reubenesque women used to be the ideal -- just as men with an abundant spare tire were once idealized. Being soft and squishy around the middle was a signal of wealth and privilege, of someone who could afford abundant rich foods and who didn't have to make a living in physical labor.
I wouldn't read too much into this coin. Portraits of royals are routinely tweaked to make them more flattering -- by the standards of the day, which could make her look uglier by today's standards. And depending on the political agenda in play, she might have been tweaked to make her look stronger and more resolute, as opposed to more frail and feminine.
Frailty and delicate features are traditionally appealing to guys -- we want to be the protector. It's hard-wired. But what we look for in a mate isn't necessarily what we want in a queen.
And big hooters. Maybe she had big hooters.
As I said on the other thread, she had some "HUGE... tracts of land"... /grin
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