Cleopatra's Beauty

Cleopatra’s fame as a beautiful seductive mistress was entirely made by Octavian (Augustus) as a way of explaining how this foreign queen managed to seduce two of Rome’s most powerful men. While being described as a beauty, she was best known for her intelligence and charm. Even Roman authors tend to not actually refer to Cleopatra as beautiful. Plutarch even says she is not as beautiful as Mark Antony’s Wife Octavia. What Roman authors do tend to say about Cleopatra is that she is power hungry, sexually promiscuous, and foreign to Rome.