Cleopatra - mixed? Wait what?

[Subu'atai]

This has been stuck in my head all week, and everyone in RL has mixed uneducated opinions. Anyways, just curious really, since this is probably the most objective board I can think of... tell me, what did Cleopatra look like?

Alot of people think/say she was ethnically "Greek" (erm no, she was Macedonian duh!) mixed with Egyptian. But there was no documented intermixing with native Egyptians in regards to the Ptolemaics... in fact, they were a family of inbreds for ~300 years!
So why do people keep saying that she was half Macedonian / half Egyptian (and most of them keep saying half Greek even, hell no wonder the Macedonians are so p-ssed). Hell even some people condemned Hollywood for casting a white woman as Cleopatra, so they made a new modern movie - with a brown woman as Cleo. Erm... what the?!

Am I missing something?

[Druzhina]

Most modern Macedonians (or people of The Former Yugoslavian Republic Of Macedonian) are Slavic speakers.
Ancient Macedonians were Greek speakers. They weren't accepted as Hellenes by the Hellenes (Ancient Greeks) but we would consider them to be ethnic Greeks. Alexander the Great was accepted as a Hellene by claiming descent from the Kings of Argos.

The Slavic speaking people living in Macedonia call themselves Macedonians (because that's where they live). They are upset with the Greeks because Greece does not want them to call themselves Macedonians or to call their state Macedonia (therefore the name: The Former Yugoslavian Republic Of Macedonian). It is ironic that now the Greeks want to claim the Ancient Macedonians as Greeks but the Ancient Greeks did not.

If I remember correctly, both Cleopatra's mother and paternal grandmother were semitic. She is said to have had a large semitic nose (perhaps not unlike a 'Roman' nose).

Druzhina
Illustrations of Costume & Soldiers

[Subu'atai]

Well, here's the wiki image of her family tree:


The only non-Ptolemiac injection to the family line is via Antiochus III of Syria, even he was Seleucid
Hence I'm wondering where her semitic ancestry comes from

It is ironic that now the Greeks want to claim the Ancient Macedonians as Greeks but the Ancient Greeks did not.

Probably wishing to claim/share the glory of the Macedonian King Alexander lol

[Druzhina]

For a start Cleopatra IV may have been a concubine:
From tyndalehouse
Ptolemy XII, king of Egypt, son of Ptolemy IX by an unnamed mother, possibly a concubine but here identified as Cleopatra IV, born either c. 98 or (preferred here) late 1176, probably in Cyprus.

and tyndalehouse
Cleopatra VII Philopator queen of Egypt, daughter of Ptolemy XII probably by Cleopatra V.
Her mother is not named in any of the classical sources. Her date of birth, in early 69, is several months before Cleopatra V was removed from power at the end of that year. The last mention of her, OGIS 185 = iGPhilae 50, also refers to children (tekna), which indicates that there was more than one child of the royal couple alive at the time.


So the wikipedia chart does not show other possibilities.
I saw a coin of Cleopatra on the English version of French TV today and it did show a big nose.

Druzhina
Illustrations of Costume & Soldiers

[Subu'atai]

This is exactly what I needed, thank you so much for this information! Source looks very legit too!

So it appears the family tree has holes after all, concubines, illegit bastards, guess that makes alot more sense... it has also made me wonder how Ptolemies were even born healthy at all with the degree of their inbreeding, but this link seems to explain it all. Thanks for this!