Was Cleopatra Black?

I know she wasn't. But I wonder if anyone in the a2k sphere still believes this guff
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Her blood line was 100 percent Greek in fact she was the first and the last in her ruling line to even speak Egyptian.

And for why people believe nonsense your guess is a good as mine.

Hear, hear Thomas. Well said.

My point is simply this-who knows really? Who knows who slipped in and out of who's tent, palace, cave, whatever? On continents rich with people of all colors, one can only hazard a guess at best.
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Nonsense blood lines was a matter of life and death for them.

And would your own sister be unkind enough to cheat on you<grin>.

I disagree with this, but if it makes you happy, Thomas. I suppose it is true to you.

You post-modernist bastard!

Actually, although she certainly had Egyptian blood, considering Egyptians to have been "black" is a doubtful proposition. However, Cleopatra, and all of the Ptolemids were Macedonian and Egyptian by descent (except for the dynastic founder, Ptolemy Soter), not Greek. This is, i suspect, a distinction which does not rise above the horizon of Bill's understanding.

Cleopatra was a common name among the Macedonians. Probably the most famous Cleopatras of the ancient world before Cleopatra VII (which is to whom Bill refers) were the daughter of Philip II of Macedon and Olympias, meaning she was the younger sister of Alexander III, a.k.a. Alexander the Great; and Philip's second wife, Cleopatra. Without going into details, a disastrous attempt to marry Philip's daughter Cleopatra to his first wife's nephew ended with the suicide of Philip's second wife Cleopatra.

It is incredibly dull-witted to refer to the Ptolemids as "100 per cent Greek." The two closest friends of Alexander III when he was a boy were Nearchus and Ptolemy. Ptolemy married an Egyptian woman at the very beginning of his reign as King in Egypt, so not only were the Ptolemids not "100 per cent Greek," they weren't 100 per cent Macedonian, either.

You need to educate yourself, Bill, before you shoot your mouth off.

Hypothetically speaking... let's say I have a time machine. I want to determine the "truth" of the matter.

When I am talking to Cleopatra... how would I determine whether she is black or not. If I asked her (translating the question of course) would she understand the question... was there even a term for "black" (as a racial distinction) that mapped to our (rather vague) concept of blackness?

I could check if she had rhythm.

Are we talking about really dark skin... or would a medium olive complexion count?

I think this silly discussion has no truth... it is, after all, a discussion about modern western stereotypes and prejudices.

Specific prejudices don't carry across cultures.

Hypothetically speaking, I would decide the matter pragmatically by inviting her into my time machine, bringing her back to 21st century America, and polling people on the street whether they would identify her as black or not. I grant you that race doesn't lend itself to a rigorous definition. But we tend to know it when we see it, and see it in pretty much the same way.


True. And I have no problem with your argument. I'm not arguing that Cleopatra was white. I'm arguing against the assertion that she was a sistah. Your argument only weakens that assertion even more.

My argument is that the whole question is ridiculous (maybe we are in agreement?).

On the other hand, I bet she would look out of place in one of those tea bag meetings.

My take is that in the past people cared about a lot of other stuff more than they cared about race. Your family, your nation or clan, your religion mattered, race not so much.

we are blinded by our modern hyper sensitivity to race, not caring about race much does not compute for us.

Creepiest crapola I ever saw on the internet, reality is not what's TRUEn and it's what makes some colored flunky HAPPY???

To hell with it we're really a 3rd world country if anyone inthye U S of A believes that ****

the nutty idea that truth is personal only and also relative started its march on the destruction of civilization 40 years ago.....where the hell have YOU been??

another one without abny contact with REALITY, this is scary,

except for colored folks who else believes the TRUTH is whatever makes you happy????

Cleo in HBO's "Rome:"

We agree the question is ridiculous. We disagree in that you think the question has no meaningful answer; I think it does, and that it's "probably no". Cleopatra most likely looked Mediterranean, like modern Greeks, Macedonians, and Africans North of the Sahara do. In modern English usage, we classify all these people as White.

As for those tea bag meetings, she probably wouldn't make it there in time because she would look too much like a terrorist to US border security.

That's not TV, it's HBO. They say so themselves!

considering that she did not live in modern times, that is irrelevant.

You folks who insist on judging the ancients upon modern sensibilities and definitions are a trip.

I have been thinking this. You might as well ask if Julius Caesar was a "liberal", or if Moses was a "birther". It sure shines a light on certain people's preoccupations.

The Ptolemaic dynasty, where Cleopatra's ancestry lies, was as inbred as the
European royals were. It would have been impossible for anyone other than
a Ptolemy descendent to be on the throne of Egypt.

History is history and no Hollywood movie, despite what Spike Lee believes
and has been picked up by others.

Anyone who's ever read the history of the Ptolemaic dynasty will understand.

It never occurred to me, hawkeye, that you would require any folks to be on a trip.

Is it really so hard to grasp that a proposition can be false for more reason than one? The proposition that Cleopatra was black is wrong for two reasons: 1) Its premise makes no sense; 2) even if one accepts its premises, the answer would still be "no", or at least, "probably no".