garshil:

destroymales:

terpsikeraunos:

queenotrera:

History wants so badly for Cleopatra to be beautiful. Like they can’t conceive of Rome being intimidated by anything less

because being a linguist, fleet commander, and powerful ruler doesn’t matter, only her looks

Her Arab contemporaries raved about her being very interested and knowledgeable in the sciences.

She completely reformed the system in Alexandria, and Egypt at large; making it much more of a functional powerhouse. 

She did what 300 years of her ancestors couldn’t: Managed to get the support of both the Greek AND Egyptian subjects she ruled.

There is a sculpture that has been identified as her, through comparisons to coins minted under her rule, that proves beyond a doubt that she wasn’t particularly beautiful.

It isn’t that people just happen to believe it by mistake. Rome was fucking terrified of her and painted her as a vapid, scheming, beautiful, sex obsessed queen to discredit her to their people. She was a threat, and that was how they handled it. The unfortunate thing is that that is the most surviving record of her. A smear campaign against one of the smartest, most powerful women in human history. 

A lot of the sources talk about how she did all of this through her charisma and charm. She knew how to work people. She knew how to get what she wanted. And she did not hesitate to do what would get her ahead.