Cleopatra's Nose, Blaise Pascal

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Illustration

by Branko van Oppen
published on 20 January 2020

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Cleopatra's Nose, Blaise Pascal — “The nose of Cleopatra: if it had been shorter, the whole face of the earth would have changed” ~ Blaise Pascal, *Pensées* 162.

On the basis of portrait coins struck by Cleopatra, philosophers such as Blaise Pascal (1623-1662 CE) assumed that the queen’s prominent nose was an element of the physical attraction with which she seduced Julius Caesar and Marc Antony – and thus changed the course of world history.

Silver hemiobol struck in Patrae, Achaea (Greece) with the diademed portrait of Queen Cleopatra (Heritage 3015, 7-12 September 2011 CE, lot 23278; photo courtesy of David S. Michaels, Heritage Auctions); posthumous portrait of Blaise Pascal by François Quesnel II (1637-1699 CE; oil painting, ca. 1662 CE coll. Musée d’Art Roger-Quilliot). The latter is believed to be in the public domain.

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About the Author

Branko van Oppen

Branko van Oppen is an exhibition curator and independent scholar specialized in Ptolemaic queenship as well as Hellenistic art and ideology.

License

Uploaded by Branko van Oppen, published on 20 January 2020 under the following license: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike. This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon this content non-commercially, as long as they credit the author and license their new creations under the identical terms. Please note that content linked from this page may have different licensing terms.

Cite This Work

APA Style

Oppen, B. V. (2020, January 20). Cleopatra's Nose, Blaise Pascal. Ancient History Encyclopedia. Retrieved from https://www.ancient.eu/image/11728/

Chicago Style

Oppen, Branko V. "Cleopatra's Nose, Blaise Pascal." Ancient History Encyclopedia. Last modified January 20, 2020. https://www.ancient.eu/image/11728/.

MLA Style

Oppen, Branko V. "Cleopatra's Nose, Blaise Pascal." Ancient History Encyclopedia. Ancient History Encyclopedia, 20 Jan 2020. Web. 04 Apr 2020.

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