Head of Ptolemy XII Auletes
Unknown · c. 80 BC, or second half of the 1st century BC
A middle aged man with soft, fleshy cheeks looks slightly upward, his hair a mass of loose curls held by a narrow band, the diadem of a Hellenistic king. The features, the small mouth, the rounded chin and the slightly troubled expression, match the coins of Ptolemy XII, nicknamed Auletes, the flute player, who reigned in the first century BC and was the father of Cleopatra VII. The back of the skull was finished in stucco, a common economy in Egypt where marble had to be shipped from Greece, and the nostrils have been repaired.
Auletes was twice driven out of Alexandria and twice restored, the second time by Roman troops, at the price of enormous debts to Roman bankers that would shape the fate of his daughter. Scholars disagree whether the head was carved about 80 BC, at the start of his reign, or after his death, when Cleopatra honoured his memory. It came to the Louvre from Egypt as a bequest in 1944. Beside the firm face of Ptolemy I nearby, it shows how far the dynasty had travelled in two and a half centuries.
Did You Know? Auletes means the flute player, a nickname the Alexandrians gave a king they thought better at music and parties than at ruling.
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