That’s suspected to be part of why she was seen as so sexy. Rather than just being some conventionally hot chick, she was incredibly smart, cunning, charismatic, fun, and powerful. Julius Caesar and Mark Antony both seemed to see her as a kindred spirit and found her power and intelligence attractive.

"Mark Antony"

"Kindred spirit"

Caesar was definitely cultured af, and his attraction to Cleopatra was definitely predicated at least in part by the fact that she was an extremely well-educated and cultured woman... but Mark Antony was acknowledged by everyone as... cut from cruder cloth, shall we say? He was famously athletic and handsome, and a partyboy, though.

Caesar-Cleopatra = Power Couple

Antony-Cleopatra = Himbo and Girlboss :p

And I find that too to be quite interesting because Rome of this time was a time and place of fairly strong cultural misogyny when it came to women in power. And yet two of the most powerful men in Rome of the time clearly were more than fine with her being powerful.

Funny enough, cultural chauvinism might be a factor here over gender chauvinism. The Romans didn't mind other peoples being ruled by women, just like they didn't mind other peoples being ruled by monarchs. It was only ROMANS who were NOT, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, to be ruled by women OR monarchs!

At several points in Rome's history, they back or even install female monarchs to rule over non-Romans when the female monarch is the choice best suited to Roman interests.

Of course, Romans also struggled with their own misogyny to some degree - I'm reminded of the jurist Gaius, a fairly conservative legal writer, musing that there was no actual, practical reason for laws restricting women's legal rights in the non-political sphere, as women were manifestly intellectual equals. On the other hand, there are other Roman jurists in the same period who squawked that it was RIGHT and NATURAL for women to have reduced rights because they WEREN'T intellectual equals.

All societies, I suppose, struggle with their own prejudices. It's always interesting when you see it, though.