Cleopatra: A Life by Stacy Schiff Little, Brown, 368 pp., $29.99 Mary Beard Mary Beard is Professor of Classics at the University of Cambridge. The Roman Senate deprived Antony of his prospective consulate for the following year, and it then declared war against Cleopatra. Join thousands of others and start your morning with our Fact Of The Day newsletter. But aside from that, they were also deeply fond of each other. Cleopatras reign would have been a tough act to follow, and as it happened, no one did. The reputation Cleopatra acquired as a brazen beauty and irresistible temptress isnt just a modern-day misconceptionaccounts from ancient Roman history depict Cleopatra using her feminine charms to bewitch and influence powerful men of the ancient world. Cleopatra was determined to keep her throne and, if possible, to restore the glories of the first Ptolemies and recover as much as possible of their dominions, which had included southern Syria and Palestine. Cleopatra by John William Waterhouse, 1888. When John converted to Christianity at age 23, he decided to live with the monks in the mountains on the outskirts of Antioch. Cleopatra and Antonys relationship had its political advantages. But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! Her famous end is perhaps well enough served, with some further eyewitness testimony (however biased or unreliable it may be, and all from her enemys side). When you say Cleopatra in modern times, theres only one Queen of the Nile most people think of, but Cleopatra was actually the seventh woman in the Ptolemaic dynasty to bear that name. Thanks for your time! Her mother died under mysterious circumstances. They had another son they named Ptolemy Philadelphus. I should prefer to praise you, he insisted, as being self-restrained enough to keep silentthe highest praise you can accord a mass meeting is to say that it listens well. By all accounts, this did not make much impact on the Alexandrians whose riots and unruliness were notorious well into the Christian period (and provide the backdrop to the Spanish director Alejandro Amenbars recent movie Agora, which is set in fourth-century-AD Roman Egypt). They were buried together, as both of them had wished, and with them was buried the Roman Republic. According to ancient sources, they spent the winter of 41-40 B.C. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Other. Her multilingual tongue meant that she could speak to generals and rulers of other countries without an interpreter, which would have given her an upper hand. Ancient embalmers likely placed the tongue-shaped, gold foil amulet in the deceased's mouth to ensure they could speak in the afterlife. Fearing Arsinoe was plotting to take over the throne herself, Cleopatra had Arsinoe assassinated on the steps of a temple in Rome. As a custom amongst royalty at the time was to intermarry in order to consolidate power and money within families, her parents were likely siblings or close cousinsa disturbing custom that Cleopatra herself would become subject to. Her first sibling-husband, Ptolemy XIII, ran her out of Egypt after she tried to take sole possession of the throne, and the pair later faced off in a civil war. Want to tell us to write facts on a topic? The Alexandrians themselves were a good match for their city. A royal name in ancient Egypt that's never quite made it to the modern world, though nickname Cleo is widely used. Even without a turbulent queen, Egypt was always liable to be trouble. (She was known to conceal a poison in one of her hair combs. He refused Cleopatra, and to add insult to injury, henamed his grand-nephew Octavianwho ruled under the name Augustusas his successor instead. Cleopatra wasnt about to give up her throne that easily, so after a coup installed her brother as ruler, she drummed up mercenaries, formed an army, and fought against her brothers army at Pelusium. Cleopatra was born in 39 BC to father Pharaoh Ptolemy XII. Or, see all newsletter options here. The library is supposed to have been organized by Demetrius of Phaleron (a suburb of Athens), who was himself a pupil of Aristotle. Antony and Cleopatra (1883) by Lawrence Alma-Tadema depicting Antonys meeting with Cleopatra in 41 BC. After her death, the history of Egypts great dynasties fell away, and in 30 BC, the country disappeared under the sandal of Rome, becoming a mere province of the great Roman Empire. Just months after her father died and she took the throne, 18-year-old Cleopatra made it clear that she had no intention of sharing power with her younger brother (Ptolemy XIII). What nicknames did Cleopatra have? Cleopatrasmeeting Mark Antony was truly dramatic. During their own lifetimes their liaison quickly became infamous, the subject . The Great Pyramids at Giza were constructed between 2550 to 2490 BC. She may have been dubbed Queen of the Nile, but Cleopatra wasnt Egyptian by birth. Cleopatra was never one to be casual about anything. Cleopatra was actually the seventh woman in the Ptolemaic dynasty to bear the name. Cleopatra often used elaborate costumes and dramatic entrances to reinforce her elite status and win over potential allies. Cleopatra and Antony famously took their own lives in 30 B.C., after Octavians forces pursued them to Alexandria. Coins from back in the day bearing her likeness show a woman with a sharp, jutting chin, a strong pointed nose, and a prominent forehead. Evidence shows that the first decree in which Ptolemys name precedes Cleopatras was in October of 50 bce. But there was more to Cleopatra than kohl eyeliner, milk and honey baths, and henna tats. This means that Cleopatra lived closer to the time of the Moon landing than she did to the construction of the pyramids. Cleopatra fancied herself the reincarnation of the Egyptian goddess Isis. A couple centuries after cleopatra. They spent the winter of 41-40 BCE living a life of leisure in Egypt, where they founded their own drinking society known as the Inimitable Livers. The members engaged in nightly feasts and boozy binges, as well as elaborate games and contests. After he ordered the execution of Pompey, one of Julius Caesars Roman political enemies, in front of Pompeys own wife and children, Caesar, then ruler of Rome, was absolutely enraged. Each of the floats required hundreds of men to pull them along, partly because of the ingenious, mechanicaland presumably very heavydisplays that they carried. Cleopatra, now married to her brother Ptolemy XIV, was restored to her throne. Or sheer fantasy? FACT CHECK: We strive for accuracy and fairness. Many of Cleopatras ancestors partnered with cousins or siblings, and its likely that her own parents were brother and sister. Her relationship with Antony had a political component as well: Cleopatra needed him to protect her crown (he did so by killing her sister, Arsinoe, a rival to the throne). While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. Please submit feedback to contribute@factinate.com. Her wit and intelligence were often downplayed or overshadowed entirely by her sexiness in accounts written by her Roman critics. Some believe she pricked herself with a pin dipped into a lethal ointment. Hollywood has made no less than four worshipful big-screen movies and Stacy Schiffs biography, Cleopatra: A Life, made The New York Times Best Seller list not too long ago not to mention the number of women who don kohl eyes and trinkets each year to attend Halloween bashes as the Egyptian queen. Many portrayals of Cleopatra depict the queen as a frivolous woman who dished out money like a drunken sailor particularly when it came to beauty rituals. Vast, rich, fertile, and unstable, it offered a potential power base for rival claimants to the throne. Some writers consider her to be the inventor of the alembic, a distillation apparatus. She ruled with her brother-husband, Ptolemy XIV, and then with her son Caesarion. Native Tongue Cleopatra was the first Ptolemaic ruler who learned to speak and write in Egyptian. The Queen of the Nile has been portrayed on the silver screen by the likes of Claudette Colbert and Sophia Loren, but she was most famously played by Elizabeth Taylor in the 1963 sword-and-sandal epic Cleopatra. The film was plagued by production problems and script issues, and its budget eventually soared from $2 million to $44 millionincluding some $200,000 just to cover the cost of Taylors costumes. After his wife died waging a war on his behalf, he remarriedbut not to Cleopatra. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Warren William, as Julius Caesar, and Claudette Colbert in Cleopatra, 1934. back to Egypt, where she was co-regent with her younger brother/husband, Ptolemy XIV. His marriage to Octavia now an irrelevance, he returned to the east and reunited with Cleopatra. She was 39 and had been a queen for 22 years and Antonys partner for 11. With this, Cleopatra knew what she had to do, and began to form her devious plan. All dolled up to resemble the goddess Aphrodite, the queen sat beneath a gilded canopy, while attendants dressed as cupids fanned her. To view it, confirm your age. Did Caesar really give Cleopatra the nickname golden mouth for her oral sex skills? Following her defeat at the hands of her husband-brother, Cleopatra was forced to flee along with her sister, Arsinoe IV. He had no idea what was coming next. Antony, who equated himself with the god Dionysus, was captivated. Even today, no one knows exactly where the tomb that houses the bodies of Cleopatra and Mark Antony is. When we do, we depend on our loyal, helpful readers to point out how we can do better. Antonys rival Octavian used propaganda to portray him as a traitor under the sway of a scheming seductress, and in 32 B.C., the Roman Senate declared war on Cleopatra. Celebrating creativity and promoting a positive culture by spotlighting the best sides of humanityfrom the lighthearted and fun to the thought-provoking and enlightening. Actually, fraught might be an understatementit was downright brutal. Cleopatra was equally crafty in her first encounter with Antony in 41 BC. Of course, she wasnt one to share, and less than two months after the death of Caesar, Ptolemy XIV was dead as well. Octavian told her hed keep her alive, but that was all he said. She came to represent, as did no other woman of antiquity, the prototype of the romantic femme fatale. As we mentioned earlier, while in Egypt, Cleopatra had fancied herself the reincarnation of the Greek goddess Isis. This included worshipping traditional Egyptian gods rather than those of the Greek religion Cleopatra was never one to be casual about anything, and she took this practice to extreme lengths. You can share the . 5 What kind of poison did Cleopatra use to kill herself? When the two met, sparks flew, and they quickly became lovers. . In 40 bce Cleopatra gave birth to twins, whom she named Alexander Helios and Cleopatra Selene. she didnt want to be paraded around as a prisoner. Although Cleopatra was born in Egypt, she's actually of Macedonian Greek descent. 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