Cleopatra
(Encyclopaedia Britannica)
queen of Egypt
born 70/69 bc
died August of 30 bc, Alexandria
Egyptian queen, famous in history and drama as the lover of Julius
Caesar and later the wife of Mark Antony. She became queen on the death
of her father, Ptolemy XII, in 51 bc and ruled successively with her two
brothers Ptolemy XIII (51–47) and Ptolemy XIV (47–44) and her son
Ptolemy XV Caesar (44–30). After the Roman armies of Octavian (the
future emperor Augustus) defeated their combined forces, Antony and
Cleopatra committed suicide, and Egypt fell under Roman domination.
Cleopatra actively influenced Roman politics at a crucial period, and
she came to represent, as did no other woman of antiquity, the prototype
of the romantic femme fatale.
Life and reign
Daughter of King Ptolemy XII Auletes, Cleopatra was destined to
become the last queen of the Macedonian dynasty that ruled Egypt between
the death of Alexander the Great in 323 bc and its annexation by Rome in
30 bc. The line had been founded by Alexander’s general Ptolemy, who
became King Ptolemy I Soter of Egypt. Cleopatra was of Macedonian
descent and had little, if any, Egyptian blood, although the Classical
author Plutarch wrote that she alone of her house took the trouble to
learn Egyptian and, for political reasons, styled herself as the new
Isis, a title that distinguished her from the earlier Ptolemaic queen
Cleopatra III, who had also claimed to be the living embodiment of the
goddess Isis. Coin portraits of Cleopatra show a countenance alive
rather than beautiful, with a sensitive mouth, firm chin, liquid eyes,
broad forehead, and prominent nose. When Ptolemy XII died in 51 bc, the
throne passed to his young son, Ptolemy XIII, and daughter, Cleopatra
VII. It is likely, but not proven, that the two married soon after their
father’s death. The 18-year-old Cleopatra, older than her brother by
about eight years, became the dominant ruler. Evidence shows that the
first decree in which Ptolemy’s name precedes Cleopatra’s was in October
of 50 bc. Soon after, Cleopatra was forced to flee Egypt for Syria,
where she raised an army and in 48 bc returned to face her brother at
Pelusium, on Egypt’s eastern border. The murder of the Roman general
Pompey, who had sought refuge from Ptolemy XIII at Pelusium, and the
arrival of Julius Caesar brought temporary peace.
Cleopatra realized that she needed Roman support, or, more
specifically, Caesar’s support, if she was to regain her throne. Each
was determined to use the other. Caesar sought money for repayment of
the debts incurred by Cleopatra’s father, Auletes, as he struggled to
retain his throne. 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. Caesar and Cleopatra became lovers and spent the winter
besieged in Alexandria. Roman reinforcements arrived the following
spring, and Ptolemy XIII fled and drowned in the Nile. Cleopatra, now
married to her brother Ptolemy XIV, was restored to her throne. In June
47 bc she gave birth to Ptolemy Caesar (known to the people of
Alexandria as Caesarion, or “little Caesar”). Whether Caesar was the
father of Caesarion, as his name implies, cannot now be known.
It took Caesar two years to extinguish the last flames of Pompeian
opposition. As soon as he returned to Rome, in 46 bc, he celebrated a
four-day triumph—the ceremonial in honour of a general after his victory
over a foreign enemy—in which Arsinoe, Cleopatra’s younger and hostile
sister, was paraded. Cleopatra paid at least one state visit to Rome,
accompanied by her husband-brother and son. She was accommodated in
Caesar’s private villa beyond the Tiber River and may have been present
to witness the dedication of a golden statue of herself in the temple of
Venus Genetrix, the ancestress of the Julian family to which Caesar
belonged. Cleopatra was in Rome when Caesar was murdered in 44 bc.
Soon after her return to Alexandria, in 44 bc, Cleopatra’s coruler,
Ptolemy XIV, died. Cleopatra now ruled with her infant son, Ptolemy XV
Caesar. When, at the Battle of Philippi in 42 bc, Caesar’s assassins
were routed, Mark Antony became the heir apparent of Caesar’s
authority—or so it seemed, for Caesar’s great-nephew and personal heir,
Octavian, was but a sickly boy. Antony, now controller of Rome’s eastern
territories, sent for Cleopatra so that she might explain her role in
the aftermath of Caesar’s assassination. She set out for Tarsus in Asia
Minor loaded with gifts, having delayed her departure to heighten
Antony’s expectation. She entered the city by sailing up the Cydnus
River in a barge while dressed in the robes of the new Isis. Antony, who
equated himself with the god Dionysus, was captivated. Forgetting his
wife, Fulvia, who in Italy was doing her best to maintain her husband’s
interests against the growing menace of young Octavian, Antony returned
to Alexandria, where he treated Cleopatra not as a “protected” sovereign
but as an independent monarch.
In Alexandria, Cleopatra and Antony formed a society of “inimitable
livers” whose members lived what some historians have interpreted as a
life of debauchery and folly and others have interpreted as lives
dedicated to the cult of the mystical god Dionysus.
In 40 bc Cleopatra gave birth to twins, whom she named Alexander
Helios and Cleopatra Selene. Antony had already left Alexandria to
return to Italy, where he was forced to conclude a temporary settlement
with Octavian. As part of this settlement, he married Octavian’s sister,
Octavia (Fulvia having died). Three years later Antony was convinced
that he and Octavian could never come to terms. His marriage to Octavia
now an irrelevance, he returned to the east and reunited with Cleopatra.
Antony needed Cleopatra’s financial support for his postponed Parthian
campaign; in return, Cleopatra requested the return of much of Egypt’s
eastern empire, including large portions of Syria and Lebanon and even
the rich balsam groves of Jericho.
The Parthian campaign was a costly failure, as was the temporary
conquest of Armenia. Nevertheless, in 34 bc Antony celebrated a
triumphal return to Alexandria. This was followed by a celebration known
as “the Donations of Alexandria.” Crowds flocked to the Gymnasium to see
Cleopatra and Antony seated on golden thrones on a silver platform with
their children sitting on slightly lower thrones beside them. Antony
proclaimed Caesarion to be Caesar’s son—thus relegating Octavian, who
had been adopted by Caesar as his son and heir, to legal bastardy.
Cleopatra was hailed as queen of kings, Caesarion as king of kings.
Alexander Helios was awarded Armenia and the territory beyond the
Euphrates, his infant brother Ptolemy the lands to the west of it. The
boys’ sister, Cleopatra Selene, was to be ruler of Cyrene. It was clear
to Octavian, watching from Rome, that Antony intended his extended
family to rule the civilized world. A propaganda war erupted. Octavian
seized Antony’s will (or what he claimed to be Antony’s will) from the
temple of the Vestal Virgins, to whom it had been entrusted, and
revealed to the Roman people that not only had Antony bestowed Roman
possessions on a foreign woman but intended to be buried beside her in
Egypt. The rumour quickly spread that Antony also intended to transfer
the capital from Rome to Alexandria.
Antony and Cleopatra spent the winter of 32–31 bc in Greece. The
Roman Senate deprived Antony of his prospective consulate for the
following year, and it then declared war against Cleopatra. The naval
Battle of Actium, in which Octavian faced the combined forces of Antony
and Cleopatra on Sept. 2, 31 bc, was a disaster for the Egyptians.
Antony and Cleopatra fled to Egypt, and Cleopatra retired to her
mausoleum as Antony went off to fight his last battle. Receiving the
false news that Cleopatra had died, Antony fell on his sword. In a last
excess of devotion, he had himself carried to Cleopatra’s retreat and
there died, after bidding her to make her peace with Octavian.
Cleopatra buried Antony and then committed suicide. The means of her
death is uncertain, though Classical writers came to believe that she
had killed herself by means of an asp, symbol of divine royalty. She was
39 and had been a queen for 22 years and Antony’s partner for 11. They
were buried together, as both of them had wished, and with them was
buried the Roman Republic.
Cleopatra through the ages
The vast majority of Egypt’s many hundreds of queens, although famed
throughout their own land, were more or less unknown in the outside
world. As the dynastic age ended and the hieroglyphic script was lost,
the queens’ stories were forgotten and their monuments buried under
Egypt’s sands. But Cleopatra had lived in a highly literate age, and her
actions had influenced the formation of the Roman Empire; her story
could not be forgotten. Octavian (the future emperor Augustus) was
determined that Roman history should be recorded in a way that confirmed
his right to rule. To achieve this, he published his own autobiography
and censored Rome’s official records. As Cleopatra had played a key role
in his struggle to power, her story was preserved as an integral part of
his. But it was diminished to just two episodes: her relationships with
Julius Caesar and Mark Antony. Cleopatra, stripped of any political
validity, was to be remembered as an immoral foreign woman who tempted
upright Roman men. As such, she became a useful enemy for Octavian, who
preferred to be remembered for fighting against foreigners rather than
against his fellow Romans.
This official Roman version of a predatory, immoral Cleopatra passed
into Western culture, where it was retold and reinterpreted as the years
passed, until it evolved into a story of a wicked life made good by an
honourable death. Meanwhile, Muslim scholars, writing after the Arab
conquest of Egypt about ad 640, developed their own version of the
queen. Their Cleopatra was first and foremost a scholar and a scientist,
a gifted philosopher and a chemist.
Plutarch’s Parallel Lives, translated from the Greek into French by
Jacques Amyot (1559) and then from the French into English by Sir Thomas
North (1579), served as the inspiration behind Shakespeare’s play Antony
and Cleopatra (1606–07). Shakespeare dropped some of Plutarch’s
disapproval and allowed his queen to become a true heroine. His was by
no means the first revision of Cleopatra, nor was it to be the last, but
his is the Cleopatra that has lingered longest in the public
imagination. From Shakespeare stems a wealth of Cleopatra-themed
art—plays, poetry, paintings, and operas. In the 20th century
Cleopatra’s story was preserved and further developed through film. Many
actresses, including Theda Bara (1917), Claudette Colbert (1934), and
Elizabeth Taylor (1963), have played the queen, typically in expensive,
exotic films that concentrate on the queen’s love life rather than her
politics. Meanwhile, Cleopatra’s seductive beauty—a seductive beauty
that is not supported by the queen’s contemporary portraiture—has been
used to sell a wide range of products, from cosmetics to cigarettes. In
the late 20th century Cleopatra’s racial heritage became a subject of
intense academic debate, with some African American scholars embracing
Cleopatra as a black African heroine.
Joyce Tyldesley
