Introduction
1Weigall (1914, revised 1924): v.
2The most influential queen consorts were Meritneith, Khentkawes, Ankhnesmerypepi II, Tetisheri, Ahhotep, Ahmose-Nefertari, Tiy and Nefertiti; the three queens regnant were Sobeknofru, Hatshepsut and Tawosret. Egyptologists are currently divided about a possible fourth queen regnant who may have ruled Egypt at the end of the Amarna period. The Old Kingdom Queen Nitocris, described by Manetho as ‘the most noble and lovely woman of her time, fair-skinned, with red cheeks’, is likely to have been a legendary figure. Although the 19th Dynasty chronology known as the Turin Canon does allocate ‘Neitaqerti’ a brief reign of two years one month and one day, it is likely that ‘Neitaqerti’ is a misrecorded fragment of a male king’s name.
3Manetho, the acknowledged father of Egyptian history, compiled his list of Egypt’s kings during the reign of Ptolemy II. He divided the kings into dynasties – lines of connected rulers – but stopped at Nectanebo, the last king of the 30th Dynasty. His list was later expanded to include Egypt’s Persian rulers as the 31st Dynasty, but Manetho’s own age remained excluded.
4The Egyptian falcon-headed god Horus was the son of the Goddess Isis and her murdered husband, the God Osiris. He represented the living king of Egypt, while Osiris represented all of Egypt’s dead kings. Outside Egypt Horus was equated with the Greek god Eros, who in later Greek mythology was recognised as the son of Aphrodite.
5Not everyone agrees. Carlo Maria Franzero, whose 1957 book The Life and Times of Cleopatra, The Philosophical Library, New York, inspired Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s 1963 film Cleopatra, said of the ruined temple of Venus Genetrix, ‘The site of those three beautiful columns seemed to give me the key to the mystery of Cleopatra’: 9–10.
6See, for example, Hughes-Hallett (1990), a work that has inspired others to investigate the phenomenon of the modern Cleopatra.
7The Guardian, having published ‘Antony and Cleopatra: Coin Find Changes the Faces of History’ on 14 February, was forced to make a correction two days later, agreeing that Cleopatra was not in fact descended from Alexander the Great, and that the battle of Actium was not actually fought off the coast of Egypt. Other less scrupulous newspapers left their errors uncorrected, their readers misinformed. And so the Cleopatra myth grows.
Chapter 1: Princess of Egypt
1E. R. Bevan (1927), The House of Ptolemy, Methuen Publishing, London: 359.
2Antiochos VIII, Antiochos IX and Antiochos X.
3Strabo, The Geography, 17:1:11. Translated by H. L. Jones.
4Lucian, Slander, A Warning, 16. Dionysiac cross–dressing is discussed in detail in E. Csapo (1997), ‘Riding the Phallus for Dionysus: Iconology, Ritual, and Gender-Role Deconstruction, Phoenix, 51: 3–4: 253–95. Lucian describes his King Ptolemy as one ‘who was nicknamed Dionysos’: experts are undecided whether he means Ptolemy IV or, more likely in my opinion, Ptolemy XII.
5Greek law itself was a complicated and diverse mass of rules, with the cities of Naukratis, Alexandria and Ptolemais Hormou applying their own laws, and Greeks living outside these cities being subject to a version of the laws of their home city-states.
6Herodotus, The Histories, 2: 35–6. Translated by A. de Sélincourt.
7Quoted in Ray (2002): 138.
8The exact number of nomes varied from time to time, and nomes were occasionally combined and created as economic and political circumstances dictated.
9Figures suggested in Rowlandson (1998): 5.
10B. P. Grenfell and A. S. Hunt, eds (1901), The Amherst Papyri, H. Frowde, London, 2: 12.2.
11Theocritos, Odes 15: 44–71. After A. S. F. Gow (1952), Theocritus, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge: ‘Nowadays no ruffian slips up to you in the street Egyptian-fashion and does you a mischief – the tricks those packets of rascality used to play, one as bad as another with their nasty tricks, a cursed lot.’
12Papyrus Enteuxis, 26. Translation adapted from A. S. Hunt and C. C. Edgar (1963), Select Papyri, Heinemann, London, 2: 233: 268.
13Theocritos translation after R. Hunter (2003), Theocritus: Ecomium of Ptolemy Philadelphus, Text and Translation with Introduction and Commentary, University of California Press, Berkeley: 88–91.
14The misguided equation of ancient Egypt with slavery, promoted by the biblical story of the Exodus, has made discussion of Cleopatra’s racial origins into an even more sensitive area. For an introduction to Afrocentric history, see M. Bernal (1987, 1991), Black Athena: The Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civilization, Free Association Books, London. For a counter argument, see M. R. Lefkowitz and G. M. Rogers eds (1996), Black Athena Revisited, University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill. See also M. Hamer (1996), ‘Queen of Denial’, Transition, 72: 80–92.
15Cicero, Letters to Atticus, 15: 15. Translated by E. O. Winstedt (1918), Heinemann, London and New York; Appian, Roman History, 5: 1. Both are quoted in Hughes-Hallett (1990): 72.
16Plutarch, Life of Antony, 26. Translated by B. Perrin.
17Technically not a triumvirate, this period is nevertheless often described as the ‘first triumvirate’ to distinguish it from the second, genuine triumvirate of Octavian, Lepidus and Antony, which was established following Caesar’s assassination.
18An English translation of H. Petermann’s Latin translation of an Armenian translation of the original Greek text of Eusebius’s Chronicle is available on www.attalus.org/translate/seusebius1.html.
19Plutarch, Life of Antony, 3: 2. Translated by B. Perrin.
20As just one other king, the long-lived 18th Dynasty Amenhotep III, married a daughter, the true nature of these father–daughter unions must be open to question. Only one royal daughter, Bint-Anath, consort to Ramesses II, produced a child, and the paternity of Bint-Anath’s daughter is never stated. The lack of children suggests that these marriages may have been unconsummated unions designed to ensure that the father had a consort, and the daughter achieved the highest female status in the land.
21Auletes either built or completed existing projects at Athribis (the enlargement of the sanctuary of Triphis), Akhmim (a ritual building of unknown purpose), Dendera (the replacement of the 30th Dynasty Hathor temple), Koptos (the gateway to the Geb temple), Karnak (the gateway to the Ptah temple and various small buildings), Deir el-Medina (the enclosure wall for the Hathor temple), Edfu (the expansion of the Horus temple), Philae (the decoration of the first gateway of the Isis temple and the transfer of the kiosk of Nectanebo I), Biggeh (work at the Osiris temple) and, perhaps, Kom Ombo (the enclosure wall and a new gateway), and the walls of his temples were covered in his own propaganda.
Chapter 2: Queen of Egypt
1Boccaccio, On the Lives of Famous Women, Johann Zainer, Ulm, 1473. Translated by Guido A. Guarino, quoted in Flamarion (1997): 128–31: 128.
2Stela 13. H. W. Fairman (1934), in R. Mond and O. H. Myers (1934), The Bucheum, 2 vols, Egypt Exploration Fund, London, 2. See also W. W. Tarn (1936), ‘The Bucheum Stelae: A Note’, Journal of Roman Studies, 26: 2: 187–9. The stela is currently housed in the Carlsberg Glyptotek, Copenhagen.
3There is even an outside possibility that the anonymous king might be Auletes. This is discussed further in R. S. Bianchi, ‘Images of Cleopatra Reconsidered’, and S.-A. Ashton, ‘Cleopatra: Goddess, Ruler or Regent?’, both papers in Walker and Ashton, eds (2003): 13–23 and 25–30.
4Dates calculated from the information given on Tayimhotep’s funerary stela. In Rome, Augustan law would soon fix the legal minimum age for marriage at twelve for girls and fourteen for boys.
5Hatshepsut’s images are discussed further in J. A. Tyldesley (1996), Hatshepsut: The Female Pharaoh, Viking Penguin, London. Hatshepsut excepted, images of queens dressed as kings are extremely rare, although both Berenice II and Berenice IV have been associated with male images.
6‘ …she based the external trappings of her monarchy on the precedents provided by famous ancient Egyptian female monarchs, Hatshepsut among them, as was clearly demonstrated in her representations and the accompanying inscriptions at the temple of Hathor at Dendera’: R. S. Bianchi, ‘Cleopatra VII’, in D. B. Redford (2001), The Oxford Encyclopaedia of Ancient Egypt, Oxford University Press, Oxford and New York: 273–4.
7This papyrus was discovered as part of a cartonnage mummy case (cartonnage being made from layers of linen or papyrus held together by plaster or glue and moulded to shape). It is now housed in Berlin Museum (C Ord Ptol 73). A. S. Hunt and C. C. Edgar (1934), Select Papyri II, Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass., and Heinemann, London: 209.
8W. Schubart and D. Schäfer (1933), Spätptolemäische Papyri aus amtlichen Büros des Herakleopolites, Weidmann, Berlin: 1,834.
9The visit to Thebes appears in many histories, but is not supported by contemporary documentation and so must be open to a certain amount of doubt. Strabo and Appian record the visit to ‘Syria’ without further definition.
10Plutarch, Life of Pompey, 77–80. Translated by B. Perrin; Cassius Dio, Roman History, 42: 4. Translated by E. Cary.
11Alternatively, the Ptolemy of circle nine may be the inhospitable captain of Jericho who killed his guest Simon Maccabaeus.
12Plutarch, Life of Caesar, 49. Translated by B. Perrin.
13Suetonius, Divine Julius, 45. Translated by R. Graves.
14Ibid., 52.
15Cicero, quoted ibid., 49.
16Ibid., 50–51.
17The other Cleopatra heads are housed in the Antikensammlung, Berlin, the Louvre, Paris (a Hellenistic-style Cleopatra probably carved by an Egyptian craftsman) and the Cherchell Museum, Algeria. For further details of Cleopatra’s images, see the various papers in Walker and Ashton, eds (2003).
18The coin images – the official face of Cleopatra – can be compared with images on clay seal impressions found among a diverse collection of sealings from the Ptolemaic temple of Horus at Edfu and today housed in the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto. The sealings were originally attached to papyrus documents that vanished long ago. One sealing shows a queen – Cleopatra VII? – wearing a vulture headdress, solar crown and a long, full wig. Another replicates the Cypriot Cleopatra/Isis coin but Caesarion, somewhat bizarrely, has vanished from the scene.
19For a discussion on approaches to Cleopatra’s beauty, see E. Shohat ‘Disorientating Cleopatra: A Modern Trope of Identity’, in Walker and Ashton, eds (2003): 127–38.
20Grant (1972): 66.
21The Berlin head is just one among many representations of Nefertiti. Few of the others display the same stark symmetrical beauty. See J. A. Tyldesley (2005, revised edition), Nefertiti: Egypt’s Sun Queen, Penguin Books, London.
22Plutarch, Life of Antony, 27. Translated by B. Perrin.
23Cassius Dio, Roman History, 42: 34. Translated by E. Cary.
24It is possible to catch a glimpse of ‘real’ people going about their daily business, but to do this we have to look principally at the graffiti and doodles left by dynastic Egypt’s unofficial artists. During the Ptolemaic age the situation changed slightly as the elite started to commission art that was less idealised and, to modern eyes, more realistic. This change is not apparent in royal art. See R. S. Bianchi (1988), ‘The Pharaonic Art of Ptolemaic Egypt’, in Cleopatra’s Egypt: Age of the Ptolemies, Brooklyn Museum, New York: 55–80.
25The extent to which priestly decrees outlined how pose, material, scale and placement should be used in these propaganda pieces is discussed further in Stanwick (2002): 6–14.
26As her fertility was important to the queen, it was necessary that she be depicted as eternally young. When we do find an image of an older queen it therefore comes as something of a shock. The 18th Dynasty Queen Tiy and her daughter-in-law Nefertiti lived in an age of artistic experimentation, and both were depicted as older women. In contrast, it was always considered acceptable to depict men at all stages of life.
27The significance of the triple uraeus is discussed, with further references, in R. Bianchi, ‘Images of Cleopatra VII Reconsidered’, in Walker and Ashton, eds, (2003): 13–23. See also S.-A Ashton (2005), ‘The Use of the Double and Triple Uraeus in Royal Iconography’, in A. Cooke and F. Simpson eds, Current Research in Egyptology II, BAR International Series 1,380, Oxford: 1–9.
28A title which, given the uncertainty over Cleopatra’s marital status, might more appropriately apply to Arsinoë II.
Chapter 3: Alexandria-next-to-Egypt
1R. T. Kelly (1912), Egypt, Adam and Charles Black, London: 5. Kelly is describing his first visit to Egypt in 1883.
2Plutarch, Life of Alexander: 26. Translated by B. Perrin.
3Historian Michel Chauveau (2000: 57) has suggested that ‘Rhakotis’ may have been not a proper town name but simply the misunderstood Greek form of the Egyptian Rá-qed or ‘building site’.
4Arrian, Anabasis of Alexander. Translated by E. J. Chinnock 1893. Arrian lived c. AD 86–146.
5Pseudo-Callisthenes, The Alexander Romance. This is at best an unreliable source, but in the matter of the two architects there is little reason to doubt its accuracy.
6Suetonius, Divine Augustus, 18. Translated by R. Graves.
7Cassius Dio, Roman History, 51: 61.5. Translated by E. Cary.
8Historians have looked in Egypt (Alexandria, Memphis and Siwa), in Macedonia and beyond. See, for example, A. M. Chugg (2004), The Lost Tomb of Alexander the Great, Richmond, London, where the author argues that the body of St Mark, currently housed in the St Mark’s Basilica, Venice, is actually the body of Alexander the Great.
9Flavius Josephus, Against Apion, 2: 53–6. A version of the drunken elephant story is told in 3 Maccabees 5–6, where the king involved is Ptolemy IV.
10Discussed in more detail in Fraser (1972): 93–131.
11Strabo, The Geography, 17: 8. Translated by H. L. Jones.
12H. A. R. Gibb (1929), Ibn Battuta: Travels in Asia and Africa 1325–1354, George Routledge and Sons, London: 47–50.
13Athenaeus, Deipnosophists, 12: 184. Translated by C. D. Yonge.
14Ibid., 11: 67. Athenaeus wrote his Deipnosophists (Banquet of the Learned) during the third century AD. The text, essentially a lengthy conversation, ranges over a variety of topics dear to the author’s heart, including sex (both ‘natural’ and ‘unnatural’), luxury, food and drink, and is packed full of quotations from earlier authorities.
15Ibid., 13: 37.
16Ibid., 7: 2–3.
17Ibid., 5: 25–36.
18This can be compared to the Ptolemaic town of Kerkeosiris, which, with a population of approximately 1,500 in the second century BC, had three Egyptian shrines to Thoth, two to Isis, two to Taweret and one each to Petesouchos, Orsenouphis, Harpsenesis, Anubis, Bast and Amen, plus Greek shrines to Zeus and the twin gods Castor and Pollux. Figures given in Bowman (1990): 171.
19Pliny the Elder, Natural History, 34: 42. Translated by H. Rackham. This, together with other uses of magnetism in temples, is discussed in Empereur (1998): 92–5.
20Pliny the Elder, Natural History, 36: 14. Translated by H. Rackham.
21Philo, The Embassy to Gaius, 149–51. Translated by F. H. Coulson (1962), Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass., and Heinemann, London.
Chapter 4: Cleopatra and Julius Caesar
1G. H. Macurdy (1932), Hellenistic Queens: Study of Womanpower in Macedonia, Seleucid Syria, and Ptolemaic Egypt, Johns Hopkins University Studies in Archaeology 14, Johns Hopkins Press, Baltimore: 189.
2Lucan (Marcus Annaeus Lucanus), Pharsalia (The Civil War), 10: 11off. Translated by E. Ridley (1896), The Pharsalia of Lucan, Longmans, Green, and Co., London.
3Suetonius, Divine Julius, 35. Translated by R. Graves.
4Recorded in Caesar’s The Alexandrian Wars, which was most probably written by Aulus Hirtius.
5Ibid., 23. Translated by W. A. McDevitte and W. S. Bohn.
6Cassius Dio, Roman History, 42: 44. Translated by E. Cary.
7Suetonius, Divine Julius, 52. Translated by R. Graves.
8Appian, The Civil Wars, 3: 2: 90.
9Athenaeus, Deipnosophists, 5: 37–40. See T. W. Hillard (2002), ‘The Nile Cruise of Cleopatra and Caesar’, Cambridge Quarterly, 52: 2: 549–54.
10Lucan, Pharsalia (The Civil War), 10: 192–331. Translated by J. D. Duff (1928), Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass., and Heinemann, London. Lucan did not finish his Book 10, and so never described the actual voyage.
11Plutarch, Life of Caesar, 49: 10; Life of Antony, 54: 6.
12Cassius Dio, Roman History, 47: 31.5; Suetonius, Divine Julius, 52: 2–3.
13This piece is discussed in J. P. V. D. Balsdon’s 1960 review of H. Volkmann’s Cleopatra, in Classical Review, 10: 1: 68–71. There are difficulties in translating the stela date, as both the Roman and Egyptian calendars were operating incorrectly at the time and it is possible to argue with some validity that this date should be read as September rather than June.
14D. Devauchelle (2001), ‘La stèle du Louvre IM8 (Sérapéum de Memphis) et la prétendue date de naisance de Césarion’, Enchoria, 27: 41: 56 (27).
15See D. Todman (2007), ‘Childbirth in Ancient Rome: From Traditional Folklore to Obstetrics’, Australian and New Zealand Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, 47: 82–5.
16Cassius Dio, Roman History, 43: 27.3. Translated by E. Cary.
17Cicero, Letters to Atticus, 15: 15.2. Translated by L. P. Wilkinson, quoted and discussed in Grant (1972): 96.
18See E. Gruen (2003), ‘Cleopatra in Rome: Facts and Fantasies’, in D. Braund and C. Gill eds, Myth, History and Culture in Republican Rome, University of Exeter Press, Exeter, 256–74.
19Cicero, Letters to Atticus, 14: 8.1.
20Ibid., 14: 20.2.
21See, for example, Chauveau (2002): 32–3; J. Carcopino, Passion et politique chez les Césars (1958) :37. Carcopino has suggested that Mark Antony may have been Caesarion’s father. Just one further piece of evidence can be cited in support of a late birth date for Caesarion. We have already noted the bronze Cypriot coin which shows Cleopatra suckling the infant Caesarion (page 61). Unfortunately, there is no firm date for this coin. If we imagine that it is a literal representation of Caesarion and his mother, we might also imagine that it was produced soon after Caesarion’s birth, at a time when Cleopatra ruled Cyprus. The first firm evidence for Cleopatra ruling Cyprus dates to 43. But, as Caesar is reported to have gifted Cyprus to Egypt in 48, it could equally well be argued that the coin was struck as early as 47, following Cleopatra’s union with Ptolemy XIV.
22Speculation about this ‘second child’ abounds. See, for example, R. Ellis (2006), Cleopatra to Christ, Edfu Books, Cheshire, which identifies the phantom daughter of Cleopatra and Caesar as the grandmother of Jesus.
Chapter 5: The New Isis
1Mond and Myers advertise for assistance in the Geographical Journal (1936), 87: 1: 95.
2Flavius Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, 15: 89. Translated by W. Whiston (1895, updated and republished 2001).
3Tyldesley (2006).
4The palette, recovered from Hierakonpolis, is today displayed in Cairo Museum.
5Herodotus, The Histories, 2: 41. Translated by A. de Sélincourt (1954).
6See R. E. Witt (1971): 20: ‘Isis was all things to all men. That was what made her so formidable a foe to Jesus and oecumenical Paul.’ Other serious rivals were Mithras and, to a lesser extent, Dionysos.
7Plutarch’s version, adapted to fit with traditional Egyptian accounts of the same myth, has been used as the basis of this retelling which is adapted from J. A. Tyldesley (2004), Tales from Ancient Egypt, Rutherford Press, Bolton: 16–25.
8Cleopatra’s Egyptian titulary is discussed in J. Tait (2003), ‘Cleopatra by Name’, in Walker and Ashton, eds (2003): 3–7.
9A. B. Edwards (1877), A Thousand Miles up the Nile, George Routledge and Sons, London. The quotation is taken from page 122 of the 1888 edition.
10The history of this curious piece has been reconstructed in A. Rammant-Peeters (1998), ‘L’Affaire Cléopâtre: ou comment la photographie servit de véhicule à l’imagination du XIX siècle’, in W. Clarysse, A. Schoors and H. Willems, eds, Egyptian Religion the Last Thousand Years: Studies Dedicated to the memory of Jan Quaegebeur, Peeters, Leuven: 1,449–57.
11Lucius Apuleius, Metamorphoses, or, The Golden Ass, 11: 47. Translation adapted from W. Adlington (1566; 1639 published edition), ‘Imprinted at London in Fleatstreate at the sign of the Oliphante, by Henry Wykes’. Compare with the translation given by R. Graves (1950, revised edition 1990), The Golden Ass, Penguin Books, Harmondsworth.
12Plutarch, Isis and Osiris, 5: 382. Translated by F. C. Babbitt (1936), Moralia V, Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass., and Heinemann, London.
13Diodorus Siculus, Library of History, I: 83.8. Translated by C. H. Oldfather.
14The cult temples, situated in the cities, may be contrasted with the mortuary temples which were built in the desert as part of the king’s own funerary provision.
15Translated by Ashton (2003): 105.
16Translated by J. Quagebeur (1988), ‘Cleopatra VII and the Cults of the Ptolemaic Queens’, in Cleopatra’s Egypt, Age of the Ptolemies, Brooklyn Museum, New York: 41–54: 43.
17Translation adapted from J. D. Ray (1976), The Archive of Hor, Egypt Exploration Society, London: 11–12 (text 1.11–18).
Chapter 6: Cleopatra and Mark Antony
1Grant (1972): 84.
2Seneca, Quaestiones Naturales, 4a2.16.
3Flavius Josephus, Against Apion, 2: 60. Translated by W. Whiston.
4Offering formulae were magical lists of food and other goods that the deceased might require in the tomb. The lists acted as an aide mémoire to the living who brought food to the tomb and the reading out of the list would cause the goods to magically and invisibly appear for the spirit of the deceased.
5J. P. Lesley (1868), ‘A Classified Catalogue of Antiquities Collected by Mr Harris, and Now in his Museum in Alexandria, in Notes on Some of the Historical and Mythological Features of the D’Orbiney Papyri’, Proceedings of the American Philological Society 10: 80: 543–82: 565.
6M. Lichtheim (1990), Ancient Egyptian Literature 3: The Late Period, University of California Press, Berkeley and London: 63.
7Plutarch, Life of Antony, 9: 3–4. Translated by B. Perrin.
8See P. Walcot (1998), ‘Plutarch on Sex’, Greece and Rome, 45: 2: 166–87.
9Discussed in more detail in K. Welch (1995), ‘Antony, Fulvia, and the Ghost of Clodius in 47 BC’, Greece and Rome, 42: 2: 182–201. Fulvia had also previously been married to Gaius Scribonius Curio.
10Plutarch, Life of Antony, 10: 3. Translated by B. Perrin.
11Appian, The Civil Wars, 4: 5.8. They may well have met in Alexandria, but it seems unlikely that Antony would have fallen so violently in love.
12Plutarch, Life of Antony, 25: 3–4. Translated by B. Perrin.
13Cassius Dio, Roman History, 48: 27.5. Translated by E. Cary.
14Quoting Socrates the Rhodian: Athenaeus, Deipnosophists, 4: 29.
15Plutarch, Life of Antony, 28. Translated by B. Perrin.
16Pliny the Elder, Natural History, 19.59: 119–21.
17For a fascinating account of experiments with pearls and sour wine, see B. L. Ullman (1957), ‘Cleopatra’s Pearls’, Classical Journal, 52: 5: 193–201. ‘When I boiled a pearl for thirty-three minutes the vinegar boiled off when I was reading a detective story. I can still smell that vinegar. The pearl seemed not to be affected, though I thought it looked a trifle peaked.’ I am grateful to the author for saving me the necessity of sacrificing my own somewhat insignificant pearl earrings in the interest of science.
18Suetonius, Divine Julius, 43.
19Pliny the Elder, Natural History, 21.12. The story of Lollia Paulina is told in 9: 117.
20Discussed in A. Wright (2002), ‘Velleius Paterculus and L. Munatius Plancus’, Classical Philology, 97: 2: 178–84. It is apparent that Velleius is deliberately setting out to blacken Plancus’s name and the accuracy of his story must therefore be questioned.
21Plutarch, Life of Antony, 10: 4. Translated by B. Perrin.
22Athanaeus, Deipnosophists, 11: 85. Translated by C. D. Yonge.
23Plutarch, Life of Antony, 29. Translated by B. Perrin.
24H. Volkmann (1958), translated by C. J. Cadoux, Cleopatra: Politics and Propaganda, Elek Books, London: 72.
25P. van Minden (2000), ‘An Official Act of Cleopatra (with subscription in her own hand)’, Ancient Society, 30: 29–34. The papyrus is today housed in Berlin Museum.
26For further Ptolemaic correspondence, consult Rowlandson (1998).
27Plutarch, Life of Antony, 36. Translated by B. Perrin.
28Ibid., 36. 13. Translated by B. Perrin.
29Cleopatra’s new title, ‘Philopatris’, has sparked huge debate among academics, with some arguing that the ‘homeland’ which Cleopatra loves is either Egypt or Alexandria and others that she is referring to her family’s traditional homeland of Macedonia. See, for example, Bingen (2007): 57–62.
30Plutarch, Life of Antony, 53. 3. Translated by B. Perrin.
31Flavius Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, 15: 97. Translated by W. Whiston.
32Cassius Dio, Roman History, 49: 40: 4. Translated by E. Cary.
33Suetonius, Divine Augustus, 69. Translated by R. Graves.
34See, for example, A. Meadows in Walker and Higgs (2001): 29. R. Holland (2004), Augustus: Godfather of Europe, Sutton Publishing, Stroud: 241, uses ‘fucking’ but omits the vital uxor mea est.
35To take just one of many possible examples, ‘Cleopatra was naturally hoping to persuade him [Antony] to divorce Octavia officially under Roman law’. ibid.: 235.
Chapter 7: Death of a Dream
1W. W. Tarn, writing in the Cambridge Ancient History (1934, 10: defines Cleopatra by her gender and fails to name her.
2Cassius Dio, Roman History, 50: 5. Translated by E. Cary.
3K. Scott (1929), ‘Octavian’s Propaganda and Antony’s De Sua Ebrietate’, Classical Philology, 24: 2: 133–41.
4Plutarch, Life of Antony, 56. Translated by B. Perrin.
5M. Reinhold (1981), ‘The Declaration of War against Cleopatra’, Classical Journal, 77 :2; 97–103.
6The Sibylline Oracles are more correctly known as The Pseudo-Sibylline Oracles. For a full translation, including this quoted extract, see M. S. Terry (1899), The Sibylline Oracles. Translated from the Greek into English Blank Verse, Hunt and Eaton, New York. For more discussion, see J. J. Collins ‘Sibylline Oracles (Second Century BC – Seventh Century AD)’, in J. Charlseworth, ed. (1982),The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, Darton, Longman and Todd, New York, 1: 223–316.
7Cassius Dio, Roman History, 50: 15. Translated by E. Cary.
8Plutarch, Life of Antony, 66–7. Translated by B. Perrin.
9W. W. Tarn (1931), ‘The Battle of Actium’, Journal of Roman Studies, 21: 173–99. See also G. W. Richardson (1937), ‘Actium’, Journal of Roman Studies, 27: 2: 153–64. The assumption is that a quinquereme at Actium would carry a minimum of 420 men, while a trireme would carry 200–300 and a larger ship might carry as many as 600.
10Plutarch, Life of Antony, 71: 4–5. Translated by B. Perrin.
11Ibid., 73: 2.
12Ibid., 75: 3. The story of Antony’s abandonment by his gods inspired Constantine Cavafy’s hauntingly beautiful poem ‘The God Abandons Antony’: see The Poems by C. P. Cavafy (1971), translated by J. Mavrogordato, Hogarth Press, London.
13Suetonius, Life of Domitian, (The Twelve Caesars), 11. Translated by R. Graves.
14Plutarch, Life of Antony, 76. Translated by B. Perrin.
15Whitehorne (1994): 188.
16The theory that Octavian murdered Cleopatra has been around for many years. It was discussed most recently and most publicly in Atlantic Production’s Who Killed Cleopatra? Revealed (broadcast 2004). There can be little doubt that Octavian wanted Cleopatra dead, although the argument that he wished to end the troublesome Ptolemaic line once and for all holds little water when we consider that he spared the lives of three of Cleopatra’s children and allowed Cleopatra’s daughter to marry and have children of her own. However, a murder at this late stage, and in such spectacular style, makes little sense. Octavian had already had plenty of opportunities to kill Cleopatra – when she was barricaded in her mausoleum with Proculeius, for example, and later when she was under his protection in the palace – and, of course, he had no need to hide his actions. Cleopatra was a defeated enemy and as such could openly and justifiably be executed.
17Plutarch, Life of Antony, 84. Translated by B. Perrin.
18Cassius Dio, Roman History, 51. Translated by E. Cary.
19Plutarch, Life of Antony, 86. Translated by B. Perrin.
20Figures given in S. H. el Din (2006), A Guide to the Reptiles and Amphibians of Egypt, American University in Cairo Press, Cairo: 11.
21Plutarch, Life of Alexander, 1: 2. Translated by B. Perrin.
22Ibid., 82.
23Ibid., 83, 84.
24Ibid., 86.
Chapter 8: Cleopatra’s Children
1T. Gautier (1838), Une Nuit de Cléopâtre. Translated by L. Hearn (1882), One of Cleopatra’s Nights and Other Fantastic Romances, B. Worthington, New York.
2Horace (Odesi, 1.37: 25–9), Virgil (The Aeneid, 8: 696–7), Propertius (Elegies, 3. 11: 53–4). Virgil uses more twin-snake imagery when relating the fate of Laocoön and his sons, and again when describing the vision sent to Turnus by Allecto.
3Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra, 5: 2.
4Given modern society’s reluctance to accept that glittering celebrities can die, it is not surprising that several theories have evolved to explain that Cleopatra survived. In the 1920s, for example, A. J. Bethell decided that Cleopatra did not die but was sent by Octavian to be the wife of Phraates IV of Parthia: unpublished work quoted in Hughes-Hallett (1990): 108.
5Not to be confused with the entirely different modern Mauritania on Africa’s Atlantic coast.
6Aristotle was another who believed that the Nile originated in Mauretania. See D. Braund (1984), ‘Anth. Pal. 9.235: Juba II, Cleopatra Selene and the Course of the Niel’, Classical Quarterly, 34: 1: 175–8. Three centuries earlier, Alexander the Great had announced that he had discovered the source of the Nile when he encountered crocodiles in India.
7W. N. Weech (1932), ‘Rambles in Mauretania Caesariensis (continued)’, Greece and Rome: 2: 65–73: 72.
8Crinagoras, 18. After A. S. F. Gow and D. L. Page (1968), The Greek Anthology. The Garland of Philip, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
9Suetonius, Life of Gaius (Caligula) (The Twelve Caesars) 35. 2.
10Pliny the Elder, Natural History, 36: 72. Translated by H. Rackham.
11Cassius Dio, Roman History, 51: 22. Translated by E. Cary.
Chapter 9: History Becomes Legend
1Chorus from ‘Cleopatra had a Jazz Band’, words by J. Morgan and J. Coogan, music by J. Coogan (1917). The sheet music gives ‘has a jazz band’ for the chorus but the title of the piece is ‘had a jazz band’, so I have adjusted the words here.
2Virgil, The Aeneid, 4: 330. Translated by D. West.
3Ibid., 8: 680.
4Propertius, Elegies, 3: 11 and 4: 6. Discussed in more detail in Wyke (2002): 195–243.
5Horace, Epode 9, Ode 1: 37.
6Plutarch, Life of Alexander, 1. Translated by B. Perrin.
7Cassius Dio, Histories, 51: 15. Translated by E. Cary.
8Flavius Josephus, Against Apion, 2: 7.
9O. Abd el-Galil (2000), Tarikh Misr li-Yohana Al-Niqusi, Dar Ain, Cairo.
10Al-Masudi, Muruj: quoted in el-Daly (2005): 133. El-Daly provides a full exploration of the medieval Arab and Islamic historians.
11Plutarch, Life of Antony 26. W. J. Skeat (1875, revised edition 1892), Shakespeare’s Plutarch, Macmillan and Co., London. Skeat uses the republished 1612 version of North. It is not clear which version Shakespeare used: Antony and Cleopatra, 2: 2.
12The development of Cleopatra in popular culture is outlined by Hughes-Hallet (1990), Hamer (1993) and Wyke (2002). All three supply more detailed references.
13Hamer (1993): xv.
14The 1930 edition of the Cambridge Ancient History famously quotes Shakespeare; this was removed from subsequent editions. Samson (1990) gives twenty-five footnotes for the Cleopatra section of her book, over half of them references to Shakespeare. These are by no means the only texts to fall into this trap.
15Including Gianna Terribili Gonzales (1913); Theda Bara (1917), her stage name being an anagram of ‘Arab death’; Claudette Colbert (1934); Vivien Leigh (1945); Elizabeth Taylor (1962). Each of these actresses was, to a greater or lesser extent, required by the studios and the media to live out the role of Cleopatra in her private life. Amanda Barrie, frolicking with Sid James in the discarded Taylor–Burton sets, was a very British Cleopatra in the 1964 camp comedy Carry on Cleo. The recent BBC television series Rome (2005) included a playful yet determined Cleopatra ruling over a decadent court.
16C. M. Franzero (1957), The Life and Times of Cleopatra, The Philosophical Library, New York. This book was subsequently revised and republished, with the original illustrations replaced by stills from the film, as Cleopatra Queen of Egypt (1962), Panther Books, London; this extract is taken from the 1968 edition, page 17. It perhaps goes without saying that there was no ‘old custom’ of deflowering virgins in the Karnak temple.
17Weigall (1914, revised edition 1924): vi.
18Ibid.: 440.
Who was Who
1Samson (1985): 103.
2To ensure consistency, all dates in this section have been taken from J. Baines and J. Malek (1984), Atlas of Ancient Egypt, Phaidon, Oxford.