3
IT IS PROBABLY fair to say that if Sir Thomas North had not published his translation of Plutarch’s Parallel Lives in 1579, which Shakespeare used as the foundation for his 1607 blockbuster, Antony and Cleopatra, then few today would be so familiar with either character and Cleopatra wouldn’t be so misrepresented in popular culture. She is now condemned to being portrayed as the Egyptian vamp-of-the-Nile who used her seductive powers to ensnare the likes of Caesar and Mark Antony, but this frivolous image obscures the reality of a woman who was an intellectual powerhouse driven by a steely resolve. The most fascinating aspect of the complexity that was Cleopatra was between her ears – not her bedsheets.
The foundations of the dynasty to which Cleopatra belonged were laid by Ptolemy Lagides in 323 BC and destined to endure for over three centuries. He had been a sub-commander of Alexander the Great and possibly his half-brother, since Ptolemy’s mother, Arsinoe, was a concubine of Philip II of Macedon. Either way, after Alexander’s death and with his empire in a state of decline, Ptolemy, backed by an army of considerable size, marched into ancient Egypt to establish a Hellenistic realm of which he declared himself king. It was Ptolemy V who instituted ‘Cleopatra’ as a royal title based on the Greek for flame or glory of the father, and some fifteen queens or queens-in-waiting bore the title through the ages. The lady in question here was Cleopatra VII (69 to 30 BC), the daughter of Ptolemy XII whose name was Thea Philopator, again from the Greek and meaning the goddess who loves her father. As it turned out, she was also destined to be the last absolute ruler of ancient Egypt.
After the assassination of Julius Caesar, Cleopatra’s main supporter, she arranged to meet with Mark Antony in Tarsus in Asia Minor and it was here in 41 BC that the pair began plotting their doomed venture to isolate Egypt from Roman control. Within four years they were in control in Egypt, with Mark Antony effectively declaring independence from Rome. Octavian, the future Emperor Augustus, came after them to seal the fate of both with his destruction of the Egyptian fleet at the Battle of Actium (31 BC), just off the coast of Greece. With Octavian in hot pursuit the pair fled but, once back in Egypt, Antony found his land forces had deserted him. When Octavian caught up with them in August of 30 BC, Antony was in hiding while Cleopatra remained in her palace. It is what happened next that has been shrouded in mystery – was she pushed or did she jump?
According to the Roman historian Plutarch, and later Cassius Dio, the fact that Cleopatra remained stubbornly alive and locked in her mausoleum presented Octavian with a quandary. There were pros and cons to killing her – but her blood could not be seen to be on Octavian’s hands. One way or another, a note was delivered to Mark Antony by one of Cleopatra’s servants telling him that she had committed suicide and that he might as well do likewise. It is unclear whether this note was sent openly by Octavian, by Octavian pretending to be Cleopatra or by Cleopatra herself. If the latter were true, then this would square with the accounts of preliminary negotiations between Octavian and Cleopatra, where she was promised (falsely) that there might be a way for her to remain on the Egyptian throne, but under much tighter control from Rome. For that to be discussed, however, she must first secure the death of Mark Antony. Either way, it worked; Mark Antony fell on his sword.
Thanks again to Plutarch and Dio, we know that Octavian had toyed with the idea of dragging Cleopatra through the streets of Rome in chains for his parade of triumph. He remembered all too well, however, that when Julius Caesar had done this to Cleopatra’s half-sister, Arsinoe, it had backfired, as her fragile dignity had aroused such pity among the mob that their bays of disapproval drowned out the cheers. Aware of the value of popular support, Octavian was not about to risk such a PR gaffe. But what if Cleopatra thought that was to be her fate? Surely she would then ‘do the decent thing’ and kill herself. Either by accident or design, news of such a fate certainly reached Cleopatra’s ears, at which point she seems to have decided that death was the preferable option.
THE LEGACY
Cleopatra had four children, the oldest being Caesarion, who was allegedly fathered by Julius Caesar, though he always denied paternity. Eleven days after her death, Octavian had Caesarion killed just in case he really was the son of Julius and thus a contender for the throne in Rome. Cleopatra also had two sons with Mark Antony – Alexander and Ptolemy Philadelphus – and a girl called Cleopatra Selene.
After Cleopatra’s death, these children were taken back to Rome by Octavian and sent to live with his sister, Octavia, who was also the abandoned wife of Mark Antony. After this, the two boys disappeared from historical records, with the strong suggestion that Selene, keeping up the old family traditions, had them bumped off to clear the stage for herself.
In 26 BC Octavian, by then Emperor Augustus, gave Selene a massive dowry to marry King Juba of Numidia – modern Algeria – on the condition that they pledged allegiance to Rome and took up the joint rule of the Roman province of Mauritania which, under the canny hand of Selene, became the Kingdom of Morocco.
The notion that such oblivion was bestowed on her and her two handmaidens by an asp – the Egyptian cobra – is wholly untenable. She summoned a servant to carry a note to Octavian informing him of her decision and, with his apartments but a few minutes distant, he immediately ran over to her to find her in a serene, deathly state. The Egyptian cobra is rightly feared as its neurotoxic/necrotoxic venom induces serious swelling, bruising and blistering at the site of the bite before the onset of nausea, vomiting, diarrhoea, convulsions and flaccid paralysis. Death is neither pleasant nor swift, and victims can take anything from two to eight hours to die, writhing in agony rather than lying in serene repose, as Cleopatra was reported to have done. If she killed herself, it was likely by other means: every ruler of Cleopatra’s day kept handy a swift-acting poison to take when the game was played out, and Cleopatra was no exception. She was known to have carried such a potion in a bodkin she kept woven into her wig. So how did the silly snake idea get started?
Happy to risk parading Cleopatra in effigy through Rome, Octavian made a statue of her reclining on a couch with an Egyptian cobra wrapped about her right biceps and its head across her breast. This was not meant to indicate the manner of her death, but rather was a symbol of the dynasty that Octavian had brought to heel – people just got the wrong idea. That said, once the idea of her death by cobra had taken root, Octavian and others did all they could to keep that bandwagon rolling. Cleopatra was enthusiastically painted as a vile witch who used black magic sex to enslave men and as a ‘lascivious fury’ who was ‘the shame of Egypt’. The snake tale suited the portrait and was further embellished, with the creature having been smuggled into her apartments in a basket of figs. This was really just a bit of smutty innuendo. The sexual symbolism of the snake needs no explanation but in Rome the fig was an equally potent sexual symbol in its own right. The Roman equivalent of the two-fingered salute was the fico, or the fig, as made by the extension of the thumb between the first two fingers of the clenched fist. (Those who proclaim they ‘could not give two figs’ about something are waxing cruder than they think.)
So much for the death of Antony and Cleopatra – but where are the bodies buried? Octavian is recorded as having granted their wish to be entombed together but his records annoyingly neglect to say exactly where that tomb was located. Perhaps this was a deliberate omission on his part, not wanting their tomb to become a rallying point for some kind of revolution. If they were buried anywhere near the splendour that was her palace at Alexandria, the tomb is lost for ever as that now lies beneath the sea. Dr Zahi Hawass, a prominent if controversial Egyptian archaeologist who was until 2001 the Minister of Antiquities, is concentrating his search 30 miles inland at the ruins of the Temple of Osiris at Taposiris Magna. Here he has not only found a number of coins bearing the image of Cleopatra and others of Mark Antony, but all the mummies in the hidden chambers surrounding the temple have been interred with their heads turned to the Temple of Osiris, indicating that there is someone important therein.