Cleopatra: A Biography (Women in Antiquity)

267 Pages·2010·3.47 MB·English

by  Duane W. Roller

C l e o pat r a
WOMEN IN ANTIQUITY
Series Editors: Ronnie Ancona and Sarah B. Pomeroy
Th is book series provides compact and accessible introductions to the life and
historical times of women from the ancient world. Approaching ancient history
and culture broadly, the series selects fi gures from the earliest of times to late
antiquity.
Cleopatra
A Biography
Duane W. Roller
C L E O P A T R A
A B I O G R A P H Y
Duane W. Roller
2010
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Roller, Duane W.
Cleopatra : a biography / Duane W. Roller.
p. cm. — (Women in antiquity)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
isbn 978-0-19-536553-5
1. Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt, d. 30 b.c.
2. Queens—Egypt—Biography.
3. Egypt—Kings and rulers—Biography.
4. Egypt—History—332–30 b.c. I. Title.
dt92.7.r65 2010
932′.021092—dc22 [B] 2009024061
1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper
Contents
List of Illustrations vii
Preface ix
Introduction 1
1. Cleopatra’s Ancestry and Background 15
2. Th e Ptolemaic Heritage and the Involvement with Rome 29
3. Cleopatra’s Youth and Education 43
4. Becoming Queen (51–47 b.c.) 53
5. Consolidating the Empire (47–40 b.c.) 69
6. Th e Peak Years (40–34 b.c.) 89
7. Th e Operation of the Kingdom 103
8. Scholarship and Culture at the Court of Cleopatra 123
9. Downfall (34–30 b.c.) 129
Epilogue 151
Appendices
1. outline of cleopatra’s life and career 159
2. genealogy of the later ptolemies 163
3. cleopatra’s mother 165
4. was cleopatra a roman citizen? 167
5. some ancient literary descriptions of cleopatra 169
6. the iconography of cleopatra vii 173
Abbreviations 185
Notes 189
Bibliography 219
Index of Passages Cited 231
Index 239
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Illustrations
Maps
1. Cleopatra’s kingdom at its greatest extent, 11
2. Egypt in the time of Cleopatra, 12
3. Alexandria in the time of Cleopatra, 13
Illustrations
1. Marble head of Ptolemy XII, reworked from an earlier portrait, in
the Louvre (Ma 3449), 18
2. Head of Cleopatra VII in Parian marble, in the Staatliche Museen zu
Berlin (1976.10), 54
3. Basalt statue of Cleopatra VII in the Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum,
San Jose, California (RC1586), 55
4. South wall of the Temple of Hathor at Dendera, showing Cleopatra
VII and Caesarion on the right making off erings to the gods, 71
5. View of Forum Julium in Rome, 73
6. View of modern Tarsos, 78
7. View of Antioch from Daphne, 90
8. Th e date orchards of Jericho, 93
9. Aerial view of Actium, looking south, 138
10. Wall painting in Room 71 of the House of M. Fabius Rufus,
Pompeii, showing the statue of Cleopatra VII in the Forum Julium, 174
11. Coins of Cleopatra VII, 180–181
(a) Bronze, probably from Cyprus, showing the queen with the infant Caesarion.
(b) Bronze, from Alexandria.
(c) Bronze, from Berytos.
(d) Silver, with the queen and M. Antonius, unknown provenience, 35–33 b.c.
(e) Silver denarius with the queen and M. Antonius, probably from 32 b.c.
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Preface
History, sir, will tell lies as usual.
—general burgoyne in
george bernard shaw’s The Devil’s Disciple (1897)
She was not a humiliated woman.
—horace, Ode 1.37.32 (20s b.c.)
in 34 b.c. a remarkable ceremony took place in the Gymnasium
of Alexandria. Cleopatra VII, 35 years of age, ruler of Egypt for the past
17 years and a Roman citizen, legally confi rmed that her Ptolemaic
kingdom—established 270 years previously by Ptolemy I, her ancestor
and a companion of Alexander the Great—had been restored to its
former territorial glory. It now extended from Cyrene in North Africa
through Egypt proper, well up the Nile, and around the eastern perim-
eter of the Mediterranean, including Cyprus and parts of Crete, to the
edge of the Aegean. Cleopatra’s four children participated in the cere-
mony, as they were to continue the kingdom and to create a network of
allied monarchies that would extend as far as Armenia and Parthia (the
modern Iranian plateau). Because Cleopatra was allied with the Roman
Republic, these arrangements were by necessity approved by the senior
Roman offi cial in the region, the triumvir Marcus Antonius (Mark
Antony), also present at the ceremony. If all had gone to plan, most of
the eastern Mediterranean would have been under Ptolemaic rule, with
Rome and a few small kingdoms reduced to scattered territories.
Yet in four years Cleopatra was dead and her possessions annexed
by Rome and other monarchs. Th ings had gone badly wrong. Simply
put, her vision of the future was actually one of the past. She was the