Cleopatra - Two Thousand Years of Bad Press

This post and book review was contributed by an UrbanMoms member.

What do you know about Cleopatra? Most likely that she was Queen of Egypt,  the mistress of two of the greatest Romans of her time (Julius Caesar and Mark Antony) and that she died by clasping an asp (a snake) to her breast. Probably you also know that she was a great beauty, who used that beauty to seduce and ruin otherwise good but smitten men.  Over the centuries, writers, historians, Poets and others have had a very dim view of Cleopatra. Cecil B. De Mille, the Hollywood magnate, who made the first movie about her, called her "The wickedest woman in history." Enchantress, seductress, strumpet, whore, the list of epitaphs goes on and all applied to her - not surprisingly - by men.

"Two thousand years of bad press," exclaims Stacey Schiff in her new biography of Cleopatra (Cleopatra, A Life, Little Brown, 2010). Ms Schiff has written her book with the purpose not only of presenting a more accurate portrayal of Cleopatra but of rescuing her reputation from the men- Cicero, Plutarch, Shakespeare and George Bernard Shaw among many others - who have misunderstood, disliked or just plain hated the Egyptian Queen.

Who then was this Cleopatra that Ms. Schiff wants us to know better? Indeed, she was Queen of Egypt yet she was not an Egyptian but a Macedonian Greek and probably spoke Greek as her first language. She was a descendant of the royal house of Ptolemy, the first of whose kings was a boyhood companion of Alexander the Great. He was also one of Alexander's more capable generals. After Alexander's death in 323BCE, his empire was divided among his generals. Ptolemy claimed Egypt and established his capital at Alexandria, a city founded by Alexander only a few years earlier. It stood at the confluence of the river Nile and the Mediterranean Sea. By the time Cleopatra came to the throne about 180 years later, Alexandria was, arguably, the greatest city in the world. Ms. Schiff calls it the "Paris of the ancient world." It contained some of the greatest architecture of its time. The Lighthouse in the harbour could be seen miles out to sea and was rated as one the wonders of the world. The Canopic Way, the main thoroughfare which ran for four miles from one end of the city to the other, could accommodate eight chariots riding abreast. The Library of the city was the finest in the world and the centre of the city's intellectual life.

Cleopatra was born in 69 BCE and came to the throne when she was eighteen as her brother's consort and wife (it was the custom). She ruled with this brother and another brother after the first had been killed and then with her son for almost twenty-two years. There is no question, however, that during most of her reign Cleopatra was totally in charge. To prepare her for the throne, her Father provided her with a thorough education in history, philosophy, mathematics and rhetoric. She was a brilliant student who learned to speak nine languages. To the Greeks and Romans, rhetoric - reasoning and eloquence in speech - was the hallmark of a civilized person and in this she also excelled.

But Cleopatra was born into troubled times. The trouble came from across the Mediterranean Sea. The roman Republic was beginning to fall apart and a succession of military leaders was fighting over its remains. These roman civil wars began in 49BCE and did not end until almost 20 years later in 30BCE. Egypt was involved in this struggle, if only peripherally, because it was important to Rome. It supplied the city and her provinces with grain and a variety of other natural products. Moreover, Egypt was very wealthy and this wealth was naturally coveted by a roman state that was in continual penury because of its on-going civil wars.

During those 20 years, Cleopatra struggled to keep her country independent and on good terms with whoever was in power either in Rome or in the Eastern Mediterranean. Firstly, it was Julius Caesar with whom she had a son (Caesar was in his fifties, she was only eighteen) and, secondly, Mark Antony and three more children. However, in the end, Cleopatra found herself on the losing side. She and Antony retreated to Alexandra in September of 30BCE to await developments after losing the battle of Actium to Octavian, Antony's rival for power. Antony knew full well his fate - imprisonment and execution - and took his own life. Cleopatra followed a week later. She was only thirty nine and she died not by clasping a snake to her breast but by taking a fast acting poison which she had probably prepared herself.

Ms. Schiff's disagreement is with how this brave, resourceful and brilliant woman has been portrayed both in the ancient and modern literature. She never uses the word "sexist' but it lingers over her narrative. Classical writers could not understand how a mere woman could forge alliances with men like Caesar and Antony and have managed these alliances so successfully. They lived in a world where woman were not seen and not heard. Any influence a woman gained over a man - and especially over men such as Caesar and Antony - was a result of seduction and female wiles and probably because the men were weak. Neither did they understand that in Egypt strong woman were not a rarity and to see a woman on the throne either as a consort or ruling by herself was not unusual. Moreover, as Ms Schiff points out, Egyptian woman enjoyed many more rights than they did in other societies of the time. They owned land, ran businesses and could sue in their own right.

This is good read and I strongly recommend it. That said I do have two small criticisms. Firstly, though Ms. Schiff demonstrates a mastery of the language, she is too masterful on occasion. I found myself having to re-read some sentences that were just too filled with wordage to grasp on my first attempt. Secondly, little is really known about Cleopatra so Ms. Schiff has to resort to surmising from scant evidence to determine what really happened. Sometimes this surmising goes on a little too long when the situation has already been made clear earlier. These are minor issues, however, and I strongly recommend this book. I picked up my copy at Chapters Indigo at $33.99.

Reviewed by: SDC