Cleopatra (6 page)

We know that Cleopatra was a direct descendant of Ptolemy I, and we know that Ptolemy I was a Macedonian. Whether he was of ‘pure’ Macedonian descent we will never know – can anyone, anywhere in the world, swear that they are of pure descent, with all the compatibility of race, nationality and religious belief that this emotive term involves? Was he then a ‘Greek’? The kingdom of Macedon stretched across northern Greece, an anomaly topping a land of oligarchic and democratic city-states. The Macedonian people spoke a distinctive, almost unintelligible dialect, they drank their wine undiluted with water, worshipped their own gods and buried their dead under tumuli as well as cremating them. But Macedon was by no means
culturally isolated and by the time of Ptolemy’s birth there were many true Greeks living within her borders. The Macedonian elite certainly regarded themselves as true Greeks, or Hellenes, and after a certain amount of argument they had, during the reign of Alexander I (
c
. 495–450), been permitted to compete in the Olympic Games – a sure and certain measure of ‘Greekness’. But not everyone was convinced. Macedon’s non-elite regarded non-Macedonians with the habitual suspicion reserved for all foreigners, while the true Greeks tended to regard all the Macedonians at best as uncouth quasi-foreigners.

Ptolemy and his descendants belong to the Hellenistic Age, the three centuries between Alexander’s accession to the Macedonian throne in 336 and the death of Cleopatra in 30, when an evolved form of classical Greek (or Hellenic) culture spread throughout the eastern Mediterranean world. Culturally, then, the Ptolemies were Hellenistic Macedonians who had, by the time of Cleopatra’s birth, lived in Egypt for long enough to have acquired at least some Egyptian habits. But what of Cleopatra’s racial heritage? Her mother is, of course, unknown, although we suspect that she was Cleopatra V, who in turn we suspect of being closely related to Cleopatra’s father, Auletes. If this assumption is wrong, if Cleopatra’s mother was not a Ptolemy, then she could have been an elite woman from anywhere in the Hellenistic world, although it seems most likely that she was either Egyptian or Greek. Auletes is known to have had a close working relationship with Pasherenptah III, high priest of Ptah at Memphis, and it is not impossible that this relationship was sealed with a diplomatic marriage. An Egyptian mother might, perhaps, explain Cleopatra’s reported proficiency in the Egyptian language.

But again, to assume that an Egyptian mother would be ‘pure’ Egyptian is perhaps an assumption too far. For almost 3,000 years tradition, theology and ideology had taught the Egyptian elite that they lived at the heart of the controlled, civilised world. Other, non-
Egyptian lands were places of unrestrained chaos occupied by ill-favoured peoples destined to be denied eternal life. It followed that those who lived and died by Egyptian custom within Egypt were Egyptian: the most blessed people in the world. ‘Egyptianness’, like ‘Greekness’, was very much a matter of culture. Colour – both skin tone and racial heritage – was an irrelevance. The well-known Greek tale of the xenophobic King Busiris, who habitually slaughtered any foreigner who set foot in Egypt until Heracles put an end to his cruelty, was quite simply a myth. Egypt had always been open to immigrants. Libyans, Nubians, Asiatics and others had settled beside the Nile and there had never been any problem with individual Egyptians marrying people who looked or spoke differently. As a result, the Egyptian people showed a diverse range of racial characteristics, with redheaded, light-skinned Egyptians living alongside curly haired, darker-skinned neighbours. Problems only came when too many people attempted to settle at once, bringing their own cultures with them. This willingness to accept, and the willingness of foreigners to assimilate, make it difficult to estimate just how many ‘Egyptians’ were actually of non-Egyptian origin.

If we step back one generation, our problems grow worse. Cleopatra’s paternal grandfather was Ptolemy IX, but her paternal grandmother, who may have been her sole grandmother, is again unknown. She could have been a Ptolemy but, as her children are regarded as illegitimate, she is more likely to have been an outsider from Egypt, Syria, Greece, Rome, Nubia or somewhere else entirely. Her maternal grandmother and grandfather are equally unknown. Moving back in time again, we get a further dilution of the ‘pure’ Macedonian blood with the introduction of Berenice I, Berenice II and the part-Persian Cleopatra I into the incestuous family tree. All we can conclude from this survey of just two generations is that, in the crudest of statistical terms, Cleopatra was somewhere between 25 per cent and 100 per cent of Macedonian extraction, and that she possibly had some Egyptian
genes. And, although there are blond Macedonians (Ptolemy II was apparently fair-haired) and red-headed Egyptians (the mummy of Ramesses II the Great confirms his fiery hair), this suggests that Cleopatra is most likely to have had dark hair and an olive or light brown complexion.

Roman historians did not subscribe to the theory that childhood experiences help to shape the adult and so rarely showed any interest in their subjects’ early years. In consequence, we know very little about Cleopatra’s infancy and childhood in (we assume) Alexandria. But we do know that no one expected Ptolemaic princesses to confine themselves to the palace or to weave wool. Raised to stand alongside their brothers as queens, the Ptolemaic women participated both covertly and overtly in state affairs, with Arsinoë II, Cleopatras I, II and III, and Berenices III and IV all proving themselves effective, and occasionally ruthless, queens. They were women of substance, owning land, property, barges and bank accounts. Many controlled sizeable estates that they leased out to generate additional income. The extent to which these highly professional businesswomen were formally educated is unclear. To be effective they had not only to be able to read, write and do arithmetic, but to understand the laws, history and traditions of Greece, Egypt and the wider Mediterranean world. Cleopatra VII must have had one or more private tutors borrowed, we might reasonably assume, from the Museion, home to the world-famous scholars of Alexandria: we know the names of Ptolemy XIII’s tutor-guardian (Theodotos of Chios) and of Arsinoë’s tutor-guardian (the eunuch Ganymede), but Cleopatra’s tutor, like most of her personal advisers, goes unrecorded. Cicero, who met and took an instant dislike to Cleopatra, confirms that she had academic leanings – ‘Her promises were all things to do with learning, and not derogatory to my dignity …’ – while Appian tells us that she tried to interest Mark Antony in education and learned discussion.
¹⁵
Plutarch was impressed by her unusual (some might say unbelievable) command of the
barbarian tongues, although he omits Latin from his list, possibly because he assumes that every well-educated person will be able to speak it:

This tradition of Cleopatra the intellectual would persist, and long after her death medieval Arab historians would revere Cleopatra as ‘the virtuous scholar’: a philosopher, alchemist, mathematician and physician with a special interest in gynaecology. However, we have no confirmation of any scientific training, and the only evidence for her interest in medicine is the fact that she supported the temple of Hathor at Dendera, a temple associated with female health and healing. It is perhaps more telling that Cleopatra herself employed the distinguished scholar Nikolaos of Damascus to educate her twins Alexander Helios and Cleopatra Selene. Clearly, Cleopatra regarded education as an important matter for both boys and girls.

Auletes understood that Egypt’s future was bound up with the future of Rome. Unfortunately, he was incapable of persuading his people – the kingmakers of Alexandria – to accept the situation. With the benefit of hindsight, it all seems terribly obvious. Egypt was a fertile and ill-defended land ripe for the taking, while Rome was a greedy, ever-expanding military nation with a constant need for grain and a legal claim, however dubious, over Egypt. Now, as Auletes’s reign progressed, Egypt’s position was deteriorating from bad to worse.
In 65 the Roman censor Marcus Licinius Crassus proposed the annexation of Egypt; two years later the tribune Publius Servillius Rullus proposed an agrarian reform that would give Romans a right to Egyptian land. Both proposals were defeated, but Egypt’s days of independence were clearly numbered. Only by increasing his cooperation with Rome did Auletes have any hope of keeping his kingdom. And so, very much against the wishes of the Alexandrians, he bent over backwards to cooperate. In 63 the influential Roman general Gnaeus Pompeius (Pompey the Great) graciously accepted a golden crown, the lavish gift of Auletes and Egypt. Later that same year Egyptian soldiers were sent to fight alongside Pompey’s troops in Palestine. Meanwhile, back in Rome, senators of all political factions received copious bribes; bribes which Auletes, impoverished after years of bad management and overspending, had borrowed from Roman moneylenders, and which he could only hope to repay by raising the taxes that were already causing his people much suffering.

In 60 Pompey, Crassus and Gaius Julius Caesar united to form the ‘first triumvirate’.
¹⁷
Essentially, the three now ruled Rome. Seizing his moment, Auletes offered Pompey and Caesar 6,000 silver talents, an almost unimaginable sum, the equivalent of half of Egypt’s entire annual revenue, in exchange for recognition as Egypt’s true king. They accepted and Auletes, having borrowed the money from the Roman moneylender Gaius Rabirius Postumus, was confirmed in his position as ‘friend and ally of the Roman people’ (
amicus et socius populi Romani
), a specific legal phrase that conferred obligations on both parties. Auletes had sacrificed his dignity, saved his crown and bought Egypt a few more years of independence; his achievement had little to do with his persuasive diplomatic powers and generous bribes, and much to do with Rome’s reluctance to reduce Egypt to the status of a province. The senators feared, with some justification, that this would allow the ambitious Caesar too much power.

Auletes had been recognised as a friend and ally but his brother
had not. And, as Cyprus as well as Egypt had been gifted to Rome in the will of Ptolemy X, this left the younger Ptolemy in a precarious position. In 58 the Romans decided to claim their property. Cyprus was annexed by Marcus Porcius Cato (Cato the Younger) and King Ptolemy, declining the offer of an honourable retirement as high priest of Aphrodite at Paphos, swallowed poison. As the people of Alexandria took to the streets to protest against their king’s apparent indifference to his brother’s fate, Auletes fled to Cato in Rhodes. His visit was conspicuously unsuccessful: he arrived soon after Cato had taken a laxative, and was forced to plead his case as Cato sat on the toilet. From Cato’s latrine he moved on to Pompey’s villa in Rome. Few fathers choose to take young children on business trips, and it is generally assumed that Auletes left all his children behind in Alexandria. However, an undated dedication made in Athens at about this time by a ‘king’s daughter from Libya’ has led some historians to suggest that perhaps the twelve-year-old Cleopatra accompanied her father at least as far as Greece. The confusion between Egypt and Libya is, however, an odd one and, with no precise date for the dedication, the Libyan princess is far more likely to be a daughter or granddaughter of Juba II of Mauretania, and therefore Cleopatra’s granddaughter or great-granddaughter.

With her unpopular father indefinitely absent, Berenice IV proclaimed herself queen. She was associated in her early reign with a ‘Cleopatra Tryphaena’; whether this is Berenice’s ephemeral sister or her mother, who has been missing from our history for over a decade, is not clear. Just one historian, Porphyrius of Tyre, writing three centuries after the event, specifies that this Cleopatra, who is by convention numbered Cleopatra VI, is a daughter of Auletes. Porphyrius’s somewhat confused and occasionally incorrect Ptolemaic history is today lost, but fragments have been absorbed into the works of later historians, including Eusebius’s
Chronicle
, where we read how:

If Porphyrius is wrong, and his Cleopatra VI Tryphaena is to be equated with Cleopatra V, this brief joint rule offers further indirect proof that Cleopatra V was born a member of the Ptolemaic dynasty with an inherited right to rule Egypt. Whoever she was, Cleopatra VI Tryphaena vanished before the end of 57 and, in the absence of any evidence to the contrary, is presumed to have died a natural death.

History had started to repeat itself. Berenice, now renamed Cleopatra Berenice, was a female ruler in need of a husband. Ideally she would have married one of her younger brothers, but as the elder was just three years old she chose an insignificant cousin, Seleucos, instead. This time it was the bride who took a violent dislike to the bridegroom: according to Strabo, the refined Berenice was unable to bear her husband’s ‘coarseness and vulgarity’, while his crude and unappealing personality and perhaps his low standards of personal hygiene inspired the Alexandrians to rename him Cybiosactes, or ‘salt-fish monger’. The unfortunately vulgar Seleucos was strangled within a week of his wedding and a replacement husband was hastily recruited. Berenice’s second choice, Archelaos, self-appointed son of Rome’s great enemy Mithridates VI of Pontus (and actual son of Mithridates’s general, Achelaos), proved more satisfactory and the couple ruled for two years with the full support of the people of Alexandria.