Cleopatra: Last Queen of Egypt (40 page)

29
Cleopatra’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.

30
Plutarch,
Life of Antony
, 53. 3. Translated by B. Perrin.

31
Flavius Josephus,
Antiquities of the Jews
, 15: 97. Translated by W. Whiston.

32
Cassius Dio,
Roman History
, 49: 40: 4. Translated by E. Cary.

33
Suetonius,
Divine Augustus
, 69. Translated by R. Graves.

34
See, 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
.

35
To 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

1
W. W. Tarn, writing in the
Cambridge Ancient History
(1934, 10: defines Cleopatra by her gender and fails to name her.

2
Cassius Dio,
Roman History
, 50: 5. Translated by E. Cary.

3
K. Scott (1929), ‘Octavian’s Propaganda and Antony’s
De Sua Ebrietate’, Classical Philology
, 24: 2: 133–41.

4
Plutarch,
Life of Antony
, 56. Translated by B. Perrin.

5
M. Reinhold (1981), ‘The Declaration of War against Cleopatra’,
Classical Journal
, 77 :2; 97–103.

6
The 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.

7
Cassius Dio,
Roman History
, 50: 15. Translated by E. Cary.

8
Plutarch,
Life of Antony
, 66–7. Translated by B. Perrin.

9
W. 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.

10
Plutarch,
Life of Antony
, 71: 4–5. Translated by B. Perrin.

11
Ibid., 73: 2.

12
Ibid., 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.

13
Suetonius,
Life of Domitian,
(
The Twelve Caesars
), 11. Translated by R. Graves.

14
Plutarch,
Life of Antony
, 76. Translated by B. Perrin.

15
Whitehorne (1994): 188.

16
The 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.

17
Plutarch,
Life of Antony
, 84. Translated by B. Perrin.

18
Cassius Dio,
Roman History
, 51. Translated by E. Cary.

19
Plutarch,
Life of Antony
, 86. Translated by B. Perrin.

20
Figures given in S. H. el Din (2006),
A Guide to the Reptiles and Amphibians of Egypt
, American University in Cairo Press, Cairo: 11.

21
Plutarch,
Life of Alexander
, 1: 2. Translated by B. Perrin.

22
Ibid., 82.

23
Ibid., 83, 84.

24
Ibid., 86.

Chapter 8: Cleopatra’s Children

1
T. Gautier (1838),
Une Nuit de Cléopâtre
. Translated by L. Hearn (1882),
One of Cleopatra’s Nights and Other Fantastic Romances
, B. Worthington, New York.

2
Horace (
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.

3
Shakespeare,
Antony and Cleopatra
, 5: 2.

4
Given 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.

5
Not to be confused with the entirely different modern Mauritania on Africa’s Atlantic coast.

6
Aristotle 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.

7
W. N. Weech (1932), ‘Rambles in Mauretania Caesariensis (continued)’,
Greece and Rome
: 2: 65–73: 72.

8
Crinagoras, 18. After A. S. F. Gow and D. L. Page (1968),
The Greek Anthology. The Garland of Philip
, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

9
Suetonius,
Life of Gaius
(
Caligula
) (
The Twelve Caesars
) 35. 2.

10
Pliny the Elder,
Natural History
, 36: 72. Translated by H. Rackham.

11
Cassius Dio,
Roman History
, 51: 22. Translated by E. Cary.

Chapter 9: History Becomes Legend

1
Chorus 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.

2
Virgil,
The Aeneid
, 4: 330. Translated by D. West.

3
Ibid., 8: 680.

4
Propertius,
Elegies
, 3: 11 and 4: 6. Discussed in more detail in Wyke (2002): 195–243.

5
Horace,
Epode
9,
Ode
1: 37.

6
Plutarch,
Life of Alexander
, 1. Translated by B. Perrin.

7
Cassius Dio,
Histories
, 51: 15. Translated by E. Cary.

8
Flavius Josephus,
Against Apion
, 2: 7.

9
O. Abd el-Galil (2000),
Tarikh Misr li-Yohana Al-Niqusi
, Dar Ain, Cairo.

10
Al-Masudi,
Muruj
: quoted in el-Daly (2005): 133. El-Daly provides a full exploration of the medieval Arab and Islamic historians.

11
Plutarch,
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.

12
The development of Cleopatra in popular culture is outlined by Hughes-Hallet (1990), Hamer (1993) and Wyke (2002). All three supply more detailed references.

13
Hamer (1993): xv.

14
The 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.

15
Including 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.