Cleopatra the Great

by Joann Fletcher

  56 ‘sacred animals that are honoured in Egypt’. Rosetta Stone, trans., Simpson in Parkinson 1999, p.199.

  56 ‘Female Horus’. Holbl 2001, p.167; female vizier in Troy 1986, p.179, epithet ‘her bravery and strength is that of Hathor in her great love’ in Troy 1986, p.179.

  56 ‘Ptolemy and Cleopatra, rulers of Egypt’. Livy 37.3.9 in Sage trans., p.299.

  56 ‘brought the only important intrusion of foreign blood’. Mahaffy 1915, p.2.

  56 ‘ill-favoured looks and boxers’ noses’. Whitehorne 2001, p.83.

  57 ‘the Pharaohs Cleopatra the mother the manifest goddess and Ptolemy son of Ptolemy the manifest god’. Whitehorne 2001, p.86.

  57 ‘Don’t hesistate to name the little one ‘Cleopatra’, your little daughter’. P.Miinch III.57, Rowlandson (ed.) 1998, p.292.

  57 ‘following Egyptian custom’. Porphyry, in Holbl 2001, p.147.

  58 ‘was brought in by the mime performers entirely wrapped up . . . when the symphony sounded, he would leap up and dance naked and act with the clowns’. Athenaeus Deipnosophists V.195, in Gulick trans., p.387.

  58 ‘should always consider the trust and good will of the Roman people the supreme defence of their kingdom’. Livy 45.13.7 in Maehler 2003, p.204 and Schlesinger trans., p.287.

  59 ‘Theoi Philometores’. Holbl 2001, p.183.

  60 ‘genealogical cobweb’. Rice 1999, p.21.

  59 ‘m his mother’s arms’. Justin XXXVIII.8.4, in Holbl 2001, p.194.

  60 ‘murdered many of the Alexandrians; not a few he sent into exile, and filled the islands and towns with men who had grown up with his brother’. Athenaeus Deipnosophists IV.184, Gulick trans., pp.312-13; for ‘cultural fallout’ see Whitehorne 2001, p.109.

  60 ‘Benefactor’. . . Malefactor’, Athenaeus, Deipnosophists XII.549, Gulick trans., p.493, ‘Physkon . . . Fatty’, Athenaeus, Deipnosophists XII.549, Gulick trans., p.492, note b.

  60 ‘the Alexandrians have already got one thing from our visit. Thanks to us they’ve finally seen their king walking!’ Plutarch, Moralia 201.A in Whitehorne 2001, p.108.

  60 ‘utterly corrupted with fat and with a belly of such size that it would have been hard to measure it with one’s arms’. Athenaeus, Deipnosophists XII.549, Gulick trans., p.493.

  60 ‘astonished at the number of inhabitants of Egypt and the natural advantages of the countryside ... a mighty power could be sustained if this kingdom ever found capable leaders’. Diodorus 28b.3 in Walker and Higgs 2001, p.20.

  61 Marriage between royals and priests in Vienna Stela No.82, Reymond and Barns 1977, p.10-11, p.17.

  61 ‘the Two Horns’. Holbl 2001, p.195.

  62 ‘whichever of her sons she would make co-regent’. Maehler 1983, p.l.

  63 ‘we know of none of the kings so hated by his mother’. Pausanias 1.9.1 in Rowlandson (ed.) 1998, p.35.

  63 Cleopatra III as Alexander’s priest in Holbl 2001, p.208; wearing Alexander’s elephant headdress in Whitehorne 2001, pl.5; as human-headed sphinx in Ashton 2003, p.141.

  64 ‘Female Horus, Lady of Upper and Lower Egypt, Mighty Bull’. Troy 1986, p.179.

  64 ‘to become both king and queen, both god and goddess’. Whitehorne 2001, p.147.

  64 ‘the scarlet one’. Green 1990, p.877, note4; Whitehorne 2001, p.130.

  64 ‘women’s ornaments’. Appian, Mithridatic War, 23, in White trans., p.281.

  64 ‘when it came to the rounds of dancing at a drinking party he would jump from a high couch barefoot as he was and perform the figures in a livelier fashion than those who had practiced them’. Poseidonius quoted in Athenaeus Deipnosophists XII.550, Gulick trans., pp.495-7.

  64 ‘Kokke’s child’. Strabo 17.797C in Whitehorne 2001, p.221, no.22.

  65 ‘the younger sister of the King Ptolemy men called Alexander’. Vienna funerary stela No. 82 in Reymond 1981, p.132.

  65 ‘drank in the presence of the king. He [the king] handed out unto him the golden crook, mace, robe of linen from the southern house and the leather garment according to the ritual of Ptah’s festivals and solemn processions. He [the king] placed his golden ornaments on his head according to the custom of his forefathers in the 17th year of his age’. Reymond 1981 pp.132-3.

  65 ‘a first-class and remarkable temple, one of the most ancient and most famous’. Dunand and Zivie-Coche 2004, pp.209-10.

  65 ‘Ptolemy X Alexander I removed the gold sarcophagus of Alexander the Great and substituted one of glass’. Strabo XVII.1.8 (794.C) in Brought-on 1942, p.330.

  66 ‘extremely popular with the Alexandrians’. Cicero in Whitehorne 2001, p.175.

  66 ‘the greatest god, Soter the king, has reached Memphis, and that Hierax has been despatched with considerable forces to bring Thebes under control. We wanted to inform you so that you, knowing this, take courage. Farewell’. Maehler 1983, p.2.

  66 ‘great expenses in collecting Greek art’. Grifiin 1976, p.91, note51.

  66 ‘filthy lucre’. . . ‘loose foreign morals’. Juvenal, Satires VI.297-99, trans., Green, p.138.

  67 Elder prince Ptolemy became Ptolemy XII Auletes; his mother most likely Ptolemy XI’s sister-wife Cleopatra Selene, though others believe she ‘was a concubine’, (Foss 1997) p.81, perhaps Syrian or Greek (Grant 1972, p.5) or even elite Egyptian (Reymond and Barns 1977, p.27, Holbl 2001, p.222); ‘there is unanimity amongst genealogists that the identification, and hence ethnicity, of the maternal grandmother of Cleopatra VII is currently not known’. Bianchi 2003, p.13

  67 ‘our god and lord the king’. Orientis Graeci Inscriptiones Selectae 741 in Grant 1972, p.22.

  68 ‘not a man but a piper [auletes] and magician [magos]’. Athenaeus, Deipnosophists V.206.d in Grant 1972, p.21; in Gulick translation, ‘magos’ is juggler’, p.433.

  68 ‘degenrarunt’. Livy 38.17.11, Sage trans., pp.58-9.

  68 ‘The king himself halted his war chariot. He arrayed my head for me with the glorious chaplet of gold and all the genuine precious stones, the royal effigy being in its midst. I was made his prophet’. BM.EA.886, in Reymond 1981, p.148.

  68 ‘It is me who placed the uraeus upon the king on the day of Uniting-the-Two-Lands for him and also carried out for him all the ceremonies in the Mansion of the Jubilee. It is me who conducted all the offices concealad from the public eye’. Stela BM.EA.886, in Reymond 1981, p.148.

  69 ‘with his courtiers, his wives, the royal children with his lordly possessions were sitting at meal and were spending a pleasant time while assisting at festivals of all gods and goddesses’. BM.886, in Reymond 1981, pp.148-9.

  69 ‘legitimate’. Strabo XVII. 796, in Barns 1977 p.29; for redundancy of claims see Bingen 2007, p. 55, p.67.

  69 Removal of Cleopatra V Tryphaena from records in Huss 1990, p.196 and Holbl 2001, p.223.

  Chapter 3

  73 Although Huss 1990 and Holbl 2001, p.223 suggest Cleopatra VIFs mother was Egyptian, others believe she ‘came from the highest Macedonian aristocracy’. (Bingen 2007, p.66); some claim Cleopatra was a black African, whereas others note ‘how unlikely it is that the queen was black in any sense that could be recognized in the United States today’, (Hamer 1996, p.88) and ‘if she was black, no one mentioned it’ (Foss 1997, p.82).

  73 Estimation as ‘32 parts Greek, 27 parts Macedonian and 5 parts Persian’ in Foss 1997, p.82.

  73 ‘Our lords and greatest gods’. Grant 1972, p.22.

  73 Egyptian ruler as Alexander’s priest since 116 BC in Whitehorne 2001.

  73 ‘the eyes of the king of Upper Egypt the ears of the king of Lower Egypt’. Stela BM.EA. 147, in Lichtheim 1980, p.61 and Reymond 1981, pp.16577.

  74 ‘god’s beloved and friend of the King’. Stela BM.EA.147, in Lichtheim 1980 p.61 and Reymond 1981, pp.165-77.

  74 ‘military overseer of the Red and Indian Seas’ in Goudchaux 2003, p.109.

  75 ‘one of the Romans killed a cat and the multitude rushed in a crowd to his house, neither the officials sent by the king to beg the man offnor the fear of
Rome which all the people felt were enough to save the man from punishment, even though his act had been an accident’. Diodorus 1.83.8-9, Oldfather trans., p.287.

  75 ‘friend and ally of the Roman people’. Maehler 1983, p.3; also Caesar in Civil Wars, III.107, Peskett trans., p.349.

  76 Strabo states Auletes had three daughters (XVII. 796 in Barns 1977, p.29), whereas Porphyry (in Whitehorne 2001, p. 182) later claimed four when assuming Berenike IV and Cleopatra Tryphaena were both his daughters.

  76 ‘one of his daughters’ on Athenian epitaph in Grant 1972, pp.15-16, Goudchaux 2001, p.131.

  76 ‘even lying on the ground it is a marvel’. Pliny XXXIV. 18.41-42 in Loeb trans., p.159.

  77 ‘Cato neither went forward to meet him, nor so much as rose up to him, but saluting him as an ordinary person, bade him sit down. This at once threw Ptolemy into some confusion’. Plutarch, Cato, Dry den trans., p.633, latrine mentioned in Grant 1972, p.15.

  77 ‘by force’. Tertullian, Ad Nationes 1.1.17-18 in Maehler 2003, p.205.

  79 ‘at first sight’, ‘he had fallen in love with her at first sight long ago when she was still a girl and he was serving as master of horse under Gabinius’. Appian Roman History V.8, trans., White, p.389.

  79 ‘in his rage and spite against the Egyptians’. Plutarch, Antony, Dry den trans., p.749.

  79 ‘he left behind him a great name among the Alexandrians’. Plutarch, Antony, Dryden trans., p.749.

  80 ‘thieving, effeminate ballet boy in curlers’. Cicero in Grant 1969, p.96.

  80 ‘the home of all tricks and deceits’. Cicero, Pro. Rah. Post. 35, reported in Wyke 2002, p.211.

  81 ‘sage’. el-Daly 2005, p.131.

  81 ‘the most illustrious and wise among women . . . great in herself and in her achievements in courage and strength’. John of Nikiou 67, in Hughes-Hallett 1990, p.70; el-Daly 2005, p.132.

  81 ‘the last of the wise ones of Greece’. El-Masudi in Hughes-Hallett, 1990, p.70

  81 ‘the virtuous scholar’. El-Daly 2005, p.131

  81 ‘who elevated the ranks of scholars and enjoyed their company’. El-Masudi in el-Daly 2005, p. 133.

  81 ‘the dead lying in Hades, waiting for the waters of rebirth to come and revive them so they can be reborn and flower again in the springtime’. Roberts 2000, p.202.

  81 ‘there is no Royal Road to geometry’. Euclid, in MacLeod (ed.) 2002, p.4.

  81 ‘wrote books on medicine, charms and cosmetics in addition to many other books ascribed to her which are known to those who practiced medicine’. El-Masudi in el-Daly 2005, p.133.

  82 Toxicological interest in Plutarch, Antony, Dryden trans., p.774; Cassius Dio 51.11 in Scott-Kilvert trans., p.72; De Bello Aegyptiaco in Volkmann 1953, p.193; Ibn Wahshiya in el-Daly 2005, p.134.

  82 ‘scribe of the god’. El-Daly 2005, p.134.

  82 ‘a worthy young woman, skilled in speech, whose advice is bright’. Stela BM.EA.147, in Reymond 1981, p.174.

  82 Egypt’s female monarchs in Fletcher 2004, pp.186-225; Manetho’s list in Gardiner 1964, pp.429-53; Memphite womenfolk in Reymond 1981.

  84 ‘Strong Bull beloved of Maat, Daughter of Ra, beloved of Amun.’ Callender 2004, p.94.

  84 ‘in whose time Troy was taken’. Gardiner 1964, p.445.

  84 ‘Philadelphos’ in Bingen 2007, p.66, with children hailed ‘Philadelphoi’, OGIS 11.741 in Bingen 2007, p.66, note 9.

  84 ‘the thirtieth year which is also the first’. Skeat 1960, p.91.

  84 Head of teenage Cleopatra(?) in Bianchi 2003, pl.6, p.20; Ptolemy XIFs head in Brooklyn 1988 No.57, p.154; both ‘stress their Macedonian origins’ in Brooklyn 1988, p.155; similarity of features in Brooklyn 1988 p.154; Dendera crypt images in Bianchi 2003, pl.lb, p.14.

  85 ‘one copy of the will had been taken to Rome by his envoys to be placed in the treasury, but had been deposited with Pompeius because it had not been possible to place it there owing to the embarrassments of the state; a second duplicate copy was left sealed for production at Alexandria’. Caesar, Civil War III.108, trans., Peskett, p.351.

  85 ‘prophet of King Ptolemy, justified’. BM.EA.147, in Lichtheim 1980, p.64.

  86 ‘King of Upper and Lower Egypt’. Lepsius in Brooklyn 1988, p.52.

  86 ‘Female Horus, the Great One, Mistress of Perfection, Brilliant in Counsel, Lady of the Two Lands, Cleopatra, the Goddess who loves her Father, the Image of her Father’. Tait 2003, p.4.

  86 “Upper Egyptian King of the land of the white crown, Lower Egyptian King of the land of the red crown’. Troy 1986, p.179.

  87 Image of red-haired woman from Herculaneum villa, Naples Museo Nazionale Archeologico 90778 in Ward-Perkins and Claridge 1976, no.24 and Walker and Higgs (eds.,) 2001, No.325, p.314.

  87 Isis’ cult statue clothed in vulture feathers in Aelian in Witt 1971, p.91; see also Brooklyn 1988, no.17, p.107 and Riefstahl 1944, p.47. 87 ‘gave audience to the people under the name of the New Isis . . . appeared in public dressed in the habit of the goddess Isis’. Plutarch, Antony, Dryden trans., p.768.

  87 ‘the black-robed queen . . . black raiment’. Plutarch in Witt 1971, p.147; ‘Wearers of Black’. Plutarch 52 in Witt 1971, p.97.

  88 ‘many-coloured robe was of finest linen . . . but what caught and held my eye more than anything else was the deep black lustre of her mantle. She wore it slung across her body from the right hip to the left shoulder, where it was caught in a knot resembling the boss of a shield; but part of it hung in innumerable folds, the tasseled fringe quivering’. Apuleius, Graves trans., p.270.

  88 ‘Isis the Great, Mother of the God, the Great One, the powerful, sovereign of the gods without whom no-one accedes to the palace, it is at her command the king ascends the throne’. Dunand and Zivie-Coche 2004, p.237.

  88 ‘Mynonymos’. Witt 1971, p.127.

  88 ‘male gods united in a bull’. Mond and Myers, II pp.25, 46-9.

  89 ‘soul on body’. Mond and Emery 1929, p.4

  89 ‘the living spirit of Ra born of the great Cow united with the creator gods, he is Amun who goes on his four feet, the image of Montu, lord of Thebes, the father of fathers, the mother of mothers, who renews the life of every one of the gods’, after Mond and Myers 1934, I p. 14, II, pp.11-12.

  89 ‘changes colour every hour and is shaggy with hair which sprouts outward contrary to the nature of all animals’. Macrobius, Saturnalia I.21 in Mond and Myers, 1934, II, p.27. 89 ‘only women may look at it; these stand facing it and pulling up their garments show their genitals’. Diodorus 1.85 in Oldfather trans., p.291. 89 ‘anasyrmene’. Montserrat 1996, p.167; also Herodotus 11.60, de Selin-court trans., p.153; Nefertiti in Vergnieux and Gondran 1997, p.89.

  89 ‘took his phallus in his fist and ejaculated’. Spell 527, Faulkner 1969, p.198.

  89 ‘Hail Min who fecundates his mother, how secret is that which you have done to her in the darkness’. Roberts 1995, p.89.

  90 ‘Bull who copulates with fair ladies’. Spell 420, Faulkner 1977, p.68.

  90 ‘bukolion’. Gordon and Schwabe 2004, p.47.

  90 Nineteenth-century use of statue Louvre N.390 reported by Maspero in Montserrat 1996, p.168.

  90 ‘generative light falling strongly from the moon’. Plutarch, de hide XLIII in Mond and Myers 1934, I, p.11.

  90 ‘the Lady of the Two Lands, the goddess Philopator, rowed him in the barque of Amun, together with the royal boats, all the inhabitants of Thebes and Hermonthis and the priests being with him and he reached Hermonthis, his dwelling-place’. Buchis Stela No.13, Copenhagen, in Mond and Myers 1934, I, p.14, II, pp.11-12; Tarn 1936, p.188, Skeat 1962, p.101 and Brooklyn 1988, no.107, p.213.

  91 ‘Hermonthis and beautiful Thebes were united in drunkenness and the noise was heard in heaven’. Mond and Myers 1934, I, p.13.

  91 ‘as for the ruler, everyone was able to see her’. Buchis Stela No.13, Copenhagen in Goudchaux 2001, p.133.

  91 ‘I adore thy majesty and give praise to your soul, O great god, self created’. Lepsius in
Mond and Myers, 1934 II, pp.25, 46-49.

  91 ‘on behalf of the female king [basilissa] Cleopatra, goddess Philopator’. Louvre E.27113, in Rowlandson (ed.) 1998, p.38; same portrayal of Hatshepsut see Fletcher 2004, p.218; stela of Berenike IV ‘whose principal decoration is a bearded bust wearing a nemes [king’s headcloth]’ in Brooklyn 1988, p.188.

  92 Astronomical ceiling study in Andreu et al. 1997, pp.210-11; Cleopatra travelling to inauguration in Goudchaux 2001, p.133.

  92 ‘on pain of death’. Pap. BGU 1730 in Skeat 1962, p.104.

  93 ‘Pharaoh Ptolemy and Pharaoh Cleopatra, the gods who love their father’. Chaveau 2002, p.25.

  93 ‘year 1 which is also year 3’. Holbl, 2001 p.231.

  93 Apis burial ritual in Vos 1993, pp.144-5; Cleopatra’s funding in Goudchaux 2001, p.133.

  93 Stela with Isis in red crown in Farag 1975, p.166, pl.XXIII.l.

  94 ‘grew up a very beautiful youth’. Plutarch Antony, Dryden trans., p.749. 94 ‘the firebrand and tornado of the age’. Lucius Annaeus Florus in Lindsay 1970, p.478.

  94 ‘gladiatorial strength’. Cicero, Second Philipic in Grant 1960 trans., p.129.

  94 ‘this is a new way of conquering, to strengthen one’s position by kindness and generosity’. Caesar in Barry 2005, p.14.

  95 ‘Caesar wrote admirably: his memoirs are cleanly, directly and gracefully composed, and divested of all rhetorical trappings’. Cicero in Suetonius, Julius Caesar 56, in Graves trans., p.34.

  95 ‘I earnestly invite you to join with me in carrying on the government of Rome. If, however, timidity makes you shrink from the task I shall trouble you no more. For in that case I shall govern it myself. Caesar in Grant 1968, p.148.

  95 Cleopatra ‘was driven from her throne by her brother Ptolemy’. Livy, Summaries CXI, Schlesinger trans., p.139; Ptolemy removed Cleopatra ‘from the throne by the help of his relations and friends’. Caesar, Civil War III, 103 in Peskett trans., pp.343-4; ‘others blame the minister Pothinus ... he had banished Cleopatra’. Plutarch, Caesar XLVIII.5, Dryden trans., p.596.

  96 ‘Pharaoh Cleopatra’. Chaveau 2002, p.25; her retreat south in Malalas XI.279, m Holbl 2001, p.232.