Cleopatra the Great

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Cleopatra the Great Page 44

by Joann Fletcher

121 Chalcedony intaglio with Caesar’s image in Grant 1972, pp.81-2.

  Chapter 5

  125 ‘could have been scarcely more than a day trip’. Hughes-Hallett 1990, p. 19.

  125 ‘are related more particularly in my Egyptian history’. Appian, Roman History 11.90, White trans., p.393. 125 ‘through the whole country, and back to Memphis where he attended the performance of religious festivities and was on that occasion escorted by his nobles, his wives, and his royal children’. Reymond and Barns 1977, p.13.

  125 ‘ascended the Nile with 400 ships, exploring the country in company with Cleopatra and generally enjoying himself with her’. Appian, Roman History 11.90, White trans., p.393.

  126 ‘saloons for dining parties, with berths, and with all the other conveniences of living’. Athenaeus, Deipnosophists V.204, Gulick trans., pp.425-7.

  126 ‘bulged as they ascended, and the drums differed, one being black and the other white, placed alternately. Some of their capitals were circular . . . resembling rose blossoms slightly opened . . . calyxes of water-lilies and the fruit of freshly-budded date-palms’. Athenaeus, DeipnosophistsV.206, in Gulick trans., p.431.

  126 ‘immense and superb vessels with rooms and gardens and fountains, ornamented with marbles and precious metals and rare woods, all shining with gold and purple’. Antiquity 1927 (b), p.221; see also Carlson 2002.

  127 Cleopatra’s purple sails in Plutarch Antony 26-27, Dryden trans., p.757 and Pliny, Natural History XIX.V.22, Loeb trans., p.435.

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

  128 ‘the Ox Mneuis kept in a sanctuary as a god’. Strabo in Lindsay 1963, p.7.

  128 ‘a display of vain toil with nothing pleasing or picturesque about it’. Strabo in Lindsay 1963, p.7.

  129 ‘pleased with the Pyramids’. Milne 1916 (b), p.p77-78.

  129 ‘every person who is Greek shall worship the son of Ptah, Imouthes’. Witt 1971, p.156.

  129 ‘large and populous, ranks next after Alexandria, and is made up of mixed races like those who have settled together at Alexandria. Lakes stretch before the city and palaces’. Strabo in Lindsay 1963, pp.8-9.

  129 Memphis temple where Isis ‘passed from among mankind’ in Witt 1971, p.101.

  130 ‘the altars where incense is offered to the sacred Cow of Memphis’. Ovid, Art of Love III, Lewis May trans., p.94.

  130 ‘the bull Apis is kept in a sort of sanctuary, regarded as a god. His forehead and certain other parts of his body are marked with white, but the rest is black, and it is by these marks that they always choose the bull suitable for the succession after the death of the one holding the honour. Before his sanctuary lies a court, in which there is another sanctuary allocated to the bull’s mother’. Strabo, in Lindsay 1963, p.8.

  130 ‘the bull with the beautiful horns . . . standing sideways by him, it licked his robe’. Palatine Anthology 7.7hh in Vasunias 2001, p.299.

  130 ‘popping and hissing noises’. Pinch 1994, p.164; alliterative texts in Watterson 1979; alchemy furnace described by Zosimus of Panopolis (Akhmim) in Pinch 1994, p.169.

  131 ‘sitting at meal and spending a pleasant time while assisting at festivals of all the gods and goddesses’. BM.886, in Reymond 1981, p.149.

  131 ‘elegant and decorated ... its floor decorated with genuine lapis and genuine turquoise. There was a great deal of furniture in it, which was covered with royal linen, and there were numerous gold cups on the sideboard . . . incense was put on the brazier, and perfume was brought’. Pap. Cairo 30646, trans., Tait in Rowlandson (ed.) 1998, pp.364-5.

  131 ‘a noble resplendent of possessions of every kind. To me belongs a harem of fair maidens’. BM.886, in Reymond 1981, p.149.

  131 Taimhotep claimed ‘I was pregnant by him 3 times but did not bear a male child, only 3 daughters’ on stela BM.EA.147, in Lichtheim 1980, pp.59-65, Reymond 1981, pp.165-77.

  131 ‘fluid of conception’ and Arab pharmacopoeia in Dunand and Zivie-Coche 2004, p.313.

  131 ‘who gives a son to him who has none’. Reymond 1981, p.175.

  131 Ptolemaic bull statues Louvre N.390 in Louvre 1981, p.XI, Cleveland 1969.118 in Berman 1999, p.466; statue of Ptolemy IX identified by Maehler 1983, p.10.

  132 ‘Know that Hesat is Isis!’. Pap. Zen. Pestman 50, in Rowlandson (ed.) 1998, p.49.

  132 ‘its development for it alone is planted with olives, of which there are many large trees bearing fine fruit’. Strabo 17.1.35, in Alston 1995, p.17; for Caesar considering scheme for Rome, see Seton-Williams 1978, p.10.

  132 ‘from every shivering fit and fever’. Scheidel 2001, p.77.

  132 Fayum stela Louvre E.27113 in Rowlandson (ed.) 1998, p.38, Brooklyn 1988, p.189.

  132 Hymns in Dunand and Zivie-Coche 2004, p.233; Cleopatra’s buildings in Maehler 1983, p.7; crocodile burials in Chaveau 2133, p.108; temple crocodile in Houlihan 1996, p.119.

  133 ‘putting rings made of glass or gold into its ears and bracelets round its front feet’. Herodotus, II. 69, de Selincourt trans., p.156.

  133 ‘make ready guest-chambers and landing-stages and presents, and to take every care that he should be satisfied’. Pap. Tebtunis 33 in Milne 1916(b), p.78.

  133 ‘fed on grain and bits of meat and wine, which are always offered to it by visiting foreigners . . . we came upon the creature as it lay on the edge of the lake and when the priests went up to it some of them opened its mouth and another put the cake in, then the meat, and poured the honey-mixture down’. Strabo in Lindsay 1963, p.10.

  133 Crocodile handlers in Pliny, Natural History VIII.38.92-93, trans., pp.67-9; statue BM.GR.1805.7-3.6 in Walker and Higgs (eds.,) 2001, p.339.

  133 ‘Wet-nurse of the Crocodile’. Tiradritti 1998, p.14.

  134 ‘a satirical reference to Cleopatra VII of Egypt’. BM.GR.Q.100, Johns 1989, fig.91, p.110.

  134 ‘a large statue of Serapis, 9 cubits high, made of smaragdus’. Natural History Pliny XXXVII.76, Loeb trans., p.225.

  135 ‘a mixture of religious buildings in traditional Egyptian style rubbing shoulders with the classically designed public buildings that defined the Greek polis — the bath complex, the gymnasium and the theatre. But on leaving the centre, one would have moved into a large and dirty Egyptian village showing comparatively little change from previous eras’. Mon-tserrat 1996, p.80.

  136 Greek graffiti seen in 1824 ‘at which time they had not been visited by any modern traveller’. Gardner Wilkinson in Davies 1903, p.3; dog cemetery in Kemp 2006, p.22.

  137 ‘only by loud screaming can one lead one another’s way’. Ibn Gubayr in Arnold 1999, p. 164.

  137 ‘To Theon. Let the relevant persons be told that the temple of Isis built on behalf of our well-being by Kallimachos the military commander south of Ptolemais is to be tax-free and inviolable together with the houses built around it as far as the wall of the city. Let it be done’, based on van Minnen 2003, p.43.

  137 ‘remarkable structure of solid stone’. Strabo in Lindsay 1963, p.11.

  137 ‘Memnonion’. Kemp in Rutherford 2003, p.174.

  138 ‘the gods in Abydos’. Rutherford 2003, p.179.

  138 ‘to my mind, she is too short’. Eady 1983, p.17.

  138 Osiris’ rites in Herodotus’ 11.62, de Selincourt trans., p.153 and in Plutarch, see Witt 1971, p.213, Dunand and Zivie-Coche 2004, p.239 and Gillam 2004, pp.55-9, 104.

  139 ‘older than her mother’. Witt 1971, p.292, note 4.

  139 temple’s east wall conceals ‘suites of rooms, called crypts, and a staircase within its thickness. The lowest set of crypts is below ground, contained within foundations about 10 metres deep ... in the ground-level and upper crypts are access holes ... all were concealed within the decoration’. Baines and Malek 1980 p.64; ‘the only female monarch depicted in the relief decoration at Dendera is Cleopatra VII’. Bianchi 2003, p.14.

  139 ‘the naos shrine of Hathor resplendent in silver, gold and every kind of precious ston
e without measure . . . the statue of Isis which is hidden, made of finest gold’. Shore 1979, p.149.

  140 ‘I give you happiness daily, without distress for your majesty . . . drunkenness upon drunkenness without end’. Poo 1995, p.143.

  140 ‘nigro tibicine’. Juvenal XV.49 in Maehler 2003, p.212.

  140 ‘Pharaoh comes to dance and comes to sing, Mistress, see his dancing, see the skipping! He offers the wine jug to you, Mistress, see his dancing, see the skipping! His heart is pure, no evil in his body, Mistress, see his dancing, see the skipping! O Golden One, how fine is the song, like the song of Horus himself, which Ra’s son sings as the finest singer. He is Horus, the musician! He hates to see sorrow in your soul, he hates the bright goddess to be sad! Oh beautiful One, Great Cow, Great Magician, Glorious Lady, Gold of the gods, he comes to dance, comes to sing with his sistrum [sacred rattle] of gold and his menat [ritual necklace] of malachite, his feet rush toward the Mistress of Music as he dances for her and she loves all he does!’ After Lichtheim 1980, pp.107-9.

  141 ‘I hope that you are in good health, and without cease, for you, I worship close to the hair at Koptos’. Pap. Michigan VIII.502, in Nachtergael 1981, p.593.

  141 Female performers in Smith and Hall 1984, p.15; gazelle as ‘Isis’ plaything’. Witt 1971, p.33.

  141 Cleopatra’s limestone statue UC.14521 in Walker and Higgs (eds.,) 2001, p.171.

  141 ‘Lady of the Two Lands, Cleopatra Philopator, beloved of Min of Koptos, King’s Daughter, King’s Wife’. Ashton 2003(b), pp.25-6, with barque shrine in Arnold 1999, p.221 and Ashton 2003(b), pl.l, p.25.

  142 ‘Come, Golden Goddess ... it is good for the heart to dance! Shine on our feast at the hour of retiring, and enjoy the dance at night. Come! The procession takes place at the site of drunkenness, drunks play tambourines for you in the cool night, and those they awaken bless you’. Based on Drioton in Manniche 1991, p.61.

  142 ‘Female Sun of the Two Lands’. Louvre 1981, p.325.

  142 ‘lord of Medamud, Thebes, Tod and Hermonthis’. Mond and Myers 1934, II, pp.25, 46-49.

  143 ‘deliberately made by one of the men standing all around and near the base’. Strabo XVII.1.46 in Lindsay 1963, p.12; Gardiner 1961 p.92.

  143 ‘considered to be Memnon and a talking stone’. Manetho in Gardiner 1961 p.98; ‘Memnon’s legs . . . recall the visitors’ books that are to be found in many tourist resorts’. Milne 1916(b), p.80.

  144 ‘tomb of Osymandyas’. Diodorus 1.47-49, Oldfather trans., pp.167-75. 144 ‘marvelously devised, a spectacle worth seeing’. Strabo XVII.1.46 in Lindsay 1963, p.12; Gardiner 1961, p.92.

  144 ‘those who have not seen this place have never seen anything: blessed are they who visit this place’. Milne 1916(b), p.80.

  144 Menkare’s son buried in sarcophagus of Ankhnesneferibre. James and Davis 1983, p.54.

  145 ‘magnificent’. Macrobius, Saturnalia 1.21 in Mond and Myers 1934, II,p.27.

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

  146 ‘Female Horns’. Tait 2003, p.4.

  147 ‘was there because Cleopatra wanted her to be there’. Ray 2003, p.11.

  146 ‘luxuriant decoration represented an excellent example of the baroque style of [Ptolemaic] architecture’. Arnold 1999, p.224; layout duplicating that at Dendera in Arnold 1999, p.346; Cleopatra’s Hermonthis mammisi ‘a principal shrine in its own right’. Ray 203, p.10.

  146 ‘the play of light and shadows at the capitals, and the effect of the huge, window-like openings that created beautiful connections between interior and exterior spaces must have been stunning’. Arnold 1999, p.224.

  146 Birthing scenes in Brooklyn 1988, p.35; eighteenth-century ‘bull’ reference in Mond and Myers 1934 II, p.49.

  146 ‘the egg in the bodies of women, to provide the country with younger generations for the favour of the King of Upper and Lower Egypt, beloved of Khnum’. Gillam 2005, p.119.

  147 ‘Female Horus, Lady of Upper and Lower Egypt and Mighty Bull’, ‘it was Cleopatra III who had provided her with her inspiration’. Whitehorne 2001, pp.147-8.

  147 ‘as a giant sundial’. Arnold 1999, p.220.

  148 ‘kyphi’. Plutarch, Moralia 383.d in Montserrat 1996, p.70; ‘best quality oil’. Watterson 1979, p.168; ‘sacred oils’, myrrh, unguents for statues etc. in Manmche 1999, pp.40-1, 45, 108.

  148 ‘Festival of the Beautiful Union’. Gillam 2005, p.122 and Watterson 1998, pp.105-11.

  148 ‘for anointing the Golden Goddess Hathor’. Manniche 1999, p.41. 148 ‘the faraway conquering god’ which was ‘an excellent metaphor, in Egyptian terms, for Caesar’. Ray 2003, p.9.

  148 ‘I am Horus whom Isis has brought forth and whose protection was guaranteed in the egg’. Witt 1971, p.214; protection rituals in Gillam 2005, pp.98-9.

  149 ‘his being before the ancestors’. Ibrahim 1979, pp.170-1.

  150 ‘would have sailed together in her state barge nearly to Ethiopia had his soldiers consented to follow him’. Suetonius, Caesar, 52, in Graves trans., p.32.

  150 Cleopatra’s Kom Ombo images in Hobl 2001, p.272; crocodile pool with ‘an elaborate fountain system’. Arnold 1999, p.220.

  150 ‘the victorious crowd, gnawing his bones, ate all of him’. Juvenal XV.80-81 in Maehler 2003, p.212.

  151 ‘Island from the time of Ra’. Wilkinson 2000, p.213.

  151 ‘Queen of the South’. Witt 1971, p.61; Arsinoe IFs crown ‘differed from the traditional queen’s crown, and was modeled on the crown of Hatshepsut’. Rowlandson (ed.) 1998, p.29.

  151 ‘Mistress of Life, as she dispenses life. Men live by the command of her soul’ After Dunand, and Zivie-Coche 2004, p.237.

  152 ‘pure mound’. Shaw and Nicholson 1995, p.223.

  152 Cleopatra’s statue in Holbl, p.310; Caesar’s time on the Nile ‘served to show him how important was the cult of the sovereigns, dead or alive’. Goudchaux 2001, p.134.

  Chapter 6

  153 Caesar states he ‘was compulsorily detained by the etesian winds, which blow directly counter to those sailing from Alexandria’. Caesar, Civil Wars III.107, Peskett trans., p.349.

  154 ‘Kaisaros Epibaterios . . . Embarking Caesar’. Grimm 2003, p.48.

  155 ‘Reliever of the birth pangs of women’. Apuleius, Graves trans., p.269.

  155 ‘I have brought forth the new-born baby at the tenth orbit of the moon – fit light for the deed that is consummated’. Andros Hymn in Witt 1971, p.148.

  155 ‘celibate spear’. Pliny Natural History..28.33--34, Loeb trans., p.25.

  155 ‘measuring the courses of the heavenly bodies; he urged her not to hurry in giving birth. At the same time he jumbled up the cosmic elements by the use of his magic powers, discovered what lay hidden in them and said to her ‘woman, contain yourself and struggle against the pressure of Nature’. Alexander Romance, in Jasnow 1997, p.98.

  156 ‘literate with her wits about her . . . sound of limb, robust and according to some endowed of long slim fingers and short nails . . . She will be unperterbed, unafraid in danger and able to state clearly the reasons for her measures, bringing reassurance to her patients and be sympathetic . . . She must also keep her hands soft, abstaining from wool working which would make them hard, and she must acquire softness by means of ointments if it is not present naturally’. Soranus in Jackson 1988, pp.96-7.

  157 ‘injected seed ... to appease the soul . . . one must not pay attention to the popular saying that it is necessary to provide food for two organisms’. Soranus in Jackson 1988, p.95.

  157 ‘if the bulk of the abdomen is hanging down under its weight’. Soranus in Jackson 1988, p.95.

  158 ‘fastening an amulet about herself. Plutarch, De hide et Osiride, in Witt 1971, p.213.

  158 ‘one should not forbid their use, for even if the amulet has no direct effect, still through hope it will possibly make the patient more cheerful’.

  Soranus in Jackson 1988, p.88.

  158 ‘god of the House of Birth who o
pens the vagina’. Ritner 1984, p.215. 158 ‘greatest god of the womb of women’. Ritner 1984, p.217.

  158 ‘bring down the womb or placenta to be said 4 times over a dwarf of clay tied to the woman’s head’. Pinch 1994, p.129; Egyptian-made birth amulet from Britain in Wilson and Wright 1964.

  158 Birth bricks in Wegner 2002; birth stool in Jackson 1988, p. 97; Olympias ‘on the birth stool’ in Alexander Romance in Jasnow 1997, p.98.

  158 ‘should beware of fixing her gaze steadfastedly on the genitals of the labouring woman, lest being ashamed, her body becomes contracted’. Jackson 1988, p.99.

  158 ‘make every effort to expel the child’. Galen, On the Natural Faculties III.ii, in Jackson 1988, p.97.

  159 ‘warm water in order to cleanse all parts; sea sponges for sponging off; pieces of wool in order for a woman’s parts to be covered; bandages to swaddle the new born; a pillow to place the newborn infant below the woman until the afterbirth has also been taken care of; and things to smell, such as pennyroyal, apple and quince’. Soranus in Jackson 1988, p.97.

  159 ‘before surgical operations and punctures to produce anesthesia’. Pliny, Natural History, XXV.44.150 in Loeb trans., p.243.

  159 ‘mothers and children’. Zias in Rimon 1997, p.16; see also Nunn 1996, p.156.

  159 ‘remarkable power to increase the force of uterine contractions, concomitant with a significant reduction of labour pain’. Zias et al. 1993, p.215.

  159 ‘caesus’. Grant 1969, p.23 and Ellis 1978, p.74.

  159 ‘expertly-made precision instruments’. Jackson 1988, p.93.

  160 ‘one should do everything gently and without bruising’. Soranus in Jackson 1988, p. 104.

  160 ‘Who died here? Herois. How and when? Heavy-wombed in pained labour she set down her burden — a mother she was for a moment, but the child died also. Light may the earth be on her, may Osiris bestow cool water’. Lichtheim 1980, p.7.

  160 ‘on receiving my letter please be so good as to come home promptly because your poor daughter Herennia has di(ed.) And to think she had already come safely through a miscarriage. For she gave birth to a stillborn child in the 8th month, but herself survived 4 days, and only after that did she die ... so if you come and you so wish, you can see her’. Pap. Fuad 75, in Montserrat 1997, p.37.

 

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