Yrys
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Here is a review of a book that put a bit more flesh into Cleopatra
that the Engeneers song is doing
:
As I Am Egypt’s Queen
The name Cleopatra calls up cheap flashes of Hollywood glitz, a diva in jewels,
not a regal eminence invested with the power to drive armies. Those who think
they know anything about her at all can do little more than recall some nebulous
fame as a beautiful, cunning seductress of mighty men in togas. She’s more the
stuff of fable for us than a real person who inhabited her own square of time and
space. But inhabit one she did, and with a good deal more intelligence, élan and
tact than exercised by most of her male allies and enemies in the Roman world.
A bronze coin from Alexandria with
Cleopatra’s portrait, 51-30 B.
t is that real woman, Cleopatra VII of Egypt (69-30 B.C.), who is explored in Duane
W. Roller’s biography. And while Cleopatra’s role in the grand drama of the fall of the
Roman Republic and the birth of the Empire might not have been utterly central,
history couldn’t have rolled out quite as it did without her.
In Cleopatra’s case, the word ‘biography’ strikes a strange modern note, suggesting
the existence of more historical information about her than we in fact have to draw
from. But as a historian, classical scholar and archaeologist, Roller brings the full
apparatus of what we do know to bear — a tricky task given how Cleopatra’s
reputation was officially propa gandized into oblivion after her defeat and death. The
result is an authoritative, amply footnoted yet brisk account not only of her life but
also of its rich backdrop, featuring a cast extending backward through almost three
centuries of the Ptolemaic dynasty.
Cleopatra’s father, Ptolemy XII, though harried by civil turmoil, worked to reinvigorate
fading intellectual life in the great scholarly city of Alexandria, a cause which his daughter,
uncommonly well educated even for a woman from a royal household, carried on when
she ascended the throne in 51 B.C. for what could have been an enlightened reign.
(Roller emphasizes Cleopatra’s achievements as a scholar, linguist, diplomat, and even
naval commander — a welcome corrective to the popular conception of her as merely
a schemer of royal blood with alluring advantages.)
Strife broke out with a faction supporting her brother over sovereignty, though, and it
wasn’t until Julius Caesar arrived in 48 and applied his leverage that she took undisputed
power. Then, too, began the chain of events that molded her legend — the murder of
Pompey by her brother and her ingratiating alliance with Caesar; the son she claimed
was his; her presence in Rome when he was assassinated; her intricate intrigues, private
and otherwise, with Marcus Antonius and the twins she bore him; her joint defeat with
Antonius at the hands of Octavian in the Battle of Actium; her suicide. Little wonder she
was taken up by poets, painters and Elizabeth Taylor.
Roller tells his tale smoothly and accessibly. Scholarly digressions are consigned to helpful
appendixes that Roller uses as small seminars for airing points of dispute, as a good many
remain. What, for example, were the origins of Cleopatra’s mother? Was Cleopatra — the
quintessentially vile foreigner according to Octavian’s propaganda — a Roman citizen?
(Roller believes she was.) And he offers a digest of classical literary descriptions of the queen
and a discussion of her iconography (including coin portraits, which are the only certain like-
nesses) to pinpoint those elements of her modern identity that only evidence from the period
can prove or support.
The resulting portrait is that of a complex, many-sided figure, a potent Hellenistic ruler who
could move the tillers of power as skillfully as any man, and one far and nobly removed from
the “constructed icon” of popular imagination.
Tracy Lee Simmons is the author of “Climbing Parnassus: A New Apologia for Greek and
Latin.” He teaches journalism and writing at Hillsdale College.
that the Engeneers song is doing
:As I Am Egypt’s Queen
The name Cleopatra calls up cheap flashes of Hollywood glitz, a diva in jewels,
not a regal eminence invested with the power to drive armies. Those who think
they know anything about her at all can do little more than recall some nebulous
fame as a beautiful, cunning seductress of mighty men in togas. She’s more the
stuff of fable for us than a real person who inhabited her own square of time and
space. But inhabit one she did, and with a good deal more intelligence, élan and
tact than exercised by most of her male allies and enemies in the Roman world.
A bronze coin from Alexandria with
Cleopatra’s portrait, 51-30 B.
t is that real woman, Cleopatra VII of Egypt (69-30 B.C.), who is explored in Duane
W. Roller’s biography. And while Cleopatra’s role in the grand drama of the fall of the
Roman Republic and the birth of the Empire might not have been utterly central,
history couldn’t have rolled out quite as it did without her.
In Cleopatra’s case, the word ‘biography’ strikes a strange modern note, suggesting
the existence of more historical information about her than we in fact have to draw
from. But as a historian, classical scholar and archaeologist, Roller brings the full
apparatus of what we do know to bear — a tricky task given how Cleopatra’s
reputation was officially propa gandized into oblivion after her defeat and death. The
result is an authoritative, amply footnoted yet brisk account not only of her life but
also of its rich backdrop, featuring a cast extending backward through almost three
centuries of the Ptolemaic dynasty.
Cleopatra’s father, Ptolemy XII, though harried by civil turmoil, worked to reinvigorate
fading intellectual life in the great scholarly city of Alexandria, a cause which his daughter,
uncommonly well educated even for a woman from a royal household, carried on when
she ascended the throne in 51 B.C. for what could have been an enlightened reign.
(Roller emphasizes Cleopatra’s achievements as a scholar, linguist, diplomat, and even
naval commander — a welcome corrective to the popular conception of her as merely
a schemer of royal blood with alluring advantages.)
Strife broke out with a faction supporting her brother over sovereignty, though, and it
wasn’t until Julius Caesar arrived in 48 and applied his leverage that she took undisputed
power. Then, too, began the chain of events that molded her legend — the murder of
Pompey by her brother and her ingratiating alliance with Caesar; the son she claimed
was his; her presence in Rome when he was assassinated; her intricate intrigues, private
and otherwise, with Marcus Antonius and the twins she bore him; her joint defeat with
Antonius at the hands of Octavian in the Battle of Actium; her suicide. Little wonder she
was taken up by poets, painters and Elizabeth Taylor.
Roller tells his tale smoothly and accessibly. Scholarly digressions are consigned to helpful
appendixes that Roller uses as small seminars for airing points of dispute, as a good many
remain. What, for example, were the origins of Cleopatra’s mother? Was Cleopatra — the
quintessentially vile foreigner according to Octavian’s propaganda — a Roman citizen?
(Roller believes she was.) And he offers a digest of classical literary descriptions of the queen
and a discussion of her iconography (including coin portraits, which are the only certain like-
nesses) to pinpoint those elements of her modern identity that only evidence from the period
can prove or support.
The resulting portrait is that of a complex, many-sided figure, a potent Hellenistic ruler who
could move the tillers of power as skillfully as any man, and one far and nobly removed from
the “constructed icon” of popular imagination.
Tracy Lee Simmons is the author of “Climbing Parnassus: A New Apologia for Greek and
Latin.” He teaches journalism and writing at Hillsdale College.