Ninth installment of “Archienemies of Rome “. Collaboration of Gabriel Castelló.
Our archenemy of today is one of the most famous women of all time, the protagonist of many essays, novels and major film productions (who doesn't remember a beautiful Liz Taylor in her donkey's milk tub) For this reason I will not focus this review of her life and her environment on the typical and topical; We will see other lesser known aspects of the woman who trapped two of the most important men of the last times of the Republic.
Her full name was Κλεοπάτρα Φιλοπάτωρ (Cleopatra Filopator Nea Thea) and she was the seventh to bear that name within the family that dominated the country of the Nile since Ptolemy Soter , Alexander's diadochus, settled in Egypt after his death and, after a bloody war with his former companions, proclaimed himself pharaoh. Daughter of Cleopatra V and Ptolemy XII “Auletes” she (she was called the "flautist" because he was a playful cretin), she was born in 69 BC
Contrary to what some think (that if she was dark-skinned, or even of black factions as some associations of African-American Americans claim), Cleopatra was totally Greek. The Lagids adopted the pharaonic ritual of marrying brothers to preserve royal blood, so the queen of the Nile did not have a drop of Egyptian or African blood. What is known is that Cleopatra VII she was the first Ptolemaic queen to learn the Egyptian language. All the testimonies of her time indicate that she was a very intelligent, cultured and refined woman. When she first appeared in public at the age of fourteen, in addition to her vernacular Greek, she already spoke Demotic Egyptian, Hebrew, Syrian, Aramaic, and some Latin. As a kind of forerunner of Hypatia, she was educated by a cast of Greek preceptors and was a woman versed in literature, music, politics, mathematics, medicine, and astronomy. Plutarch said of her:
It is pretended that her beauty, considered in itself, was not so incomparable as to cause astonishment and admiration, but her treatment was such that it was impossible to resist. The charms of her figure, seconded by the courtesies of her conversation and by all the graces that emerge from a happy personality of hers, left a sting in the mind that penetrated to the most alive. He possessed an infinite voluptuousness when speaking, and so much sweetness and harmony in the sound of his voice that his tongue was like a multi-stringed instrument that he handled easily and from which he extracted, as he saw fit, the most delicate nuances of language; Plato recognizes four types of flattery, but she had a thousand.
When she was eighteen years old, her father drowned in the Nile. Because of her death, her twelve-year-old brother, Ptolemy XIII, and she inherited Egypt as co-regents and husbands. She was not her only sibling:she had another brother and later husband, Ptolemy XIV, and three more sisters, two older ones, Cleopatra VI (mysteriously missing) and Berenice IV, and a younger one, Arsinoe IV.
She was running the fall of 48 B.C. Egypt was half ruined when Cleopatra fought with her brother for the throne and was expatriated to Syria. Famines, great inequalities and permanent attempts at usurpation, even by her sister Arsinoe de ella, lavished the country of the two lands. Her brother and her pharaoh, Ptolemy XIII, was a child at the hands of three schemers; the eunuch Potinus , her tutor Teodoro and the captain of the guard, Aquilas . It was these three men who decided to assassinate Pompey the Great when he, fleeing from Farsalia (Greece), landed in Egypt requesting help and asylum from Ptolemy. They thought that this way they would please César , when, in fact, they angered him by showing him the head of the one who had been her father-in-law. They paid dearly for it.
Caesar received the applicant in Alexandria, who appeared before him, circumventing the iron surveillance that Aquilas had organized. The consul agreed to mediate between the two brothers as testamentary of their father. Rome had been the guardian of Egypt for years because of the astronomical debts that the last lagid kings dragged.
After several conflicts, the attack by Ptolemy's supporters on the city that resulted in the burning of the Great Library, intrigues, executions and battles, Ptolemy XIII drowned in the Nile, like his father, Arsinoe was taken to Rome loaded of chains and Cleopatra remained as the sole regent of Egypt, in collusion with Caesar, the queen's ally and lover. Perhaps her triumphal entry into Rome along with the dictator provoked the staunchest Republicans. This happy union was cut short on the Ides of 44 B.C. On the steps of Pompey's theatre. Caesar was assassinated by various traditionalist elements and Cleopatra had to flee Rome with her son Caesarion , fruit of her relationship with César.
She just returned to Egypt, she ordered her brother and her husband Ptolemy XIV to be poisoned, thus avoiding any attempted usurpation. The situation in Egypt was dire:blocked irrigation canals, plagues and famine everywhere. Little more than a year later, another arrogant and needy Roman knocked on her door. He was Mark Antony , faithful legacy of her murdered husband and her most passionate avenger. Antony had just broken the balance between the republican traditionalists and his fellow triumvirate Octavian Augustus, Caesar's successor, and Lepidus, a straw man. Antony asked Cleopatra for support, which she agreed to even though her country was on the brink of ruin. After a sensual encounter in Tarsus, in her lavish royal trireme, Cleopatra demanded the execution of her sister Arsinoe as a prerequisite for helping Antony, who agreed to her proposal. On that date, both fell passionately in love. Antony later returned to Rome and married Octavia, the sister of his then friend and future great adversary. Cleopatra had two children with Antony, Alexander Helios and Cleopatra Selene .
Four years later, Antony returned to Egypt and married his beloved, without first having disowned Octavia. That torrid adultery was the trigger for hostilities between Octavio and Antonio. While the former endured hardship in Rome, faithful to his policy of austerity and work, the latter squandered the Empire's resources from his palace in Alexandria. Octavio knew how to turn the entire western half of the state against Antonio, especially the more conservative factions of the Senate that were scandalized by the licentious life of Antonio and Cleopatra, accused of regicide, incest, lust, etc. The critical point was passed by Octavio when, violating the secrecy that protected him, he publicly read Antonio's will in the Senate. He arbitrarily granted his wife control of the Roman Middle East, gave the government of Armenia and Cyrene to his two sons and, worst of all, showed his desire to be buried in Alexandria... That suffocated the rancid Roman aristocracy, which declared war on Egypt. It was 32 BC
The decisive battle between both opponents took place on the shores of Actium (Greece), on September 2, 31 B.C. The Roman fleet commanded by Agrippa cornered the Egyptian squad. Cleopatra fled in the face of Roman pressure and Antony abandoned her men to join her. Less than a year later, in July 30 BC, Octavian entered Alexandria. Antonio, credulous of a false report that announced the death of his wife, committed suicide by stabbing himself with his gladio. Octavian met with Cleopatra. The princeps of Rome intended to lead her to Rome, but she knew that if she agreed to accompany him she would parade in chains as her sister Arsinoe had. Seeing that she was not able to seduce him with her charms, as Octavio was a cold and calculating man, she chose to follow her husband to the world of the dead. According to the most common version, she was an asp provided by one of her faithful slaves who had the honor of depriving Octavian Augustus of the pleasure of showing the arrogant queen of Egypt as his slave. It was August 12, 30 BC