The Murder of Cleopatra (9 page)

It is worth mentioning that of the statues of Cleopatra made after her death and found in the museums of Rome and Berlin, not one of them shows her as an “African” queen; they all show her to be Mediterranean and looking quite similar to the other men and women sculpted from the same period. She may well have had somewhat of an olive-skinned complexion, but then so would many Macedonians. This could hardly be construed as evidence that she was the child of a mixed-race couple. And if she were, wouldn't Octavian, who was her biggest detractor and enemy and who put out many an insult concerning the queen in an attempt to degrade her in the eyes of the Romans, jump on the opportunity to claim she was less than white and ridicule her as the offspring of the lowly peasant class, the “natives” of Egypt, the illegitimate child of a slave woman? In this profiler's opinion, absolutely.

Most of these statues do not show Cleopatra to be a great beauty, but range from depicting her as tolerably decent-looking to lovely-enough. It wasn't until later in history when artists whitened her skin to resemble marble, exposed her breasts, draped her in diaphanous finery, and positioned her in sensual poses that Cleopatra became the foxy lady we envisage today. In none of these early renderings is she ever shown as being of Nubian descent. These portrayals of Cleopatra as black have cropped up only in the most recent decades and, like that of the black Jesus, serve more as a philosophical and cultural icon than a historic one.

The only real clue to what Cleopatra looked like, tangible evidence as opposed to mere rumor or stories passed down over the years,
would come from the coins she issued during her years as pharaoh. There is nothing in the profile of her face on the money that would suggest she was a woman of color; in fact, she has a hooked nose, which is more common to Mediterranean people than those of sub-Sahara Africa. The Ptolemy line appeared to be endowed with a long, hooking nose, but it is hard to say whether the coinage represented Cleopatra's exact facial features. After all, coins were a method of advertising the person in power, and the profile of the queen was intended to show omnipotence, not necessarily her true appearance or her beauty. It is interesting to note that none of the coinage bearing Cleopatra's name and likeness show her as an Egyptian pharaoh/goddess/Isis, as she is represented on the walls of the temple in Dendera, but always as a Greek with a Macedonian-Greek appearance and a Greek hairstyle. Clearly, these diametrically opposed portrayals of Cleopatra serve as propaganda to their respective audiences, and neither is overly concerned with a literal representation of her appearance.

Some argue that had Cleopatra not been a beauty, Julius Caesar and Mark Antony would not have been so taken with her and history might have turned out differently. I disagree. Cleopatra, the great city of Alexandria, and the Ptolemaic treasury were a package deal, and if Cleopatra weren't quite as charismatic or tolerable to look upon, both men might still have attached themselves to her due to the other benefits that came along with her person. That Cleopatra was actually attractive enough, witty, and beguiling certainly made things a bit easier for her and, perhaps, her influence on the men was improved due to these advantages. The more arrows one has in one's quiver, the more one has to work with, so it is hard to believe that Cleopatra's attractiveness, of whatever type or extent, didn't play some part in her success with the two men with whom she partnered.

There is another piece of “evidence” often brought up to support a Nubian-Egyptian background, namely that Cleopatra VII was purportedly the first pharaoh to speak the Egyptian language, a rarity that questions the purpose of her doing so. On this, Plutarch writes:

She could readily turn to whatever language she pleased, so that in her interviews with Barbarians she very seldom had need of an interpreter, but made her replies to most of them herself and unassisted, whether they were Ethiopians, Troglodytes, Hebrews, Arabians, Syrians, Medes or Parthians. Nay, it is said that she knew the speech of many other peoples also, although the kings of Egypt before her had not even made an effort to learn the native language, and some actually gave up their Macedonian dialect.
⁵

I find this passage from Plutarch humorous due to its incredible exaggeration. He clearly states that all the previous Ptolemies spoke Greek, not the educated dialect but the Macedonian bastardization of the language, and none of them bothered learning the language of their subjects. Yet, along comes Cleopatra, taught by the finest of tutors in the culturally cosmopolitan Mediterranean capital of Alexandria, and she learns to speak a half dozen languages or more and is fluent in the language of the commoners. If the previous pharaohs did not feel the need to lower themselves to the level of the populace to gain their favor, why would Cleopatra? After all, the Egyptian rulers were gods and goddesses, and they would hardly be expected to speak the language of mere mortals, especially that of the common people. Some try to claim that Cleopatra was different from the other Cleopatras, more involved with the Egyptian-speaking population, and that speaking the language is proof she is half-Nubian and most likely learned the language from her mother. I can follow the logic here, but there really is no proof that Cleopatra spent more time with the regular folk or had any particular caring for them than the other pharaohs. I think circular logic is actually employed here: Cleopatra spoke an Egyptian language because of her mother and, therefore, cared about the people because she was one of them; and we have proof she was one of them because she spoke their language, which she must have learned from her mother! This is most likely wishful thinking, since the historical record shows Cleopatra to be as disinterested in the lives of the common people as her predecessors.

If it were true that Cleopatra had mixed blood and was so exotic,
whether those at the time viewed this as a positive or a negative, such a deviation from the Macedonian-Greek lineage would surely have been the talk of the town. Such unusual features would likely be exaggerated in those sculptures of her and in writings about her, and yet such gossip about Cleopatra being a dark-skinned anomaly of a Ptolemy is nonexistent. And, to reiterate the most important proof of Cleopatra's Macedonian appearance is Octavian himself, Cleopatra's archenemy, who spent much time slandering Cleopatra, claiming to the Roman people that she was a loose-living vixen, a witch who destroyed good Roman men with her clever wiles. Surely he would have worked overtime on his insults had she actually been an illegitimate child born of a Nubian servant and not of royal lineage at all. Yet, in spite of all the attacks Octavian made on Cleopatra's character, he never claimed she wasn't a Macedonian Ptolemy; he understood quite well that imperialists who conquer countries don't just “go native.” Ruling classes remain ruling classes and Cleopatra was clearly from that stratus of society.

To a profiler, the importance of Cleopatra's appearance has nothing to do with supporting claims that this or that race has made specific contributions to history. This is irrelevant in profiling Cleopatra's life and death. What
is
important is how she viewed herself, whom she viewed herself as, and how others viewed her. She was comfortable with the Greek and Roman world to her north, and travelers from these places were quite content to spend time in her country as well. They were Mediterraneans, all of them, not Nubians, and Octavian's propaganda campaign against Cleopatra was really about her massive wealth, which he didn't want Antony to get his hands on, so he excoriated her lascivious and lavish lifestyle, which quite frankly he was not wrong about; but while the Ptolemies were big spenders, they were far less promiscuous than the Roman ruling class were noted to have been. Regardless of the truth of these matters, Octavian purported that he feared Cleopatra would steal the Roman general away, and with him, pull the Roman people into an indolent, immoral lifestyle. The most difficult pill Cleopatra had to swallow
was that for centuries Egypt was bigger and better than any another country in the known world but, due to the rising military strength of Rome and the foolishness of her father's rule, Cleopatra had to kowtow to more powerful but less cultured regimes. However, it is because Cleopatra considered herself a Greek Ptolemaic ruler
of
Egypt and not
for
Egypt that she felt comfortable putting herself and her children's future before the Egyptian populace's well-being, to make choices that made it possible for her to keep her riches, maintain her rule, and increase her status, whether it be combining forces with Rome or fleeing it. She certainly wasn't worried about going down with the ship (i.e., dying in a tomb on behalf of her people). I believe the manner in which Cleopatra represented herself as a purely Macedonian pharaoh is key to Cleopatra's character and the charting of her final destiny.

Cleopatra became queen at age eighteen. Her father and mother were dead, and her siblings wanted her dead. Ah, to be a Ptolemy in the year 51 BCE. It was anything but fortuitous to ascend the throne of a dynasty that was in its decline, and to stop its demise would take a great deal of strategy, iron will, moxie, and a great deal of luck, given that Rome was breathing down her neck. Not nearly enough credit is given to the last pharaoh of Egypt, who lasted far longer than she should have under such conditions and who almost pulled off a coup of melding her country with a would-be conqueror that, had she been successful, might well have caused many in the highest classes of both countries to spin around and ask those beside them, “What on earth just happened?”

What Cleopatra was made of, the core of her being that would allow her to take on this mighty challenge and almost cross the finish line, was her ability to combine the strengths of each of the Ptolemies before her, thereby making herself a formidable foe whom Octavian would eventually have to face.

As I pointed out concerning her bloodline and heritage, Cleopatra would see herself as the next Macedonian in line for the throne when her father died. She did not see any other Ptolemy of her family who
deserved the honor, and she worked to make sure that the crown passed to her, the one to whom she believed it was owed.

The early pharaohs, Ptolemy I, Ptolemy II, and Ptolemy III, were the leaders Cleopatra saw as her mentors, the ones who built and made Egypt great, who vaulted the Macedonian Ptolemies to the height of their power. Having been thoroughly educated, which was encouraged for both male and female Ptolemies, Cleopatra would no doubt have been quite aware of the history of her brilliant and capable early forebears. She would also be quite cognizant of the later Ptolemies, including her father and her older sister, Berenike, who systematically depleted the strength of Egypt until Rome, desiring the wealth the country still had and especially its immense amount of wheat, added Egypt to its list of countries to be conquered rather than bartered with.

In spite of the fact that women did not receive education of any significance in the Macedonian culture due to a solidly entrenched patriarchy—it was only the boys who were sent to the gymnasium to receive education—the Ptolemies loved learning and clearly provided excellent tutors for their daughters as well as their sons. Since the Cleopatra of this work is the seventh, there were a number of prior Cleopatras who ruled or coruled Egypt for number of years, as well as queens with the names of Arsinoe and Berenice, who also held power during the Ptolemaic Dynasty. All of these women no doubt had intelligence and ability in the skills of governance adequate to hold onto their positions of power even if they were overlooked by many historians because Cleopatra VII was the last one to rule and her intense relationships with Caesar and Antony as well as her death dramatically described by Plutarch caused her to remain more firmly in our memory. By the time our Cleopatra was growing up in the Alexandrian Lagide household (Lagide is another name for the Ptolemaic family descended from Ptolemy I, who also was titled Ptolemy Lagide because he was legally the son of Arsinoe and Lagus of Macedon), she had access to the museum on the grounds of the royal palace, the meeting place of world-renowned mathematicians,
poets, historians, and artists. Clearly, with Plutarch and others singing the praises of her intelligence, wit, and ability with languages (even if this is highly exaggerated), she excelled as a student and her lessons prepared her well to take over as pharaoh and rule the country for almost two decades.

Cleopatra learned many valuable lessons from her unusual ancestors. For example, a good leader doesn't waste the family genes and encourage unnecessary strife and dissent by partnering and spawning children with leaders of lesser dominions; in fact, so concerned were the Ptolemies that their line be pure and the future royals be Egyptian Ptolemies that they introduced incestuous relationships that had not been part of Macedonian history: Ptolemy II married his own sister Arsinoe II in 274 BCE and established a precedent for future pharaohs, guaranteeing no outsiders on the throne and enhancing the claim of divinity for the royals. Early non-Macedonian pharaohs were incestuous on and off during their dynasties; it would seem that the Ptolemies embraced the concept quite avidly, and this would continue into Cleopatra's reign. She married each of her two brothers (and most likely killed them off in order to be sure she retained the throne), and then found more suitable husbands in her pseudomarriages to Julius Caesar and Mark Antony—a brilliant and unique political strategy for a Ptolemy to marry “out” and “up”—to produce children with a dual claim to both the Egyptian throne and the Roman emperor (or emperor-to-be) who would undoubtedly co-opt Egypt in the future. Cleopatra's unusual choice of fathers for her children was her best effort to ensure she and her Ptolemaic offspring would continue to rule in Egypt and the Mediterranean world. The Ptolemies were hardly a peaceful lot, and Cleopatra had many fine examples of using murder as a method of eliminating one's rivals and making sure to be the first to do the family downsizing. Cleopatra's father, Auletes, had her older sister, Berenike, murdered. Berenike had taken over the throne when her father fled Alexandria during a revolt by his people in 58 BCE. He had her killed when he returned to reclaim his position as pharaoh. Cleopatra's other older sister, Cleopatra VI,
mysteriously vanished around the same time, and nothing much has been noted about her in history. Cleopatra's younger sister, Arsinoe IV, the remaining one whom Cleopatra always saw as a threat, was eventually killed off by Antony at Cleopatra's behest.