Cleopatra the Great

by Joann Fletcher

  After a challenge to stage the most costly banquet ever, she wagered that she personally could consume 10 million sesterces at a single sitting — a claim which caused great amusement until she unhooked one of her huge pearl earrings, ‘that remarkable and truly unique work of nature. Antony was full of curiosity to see what in the world she was going to do’, and along with everyone present watched as she held up her amethyst-studded drinking cup. After its contents had been replenished at a prearranged signal, she dropped the huge pearl into the liquid and, as the contents began to fizz, offered up a toast to Antonius and drank the whole lot down, the ultimate in conspicuous consumption.

  Although many have doubted the exact details of the story, assuming that Cleopatra simply swallowed the pearl ‘knowing that it could be recovered later on’, her gesture was based on a sound knowledge of chemistry. For pearls are largely made of calcium carbonate and dissolve in acidic solutions. Although normal wine would have been insufficient to dissolve a pearl so quickly, sour wine or ‘vinum acer’, modern vinegar, at around 5-7 per cent acetic acid would certainly have done the job. As the calcium dissolved in the vinegar’s water content and fizzed up into bubbles of carbon dioxide the pearl would have acted like an indigestion tablet, neutralising the acid to make Cleopatra’s pearl and vinegar cocktail quite palatable. As she acted out the chemical formula

  CaCO3 + 2CH3COOH > Ca(CH3COO)2 + H2O + CO2

  Cleopatra’s grasp of hard science also tipped over into the esoteric, since the potion she created was known as ‘magistery’, a renowned aphrodisiac linked with Aphrodite-Venus as goddess of love.

  As she prepared to treat her remaining earring in the same way and presumably offer it to Antonius, Plancus stepped in and declared her the outright winner of the bet. Antonius then had to pay a forfeit and so, ‘at a great banquet in front of many guests, he had risen up and rubbed her feet, to fulfil some wager or promise’. Although Egyptian courtiers had long anointed the royal feet as part of state ceremonials, Cleopatra’s choice of forfeit reveals a witty side to her character, since it was traditional Greek practice that men at drinking parties had their feet rubbed by women, one such guest exclaiming, ‘what you are doing now to me, rubbing my feet with your lovely soft hands, it is quite magnificent.’

  Such intimacy was certainly achieved by the end of 41 BC, since the couple were already lovers. As a founder member of the ‘Inimitable Livers’, Antonius liked to think of himself as ‘the Inimitable Lover’, and, as with Caesar before him, the opportunity to possess Alexander’s living descendant must surely have been a tremendous attraction — particularly a descendant whose credentials as the Living Aphrodite must have proved irresistible.

  Egyptian images of Aphrodite portrayed her virtually naked but for a luxuriant hairstyle, pins removed to allow her hair to fall around her shoulders. Her skimpy costume might often be little more than a breast-band, a garment she was often shown removing to emphasise ‘the erotic charge unleashed even then by lingerie, which helped women look their best for their lovers’. In addition to her bra-like garment, Aphrodite was also portrayed in necklaces, bracelets, anklets and long chains crossed over her body, worn singly or in pairs. These developed into a kind of jewelled harness, the ‘kestos himas’ in which Aphrodite herself claimed ‘all my power resides’. It was not dissimilar in composition to the heavy gold girdles, necklaces and lavish gold ‘kekryphalos’ hairnets worn by the highest-status women at the Ptolemaic court.

  Such jewellery was often all that was worn during sex. One woman was portrayed on an engraved mirror case, wearing an elaborate bun hairstyle, body chain, anklet and precious little else, in her boudoir next to a bedside table bearing a wine jug, the erotic paintings on the walls typical of the way elite Alexandrians displayed ‘in their homes lustful embraces of their gods. People who reckon sexual excess to be piety . . . ornament their bedrooms with small painted pictures, hanging up rather high, like offerings in a temple. While lying in bed in the midst of their sensual pleasure they can feast their eyes on a naked Aphrodite locked in sexual union with Ares’, the Roman war god Mars.

  Blatant sexual imagery of this kind had been part of Egypt’s non-prudish culture for centuries, and the palace at Alexandria would certainly have contained its fair share of erotic images. Yet centre stage in Cleopatra’s own sumptuous quarters would have been her golden bed, its comfortable, feather-stuffed mattress covered in hima-tion-type linen sheets, perhaps topped by an exquisite Egyptian bedspread described as ‘delicate, well-woven, glistening, beautifully coloured, covered with many flowers, covered with ornaments, purple, dark green, scarlet, violet, rich with scarlet blooms, purple bordered, shot with gold, embroidered with figures of animals, gleaming with stars’. The soft glow of oil lamps flickering gently at the bedside, combined with kyphi incense sprinkled on the gold brazier, would have created a suitably restful yet seductive atmosphere as the earthly forms of Aphrodite and Dionysos finally came together in well-upholstered comfort.

  Although Antonius, still married to Fulvia, seems to have had no qualms about committing adultery, Cleopatra was single, and within the cosmopolitan and non-prudish atmosphere of Alexandria sex was simply another enjoyable pastime. So-called symplegma (‘knot’) figurines portrayed improbable sexual positions, while the royal library is known to have contained a wide variety of sex-themed works from improper stories to self-help manuals. One such manual, written by Philaenis of Samos, contained the advice, ‘Concerning seductions: accordingly, the seducer should be unadorned and uncombed, so he does not seem to the woman to be too concerned about the matter in hand.’ This was followed by tips on flattery, ‘saying that the plain woman is a goddess, the ugly woman charming, the elderly one like a young girl’, then a chapter ‘Concerning Kisses’ and another ‘Concerning Sexual Positions’.

  Similarly revealing details were featured in Ovid’s Art of Love, deemed unsuitable for married ladies. It detailed sexual positions based on mythical couples, from the ‘Hector and Andromache’, featuring the man on top, to the ‘Milanion and Atlanta’, requiring the woman’s legs to be placed on the man’s shoulders. The poet also advised each woman ‘to know herself, and to enter upon love’s battle in the pose best suited to her charms. If a woman has a lovely face, let her lie upon her back; if she prides herself upon her hips let her display them to the best advantage .... If you are short, let your lover be the steed .... Love has a thousand postures .... So, then, my dear ones, feel the pleasure in the very marrow of your bones; share it fairly with your lover, say pleasant, naughty things the while. And if Nature has withheld from you the sensation of pleasure, then teach your lips to lie and say you feel it all. But if you have to pretend, don’t betray yourself by over-acting. Let your movements and your eyes combine to deceive us, and, gasping, panting, complete the illusion.’

  The intensity of sex was certainly captured in a Ptolemaic spell likening penetration to alchemy, ‘this mysterious fire, all fire, all nape-of-neck, all sigh, all pliant, all you forge in this stove of fire, breathe it also into the heart and liver, into the woman’s loins and belly; lead her into the house of the man, let her give to his hand what is in her hand, to his mouth what is in her mouth, to his body what is in her body, to his wand what is in her womb. Quickly, quickly, at once, at once!’ Magic too was employed during intercourse. Male stamina could be maintained with a decoction of celery and rocket sacred to the highly phallic Min, while Dionysos’ help might be invoked with a blend of pine cones, wine and pepper; carrot juice rubbed on the penis was claimed to prevent premature ejaculation.

  Similar combinations of ingredients such as alum, brine or vinegar were recommended as contraception. Aristotle advocated cedar oil, white lead or frankincense to be smeared on the female genitals, while Dioscorides recommended an application of peppermint, alum or cedar gum, a ‘miraculous’ contraceptive when rubbed on the penis. Although all were commodities easily available to Cleopatra, she clearly had no intention of using any of them and presumably,
as she had planned, by February 40 BC she was once again pregnant.

  The timing was somewhat unfortunate, however, for the news coincided with sudden military crises in both East and West to threaten all that Antonius had so far achieved. Despite accusations that, trapped in a state of inertia that the Romans regarded as an Egyptian vice, he had simply been ‘squandering and fooling away in enjoyments that most costly of all valuables, time’, Antonius nevertheless reacted swiftly to the news, leaving his pregnant lover whom he would not see again for more than three years.

  Although Cleopatra all but disappeared from the Roman records during this period, Egyptian sources reveal the way she maintained control over her expanded kingdom and growing family. In 40 BC, her eleventh regnal year, priestly records at Sakkara reveal that the mother-of-Apis cow, which had died while she had been at Tarsus, was buried following its lengthy mummification process in the Iseum vaults high on the desert plateau of Sakkara. In her pregnant state embodying the divine spirit of the sacred cow, another aspect of Isis, Cleopatra no doubt paid a state visit and made suitable offerings to the great goddess for the protection of her unborn offspring.

  Yet the divine cow was not the only passing at Memphis that year, which also saw the death of the forty-nine-year-old high priest Pasherenptah III. As he posthumously stated in his funerary inscription, ‘it came to pass under the majesty, the sovereign, Lady of the Two Lands, Cleopatra and her son Caesarion, in regnal year 11, 15th Epep, the day on which I landed forever. I was placed in the West and all the rites for my august mummy were carried out for me’. His elaborate seventy-day mummification was followed by interment beside his wife, Taimhotep in the Sakkara necropolis.

  He was succeeded by their only son, Petubastis III, born after his parents had invoked Imhotep in their attempts to have a son to continue the priestly line. The boy had been born in Cleopatra’s sixth regnal year (46-45 BC), the same year as Caesarion. So at the tender age of seven young Petubastis became High Priest of Memphis, his position within the Egyptian administration neatly balancing that of the equally youthful pharaoh Caesarion. Presumably he was installed by Cleopatra and Caesarion at the same type of grand ceremonials in Alexandria which had marked his father’s elevation to office, and the youthful priest’s basalt statue was set up in the city’s great Serapeum as a clear mark of royal favour.

  Keen to keep a close watch on matters beyond Egypt too, Cleopatra had been following Antonius’ progress after he had left Alexandria for Tyre to tackle the Parthians and their new allies, the remaining Roman Republicans. Having invaded Asia Minor to take Cilicia and Caria, the Parthians had simultaneously invaded Syria, seized Antioch and driven Antonius’ client king, Herod, from Judaea. Yet they were only part of Antonius’ troubles.

  During his absence impregnating the irresistible ruler of Egypt, his wife Fulvia, perhaps in a misguided attempt to regain her husband’s attention, had joined forces with his remaining brother Lucius to take on Octavian. They wanted to exploit the chaos he had caused throughout Italy by trying to evict landowners in order to settle some of his many thousand veteran troops. When Lucius set out north to try and join up with Antonius’ men in Gaul, Octavian had sent out his secret weapon, his colleague Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa, who managed to surround the famously balding Lucius inside the town of Perugia. His men fired volleys of specially made sling shots inscribed, ‘Lucius Antonius, you’re dead, baldy. Victory of Gaius Caesar [Octavian]’. Other slogans revealed that their target was Fulvia’s genitals — crude threats inspired by Octavian’s poem about his battle against a woman whose only feminine attribute was her anatomy.

  Indeed, when Lucius’ male allies had all deserted him, the indefatigable Fulvia raised a private army of veterans until, meeting with little success, Lucius surrendered. As a consul and Antonius’ brother he was pardoned and sent to Spain as governor, although the unfortunate citizens of Perugia were not so lucky and their town was given over to Octavian’s soldiers to plunder. Unfortunately the cremation of one of the inhabitants accidentally set fire to the town and destroyed the booty, whereupon Octavian took three hundred leading citizens, some of whom he knew personally, and telling them ‘you must die’, on the Ides of March 40 BC had each one sacrificed on an altar dedicated to the deified Julius Caesar.

  Having firmly established himself in the West, Octavian also reached an understanding with Pompeius’ remaining son Sextus, self-styled King of the Seas, who wore a blue cloak as son of Neptune-Poseidon. He was made ruler of Sicily, Sardinia and Corsica by the Senate on condition that he kept Rome’s grain supply flowing from the province of North Africa. Octavian broke off his unconsummated union with Fulvia’s daughter Claudia, which had originally sealed the Triumvirate, and instead married Scribonia, an aunt of Sextus’ wife. And although somewhat older than her twenty-four-year-old husband, Scribonia soon became pregnant.

  Given the disastrous consequences of her political intervention, Fulvia broke down and in failing health fled to Athens with her sons Antyllus and Iullus and Antonius’ mother, Julia. In the spring of 40 BC, in the midst of the Parthian crisis, a furious Antonius arrived from Tyre for a stormy meeting, hearing the full story before leaving Fulvia and his family in Greece while he went to deal with Octavian in Italy.

  Although Octavian’s troops would not let him land, Antonius besieged Brundisium (Brindisi) even though neither army wanted to fight fellow soldiers. After much negotiation, Octavian and Antonius decided to reconcile their differences, drawing up the treaty of Brundisium which was signed in September that year. Both men would share Italy as a common recruitment ground, and with Octavian receiving Gaul, Spain, Dalmatia and Sardinia and Lepidus retaining Africa Nova, Antonius kept everything from Macedonia to the Euphrates.

  Following Fulvia’s death in Greece Antonius was once more a single man, so the treaty was sealed by his diplomatic marriage to Octavian’s recently widowed older sister Octavia. The standard ten-month mourning period ensuring the paternity of any child born during that period was waived by the Senate to allow this particular marriage of convenience to take place. As the vital lynchpin in the balance of power between Octavian and Antonius, Octavia was an interesting character. Likely to have been far more devious than history likes to imagine when setting her virtues against Cleopatra’s apparent vices, she was of similar age to Cleopatra, a patron of intellectuals and already the mother of several children. She is also generally described as beautiful, even if her coin images sometimes give a contradictory impression, and with a bun, a nodus topknot over her forehead and soft tendrils left loose about her neck her brother’s supporters waxed lyrical about her hair which was praised for being natural, presumably in contrast to Cleopatra’s more artfully crafted appearance.

  About the time that Octavia married Antonius in Rome, where Octavian’s wife Scribonia was about to give birth to Octavian’s only child Julia, Cleopatra herself went into labour. In October 40 BC she gave birth to a daughter and a son. The unusual occurrence of twins was quite a feat, although she was not the first royal Ptolemy to produce dual offspring or even the first Cleopatra to do so, since Cleopatra Tryphaena, eldest daughter of Ptolemy Physkon and his niece Cleopatra III, had produced twin boys for the Seleucid king Antiochos Grypus. A second occurrence of twins among the first-century BC Egyptian elite also supports the idea that another of Physkon’s daughters, Princess Berenike, had indeed married into the Egyptian family of the high priests of Memphis, since the princess’ twenty-four-year-old great-granddaughter Berenike, eldest daughter of Taimhotep and the high priest Pasherenptah III, also produced twins, a boy and girl who seem to have died soon afterwards along with their mother.

  With mixed-sex twins more rare than same-sex ones, Cleopatra’s achievement was particularly special since ‘live twin births will have been fewer and survival through infancy of one or both lower still’. And although the ancient Egyptians did not practice the infanticide of Egypt’s Greek population and parts of modern Egypt where girls in mixed-sex pairs are s
ometimes ‘not fed’, this was certainly not the fate of Cleopatra’s twin children.

  Greatly cherished on a dynastic as well as a maternal level, the archetypal mixed-sex twins were the creator deities Shu and Tefhut, parents of twins Geb and Nut, who in turn gave birth to quads or two pairs of twins, Isis and Nephthys, ‘the divine sister pair’, and their brothers Osiris and Seth. Yet actual twin births were highly unusual, and their mysterious nature bestowed special status on them; the twin architects Suty and Hor said of each other, ‘he came from the womb with me the same day’. Some also believe that their contemporaries, co-rulers Akhenaten and Nefertiti, were also biological twins — they were certainly portrayed as the twin gods Shu and Tefnut. During the Ptolemaic period when same-sex twins Castor and Pollux were associates of Isis, Ptolemy II had a mistress named Didyme, ‘the twin’. The female twins Taues and Taous worked as ‘didymai’ when representing Isis and Nephthys in Apis rites at Sakkara during the reign of Ptolemy VI, whose title ‘twin of the living Apis’ revealed the prestigious nature of twin status.

  As Cleopatra considered the many layers of symbolism associated with her two special children, she knew their names would be of paramount importance. So she named them after Alexander and his sister Cleopatra. The additional epithets Helios and Selene, Sun and Moon, the heavenly bodies whom the Greeks regarded as twins, also supported Cleopatra’s identification with the Divine Mother Isis who was said to have given birth to the sun.