Cleopatra the Great

by Joann Fletcher

  251 ‘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’. Pollux of Naukratis, in Grant 1976, p.186.

  252 ‘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’. Philaenis, Montserrat 1996, p.113.

  252 ‘saying that the plain woman is a goddess, the ugly woman charming, the elderly one like a young girl’. Philaenis in Montserrat 1996, p.114.

  252 ‘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’. Ovid, Art of Love III.775-778, Lewis May trans., p. 100.

  253 ‘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 women’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. Quckly, quickly, at once, at once!’. Romer and Romer 1995, p.71.

  253 ‘squandering and fooling away in enjoyments that most costly of all valuables, time’. Plutarch, Antony, in Dryden trans., p.757.

  254 ‘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’. Harris Stela BM.EA.886 in Reymond 1981 pp.136-50; Walker and Higgs (eds.,) p.185 and Dunand and Zivie-Coche 2004, p.200.

  254 Fulvia told ‘as long as Italy remained at peace Antony would stay with Cleopatra, but that if war should break out there he would come back speedily’, Appian Roman History V.19, White trans., p.409.

  255 ‘Lucius Antonius, you’re dead, baldy. Victory of Gaius Caesar [Octavian]’. Walker and Higgs (eds.,) 2001, p.239; threats against Fulvia in Wyke 2002, p.220.

  255 ‘you must die’. Suetonius, Augustus 15, in Graves trans., p.57.

  257 ‘live twin births will have been fewer and survival through infancy of one or both lower still’. Baines 1985, p.479.

  257 ‘not fed’. Baines 1985, p.479.

  257 ‘he came from the womb with me the same day’. BM EA.826. in Lichtheim 1976, p.88.

  257 ‘twin of the living Apis’. Baines 1985, p.472.

  257 ‘two deities whose exact identity is not certain’. Abdalla 1991, p.189, referring to Dendera dyad Cairo JE.46278.

  258 ‘the Virgin changed the fate of her Twins in the constellation of the Ram . . . sacred ram of Amun’. Tarn 1932, pp.144-5.

  258 ‘Per-at. . . female pharaoh . . . Sun: Taurus 4: Jupiter in Cancer. Moon: Capricorn 20 and a half Ashmolean Museum, in Neugebauer and Parker 1968, pp.231-4; Antonius’ astrologer in Plutarch Antony 33, Dryden trans., p.759.

  258 ‘he had frequently at the public audience of kings and princes received amorous messages written in tablets made of onyx and crystal, and read them openly’. Plutarch, Antony, Dryden trans., p.769.

  259 ‘you must know that I did not see the sun because you are out of my sight; for I have no other sun but you’. Pap.Oxy.XLII.3059. in Montserrat 1996, p.89.

  259 ‘pain grips me whenever I remember how he used to kiss me, all the while treacherously intending to desert me . . . beloved stars and Mistress Night, my partner in passion, now escort me once again to him toward who Aphrodite drives me, I who am betrayed. ... Be warned — I have an unconquerable will when I am enraged, when I remember I will sleep alone’. Pap.Grenf.1.1 in Rowlandson (ed.) 1998, pp.107-8.

  259 ‘who arose in the beginning as Magician’. Witt 1971, p.311, note 7.

  259 ‘I call upon thee Lady Isis, with thy many names and many forms’. Witt 1971, p.193.

  259 ‘men to women and women to men and makes virgins rush out of their homes’. PGM.XXXVI.69-71 in Montserrat 1996, p.187.

  259 ‘are you a burning woman, an abominable fire, a scorching woman? You should bathe yourself in blood, you should wash yourself with urine, one should set a suit of nettles on your body. Go! No one will find enough water in the sea, you sow, for washing off your face. Your day of death is at hand’. O. Wien D.70 in Rowlandson (ed.) 1998, p.36.

  260 Joint coins of Antonius and Octavia in Southern 1999, fig.20; Walker and Higgs (eds) 2001, nos. 249-50, p.238, no. 259, p.240.

  261 ‘I could not bear the way she nagged me’. Suetonius, Augustus 62, Graves trans., p.84.

  261 ‘indecent haste’. Suetonius, Augustus 69, Graves trans., p.88.

  Chapter 10

  264 ‘Brother of the Sun and Moon’. Tarn 1932 p.159.

  264 ‘who married the Roman general, Antony’. Athenaeus, Deipnosophists IV, 147, Gulick trans., pp.174-5; Antonius’ as consort in demotic Pap.Ash.D.39 in Reymond and Barns 1977, p.23.

  264 ‘she is my wife’. Suetonius Augustus 69, Graves trans., p.89; Earl 1968 p.51; Southern 1998, p.131.

  265 ‘commits the bride’s chastity to their husbands’. Verrius Flaccus in Sebesta 1997, p.535; la Folette 2001, pp.56-60; compare with ‘your red-headed wife, the one with the seven tressed hair’. Martial, 12.32.2-4, in la Folette 2001, p.57.

  265 ‘flame colour’, la Follette 2001, p.55, Sebesta 2001, pp.55-6.

  265 ‘exchange vows with the goddess as our witness’. Achilles Tatius V.14, in Montserrat 1996, p.91; mosaic scenes from Antioch house in Witt 1971, p.161, pl.34.

  266 ‘thus, beloved, I seize you’. La Folette 2001, p.57; ring with Antonius’ portrait BM.GR.1867.5-7.724 in Walker and Higgs (eds.,) 2001, p.244.

  267 ‘Year 16 which is also Year 1’. Fraser 1957, p.71.

  267 ‘made to look Roman, almost like Antony in drag’. Hamer 1984, p.84.

  267 ‘Imperator for the third time and triumvir’, Cleopatra ‘Basilissa’, ‘Thea Neotera’ in Walker and Higgs (eds.,) 2001, p.234; Williams in Walker and Ashton (eds.,) 2003, pp.87-94.

  267 ‘the greatness of the Roman empire consisted more in giving than in taking’. Plutarch, Antony Dryden trans., p.761.

  268 ‘every scent ranks below balsam’. Pliny Natural History XII.Ill, Loeb trans., p.79.

  268 ‘the most precious drug that there is’. JosephusJewish Antiquities 15.4, 2 in Groom 1981, pp.128-9.

  268 ‘which serves as no small source of income . . . the barbarians export the tar to Egypt and sell it for embalming the dead, for if this material is not mixed into the other substances the cadaver will not last long’. Diodorus 19, 98-99 in Rimon et al. 1997, p.56; Roller et al. 2005, p.610; Rullkotter and Nissenbaum 1988, also Geer trans., p.103.

  269 ‘a woman who held the greatest position of any living at that time’. Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 15.97-103 in Grant 1972, p.159.

  269 ‘instead of having her murdered, he plied her with gifts and escorted her on her on the way to Egypt’. Josephus, in Grant 1972, p.160.

  269 ‘Philopatns . . . Fatherland Loving’. BGU.XIV.2376 in Maehler 1983 p.8.

  270 ‘of Alexander and Egypt’s dynastic family. She was a Macedonian . . . and since Cleopatra’s patris was Macedon, she was looking back to old Greece and to the home of her forefathers’. Thompson 2003, p.31, see also Bingen 2007, p.62.

  270 ‘made all Asia shake’. Plutarch, Antony, Dryden tra
ns., p.761.

  271 ‘could not even stand up to review his fleet when the ships were already at their fighting stations; but lay on his back and gazed up at the sky, never rising to show that he was alive until his admiral Marcus Agrippa had routed the enemy’. Suetonius, Augustus 16, Graves trans., p.58.

  271 ‘could not hold out long at table, but in the midst of the drinking would often rise or spring up to look out, until she put into port’. Plutarch, Antony 51.2, in Rice 1999, p.57.

  272 ‘bringing her body down by slender diet’. Plutarch, Antony in Dryden trans., p.767.

  273 ‘brilliant success’. Chaveau 2002, p.58.

  274 ‘honourable wounds’. Earl 1968, p.50.

  275 ‘given orders that he should be called Dionysus ... his head bound with the ivy wreath, his person envelopped in the saffron robe of gold’. Velleius Paterculus 11.82, in Grant 1972, p.161.

  274 ‘coming forth in procession around the temple of Isis by his war chariot ... to alight at the temple of Isis, lady of the Mound-of-Egypt’. BM.EA.886, in Reymond 1981, p.148.

  275 ‘was then, as at other times when she appeared in public, dressed in the habit of the goddess Isis and gave audience to the people under the name of the New Isis’. Antony, Dryden, trans., p.768.

  275 ‘the greatness of the Roman empire consisted more in giving than in taking’. Plutarch, Antony Dryden trans., p.761.

  275 ‘his own sons by Cleopatra were to have the style of “kings of kings”. Plutarch, Antony, Dryden trans., p.768.

  276 ‘Alexander was brought out before the people in Median costume, the tiara and upright peak’. Plutarch, Antony, Dryden trans., p.768; bronze figurine in Median dress MMA.GR.49.11.3 in Smith 1917; Walker and Higgs (eds.,) p.139, 250.

  276 ‘done about with the diadem; for this was the habit of the successors of Alexander’. Plutarch, Antony, Dryden trans., p.768.

  276 ‘one was received by a guard of Macedonians, the other one by one of Armenians’. Plutarch, Antony, Dryden trans., p.768.

  276 Bronze plaque in Thompson 1973, p.65, pl.LXX.b; double cornucopiae ‘appears on the coins of Mark Antony . . . and smacks of the taste of Alexandria’. Thompson 1973, pp.64-5.

  276 ‘Kleopatrae reginae regum filiorum regum’ in Southern 1999, p.115.

  277 ‘by marrying two wives at once, did a thing which no Roman had ever allowed himself. Plutarch, Antony and Demetrius Compared, Dryden trans., p.780.

  277 ‘Aegyptia coniunx . . . ‘the Egyptian wife’. Virgil, Aeneid VIII.688, in Maehler 2003, p.208.

  277 ‘filthy marriage’. Propertius III.ll, trans., Shepherd 1985 in Maehler 2003, pp.209-10.

  277 ‘a theatrical piece of insolence and contempt of his country’. Plutarch, Antony, Dryden trans., p.768.

  277 ‘because they felt he had made a present to the Egyptians of the honourable and sacred traditions of his fatherland for the sake of Cleopatra’. Plutarch, Antony 50 in Walker and Higgs (eds.,) 2001, p.195.

  278 ‘antique diction . . . nonsensicalities of those garrulous Asiatic orators’. Suetonius, Augustus 86 Graves trans., p.97.

  278 ‘What’s come over you? Do you object to my sleeping with Cleopatra? She is my wife! And it isn’t as if this were anything new — the affair started 9 years ago! And what about you? Are you faithful to Livia Drusilla? My congratulations if when this letter arrives, you have not already been to bed with Tertullia or Terentilla or Rufilla or Salvia Titisiena — or all of them. Does it really matter so much where, or with whom, you get your erections?’. Suetonius, Augustus 69, based on Graves trans., p.89; Earl 1968, p.51; Southern 1998, p.131.

  278 ‘for reasons of state, not simple passion’. Suetonius, Augustus 69, Graves trans., p.88.

  278 ‘hauling an ex-consuls wife from her husband’s dining room into the bedroom — before his eyes, too! He brought the woman back, says Antonius, blushing to the ears and with her hair in disorder’. Suetonius, Augustus 69, Graves trans., p.88.

  279 ‘collected for Cleopatra the masterpieces of the East’. Griffin 1977, p.23.

  279 ‘a positively sensuous pleasure from literature’. Flavius Philostratus, in Grant 1972, p. 181.

  280 ‘for there may be amongst the rest some antique or famous piece of workmanship which Antony would be sorry to part with’. Plutarch, Antony, Dryden trans., p.758.

  280 ‘Antonius the great, lover without peer, Parasitos set this up to his own god and benefactor, 29th day of Khoiak, year 19 which is also year 4’. Walker and Higgs (eds.,) 2001 p.232; Fraser 1957, p.73.

  280 For Red Sea trade vessels redeployed see Goudchaux 2003, p.lll; rowing crews including ‘Arabians and Bactrians’ in Virgil Aeneid VIII.705-706, in Dryden trans., p.223.

  281 ‘We have granted to Publius Canidius and his heirs the annual exportation of 10,000 artabas of wheat and the annual importation of5,000 Coan amphoras of wine without anyone exacting anything in taxes from him or any other expense whatsoever. We have also granted tax exemption on all the land he owns in Egypt on the understanding that he shall not pay any taxes, either to the state account or to the special account of us and others, in any way in perpetuity . . . Let it be written to whom it may concern, so that knowing it they can act accordingly. Let it be done’. Pap.Berolinensis 25.239 in Agyptisches Museum und Papyrussammlung, Berlin, in van Minnen 2003, pp.35, 44; Walker and Higgs (eds.,) 2001, no.188, p.180; handwriting of Ptolemies IX and X in van Minnen 2003, p.35 and Reeves 2000, p.213.

  282 ‘coming in from all quarters to form the navy’. Plutarch Antony, Dryden trans., p.768.

  282 ‘the Palace . . . she visited the market place [forum] with Antony, presided with him over festivals and the hearing of lawsuits, rode around with him on horseback even in the cities, or else was carried in a litter’. Cassius Dio 50.5, Scott-Kilvert trans., p.38.

  283 ‘it was not just that one that bore so great a part in their charge of the war should be robbed of her share of glory’, especially as she was in no way inferior ‘in prudence to any one of the kings that were serving with him; she had long governed a great kingdom by herself alone, and long lived with him, and gained experience in public affairs’. Plutarch, Antony, Dryden trans., p.768.

  283 ‘all kings, princes and governors, all nations and cities within the limits of Syria, the Maeotid Lake, Armenia and Illyria . . . this one island for some days resounded with piping and harping, theatres filling and choruses playing. Every city sent an ox as its contribution to the sacrifice and the kings that accompanied Antonius competed who should make the most magnificent feasts and the greatest presents’. Plutarch, Antony, Dryden trans., p.769.

  284 ‘courted the favour of the people with all sorts of attentions. The Athenians in requital, having decreed her public honours, deputed several of the citizens to wait upon her at her house; amongst whom went Antony as one, he being an [honorary] Athenian citizen and he it was that made the speech’. Plutarch, Antony, Dryden trans., p.769.

  284 ‘sent orders to Rome to have Octavia removed from his house. She left it, we are told, accompanied by all his children, except the eldest by Fulvia, who was then with his father . . . weeping and grieving that she must be looked upon as one of the causes of the war . . . pitied not so much her as Antonius himself, and more particularly those who had seen Cleopatra, whom they could report to have no way the advantage of Octavia either in youth or in beauty’. Plutarch, Antony, Dryden trans., p.769.

  284 ‘drove away his lawful Roman wife to please the foreign and unlawful woman. And so . . . Antony procured his ruin by his marriage’. Plutarch, Antony and Demetrius Compared, Dryden trans., p.780.

  285 ‘all Italy took a personal oath to me voluntarily, demanding me as their leader in the war’. Augustus, Res Gestae 25, in Walker and Higgs (eds.,) 2001, p.193.

  285 ‘O Rome . . . the Queen crops off your delicate head of hair and uttering judgements will hurl you to earth from the sky’. Lindsay 1970, p.356.

  285 ‘to demolish the Capitol and topple the empire’. Horace, Ode 1.37 in Maehler 2003,
p.206.

  285 ‘an enormity that even Cleopatra would have been ashamed’. Pliny, Natural History XXXIII.50, Loeb trans., p.41, replicating Herodotus’ earlier account of Saite court in Histories II. 172, de Selincourt trans., p.197.

  285 ‘her squalid pack of diseased half-men’. Horace, Ode 1.37 in Grant 1972, p.214; ‘the minion of withered eunuchs’. Horace, Epode IX.12-15, Bennett trans., p.387.

  285 ‘the generals they would have to fight would be Mardion the eunuch, Pothinus, Eiras, Cleopatra’s hair-dressing girl and Charmion, who were Antony’s chief state-councillors’. Plutarch, Antony, Dryden trans., p.770.

  285 ‘pathologically treacherous’. Velleius Pateruclus, in commentary to Cicero, trans., Grant, p.98.

  286 ‘one thing he had to say, whether sober or drunk, was that all would go well if Cleopatra would return to Egypt . . . You have done well, Geminius, to tell your secret without being put on the rack’. Plutarch, Antony, after Dryden trans., p.770.

  286 ‘I shall one day give judgement on the Capitol’. Cassius Dio 50.5 in Scott-Kilvert trans., p.39.

  287 ‘denying him the authority which he had let a woman exercise in his place’. Plutarch Antony Dryden trans., p.770; Antonius’ acceptance of gynaikokratia ‘feminine rule’ in Plutarch, Antony, Dryden trans., p.751, and Wyke 2002, p.220.

  287 ‘fatale monstrum’. Horace, Ode 1.37.21 in Bennett trans., p.100; ‘a monster capable of forcing fate’. Bingen 2007, p.44, see also Luce 1963, p.255 and Maehler 2003, p.207.

  287 ‘Rome, who had never condescended to fear any nation or people, did in her time fear two human beings; one was Hannibal, and the other was a woman’. Tarn 1934, p.lll.

  288 ‘we may well be frightened if Octavian has got hold of the ladle’. Plutarch, Antony, Dryden trans., p.771.

  288 ‘amid the soldiers’ standards the sun shines on the shameful Egyptian pavilion’. Horace, Epode IX.16, Bennett trans., p.386.

  288 ‘bear weapons at a woman’s behest’. Horace, Epode IX.12-15, Bennett trans., p.387.

  288 ‘and — shocking! — accompanied by an Egyptian wife’. Virgil, Aeneid VIII.688, in Maehler 2003 p.208; see also Bingen 2007, p.45 — ‘behind him, o scandal, his Egyptian wife!’.