Cleopatra, a Defense
This is an excerpt from a book I wrote last year about historical women who have been misrepresented or entirely left out of history due to their perceived ‘promiscuity’ or ‘indecency.’ I want to set the record straight with a book, but I need a larger platform. So, enjoy!
Cleopatra ruled during one of the most dangerous times for women in power. As biographer Stacy Schiff puts it, “a zero-sum game: a woman’s authority spelled a man’s deception.” As such, her Roman contemporaries portrayed her as an evil seductress who “enslaved” Julius Caesar and Marc Antony with her exotic pussy magic. This image of Cleopatra still persists today. Later historians would write her off as “Ptolemy’s impure daughter,” a “matchless siren,” the “harlot queen,” and the “painted whore” whose “unchastity cost Rome dear.”
Her haters call her a whore and her supporters deny that she was ever promiscuous. In this chapter, I am going to get into her reign as an absolute monarch and dispel misconceptions about her time with her Roman boyfriends.
Daddy’s Favorite: Life as a Ptolemy Princess
Born in early 69 BC (nice), she was one of Pharaoh Ptolemy XII Auletes’s four children, she was always daddy’s favorite and she knew it. The Ptolemies had a Kardashian-type reputation for grand exhibits of extraordinary wealth and drama. Auletes actually inherited the throne when his cousin Alexander II was lynched by a mob after murdering his wife who was also his stepmother, cousin, and possible half-sister. No one knows why he did it, but she was really popular so people were understandably upset.
As for the bold displays of wealth, the people of Alexandria didn’t mind too much until Auletes began hosting them in the powerful Roman consul Pompey’s honor. They couldn’t organize in fear of a Roman takeover, so they resorted to some good old fashioned mob violence. One time a Roman killed a cat and an angry mob burned his house down. I mean, Egyptians were like really into cats, so I don’t agree but I do understand. Auletes sided with the Roman alliance of Pompey, Crassus, and Caesar over his own brother and allowed them to just, you know, take Cyprus, Alexandria basically said ‘fuck you, you little bitch’ and finally rebelled and deposed their monarch in 58 BC. With few places to turn, Auletes, his wife, Cleopatra, and her two baby brothers turned to their Roman ‘friends’ for help. In a dick move, Pompey, Crassus, and Caesar bankrupted their family in a ‘cash-for-your-throne-back’ scam. While they were away Auletes’ eldest daughter Berenike was installed as sole ruler on the condition that she marry a Seleucus prince. Instead, she had the prince strangled and then married a random priest whom she refused to name as co-ruler. Upon his eventual return to power, Auletes had his daughter Berenike beheaded, which in retrospect didn’t set a great precedent of kinship amongst his other children.
Anyways, Cleopatra and her dad were reinstated with the help of Syria’s Roman governor Aulus Gabinius and his cavalry led by the 28-year-old Marc Antony. Some people (the worst) have claimed Marc Antony fell in love with the fourteen-year-old princess at first sight then, but 1) it’s not true and 2) gross. The takeaway here is that they got their throne back, but Alexandria hated them even more than before because they were assisted by Romans. I’m not even going to make a feminist point about how romantics have warped Cleopatra’s legacy (I could), it’s just f*cking lame and plain weird.
So most people know that Cleopatra was fiercely intelligent. The thing is, she wasn’t just smart and highly educated for a woman of her time, she was remarkably intelligent by the standards of Alexandria, the center of learning in the ancient world. She read classic plays and literature at the Library of Alexandria and conducted scientific experiments in fetal development and toxicology, specifically in poisons and antidotes. Some contemporary sources deemed her ‘scribe of the god’ for her talent in linguistics and foreign language. She was also a student of history, in that she specifically studied the numerous female leaders of Egypt whose legacies scribes and historians had tried to erase, including Hatshepsut.
Queen of the People: Rise to Power and God-Level Status
In 52 BC, Cleopatra became a co-ruler with her dad, just four months before his death in 51 BC.
Knowing that the biggest threat to her ambition was her own family, Cleopatra became the first of her dynasty to learn Egyptian and its ancient culture in order to make herself closer to her people. Yes, the Ptolemies were Macedonian Greek, not Ancient Egyptian. The dynasty’s namesake comes from one of Alexander the Great’s generals that inherited the kingdom of Egypt after his death. Well, specifically she was 32 parts Greek, 27 parts Macedonian, and 5 parts Persian. Anyways, she also made the decision to wear the red and white combined crown of a united Egypt instead of the more understated Macedonian diadem and made sure her (red) hair beneath it was snatched. The linen and gold-plated get up with colorful beads and that iconic winged eyeliner that we associate with Cleopatra was actually an anomaly of her era. It was like an over-the-top version of the goddess Isis. Essentially, she created herself in Isis’ image to reinforce her identity as a divine goddess. Rather, she was serving Isis-realness, hunty. It was a spectacle, but it was one that was immediately recognizable to her mostly illiterate subjects whom she spoke to directly in their native tongue. So, despite her ‘divine’ status as ‘Nea Isis’ (new Isis) and a Ptolemy of Egypt, Cleopatra had a big Princess Diana-vibe going for her when she first came to the throne. She also didn’t possess the classic Ptolemy obesity and mental instability that probably came from all the incest. So, she had that going for her too.
Not only did she look the part but she took an active part in Egyptian rituals, including the birth of the divine Buchis bull down south in Thebes. Basically, it’s a thousand-year-old ritual of installing the Buchis bull, the sun god Ra’s earthly incarnation in his temple. In the past, rulers just attended as a formality, but Cleopatra went all out to show that she meant f*cking business it when came to the traditions and culture of ancient Egypt. Here’s where this shit gets good.
Traditionally, in both Greek and Egyptian rites, women, especially royal women have used their sexuality to awaken fecundity and even divine powers in gods and kings. Why do you think so many remaining statues of Egyptian queens are topless? It’s because they had magical titties.
At the time, Egypt had been struggling through famine and drought, so the country was in much need of some fertility, which is why Cleopatra’s dedicated participation was so important for the start of her reign. Buchis was also the embodiment of the war god Montu and the fertility god Min, so he was a really important and holy cow (their words not mine). Anyways, she rowed this sacred bull more than five miles against the current of the Nile with golden oars. Isis, Cleopatra’s alter-ego was also the goddess of sailing and in one story, her daughters rowed the legendary pyramid builder King Snorfu across the Nile. Then she slayed the sexy fertility ritual with a masked priest who represented Buchis, and everyone was like ‘oh my god, wig’.
After killing it at these spiritual ceremonies and gaining the love of the people and the priests, Cleopatra, the sole ruler of Egypt at the time, also got to work on Egypt’s economy. She combined heavy taxation and profits from ongoing trade to create an immense amount of wealth to recoup losses from the low floods and bad harvests. The people didn’t mind too much either because they were like ‘yas queen tax us we love you’. Sadly, after eighteen months of Cleopatra straight killing it as Pharaoh, her man-baby brother/husband Ptolemy XIII staged a coup and basically leveraged food supplies to be recognized as co-ruler.
Enter: The Republic of Rome and Daddy Julius Caesar
Meanwhile, Rome was basically on the brink of civil war. Cleopatra and Ptolemy sent men and cavalry to aid Pompey against Caesar since he had helped their father retake the throne back in the day. However, by 49 BC, Cleopatra had been effectively deposed by her brother’s advisors and was Pharaoh in name only. To make matters worse, Pompey violated their father’s will to have them as co-rulers and declared bitchass Ptolemy the sole ruler of Egypt. So she said ‘fuck you guys, I’m out but I’ll be back with an army’ and went to Thebes where her loyal supporters were. Then, she finessed an army and took it to Arabia and Palestine in early 48 BC. Of course, she spoke Hebrew and Aramaic perfectly and was able to establish a court in Antioch, a center of opposition to Pompey.
When Cleopatra left Egypt, the Nile floods hit record lows and since the water was a measure of gods’ favor, everyone blamed the little shit Ptolemy and the absence of their fertile Isis queen. On top of this, the fourteen-year-old Pharoah’s closest ally Pompey had just suffered a massive defeat at the hands of Caesar. So this little shit came crawling back to his big sister for help. Cleopatra, pretty f*cking pleased with herself at this point, agreed to meet him at the border between Egypt and Syria. As Ptolemy’s men prepared for hostilities, guess who tf decides to show up but Pompey’s bitch ass asking for money? When he arrived a boat with two of Ptolemy’s closest advisors rowed up to Pompey’s boat to take him ashore. As Pompey greeted the men, they stabbed his ass in the back. Then, ancient Egyptian Joffrey ordered that Pompey be beheaded and his severed head preserved. He tried to offer the severed head to Caesar like a cat with a dead rat, but Caesar was like ‘you nasty bitch get that shit out of my face’. Julius had already flirted with the idea of aligning himself with Cleopatra, but now he was definitely open to it. Cleopatra didn’t even have to do anything, she just let Pompey fail and her brother be a dumbass. Brilliant.
So, with Caesar in Alexandria, already turned off by the boy king Ptolemy but still seeking debt repayment from a Ptolemy, Cleopatra needed a way to sneak through the city unseen as her brother’s guards were on high alert for her with orders to kill. She was well aware of Caesar’s long history of royal and aristocratic mistresses, so she needed to present herself to him as such. I’m sure by now, you know the story of her rolling herself into the carpet. So, it probably didn’t happen exactly like that. First off, a goddess such as Cleopatra probably wouldn’t allow herself to be manhandled like that. Second, the word described that she was ‘wrapped’ in is a super broad term that could’ve meant anything from bed linen to a cloak. Most likely, it was a thick cloak with a hood that covered her face and when she unveiled herself, she was merely taking it off. But so what? She had see-through clothing underneath. Plus, her ‘unveiling’ had a heavy but clever marriage implication. Rolling out of a carpet of sack just wouldn’t have had the same effect. According to Dr. Joan Fletcher, it’s possible she also ‘revealed’ her titties to Caesar, but I guess we’re just not ready to have that conversation yet.
Though Caesar was 30 years older than the 22-year-old Cleopatra, they soon became inseparable. Not just because their survival depended on their political alliance, but also because they were both cultured intellectuals who had much in common despite their age gap. They both understood the demands of ruling and they were both fugitives in their youth. If Caesar had any inclinations of being neutral between the Ptolemies, that was out the window. When Ptolemy realized that his sister-wife had Caesar in her pocket, he acted rashly and tried to incite a riot with a melodramatic speech and ripping off his diadem Mean Girls-style. Luckily, Caesar promptly had the little shit arrested and calmed the crowd down with his orator skills.
Prior to this, Cleopatra had shown Caesar his father’s will that granted him rights as consul and declared her and her brother co-rulers. Thus, Caesar brought Ptolemy to a meeting of the Alexandria assembly to reassert his rights as temporary consul and establish Cleopatra and Ptolemy XIII as co-rulers of Egypt. He also sent Cleopatra’s younger siblings Arsinoë and little Ptolemy to fuck off to Cyprus to rule as its monarchs. It was a strategically diplomatic move for him and dealt with potential dynastic threats to Cleopatra’s rule. Thus, Cleopatra and her man become de facto rulers of Egypt.
“Fuck it let’s burn those bitches” — The Seige of Alexandria
This did not go over well with Ptolemy’s powerful regents Potheinos and Achillas who had been the ones to remove Cleopatra, a woman they were undoubtedly afraid of, from power in the first place. They saw this Roman proposal as a sham orchestrated by Cleopatra herself to position herself as the unofficial sole ruler of Egypt. Truthfully, they probably weren’t wrong about her manipulating Caesar, but mostly they feared an intelligent and ambitious woman in power. Part of ‘manipulation’ is convincing someone that the thing you want them to do is in their best interest as well, and that’s what Cleopatra did. So, one night while Cleopatra and Caesar were feasting late into the night, Potheinos and Achillas were overheard plotting the power couple’s assassinations. Apparently, they couldn’t decide on a preferred method of murder when Caesar timid barber heard their argument and reported the plot to Caesar in the middle of his feast. Caesar immediately sent a guard to kill Potheinos. Achillas managed to escape and reach his twenty-thousand men and join forces with anti-Caesapatra Alexandrian Greeks. Caesapatra was outnumbered and surrounded, so they took King Ptolemy as a hostage while they awaited Caesar’s reinforcements. They knew Achillas would try to stop Caesar’s ships, so the couple looked at each other, shrugged and said ‘fuck it let’s burn those bitches’ and burnt all the ships in the harbor Roman and Egyptian. Tragically, the wind picked up the flames and spread to the Great Library of Alexandria burning countless rare collections of books. In the chaos, Cleopatra’s little sis Arsinoë and her eunuch tutor Ganymedes slipped away from Caesar’s guards to Achillas’ army who declared the preteen their queen. When one of the generals disagreed with her siege tactics, she had him killed and replaced him with her homeboy Ganymedes. To buy time, Caesar released the hostage Ptolemy whom he assumed would take issue with his little sister declaring herself Pharaoh. But the two siblings had more beef with their half-sister than they did with each other, so Ptolemy told Caesar to suck it and joined forces with Arsinoë and Achillas.
Luckily, Caesapatra had a lot of friends from Anatolia, Syria, and Arabia whose armies arrived in early 47 BC under the leadership of Caesar’s bro the prince of Pergamon. When the Jewish high priest Antipatros saw these reinforcements he switched sides to bring three-thousand men to Caesar’s cause. During a naval battle near modern Cairo on the delta, Ptolemy drowned in his gold armor, which is like objectively hilarious, and Arsinoë was taken to Rome to be a part of the victory parade then spared and sent to live in the temple of Artemis. Caesar made a brass pillar in honor of the Jews that fought for him and officially reinstated their Alexandrian citizenship that had revoked during royal feuds of the past.
Caesarpatra 5ever
Cleopatra spent the entirety of this war in the palace chillin’ like the queen she was knowing that her man would never give her up. While most of her rivals for power were eliminated in the conflict, Cleopatra found out she was knocked up. Because Caesar was still married to Calpurnia, his marriage to Cleopatra was only recognized by Egyptian law that allowed polygamy, which is why Roman sources refer to her as his mistress. The point is they did get married and in the most lavish and over-the-top fashion. Both having cults of personality surrounding them, Caesar and Cleopatra knew full well the power of a spectacle. So, their union was formalized by a 400-ship cruise down the Nile with stops at each of their respective cult centers. It was like Coachella mixed with the Royal Wedding and Beyoncé’s VMA pregnancy announcement. To the people of Egypt, she appeared to them a pregnant goddess. Think Beyoncé’s 2017 Grammy performance.
After their On the Run Tour, Caesar had to promptly return to Rome, where Pompey’s sons were still at large. His prolonged absence from Rome was, of course, blamed on Cleopatra’s vagina witchcraft. Regardless, the queen was once again the head of her kingdom. She successfully gave birth to her son Caesarion on June 23, 47 BC, and it was one of her greatest political achievements. As a bonus, it drove Rome insane. *insert primary Roman source*
Comrade Cleopatra: Queen of Scholarship, Lavish Parties and Seizing the Means of Production
Following the birth, Egypt had the bountiful harvests in the Mediterranean world. This was especially good for its queen because the Ptolemaic economy functioned similarly to Soviet Russia. Almost all land belonged to the royal family, and Comrade Cleopatra ruled via the distribution of these great harvests. She also had controls in every level of every industry with little bureaucratic interference. Despite this, officials were still given a lot of power to take care of private business, side hustles, tax fraud, etc, which made the system ripe for corruption. Nevertheless, Comrade Cleopatra was committed to justice and spent many of her days meeting with irritants and arbitrating conflicts. In Alexandria, Greeks were subject to Greek law and Egyptians to Egyptian law– Cleopatra, of course, was well-versed in both.
She also completely revolutionized the economy by introducing coins that were marked with their value rather than their value be determined by their weight or material.
By stabilizing the economy, Cleopatra amassed a fortune and Alexandrian art and culture thrived.
After single-handedly fixing Egypt, Cleopatra travelled to Rome to see her baby daddy, following his desice victory over pompey’s remaining supporters. To Cleopatra and her massive travelling party, Rome was the ghetto, “it was the kind of place where a stray dog might deposit a human hand under a breakfast table, where an ox could burst through the dining room.” She settled in Caesar’s villa by summer of 46 BC while her man still had to live with his wife in the center of town. Despite their living arrangements, Caesar began instituting a significant number Egyptian-style reforms such as changing the calendar to twelve thirty-day months and 2 twelve-hour divisions of the day. The calendar pissed a lot of people off including Plutarch and Cicero where complained that they had no idea what day or what time it was, and they blamed Cleopatra’s ladies parts for it. He also created a census and threw victory celebrations in the Egyptian fashion of eleven or more days of sophisticated and lavish ragers. The festivals during these festivities is where Cleopatra and Caesar paraded Arsinoë through the streets in shackles before sending her to the temple of artemis. Caesar also dedicated a gold statue to his Egyptian queen in poor taste attempt to integrate her into the Roman culture.
“Cleopatra Made Caesar Invent the Measurement of Time, so we should just stab Caesar”
It was all fun and games until Caesar cheated on Cleopatra with the wife of the king of Mauretania and everyone in Rome thought of her as the whore. Cleopatra was treated as courtesan rather than a queen, as female authority was unheard of in Rome. Not to mention, the people of Rome were ugly, didn’t understand sarcasm and had no taste in food, fashion or art. Comparing Rome to Alexandria would be like comparing a postcard from Paris to the actual Paris. It had that hot garbage smell of Times Square but with muddy pigs and rancid soup vendors instead of the bright lights and skyscrapers. Not that Alexandria didn’t have people chucking their bodily fluids from windows, in fact that was a common issue Cleopatra dealt with as queen, but at least she could walk down the street without it getting shit thrown at you or getting mugged.
Cleopatra spent the next few years going back and forth between Rome and her home of Alexandria. She and Caesar were still close by the time 44 BC rolled around, which is why the events of that year were largely blamed on her influence by Plutarch, Lucan and other historians of the age. I think it was easier for nationalistic Roman men to blame a foreign woman’s corrupting influence than hold their own accountable for an ambitious power grab. Cleopatra was probably an influence in Caesar’s evolution as an autocrat, but he was still a grown man who had known power his whole life and probably felt entitled to power after his many military victories. The policies that Cleopatra did influence were actually widely popular improvements to the pile of shit that Rome was at the time. But anyways, Cassius, Brutus and a bunch of other senators were pissed because they didn’t know what time it was and decided to stab the shit out of Caesar for breaking the bro code and partying too hard. They’d say it was to protect the republic but the Roman Empire was established by Octavius, Caesar’s adopted son and heir and later Emperor Augustus not long after the Ides.
After Caesar’s murder, Marc Antony gave his famous speech at his funeral that incited a violent riot across the city of Rome. Cleopatra watched the fires from her villa and then got the absolute fuck out of the dumpster fire that was Rome.
Marc Antony Slides into Cleopatra’s DMs — She Does Not Disappoint
Back in Alexandria, Cleopatra continued her goddess-ness as a ruler and as a scholar. She conducted experiments in toxicology and gynecology and spent a lot of her time with philosophers and physicians. This time, however, the Nile betrayed her and the crops were failing and the people were starving. On top of the famine, plague was spreading across her kingdom and Arsinoë still posed a serious threat to her throne. Then Marc Antony and Octavius were like ‘knock, knock, it’s a Roman civil war’. Marc Antony was a hot jock fuck boy that looked and fought like the ideal Roman manly man fighting to avenge his murdered brother-in-arms. Octavius was a skinny little bitch boy who could barely hold up a sword. While Antony was pursuing Caesar’s assassins in the North, Octavius stayed in Rome and launched a propaganda campaign against his rival to convince the spineless senate to proclaim him enemy no. 1. They attacked his many affairs and his relationship with his wife Fulvia, who preferred politics and military strategy over traditional and ‘respectable’ Roman women duties. In many ways, Octavius was like an incel who compensated for his fear of women and lack of physical strength with a superiority complex and being loud.
Antony’s attraction to strong women (his mother Julia was also a badass) was likely somewhat responsible for adamant pursuit of Cleopatra as an ally. When Cleopatra finally answered Antony’s summons to meet him Tarsos, she obviously brought the theatrics. Instead of accepting his dinner invitation, she invited Antony and his officers aboard her luxurious cruise line where she awaited them perched beneath a golden canopy and purple sails being attended to by beautiful handmaids. Her hair– snatched. Her asymmetrical greek-style chiton–SNATCHED. Her pearls that held political significance as the ultimate symbol of Eastern wealth–SNATCHEDT! Despite basically looking like the embodiment of Aphrodite, Cleopatra greeted Antony and his men calmly and just said that all the luxury furniture and art aboard the ship was a present for them. As a man with predilection for powerful women, Antony was hooked from the moment he set foot in her presence. From then on, he would do anything for her, which, of course, meant disposing of her enemies. Since her public humiliation by Caesar in Rome, Arsinoe had been conspiring against Cleopatra ever since, even having priests proclaiming her as queen. Antony made short work of her by having her assassinated on the steps of the temple of Artemis. He also executed a pretender claiming to be Cleopatra’s dead brother Ptolemy XIII. Once her throne was secure, Cleopatra returned home and, after quelling a rebellion in Syria, Antony joined her in 41 BC.
Like any other Roman ruler, Antony was hailed as the incarnation of a god, specifically Dionysis, the god of wine and a divine ancestor of the Ptolemies. As such, Antony, the outgoing but revered party boy god and Cleopatra, the provocative Ptolemy goddess were a match made in… Olympus? Anyways, unlike Caesar who didn’t drink, Antony loved to party and so did Cleopatra. The couple held grand banquets and festivals that featured massive floats filled with 6000 to 30,000 gallons of wine. During their more regular intimate parties, they played drinking games all night such as kottabos, wherein dregs were thrown at targets and the winner got to kiss whoever they want to, boy or girl. Sometimes, when the couple was wrecked, they would disguise themselves as servants and harass people outside their homes. On the few occasions the Alexandrians did not recognize them, laugh and join their drunken monarchs in their shenanigans, Antony would come home with severe bruises or be disappointed no one answered the door. Though Antony and Cleopatra drank very often, they mostly limited themselves to three or four bowls of wine in accordance with Dionysis’ succession of drunkenness: ‘the fifth [bowl belongs] to shouting, the sixth to revel, the seventh to black eyes, the eighth to summonses, the ninth to bile and the tenth to madness and people tossing furniture about’. They were also likely doing opium as well, but in very small doses.
Cleopatra’s infamous pearl earring in the wine glass party trick
Quick backstory: Cleopatra used gamble with Antony a lot. One time, she waged that she could consume 10 million sesterces in a single sitting. Antony, absolutely loaded, laughed and happily took that bet. However, she wiped the smug grin off his face when she removed a giant pearl from one of her earrings, dropped it into her amethyst-studded cup, and, after it fizzed and dissolved, offered a toast to Antony and chugged that shit. Everyone’s jaws dropped, as they assumed she had either just magically dissolved a pearl in wine or swallowed a pearl whole. Before she could drink the other earring, Plancus stepped in and declared her the winner. So, pearls are mostly made of calcium carbonate which dissolve in acidic solutions. Although wine is not acidic enough to dissolve a pearl, vinegar, which is 5–7% acetic acid, is. When Cleopatra signalled her servant for a refill after dropping the pearl in her cup in front of everyone, they actually poured her vinegar as she had planned ahead of time. The calcium dissolved in the vinegar’s water content creating a fizz of carbon dioxide and the pearl neutralized the acid to make the cocktail palatable. When she won the bet, Antony fulfilled the wager by rubbing her feet. Cleopatra chose this at her reward because it was a traditional Greek practice that royal men’s feet were rubbed by women at parties. She may have also performed this trick in Rome in front Caesar and his friends, but the reception was much colder as they believed her to be some kind of witch with little regard for personal property.
In addition to the drugs, drinking and mischief, Antony also took on the identity of Dionysis’ Egyptian counterparts like Serapis and Osiris and participated in Egyptian rites and traditions that Romans, whose military uniform was a pleated skirt, distrusted for its use of female attire. The Romans also criticized the plays that the couple patronized that portrayed gods with strap-ons and ‘improper dance’. Once again, Cleopatra was blamed for her man’s prolonged stay in Alexandria. Apparently, he ‘was often disarmed by Cleopatra, and beguiled away, while great actions and enterprises of the first necessity fell… from his hands, to go with her… and play about’. In other translations of Appain’s account of their relationship, Cleopatra subdued Antony with ‘spells’ to persuade him to abandon his responsibilities. Again, like Caesar, Marc Antony was a grown man, and no one can blame him for wanting to stay with Cleopatra.
Even though most Roman men were alcoholics themselves, they railed against Antony’s wild lifestyle, claiming that ‘the Egyptian woman demanded the Roman Empire from the drunken general as the price of her favours’. Rather, she whore-ed out for power. The truth is, Alexandria had a very sex-positive culture. The more revered Cleopatra became the more she was portrayed naked in art. In fact, the Great Library had a whole section of sex-related works including smut, concoctions for preventing premature ejactulation and impotence, contraceptive methods, fertility studies, and a variety of figurines called symplegma (‘knot’) that depicted sexual positions and the occasional pharaoh/god with a giant dick. The point is, Cleopatra knew how to throw it back and by February of 40 BC she was once again pregnant with Marc Antony’s baby. Sadly, in the middle of her pregnancy, military crisis broke out with the Parthian invasion of Syria in the East and his jealous wife Fulvia engaging Octavius’s forces in the West and Antony had to leave his pregnant lover whom he would not see again for another three years. Fulvia failed to convince Antony to challenge Octavius and he left her without saying goodbye while she was on her deathbed. It’s been speculated that she died of depression or suicide, although Cassius Dio blamed Antony and his “passion for Cleopatra and her wantoness”. The escalation of war was blamed entirely on Fulvia’s womanly jealousy-fueled machinations, which were also somehow Cleopatra’s fault as well. Go figure.
At this point, Cleopatra is dropped from most Roman sources, but she remains that bitch according to Egyptian ones. Assumingly, she was ruling Egypt as she always had, minding her business, she heard that Antony had married Octavius’s half-sister Octavia in a peace agreement called the Treaty of Brundisium. Now, Cleopatra could not have cared less about the marriage. I mean, Octavia was cute, but she wasn’t her. HOWEVER, Octavius was her mortal enemy, who was a walking insult to her son’s throne. Despite the Treaty being celebrated in Rome as like the end of war forever, Cleopatra knew that shit wasn’t going to last, especially without her aid that she had no intention of offering. Rome was filled with pissed off starving peasants, the Parthians were at their doorstep, and, frankly, Antony and Octavius just did not vibe and never had.
Octavius was like a skinny, paranoid incel wearing lifts in his shoes, and Marc Antony was like the 6’4 hot frat boy taking multiple gender-studies classes. Like Cleopatra, Octavius was able to exploit Antony’s weakness for gambling. While Cleopatra did it to play with her boyfriend, Octavius did to diminish his war-hero political rival. In 38 BC, Octavia gave birth to one (1) daughter in the midst of an outbreak of riots across Rome caused by famine, debt, and civil unrest. Antony had to save Octavius from getting stoned to death by a mob for depleting public funds. After an astrologist advised Antony to stay as far away from the brat — and go on a booze-filled vacation to Greece with his new wife — Octavius ditched his current wife and married Livia, a high-ranking noblewoman who was pregnant with her previous husband’s child. Antony felt trapped and believed that his wife and brother-in-law were working to keep him from the battlefield and out of the spotlight. Though Plutarch blames it basically all on Cleopatra’s influence on him, which he refers to as, ‘a dire evil which had been slumbering for a long time.’ Whatever, Octavius was a prick and probably drove him crazy, until he had a drug-induced epiphany during the ancient Greek version of burning man to expand the Empire with Cleopatra at his side. He was probably wrecked on opium-spiked wine and remembered what Cleopatra told them while they were fishing back in Alexandria. Antony used to have servants swim under his ship and place fish on his hook to impress everybody. When Cleopatra caught on, she had one of her servants put a foreign fish on his hook to expose him. They laughed and she told him to leave fishing “to us poor sovereigns… your game is cities, provinces, and kingdoms” in reference to Alexander the Great, after whom she also named their son. She had laid some pretty heavy-handed suggestions at that point, it just took him a couple years and a bender across the Eastern empire for the message to sink in. So, Antony sobered up, set sail for Alexandria and never saw Octavia again. Well, there was some military drama too, but it’s really boring because men are boring.
By the couples’ much anticipated reunion in Antioch and his first time meeting his three-year-old twins, Alexander de Helios and Cleopatra Selene, Antony had taken Cleopatra’s advice to heart and crushed the Parthians and had all of Asia minor at his fingertips. Upon seeing Cleopatra looking like baddest bitch in the game, Antony didn’t hesitate to acknowledge the twins and gift many of his conquered territories on their mother, including Cyprus and territories located across modern Lebanon, Libya, eastern Turkey and basically the entire Phoenician coast. So, the next time a man tries to get back together with you after he f*cks up, do not settle for anything less than at least half the Mediterranean (at least). The two were also married, but, like in the same way she was married to Caesar in Egyptian but not Roman law. They spent the Spring of 37 travelling to the edge of their newly enlarged empire where everyone could see a pregnant Cleopatra with Marc Antony by her side. Eventually, Antony and Cleopatra’s honeymoon ended and they said their good-byes on the banks of the Euphrates near what is eastern Turkey today. He marched north into Parthan territory with his refreshed army and Cleopatra went south to establish herself through her new lands in Syria and Lebanon. One of her stops was Jerusalem where she had business with King Herod.
Cleopatra and King Herod
A bit of background: back in 40 BC, then Prince Herod of Judea came to Alexandria seeking asylum from the Parthian invasions. Cleopatra welcomed her old family friend with open arms and generously offered him military support to help him retake his throne. Young and ambitious, he rudely rejected her offer because he wanted to speak directly with Antony instead of her. Understandably insulted, Cleopatra was like, “Oh yeah? Sure, go speak to Antony. Go sail across Mediterranean in the middle of winter like the genius Prince you are. In fact, take my galley because I’m just a stupid woman.” As she probably intended, Herod did shipwreck, however, Cleopatra’s move backfired when he finally reached Antony and was named King of Judea.
Almost everything we know about the shit that went down when she visited him in 36 BC comes from a guy named Josephus who paints Herod as a handsome genius and Cleopatra as a blood-thirsty harlot. In reality, Cleopatra had come to Jerusalem to lay claim to the many exports that she was entitled to by Antony such as bitumen, balsem and dates that were exclusive to Judea and used for luxury items like wine and fragrances. Not only did Cleopatra have the upperhand in these negotiations but she was also richer, of greater lineage, more successful as a monarch, and lived in a nicer palace. So, like any insecure misogynist who’s power to challenged by a strong woman, he told his advisors to arrange her murder because she was attempting to seduce him. This is bullshit. Not that she wasn’t capable of seducing him, but a small-time sovereign like Herod was just not worth seducing and she had all the leverage anyways. Of course, killing or even offending the most powerful woman in the known world was stupid as s*** and Herod’s advisors eventually dissuaded him. Before leaving Jerusalem, knowing full well what Herod had discussed with his council, Cleopatra made a new bestie in his mother-in-law Alexandra, a princess descendant of generations of Jewish high priests and maybe even Moses’ brother. The two were queens of the highest order forced to do business with a commoner fuckboy like Herod as if he was their equal. Not that I personally believe inou hate to see it.
After Herod snubbed her apparently super hot son Aristobulus in appointing a new high priest, an insulted Alexandra wrote to Cleopatra to have Antony intervene. One of her allies even suggested offering her hot son to Antony as a boy toy with the end goal of Cleopatra persuading Antony to replace the ambitious Herod with his lover. Cleopatra would remove a romantic rival and create a powerful ally. A win-win. Though he initially thought it would be a good idea to send a more attractive contender for the throne far away from Judea, Herod realized it would stupid to just hand over Aristobulus to Antony and Cleopatra. So, he appointed his brother-in-law to the priesthood and put his mother-in-law under house arrest. At first, Alexandra was so grateful that Herod didn’t execute or banish her that she pledged to be obedient. However, with Herod’s paranoia and round-the-clock surveillance, the Jewish queen snapped and sent a long letter to Cleopatra about her condition. Cleopatra was not having it. She devised an escape plan for her good sis and her son to flee Jerusalem in coffins. But before they reached the coast where Cleopatra’s ship was waiting, they were betrayed by one of their servants and Herod caught them before they could even leave the palace. The king was too scared of Cleopatra to retaliate against Alexandra and Aristobulus, but by 35 BC, he was at his wits’ end. His wife hated him and groaned when he hugged her and her family was plotting against him. So, he did what any sane man would do and had his brother-in-law drowned and then gave him a fancy funeral. He pretended to cry loudly, but no one bought it and Alexandra and Cleopatra quietly swore revenge.
At the time, Antony had been suffering some shitty losses in Parthia and even betrayals from his allies like the Armenian King, Artavasdes. After losing about half his army to battle, disease, and starvation, Antony was on the brink of destruction when Cleopatra, the goddess Isis came to the rescue with food, clothes and supplies on the Syrian coast. Note: the timing of Cleopatra’s aid and her relationship with Antony has been mostly blamed for his military blunders in Parthia.
It wasn’t long after her arrival that she convinced a hesitant Antony to summon Herod to answer for his crimes. But Herod also brought lavish gifts and much needed replenishment, so he was able to schmooze his way out of any consequences. Ultimately, the King of Judea was undone by his paranoia of everyone around him to be conspiring with the “wicked woman” Cleopatra and her insatiable greed, which led him to execute his wife in 29 BC and just slaughter a lot of people.
‘The Donations of Alexandria’: Antony and Cleopatra Become Gods in the Greatest Rager in Ancient History
Around late 35 — early 34 BC, Cleopatra and Antony attempted to reconcile with the Armenian King by offering marry their son Alexander Helios to his daughter. When the technically Parthian king politely passed on the betrothal, Antony invaded and subdued Armenia and declared it a Roman province. When Antony sent word to Cleopatra that he would be returning Alexandria with Armenian royal family in gold chains, the thrilled queen lined the streets with spinxes in preparation for his arrival. Antony returned to the city in an extravagant procession that ended in his presenting the royal family and spoils of his victory to his beloved Cleopatra who accepted them from a golden throne atop a silver platform in the heart of the city. In a sparkling ceremony known as the Donations of Alexandria, Cleopatra was named the Queen of Kings as the couple sat together with their children on golden thrones overlooking their adoring subjects. Antony gave kingdoms to his three kids by Cleopatra and even acknowledged the paternity of Caesarion and dubbed him King of Kings. Together they announced a new world order that resembled Alexander the Great’s universal empire. Even Jews saw Cleopatra’s rule as a prophesied Golden Age and the coming of the Messiah. The royal pageantry and feasts lasted all through the fall of 34.
Antony didn’t return to Rome immediately. He was busy restocking the Library of Alexandria with fuckloads of art and literature, including a cargo of two-hundred thousand books from Pergamon’s temple of Athena-Isis. Apparently, Cleopatra derived ‘a positively sensuous pleasure from literature’ so there was probably a fair amount of smut in there too. Cleopatra was too busy turning the Library of Alexandria into the center of art and science and having all her royal children educated by the greatest historians, philosophers and scholars of the era. Also, in 33 BC the infant Princess Isotope of Media arrived as the future bride of six-year-old Alexander Helios, the eldest son of Cleopatra and Marc Antony. The same year, Cleopatra instituted revolutionary tax break system that increased trade and saved the crown money recruiting rich allies.
Hoes Mad
On the other side of the Mediterranean, however, Antony and Cleopatra’s wide popularity in the South and the East was not well received in Rome. Octavius was bitter he wasn’t invited to their empire party. Always the propagandist, he made sure to downplay Antony’s Armenian victory and inflame the brazen theatrics of the Donations, calling it “a Dionysiac revel led by an eastern harlot.” Frankly, it was really easy for Octavius to make absurd and even baseless accusations in Rome because Antony was busy ruling in the East with his second wife. The optics weren’t great, especially considering his other wife Octavia was seen as saintly back in Rome.
Even though Octavius would often exaggerate ‘injuries’ to get out of fighting, he somehow injured his knee and was able to claim to receive ‘honourable wounds’ in battle. So, after the senate awarded him a Triumph, Octavius went off about Antony in front of the Senate for needless cruelty and crucifictions in recent conflicts. Not only was he only awarded because of his lineage like a Harvard legacy, Octavius was also an active participant in the crucifictions of Sextus Pompeius and his troops. He also dabbled in a few human sacrifices here and there, but who’s keeping track, right?
Antony did not hesitate to back at his rival’s hypocrisy via letters that were read by his allies in the Senate. At first, Octavius mocked the letters for Antony’s literary style because he didn’t understand Greek very well and I guess he felt insecure at the sight of big words. Antony also distributed pamphlets on Octavius’s cowardice and how his lieutenant Agrippa fights all his battles for him. To which, Octavius countered with propaganda that painted Antony as a dirty, alcoholic, effeminate sodomite that would rather sleep with a foreign whore than his dutiful Roman wife. Then, Antony spilt the tea, and said, essentially, in an open letter to Octavius disseminated throughout Italy, ‘at least I’m married to Cleopatra. Everyone knows you’ve been f*cking Tertuilla and Terentilla and Rufilla and Salvia Titisiena. You’ve also been sneaking around with the daughters and wives of those Senators and consuls that you’ve been trying to rally against me. How do they feel about you f*cked Caesar so he’d adopt you, huh?’
The letters further defended the Donations were simply a confirmation of territories and flipped Octavius’s accusations like, ‘bitch don’t act like you don’t have divine pretensions. You and your wife threw a damn banquet during grain shortage where you dressed as Apollo.’
When Antony finally gave the ultimatum ‘I’ll lay down my power, if you lay down yours and Rome can return to a republic’ Octavius refused and the senate erupted in chaos. After the dust settled, half the senate had publicly aligned with Antony and, like, four hundred men left Rome to set up a new and better senate and navy in Ephesus, on the coast of modern Turkey. Cleopatra, of course, arrived in style in her personal royal flagship at the head of a fleet of sixty regular ships and 140 warships.
Here’s the thing: if Marc Antony and Cleopatra marched into Italy during the spring of 32, they would have secured the W. But, of course, in April, they travelled to the island of Samos just off the coast of Ephesus to summon not only all the rulers and armies within their empire but also ‘theatrical artists’. Yes, the couple’s pre-civil war routine required several weeks of Ptolemaic-style festival. Again, it was like Coachella but instead of celebrities in offensive costumes, each city sent an ox for sacrifice and kings competed over who gave Antony the best gifts. And, instead of headliners, they had Roman-style games with gladiators.
By May, the festivities were over and the couple took their squad to the Greek mainland, where Antony had fought some of his most successful campaigns against Pomey with Caesar and against Brutus to avenge Caesar. Athens was not only Antony’s former home, but the ancestral seat of Cleopatra’s family. Near where Ptolemy statues stood on the Acropolis, the Athenians now had statues of Cleopatra as Isis next to a companion figure of Antony as Osiris.
The summer Antony and Cleopatra spent together in Athens is where, according to Plutarch, Antony “would receive love-billets from her in tablets made of onyx or crystal, and read them” in front of tetrarchs and kings in the middle of state and judicial affairs. In reality, there was one occasion where she gave him a holler while riding the shoulders of servants past the courthouse, inspiring him to ditch a legal case he was presiding over. But people loved Cleopatra in Athens and as a virile masculine emperor, no one cared that Antony thought with his dick as long as he won. There was concern, however, from the highborn Romans on Antony’s war council that a military camp was no place for a woman and that she was toxic to the war effort.
While being worshipped as the queen she was in Athens, Antony knelt before her and sent orders to initiate divorce proceedings with his other wife Octavia. This was considered a wartime political move to dramatically sever the last remaining tie to Octavius and instigate an official civil war. As Octavia and her children were ordered out of his house, her public grieving was seen as an act of war. Not so much because forcing your ex wife and kids out of your place as a political maneuver is a dick move but because he picked Cleopatra ‘whom they could report to have no way the advantage of Octavia either in youth or in beauty’ –they were the same age.
Leading up to this, Romans had a misogynistic preoccupation with a supposed rivalry between Cleopatra and Octavia for Antony’s affection. Romans would go on about how Octavia, Antony’s Roman wife, was prettier and more youthful than the Egyptian queen (again, they were the same age). Roman historical sources accuse Cleopatra of pretending to be desperately in love with Antony and even swearing off food to prove her love for him. Personally, I think the idea that Cleopatra would publicly pine for Antony so he would pick her over Octavia is absurd. Antony loved strong women, why would he or most secure men want a woman that cries when they leave and grovels at their feet? She made some public proclamations of humility, but that was mostly to appease misogynist Roman opinion. Plus, the sources go back and forth between Cleopatra being a dubious sycophant and a weak, emotionally compromised woman. Cassius Dio credited their close relationship to the “passion and witchery of Cleopatra.” We know men can’t comprehend women being more than one thing, so which is it? Plus, until she was forced out Octavia was more like ‘I would very much like to be removed from this narrative’.
Knowing how popular Antony was in Italy, Octavius focused all his energy on rallying the people against Cleopatra who, according to his poets, wanted to “demolish the Capitol and topple the Empire.” He also played up the idea that the masculine West would easily defeat the corrupt and feminine East. There were so many shitty takes from Octavius’s literary henchmen like Calvisius and Marcus Valerius Messala that people just started accepting that the whole war was Cleopatra’s fault for tricking Antony into choosing her over Rome and Octavia.
In the midst of the drama, the couple’s former ally, the ‘pathologically treacherous’ Plancus saw an opportunity for some attention. He went to Octavius and, before the Senate, enumerated Antony’s alleged crimes and Cleopatra’s insensible behavior–failing to mention that he once painted himself blue and crawled naked on the floor for her amusement. He also told Octavius about the contents of Antony’s will, which he was so desperate to get his hands on he forcibly seized it from the chief priestess of the Vestal Virgins. Usually, throwing hands with a sacred priestess to unseal a private document for political gains would be seen as distasteful, but Octavius managed to embellish the contents of the will–that Cleopatra and her children would become the rulers of Rome, move the capital to Alexandria, etc–enough to turn the tide of Roman support. In truth, Antony and Octavius’ political and personal agendas were pretty much the same, so powerful Romans were basically just betting on a winner in a war to rule the world. Many of Antony’s supporters defected not because they believed this garbage, but because Octavius’s xenophobic and misogynistic populism split the world into the manly, rational West and the feminine, equivocal East, and it was too risky to be aligned with the latter.
In order to convince his camp of Roman men, who did not consider women worthy opponents, to ‘bear weapons at a woman’s behest’ Octavius did some more embellishing to raise the stakes. He claimed Antony would employ Cleopatra to shake her ‘native sistrum’ to summon up ‘all kinds of monstrous gods’ to challenge their Roman gods and that the “lecherous… prostitute queen dared to oppose her yapping Anubis against our Jupiter.” So like, Antony and Cleopatra’s own coins had Jupiter’s face on them, but go off sis. It was said that “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.” Lucan summarized Octavius’s battle cry a century later with, “would a woman–not even Roman–rule the world?” The logic was that she had subdued Antony and Rome was next and it was their divine obligation “to allow no woman to make herself equal to a man.” Yikes.
It was a PR nightmare for Antony. Antony and Cleopatra not only suffered defections in Rome, but in the Winter of 32 BC Quintus Dellius, an envoy to Antony that once hailed Cleopatra as his queen, betrayed the couple after a fight about wine gave him the impression that she intended to poison him. Vindictively, he handed over important intelligence to Octavius and Agrippa, who had half as many ships, and they were able to thwart the naval trap that Antony had set up. In response, Marc Antony challenged Octavius to single combat. The pussy ass bitch of course turned him down and unsuccessfully attempted to assassinate him. But by the summer of 31, all he had to do was play the waiting game as Antony’s supplies were cut off and his camp was struck by dysentery and malaria until he lacked the men to man the ships and had to burn them to prevent them from falling into enemy hands. As morale was plummeting, Antony called for a war council in late August. In the East, Cleopatra was the goddess Isis who brought fertility and prosperity wherever she went. Now, in the West, she was seen as a plague–despite the fact that paid for most of the weapons and was the only one who could speak the languages of the Armenian cavalry, the Ethiopian infantry, and the Median detachments and still communicate with the kings and commanders. Nonetheless, Antony’s advisor Crassus strongly suggested abandoning the fleet, sending Cleopatra back to Alexandria and pursuing a land-based attack strategy, but Cleopatra was like ‘that’s the dumbest s*** I’ve ever heard. That’s exactly what they’re expecting us to do. How the f*** do expect us to get to Italy without a fleet, huh?’ and Antony was like ‘yeah, Pompey ignored his navy and then got stabbed and decapitated, dumbass.’ Despite the idiocy of Crassus’ pursuing the most organized army in the world inland, Plutarch still writes that Antony was swayed by emotion and pussy.
As for Cleopatra refusing to return to Alexandria, Octavius had declared war on her personally, so Cleopatra was well-aware that any peace between him and Antony would be at the price of her crown–maybe even her head. So, yeah, she might have been a total bitch to Antony’s friends and fellow Romans, but the future Ptolemaic dynasty was resting on her shoulders and there was nothing she wouldn’t have done to ensure her sons succeeded her on her throne.
The Battle of Actium
At about 2 AM on September 2nd when the wind was just right, Antony and Cleopatra launched a surprise naval attack with their remaining 240 ships to break the blockade. The ensuing conflict lasted like seven-something hours, all of which Octavius spent in the cabin with sea sickness as literally every known naval weapon was flying through the air. The plan was to escape to open water and regroup with as many ships as possible, which Cleopatra did. In order to meet her, Antony had to transfer to a smaller vessel and much of his remaining fleet was forced to surrender. However, the story was recorded as a treacherous Egyptian woman betraying her army and the besotted, lovelorn Marc Antony abandoning his men to chase after her. This is total bullshit. Some suggest that the men who surrendered had the chance to flee but refused because they were sick of following a foreigner. This is more likely to be true than Cleopatra saying “O my lord, my lord. Forgive my fearful sails! I little thought you would have follow’d” like in Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra. Regardless, thanks to Cleopatra’s strategy, they still had more than 100 ships, one-third of their fleet and treasures, as opposed to nothing if Antony had listened to Crassus.
The sail back to Egypt was awkward. Though the plan had worked, Antony spent the trip south brooding and sulking about abandoning his men. Roman men like him were supposed to attacked defeat head first like Leonidas and his 300 Spartans, but he fled behind his foreign queen–not a good look.
The couple eventually reconciled before landing in Egypt, where Antony headed to Libya to regroup with his legions and Cleopatra hurried to Alexandria. She knew she needed to arrive before word of the military fiasco reached the city, and she needed to do it in style. She glided past the lighthouse of Alexandria in her fleet covered in floral wreaths and flute players to be greeted by a victory procession. Meanwhile, Antony was surrendering to Octavian, who was soon to crown himself emperor Augustus.
Allegedly, after Cleopatra resumed control of Egypt, she enacted a–how do I put this–violent purge of her rich enemies that she suspected would exploit her weakened position. To deal with one of her biggest political threats, Artavasdes, she chopped his head off and sent it to his enemy and her ally, the King of Media. Two birds–one stone. Plutarch’s version of her ‘reign of terror’ are definitely misrepresented. In reality, one of her very first acts upon her return was a religious ceremony at the temple of Koptos, which stood at the main access point from the Nile to the Red Sea, honoring Isis and Min. It was a classic Cleopatra extravaganza that was supposed to protect her fortune, children and herself from their surrounding enemies.
Unfortunately, I guess the gods didn’t like Cleopatra’s royal favors and her remaining fleet was set ablaze on the Red Sea by the Arabians of Petra who were still bitter about her seizing some of their lucrative trading routes back in the day. The attack was also supported by Octavian’s newly appointed governor of Syria and, of course, the one and only Herod of Judea–both united in their hatred of a powerful woman. It was Cleopatra’s darkest hour, but she knew as long as she still had her treasure, she had bargaining power. The same can not be said for her boo Antony who attempted suicide after suffering more defections. He was saved by his friends who sent him back to Alexandria, but he was so self-defeated that declared himself an exile and insisted on living in a small hut at the foot of the lighthouse. Both Antony and Cleopatra had been savagely betrayed by so many people whom they had showered with lavish gifts and honors, but Cleopatra did not let the fake friends get to her the way Antony did. In fact, the injustices she suffered only made her more formidable. She eventually coaxed him out of his shame hut and back into the palace. They tried sending one of their good friends to convince Herod to come back to their side, but not only did Herod said no, their messenger defected too.
Cleopatra knew she could not let her man slide back into depression over fakes, so she threw a massive coming-of-age rager for their teenage kids from their previous marriages, Antyllus and Caesarion. Antony was successfully distracted and once again surrounded by adoring subjects who believed in him–the people of Alexandria. Cleopatra took the opportunity to reinvigorate the spirit of resistance in the Egyptian people by promising them that she will die to ensure the Ptolemaic line survives through her many male heirs (of which Octavian had none). The couple escalated this upon Antony’s fifty-second birthday rager on January 14, 30 BC, where they formed ‘The Suicide Club’ (dir. James Gunn) made up of their most loyal supporters who wore poisoned flowers and vowed to die with the royal pair when the time came. Cleopatra had already perfected the perfect, painless poison (yes, it was a venomous snake) to use on herself and maybe Antony if the time came. She and Antony had spent that Spring celebrating Caesarion as the legitimate future pharaoh of Egypt. She had also constructed a lavishly decorated, multiple-storied burial temple befitting her divine status as Isis and left mummification instructions that included rare amulets and a coffin made of crystal. Most importantly, she made specific arrangements to ensure the safety of her children and heirs.
When Octavian made his inevitable arrival in Rhodes, presumably his last stop before attempting to refute Caesarion’s claim to the throne in Alexandria, Cleopatra sent him an offer: ‘I will voluntarily abdicate my throne on the condition that my children can rule Egypt. Oh, and here’s a shit ton of gold and royal stuff. *wink wink*’ Antony also sent his son Antyllus to ask that he be allowed to live as a private citizen in Alexandria, or Athens, he didn’t mind. Octavian kept the bribes, ignored Antony’s request, and then secretly sent Cleopatra a message saying: ‘Thanks for all the royal shit. I’ll let you abdicate the Egyptian throne in favor of your kids, but your boyfriend has got to go–either by execution or exile, take it or leave it.’ After everything they had been through together, Antony probably couldn’t imagine life without Cleopatra. And, she had zero faith that Octavian would honor his end of the bargain, even if she did exile her man. I mean, her brother was certainly not rewarded when he presented the head of Pompey to Caesar. So, Antony tried to appeal to his old friend’s sentimentality by defending his love for Cleopatra, reminding him of their shared mischief and adventures, and finally, delivering the last living dude that stabbed Caesar. His counter-offer? That he would kill himself to spare Cleopatra and her children. Octavian probably got a boner when he got the opportunity to execute one of Caesar’s remaining assassins, but he still ghosted Antony.
His rival’s death would have been nice, but what Octavian wanted only Cleopatra could give him–her famed gold, pearls and ivory. He knew good and well she loved a spectacle so it wasn’t unreasonable to suspect that she would burn them all in a dramatic funeral pyre. So, Octavian continued to stress his good intentions to Cleopatra that he would guarantee her a fair hearing, etc, etc if she killed Antony. Cleopatra didn’t give a f***. She said ‘trust no bitch’ and bided her time until June, when Antony’s cavalry crushed Octavian’s forces the second they crossed the Syrian border into Egypt. Antony returned to his queen triumphant, they kissed and she presented a golden breastplate to a guy for his courage in battle but who literally defected to Octavian that night–with the breastplate. Bitter about losing, even though he probably didn’t fight himself, Octavian vindictively had a high priest of Memphis assassinated. Antony (52) once again proposed hand-to-hand combat, but Octavian (27) declined. *Cough* pussy.
Thus, on the hot summer night of July 31st 30 BC, the suicide squad gathered for one final kick-back, where Antony admitted there was little hope of victory, but could not ask for a more honorable death than dying on the battlefield beside his remaining loyal men. That morning they made what they thought was their final farewell, but the city of Alexandria surrendered before he could die fighting and forced to return to the palace.
Pretty convinced her man was dead, Cleopatra told her three best friends/advisors, ‘let’s go girls–to my burial temple. And bring the dagger, just in case the poisonous snake I left in the tomb is dead.’ If you don’t remember your 6th Ancient Egypt lessons, pharaohs were buried with their pets, homies, booze, furniture, and possessions so they can have them in the afterlife. When Antony returned to the palace looking for her and was told she had gone to her tomb, he went full Romeo and resolved to kill himself so he could be with her. He brought his servant Eros into his chambers, stripped off his armor, and handed Eros his sword to do the deed. Eros kills himself instead and Antony, impressed by his devotion, pulled the sword out of his dead servant and drove it into his tummy. Being his second suicide attempt, you’d think he would have been better at it, but he laid there in extreme pain screaming for someone to finish the job. But instead of doing that, the servants in earshot ran to tell Cleopatra that her boo was still alive, and she was like ‘well damn go get him’. With assistance, Antony reached Cleopatra’s tomb. But, because the entrance was already sealed, Cleopatra and her girls used the industrial strength winches leftover from construction to hoist the wounded Antony up to the second floor of the burial temple. When he finally made it inside, Cleopatra led him to a bed in her tomb. Cleopatra was kneeling over a dying Antony, hysterical and covered in his blood. His last request was for some wine and for Cleopatra not to grieve but to remember all their happy times together. Then, he peacefully passed away in her arms. Witnesses of the tragic scene were reporting to Octavian that “nothing was ever more sad than this spectacle.” Octavian freaked that, in grief-stricken rage, she would torch the temple with herself and her treasure inside it. What was the tragic end to a love story turned into a hostage situations within moments. Octavian sent his advisors to negotiate her surrender and assure her that if she came out willingly, he would allow Caesarion to rule Egypt. Cleopatra suspected it was a rouse, but before she could stab herself with her dagger, two of Octavian’s men had scaled her temple and forcibly seized her. Just before her arrest, her eunuch Mardion grabbed the emergency poisonous snake, had it bite him, then leapt into the coffin prepared for him, thinking he would soon be reunited with his queen. they even shook her dress to make sure she didn’t have any poisons on her.
Cicero, the great orator and said to be “the greatest boaster alive” decried Cleopatra’s arrogance and sputtered “I detest the queen” once she left Rome. Apparently, it made him sick that a woman could “make others laugh in spite of themselves.”
Thucydides, an Athenian historian once said, “the greatest achievement for a woman is to be as seldom as possible.” Perhaps, Cleopatra’s greatest crime in her enemies’ eyes was that she dared to be noticed. Had modern historians not revisited her life, Cleopatra’s legacy would have been defined by the kind of people who feel the need to call Beyoncé overrated every time she breathes. Like Beyoncé, everything Cleopatra did was an event.