Cleopatra: A Life

CHAPTER IX: THE WICKEDEST WOMAN IN HISTORY

For C’s final days we are almost exclusively alone with Dio and Plutarch; Eusebius, Eutropius, Horace, Suetonius, and Velleius make ancillary contributions. On Plutarch’s approach to C’s death, Pelling, 2002, is particularly fine, 106ff. See also J. Gwyn Griffiths, “The Death of Cleopatra VII,” Journal of Egyptian Archeology 47 (Dec. 1961): 113–8; Yolande Grisé, Le suicide dans la Rome antique (Montreal: Bellarmin, 1982); Saul Jarcho, “The Correspondence of Morgagni and Lancisi on the Death of Cleopatra,” Bulletin of the History of Medicine 43, no. 4 (1969): 299–325; W. R. Johnson, “A Quean, A Great Queen? Cleopatra and the Politics of Misrepresentation,” Arion VI, no. 3 (1967): 387–402; Gabriele Marasco, “Cleopatra e gli esperimenti su cavie umane,” Historia 44 (1995): 317–25. Francesco Sbordone, “La morte di Cleopatra nei medici greci,” Rivista Indo-Greco-Italica 14 (1930): 1–20; T. C. Skeat’s ingenious chronology of C’s end, “The Last Days of Cleopatra,” Journal of Roman Studies 13 (1953): 98–100; Tarn, 1931. On the fates of C’s children, Meiklejohn, 1934.

For a nuanced account of the triumph and the fallout from Actium, see Robert Alan Gurval, Actium and Augustus: The Politics and Emotions of Civil War (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1998).

For C’s enduring, evolving image, or how she entered into modern mythology: Mary Hamer, Signs of Cleopatra (London: Routledge, 1993); Lucy Hughes-Hallett, Cleopatra: Histories, Dreams and Distortions (New York: Harper & Row, 1990); Richardine G. Woodall, “Not Know Me Yet? The Metamorphosis of Cleopatra” (PhD dissertation, York University, 2004); Wyke, 2002, 195–320.

1. “The wickedest woman”: Cecil B. DeMille, cited in Michelle Lovric, Cleopatra’s Face (London: British Museum Press, 2001), 83.

2. “I was equal to gods”: Euripides, “Hekabe,” in Grief Lessons: Four Plays by Euripides, Anne Carson, tr. (New York: New York Review of Books, 2006), 371–2.

3. Misfortune, went the saying: Euripides, “Heracles,” in Euripides II, 560.

4. She did not care to watch them: Dio, LI.v.5.

5. “a most bold and wonderful” to “war and slavery”: Plutarch, LXIX (ML translation). For an intriguing take on A and C’s post-Actium plans, see Claude Nicolet’s “Où Antoine et Cléopâtre voulaient-ils aller?,” Semitica 39 (1990): 63–6.

6. the monstrosity of a vessel: Athenaeus, V.203e–204d.

7. The Nabateans: Strabo extends their territory from southern Jordan to the head of the Gulf of Eilat, 16.4.21–6.

8. “every bit of his soul”: JA, XV.190. Similarly if less dramatically, JW, I.388–94. Herod’s cozying up to Octavian looked nobler in retrospect: “And when war had been declared by the Romans on all the monarchs in the world, our kings alone, by reason of their fidelity, remained their allies and friends,” explains Josephus, Against Apion, II, 134.

9. “the new Hannibal”: On Sertorius, Plutarch, “Pompey,” XVII–XIX; Plutarch, “Cato the Younger,” LIX; Dio, LI.viii.6.

10. “without having accomplished anything”: Dio, LI.v.6.

11. Octavian’s assassination: Ibid., LI.vi.4.

12. A’s modest hut: Strabo, 17.1.9.

13. “for he himself also had been wronged”: MA, LXIX.

14. Dio slips in a bitter note: Dio, LI.vii.2–3.

15. “at such a time there is no use”: Flatterer, 69a.

16. “irresistible courage”: Appian, IV.112.

17. “set the whole city”: MA, LXXI (ML translation).

18. “to continue the struggle”: Dio, LI.vi.1.

19. Caesarion was hailed as pharaoh: Walker and Higgs, 2001, 175.

20. “for she hoped that even if”: Dio, LI.vi.6.

21. “amorous adventures” to “might be saved”: Ibid., LI.viii.2–3.

22. rank and file in check: Ibid., LI.iii.4.

23. “a woman who was haughty”: MA, LXXIII.

24. “thought it her due”: Dio, LI.viii.7. To C’s list of Roman conquests, Plutarch offhandedly and illogically adds Cn. Pompey, MA, XXV.4.

25. “to hang him up”: MA, LXXII.

26. “suited to her fallen fortunes” to “went away rich”: Ibid., LXXIII (ML translation).

27. “splendor, luxury, and sumptuosity”: Ibid., LXXI (ML translation).

28. “surpassingly lofty”: Ibid., LXXIV.

29. “that Antony and Cleopatra learned”: Dio, LI.v.2.

30. “realm was far too” and the welcome: JW, I.394–6. See also JA, XV.199–202.

31. “strange, wild life”: Macurdy, 1932, 221.

32. The account of C’s bribery: MA, LXXIV.

33. Octavian storming Pelusium: Dio, LI.ix.5.

34. “she expected to gain”: Ibid., LI.ix.6.

35. “Then, exalted by his victory”: MA, LXXIV.

36. “a mummy and a nothing”: Ibid., LXXV.

37. “that Cleopatra had betrayed”: Ibid., LXXVI (translation modified).

38. Now in a panic, the city: Paulus Orosius, The Seven Books of History Against the Pagans (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1964), 274.

39. “yet in his infatuation”: Dio, LI.x.5–6; Livy, 133.30; MA, LXXVI.

40. “O Cleopatra”: MA, LXXVI (translation modified).

41. “Never” to “speedier release”: Ibid., LXXVII.

42. On Gaius Proculeius: A may not have been entirely misguided about him; Proculeius displayed a remarkable generosity with his brothers, Horace, Ode 2.2. Tacitus (Annals, IV.40) further testifies to his character; Juvenal (Satire VII.94) mentions him as a patron of the arts.

43. “a man who had been his relation” to “in his replies”: MA, LXXVIII.

44. Burning A’s letters: Dio, LII.xlii.8.

45. “add greatly to the glory”: MA, LXXVIII.

46. “yet he was unwilling”: Dio, LI.xi.3.

47. “Wretched Cleopatra” to “ease and pleasure”: MA, LXXIX (translation reworked).

48. “in order that she should entertain”: Dio, LI.xi.5.

49. The massive Caesareum wall: Goudchaux estimates they were between 2.5 and 3.5 meters thick, “Cleopatra’s Subtle Religious Strategy,” in Walker and Higgs, 2001, 136.

50. For more on the ritual lamentations, Branko Fredde van Oppen de Ruiter, “The Religious Identification of Ptolemaic Queens with Aphrodite, Demeter, Hathor and Isis.” (PhD dissertation, The City University of New York, 2007), 274–370.

51. “in sumptuous and royal” to “regarding her children”: MA, LXXXII.

52. “by far the richest”: Orosius, 1964, 274.

53. “inflict any irreparable injury”: Dio, LI.xvi.3–4.

54. “Her hair and face”: MA, LXXXIII.

55. “wonderfully became her”: Dio, LI.xii.1.

56. “for he was well worth beholding”: ND, 5.

57. “To be so long prey”: Cicero to Atticus, 206 (X.14), May 8, 49.

58. “she would lament and kiss” to “even in Hades”: Dio, LI.xii.3–7.

59. “to necessity and fear of Antony”: MA, LXXXIII.

60. throwing herself vigorously at all kinds of feet: Dio has her casting herself at Octavian’s knees, but then again Florus has the same in 48, on CR’s arrival, II.13.56, and again at Octavian’s, II.21.9.

61. “The charm for which she was famous”: MA, LXXXIII.

62. “musical accents” and “melting tones”: Dio, LI.xii.4.

63. “stealing away” to “more gentle?”: MA, LXXXIII (translation reworked).

64. “worse than a thousand deaths”: Dio, LI.xiii.2.

65. “more splendid treatment” to “deceived by her”: MA, LXXXIII.

66. “a certain tenderness” to “apart from you”: Ibid., LXXXIV (translation reworked). Cornelius Dolabella may have been the son of P. Cornelius Dolabella, C’s near-ally of 44–43, Prosopographia Imperii Romani, 2nd edition.

67. “The mischief”: MA, LXXXV. For more on the asp, Nicander, Poems and Poetical Fragments (London: Cambridge University Press, 1953).

68. “her most beautiful apparel”: Dio, LI.xiii.5. Descriptions of the couch and royal emblems, O. E. Kaper to author, March 18, 2010. The crook and flail, interview with Roger Bagnall, May 3, 2010.

69. “A fine deed” to “so many kings”: MA, LXXXV.

70. “Valor in the unfortunate”: Plutarch, “Aemilius Paulus,” XXVI.12. As was said of Alexander the Great’s mother—another suicide—the greatness of the son could be read in the death of the mother.

71. On the psylli: Lucan, IX.920–38; NH, VII.ii.13–5. Also Plutarch, “Cato the Younger,” LVI.3–4; Dio, LI.xiv.4.

72. Even Strabo: Strabo, 17.1.10.

73. “The truth of the matter”: MA, LXXXVI.

74. “sharp-toothed serpents”: Horace, Ode I.37.

75. “Cleopatra cheated the vigilance”: VP, II.lxxxvii (translation reworked).

76. both the date and the time: DA, L.

77. Instead he boasted: AA, 4.

78. “vexed at the death” to “lofty spirit”: MA, LXXXVI.

79. “excessively grieved”: Dio, LI.xiv.6.

80. “No craven woman”: Horace, Ode I.37 (Louis E. Lord translation).

81. “with royal splendor”: MA, LXXXVI (Modern Library translation).

82. The statues of Iras and Charmion: Lindsay, 1998, 337.

83. Cleopatra Selene’s crocodiles: NH, 5.51.

84. Ptolemy’s murder: Suetonius, “Caligula,” XXXV; Dio, LIX.25. For an intricate, speculative account of the death, Jean-Claude Faur, “Caligula et la Maurétanie: La fin de Ptolémée,” Klio 55 (1973): 249–71.

85. The death of A’s associates: Orosius, 1964, 274.

86. On Caligula’s alternate views: Dio, LIX.xx.1–2; Suetonius, “Caligula,” XXIII.1.

87. devotion was the talk of Alexandria: See Hölbl, 2001, 249.

88. Octavian and the Alexander mummy: DA, XVIII; Dio, LI.xvi.5.

89. “the common terror”: Gallus dedication of April 15, 29, cited in Robert K. Sherk, Rome and the Greek East to the Death of Augustus (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 94.

90. “in costliness and magnificence”: Dio, LI.xxi.7–8. On the children, Eusebius, 187–94.

91. a lumbering hippopotamus: Gurval, 1998, 29.

92. “the Roman empire was enriched”: Dio, LI.xvii.8. NH for the obelisk, XXXVI.xiv.70–1.

93. On the Egyptomania: Carla Alfano, “Egyptian Influences in Italy,” in Walker and Higgs, 2001, 286–8. Earlier, Cicero (De Legibus, II.2) had heaped scorn on Rome’s fashionable faux-Egyptian landscapes. Future Roman emperors would embrace Egyptian culture as Octavian did not; see René Preys, “Les empereurs romains vus de l’Egypte,” in Les Empereurs du Nil (Leuven, Belgium: Editions Peeters, 2000), 30–3.

94. a golden age of women: See Reinhold, 1988, 72; Kleiner and Matheson, 1996, 36–9.

95. Livia’s status: Dio, LVII.12. For good modern accounts, Anthony A. Barrett, Livia: First Lady of Imperial Rome (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002); Ruth Bertha Hoffsten, “Roman Women of Rank of the Early Empire in Public Life as Portrayed by Dio, Paterculus, Suetonius, and Tacitus” (PhD dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, 1939). On Livia’s staff, Balsdon, 1962, 93, 276. Kleiner, 2005, 251–7, has Livia deliberately modeling her ascent on C.

96. The melted tableware: DA, LXXI. And, professes Dio, Octavian kept none of C’s furnishings save for “a single agate cup.”

97. “For it is fitting”: Dio, LII.xxx.1–2. C was even outdone as a consumer of pearls. Lollia Paulina, Caligula’s third wife, was said to have appeared at a banquet “covered with emeralds and pearls interlaced alternately and shining all over her head, hair, ears, neck and fingers, the sum total amounting to the value of 40,000,000 sesterces.” That was four times the price of C’s pearl, and Lollia stood ready to offer up the receipts to prove it, NH, IX.lviii.

98. the whisper about Livia: Tacitus, Annals, I.10.

99. “that no high position”: Dio, LV.xv.1–2.

100. “Validity was restored”: VP, II.lxxxix.

101. “from a most grievous danger”: J.H.C. Williams, “ ‘Spoiling the Egyptians’: Octavian and Cleopatra,” in Walker and Higgs, 2001, 197.

102. Tiberius’s scoff: Dio, LVII.xviii.2.

103. “How much more attention”: Brutus to Cicero, 25 (I.16).

104. “A man who teaches a woman”: Menander, cited in Lefkowitz and Fant, 1992, 31.

105. “ancient writers repeatedly speak”: The author of the pornographic piece is uncertain, Hughes-Hallett, 1991, 68.

106. “she often played the prostitute”: Propertius, Elegies, 3.11.30. Skinner points out that the famous prostitute, denounced for her greed and celebrated for her wit, already constituted a familiar trope in history and biography, 2005, 167.

107. “many men bought nights”: Aurelius Victor, De Viris Illistribus, 86.2. With “Egyptian Nights,” Pushkin enthusiastically took off from there.

108. “a dazzling piece of witchcraft”: Anna Jameson, Memoirs of Celebrated Female Sovereigns (New York: Harper, 1836), 55.

109. “that disgusting Cleopatra”: Nightingale’s January 1850 letter, cited in Vallée, 2003, 244. C’s crime was to have immortalized herself—and Caesarion—with the carvings at Hermonthis. In The Way We Live Now, Trollope’s irrepressible Matilde Carbury airily sums up C’s career with “What a wench she was!” Lady Carbury is energetically flogging her new volume, Criminal Queens.

110. “How would you like”: Cecil B. DeMille, in Lovric, 2001, 83.

111. “wily and suspicious”: Plutarch, “Pompey,” LXX.4 (translation reworked). The marriages are “tricks of state” in the ML edition, “suspicious and deceptive” partnerships in the Loeb. As Alexander the Great’s repeatedly wed father had discovered, marriage was much cheaper than war.

112. “who had already ruined”: MA, LXVI. She comes in for the worst abuse from Josephus, who nearly hyperventilates enumerating her crimes, Against Apion, II, 57–9: C “committed every kind of iniquity and crime against her relatives, her devoted husbands [sic], the Romans in general, and their emperors, her benefactors; who slew her innocent sister Arsinoe in the temple, treacherously assassinated her brother, plundered her country’s gods and her ancestors’ sepulchers; who, owing her throne to the first Caesar, dared to revolt against his son and successor, and, corrupting Antony by sensual passion, made him an enemy to his country and faithless to his friends, robbing some of their royal rank, discharging others, and driving them into crime.”

113. mother of Christ: See Jack Lindsay, Mark Antony: His World and His Contemporaries (London: Routledge, 1936), 231.

114. “the most illustrious and wise”: Chronicle of John, Bishop of Nikiu, 67.5–10. Cited in Lindsay, 1998, 333. He nominates C as the greatest of the Ptolemies, though also credits her with achievements not her own.

115. a rollicking tribute to guilt-free middle-aged adultery: René Weis, Decoding a Hidden Life: Shakespeare Unbound (New York: Holt, 2007), 355–8. Weis notes that Shakespeare was forty-three while working on the play. So is A as the curtain rises.

116. Blame Shakespeare: Antony and Cleopatra was itself written off as indecent through much of the nineteenth century. Although it includes what many consider Shakespeare’s best female role, the play is famously lacking in fine productions and in admirers. In 1938 Somerset Maugham offered an explanation for its unpopularity: “Audiences have felt that it was contemptible to throw away an empire for a woman’s sake. Indeed if it were not founded on an accepted legend they would be unanimous in asserting that such a thing was incredible” (The Summing Up [Garden City: Doubleday, 1938], 138–9). A and C’s grand and hopeless passion is lost on the British, who were “not an amorous race,” and generally, in Maugham’s view, one disgusted by sex. They did not ruin themselves for a woman. Which may or may not explain why the play was the favorite of Emily Dickinson; see Judith Farr, “Emily Dickinson’s ‘Engulfing’ Play: Antony and Cleopatra,” Tulsa Studies in Women’s Literature 9, no. 2 (1990): 231–50. Samuel Johnson and William Hazlitt too gave the play mixed grades; Johnson found it overblown and carelessly constructed. It gave George Bernard Shaw dyspepsia. Coleridge alone ranked Antony and Cleopatra among Shakespeare’s greatest.

117. “What woman, what ancient succession”: Cited in Hebert W. Benario, “The ‘Carmen de Bello Actiaco’ and Early Imperial Epic,” Aufsteig und Niedergang der römischen Welt II, 30.3 (1983): 1661. For more on that fragment, see Bastien Pestel, “Le ‘De Bello Actiaco,’ ou l’épopée de Cléopâtre” (MA thesis, Université de Laval, 2005).

118. “What is it to lose” to “worse than people say”: Euripides, “The Phoenician Women,” in Euripides V, 388–90.

119. “who destroyed the Egyptian monarchy”: Athenaeus, VI.229c (translation reworked). A generation and a half after C’s death, Philo reflected on the impermanence of wealth and power. His own country offered a prime example, On Joseph, 135–6: “Egypt had once the supreme authority over many nations, but now it is a slave…. Where is the house of the Ptolemies, and the glory of the individual successors of Alexander which at one time shone over all the bounds both of earth and sea?” C had been the last of that line.