Speaker 1: Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of iHeartRadio. Hey, Brainstuff. Lauren
Speaker 1: Vogelbaum here for being one of the most famous women
Speaker 1: in history. The real Cleopatra, who lived from the years
Speaker 1: sixty nine to thirty BCE, is shrouded in mystery. She
Speaker 1: ruled Egypt for twenty two of those years, commanded riches
Speaker 1: unrivaled in the ancient world, and bore children to two
Speaker 1: of the most powerful men in Rome. Yet the stories
Speaker 1: of her passed down over the centuries. Cleopatra as the cunning,
Speaker 1: wanton s doctress were mostly propaganda written by her enemies before.
Speaker 1: The article of this episode is based on How Stuff Works.
Speaker 1: Spoke with Prudence Jones, a history professor at Montclair State
Speaker 1: University and author of Cleopatra a source Book. So today
Speaker 1: let's do some mythbusting. First off, Cleopatra was not Egyptian.
Speaker 1: She was the last in a long line of Macedonian
Speaker 1: Greek kings and queens who ruled Egypt starting with the
Speaker 1: conquest of Alexander the Great in three thirty two BCE.
Speaker 1: After Alexander's death, his general Ptolemy the First was installed
Speaker 1: as the King of Egypt, which he ruled as a
Speaker 1: Greek from the Hellenistic capital of Alexandria. Cleopatra, born over
Speaker 1: two hundred fifty years later, was a daughter of Ptolemy
Speaker 1: the seventh. The identity of Cleopatra's mother is unknown, though
Speaker 1: it's thought to have been Cleopatra the Fifth, who was
Speaker 1: Ptolemy the seventh wife and also his sister or half sister,
Speaker 1: as was common among Egyptian royalty at the time. Although
Speaker 1: Cleopatra was not ethnically Egyptian, she made explicit overtures to
Speaker 1: Egyptian religion and culture, such as identifying herself with the
Speaker 1: goddess Isith. She was also the first queen in the
Speaker 1: centuries long dynasty to bother to learn how to speak Egyptian.
Speaker 1: Jones said, the rest weren't very motivated. Indeed, Cleopatra wowed
Speaker 1: with brains and charm, not just beauty. The Roman enemies
Speaker 1: of Egypt sought to denigrate Cleopatra by painting her as
Speaker 1: a harleck queen who bewitched great men like Julius Caesar
Speaker 1: and Mark Antony with her physical beauty alone. But even
Speaker 1: the Roman historian Plutarch, writing a century after Cleopatra's death,
Speaker 1: reported that there was much more to Cleopatra than her looks,
Speaker 1: he said, to converse with her, had an irresistible charm,
Speaker 1: and her presence, combined with the persuasiveness of her discourse,
Speaker 1: and the character which was somehow diffused about her behavior
Speaker 1: towards others, had something stimulating about it. There was a
Speaker 1: sweetness also in the tones of her voice and her tongue.
Speaker 1: Like an instrument of many strings. She could readily turn
Speaker 1: to whatever language she pleased, so that she very seldom
Speaker 1: had need an interpreter. In addition to speaking Greek and Egyptian,
Speaker 1: Cleopatra was fluent in at least six other languages. A
Speaker 1: highly educated woman, she published two known texts, one on
Speaker 1: the care of the body and the other on weights
Speaker 1: and measures for medicine and trade. Compared with the military
Speaker 1: mind of Antony, who was Jones said, not known for
Speaker 1: being the sharpest tack in the box, Cleopatra was famous
Speaker 1: for her intellect. Along those lines, her love affair with
Speaker 1: Caesar was a strategic alliance. Cleopatra was not the lascivious
Speaker 1: fury described by some Roman poets, ruled only by her
Speaker 1: promiscuous passions. She had only two romantic partners in her
Speaker 1: short thirty nine year life, and both relationships were political
Speaker 1: as well as personal. According to Jones, when Cleopatra took
Speaker 1: the Egyptian throne at eighteen, she inherited a kingdom in
Speaker 1: the line. Rome was the ascendant power in the Mediterranean,
Speaker 1: and Egypt's independence was under threat, and to make matters worse,
Speaker 1: her younger brother and co ruler and husband It's complicated,
Speaker 1: was trying to push her out. When Julius Caesar came
Speaker 1: to Egypt in pursuit of his rival Pompey, Cleopatra saw
Speaker 1: opportunity to win a powerful Roman ally. Accuding to Plutarch's
Speaker 1: famous account, a middle aged Caesar first laid eyes on
Speaker 1: Cleopatra when she smuggled himself into his quarters and tumbled
Speaker 1: out of a carpet or, more likely a basket of laundry.
Speaker 1: The young Cleopatra won Caesar's affections, took back the throne,
Speaker 1: and sealed the alliance with the birth of a son,
Speaker 1: whom she not so subtly named Cesarean, meaning Little Caesar.
Speaker 1: She now had family ties to Rome. Cleopatra's later relationship
Speaker 1: with Mark Antony, who was second in command to Caesar,
Speaker 1: was immortalized by Shakespeare in the play Antony and Cleopatra
Speaker 1: as one of the most legendary and tragic love affairs
Speaker 1: in history, but it too, primarily served a political purpose.
Speaker 1: Egypt may have enjoyed great wealth and resources, but after
Speaker 1: Caesar's assassination, Cleopatra knew that her kingdom was still at
Speaker 1: the whim of Rome, the reigning superpower. Jones explained. Cleopatra
Speaker 1: was well aware then in order for Egypt to remain
Speaker 1: independent at all, it needed a powerful protector. Caesar's death
Speaker 1: had left a power vacuum in Rome, and two prominent men,
Speaker 1: Octavian being Caesar's chosen heir and nephew, and Antony, the
Speaker 1: ambitious politician in general, were fighting a civil war to
Speaker 1: fill it. Octavian had the financial backing of the Senate,
Speaker 1: but Antony desperately needed money to pay his troops. Once again,
Speaker 1: Cleopatra saw an inn she was the richest woman in
Speaker 1: the world. In exchange for her her financial support, Antony
Speaker 1: became Egypt's ally and defender against Roman encroachment, and he
Speaker 1: and Cleopatra, who eventually married, had three more heirs. This
Speaker 1: brings us to one last myth, though, the double suicide
Speaker 1: of Antony and Cleopatra, as recorded by Plutarch, provided a
Speaker 1: suitably tragic ending to Shakespeare's play, but although it was
Speaker 1: based on true events, it probably didn't go down exactly
Speaker 1: as Shakespeare wrote it. In the play, Anthony, A, falsely
Speaker 1: believing Cleopatra to be dead after a failed sea battle
Speaker 1: against Octavian A, falls on his own sword and eventually
Speaker 1: dies in her arms from the wound. Cleopatra, not willing
Speaker 1: to be paraded in the streets of Rome as a
Speaker 1: prisoner of war, has a poisonous snake smuggled into her corners.
Speaker 1: In the final scene of the play, she hugs the
Speaker 1: snake to her breast. Plutarch's version is a bit different,
Speaker 1: but even he admitted that there were various accounts of
Speaker 1: Cleopatra's death and that quote the truth of the matter
Speaker 1: no one knows, for it was also said that she
Speaker 1: carried about poison in a hollow comb and kept the
Speaker 1: comb hidden in her hair. Modern scholars say that poison
Speaker 1: would have been a much simpler and faster way to go,
Speaker 1: but that Cleopatra likely included the more dramatic snake story
Speaker 1: in her suicide note. After Cleopatra's death, Egypt became a
Speaker 1: province of the Roman Empire, and the rest, as they say,
Speaker 1: is history. Today's episode is based on the article five
Speaker 1: things Everyone gets wrong about Cleopatra on how Stuffworks dot Com,
Speaker 1: written by Dave Ruse. Brain Stuff is production of iHeartRadio
Speaker 1: in partnership with how Stuffworks dot Com and is produced
Speaker 1: by Tyler Klang. Four more podcasts from my heart Radio,
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