Was she the girl next door or one of history’s most gifted women? A profligate or a devoted mother? Or maybe all of them at once?
One of the most fascinating figures in history, Queen Cleopatra VII of Egypt (69–30 BCE) is among the few women of anci ...
Was she the girl next door or one of history’s most gifted women? A profligate or a devoted mother? Or maybe all of them at once?
One of the most fascinating figures in history, Queen Cleopatra VII of Egypt (69–30 BCE) is among the few women of ancient times whose name is still known to the general public. One reason is certainly the dramatic quality of a life surrounded by the kind of extreme violence, debauchery, bloodthirsty killing and forbidden love that has captivated innumerable artists, playwrights and filmmakers, turning the real person into a timeless icon. Another reason is that Cleopatra and her fortunes were actually timeless in many ways – a woman bound to the demands of others from an early age, forced by circumstances to engage in complex political manoeuvring and to salvage her tangled relationships with Julius Caesar and Mark Anthony, two of the Roman Empire’s most powerful men. Not to mention that both her life and those of her children were always in peril.
Klynne is a PhD in Ancient Civilization. He has been the research director of the Swedish Institute in Rome and is a frequent contributor to popular journals.
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