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Ancient Egypt Magazine

Issue Six - April  / May 2001

Cleopatra of Egypt: the myth dispelled or upheld?

As the British Museum puts the final touches to its major new exhibition (Cleopatra of Egypt: From History to Myth) on Egypt’s most famous queen, new discoveries from Alexandria, and new interpretations of Cleopatra’s life and actions, reflect her continuing fascination for scholars and non-scholars alike.

Miriam Bibby outlines some of the ideas in essays from the BM’s accompanying publication, and details what the public will be able to see when the exhibition opens on 12 April.

There is something particularly compelling about ancient artefacts dredged from the bed of the sea. The faces of statues lifted dripping from the depths, into the light of day after centuries of immersion, are a greater reminder of our mortality than Shelley’s Ozymandias.  Underwater archaeology in the harbour of Alexandria has brought forth items that are helping to provide a much clearer picture of life in this successful and charismatic city in the reign of Cleopatra VII. The head of a ruler, in basalt, is one of the items from recent undersea researches that will be on display when the exhibition opens to the public in April 2001. Is it possible that this is the head of Cleopatra’s son by Caesar, Ptolemy XV Caesarion?

 There are at least two significant indicators of Cleopatra’s particular status in the eyes of the modern world. Firstly, she is known simply as Cleopatra, despite being one of a number of rulers (or better, co-rulers) of Egypt with the same name. Some of her predecessors were formidable women who are perhaps as credibly attributed with some of the behaviour associated with Cleopatra VII.  Secondly, her appeal is enduring; there can be few people without some awareness of Shakespeare’s play, or of modern film interpretations of the Cleopatra story. 

 What has given this Cleopatra ultimate status is, of course, the tragic element to her life; she was the last queen of Egypt and thus her image carries a burden of responsibility throughout succeeding ages, whether fairly or unfairly.

 One of the strengths of this exhibition is indubitably the range of material presented by the British Museum. Some of the Egyptian-style images of Cleopatra – ten in total – were only identified during research for the exhibition. Background material from earlier Ptolemaic reigns will form an introductory section to the exhibition, with examples of sculptures, inscriptions, ceramics and bronzes.  More recent artefacts inspired by the queen include ceramics, jewellery and early watches.

 “Image” is an important aspect of the exhibition, and a significant aspect of Cleopatra’s life and reign. The queen’s coins show her as a Hellenic Greek ruler, but she also appears in traditional Egyptian style on the monuments that were not destroyed by Octavian after her death. A further image of Cleopatra was the one that she presented to the Romans. All subsequent representations of Cleopatra, whether in plays, art or the movies, can scarcely hold a candle to her own ability to manipulate her image according to her circumstances.

 The catalogue shows nearly 400 images of the queen (“gathered from three continents and two millennia”) and also contains a series of essays on Cleopatra, her life, times and peers. Seven of the previously unknown Egyptian-style Cleopatra pieces are included in the exhibition catalogue. There is also the recently recognised papyrus with Cleopatra’s personal authorisation. In addition, the catalogue contains a number of essays giving insights from the latest research into Cleopatra and her world.

 The Alexandria of those days, Cambridge scholar John Ray suggests in his essay, was a “city of dreams”, and not hospitable to “men of action”. “Mark Antony,” he continues, “who had certainly been a man of action in his youth, is transformed by the place – or by the seductions of alcohol and Cleopatra – into a languid loser.” In this city of Alexander? “Even for Alexander, whose claim to be a man of action is a good one, the city was a place in which to be admired as a corpse.”

 The city described by Ray is as street-wise as any modern capital of the world, packed with elbowing individuals on the make, witty, disputative and eclectic. He refers to the great libraries and university, and – in one of those throw-away lines that hooks the reader – “rudimentary coin machines”. He bemoans the lack of archaeological interest in the city until the recent undersea researches of Empereur and Goddio. Recent information as a result of these searches reveals the Egyptian nature of Cleopatra’s Alexandria.

 This theme continues in the essay Cleopatra’s subtle religious strategy by Guy Weill Goudchaux. Egyptian religious thought is perhaps the most enduring and attractive legacy of the world of the ancient Egyptians. Certainly, it can provide the initial compelling appeal for many individuals who are attracted to Egyptology. The legacy of the Ptolemaic rulers of Egypt remains in the substantial form of temples dedicated to Egyptian gods, in Egyptian style, with unique and subtly different hieroglyphic inscriptions. “Without priests,” writes Goudchaux, “nothing worked. Without them, the officials and the merchants of Alexandria were like fish out of water.”

 It helps to have been born a god, of course, and that, the author goes on to say, was the case with Cleopatra. He marks her out, as do other commentators, as the Ptolemy who learned to speak Egyptian, and studied religious thought under the best available priestly teachers including those of Memphis. This ancient capital still held a charismatic influence over Egyptians and non-Egyptians alike. The cult of Isis, with its “message of salvation” was growing in importance and had been met with uneasily by Rome’s rulers. The ancient Egyptian cults of the bull flourished still, and were celebrated by Cleopatra and her predecessors. In religious matters, there were still many who looked to Egypt as the source of real knowledge and wisdom.

 Goudchaux argues the case for a sort of religious quid pro quo between Cleopatra and Caesar, in which his relationship with the Egyptian queen fired his aspirations to public divinity, already fuelled by the Julian family belief that their house descended from Venus. Cleopatra herself, during her stay in Rome, received recognition for this in the placing of her statue within a newly dedicated temple to the goddess. Then came the debacle of the presenting of a diadem to Caesar and the rest, as they say, is history. Goudchaux points out that, just before his death, Caesar had prepared legislation to be presented to the Senate which would have allowed him to marry with a foreign woman, outside Italy, and to inaugurate Alexandria as another capital of the Roman world; a bill “which clearly bore the Queen’s fingerprints,” in the opinion of Goudchaux.

 On her return to Egypt, Cleopatra created new female religious roles, albeit based on the extremely significant early title of “wife of the god”. Her meeting with Mark Antony, Goudchaux interprets as one that “the reader having a traditional Judaeo-Christian background might well imagine [as] a Venus on her way from a bordello to meet a future client, Mark Antony.” When Aphrodite met Dionysos, as Plutarch might have recalled, was the universal interpretation of the event.  Role playing to suit the hour seems to have come naturally to Egypt’s last queen.

 And thus we have the many images of Cleopatra, as outlined and developed by Susan Walker in her essay Cleopatra’s images: Reflections of Reality. Cleopatra appears as “an attractive young woman, with lively, almost smiling expression and large eyes, a strong hooked nose and prominent chin” (on a silver coin, in typical Hellene style); as a strong, “Romanised” individual in some of the statuary; and as a mesmerising Egyptian queen with vulture headdress and cobra insignia in the magnificent temple constructions in the land of her birth.

 This theme is one of the aspects of the fascinating research by Sally-Ann Ashton as presented in her essay, Identifying the Egyptian-style Ptolemaic Queens, in which the significant religious role played by the female rulers of the dynasty is detailed. The statues of these individuals are divided by Ashton into three types; those of purely Egyptian style, those in Egyptian style, with Greek attributes; and those of Egyptian style with Greek hairstyles and portrait features. The different style and imagery can help to identify and date the royal portrait, but certain images, including those considered to be of Cleopatra VII, are still often the subject of discussion. Ashton’s research has focussed on the unusual and innovatory triple uraeus and its assistance in identifying Cleopatra, and the details of this as set out in the essay are worthy of investigation.

 Cleopatra’s brief stay in Rome was not without influence. Superficially, the Roman people were suspicious of her “oriental” and “regal” influences; however, as Carla Alfano points out in her essay, Egyptian Influences in Italy in Cleopatra’s Day, in fact the wealthier citizens of Rome took to many aspects of Egyptian culture – whether Hellenised or not – with enthusiasm. Alfano paints a picture of a Roman spell of “Egyptomania” which has parallels in much later times and which ended (arguably) in the 4th century AD, only to undergo periodic revivals. Alfano describes Cleopatra’s influence as being “decisive in boosting its [the pharaonic world] spread”, that had been fed earlier by the cult of Isis.

  As well as Egyptian cults, frowned upon and legislated against by state politicians, Rome welcomed Egyptian themes in design, including sphinxes, beasts and birds of the Nile valley and hieroglyphics (albeit in a meaningless or individually applied style). Roman gardens took on an Egyptian appearance, with miniature flowing Niles. And then, as now, ushabtis, scarabs and the like were enthusiastically incorporated into designs or worn as part of dress.  And, of course, pyramids. This most essential of Egyptian designs made its appearance in the city of Rome and along the roadways.

  However, Alfano concludes that “Even the concept of a life after death, the basis of the entire Egyptian world, of which Rome kept a weak memory, seemed to be missing: in fact, in funerary inscriptions there appears no prospect of a life after death, but instead the sad and miserable acceptance of the end of life, a typical sentiment for the Roman pagan.”

The end of Cleopatra’s life, while as dramatic and exotic as her whole existence, was, in its way, a Roman one. Christopher Pelling’s essay on The Cleopatra Legend charts the relationship between Antony and Cleopatra as it plunged into destruction and thus became the inspiration for commentators on political, sexual and historical matters throughout the ages. It is Mary Hamer, however, who brings out the personal aspects of the story, including her own response to the Burton-Taylor interpretation of it, that give it its appeal for ordinary people of all backgrounds. “When black nationalists in the United States lay claim to Cleopatra, as they do, that attempt is surely made in pursuit of a dignity and a respect that have been denied to black families and their way of life. Countering them are mainly white scholars, who in defence of ‘civilisation’ and of ‘scientific knowledge’ as they put it, insist that Cleopatra could not have been black. I find myself asking about this passion for certainty, for a knowledge that is absolute and final, one that cuts off further debate.”

The British Museum exhibition Cleopatra of Egypt: From History to Myth opens on 12 April 2001 and continues until 26 August 2001. For further details, contact the British Museum on +44 (0) 20 7323 8000. The British Museum Press catalogue, with essays, to accompany this major event is edited by Susan Walker and Peter Higgs, publication date 9 April 2001. It costs £40 (hardback) or £24.99. For further details, contact the BMP on +44 (0) 20 7323 1234, or see the competition in this issue of AE.

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