Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of I Heart Radio. Hey brain Stuff. Lauren Bogelbaum here for being one of the most famous women in history. The real Cleopatra is shrouded in mystery. She lived from sixty nine to thirty b c. Ruled Egypt for twenty two years, commanded riches unrivaled in the ancient world, four children to two of the most powerful men in Rome, and yet the stories of her past down over the centuries Cleopatra's the Wanton Seductress were
mostly propaganda written by her enemies. We spoke with Prudence Jones, history professor at Montclair State University and author of Cleopatra, a source Book to get the real scoop on Cleopatra the Seventh and bust a few myths. First off, Cleopatra was not Egyptian. She was the last in a long line of Macedonian Greek kings and queens who ruled Egypt
starting with the conquest of Alexander the Great. After Alexander's death, his general tal of Me the First was installed as king of Egypt, which he ruled as a Greek from the Hellenistic capital of Alexandria. Although Cleopatra was not Egyptian. She did make explicit overtures to Egyptian religion and culture, such as identifying herself with the goddess Isis. She was also the first ruler in the centuries long Ptolemaic dynasty
who bothered to learn how to speak Egyptian. In addition to speaking Greek and Egyptian, Cleopatra was fluent in at least six other languages. A highly educated woman, she published two known texts, one on the care of the body and the other on weights and measures for medicine and trade. The Roman enemies of Egypt sought to denigrate Cleopatra by painting her as a harlot queen who bewitched great men like Julius Caesar and Mark Anthony with her physical beauty alone.
But even the Roman historian plutarch A, writing a century after Cleopatra's death, said there was much more to the queen than her looks. Here's how he described her. Her beauty, as we are told, was in itself not altogether incomparable, nor such as to strike those who saw her, But to converse with her had an irresistible charm, and her presence, combined with the persuasiveness of her discourse and the character, which was somehow diffused about her behavior towards others, had
something stimulating about it. There was a sweetness also in the tones of her voice and her tongue, Like an instrument of many strings. She could readily turn to whatever language she pleased, so that in her interviews she very seldom had need of an interpreter. Jones said that compared with the military minded Anthony, who was quote not known for being the sharpest attack in the box, Cleopatra was
famous for her intellect. Nonetheless, the Roman poet Lucan described Cleopatra as a list sivious fury, ruled only by her passions, but she had only two romantic partners in her short thirty nine year life, and Jones says that both relationships were political as well as personal. When Cleopatra took the Egyptian throne at eighteen, she inherited a kingdom in decline. Rome was the ascendant power in the Mediterranean, and Egypt's
independence was under threat. To make matters worse, her younger brother and co ruler and husband It's complicated, was trying to push her out. When Julius Caesar came to Egypt, in pursuit of his rival Pompey, Cleopatra saw an opportunity to win a powerful Roman ally. According to Plutarch's famous account, a middle aged Caesar first laid eyes on Cleopatra when she smuggled herself into his quarters and tumbled out of
a carpet or more likely a basket of laundry. The young Cleopatra, one Caesar's affections, took back the throne and sealed the alliance with the birth of a son, whom she not so subtly named Cesarean, which means Little Caesar.
She now had family ties to Rome. Cleopatra's later relationship with Mark Antony, who was second in command to Caesar, was immortalized by William Shakespeare in the play Anthony and Cleopatra as one of the most legendary and tragic love affairs in history, but it too, primarily served a political purpose. Egypt may have enjoyed great wealth and resources, but after Caesar's assassination, Cleopatra knew that her kingdom was still at
the whim of Rome, the reigning superpower. Jones explained, Cleopatra was well aware that in order for Egypt to remain independent at all it needed a powerful protector. Caesar's death had left a power vacuum in Rome, and two prominent men Caesar's chosen hair, Octavian and Anthony, the ambitious politician in general, were fighting a civil war to fill it. Octavian had the financial backing of the Senate, but Antony desperately needed money to pay his troops. Once again, Cleopatra
saw an inn. Writing of the first meeting between Anthony and Cleopatra, Plutarch paints a picture of an older, wiser woman intent on preserving her kingdom with her charm and her resources. Anthony needed money, and Cleopatra was the richest woman in the world. In exchange for her financial support, Anthony became Egypt's ally and defender again to Roman encroachment,
and gave Cleopatra, whom he eventually married, three more airs. However, and spoiler alert for Shakespeare's play, their marriage ended in a tragic double suicide, though it probably didn't go down exactly as Shakespeare wrote it in the play. Anthony, falsely believing Cleopatra to be dead after a failed sea battle against Octavian, falls on his own sword and eventually dies
in her arms from the wound. Cleopatra, not willing to be paraded in the streets of Rome as a prisoner of war, has a poisonous snake smuggled into her quarters. In the final scene of the play, she hugs the snake to her bosom and says, with thy sharp teeth, this not intrinsicate of life at once, Untie, poor, venomous, fool,
be angry, and dispatch. Include Ark's version of the story, the snake and Asps specifically is hidden in a basket of large figs. He wrote, it is said that the asp was brought with those figs and leaves, and lay hidden beneath them. For thus Cleopatra had given orders that the reptile might fasten itself upon her body without her being aware of it. But when she took away some of the figs and saw it, she said, there it is, you see, and bearing her arm, she held it out
for the bite. But even Plutarch atmits that there were various accounts of Cleopatra's death, and that quote the truth of the matter no one knows. For it was also said that she carried about poison in a hollow comb, and kept the comb hidden in her hair. Modern scholars say that poison would have been a much simpler and faster way to go, but that Cleopatra likely included the more dramatic snake story in her suicide note to Octavian, which also requested that she'd be buried next to her antony.
Today's episode was written by Dave Ruse and produced by Tyler clayg. For more on this and lots of other historical topics, visit how stuff works dot com. Brain Stuff is production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. H