QUEEN OF THE NILE

Cleopatra VII, Queen of Egypt. “VII” indicates that there were six ruling Cleopatras before her. But among these seven, we know only her, as simply Cleopatra, and her name recognition in the literate world is one of the highest among the notables of the whole ancient world.

Ironically, her fame is primarily resting on the laurels of a ‘femme fatale,’ the mother of all femmes fatales, perhaps. This distinction alone, however, does not do her justice. Besides, she was not even aesthetically beautiful, with a large mouth and a long hooked nose. Pascal, who devotes to Cleopatra two entries in his Pensées, remarks regarding Cleopatra’s nose that “had it been shorter, the whole aspect of the world would have been altered.” (#162). But, obviously, it was not the length of her naso, as much as the extent of her proficiency in the ars Nasoni (hopefully, this allusion to Ovid can be deciphered without giving away any further clues), which constituted her particular charm. As part of her art, she had, according to Plutarch, “a voice like an instrument of many strings,” and her ability to flatter was unequalled. Plutarch again says this about her: “Plato admits four sorts of flattery, but she had a thousand.”

These arts were used by her on some of the most powerful men in the world, not out of personal vanity (as a matter of fact, she exploited the vanity of others to her political advantage), but as a means to further her ambition to restore the power of the Macedonian dynasty of the Ptolemys, which started with Alexander’s general Ptolemy, and was fated to end with her. Her seduction of Julius Caesar was intended to restore the Ptolemaic Empire with the help of Roman arms, to secure her political position at home, and win back all lost dominions of Egypt, such as Syria and Palestine. Caesar sought money, and Egypt had plenty to spare. But Cleopatra’s push for personal power in her part of the world did not conflict with Caesar’s interests, and it would have succeeded splendidly, had not fate interfered, with Caesar’s assassination. Shaken, yet still as determined as ever to achieve her goals, she now placed her bet on the very capable Marc Anthony, losing yet again. Her last bet to win the favor of Octavian was rejected, and then she resorted to a glorious manner of suicide, to have her last laugh in history, reassuring her undying immortality more than anything else she had ever done.

Aside from all her exotic charms and romantic legends weaved around her, she left the world with a great, still unresolved mystery. During the fateful battle of Actium, where her Anthony could have triumphed at the end, considering the indecisive character of the engagement, where Octavian’s naval force was better than matched by the combined fleets of Anthony and Cleopatra (even if King Herod’s potentially decisive force was not there, because of Cleopatra’s personal animosity to him), she suddenly withdrew her flotilla from the battle, essentially determining the disastrous for Anthony, and herself, outcome of the war. There has been no historical explanation for her precipitous suicidal retreat, not even a single credible theory to inject as a speculation. Her death wish after Actium can be easily understood, together with the spectacular manner of her death, but what was she thinking right then and there, in the middle of a heated battle, with a probably favorable outcome? Could it be a sudden and irrational fit of panic attack? Objectively, this would seem the only reasonable explanation. Otherwise, it will forever remain a great historical mystery, for, as we know it anyway, a woman’s mind surely is imponderable!…