Cleopatra (38 page)

27
The significance of the triple uraeus is discussed, with further references, in R. Bianchi, ‘Images of Cleopatra VII Reconsidered’, in Walker and Ashton, eds, (2003): 13–23. See also S.-A Ashton (2005), ‘The Use of the Double and Triple Uraeus in Royal Iconography’, in A. Cooke and F. Simpson eds,
Current Research in Egyptology II
, BAR International Series 1,380, Oxford: 1–9.

28
A title which, given the uncertainty over Cleopatra’s marital status, might more appropriately apply to Arsinoë II.

1
R. T. Kelly (1912),
Egypt
, Adam and Charles Black, London: 5. Kelly is describing his first visit to Egypt in 1883.

2
Plutarch,
Life of Alexander
: 26. Translated by B. Perrin.

3
Historian Michel Chauveau (2000: 57) has suggested that ‘Rhakotis’ may have been not a proper town name but simply the misunderstood Greek form of the Egyptian
Rá-qed
or ‘building site’.

4
Arrian,
Anabasis of Alexander
. Translated by E. J. Chinnock 1893. Arrian lived
c
.
AD
86–146.

5
Pseudo-Callisthenes,
The Alexander Romance
. This is at best an unreliable source, but in the matter of the two architects there is little reason to doubt its accuracy.

6
Suetonius,
Divine Augustus
, 18. Translated by R. Graves.

7
Cassius Dio,
Roman History
, 51: 61.5. Translated by E. Cary.

8
Historians have looked in Egypt (Alexandria, Memphis and Siwa), in Macedonia and beyond. See, for example, A. M. Chugg (2004),
The Lost Tomb of Alexander the Great
, Richmond, London, where the author argues that the body of St Mark, currently housed in the St Mark’s Basilica, Venice, is actually the body of Alexander the Great.

9
Flavius Josephus,
Against Apion
, 2: 53–6. A version of the drunken elephant story is told in 3 Maccabees 5–6, where the king involved is Ptolemy IV.

10
Discussed in more detail in Fraser (1972): 93–131.

11
Strabo,
The Geography
, 17: 8. Translated by H. L. Jones.

12
H. A. R. Gibb (1929),
Ibn Battuta: Travels in Asia and Africa 1325–1354
, George Routledge and Sons, London: 47–50.

13
Athenaeus,
Deipnosophists
, 12: 184. Translated by C. D. Yonge.

14
Ibid., 11: 67. Athenaeus wrote his
Deipnosophists
(
Banquet of the Learned
) during the third century
AD
. The text, essentially a lengthy conversation, ranges over a variety of topics dear to the author’s heart, including sex (both ‘natural’ and ‘unnatural’), luxury, food and drink, and is packed full of quotations from earlier authorities.

15
Ibid., 13: 37.

16
Ibid., 7: 2–3.

17
Ibid., 5: 25–36.

18
This can be compared to the Ptolemaic town of Kerkeosiris, which, with a population of approximately 1,500 in the second century
BC
, had three Egyptian shrines to Thoth, two to Isis, two to Taweret and one each to Petesouchos, Orsenouphis, Harpsenesis, Anubis, Bast and Amen, plus Greek shrines to Zeus and the twin gods Castor and Pollux. Figures given in Bowman (1990): 171.

19
Pliny the Elder,
Natural History
, 34: 42. Translated by H. Rackham. This, together with other uses of magnetism in temples, is discussed in Empereur (1998): 92–5.

20
Pliny the Elder,
Natural History
, 36: 14. Translated by H. Rackham.

21
Philo,
The Embassy to Gaius
, 149–51. Translated by F. H. Coulson (1962), Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass., and Heinemann, London.

1
G. H. Macurdy (1932),
Hellenistic Queens: Study of Womanpower in Macedonia, Seleucid Syria, and Ptolemaic Egypt
, Johns Hopkins University Studies in Archaeology 14, Johns Hopkins Press, Baltimore: 189.

2
Lucan (Marcus Annaeus Lucanus),
Pharsalia
(
The Civil War
), 10: 11off. Translated by E. Ridley (1896),
The Pharsalia of Lucan
, Longmans, Green, and Co., London.

3
Suetonius,
Divine Julius
, 35. Translated by R. Graves.

4
Recorded in Caesar’s
The Alexandrian Wars
, which was most probably written by Aulus Hirtius.

5
Ibid., 23. Translated by W. A. McDevitte and W. S. Bohn.

6
Cassius Dio,
Roman History
, 42: 44. Translated by E. Cary.

7
Suetonius,
Divine Julius
, 52. Translated by R. Graves.

8
Appian,
The Civil Wars
, 3: 2: 90.

9
Athenaeus,
Deipnosophists
, 5: 37–40. See T. W. Hillard (2002), ‘The Nile Cruise of Cleopatra and Caesar’,
Cambridge Quarterly
, 52: 2: 549–54.

10
Lucan,
Pharsalia
(
The Civil War
), 10: 192–331. Translated by J. D. Duff (1928), Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass., and Heinemann, London. Lucan did not finish his Book 10, and so never described the actual voyage.

11
Plutarch,
Life of Caesar
, 49: 10;
Life of Antony
, 54: 6.

12
Cassius Dio,
Roman History
, 47: 31.5; Suetonius,
Divine Julius
, 52: 2–3.

13
This piece is discussed in J. P. V. D. Balsdon’s 1960 review of H. Volkmann’s
Cleopatra
, in
Classical Review
, 10: 1: 68–71. There are difficulties in translating the stela date, as both the Roman and Egyptian calendars were operating incorrectly at the time and it is possible to argue with some validity that this date should be read as September rather than June.

14
D. Devauchelle (2001), ‘La stèle du Louvre IM8 (Sérapéum de Memphis) et la prétendue date de naisance de Césarion’,
Enchoria
, 27: 41: 56 (27).

15
See D. Todman (2007), ‘Childbirth in Ancient Rome: From Traditional Folklore to Obstetrics’,
Australian and New Zealand Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology
, 47: 82–5.

16
Cassius Dio,
Roman History
, 43: 27.3. Translated by E. Cary.

17
Cicero,
Letters to Atticus
, 15: 15.2. Translated by L. P. Wilkinson, quoted and discussed in Grant (1972): 96.

18
See E. Gruen (2003), ‘Cleopatra in Rome: Facts and Fantasies’, in D. Braund and C. Gill eds,
Myth, History and Culture in Republican Rome
, University of Exeter Press, Exeter, 256–74.

19
Cicero,
Letters to Atticus
, 14: 8.1.

20
Ibid., 14: 20.2.

21
See, for example, Chauveau (2002): 32–3; J. Carcopino,
Passion et politique chez les Césars
(1958) :37. Carcopino has suggested that Mark Antony may have been Caesarion’s father. Just one further piece of evidence can be cited in support of a late birth date for Caesarion. We have already noted the bronze Cypriot coin which shows Cleopatra suckling the infant Caesarion (page 61). Unfortunately, there is no firm date for this coin. If we imagine that it is a literal representation of Caesarion and his mother, we might also imagine that it was produced soon after Caesarion’s birth, at a time when Cleopatra ruled Cyprus. The first firm evidence for Cleopatra ruling Cyprus dates to 43. But, as Caesar is reported to have gifted Cyprus to Egypt in 48, it could equally well be argued that the coin was struck as early as 47, following Cleopatra’s union with Ptolemy XIV.

22
Speculation about this ‘second child’ abounds. See, for example, R. Ellis (2006),
Cleopatra to Christ
, Edfu Books, Cheshire, which identifies the phantom daughter of Cleopatra and Caesar as the grandmother of Jesus.

1
Mond and Myers advertise for assistance in the
Geographical Journal
(1936), 87: 1: 95.

2
Flavius Josephus,
Antiquities of the Jews
, 15: 89. Translated by W. Whiston (1895, updated and republished 2001).

3
Tyldesley (2006).

4
The palette, recovered from Hierakonpolis, is today displayed in Cairo Museum.

5
Herodotus,
The Histories
, 2: 41. Translated by A. de Sélincourt (1954).

6
See R. E. Witt (1971): 20: ‘Isis was all things to all men. That was what made her so formidable a foe to Jesus and oecumenical Paul.’ Other serious rivals were Mithras and, to a lesser extent, Dionysos.

7
Plutarch’s version, adapted to fit with traditional Egyptian accounts of the same myth, has been used as the basis of this retelling which is adapted from J. A. Tyldesley (2004),
Tales from Ancient Egypt
, Rutherford Press, Bolton: 16–25.

8
Cleopatra’s Egyptian titulary is discussed in J. Tait (2003), ‘Cleopatra by Name’, in Walker and Ashton, eds (2003): 3–7.

9
A. B. Edwards (1877),
A Thousand Miles up the Nile
, George Routledge and Sons, London. The quotation is taken from page 122 of the 1888 edition.

10
The history of this curious piece has been reconstructed in A. Rammant-Peeters (1998), ‘L’Affaire Cléopâtre: ou comment la photographie servit de véhicule à l’imagination du XIX siècle’, in W. Clarysse, A. Schoors and H. Willems, eds,
Egyptian Religion the Last Thousand Years: Studies Dedicated to the memory of Jan Quaegebeur
, Peeters, Leuven: 1,449–57.

11
Lucius Apuleius,
Metamorphoses
, or,
The Golden Ass
, 11: 47. Translation adapted from W. Adlington (1566; 1639 published edition), ‘Imprinted at London in Fleatstreate at the sign of the Oliphante, by Henry Wykes’. Compare with the translation given by R. Graves (1950, revised edition 1990),
The Golden Ass
, Penguin Books, Harmondsworth.

12
Plutarch,
Isis and Osiris
, 5: 382. Translated by F. C. Babbitt (1936),
Moralia V
, Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass., and Heinemann, London.

13
Diodorus Siculus,
Library of History
, I: 83.8. Translated by C. H. Oldfather.

14
The cult temples, situated in the cities, may be contrasted with the mortuary temples which were built in the desert as part of the king’s own funerary provision.

15
Translated by Ashton (2003): 105.

16
Translated by J. Quagebeur (1988), ‘Cleopatra VII and the Cults of the Ptolemaic Queens’, in
Cleopatra’s Egypt, Age of the Ptolemies
, Brooklyn Museum, New York: 41–54: 43.

17
Translation adapted from J. D. Ray (1976),
The Archive of Hor
, Egypt Exploration Society, London: 11–12 (text 1.11–18).

1
Grant (1972): 84.

2
Seneca,
Quaestiones Naturales
, 4a2.16.

3
Flavius Josephus,
Against Apion
, 2: 60. Translated by W. Whiston.

4
Offering formulae were magical lists of food and other goods that the deceased might require in the tomb. The lists acted as an
aide mémoire
to the living who brought food to the tomb and the reading out of the list would cause the goods to magically and invisibly appear for the spirit of the deceased.

5
J. P. Lesley (1868), ‘A Classified Catalogue of Antiquities Collected by Mr Harris, and Now in his Museum in Alexandria, in Notes on Some of the
Historical and Mythological Features of the D’Orbiney Papyri’,
Proceedings of the American Philological Society
10: 80: 543–82: 565.

6
M. Lichtheim (1990),
Ancient Egyptian Literature 3: The Late Period
, University of California Press, Berkeley and London: 63.

7
Plutarch,
Life of Antony
, 9: 3–4. Translated by B. Perrin.

8
See P. Walcot (1998), ‘Plutarch on Sex’,
Greece and Rome
, 45: 2: 166–87.

9
Discussed in more detail in K. Welch (1995), ‘Antony, Fulvia, and the Ghost of Clodius in 47
BC
’,
Greece and Rome
, 42: 2: 182–201. Fulvia had also previously been married to Gaius Scribonius Curio.

10
Plutarch,
Life of Antony
, 10: 3. Translated by B. Perrin.

11
Appian,
The Civil Wars
, 4: 5.8. They may well have met in Alexandria, but it seems unlikely that Antony would have fallen so violently in love.