Season 1 Episode 2: Cleopatra – The Last Pharaoh

Who was Cleopatra? Why has her fame transcended across time throughout all of history? Depends on who you ask. These questions and more will be discussed in the contents of this podcast.

Alexis Kim, Undergraduate UCLA

Lily Marquez, Undergraduate UCLA

Radha Patel, Undergraduate UCLA

Roberto Vindel, Undergraduate UCLA

Featuring Kylie Thomsen, Graduate Student, UCLA

Transcript

Section I: Introduction

(00:00:00)

ALEXIS: Hey guys, welcome back to Now as Then Podcast: Episode #2: Cleopatra: The Last Pharaoh. You are here with Alexis, Radha, Lily, and Roberto. Before we begin, we would just like to give special thanks to Simon Lee and Courtney Jacobs for giving us access to the Young Research Library Special Collections area, and to Deidre Whitmore and Tom Garbelotti for giving us continuous tech support throughout this course, as well as to Kylie Thomsen for allowing us to interview her during her very busy schedule. Without further ado, let’s get started!

So, when you think of Cleopatra, what exactly comes to mind? Do you think about her relationships with Julius Caesar and Marc Antony? Do you think about Shakespeare’s famous play? Maybe even the 20th century film about her starring Elizabeth Taylor? Maybe even Katy Perry’s “Dark Horse” video, which is rather Egyptian themed.

Well, we can’t really say just why she has maintained her popularity throughout history, but we can conjecture that it is most likely from her contact with the Ancient Romans. But I…what I think is really unfortunate is that people don’t tend to focus on her achievements before this. I think instead people like to focus on the drama and art surrounding her famous love affairs in the “exotic” realm of Egypt, and just tend to forget about what she’s done before that.

In this podcast, we will be discussing the various misconceptions that have or have been figured upon Cleopatra in order to unravel what exactly people thought of her across time. We will first discuss her influence in the past, beginning with a brief background about her, and how different depictions of her have changed the ways she is viewed over time. Let’s begin.

Section I.2. Cleopatra’s Background

(00:02:12)

ALEXIS: So, first of all, some background on Cleopatra. She is most known for her affairs with Antony and Caesar, but she was actually quite the successful ruler before that, and she was, in fact, probably the most powerful ruler of the Ptolemaic dynasty.

So Cleopatra VII was the daughter of Ptolemy XII and Cleopatra Tryphaena. Her name, Cleopatra, means “glory of her father”, and her other name, Philopator, is a common royal epithet giving to Hellenistic monarchs, and it’s given to mean “she who loves her father”. Her other other name Thea is “Goddess” so in summation, her name basically means “Goddess Who Loves Her Father”, and I suppose that this is very fitting, because she was very close to her father, and she ruled jointly beside him until he died. After his death, Cleopatra succeeded the throne at the age of 19 and was given the title of “Lady of the Two Lands”. And since a woman could not rule without a male escort, she married her brother Ptolemy XIII who was only 10 years old at the time.¹ Just on a side note here, this marriage is debated among scholars, because it was likely to have happened but we don’t really have physical evidence for it, so maybe take that with caution.²

Though Cleopatra ascended the throne at a very young age, she was very talented woman, especially with language. She could speak about 8 languages fluently, and she never relied on interpreters. Her language set included African, Aramaic, Hebrew, and Egyptian, and this is actually really important because she is said to be the only Ptolemy to ever learn the Egyptian language, as the rest of them did not. She was also very independent, which caused her some trouble with her members of court, actually her independent attitude was one of the reasons why she was actually exiled. So what had happened was her chief adviser overthrew her and placed her brother Ptolemy XIII on the throne as the sole ruler and pharaoh.

While she was in exile, Julius Caesar had set up martial law in ancient Egypt after learning that Pompey the Great was killed by Ptolemy XIII. Cleopatra, saw this as an opportunity to gain back her power, and became lovers with Caesar, which outraged the reigning pharaoh, who decided to declare war on the both of them. Caesar and Cleopatra were besieged in for about 6 months until Roman reinforcements rescued them. Just on a little side note here, I find it really interesting that, because I…I took these sources from encyclopedias, and I am of the belief that encyclopedias are supposed to be objective sources of information, but I find it kind of questionable when the article implies that only Cleopatra was being manipulative in the relationship with Caesar. I’ve actually found other accounts of authors finding that both Cleopatra and Caesar wanted to use each other to gain something.³ And in fact, one author asserts that Caesar saw the opportunity to settle Egypt’s debt with Rome, and Cleopatra saw a way to obtain the throne, from her brother. Under their relationship she actually repaid the debt to Rome, which was incurred by her father, and she did this by changing the value of currency by adding new metals to the ancient Egyptian coins.

After the war, Cleopatra gave birth to Ptolemy XV who is also known as Caesarion, and Caesar brought the both of them to Rome with him, which actually angered many of the Roman nobility. Cleopatra tried to assuage their anger with lavish ancient Egyptian gifts, but they were seen as impractical and ludicrous displays of wealth instead of the peace offerings they were meant to be.

After Caesar’s assassination, Cleopatra and Caesarion fled back to Alexandria in Egypt, and Marc Antony was sent after them as part of his investigation to interrogate any suspects involved with Caesar’s murder, and he actually summoned Cleopatra to appear in Tarsus to answer to charges that she was in on the assassination. Cleopatra actually charmed Marc Antony with her rumored wit and charm, and they also became lovers. Marc Antony was said to love her to the point where he actually divorced his Roman wife Octavia to marry Cleopatra legally, which was a really big insult to his kind of co-ruler, Octavian, who actually, basically incited a Roman Civil War as Antony and Octavian’s relationship kind of disintegrated. Eventually, Cleopatra and Antony were defeated at the Battle of Actium in 31 BCE. They both committed suicide, Antony decided to stab himself after reading a false report of Cleopatra’s death, and Cleopatra chose death by snakebite after realizing the gravity of her defeat by Octavian.⁴

So like I mentioned previously, these summary excerpts were taken from Ancient Encyclopedia as well as the Encyclopedia Britannica, but I think it is worth noting that several pieces of the information given are a little bit questionable. An example of this is where Ancient Encyclopedia asserts that Cleopatra’s death was by snakebite, definitively, but the real fact of the matter is that we just don’t know. Cleopatra’s death is actually a complete mystery, and to date, nobody has found any physical evidence relating to how she died, and this is because the location of her tomb is unknown, and as of right now it’s lost to history. Plutarch maintains the “death by snakebite with a basket of figs” narrative, where he details that she had a basket of figs brought to her but hidden inside the basket were several Egyptian cobras, and when she put her hand in the basket, that’s how she died, but other historians, including Dio and Galen, assert that she killed herself with poison instead of snakebites. So, Galen asserts that Cleopatra bit open her own skin and then applied poison on the wound, ⁵ while Dio found that she died either from a snakebite or from stabbing herself with a poisoned hairpin.⁶ Most sources do agree on the fact that it was suicide, but all this is to say that we may not know the exact reason so we may have to take this information with a grain of salt.

Section I.3. Orientalism

(00:09:22)

RADHA: Before we begin discussing how old sources have interpreted Cleopatra in ancient Egypt, we want to inform you what effects do these old sources have based on Columbia University’s professor Edward Said, who is a researcher on literature and author of his book Orientalism. According to Said, there are misinterpretations that are drawn towards countries that have been colonized by Europeans or made contact with Europeans. First we must distinguish the Orient from Westernization and European civilizations. The Orient consists of “Europe’s greatest and richest and oldest colonies,” civilizations, languages, and “recurring images of the Other.”⁷ Thus we can suggest that in ancient Egypt, Europeans had framed this country as the Orient by depicting this culture as exotic and in this case for the podcast, portraying Cleopatra as an inferior queen with false interpretations about her. As Said shortly defines it, Orientalism is a way of Westernization “for dominating, restructuring, and having authority over the Orient.”⁸ You will notice in this podcast that Europeans and the West have recreated Cleopatra by falsifying her real history, and transformed her identity that alludes to how she has become portrayed today as we will see in the present how even in movies and pictures she is depicted with a sexualized image, the Orient.

As you listen to this podcast, we want you to consider Edward Said’s interpretation of Orientalism and Cleopatra’s background to be perspicacious of what we have found as we take you back in time from historical writers to what modern depictions of this noble and intelligent queen has become.

Section II: Old perspective on Roman Influence

(00:11:10)

ALEXIS: So, now we’re going to move to our kind of old perspective on Cleopatra, and old sources talking about Cleopatra may not be as dependable as we once thought. One of the most ancient critics of Cleopatra is Plutarch, who is, again, like the information is questionable, because out of many reasons, he was alive about 100-200 years after Cleopatra’s death, so considering he wasn’t even alive to see her, to know her, to meet her, the information coming from him is maybe not the most reliable. He, and this is actually a common motif among the classical historians, they tend to comment on her wit and charm, rather than her looks, which they claim are maybe not as beautiful as compared to other women. So Plutarch maintains that she is witty and charming, but again, he takes a cheap swing at her looks, where he says: “For her beauty, as we are told, was in itself not altogether incomparable, nor such as to strike those who saw her; but 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 behaviour towards others, had something stimulating about it.”⁹ end quote. While he gives her this credit, he tends to actually portray Cleopatra as more of like a wicked seductress that led Antony to his downfall by basically implying that she ruined both of Antony’s marriages, first to his first wife Fulvia, and then with Octavia. He actually portrays her as a master actress and manipulator, and there’s a very big quote from him, but it’s basically saying that she pretended to love him and made her body slimmer with dieting, and put on “fake looks of rapture when he drew near”, and “one of faintness and melancholy when he went away”¹⁰

I think it’s really interesting that he is directly arguing that Cleopatra’s love for Antony was completely fake, and I think it’s interesting that he makes this conclusion because he wasn’t even alive to even have any substantial evidence for this. I would also like to point out that Plutarch does not blame Antony for being unfaithful to his Roman wife, but rather chooses to blame Cleopatra, the “exotic seductress” from the unknown and foreign lands of Egypt. I think there is inherent bias against Cleopatra, not only because she is a woman, but also because of the fact that she is not of Roman descent. Cleopatra, on a side note here, is not technically Egyptian, she’s actually Macedonian Greek, but her association with Egypt, as she was the ruler, it made her something to be looked down upon by the Romans.

Now, considering the fact that Plutarch was one of the most ancient sources available to Egyptologists, I think it is not really a surprise to us that this particular image of her as a seductress of sorts has persisted into modern times, since many people drew off of his work when they were describing Cleopatra, and this includes Shakespeare when he wrote the play Antony and Cleopatra. However, I do believe that as we get into the modern centuries, opinions are changing and people are starting to question the authorities of historians like Plutarch, and I think, with more and more archaeological discoveries being made every day, I think this could eventually lead to more accurate information on Cleopatra with less inherent bias inside of it.

Section II.1. Discussion

(00:15:08)

Okay so I know I definitely talked a lot about Plutarch and his misogynistic, “Rome-is-better-than-Egypt” kind of thing, but I bet you guys are probably wondering, like okay we know the ancient perspective, so what? What about modern times? I do think that even though Plutarch’s kind of way of thinking about Cleopatra has persisted into the modern era, I also believe that modern narrative is kind of going towards a more objective view of Cleopatra and people are actually really starting to question the authority of figures like Plutarch. I can argue that one example includes the author Adrian Goldsworthy, and he basically chronicled Antony and Cleopatra’s entire relationship from beginning to end, and in his introduction of his book, he actually asserts that he thinks that people feel pressured to support Cleopatra and give opinions in her favor, but he believes that Cleopatra and Antony should be viewed in a non-opinionated way, completely, just because we little to no information about them as people so he thinks that us as modern viewers, we don’t really have a right to form an opinion about them.¹¹ I guess this is kind of an improvement on people’s view of Cleopatra, but I’m actually going to get into greater detail with that kind of thing. I’m with Lily right now, and we’re going to have like a short discussion on how we think that views on Cleopatra have changed.

So I know I’ve been talking a lot about ancient sources, kind of that, Plutarch, misogynistic, potentially inaccurate view, so I kind of just want to know what are your thoughts on how the narrative of Cleopatra has changed.

LILY: So my thoughts, of course, come from a modern scholar named Cecilia Peek, who actually has two articles on Cleopatra, one of her expulsion during her early reigning years and the other one talks about the Nile cruise she had with Julius Caesar. So in the article about the expulsion of Cleopatra, Cecilia Peek asserts that even though Cleopatra was deposed during her early years of reign, she later became popular as queen to the ancient Egyptians. She was so popular among them, that during upheaval against Rome, which was, you know, their enemy at the time, they all rose up to fight on her behalf.¹²

ALEXIS: Wow, okay, so that’s like overwhelming favor of her, almost. That’s really quite different from the narrative that Plutarch kind of picks apart.

LILY: Who would be willing to fight for…

ALEXIS: Yeah, I can’t find any of my people willing to rise up and fight for me, so… (laughter) but wow that’s really quite different from the ancient perspective we were getting before.

LILY: In the other article, “On the Nile Cruise”, Peek praises her achievements, where she’s restoring ties with Upper Egypt and reinforcing connections with neighboring civilizations such as Rome, but inevitably she achieved all this through her relationship with Julius Caesar at the time.¹³

ALEXIS: So that, yeah, that’s definitely painting her in a different sort of light. I know for a fact that Plutarch doesn’t really credit her with too much of anything, and kind of just makes her look bad over the course of his Roman Lives compendium of stories, but this was really good, definitely a good discussion on how it changed over time.

Section II.2. Old Perspective, Continued

(00:19:37)

ROBERTO: Alright, alright! old sources in the field of Egyptology usually don’t come with reliable information, especially those coming from greek scholars, such as Herodotus or Diodorus, especially Herodotus, since, you know, there’s a whole debate whether he actually went to Egypt or not, so I don’t know if you can trust that. They shared biased views, but can still provide some, and I can’t stress this enough, some, semi-modern perspectives. There is this author, Arthur Weigall, who wrote the life and times of Cleopatra Queen of Egypt. This book was first published in 1914, so we can pretty much assume it’s as reliable as pouring a bottle of water on a forest fire. Weigall states throughout the first half of his book that it is good to have an unbiased opinion, but then continues throughout the second half of his book to describe Cleopatra as a seductress of Roman men.¹⁴ So pretty much, going to the contrary of what he stated in the beginning. Most of his evidence is spotty, but he believes that she was manipulative, and used her wit to gain an empire, not caring for anything that did not lead her to more power, or securing power for her children’s future. The view must have been popular, since this book was published not once, not twice, not three times, but it was published four times within a decade: first in 1914, then in 1923, 1924, and 1926. Around a decade after it was first published, there was some negativity that had been propagated by the book around this female queen, showing Romans as the underdogs until Octavian takes over and frees them from the tyranny that is Cleopatra. This can reflect the political and social landscape at the time. It could be propaganda that women weren’t generally seen in positions of power, and if they ever reached a position of power, it wouldn’t end as well as if it were a man. This would not only affect how the scientific or analytical world views Cleopatra and her rule, but also the young readers of the time, the public that are being influenced and given the wrong view of Cleopatra and how she came into power and came out of power.

(00:22:05)

RADHA: As Robert mentioned, a seductress Cleopatra problematizes her role as a powerful ruler. If she is only seen as a seductress in call for political power, then this is nonetheless a product of gender bias that underestimates her sexual and political authority as Mary Hamer says in her 1993 book “Signs of Cleopatra.” She is constantly appropriated and transformed in history as a patriarchal woman to a woman who is a cultural artifact that “problematizes power relations between the sexes.”¹⁵ This is not fair to her reflection as a powerful queen who deserves equal standing alongside powerful kings. Furthermore, this gives the wrong impression of what we should be looking at Cleopatra as according to her true history.

Section III. Moving Towards the Modern Era

(00:22:50)

RADHA: We see Cleopatra represented in various contexts relating to love, politics, and sexual appeal as she is our famous celebrity today. As Alexis, Lily, and Roberto suggest, historical sources deflect against Cleopatra’s identity by falsifying facts that intertwine with her relationship with the Romans. Not only have historical accounts of Cleopatra falsified the past, but we can see her representations being accounted further down in history. From Shakespeare’s play Antony and Cleopatra to Las Vegas’ Cleopatra Barge at Caesars Palace and Cleopatra Hollywood films. We do not see the truest form of Cleopatra in the movies. Just look at her character played by Elizabeth Taylor! She is actively played by a British-American actress, when in reality, Cleopatra is actually descended from Macedonian Greek ancestry. While other sources mention her to have some Persian blood because of her richly dark complexion, inherited from her grandmother who was a Seleucid princess, while she also has a pointed nose and copper hair.¹⁶ However, if you observe many pictures and films in the modern era and the past, a lot of these images of her do not show all of these qualities with accuracy.

What do you think this may suggest? According to Edward Said’s definition towards Orientalism, the Western and European perspectives of race depict a bias towards ancient Egyptian culture by integrating their own opinions while also making the ancient Egyptians seen as the ‘other.’¹⁷ In Cleopatra’s case, we see her as a sexualized ruler with different depictions of her clothing and actions in film that change her true identity as a powerful queen by Western people. These transformations that we see of Cleopatra are due to the past carrying these identifications of her into the present that falsify who she truly was. This is truly problematic to the modern century as these stereotypical approaches destroy the true identity of ancient Egypt and Cleopatra.

It is unclear whether this is a racist backlash. But can we say that this is a sign of European dominance? Or Western power over foreign countries?

Before Shakespeare’s play Antony and Cleopatra, many writers found her to be noble for courtly love and for confessing her wrong doings by declaring Antony as innocent. This is seen from their love relationship and Antony’s death when he tried to commit suicide after receiving a letter from Cleopatra claiming she was dead, when in reality she wanted him to return to her after he left her announcing her betrayal.¹⁸ However, soon after, Elizabethan writers expressed the deaths of Antony and Cleopatra as a source of lust and passion for each other while Shakespeare’s story suggests the dangers of love affairs considering the letter he had read about Cleopatra’s death.¹⁹ His story of Antony and Cleopatra are a multiform to the story of Romeo and Juliet as both lovers died in the end of the story. In this case, the end plot of Shakespeare’s playwright is similar to the real account of what we know about Antony’s death. Antony wounds himself after receiving a letter from Cleopatra that she is dead and returns to her when he finds out that she is alive (Act 4 Sc.15). ²⁰ He dies in Cleopatra’s arms and in grief Cleopatra decides to kill herself with a snake bite (Act 5 Sc. 2).²¹ However, in our actual historical resources, we do not know how exactly she died. Similarly, to Romeo and Juliet, Romeo kills himself after witnessing Juliet dead even though she was not, when she wakes up, Juliet kills herself soon after.²² Whether this was Shakespeare’s way of reflecting towards kinship relationships in relation to political power during his time can be questionable and is for another podcast.

Anyhow, we see a mixture of perspectives that come across Cleopatra and her history. From Shakespeare’s play, we can see some evidence of real facts that reflect Cleopatra’s story, even though it does not match up to her death, we can at least recognize that she has some connection to her true history with alterations added to it. Despite that there are some similarities, these alterations to her story can be Shakespeare’s choice of writing, but also it can exemplify Cleopatra and Antony’s love affair even though it is uncertain how close their relationship truly was. In the 18th and 19th century, Cleopatra is written as a “weak and passionate” contributor to politics and an icon to feminism and seduction.²³ We see this type of identity carried later in the 20th and 21st century starting from movie depictions, such as Cleopatra, starring British-American actress Elizabeth Taylor. This is nonetheless an orientalist view of this woman who is judged by her political authority while centralizing her away from other ancient Egyptian rulers by illuminating her as a seductress who is played by the role of a European despite that Cleopatra is closely associated to ancient Egypt and is Macedonian Greek.

Section III.1. Cleopatra in Film

(00:28:04)

LILY: Hello, it’s Lily here, and I will be talking about the 1963 Cleopatra movie that stars Elizabeth Taylor as Cleopatra. One particular scene is when she’s entering Rome with her son on this big, exotic Egyptian litter, which to me looked over-extravagant, and it is being carried by slaves of the queen.²⁴ These laborers are somewhat diverse in skin complexion, they are both light colored as well as dark colored individuals. A little more into the scene, however, there are only black individuals or the ones with a darker skin complexion, carrying the smaller Egyptian litter where Cleopatra and her son sit upon. This leads us to question the possible purposeful display of dichotomy that Orientalist ideas create, where the ones with a lighter complexion prevail over the darker ones. In the case of this scene, the whitewashed Cleopatra, which was previously mentioned by Radha, is only being carried by the black servants, boldly depicting this strong dichotomy that the whites are superior and usually in power, while the rest and or nonwhite are at the bottom. Also, considering that the movie came out during racially-segregated America, there could be a purpose in wanting to portray a white Cleopatra along with the race and power dichotomy that we see here in this scene.

(00:30:05)

LILY: I’ll be talking about one more scene in the 1963 Cleopatra movie that further exhibits a highly westernized and cunning Cleopatra. So this is a scene where Cleopatra pays a secret visit to Julius Caesar in Rome asking him to help her become queen of Egypt. It’s also the infamous scene where she shows up rolled in a carpet. Cleopatra comes off as very demanding and uses the right witty words to get under Julius Caesar’s skin, enough of them to get him to do as she says. The young queen tells the older ruler of Rome, “It’s the old story. Roman greatness built upon ancient Egyptian riches. You should have them. You should have them all. And in peace. But there is only one way. My way. Make me queen [of Egypt].”²⁵ And of course, she’s asking him to make her a queen of Egypt, as she was co-ruling at the time with one of her younger brothers. You can find a very demanding tone in Cleopatra’s request. In addition, she uses the right words about “Roman greatness” being constructed upon ancient “Egyptian riches,” which Cleopatra uses to appeal and refer to the great Roman ruler Julius Caesar. Of course he’s going to want Roman greatness, that’s why she used the specific phrase in her request. Furthermore, this scene depicts the typical and orientalist view of a manipulative, power-thirsty Cleopatra, who later uses her wittiness to “seduce” her way into rulership, extending even beyond ancient Egyptian land.

RADHA: Cleopatra’s movie depictions in film are in connection to the orientalist perspective of ancient Egypt. We see that in film, there is an exotic ambivalence that makes the character Cleopatra not only portrayed as someone with a different identity, but also a characterization of her stereotypical power of seduction in the film starring Elizabeth Taylor. She is being reflected in this movie as an intelligent patriarchal ruler with an “erotic” symbolization.²⁶ This is certainly a use of cultural misinterpretation towards ancient Egyptian queens that makes Cleopatra identified as a woman with sexual desire rather than articulating her powerful rulership as she had conveyed in the past. By suppressing her political authority, we see Cleopatra represented as a woman who envelops a sexual identity due to the orientalizing perspective of westernizations devaluing her credibility and power as a queen. Thus, causing us to see her as someone sexualized aside from her true identity that is conveyed in the background of this film.

Although Cleopatra is seen in film very creatively from western appeals, you see her closely associated to Western culture in the 21st century, at Nevada, Las Vegas, when you visit the Cleopatra Barge venue at the Caesars Palace hotel, (you must be 21 and over folks).²⁷ We see her name across different areas of this hotel, such as the Cleopatra Villa, to articulate the fascination of what western culture has towards ancient Egypt, but by also signifying this country as ancient and exotic.

However, as you can tell, Cleopatra is transformed in our modern era as a woman who has political authority, while also having a sexual identity that contrasts from her own background. This is problematic in many ways as we have seen by her depiction presented by Elizabeth Taylor and her story that is developed in Shakespeare’s playwright. These types of representations of Cleopatra are controversial to the original identity of this figure that has been designed by Orientalism reconstructing her history and appearance to someone or something different. If Cleopatra saw these depictions of her now, how do you think she would feel about Western Orientalism recreating this image?

Who do you think Cleopatra was? We asked UCLA graduate student Kylie Thomsen to give us some insight on her perspectives.

Section IV. Interview with Kylie Thomsen

(00:34:25)

ALEXIS: We are here with our interviewee, Kylie Thomsen, so would you like to tell us a little bit about yourself?

KYLIE: Sure. I am currently a first year PhD student, here at UCLA, in the Near-Eastern Languages and Civilizations Department, and I focus specifically in Egyptology. My research is not on Cleopatra, that’s 1500 years earlier, but definitely as an Egyptologist, you should know she is the last pharaoh as it were, in what we think of as Pharaonic Egypt, so we are all certainly familiar with her.

ALEXIS: Alright, that was really cool, and obviously, hopefully you can answer all of our questions, but I mean, obviously you’re not an expert on Cleopatra and that’s totally fine, but I think we should go ahead and get started, so I’ll hand it over.

RADHA: So have you seen movies relating to Cleopatra, and what is your opinion about those movies?

KYLIE: So I think the one that I saw is the one that everyone has seen, and I want to say it’s from the mid-60s with Elizabeth Taylor. I remember seeing that, I took this as an undergraduate student, I had some “classical art and archaeology”, like “As Seen in Film”, so that’s when I watched it, was like in an archaeology course. And, it’s just this like, very, you know, as you see in Hollywood whitewashes a lot of history and everything, especially being in the sixties, so you have this totally different display of who she may have been. And certainly, of course, they’re gonna play up the romance, the drama, everything like that. I can’t speak to movies made about Cleopatra throughout the 1900s, but certainly (I can speak to) the Cleopatra that everyone has mostly seen or seen pictures of.

ROBERTO: Do you think Egyptians benefited from the type of exposure Cleopatra received compared to other cultural figures from Egypt?

KYLIE: So as far as the ancient Egyptians went, as far as her notoriety, perhaps we could say, I think it’s fair to say that a large majority of the Egyptians didn’t know what was going on, as far as everything during the Ptolemaic period goes there’s a lot of craziness from our first Ptolemy, where you get her family line started. There’s a bunch of different Ptolemys she’s all related to. But as far as everyday Egyptians, certainly they had some idea of what was going on but you have to think where things are taking place, how information is travelling around the country, what’s important to them, so it’s really hard to speak to what it meant for them, other than they were feeling a lot of pressure from the Roman Empire. As for modern Egyptians, I’d say it’s the same thing. Maybe tourism plays a role, it’s hard for me to say but that could be something.

LILY: To wrap this up, what do you want the world to know about Cleopatra?

KYLIE: First and foremost, whatever you think about Cleopatra, take that out of your brain. Take the modern interpretations and portrayals of her and just go back to the ancient sources. Of course the propaganda is important as well, because it paints a picture of what was going on, but put her back in 70 BC, and just be aware of Egypt’s situation in the moment under the Ptolemaic period and what had been going on up until her reign, and what had been going on with Rome up until that point to understand why she had to do what she did, and the alliances she tried to make. But most importantly, go back and situate yourself in the proper context, because people forget how long ago this was, and just all of this paints a more accurate picture of who she was in Egypt or who she was in Rome. There’s going to be different accounts depending on who’s writing them and at what time period, but this will help you get closer to the root of who she was versus this almost fictional character now, versus a historical figure.

ALEXIS: Alright well that just about wraps up this interview, thank you so much for doing this with us, we really appreciate it!

KYLIE: I hope people who listen to this have a better idea of who Cleopatra VII is.

Section V. Young Library Special Collections

(00:40:20)

ALEXIS: We’re here at the Young Library Special Collections areas, and we have some posters in front of us, detailing Cleopatra for the Palmolive soap and cosmetics lines. ²⁸ There are posters from 1917 to 1925, and overall they seem to be actually quite similar, but what do you guys think first off?

RADHA: Well, Cleopatra is wearing different kinds of garments in each type of picture, but she most likely did not wear this type of garment when she was in her reign, so this may exemplify some sort of Western appeal to her clothing.

ALEXIS: I definitely agree, with the 1917 one it’s actually quite revealing and a bit sexualized in a sense, most likely just to sell better because there was a big craze around this time detailing Egypt being such an “exotic” place and so people wanted to jump on the train and start slapping Egyptian things on everything hoping it would sell.

ROBERTO: What is also noticeable is the color contrast between Cleopatra and her slaves, even though they’re probably from the same region, she is significantly whiter, showing the power complex that white people had during the times, to enforce that idea.

ALEXIS: I definitely agree with that, because in all 3 of the posters we are examining, they all have a very dark-skinned slave serving a very white-washed Cleopatra. In the 1920 one, she is almost as white as the paper itself, which is concerning because it should be blatantly obvious that she is not white, and she has very painted American/European makeup and features, which shows the blatant disrespect for the culture because if they did have respect for Egyptian culture, the would have put in a little more effort to show them more accurately the way they were supposed to be.

LILY: I think it further advocates the Orientalist idea that whites are superior to blacks and it also exemplifies the dichotomy between the two races.

ALEXIS: Another interesting point is that a lot of these advertisements are specifically about cleaning your face, and I think what they’re trying to get at is basically becoming a queen, like your beauty from cleaning your face will make you regal. It even specifically emphasizes smooth white hands which is a little bit questionable in our modern world.

Section VI. Conclusion

(00:43:28)

ROBERTO: Now we know Cleopatra was a powerful ruler; however, we do not recognize her conceptually portrayed this way in our present day context. We continuously see her actively playing the role of a seductress over time while showing no sign of greater emphasis on her political authority as she had did in the past. Perhaps we can suggest that Western Cultures have notably recognized her as a woman with sexualized traits due to her gender and personal associations with Caesar and Antony rather than a symbolic ruler that she inherits from her Ptolemaic ancestors and have portrayed throughout her kingdom. Furthermore, we recognize her appearance completely transformed in the modern 21st century from film. These are major issues that we must assess in regards to how we should display and articulate ancient Egyptian queens. When utilizing media and other evidence, it’s important that we use research to analyze the truth about ancient Egyptian queens rather than falsifying facts and information that are from old sources or orientalist perspectives. We must consider the drawbacks and understand what is appropriate to depict Cleopatra in the correct context. Also, early studies on Cleopatra were developed upon biases and orientalist ideas, which painted the queen of Egypt with a sexually degrading concept: a woman seducing her way into greater power. These orientalist views were more focused on sexual fantasies about Cleopatra, and swept the matters of her rulership and achievements under the rug. These are issues that we must address when it comes to utilizing technology and evidence in our modern day by reverting these misconceptions of Cleopatra to unraveling what her true identity is to viewers and listeners all around. What will you do to change these perspectives of one of the most significant rulers in ancient Egyptian history? How long will it be until we don’t see these biases toward cultures? Thank You.

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