But is that image nothing more than a fantasy? We don’t know what she looked like we have next to nothing in her words. Only one can possibly be credited to Cleo, though it’s pretty fitting. Temptress, schemer, mother, witch, party girl, strategist, warrior…over the years she’s collected an impressive list of adjectives, her image fixed in our imaginations. This last pharaoh of Egypt was dealt an impossible hand, and yet she stayed on top of the game for decades when lesser women would have crumbled.

But clear away the acrid smoke of sexist Roman killjoys and another picture emerges: of a deft and capable pharaoh who ruled one of the most powerful empires the ancient world would ever see. The themes here are clear: Cleo wanted too much – in bed and in politics – and was way too greedy and emotionally volatile to be trusted with any real power. Where we might see an intelligent, savvy, thoughtful leader, ancient writers turn her into, as Cicero put it, an “uncommonly impertinent harlot.” Cassius Dio calls her “a woman of insatiable sexuality and insatiable avarice.” Plutarch claims she showed “unseemly opulence” Flavius Josephus jumps on the slut-shaming wagon and calls her an “extravagant woman” who was “by nature very covetous” and “a slave to her lusts” Roman poet Lucan, the drama queen, calls her “the shame of Egypt, the lascivious fury who was to become the bane of Rome.” Greek writers supposedly called her meriochane, which translates to something like “she who gapes wide for 10,000 men.” Um, rude. Ancient writers got out their hater brush for Cleopatra, running one of the ancient world’s most effective smear campaigns. Most Roman writers take pains to make her the villain of their stories. The Romans used her as a scapegoat to explain away two powerful Roman men’s actions – because there’s no WAY big top dogs Julius Caesar and Mark Antony would have done the crazy things they did with her unless she used her feminine wiles to lay down some sexy sorcery! The truth is that few women’s stories have been more brutally revised by sexist haters threatened by a woman’s right to rule.

Didn’t she? That’s the Cleopatra the ancient Romans want us to see. Extravagant, self-serving, ruthless: this epic seductress used every magic trick in her lady arsenal to hold onto power, no matter the cost. You can see her in your mind already, can’t you? Pretty and sultry with her cat-eye makeup, covered head to toe in shiny gold. Cleopatra, the last great queen of Egypt, doesn’t really need an introduction.

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