Uppity Women: Making It So, 2000 Years Ago | A Guest Post by Vicki León, Plus Giveaway

A bust of Cleopatra

In 2001, an original document from the reign of Egyptian Queen Cleopatra VII surfaced: a modern-sounding tax exemption request for a pal of Marc Antony. The two-page papyrus, found at the excavation in Taposiris Magna (near Alexandria) was an internal memo, written in one scribe’s hand. Then a papyrus specialist spotted a word written in another’s handwriting.

In Greek it said: “genesthoi,” meaning “make it so!” Experts went berserk. Could that one-word command be from the hand of Cleopatra herself? The papyrus, currently on display at the “Cleopatra—the Search for the Last Queen of Egypt” exhibit in Philadelphia, is now believed to be just that.

Papyrus dated Feb. 23, 33 BC

When news of the find appeared in Archaeology magazine, I was overjoyed. I started using the papyrus in my presentations to audiences young and old. As physical evidence tied to Cleopatra, that precious bit of papyrus represents two key things:

(1) an unconscious source, not written for posterity, but a workaday piece of the past
(2) a primary document that sheds more light on a still-mysterious, real woman’s achievements

Labels

Historians past and present love to stick labels on women, especially on the handful of long-ago gals whose lives are taught in school, written about in books, portrayed in films and other media. Elizabeth the First is invariably “the Virgin Queen.” Joan of Arc gets the “saintly warrior/bonfire martyr” tag.

And Cleopatra VII? “Temptress and sex kitten.” Throughout history, when men manipulate, they’re praised as shrewd negotiators. When women do it, it’s called feminine wiles. Using female brains as a weapon is not fair play, apparently.

Because Number Seven, the standout among a dozen Cleos during the centuries of the Ptolemy dynasty, continues to wear the “smoldering seductress” label, I offer the following as a public service:

What Cleopatra had: Seven things you may not know about her

Cleopatra’s Sphinx

1. She loved to read and owned the greatest library of her time in Alexandria. Marc Antony later made it a matched set, giving her the second most awesome library at Pergamum. This bookworm was a talented linguist as well. She could read (and speak with fluency) five languages besides Greek. Clearly she could read people as well as books—that was how she won the loyalty of two very different Roman leaders.

2. She was a good mom. When things went bad for Cleopatra, her first thought was the safety of her 4 children. She tried (and failed) to send her son by Julius Caesar to safety, but Emperor-to-be Octavian did honor her plea to spare her twins and the youngest boy. After Cleo died, they were raised by the emperor’s sister Octavia, who deserves the “Turn the other cheek” step-in mom award for overlooking the gross peccadillos of her bigamous husband Marc Antony.

3. Cleopatra loved party stunts, practical jokes, and drinking bets, especially with Marc. Her most famous bet: that she could spend more loot on one meal than he could. She won by swallowing a prized pearl the size of New Jersey. Cleo threw it into her drinking cup filled with vinegar—which supposedly dissolved even pearls. (What interested me was the aftermath; MA, always short of cash, was no doubt anxious to see if the pearl emerged unscathed at the other end, so to speak.)

4. She was a lifelong student of philosophy. Her entourage included famed philosopher Philostratus, who also instructed her children.

5. She adored jewelry and gems, especially pearls and emeralds—and she couldn’t get enough of the color purple. Cleopatra kept her own emerald mines near the Red Sea in full operation; besides wearing them, she once dazed a visiting diplomat by giving him an emerald with her engraved image upon it. In 34 BC, this savvy businesswoman persuaded Marc Antony to hand over the murex monopoly he held for the city of Tyre. From living murex shells, drop by drop, came the fabulous purple dye which cost 20 times its weight in gold. Cleo herself was a conspicuous consumer, who even had her ships’ sails richly tinted with the stuff.

Cleopatra’s Needle

6. She was a builder, among other projects erecting a shrine to Marc Antony near the sea in Alexandria. Victorious Octavian later did a makeover, renaming it Caesareum after his now-deified father by adoption, Julius Caesar. To make the temple grander, he liberated a pair of ancient obelisks from southern Egypt for the entrance. Although they dated to 1450 BC, the era of Pharoah Thutmosis III, the obelisks became known as “Cleopatra’s Needles.” Today you’ll find one parked in London and the other, in NYC’s Central Park. This story in more detail appears in How to Mellify a Corpse, my new book on science and superstition.

7. Besides brains and fearlessness, Cleopatra had charisma, that joyous Greek quality that renders conventional good looks irrelevant. Her voice, her vitality enchanted—and commanded incredible loyalty and love. The amazing perfume “wardrobes” she concocted and wore couldn’t have hurt, either.

Lasting influence

No figurehead ruler, Cleo was a gritty power player who resembled the first Ptolemy from Alex the Great’s time; she married family members and did away with them with equal dispatch to emerge the survivor.

Cleo continues to exert a deep fascination on our world, most often in a superficial way. Take the latest controversy: Argument rages, or at least simmers, as to whether a cobra or poison (or neither) was her method of suicide.

What Cleo did not have

Despite her wealth, Queen Cleopatra VII was tragically unable to find either a decent hairdresser or a talented die engraver for her coins.

She also lacked a clever military strategist, Marc being better at fighting than thinking. Her large navy, coupled with that of Antony’s fleet, fought Rome–but not well. Cleopatra was one of several powerful women in antiquity who battled the Romans and lost. Queen Zenobia of Palmyra and Boudicca of Britain suffered the same fate.

The other Egyptian woman

Pyramids of Meroe

One much-overlooked female lea
der in Egypt, however, also fought the Romans. And won! Her name? Amanirenas, ruler of the Meroe empire, a sophisticated culture located in what is today’s Sudan. In Working IX to V, my 2007 book about the work men and women did in the ancient world, I profiled her career as a successful military leader—and a smooth negotiator. After Cleopatra’s death, the Roman military presence set up garrisons in their new Egyptian province. And beyond. This didn’t sit well with this robust warrior queen, who pushed back.

Leading her army north, Amanirenas attacked several strategic cities and whipped three cohorts of legionaries. After Rome’s General Petronius got over his hissy fit, he in turn destroyed her religious capital at Napata. Now truly ticked off, Amanirenas trudged back into Egypt. Several battles later, both sides were ready to negotiate a peace.

Exchanging her field commander gear for something more casual, Amanirenas met with Roman Emperor Octavian Augustus on the Greek island of Samos. In the winter of 21 BC, they hammered out a treaty that greatly favored the queen’s people—complete military withdrawal by the Romans. Even juicier: freedom from Roman taxation for centuries.

The Temple of Dendur

Amanirenas was eventually laid to rest beneath one of the tall, slender pyramids that were a feature of the Meroe culture—some of which can still be seen today. Speaking of architecture: to further placate the redoubtable queen, in 15 BC the Roman emperor built the Temple of Dendur and adorned it with carvings of himself worshipping the deities of Amanirenas and her people. This too can be seen today, transplanted and rebuilt inside New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Given by the Egyptian government as a thank-you for American help, the building is identified simply as an “Egyptian temple.” You’re not likely to find any signage mentioning Queen Amanirenas of Meroe, either—one instance where labels might fill a real need.

About the Author

Known for her Uppity Women series, Vicki León writes about Cleopatra, Amanirenas, and other long-ago female achievers in her latest books from Walker, the newly published How to Mellify a Corpse and the 2007 companion volume, Working IX to V. Author of more than 30 nonfiction books, Vicki wanders widely but calls coastal California home.

You can visit Vicki on her website www.VickiLeon.com, or on her recently-launched blog, Historical Detective.

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