Using your feminine whiles
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. Extravagant, self-serving, ruthless: this epic seductress used every magic trick in her lady arsenal to hold onto power, no matter the cost. Didn’t she? That’s the Cleopatra the ancient Romans want us to see.
The truth is that few women’s stories have been more brutally revised by haters threatened by a woman’s right to rule. 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! We are good at that!
Most Roman writers take pains to make her the villain of their stories. Ancient writers got out their hater brush for Cleopatra, running one of the ancient world’s most effective smear campaigns. Where we might see an intelligent, savvy, thoughtful leader, ancient writers turn her into an uncommonly impertinent harlot.she who gapes wide for 10,000 men.” Um, rude.
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 she was of a deft and capable pharaoh who ruled one of the most powerful empires the ancient world would ever see. 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. GO Cleo!!
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. 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. In 33 BCE, either she or her scribe signed a royal degree with the Greek word ginesthoi, or: “Make it so.” And though we all know her name, so much about her is a mystery. Who was Cleopatra, beyond the smoke and hate and all that glitter? We may never know the real story but this story sounds pretty good to me and she looked pretty good too.
Ashley How about some Role Play xx