Cleopatra VII was the ruler of Egypt, the last Hellenistic kingdom to fall to the Romans, in the first century B.C.E. She famously had relationships with, first, Julius Caesar and then, after his death in 44 B.C.E., with Mark Antony. In the 30s B.C.E., Antony fought a civil war for control of Rome with Octavian, the adopted son of Julius Caesar who would later become the first Roman emperor. In the aftermath of their defeat by Octavian in a naval battle at Actium in Greece in 31 B.C.E., Antony and then Cleopatra committed suicide in 30 B.C.E. to escape capture by Octavian. Roman-era sources portray Cleopatra in contrasting and ambivalent ways, as intelligent and fascinating on the one hand and corrupt and depraved on the other. The first excerpt is from a biographer describing how Cleopatra contrived to meet Julius Caesar when her brother was trying to capture her; the second excerpt is from a poet, a friend of Octavian’s, who portrays Cleopatra in a complex way.

1. Plutarch Describes Cleopatra’s Personal Qualities and Abilities

Cleopatra only took one other person with her, Apollodorus from Sicily. She approached the palace [at Alexandria] in a little rowboat, landing as it got dark outside. Since she was sure to have been found out otherwise [by her brother’s hostile forces], she crawled into the kind of large sack used to hold bed sheets and pillows, stretching out fully. Apollodorus then cinched up the bag and toted in inside the royal quarters to Julius Caesar. This stratagem, people said, made Caesar intrigued by her, as she demonstrated that she was unconventionally inventive. Spending time with her won him over—her charisma won the victory, and so he arranged for a political reconciliation between her and her brother, making her the co-ruler of Egypt. [When Cleopatra’s brother later treacherously betrays this alliance, Julius Caesar narrowly escapes with his life but manages to defeat the rebel.] Caesar then departed for Syria, having made Cleopatra the ruler of Egypt. Not too much later she gave birth to their son, whom the Egyptians called “Little Caesar.”

[Some years later, Cleopatra makes a political and personal alliance with the Roman general Mark Antony, now the opponent and rival of Octavian for power at Rome.] . . . As soon as Dellius, the messenger that Mark Antony had sent [to open negotiations with the Egyptian ruler], laid eyes on Cleopatra and realized her eloquent way of speaking and how sharp she was in making persuasive arguments, he concluded that Antony would never do her any harm and that in fact she was likely to become a central focus in his life. . . . [At her first meeting with Antony, Cleopatra entrances him. Plutarch then gives a description of her.] Her physical beauty was not in itself without parallel [among other women]; it was not the kind that astonished people who saw her. But her personality inevitably fascinated those whom she met; her attractive presence combined with her charmingly persuasive style of conversation and the personal aura that she projected in company to enable her to inspire others. The quality of her voice was graceful, and she had a facility with languages . . . that allowed her to learn any foreign tongue that she wanted. Therefore, she needed a translator only on very exceptional occasions when she interacted with foreigners. Usually she could respond to them herself, regardless of whether they were Ethiopians, Troglodytes, Hebrews, Arabs, Scythians, Medes, or Parthians. Indeed, she was reported to have learned many other languages as well, although the kings of Egypt before her had not bothered even to learn Egyptian . . .

[In the civil war between Mark Antony and Octavian, Cleopatra sides with Antony. As Plutarch reports, Antony recognized that she was a very capable leader.] Antony definitely did not judge Cleopatra to be less intelligent than any of the foreign kings fighting as his allies [against Octavian]; she had ruled a great kingdom by herself for many years, and she had been his companion for a long time, competent to manage important matters.

[After Octavian defeats Antony and Cleopatra at the naval battle at Actium in Greece in 31 B.C.E. and then captures Cleopatra in her capital at Alexandria, he wants to take her back from Egypt to Rome to display as a prize in his victory parade, a plan that she subverts by committing suicide by allowing a venomous snake to bite her. Octavian then discovers her corpse.] He was angry that she was dead, but he was amazed at her nobility; he commanded that her body be buried next to Antony in the splendid style appropriate for royalty.

Source: Plutarch, Life of Julius Caesar 49; Life of Antony 25, 27, 56, and 86 (Translated by Thomas R. Martin).

2. Horace Celebrates Cleopatra’s Defeat and Death

Now it’s time to drink, now it’s time to dance, now, friends, it’s time to drag out the couches with images of the gods for a banquet! Before now it would have been an abomination to pour out fine wine from the vintage casks, while in her insanity that queen was preparing to ruin and bury our Capitol and our empire, with her polluted gang of men sick in their filth. She was out of her mind in her expectations and drunk from her sweet luck. But she dropped her fury when scarcely a single ship from her fleet got away [from the battle of Actium] without being burned up, and Caesar [that is, Octavian] reduced her spirit, inflamed by Egyptian wine, to genuine terror. He chased her flying away from Italy, just like a hawk pursues gentle doves, or a hunter speeds after a rabbit over fields of snow, so that he could put chains on this deadly monster. She, however, sought to die in a nobler way, and she was not afraid of the sword like a woman and did not try to reach some hidden shores on her fast-sailing ships. She had the daring to look upon her fallen palace with a calm expression and bravely to handle the cruel snakes, so that she could drink in their dark poison throughout her body, so fierce in her decision to die. She scornfully refused to be transported by enemy warships, knocked down to an ordinary person’s status to be shown off in a boastful victory parade [by Octavian in Rome]; she was not a woman without pride.

Source: Horace, Odes Book 1, no. 37 (Translated by Thomas R. Martin).

Questions to Consider