Cleopatra: A Life

Nonfiction | Biography | Adult | Published in 2010

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-2

Chapters 3-4

Chapters 5-6

Chapters 7-8

Chapter 9

Key Figures

Themes

Index of Terms

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

Beta

Discussion Questions

Chapters 1-2Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 1 Summary: “That Egyptian Woman”

Schiff introduces Cleopatra VII, both as a historical personage who “lost a kingdom once, regained it, nearly lost it again, amassed an empire, lost it all” (1) and also as a historical figure whose name and image have been put to many uses, such as “an asteroid, a video game, a cliché, a cigarette, a slot machine, a strip club” (1). Though perceptions of Cleopatra have proliferated after her death, Schiff concedes that our actual conception of the Egyptian queen is “blurry” (1), as only coin portraits exist of her from her time, and because although she was the richest and most powerful woman in the Mediterranean, she was on the wrong side of history. Her relationships with Julius Caesar and Mark Antony, both eventually vanquished, left her at the mercy of hostile Latin historians, while her death, which allowed Rome’s first emperor, Octavian, to take power, marks the end of a 300-year dynasty in Egypt as well as the end of a world historical era, the Hellenistic age.

Schiff then turns to the direct historical records of Cleopatra, primarily the histories of Plutarch, Appian, Dio, and Josephus—Roman and Jewish historians who took a moralistic and culturally censorious approach to the Egyptian queen. No papyrus, the medium of Egyptian histories, have survived from her reign, leaving Cleopatra in the hands of an empire hostile to her, who had more interest in presenting her as a salacious seductress and positioning her more as the lover of two of the most powerful men of their time than as a successful ruler and a savvy political negotiator. Schiff counsels casting into question the motivation, styles, and rigor of Cleopatra’s past chroniclers in order to come closer to the real Cleopatra. Much from these historical accounts is suspect, she decides, and history must be closely read against the historian’s agenda if Cleopatra is to emerge.

At the end of the chapter, Schiff includes a caveat about what Cleopatra knew of her life (“She did not know she was Cleopatra VII” [8]), that Octavian would have been known as Gaius Julius Caesar, and that some place names bear their ancient designations while others are identified by their contemporary names.

Chapter 2 Summary: “Dead Men Don’t Bite”

The second chapter opens in 48 BC with Cleopatra who, at 21, is in the midst of a civil war with her 13-year-old brother and husband, Ptolemy XIII. Cleopatra is exiled in the desert, while her brother commands a large army in a nearby fortress, when Julius Caesar, the lauded general of Rome, arrives in Alexandria. Egypt is a client state of the Romans, and Caesar, seeking to quell the civil unrest, summons both brother and sister to the Alexandrian palace. Cleopatra, sensing a need to plead her case first, sneaks through the city and into the palace with a confidant, who smuggles her inside a sack. When Cleopatra emerges, she meets Caesar for the first time, marking her initial steps onto the world’s stage. Months later, she would be pregnant with Caesar’s child.

Schiff, to provide context for this meeting, explores the Ptolemaic dynasty, of which Cleopatra and her brother, and their three siblings, are the penultimate members. The Ptolemaic dynasty begins with Ptolemy, a Macedonian general and Alexander the Great’s closest confidant, who laid claim to Egypt after Alexander’s death in 323 BC, kidnapping the conqueror’s body and interring it in Alexandria. This connection to Alexander conferred outside power and prestige to the Macedonian rulers, while inside the country, they assumed the role of pharaohs to retain legitimacy, including the long-held pharaonic practice of sibling intermarriage.

Consequently, Cleopatra’s parents were likely full brother and sister, and Cleopatra would not have been considered an Egyptian, but rather as having hailed from “a line of rancorous, meddlesome, shrewd, occasionally unhinged Macedonian queens” (20). The Ptolemaic dynasty is presented as inwardly hostile and extensively murderous, as family loyalty came second to a lust for power. The women in the family emerge as intrinsically stronger and more intellectual than their male counterparts, enjoying the strikingly contemporary rights given to women in Ptolemaic Egypt.

Cleopatra was born in 69 BC as the Ptolemaic dynasty was entering its final stage of decline. Family in-fighting created factions within the palace, and all four of Cleopatra’s siblings fell victim either to their own machinations, or those of others. Cleopatra married and subsequently saw the deaths of both of her younger brothers, while her younger sister, Arsinoe, lead a civil war against her and was eventually killed at Mark Antony’s urging. Cleopatra’s older sister had seized the throne after their father Auletes was driven off, but was executed after he raised a foreign army, indebting himself to the Romans.

Cleopatra’s likely education was among the most cultured in the ancient world. Considered equally likely to rule, she was schooled by the scholars of the Library of Alexandria in rhetoric, history, and literature, centering on Homer’s Iliad, and played an active part in the vigorously religious Egyptian culture. She was fluent in several languages, though her Latin was not strong, and she is widely thought to be the only Ptolemaic ruler who learned the Egyptian language, enabling her to speak directly to her subjects. It is Cleopatra’s lineage, her intellectual cultivation, as well as the charm and charisma widely attributed to her, Schiff argues, that endears her to Caesar, rather than her overwhelming beauty and seductive wiles.

Chapters 1-2 Analysis

The first chapter provides an introduction to the rest of the work, covering its major narrative arc and providing brief background to Cleopatra and the Ptolemaic dynasty. Schiff’s other point of focus also becomes clear: By couching her analysis in the context of a contemporary perception of Cleopatra, Schiff traces not only Cleopatra’s life, but also the building of the myth of Cleopatra, introducing the theme of The Construction and Deconstruction of Historical Myths. Schiff seeks to uncover Cleopatra, the historical personage, from the thousands of years of myth and misinformation about who Cleopatra was and what she accomplished. In doing so, Schiff presents Cleopatra as an object of use, suggesting she has had “one of the busiest afterlives in history” (1). This posthumous mythmaking has proved widely influential and enduring, with Schiff suggesting that it is time to reexamine the making of our own perceptions.

As part of her method, Schiff evaluates the historians and their histories almost as much as she evaluates Cleopatra herself. Schiff stresses that most of the primary contemporary sources from Cleopatra’s day were written by men who had a vested interest in slandering her or, at the very least, misrepresenting her: The historians were Roman, and Cleopatra was, ultimately, a vanquished former enemy of the empire. She argues that their portraits of Cleopatra tend to fulfill a pro-Roman agenda, and simultaneously introduces a suspicion against those ancient sources. Her work is thus as much about how we should view history as how we should view Cleopatra, as virtually every source is composed within a certain context and reflects certain concerns and biases. It should be noted that the same also applies to Schiff’s work: Her desire to rehabilitate Cleopatra’s image is also shaped by her own interests and concerns.

Cleopatra’s meeting with Julius Caesar issues her onto the world stage, and Schiff deliberately places their encounter at the head of her narrative, invoking the theme of The Dynamics of Power. From this moment, Schiff moves outward, illustrating the history surrounding Cleopatra at that moment in time in 48 BC. This is Schiff’s wider narrative strategy: She selects various moments from Cleopatra’s life, seizing upon them for their dramatic intensity or illustrative potential, before exploring the wider contextual frame and competing interests—such as the civil war in Rome or her own dynastic struggles—that define the vital moments in Cleopatra’s life. Each chapter utilizes this frame, opening and closing with vivid scenes, while the middle carries the expository weight.

Schiff depicts Cleopatra as a capable and bold woman who navigates The Dynamics of Power with skill. The heiress to a tense and sometimes vicious pharaonic family, Cleopatra is thrust into power struggles from a young age. To outmaneuver her siblings and enemies, she seeks allies where she can find them—which is what leads her to Julius Caesar. Cleopatra’s eagerness to meet Caesar and the subterfuge she employs to reach him without her brother knowing speak to Cleopatra’s resoluteness and strategic thinking. Schiff also stresses Cleopatra’s taste for power and even governance, noting that she was the only ruler of her line to learn the language of her subjects (Egyptian). Schiff presents all of these factors as proof of Cleopatra’s political acumen and talent for self-preservation as a ruler.

In recounting Cleopatra’s famous first meeting with Caesar, Schiff chooses to deemphasize Cleopatra’s beauty, raising the theme of Female Leadership in a Male-Dominated World. Contrasting this against sources that claim she was “famous for nothing but her beauty” (39), Schiff is actively working against the weight of sensationalist historical accounts that lean into stereotypical gender tropes about female leaders like Cleopatra. This moves Cleopatra away from a mythological woman who captivated through looks alone, and into a more humane figure, who practiced guile and profound learning in order to achieve her ambitions. Instead of beauty, personal charisma, erudite speech, and proficient charm make up a good portion of Cleopatra’s direct appeal to her contemporaries. Again, in taking this approach, Schiff asks her readers to question accepted historical myths and their own preconceptions.