A Celebration of Women

has been inspired by a new year to look back and Celebrate the Life of one of our world’s powerful Women in History. It has been noted that even in the years of B.C., marriages were arranged at a very young age.  Due to customs, Cleopatra married her younger brother, 11 year old Ptolemy XIV. 

Once married, she ruled Egypt with her brothers as an equal. 

A Woman ahead of her times  …   or was she?

 

 

WOMAN of ACTION

 

 

Cleopatra

“For her actual beauty, it is said, was not itself so remarkable that none compared with her, or that no one could see her without being struck by it, but the contract of her presence, if you lived with her, was irresistable, the attraction of her person…and the character that attended all she said or did, was something bewitching.”
-Plutarch about Cleopatra

 

 

Cleopatra, actually known as Cleopatra VII, was born in Egypt in 69 B.C.

 

 

In 58 B.C., her father Ptolemy XII was expelled from power, so Cleopatra helped him regain his power. However, her father died in 51 B.C., and Cleopatra and her brother Ptolemy XIII took the throne. In 48 B.C., Cleopatra was exiled by her brother, who had taken control as supreme Pharoah. So, Cleopatra created an army in Syria and joined forces with Roman Julius Caesar, who became her lover and supported her cause. With his help, Ptolemy XIII was killed in 47 B.C. and Caesar pronounced Cleopatra as queen of Egypt.

 

 

As it was a custom, Cleopatra married her younger brother, 11 year old Ptolemy XIV. Cleopatra also had a child whom she named Caesarian and later became Ptolemy XV. He was thought to be Caesar’s child, not Ptolemy XIV’s. Then, Caesar was assassinated and her husband, Ptolemy XIV, was poisoned and died. Although Cleopatra has been implicated with possible having poisoned him, we are unsure if she really did poison him or not.

 

 

After knowing him for a few years, Cleopatra married Mark Antony around 35 B.C., even though he was also married to a woman named Octavia. Together, they had a pair of twins who they named Cleopatra Selene and Alexander Helios, and also another child who was named Ptolemy XVI. In 32 B.C., war was declared upon Egypt from Octavius, the brother of Mark Antony’s other wife, because Antony had left Octavia for Cleopatra. Antony and Octavia soon divorced, but Cleopatra still was forced into war.

 

 

Sadly, Cleopatra’s army was defeated in the Battle of Actium, and many sorrowful events followed. (The Romans ‘duke it out’ yet again on Greek soil) Julius Caesar has been murdered and his heir Octavian (later to become Augustus) is fighting for control of the Caesarian party against Marc Anthony after they together defeated Brutus and Cassius at the Battle of Philippi in 42 BC.

 

 

Anthony has been blockaded on land and by sea by Octavian’s forces.

Basically Anthony and Cleopatra’s navy is holed up in  the Gulf of Ambracia while his army is encamped nearby. Anthony finds himself short on supplies or courage or both and decides to try to make a break for it back to Egypt. Since Octavian has superior numbers this suits him fine and they allow Anthony to reach open water but not to clear the Island of Lefkada and encircle his fleet before it can so so. Battle is joined and Cleopatra flees early on which in turn causes Anthony to flee with some 70 to 80 ships and allowing the rest of their forces to be captured.

Ignominy and suicide for both are to come the following year!

Mark Antony heard that Cleopatra had died, so he fell on his own sword in 31 B.C., effectively committing suicide.

 

The Caesarium was a temple built by Cleopatra VII to commemorate the deification of her murdered lover Julius Caesar and to honor her husband Marc Antony. When Octavian, Caesar’s heir, conquered Antony and occupied Alexandria he destroyed every statue of the “Egyptian whore” but preserved her monument, rededicating it to himself. So travelers entering Alexandria’s harbor might notice the temple he set before it two fifteen-centuries-old pylons from the temple of Ra in Heliopolis, one of which now stands behind the Metropolitan Museum in New York’s Central Park and the other in London’s Thames Embankment. Until the middle of the 4th century the Caesarium was the center of a temple complex that included gardens, lecture halls, and satellites of the Great Library. Converted to a Christian church in the late 4th century, The Caesarium served as headquarters to Bishop Cyril who led a campaign to stamp out all non-Christian influences in Alexandria. The philosopher Hypatia was murdered on the steps of this temple in March, 415. (artwork © 2008 by Don Dixon)

 

http://www.authenticwonders.com/Alexandria/History/modern.html 

Cleopatra built a temple in Antony’s honor called the Caesarium,

which had the two small obelisks called “Cleopatra’s Needles” in it.

[These obelisks were later given to America and Britain as gift in the 1800’s.

One is now in the Embankment in London, and the other is in Central Park in New York City. ]

 

Saddened by Antony’s death, Cleopatra killed herself in 31 B.C., although it is much disputed over whether she simply poisoned herself or let her asp (a type of snake) complete her death. Although her life has ended, her fame continues.

 

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She has been the basis for many works of literature, including:

• Shakespeare’s Anthony and Cleopatra

• John Dryden’s All for Love

• George Bernard Shaw’s Caesar and Cleopatra.

 

 

A Celebration of Women

sends our blessings to the soul of this woman, ahead of her times.

 

 

May her soul rest in peace!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Celebration of Women