Cleopatra and Antony (34 page)

In Egypt I am indebted to Ibrahim Ahmed Metwalli of the National Maritime Museum for so generously giving his time to explain about recent marine excavations in the harbor of Alexandria and how this has been clarifying knowledge of the royal quarter of Alexandria in Cleopatra’s day. I am also most grateful to the staff of the Library of Alexandria, in particular Badrya Serry, director of the library’s Antiquities Museum, and Darin Hassan for information on the original Library of Alexandria and its location. The staff of the Alexandria National Museum showed us artifacts recovered from the harbor of Alexandria. Our research in Egypt would not have been half so enjoyable without the expert advice of our guide, Mohamed Younis, and the assistance of Voyages Jules Verne in allowing us, like Cleopatra and Caesar, to sail down the Nile and visit Alexandria and the temples of Upper Egypt.

Friends have, as always, been extremely kind and supportive, not least in reading the text at a formative stage, and I would like to express my appreciation to Kim Lewison, Neil Munro, Edmund Griffiths, St. John and Krystyna Brown and Robin Binks in particular.

Lastly, my warm thanks to George Gibson and his colleagues at Walker &Company and Bloomsbury USA, to Marianne Velmans, Michèle David and all the team at Transworld Publishers and to my agents, Bill Hamilton of A. M. Heath and Co. in London and Michael Carlisle of Inkwell Management in New York.

I was fortunate to meet an archaeologist—Dr. Martin Weaver—as intrigued as I was by Cleopatra and ready to apply his scientific expertise to creating the first three-dimensional model of her. Dr. Weaver, an archaeologist for thirty years, is a specialist in archaeosteology—reconstructions based on evidence from human bones.

Of course, the usual starting point for an archaeological facial reconstruction would be the individual’s skull but Cleopatra’s vanished long ago. Dr. Weaver therefore decided to “reverse-engineer” her. The most reliable sources of information about how Cleopatra looked are the numerous coin depictions throughout her twenty-year reign. These vary in appearance depending on her age at the time and whether she is depicted in Hellenistic or Egyptian pose. But they all suggest she had high cheekbones, a pronounced nose and chin and a slight underhang beneath the jaw.

As well as analyzing these coin images, Dr, Weaver also examined the many sculptures of other members of Cleopatra’s dynasty—the ultra-inbred Ptolemies—that have survived. The evidence from these suggests—just like the coins—that Cleopatra was a woman of strong facial features and very probably—at least in later years—quite plump. In addition, Dr. Weaver looked at the surviving sculptures generally considered to be of Cleopatra—some in Egyptian and some in Greco-Roman style—but these are few in number and less helpful than the other evidence.

Dr. Weaver concluded that Cleopatra was broadly of the “dolichocephalic” type—that is, with a long, high-cheekboned face with protrusive features. Since this type is highly characteristic of people of Macedonian stock and Cleopatra was, of course, of mainly Macedonian descent, he selected a cast of a female Macedonian skull with these traits as the basic structure on which to “hang” Cleopatra’s face.

To adapt the skull to his observations from the surviving evidence, Dr. Weaver made the chin and jaw more pronounced and the cheekbones even more prominent. Next, he applied known facial skin depth measurements to the model, selecting those most appropriate to a woman of Cleopatra’s known appearance and genealogy. Fixing “skin pegs” to the model, he smoothed plastic clay over them to create the basic external structure of Cleopatra’s face.

His next step was to model the soft tissue of Cleopatra’s nose, basing the shape on her profile on coins and on the very strong Ptolemaic family traits he had observed.

To calculate the space between her eyes, Dr. Weaver drew notional lines upward from where her canine incisors would have been since in humans these lines pass through the center of the pupil. To determine the shape of Cleopatra’s eyes, Dr. Weaver applied to his deductions from his observations some additional information from studies of generic ratios in human skulls from which the distance from cheek to brow in humans is known to be an indicator of the degree of protuberance of the eyes.

To re-create Cleopatra’s ears, Dr. Weaver calculated the angle by following the jaw line—a standard technique in archaeological facial reconstruction. He then took standard “ear frames” (developed by the FBI to help in the identification process of criminals), attached these to the model at the correct angle and built up the ears by smoothing layers of clay over the frames.

The dimensions of a human being’s lips can be calculated according to the length of their teeth. As this was not possible in Cleopatra’s case, Dr. Weaver based his reconstruction of Cleopatra’s mouth on coin evidence, making it quite wide.

Dr. Weaver chose as Cleopatra’s hairstyle the so-called melon style she often wore in coin depictions and which has tight braids segmenting her hair into sections like the markings on a melon, hence the name, and with the ends of her hair gathered into a bun on the nape of the neck. This style requires so much hair that—unless Cleopatra habitually wore wigs, which the ancient sources suggest she probably did not—her hair must have been abundant, reaching almost to her waist. To create the melon hairstyle, Cleopatra’s maids probably oiled her hair to make it easier to work with. These oils would have further darkened her already dark hair to black.

In accordance with Cleopatra’s probable genealogy, Dr. Weaver gave Cleopatra olive skin and brown eyes. Her makeup was applied by an expert in cosmetics of the time. The model was completed with a gold filet around the head, long blue and gold earrings and a heavy gold necklace.

Is she beautiful? From certain angles, yes. She certainly has a compelling, even commanding presence, and shrewdness and intelligence look out from those dark brown eyes. At present she sits on a windowsill in Dr. Weaver’s office. As he works he finds it hard to forget she is there—probably exactly what the real Cleopatra would have expected.

As well as the Loeb translations, I have drawn on those of myself, my husband, Michael, and kind friends and advisers. I have also found the following works invaluable: the translation of Plutarch’s
Lives
by Robin Waterfield in Oxford World Classics; Robert Graves’ translation of Suetonius’
The Twelve Caesars
in Penguin Classics; Ian Scott-Kilvert’s translation of Dio Cassius’
Roman History—The Reign of Augustus
, also in Penguin Classics; and P. Jones,
Cleopatra: A Source Book
, University of Oklahoma Press. I have also found the older Bohn series of translations very helpful in several cases.

“royal progress”: Suet.JC, 32.

In early Christian times: Lucy Hughes-Hallett’s excellent book
Cleopatra—Histories, Dreams
and Distortions
reviews the way reviews the way Cleopatra’s image has developed over the centuries.

“licentious”: Dante,
Inferno,
Canto V, line 63.

The four main classical sources: Each of the classical authors has his own emphasis. For example, Plutarch is keen to draw moral comparisons and to tell a good story; Dio Cassius to create set pieces, whether speeches or battles; and Appian to focus on military matters. Provided one allows for his personal views, Cicero, who was writing as events unfolded, is incomparable in giving insights into characters and into the political ebb and flow leading up to the creation of the Second Triumvirate. His witticisms are as fresh today as they were then. Michael Grant’s
Greek and Roman
Historians
is valuable to any author in its analysis of historians. Anthony Everitt’s
Cicero
is an excellent biography.

“the river . . . silt”: Vergil,
Georgics,
IV.290–4.

His new subjects’ . . . openly”: Herodotus, History, II.35–6.

“the most religious men”: ibid, II.58.

mummified animals: Mummification of humans had become customary in Egypt as early as 3500 BC. The ancient Egyptians believed that, as long as the body remained intact, the soul too would live. Various methods of preservation were used. The process for mummifying humans took seventy days. Priests wearing the masks of the jackal-headed Anubis removed the internal organs, which were placed in four jars to be “entrusted” to the four sons of the god Horus. The body was then dried and purified using natron, a carbonate of sodium. Next, the body was treated with oils and resins and stuffed to preserve its shape. Then came the process of wrapping it in hundreds of yards of fine linen. The word
mummy
comes from
mummiya
, the black adhesive resin used to coat the linen. (In medieval times the color brown for use in paints and dyes was extracted from old mummies.) Finally, the body’s face was painted with cosmetics and, if the family was rich enough, further embellished with artificial eyes and a funerary mask and wig. The body was then encased in a double coffin and placed inside a sarcophagus, on the lid of which were painted two eyes to enable the deceased to gaze out on the world.

Another serapeum: The Serapeum of Alexandria is thought to have stood near the site still occupied by Pompey’s Pillar, erected in the time of the emperor Diocletian. The rectangular serapeum housed a daughter library of the great Library of Alexandria and survived until AD 391, when Theophilus, bishop of Alexandria, ordered its destruction as a pagan temple.

“the growing . . . in return”: DioCass.RH, Book X, fragment 41.

“in difficult . . . faith”: Livy,
History of Rome,
XXXI.2.

“to deprive . . . life . . . If . . . sincerity”: A copy of this will was found at Cyrene.

“a size . . . around him”: Athenaeus,
Banquet of the Learned
, XII.549.

“as though . . . to hide”: Marcus Justinianus Justinus,
Epitome of the Philippic
Pompeius Trogus
, XXXVIII.8.10.

“the sight . . . a walk”: Quoted M. Grant,
Cleopatra,
p. 10. The amused commentator was Scipio Africanus the Younger.

“the number . . . leaders”: Diodorus Sicculus, XXXIII.28b.

to the island of Rhodes: Sailing into the harbor of Rhodes, Auletes would have passed the fragments of the Colossus of Rhodes. Originally over a hundred feet high, it had broken off at the knees during an earthquake in 224, only half a century after its completion, and still lay where it had fallen. Pliny the Elder described how “its fingers are larger than most statues . . . as for its broken limbs, their insides look like caves.”

“Libyan princess”: M. Grant,
Cleopatra
, p. 15.

“succor . . . multitude”: Cic.LF, I.7.

“a thieving . . . curlers”: Cicero quoted in M. Foss,
The Search for Cleopatra
, p. 55.

“devoid . . . moment”: Sallust,
Conspiracy of Catiline,
xvii.

outpost at Pelusium: Pelusium was near the modern town of Tell el-Farana, east of Port Said.

“It is said . . . Alexandria”: App, V.8.

“which are . . . nature”: App, IV.16.

“a princess . . . philosophy”: al-Masudi,
Les Prairies d
’
Or,
pp. 287–88.

“the queen . . . father . . . on to . . . see her”: Inscription on a stele from the Bucheum, which is today in Copenhagen.

“the crowd . . . life”: Diodorus Sicculus, I.83.

“acting . . . friends”: Caesar,
Civil War,
III.103.

“Jupiter . . . greatest . . . because . . . prosperous”: Cicero,
On the Nature of the Gods
, III.87.

“Keep him . . . in him”: Suet.JC, 1.

“this youth . . . girdled . . . Caesar . . . tweezers”: ibid., 45.

“the female . . . queen . . . the bottom . . . bed”: ibid., 49.

“In his . . . influence”: Plu.JC, 4.

The dinner menu survives: The menu is described by Macrobius in his
Saturnalia,
3.13.10–12.

“he gave . . . event]”: Pliny the Elder,
Natural History
, 14.66.

“foolish vanity”: Cic.LA, II.18.

“Have . . . idiot”: Sallust,
Conspiracy
Conspiracy of Catiline
, 53.4.

“a mystery . . . to know”: Quoted E. Bradford,
Julius Caesar
, p. 43.

The most famous of these sisters was Clodia: Cicero called Clodia “cow-wife, perhaps unfairly, suggested that he too was having an affair with her.

“after . . . husbands . . . Caesar’s . . . suspicion”: Plu.JC, 10.

“settled . . . reputations”: Cic.LA, I.16.

“Pompey . . . girl”: Plu.Ca, 30.

“He is apt . . . from showing”: Cic.LF, VIII.1.

“As for . . . cesspit”: Cic.LA, II.1.

“It . . . resources”: Plu.JC, 14.

“talking . . . intemperate”: Cicero, “Speech Before the Senate on his Return from Exile,” VI.14.

“the queen . . . to be one”: Suet.JC, 49.

“a high . . . brightness”: Sallust, op. cit., 54.

The word
fascist
: R. Syme’s
The Roman Revolution
, first published in 1939 and still in print, is preeminent among those works highlighting the resemblances between the fall republic and the rise of fascism in Europe.

“Avoid . . . rocks”: Caesar quoted by Aulus Gelius,
Attic Nights,
1.10.

“Regions . . . people”: Cicero,
On the Consular Provinces
, 33.

battle in Gaul at Alesia: Prior to Alesia, believing that the rebellious Gauls had received help from Britain, Caesar had decided on an invasion of the island. Perhaps more importantly, he had heard that Britain was rich in minerals such as iron and tin as well as in gold, silver and freshwater pearls of a particularly fine quality and large size. Caesar was known for his admiration of pearls. In 55, attempting a landing at Dover, Caesar’s troops received a severe shock, as he admitted in his
Gallic Wars
: “The natives sent in their cavalry and chariots which frightened the Romans who were quite unaccustomed to this type of fighting.” The Britons’ appearance, wild-haired and painted all over with blue woad, also discouraged the invaders, who only gradually made progress, winning small victories and burning farms but soon retreating back across the Channel. Caesar came in greater force the following year, landing from an armada of eight hundred ships with five legions and two thousand cavalry. This time he, in turn, shocked the Britons by bringing over a war elephant, the first of any kind to reach the island. His troops advanced much further, crossing the Thames, but the Britons usually refused pitched battles, using their chariots to deploy small numbers of men in harassing raids on the less mobile Romans. Storms in the Channel, probably not for the first and certainly not for the last time, saved Britain. Many of Caesar’s ships were wrecked and, as autumn approached, Caesar prudently withdrew.

“I only . . . ground”: Plu.Pomp, 57.

“a struggle . . . expense”: Cic.LA, VII.3.

“Let the dice . . . high”: Plu.JC, 32.

“total . . . winner”: Suet.JC, 36.

“he was . . . mind”: Plu.Pomp, 67.

“next to . . . army”: Plu.Ant, 9.

“young dandies . . . unused . . .

“young dandies . . . unused . . . hair . . . the glint . . . eyes”: ibid., 69.

“turning . . . faces”: ibid., 71.

“It . . . for help”: Plu.JC, 46.

“it seemed . . . city”: Arrian,
History of Alexander
, III.1–2.

“birds . . . numbers . . . Even . . . nation”: Plutarch’s
Life of Alexander
, 26.

“the city . . . across”: Strabo,
Geography
, 17.1.8.

“entering . . . angles”: Quoted in J-Y. Empereur,
Alexandria Rediscovered,
p. 57.

“the greatest . . . world”: Strabo, op. cit., 17.1.13.

recent underwater archaeology: In the 1960s, while exploring the underwater site around Fort Qait Bey, Egyptian archaeologist and diver Kamel Abouel-Saadat found chunks of statuary, including pieces of a sphinx that clearly had been cut for use in the construction of the Pharos. More recently, an Egyptian and French team exploring the Pharos area has also made interesting discoveries. Finds from this part of the harbor are on display at the Roman theater in Alexandria. They include statues that were clearly decorative rather than used as building materials, such as a red granite sphinx and two huge heads of male figures that once would have stood over twenty feet high and, honed by the waves, resemble Henry Moore sculptures. A tall carved figure of Ptolemy II with a beautifully modeled, muscular torso also found near the site of the Pharos today stands outside the new Library of Alexandria. Another Egyptian and French team has been diving on the eastern side of the Great Harbor and has done much to clarify the geography of this area in Ptolemaic times. They believe that much of it now lies beneath the corniche along Alexandria’s waterfront. They have identified Cape Silsileh as the likely site of the royal harbor and have found traces of what they believe was the Timoneum built by Antony in his final days, which would have been very close to Cleopatra’s palace. Some of their findings suggest that Strabo made errors when describing the location of the Ti-moneum.

“a quarter . . . third”: ibid., 17.1.8.

“on sailing . . . colours”: ibid., 17.1.9.

“in . . . cone”: Strabo, op. cit., 17.1.10.

“A large . . . community”: Strabo, quoted by Josephus, Antiquities, XIV.7.2.

“A large . . . community”: Strabo, quoted by Josephus, Antiquities, 73 “his words . . . offensive . . . told . . . eating”: Plu.JC, 48.

As tensions . . . assassins: All quotes in these two paragraphs are from Suet.JC, 50–1.

Their first encounter . . . corrupted”: The quotes in this paragraph are from Luc.Phar, X, lines 70–108. Apart from certain temple carvings, which are anyway in a highly stylized pharaonic style and give little clue to Cleopatra’s real appearance, the only certain representations of Cleopatra are those on coins. The marble head in the Vatican is one of three sculptures generally, though not universally, accepted by scholars to be depictions of Cleopatra. Here, the face looks youthful, rounded and alluring, with full, sensuous lips and large eyes. The other representations are a marble bust in the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, which has a delicately modeled, slightly thinner face and a more studiedly composed expression, and a marble head depicting a rather older woman with the same large eyes but a more pronounced chin in the Cherchel Museum in Algeria (though some believe the latter in fact depicts Cleopatra’s daughter, Cleopatra Selene). In addition, a small marble head in the Department of Greek, Roman and Etruscan Antiquities in the Louvre shares some notable similarities with the Vatican, Berlin and Cherchel sculptures and, it has recently been claimed, may also be a representation of Cleopatra. (See Peter Higgs and Susan Walker’s article “Cleopatra VII at the Louvre,” in
British Museum Occasional Paper
no. 103.)