Doomed Queens bitter wisdom of the day: Cleopatra

“Choose your allies well,
or they will come back to bite you in the asp.”

For my inaugural Doomed Queens bitter wisdom post, who better to feature than Cleopatra, the last pharaoh of Egypt? After all, her infamous life and death set the bar high for future queens seeking the sweet frisson of media attention.

Cleopatra was supposedly born in January 69 BC. Without an exact date, it’s interesting to ponder whether she was a capricorn or aquarius. An astrologer could make a compelling case for either. She possessed the tenacity of a goat climbing to the top, but the unconventional genius of a water bearer.

Whenever her birthday, Cleopatra was born into a serpent’s nest of intrigue. Her father, Egyptian pharaoh Ptolemy XII, spent much of his reign appeasing the Roman empire, while her siblings plotted amongst themselves — and against Cleopatra. After much familial Sturm und Drang, Cleopatra emerged triumphant upon the throne. As for her rival siblings, they were forcibly relocated to the grave.

What was Cleopatra’s secret for survival? Aside from being intelligent and beautiful, she was extraordinarily skilled in the art of persuasion and seduction. The historian Dio Cassius wrote that “she captured all who listened to her.” More importantly, Cleopatra knew when to get help — and, trickiest of all, how to find it. She certainly wasn’t shy in enlisting her feminine wiles either. To win the support of Julius Caesar, the nubile teenager smuggled herself to him within the rolls of a carpet. Years later, after Caesar met his fate on the Ides of March, Cleo turned her attention to Mark Antony. She invited the warrior to dinner upon her barge, and appeared dressed as a goddess. Locals whispered that Aphrodite was mating with Dionysus.

With the help of Julius Caesar and Mark Antony, Cleopatra reigned over Egypt for two decades. However, even good alliances go sour: Antony and Cleopatra eventually ticked off the Roman powers-that-be, and found themselves on the run. Rather than surrender, they chose to die by their own hands. Antony stabbed himself, a suitably martial ending. His partner in global hi-jinx picked a more mythic manner to dispatch herself.

Cleopatra arranged for a basket of figs to be smuggled to her, with two poisonous asps hidden within it. Tradition holds that the queen arrayed herself like the goddess Isis before she died — a smart bit of posthumous branding. Asps were traditionally used for public executions in ancient Egypt and Greece, and associated with goddesses.

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This is the first of an occasional blog series. The text was adapted from my book DOOMED QUEENS: Royal Women Who Met Bad Ends, from Cleopatra to Princess Di (Broadway Books, $14.95). Learn more or purchase DOOMED QUEENS here.

Oh, and for those of you following my January blogathon, I’m planning a big giveaway for January 31st — only three more days to go! One of the items I’ll be raffling off is a free tarot reading with me.

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