6 Facts About Cleopatra That They Won't Teach in School
Miscellaneous / / July 03, 2022
The last queen of Egypt, upon closer inspection, may not be as pleasant as she is presented.
1. Cleopatra's father and mother were brother and sister
The Egyptian god Osiris married his sister Isis to do not diluteS. L. Ager. Familiarity Breeds Incest and the Ptolemaic Dynasty / The Journal of Hellenic Studies divine blood by third-party connections.
The pharaohs saw in their otherworldly masters an example to follow, and they themselves were considered a kind of celestials, so they repeated all the subtleties of the personal life of the gods. When the Greeks descended from Ptolemy, one of the commanders of Alexander the Great, seized power in Egypt, they adopted all the local customs in order to be like real pharaohs.
Then they forgot to invent genetics, so they didn’t think much about the consequences for royal offspring.
In general, the mother of Cleopatra too calledJ. A. Tyldesley. Chronicle of the Queens of Egypt
Cleopatra. To distinguish her from a great many other Cleopatras, historians assigned her the number V and the nickname Tryphena. And she was none other than the sister of Ptolemy XII - the father of Cleopatra.2. Cleopatra was married to two of her brothers
In Egypt, as you have already understood, the values of the ruling families were somewhat exotic, at least in our opinion. In addition to marrying sisters, it was customary for the pharaohs to lead the country in pairs - each required a co-ruler of the opposite sex.
At first, when Cleopatra was only seventeenS. fielding. The Lives of Cleopatra and Octavia, she ruled with her father Ptolemy XII. He soon died, but before his death he left a will in which he commanded his daughter to marry her younger brother Ptolemy XIII.
The Ptolemaic dynasty of Egyptian rulers always had trouble coming up with names. Most of the men in their family were called Ptolemies, women - Cleopatra. Only the serial number has changed.
Ptolemy XIII and Cleopatra VII each other dislikedS. fielding. The Lives of Cleopatra and Octavia, and the brother kicked his sister out of the hereditary palace. The queen was not at a loss and entered into an agreement with the notorious Julius Caesar, who, by chance, came to Egypt to talk with Ptolemy. Enchanted by Cleopatra Roman helped her arrange a palace coup and get rid of her brother. He was forced to flee and was later killed by the Romans after failing to regain the throne.
But Cleopatra did not become the sole ruler of Egypt overnight, because she had remainedS. fielding. The Lives of Cleopatra and Octavia another brother, Ptolemy the Younger, number XIV. She was forced to marry him too. True, after some time Ptolemy XIV died - presumably, his sister poisoned him with aconite.
If you believe that Cleopatra's relatives ended on this and she was finally able to calmly rule alone, then no. The family also had a sister, Arsinoe IV. After Cleopatra buried Caesar and got together with Mark Antony, she orderedS. fielding. The Lives of Cleopatra and Octavia the last to kill a twenty-year-old sister out of harm's way. This is the Egyptian Game of Thrones.
3. Cleopatra bathed in sour donkey milk
Like many other ladies, Cleopatra apparently had a strong desire to never grow old. Well, or age as slowly as possible. Unfortunately, she was born too early to benefit from plastic surgery, Botox and other the benefits of modern civilization, so the queen had to resort to more natural anti-aging procedures.
According to legendsD. McNeill. The Face: A Natural History, Cleopatra periodically bathed in baths with donkey (in other versions - goat) sour milk.
For this, a staff of milkers and several hundred donkeys were kept at the court.
Cleopatra is not the only woman in history to have done this. Later wife of the Roman Emperor Nero Poppaeus hostedD. McNeill. The Face: A Natural History milk baths. Pauline Bonaparte, Napoleon's sister, also used donkey's milk as a skin care product. True, she only washed her faceCleopatra, Queen of Ancient Egypt, took baths in donkey milk to preserve her beauty and youth / The Vintage News them.
4. And used products from lead, crocodiles and sheep to maintain beauty
You might say that this is just another Roman historian's invention, but on the territory ancient egypt and Rima, there were also more exotic ways of caring for one's appearance. So, in addition to milk, Cleopatra used dried crocodileWhy did Cleopatra supposedly bathe in sour donkey milk? / McGill University litter. They say it is very good as a soft scrub.
Add to that lanolinAncient Women Used Dung, Grease as Makeup / ABC News, eye make-up products with a high content of lead and wool wax - a product of the digestion of sheep's wool, which Egyptian aristocrats inflictedD. McNeill. The Face: A Natural History on your face, and you will understand that being a queen is still a lot of work.
The ancient Egyptians, by the way, believed that the shadows of copper malachite and black lead sulfide not only make the eyes bewitching, but also scare away evil spirits.
When Cleopatra had an affair with Caesar, she encouraged him to do beauty treatments. The forty-year-old dictator was beginning to go bald, and his young beloved queen rubbedWhy did Cleopatra supposedly bathe in sour donkey milk? / McGill University in his crown is a mixture of powder from ground horse teeth, deer brain and bear fatD. McNeill. The Face: A Natural History. Those who did not have fresh deer and bears at hand were saved from baldness with sheep fat. But for Caesar and the deer it was not a pity, and even bear and even more so.
5. Cleopatra founded her own drinking club
At 41 BC e. Cleopatra and Mark Antony, with whom she agreedCleopatra & Antony / World History Encyclopedia after the death of Caesar, foundedPlutarch. Life of Anthony his own drinking club called the Union of the Inimitables.
It was something between a meeting of drinking companions, especially close to the throne of the queen of Egypt, and a religious association, whose members worshiped Dionysus, the god of winemaking. In a close circle of club members, Cleopatra and Antony held drunken parties, squandering fabulous money on festivities.
In addition, there is evidence that after drinking they changed into unpretentious outfits and wanderedPlutarch. Life of Anthony night Alexandria in search of entertainment.
6. Cleopatra ransacked the tomb of Alexander the Great to improve her financial affairs
Despite the fact that Alexander the Great was the king of Macedonia, he was buried in Egypt, which he captured. After much debate, his comrade Ptolemy, the ancestor of Cleopatra, insisted on this. Alexander was placed in a honey-drenched sarcophagus and placed comfortably in a mausoleum filled to the brim with gold.
For the next three hundred years, the grateful descendants of Ptolemy regularly surreptitiously visitedN. J. Saunders. Alexander's Tomb: The Two‑Thousand Year Obsession to Find the Lost Conquerer to the tomb of the great commander to profit from something brilliant there, if the Egyptian economy began to sag and urgent royal investments were needed to keep it afloat.
The mausoleum of Alexander the Great thus served as a kind of foreign exchange reserve in case of emergency.
Cleopatra was no exception in this matter. She and her new lover Mark Antony no longer had enough money to go to war with Octavian, Emperor of Rome. Apparently, more money was spent on the "Union of the Inimitable" than it should have been. But the queen found an elegant way out of this unpleasant situation - she borrowed the gold left there from the tomb in order to to fundN. J. Saunders. Alexander's Tomb: The Two‑Thousand Year Obsession to Find the Lost Conquerer army. True, this did not help, and Cleopatra, who had lost everything, had to commit suicide.
After the capture of Egypt, Octavian Augustus also visitedThe Elusive Tomb of Alexander / Archeology Magazine languishing in honey Alexander the Great. But, unlike the queen, the cultural emperor did not steal anything from there as a keepsake, but, on the contrary, ordered to shower the great commander with flowers and put on him a golden diadem as a sign of respect for his feats. True, while Octavian accidentally broke offN. J. Saunders. Alexander's Tomb: The Two‑Thousand Year Obsession to Find the Lost Conquerer mummy's nose, but pretended that it was itself, and he had nothing to do with it.
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