Fascinating Facts About Cleopatra

In the book  Cleopatra: A Life, Stacy Schiff offers an amazing portrait of one of the most fascinating personalities of ancient history: Cleopatra. Below are some facts about Cleopatra I took from the book and other pieces I garnered from the web:

1. Cleopatra was born in 69 BC in Alexandria, Egypt, and was a member of the Ptolemaic dynasty, which ruled Egypt for over 300 years.
2. She was the last Pharaoh of ancient Egypt and the only one who could speak Egyptian fluently. Cleopatra is said to have been highly educated and could speak several other languages, including Greek, Latin, and Arabic.
3. She was famously known for her intelligence, and charm, and is said to have seduced two powerful men in ancient Rome: Julius Caesar and Mark Antony.
4. Cleopatra is said to have been the first Ptolemaic ruler to learn the Egyptian language and adopt many of the country's traditions and customs.
5. Cleopatra committed suicide in 30 BC, after her lover, Mark Antony, was defeated by Octavian (later known as Emperor Augustus) in the Battle of Actium. She famously chose to die by the bite of an asp (other accounts claim that she committed suicide), rather than be captured and paraded through the streets of Rome.
6. Cleopatra's legacy has endured for over 2,000 years and continues to inspire artists, writers, and historians. She remains an iconic figure in popular culture, with numerous films, plays, and novels based on her life and legend.

Some of the quotes I noted from the book:

• “One loyal friend,” Euripides reminds us, “is worth ten thousand relatives.”
• "Nefertiti was a face without a queen and Cleopatra, a queen without a face"
• “As always, an educated woman was a dangerous woman.”
• "Caesar was deified, but Cleopatra was born a goddess"
• “It was in Alexandria that the circumference of the earth was first measured, the sun fixed at the center of the solar system, the workings of the brain and the pulse illuminated, the foundations of anatomy and physiology established, the definitive editions of Homer produced. It was in Alexandria that Euclid had codified geometry.”
• Absolute power consumes absolutely"