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“Was Cleopatra Black”? is the question that is over 2,000 years old. Classicists, historians of antiquity, scholars and scientists almost without exception claim that she was a white Greek whose ancestors heralded from Macedonia. Some mistakenly believe that she was the descendent of Alexander the Great. At best, history shows she might have been connected to one of his generals Ptolemy I (Soter). The myths of her racial origins have plagued her legacy for thousands of years because of a certain Eurocentric perspective continues to dominate and insist on her pure Greek lineage without any real proof to support their assertions.

The author of “The controversy over Cleopatra’s race – Collection of Scholar Sources” put the millennia question in context. “Two thousand years after her death Cleopatra still has political relevance, and arguments over her racial heritage – was Cleopatra black or white? – inspire fierce debate, with ‘black’ variously defined as meaning of Egyptian origin, or a person from non-Mediterranean Africa, or any person of colour, and ‘white’ usually being equated with Greek. These definitions in themselves, of course, are open to charges of Eurocentrism and Afrocentrism – can we not have black Greeks? Or non-black Africans? Is white not a colour? In the USA, the recognition that traditional history has too often been written by a male, Eurocentric elite who, consciously or not, have promoted their own agenda and cultural expectations has led to the development of the theory – sincerely held by many – that Cleopatra was a black Egyptian queen whose achievements have been reallocated to a white proto-European. Scholarly discussions and heated Internet arguments abound between the ‘black’ and ‘white’ camps. It is easy, but lazy, to ignore this popular debate, classify Cleopatra and her family as Greek and move swiftly on, tacitly dismissing any claim that Cleopatra may have a mixed-race heritage.”¹

Many relied on Roman sources that were biased and prejudicial following the infamous trail of slanders and accusations laid out by Octavian, Julius Caesar nephew, who lied and deceived his way to power to ultimately become Rome’s first emperor. Yet, even those ancient historians did not assert that Cleopatra was white whose ancestral origins were in Greece solely and nowhere else.

In fact, they stressed her alien and foreign nature. A chief characteristic of Octavian is provided by Mark Antony. “Cicero, the great orator, reports Mark Antony as saying, ‘You boy, you owe everything to your name’ (Cicero Philippic 13.24). He was right,” according to J. H.C. Williams in Cleopatra of Egypt, From History to Myth.

Jim Cullen of “Cleopatra: A Life as Mythical Feminist Icon and Politician” in his review of Schiff expressed this view about her book. “Faced with a difficult geopolitical situation, she navigates it not infallibly, but nevertheless with an acumen that has largely escaped previous writers -- who are, to Schiff’s credit, often classical ones. But she’s not one to defer to antiquity, and she’s pointedly critical of Cleopatra’s critics. “Cicero had two modes: fawning and captious,” she says, calling him a Roman John Adams. (Given Schiff’s Francophile orientation, we can safely conclude the comparison is not flattering.)” (The Cutting Edge, November 8, 2010)

Kathryn Harrison of The New York Times (2010) delineates all the numerous subjective accomplices who had an axe to grind especially if it was in Cleopatra’s back. The people who wrote her much maligned story did so because Cleopatra committed the unpardonable offense of being a powerful woman in a man’s world. She was held to a higher standard as most women are today 2,000 years later. (“Femme Fatale”)

Harrison wrote in the review referring to the critically acclaimed book Cleopatra – A Life that “early biographers were biased, xenophobic, politically motivated and sometimes sensationalistic, writing for an audience that expected to be dazzled by intrigues reflecting its assumptions. It’s dizzying to contemplate the thicket of prejudices, personalities and propaganda Schiff penetrated to reconstruct a woman whose style, ambition and audacity make her a subject worthy of her latest biographer.”²

Stacy Schiff, author of Cleopatra – A Life, painstakingly surveyed the landscape of Cleopatra’s critics and according the reviewer Kevin Revolinski expressed the idea that, “The critical words of Cicero and Octavius, historians such as Plutarch, Dio, Appian, and Josephus – just a few of the sources drawn upon for the book – all have their own takes on the woman and the events that surrounded her. And as everyone writes with their biases and to audiences with their own political inclinations, even what has been written must be judged carefully. Cleopatra has been viewed as a scandalous woman using sex as a weapon to manipulate powerful men who play victims in the story; even some of her contemporaries believed this (as they had to, for they were writing for Romans, and how else does one explain how ‘superior’ Roman men end up sharing the wealth and glory with not just a non-Roman, but (gasp) a woman!).” (“Book Review: Cleopatra: A Life by Stacy Schiff,” The Mad Traveler, January 2, 2012)

Many think they know Cleopatra like a familiar memory from the past. But do they? The website Twincities by Pioneer Press points to the greatness of the Queen of Egypt when it emphasized the fact that: “Stripped of myth, Stacy Schiff’s biography reveals Cleopatra as even more monumental.” (November 20, 2010) It depicts her as a “smart political strategist, a first-rate military contractor, a proud mother and a witty conversationalist.”

The Bloomberg website reports scurrilous attacks made against the image of the Queen of Egypt. “Cleopatra … became ‘the wickedest woman in history’ (as Cecil B. DeMille called her when he was offering the role to Claudette Colbert), because that was the image that suited Augustus’s purposes. He was a master of spin, and Schiff never has to belabor the point to bring out the parallels with present-day Washington. Ruthless, calculating and blandly mendacious, he was the Dick Cheney of Rome.”

And yet, how does Cleopatra get slandered with such disapproval of her character if she was a white woman defending a white nation of Egyptians? Her terrible reputation does not fit under the myth of white supremacy unless there were suspicions to the contrary that somewhere it involved people of color. The tone would have been less condemnatory.

Writes Parul Sehgal: “In her latest book, Stacy Schiff, the Pulitzer prize-winning biographer of Véra Nabokov and Benjamin Franklin, plucks at this riddle and what she discovers—about Cleopatra and the men who made her myth—is astonishing. To understand Cleopatra is to understand how ancient history was written, by whom and for whom, and why.”³ Key questions that beg for a proper response.

The reviewer also went on to remark that,” They called her the Queen of Kings. She built a kingdom into a mighty empire that stretched down the shimmering eastern coastline of the Mediterranean … The scribes of her time were awestruck by her wit and money…” He also asks, “Why has this pragmatic and unprepossessing stateswoman been reduced to ‘the sum of her seductions?’ “⁴

Despite Schiff’s errant racial characterization of Cleopatra’s ethnicity “approximately as Egyptian as Elizabeth Taylor,” Stacy Schiff must be credited which helping to restore the balance in a more accurate portrayal of the Great Queen as an immensely successful woman in a man’s world, and the ruthless biases and prejudices leveled against her primarily by insecure white men, fearful of a woman’s innate powers. Stacy Schiff is a Pulitzer Prize winner, the recipient of an Academy Award in Literature who tackled these distortions in an extremely compelling fashion.

Schiff has also contributed to the New Yorker, The New York Times and The Washington Post. She is a world class biographer with outstanding credentials as a writer. Her work on Cleopatra was exceptional, a rare biographical gem that saw what many missed. The literary editor of the Chicago Tribune, Elizabeth Taylor’s review of “ ‘Cleopatra: A Life,’ reports that the book was published last year to great acclaim…” (September 23, 2011)

Here is a small sampling of that acclaim.

“A work of literature.” Judith Thurman, The New Yorker

“Enthralling” — Maureen Dowd, The New York Times

“A masterpiece.” — Michael Korda, The Daily Beast

“Schiff seems to have inhaled everything there is to know about Cleopatra and her times, and she uses her authoritative knowledge of the era.” — Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times

Schiff’s work is groundbreaking, a peerless approach to the Queen of Egypt, not shackled by a “gender centric” view of feminine power by an unenlightened, male oriented world view, fearing that which they do not understand. Her work is a classic that has the potential to become her signature achievement. By all accounts, Cleopatra would approve of this temple to her greatness and vindication of her sterling accomplishments in the face of unwarranted male criticism and reproach.

Schiff “has previously won the Pulitzer Prize for the astonishing, Véra (Mrs. Vladimir Nabokov). Her book, Saint-Exupéry was also Pulitzer Prize finalist. A Great Improvisation: Franklin, France, and the Birth of America, was the winner of the George Washington Book Prize. She has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities. She was a Director’s Fellow at the Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library. She also received an Academy Award in Literature (2006) from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.”

And, “In a masterly return to the classical sources, Stacy Schiff here boldly separates fact from fiction to rescue the magnetic queen whose death ushered in a new world order. Rich in detail, epic in scope, Schiff’s is a luminous, deeply original reconstruction of a dazzling life,” according to one scholar.” (BookLore Review - Cleopatra: A Life by Stacy Schiff) In the third millennium, Schiff has helped to turn the tide of the scurrilous attacks on her character by her Roman adversaries to offer a more balanced view of the Great Quern.

The Navir Review (April 1, 2016) highlights a modern-day relevance to Cleopatra – A Life when it states that “Schiff untangles the Queen from the lies that have torn her down and muddied her name and her legacy, her intelligence and her political savvy. She dissects the hard decisions made in the name of sovereignty and survival that have painted Cleopatra both the witch and the harlot for centuries, truly, millennia—detailing the actions that made the Queen … No surprise that the same methods used to villainize women both today and historically were used to dismantle the legacy of a great ruler of that era; indeed, the last ruler of that era. But Schiff’s Cleopatra did not cower behind the wall of generations of myth and salaciousness.”

After two millenniums of misleading assertions regarding her nationality, the book Was Cleopatra Black endeavors to set the record straight and reveal the Egyptian Queen’s true racial identity and her sterling attributes that have become legendary. There are some problems in that the evidence about the life of Cleopatra is, on the one hand, scant, but on the other quite plentiful if one examines her actions and deeds, the more powerful and reliable indicators of who a person is, not just what they say. As the old cliché goes, “actions speak louder than words.”

Professor Denise Eileen McCoskey, Associate Professor of Classics at the Miami University and the winner of American Philological Association and an Award of Excellence in Teaching at College Level, arrives at a similar conclusion of the importance of what Cleopatra did on behalf of Ancient Egypt. The Egyptian Queen saw herself as an Egyptian, a personal and ethnicity identifier. In short, she walked the walk, and talked the talk of a native Egyptian and not someone of Greek ancestry no matter what her external features might suggest, if any of them can be authenticated.

Cleopatra was an Egyptian no matter what her external characteristics might have been. As McCoskey (2012) remarks, “Why should we assume that Cleopatra’s physical form – what we might find on the surface of her body – defined her racially, as we so desperately want it today? Could it be rather the actions she undertakes, and not least her variant cultural performances, that defined her racially in her own context?”⁵

The Last Queen of Egypt actions announced her racial preferences as the words of Dr. McCoskey demonstrates coming from her ancient European enemies. “This newfound insistence on Cleopatra’s ‘Egyptianness’ was central to Roman demonization of her Egypt was now no longer merely the site of Cleopatra’s political authority – one possible meaning of ‘Egyptian queen’ – but, drawing on longstanding stereotypes about Egypt and Egyptians … The increasing use of Egypt as a racial identifier…”⁶

The “evidence” against Cleopatra stemming from the first Roman historians was at least a hundred years old, and it was tainted because they took an adversarial position regarding the Last Queens of Egypt, basically because she was a woman with power. Investigating anything from a Eurocentric viewpoint has inherent problems of objectivity and lack of a sufficient knowledge base. African cultural mores are very complex and require someone with extensive familiarity with them to accurately reflect their nuances apart from broad-brush generalizations. Those from another continent should be very circumspect and cautious before they make flawed, uninformed generalizations against Cleopatra and the country of her nativity.

Unfortunately, none of the valuable and enlightening expertise is coming from those who think they know such as the current biographers, classicists and historians of antiquity to name a few. Nevertheless, attempts will be made to peel and strip away the foul and despicable slurs on the great Queen which were fabricated by her enemies who took their lead from her arch adversary Octavian, the Donald Trump of antiquity, who used lies to belittle and degrade others to become Emperor like Trump did to become President.

He portrayed the Queen of Egypt as a wanton harlot and whore who seduced their virtuous male leaders and was the ultimate cause of their downfall. This coming from a man who is reputed to have infamously slept with the wives of his dinner guests. The wives returning disheveled from the encounter. He was clearly an unapologetic male whore himself.

In fact, Washington Post’s Joann Loviglio in her “Cleopatra exhibit tells an intriguing tale” that illustrates how much a “hater” Octavian was against the fabled queen. “Cleopatra is an enigma in part because the conquering Roman general Octavian -- later known as the emperor Augustus -- ordered all images of her destroyed, so little evidence exists of what she looked like. Roman writers also posthumously painted her as nothing more than a cold-hearted seductress of Julius Caesar and Mark Antony.” (June 5, 2010)

Of added significance is the historical background that can help explain most of her negative “press” since Egypt is viewed as a nation in Africa consisting of a significant number of non-white inhabitants. This is not surprising since some feel that the so-called “Dark Continent” is not important enough for scholars from Europe to devote themselves to life-long and serious study. They feel that reading a few books is sufficient to render dogmatic and absolute statements about what is worthwhile, and what is not. Based on their limited scholarship on the subject matter, they chastise and ostracize anyone who does not agree with them.

Take as an example, everyone is held hostage to the view that Cleopatra is Greek (white) and not Egyptian (black). As might be expected, they have accused their dissenters of teaching “myth as history” because they do not agree with the standard party line of mainstream Academia. “This tradition of discrediting other cultures and silencing dissident voices … ‘in the service of the truth’ as Pope John Paul II called it in March 2000, seems to be one that is not easy for Europe to give up.”

And yet, McCoskey adds that even Cleopatra’s Roman nemesis considered her an Egyptian, and she reminds us that “it is from the Romans that we inherit a vision of Cleopatra as ‘essentially’ Egyptian and so fundamentally different and exotic. Indeed, Roman accounts of Cleopatra allow us to witness the process of ‘racial formation’ in action, since the Romans promoted Cleopatra’s … ‘Egyptianness’ in response to very specific historical circumstances.”

Despite this fact, the Andrew W. Mellon Professor of the Humanities at Wellesley College, Mary Lefkowitz has lead the new brigade of attackers against anyone who believes Cleopatra had African origins. The classicist along just about everyone else in mainstream Academia maintain that she was white whose ancestry can be traced to Greece.

They have controlled the hive narrative that “Cleopatra was Greek and not Egyptian. Everyone seemed to have drunk the “Kool aide” without question. The few that did not, were roundly condemned and attacked especially those who were labeled Afrocentrists.

Not surprisingly, Lefkowitz went to great lengths to criticize those who considered the fact that Cleopatra might be Black. She devoted a significant portion of her book Not Out of Africa: How Afrocentrism Became an Excuse to Teach Myth as History (1996) on this issue and especially in the case of Cleopatra’s racial identity as a prominent example.

The professor from Wellesley College proclaims without reservation that the Queen of Egypt was a (white) Greek woman and not an Egyptian, and to think otherwise was incompatible with history or truth. Lefkowitz merely expressed the traditional opinion of the established academy which by the way gave her major support and encouragement for the book. Her claims of objectivity with no political agenda or slant rings hollow when one knows the truth.

Let us provide an illustration, “In the preface to Not Out of Africa she thanks Wellesley College and the Bradley and Olin Foundations for their grants. The latter two are among the most generous contributors to many right-wing organizations including The National Review, The Heritage Foundation and the National Association of Scholars (N.A.S.). Mary Lefkowitz, along with Jeane Kirkpatrick, Peter Diamondopoulos and some three dozen others, sits on the advisory board of the N.A.S. and plays an active role in its journal Academic Questions. The main concern of these organizations and journals is to turn back what their members and contributors view as the tides of liberalism and multiculturalism that have engulfed not only society but also education and the highbrow media. The articles that make up Not Out of Africa have appeared in the New Republic, The Wall Street Journal, Partisan Review, The Chronicle of Higher Education and Academic Questions. Thus, Mary Lefkowitz and her conservative comrades have every opportunity to carry out research, publish their results and participate freely in academic debates. Despite all this, however, she is intolerant as any so-called extreme Afrocentrists.”⁷ Support for her efforts by Academia and other likeminded Eurocentric conservatives have been extensive.

In contrast, Professor and Chair of the Department of African American Studies at Temple University Molefi Kete Asante who is a leading figure in the fields of African-American studies, African studies and communication studies disclosed that, “Conservative white columnists have felt a tremendous need to respond in the most vigorous fashion with their applause to shore up their racial mythologies. And now George Will (Newsweek, February 12, 1996) and Roger Kimball (Wall Street Journal, February 14, 1996) have seen fit to bless Professor Mary Lefkowitz’s Not Out of Africa as a sort of definitive moment in intellectual history. It is no such moment. It is a racial argument clearly fast back-stepping.” (“Race in Antiquity,” Molefi Kete Asante, 5/19/2009) Predictably, the Wellesley professor has been showered with accolades as well as widespread favorable newsprint from mainstream America. Here is a brief sampling from the jacket cover of her book.

“With great eloquence, learning and compassion, Not Out of Africa shows how preferring myth to facts is a disaster for everyone.” ─Wall Street Journal

“a careful and methodical response to one of Afrocentrism’s central tenets: that the ancient Greeks hijacked much of their philosophy, theology, and science from the ancient Egyptians and passed it off as their own invention.” ─Boston Globe

“A painstaking refutation of the main Afrocentric mythologies which have come to prominence from their small beginnings in the 1950s to their high-water mark Martin Bernal’s Black Athena books in the 1980s.” ─The Times (London)

“The real problem with Afrocentrism … is not that its ‘truth’ about Greece and Egypt are false. More dangerous is the underlying attitude and all history is fiction, which can be manipulated at will for political ends.” Time

What a completely self-righteous, depressingly condescending position to assert from a national magazine that seeps of white supremacy’s arrogant ooze. They should be tired of playing that old superior “we-are-better” mind trip by trying to disguise it as some form of “objective” journalistic analysis. The statement that Afrocentric scholars believe that “all history is fiction” is insulting on so many levels.

What would we do if superior white scholars were not around to enlighten the poor Black ones? These mainstream scholars should read history before they presume that they have monopoly on Truth and objective scholarship. Afrocentric scholars reject the false history of Eurocentrism and white supremacy as all of us should if we claim that we are interested in truth, not lies or deception.

As far as mainstream Academia is concern, Cleopatra was a white Greek Ptolemy probably from Macedonia whose ancestors confined themselves to having sexual relationships with other white Greeks only for almost 300 years. Consequently, she would have been viewed as Greek and not Egyptian (which is an implicit admission that the Ancient Egyptians were Black). Any other conclusion is considered unacceptable and “teaching myth as history” because it makes someone who has a white skin-based superiority into a racially-based Black inferior. Cleopatra had to be above such a limited ethnicity.

Trying to defend the indefensible often requires one to make very illogical and irrational arguments, this is especially the case in saying that the Ancient Egyptians or Cleopatra were not of African ancestry. Therefore, they had to come up with such bogus assertions like classifying the racial composition of the Egyptians as “neither black nor white but Egyptian” (Bard) or “black is not black” (Reisner).

As if truth is arrived at by multiple choice, they promulgated various assertions of authenticity without any solid, verifiable evidence, only speculations, guesses and opinions. Or, to paraphrase Napoleon. “what is history, but myth agree upon.” The established academic circles agreed on the myth. It was the obligation of everyone else to uphold it.

The myth of the white Greek Cleopatra is a classic example. Not unlike the majority view of the West that holds “Africa has made no contributions to world progress or civilization.” African Americans have had to endure these reality-free assertions as they continue to be the victims of countless slights throughout America.

These opinions and others are stated or unspoken by many Caucasians because they lie deep within the collective psyche of those who classify themselves as white. They believe that they are intellectually superior to Black people. A contemporary illustration is the Republican President, “the stable genius” and the millions who support him.

Not surprisingly, one can envision why so little attention to rigor is given to the evaluation of Africa’s importance to world progress and civilization. Or, the perpetual edition of the “Dark Continent” or in the person of Cleopatra who is characterized in the “darkest” of terms as a despicable “whore” and “harlot”. The only land-based siren who lures innocent white men to the downfall.

The book Was Cleopatra Black? will hopefully begin the process of debunking and dismantling all the myths and falsifications that have surrounded her to reveal one of the truly great figures in history. In fact, the debate over her race has gained such prominence that Newsweek magazine had a front-page cover story on the controversy and its relationship to Afrocentrism. It demonstrates how important this question is to many regarding her ethnicity.

“In September 1991, the popular American journal Newsweek wanted to air some issues associated with Afrocentrism and its reinterpretation of the past. They did under the heading ‘Was Cleopatra Black?’ the front cover showed the head of an Egyptian queen from a temple relief with a bright modern earring fixed to the stone ear. The figure of Cleopatra was invoked to bring into focus the challenge, if not the threat, implied by rethinking Western culture from an African American perspective. The earring hung on it was carefully selected shaped like a map of African and striped with the red, black, and green of Black Nationalism in America, it is one that black Americans can buy and wear today.” The clarion call for elimination has been weaponized to abolish any alternative views to Western dominant thinking.

Professor Melissa Dabakis of Kenyon College, Ohio argues that “In the nineteenth century, the image of Cleopatra represented a complicated melding of Egyptian (North African) otherness and Western (European) whiteness. Cleopatra was of Greek origin, part of the Ptolemaic line of descended from Alexander the Great, and thus a representative of Western classical heritage.”⁹

The statement suggesting that the Ptolemaic line of descended from Alexander is not entirely accurate since there is no irrefutable proof for this claim. Ptolemy I (Soter) was a former bodyguard turned general in his army. No direct bloodline has ever been established between them which many have attempted to use to give the Ptolemies more authenticity.

Regarding the gender issue with Cleopatra, Mary Hamer is a Fellow of the W.E.B. DuBois Institute at Harvard University and a cultural historian stressed, “This leads to the argument that Cleopatra and her story have the weight of an origin myth in Western culture, and used in metaphor, they are specially disposed to illumine the place of women into the social order, particularly African women … Some versions of Cleopatra made during the Renaissance and the Reformation in Europe were inflected by the moves to subordinate women within the household and within marriage. In these examples, the figure is shaped and perceived in relation to current attempts to institute a particular regime of domestic power. Later Cleopatra was shaped by different struggles: around the place of women in intellectual debate in the eighteenth - century or the creation of women as dreamers and shoppers in the nineteenth” ¹⁰

Professor Mary Hamer sets the debate in context and its racial significance to mentally chained African Americans to the bonds of inferiority and disparagement. Professor Hamer explains, “The argument over the race of Cleopatra, carried out among white people and the intellectuals who define the terms of the discussion, is an occasion in which the Afrocentrism of … blacks can be discredited and brought into contempt. This serves a useful political function for it discredits their thinking, their culture, and their way of life…”¹¹

But, History has a different story to tell. As “Eve” was the First “Woman” so, too, Cleopatra was the First “Modern Woman”. Both were descendants of Africa. The Queen of Egypt was the groundbreaker who demolished the territories of male supremacy over women, and the trailblazer who set to flames the assertion of women as the “weaker sex”.

Cleopatra was the “Defender of the Faith” in the belief of the incomparable power of the feminine. She stands for Equality not in words but in actions and achievements. In fact, Professor of Environmental Science at Allegheny College Eric Pallant described Cleopatra as “the most powerful woman in history”. (“Cleopatra by Stacy Schiff,” May 1, 2011)

The books: “Was Cleopatra Black” and “Cleopatra, the First Modern Woman 2,000 years ago” will hopefully stand as testaments to these historic facts. One of their purposes is to celebrate the Cosmic Power of the Universal Female (Yin). The Equal to its mate the Cosmic Male (Yang). The Egyptian Law of Opposites is universal, one that modern science has not been able to improve upon since.

The legendary Cleopatra was meant to fly on the Wings of Mystery. That is why as author Pat Southern (2000) noted, “There is no single source for the life of Cleopatra…” Also, we do not know what she looked like as there is no authentic independently verified image of her face. The Last Queen of Egypt was meant to symbolize a “larger-than-life” historic figure based on her actions and achievements. The Female is part of the Divine equation and not part of the servant class. Read about Cleopatra the Great and see the difference.

Cleopatra the Egyptian Queen still dazzles the imagination even though she died over 2,000 years ago. Up to our present time, the Sovereign of the Nile still manages to hold spellbind the minds of humanity as if she existed in our own time eternally regal and mesmerizing. She had an epic personality that was transcendental, spanning the millenniums. “Cleopatra has come to symbolize Egypt for a lot of people,”¹ says Joyce Tyldesley, an archaeologist at the University of Liverpool and author of Cleopatra: Last Queen of Egypt. Her imperial aspirations would have a major impact on Julius Caesar, Mark Antony and Octavian (Augustus) Rome’s first emperor as well as in the formulation of the Roman Empire and ultimately on Western civilization itself.

Cleopatra has anchored her exploits into our imaginations ever since. She is also referred to as the most renowned female ruler of all time. In history, certain people become so famous that the legends about them appear to be on a superhuman scale. Thus, we have Michelle Goldberg aptly entitled her essay “Superwoman” referring to Cleopatra in a review of Stacy Schiff’s bestselling book Cleopatra – A Life, for the New Republic. Goldberg also points out the contemporary relevance of this fabled ancient figure. She writes, “Given America’s recent and somewhat uneasy fascination with women in politics, it makes sense that we are seeing a revival of interest in Cleopatra…”²

Several scholars have explored the many dimensions of the modern Black woman who are often required to be like a super human person, to be all things, to all people at once and its implication stemming from mystique of the Queen of Egypt. Cleopatra was the embodiment of what many think a modern woman is frequently called upon to be namely, a superwoman - successful both in her career and at home. The superwoman designation of Black women is still a modern phenomenon.

Similarly, Giuseppe Pucci who teaches at the University of Siena and writes on Classical Archaeology in his “Every Man’s Cleopatra” also refers to the superwoman status of the great Pharaoh. Says Pucci: “according to Plutarch, the queen used her tongue ‘as a multichord instrument,’ through which she attained an extraordinary … (force of persuasion). That ability of hers appeared to be superhuman…”³

The Egyptian Monarch was arguably the most influential women in modern history. Throughout the span of fewer than forty years, she reshaped the ancient world and ultimately human imagination. Few have been able to fascinate every generation over such an extensive length of time measuring in the thousands of years. It is a life that seems larger than life, epic in scale, in grandeur, a spectacle to delight every imaginative impulse on mythical proportions.

Few have lived such an extraordinary life like Cleopatra’s, she was propelled by time and space but never limited by them. Just think, the name “Cleopatra” and your mind will conjure up its own vivid images of this remarkable Egyptian ruler. Images of sensuality, seduction, beauty, the exotic, bold intelligence, unlimited wealth, beyond the great work of Shakespeare or the worldwide fame of Hollywood’s Elizabeth Taylor who endeavored to imitate “The Magnificent One” on the silver screen.

As the authors of Susan Walker and Sally-Ann Ashton (2006) in their book Cleopatra explain, at the beginning of their book that “the point for this … introduction to the last queen of Egypt is her continued significance to a modern public, who mostly know Cleopatra through the medium of film. We note the origins of the Hollywood Cleopatra in the orientalist imagination of nineteenth-century writers and artists, and show how these ideas of Cleopatra drew upon a hostile tradition developed in the last years of the queen’s life by her Roman enemies. In contrast, we explore the very positive image Cleopatra has enjoyed since antiquity in Egypt. We also note the nineteenth-century American roots of the recently promoted idea of Cleopatra as black African.”⁴

Cleopatra the Great was a product of her time yet ever its master. Powerful men could be no more than mere props if they had been less significant. Dion Cassius describes her as “most exceedingly beautiful of women.” None can equal her allure. Throughout the annals of history, she has clearly overshadowed the most notable figures of that Classical period (Julius Caesar, Mark Antony or Octavian). They were limited to a continental frame of reference (Europe) while she transcends and maintains a global command over the imagination of humanity itself.

Legend thy name is Cleopatra. To many the Last Pharaoh has become synonymous with mighty Egypt itself in the Classical Era. Speak the name Cleopatra and a whole host of images invade the mind as if naturally lodged awaiting invocation. First was Elizabeth Taylor who has come to symbolize Cleopatra in the modern mind through Hollywood’s power and influence. Before her perhaps the image of Vivien Leigh springs into mind when at the height of her beauty she played the timeless Egyptian Queen in Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra co-starring with Lawrence Olivier as Mark Antony and a host of others.

However, Cleopatra was so much more, beyond the abilities or inclination of Hollywood to represent in a meaningful or accurate way. She was beyond fiction. She was Cleopatra. Their misrepresentations of her ethnicity have been etched in the modern mind which Hollywood has perpetuated to the disadvantage of objectivity or historical accuracy.

Professor Haley discloses how Hollywood is complicit with obscuring Cleopatra’s true racial identity. “The construction by scholars and filmmakers struck me as I viewed Pascal’s 1945 film version of G. B. Shaw’s Caesar and Cleopatra starring Vivien Leigh. The dialogue intends for us to take Cleopatra as darker than the Roman Caesar, but the visual presence of a very White and European Vivien Leigh contradicts the dialogue.”⁵

Of course, Cleopatra was not perfect, but even in her imperfections there are lessons. One may be wealthy yet still have substance. One may have failed yet still succeed as an unforgettable icon. One may give everything for a land and people yet be vilified for the sacrifice as a “harlot”. One may be a scholar of the first rank, yet portrayed as an empty headed, superficial, temptress. One may be exceedingly intelligent yet be hailed as a scheming sexual object, a femme fatale if you will. Truth however will eventually win out over falsehoods and misrepresentations. Or, as The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King once said, “No lie can live forever”. Cleopatra refused to let men do the math for her and be reduced “to the sum of her seductions” or the calculus of a mere woman in a man’s world.

Writing for the New York Times (April 21, 2009) the heralded and remarkable biographer Stacy Schiff outlines some of the outstanding qualities of the Last Independent Monarch of Ancient Egypt. “Even if she had every aesthetic weapon in her arsenal, we know already the ones she so expertly deployed. ‘It was impossible to converse with her without being immediately captivated by her,’ asserts one of our two best sources. Her voice was velvety; her conversation stimulating; her powers of persuasion matchless; her presence an event, reports the other.”

One writer characterized this peerless ruler as “a shrewd strategist and an ingenious negotiator”. Professor Marc Vincent (2010) declared that Joyce Tyldesley’s “Cleopatra,” published in 2008, “stripped away many of the misconceptions that had accrued around the iconic ruler, and brought her Egyptian context back to vivid life. Schiff’s ‘Cleopatra’ is another expert reconstruction of a career about which much has been written but very little is known.” (“Stacy Schiff conjures a fascinating ‘Cleopatra’ “)

Cleopatra’s sophistication in thought and speech were the great all-powerful armaments at her command catching all others amazed and subdued to do her bidding willingly or not. Stacy Schiff is a gifted and talented writer who took the scraps of history and erected a monumental pyramid for which could dwell the spirit of Cleopatra to be more authentically understood and appreciated for her greatness. Her book could have been titled “Cleopatra – A Magnificent Life”.

One of the most unanticipated resource hailed the intellectual genius that we come to know by a single name…Cleopatra. Dr. Joyce Tyldesley, a Cleopatra expert, highlights an encyclopedic source and advances the notion that “Muslim scholars, writing after the Arab conquest of Egypt about 640 CE, developed their own version of the queen. Their Cleopatra was first and foremost a scholar and a scientist, a gifted philosopher and a chemist.”

In a similar fashion, when depicting Cleopatra’s character, Ancient Egypt Online commences with the following statement about an ethnic group known for its traditional male emphasis yet could still envision her intellectual greatness. “The Arab historian Al-Masudi (896 - 956 BCE) described her as a sage, a philosopher, who elevated the ranks of scholars and enjoyed their company. He also claimed that she wrote several books on medicine, charms and cosmetics. She spoke at least five (and possibly nine) languages … She seems to have been a highly competent administrator and the Egyptian bishop John of Nikiou (c 696 BCE) commented that her building projects in Alexandria were ‘the like of which had never been seen before.’ This more revealing view has been adopted by some modern scholars who have rejected the Roman slurs on her character…”⁶

It was this same defamation of her character that has been the Roman currency throughout history which some thoughtlessly believed and followed. However, there was an ancient Greek historian who did not share the same harsh and disparaging views as his Roman counterparts in European antiquity.

“For (as they say) it was not because her [Cleopatra’s] beauty in itself was so striking that it stunned the onlooker, but the inescapable impression produced by daily contact with her: the attractiveness in the persuasiveness of her talk, and the character that surrounded her conversation was stimulating. It was a pleasure to hear the sound of her voice, and she tuned her tongue like a many-stringed instrument expertly to whatever language she chose…” (From Plutarch’s Life of Mark Antony)

Contrary to the character assassination by the Romans, a historical website noted that “she was a great scholar and stateswoman who did her best to protect the country she loved from the powerful Roman state…” Combined with high intelligence, a melodious voice, along with a lively, persuasive personality, they made the “Cleopatra experience” a pleasure to be in its enchanting company and a force to be reckoned with at a moment’s notice, all in the service of maintaining the prosperity and independence of Ancient Egypt.

Flawed yet flawless in her executions to manage a nation’s freedom for a generation while keeping it protected from the ravenous claws of the colonial Roman wolves, hell-bent on warring and raiding an ancient land for its abundant riches. It was her goal in life to protect her native country at all costs.

Historically speaking, the precarious nature of events during that time made the insatiable Roman appetite for exploiting others quite a threat to all. Nigel Spivey, a professor of Classic Art and Archeology at Cambridge, points out that, “For some decades Rome have been viewing the kingdom of Egypt with predatory intent: the country offered rich pickings from its productive economy, and in particular a copious grain supply…”⁷

The Queen of Egypt had to deflect and obstruct their advances at every turn possible to keep the Roman hordes at bay if her nation was to remain sovereign. Marie Arana of the Washington Post provides contrast between Rome and Alexandria with a viewpoint that refers to the imperialistic European nation interests and the consequences it produced in relationships to other nations. “As war-loving Rome hungrily gobbled its way through the Mediterranean, Egypt lost one neighbor after another…”⁸

In addition, she commented on the contrast between the pervasive militaristic attitudes of Rome and the sophisticated culture of Alexandria. The Romans were “hooked on conquest, hard on women. To make wealth they needed to build empire. The Egyptians of Alexandria, on the other hand, were cultured, inventive, masters of the intellect. They built a vast library to prove it. They were astronomers for centuries before Rome even existed. Theirs was a city of mechanical marvels, and it boasted among its novelties ‘automatic doors and hydraulic lifts, hidden treadmills and coin-operated machines.’ But Alexandria was also a paradise of perfumes, a repository of the arts, an agricultural wonder -- a center that could feed and amuse its people in equal measure. If Cleopatra had needed to, she single-handedly could have fed all of Rome.”

In the end, she did as Octavian (Augustus) used Cleopatra’s Egypt as a Roman province to feed the Roman Empire. Judith Thurman of A Critic at Large in her review of Schiff’s work titled Cleopatra – A Life observe that, “Compared with gorgeous, cosmopolitan Alexandria, the filthy, ramshackle city of a million people which the Queen saw from her perch in the hills ‘qualified as a provincial backwater …’ ” (“Cleopatriad,” November 15, 2010)

Joann Loviglio of the Washington Post deferentially wrote: “By the time Cleopatra began her reign as an 18-year-old in 51 B.C., Alexandria was, as the exhibition says, ‘the Manhattan of its time.’ It was the world center of music, entertainment, art and intellectual pursuit, and a hard-drinking party town with surprisingly liberal attitudes about sex.” (“Cleopatra exhibit tells an intriguing tale,” June 5, 2010)

How does one truly understand this “Icon of icons”? Though wealthy beyond measure, still Cleopatra sought spiritual identification with the Great Shrines of Egypt in particular Mother Isis (Auset), and she paid homage to Them despite her own limitations. She was ever mindful of the awesome responsibility she had to protect the survival of Egypt as an independent nation.

“Rewriting the Myth, Revealing A Woman of Power — a Review of Stacy Schiff’s Cleopatra: A Life.” pointed out that “Cleopatra added wisdom to her other outstanding attributes in her worship of Isis to ensure Cleopatra’s ‘unquestioned legitimacy, especially her new role as mother of the kingdom … [that] the worship of Isis … ensure[d].’ “⁹

When “Schiff writes at length about Cleopatra’s identity as Isis, it is a big deal: ‘Cleopatra played up the role of Isis as provider of wisdom and of spiritual sustenance,’ and she appeared in ‘striking Isis attire’ … On religious occasions, a traditional pharaonic crown of feathers, solar disk, and cow’s horns rested on her head … As Queen, as Isis, Cleopatra ‘was magistrate, high priest, queen, and goddess—and CEO.’ “¹⁰

The Queen of Egypt was setting the stage for greatness that she eventually succeeded in achieving in a legendary fashion. Michael Lloyd in his “Cleopatra As Isis” argued that “Cleopatra’s most striking qualities closely resemble those of the goddess, and Isis may have been suggested by her.”¹¹

The Last Pharaoh was one of history’s great models of resiliency when the concept was young and lacked modern relevance. Queen Cleopatra had outstanding mental abilities of adaptability and flexibility which are one of the main features of the intellectually gifted. They were made evident throughout most of her life. As W. Sergeant pointed out that “her wonderful adaptability … gave Cleopatra her victories.”¹² The Sterling Professor of Humanities at Yale University and a former Charles Eliot Norton Professor at Harvard, Harold Bloom (2017) reminds us that “Cleopatra’ identification with the goddess Isis … is crucial for understanding the mythic aspects of her personality.”¹³

Similarly, Lydia Hoyt Farmer the author of “Cleopatra,” The Book of Famous Queens disclosed that, “The great secret of Cleopatra’s power of winning was the instructive insight she possessed into men’s dispositions, and her exquisite tact in discovering their vulnerable points … Her irresistible allurement lay in her faculty of adapting herself to men’s peculiar tastes and predilections … her chief fascination was the charming combination of face, form and winning conversation, which rendered her bewitching.”¹⁴

With all of these sterling qualities at her command, history shows that the Egyptian Queen was the sole female in the Classical Era to rule alone and play a critical role in the early history and formation of Western Civilization. Where there is a Rome as an early ancestor of Europe, you will find a Cleopatra who modelled for that “backwater” nation what a high civilization would look like for one to emulate despite their male misogynistic affliction.

One who challenged their Neanderthal notion of women and presented them with the undeniable power of the feminine for she is Cleopatra. She is the one who stands above. She contends with the lowly aspirations of Roman males who see her less as a woman.

One whose genius they fed on to feed and finance on what would later become known as the Roman Empire. And so, when Caesar was unexpectedly and brutally assassinated, Cleopatra was thrown into a potentially disastrous and lethal situation. A lesser person would have been devastated and put into a serious panic, but not Cleopatra; her strong will and determination would not yield to circumstances beyond her control no matter how unfavorable the historical realities. Her resiliency would masterfully come into play, up next Mark Antony