Cleopatra: Last Egyptian Pharaoh
4/30/202659 min
In the first episode of a five-part series, Mary and Charlotte tell the story of Queen Cleopatra’s early years. Forget, for the time being, Elizabeth Taylor rolling out of a rug, poisonous asps and baths of asses’ milk. Focus instead on inbreeding and incest, because Cleopatra, child of Ptolemy the Flute-Player, married her brother, Ptolemy 13th. When he died in suspicious circumstances, she married another brother, Ptolemy 14th. Mary and Charlotte discuss why the Ptolemy dynasty of Egypt was so fixed on keeping it in the family. In the second half of the episode, they explore the controversial issue of race in Cleopatra studies. On one hand, she was born into a dynasty from Greece which prided itself on inbreeding. On the other, it seems likely that beneath the official accounts, a great deal of cavorting went on beyond the royal household. The main reason it is so hard to reach any definitive conclusion is that ancient writers were uninterested in race as we understand it. They seemed not to fixate or even be interested in skin colour. The episode ends with Cleopatra primed to meet Julius Caesar. Mary and Charlotte recommend some further reading: There is a whole series of reliable modern biographies of Cleopatra (as well as many more unreliable accounts). This is a short selection of the trustworthy: D. Roller: Cleopatra: a biography (Oxford UP, pb, 2011) S. Schiff, Cleopatra: a life (Virgin books, pb, 2011) J. Tyldesley, Cleopatra: last queen of Egypt (ProfileBooks, pb, 2009) For the wider history of the dynasty: Alan Bowman: Egypt after the Pharaohs (British Museum Press, pb, 1996) L. Llewellyn-Jones, The Cleopatras (Wildfire, pb, 2025) For Alexandria and its culture: E. Richardson, Alexandria: the quest for the lost city (Bloomsbury, pb, 2022) Islam Issa, Alexandria: the city that changed the world (Sceptre, pb, 2024) For Cleopatra and race: In addition to the biographies cited, you can get an idea of the debates, here: https://theamericanscholar.org/black-cleopatra/ https://pressbooks.claremont.edu/clas112pomonavalentine/chapter/haley-shelley-1993-black-feminist-thought-and-classics-re-membering-re-claiming-re-empowering-in-feminist-theory-and-the-classics-edited-by-nancy-rabinowitz-and-amy-richlin-2/ @instaclassicpod for Insta, TikTok and YouTube @insta_classics for X email: instantclassicspod@gmail.com Instant Classics handmade by Vespucci Producer: Jonty Claypole Video Editor: Jak Ford Theme music: Casey Gibson Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Clips
Transcript preview
First 90 secondsCharlotte Higgins· Host0:00
At one banquet, she had the servers bring her a goblet filled with vinegar. At that moment, she took out one of the pearls from her earrings. It was the biggest pearl in the whole world, and she dropped it into the vinegar, where it instantly dissolved. She picked up the goblet and swallowed it down. She drank it That is how one ancient writer, Pliny the Elder, whom we've met before in Instant Classics, describes an extravagant party trick by Cleopatra of Egypt designed to show that she had got money to burn, for that single pearl cost an absolute fortune.
Mary Beard· Host0:41
It was also designed to impress her lover, the Roman Mark Antony.
Charlotte Higgins· Host0:47
That's just one slice of the story, the fact and the fiction that swirls around Queen Cleopatra, who ruled Egypt for 22 years in the first century BCE.
Mary Beard· Host0:59
The seductive lover of Julius Caesar, it was said, as well as of Mark Antony, Caesar's would-be successor. She played a part in the Roman civil wars of the period that went a long way beyond the bedroom. And it all ended in her suicide by the bite of a poisonous snake, we're told.
Charlotte Higgins· Host1:21
And she attracted any number of anecdotes about her riches, her luxury, her extravagant lifestyle. That pearl anecdote is just