Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how
Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Katie Lambert and I'm Sarah Daddy, and we are
suffering through a long, rainy week in Atlanta, and we've
(00:20):
all been sharing playlists. Yeah, so to try to cheer
ourselves up, we've been listening to the Bengals walk like
an Egyptian and practicing a little bit too, to assume
that physically impossible Egyptian pose when you have to keep
yourself entertained in a cubicle somehow. So I think that's
as good reason as any. But that brings us to Cleopatra,
(00:43):
whose children are the subject of our podcast today. And
this was a listener request from Molly, So thanks to
Molly for this one. So most of us obviously think
of Cleopatra as kind of a fum fatale embodied by
Elizabeth Taylor, and there are always all these discussions of
was she really beautiful or what kind of ruler was she?
And I think kind of lost in the discussion is
(01:06):
this fact that Cleopatra actually was a mother to four children, um,
and that just doesn't seem to play into her image.
So Cleopatra was born in seventy or sixty nine VC.
She is obviously Queen of Egypt, not at birth, but
she isn't of Egyptian ancestry. She's Macedonian um Greek, and
(01:32):
they have been in power since the death of Alexander
the Great, and men start factoring into her life at
a very early age when her father dies and she
becomes co ruler of Egypt, when she marries her brother
or one of the many Ptolemy's, which this actually happens
a few times more than one brother athrough our brother
(01:54):
husband at various readers will be happy to know. None
of her children are fathered by her brother, and she
was supposed to share power, but I don't think that
really ended up happening because Cleopatra very much liked her
own way, and she was much older than her brother too.
She was a teenager when she assumed the throne. Her
brother was under ten I think he was young. So
(02:15):
she and this brother end up having a falling out.
She's exiled and has to leave Egypt, and she wants
to come back and face her brother and regain her throne.
And that's when she realizes that a certain man may
be able to help her. A Roman ally by the
name of Julius Caesar, and according to legend, Cleopatra shows
up at Caesar's rolled up in a Persian carpet and
(02:37):
has a servant unroll it when she appears at the
end like tada to grand effect, which she turns out
to be very good at and Caesar's smitten he is,
and this gets Cleopatra's some much needed help and they
eventually become lovers, which leads to the birth of Cleopatra's
first child, Ptolemy Caesar, who is believed to be the
(03:00):
son of Caesar, although Caesar never actually recognized him himself.
That Cleopatra does, and she tells everyone that it's Caesar's
son and celebrates his birth and has him put on
a coin. Yeah, and she she puts him on a
coin with her representing heredity, and her son is the
infant Arrows. And it's no small matter that she's recognizing
(03:23):
her son because after all, he is illegitimate. She's queen. Uh.
Some people see this as bringing shame on the Ptolemy family. Also,
if she plays her cards right, he could be the
one that unites the East and West exactly. Put everything together.
Cleopatra wants Caesarian named Caesar's air, but instead he picks Octavian,
(03:45):
who is his nephew and Caesar is married to at
the time. But Cleopatra ends up going to Rome on
a state visit with her infant son and takes up
residence in Caesar's gardens, and Romans aren't too happy about no,
they hate her. It's luxurious foreign queen living in Caesar's
(04:05):
backyard basically while he's married with her a legitimate son.
They were not thrilled with the idea of Cleipatra at all.
But soon enough Caesar is assassinated and Cleo gets out
of town. It is time to go because all sorts
of skirmishes for power start after Caesar's death, you know,
because he's going to rule now, and the Triumvirate gets
(04:27):
set up. And this is when another man comes into
Cleopatra's life, Mark Antony. So Mark Anthony is initially interested
in what role Cleopatra had in the aftermath of Caesar's death, like, basically,
how did she play her cards? Was shed loyal or
basically Clepatra hadn't done much, she had she had laid
(04:48):
low um So Clepatra knows how to impress these Roman statesmen.
Though it doesn't she, as I put in my notes,
girl knows how to work. It comes to Tarsus to
see Mark Anthony. She's been summoned there, and she is
dressed as Isis and comes in on a barge with
just loads and loads of gifts for him. And Anthony
(05:10):
already fancies himself as the modern Dionysius, so to see
his counterpart, the modern Isis is very exciting for us. Enchanted.
It totally works. So she gets her way and he
recognizes her as an independent monarch, which is more than
she really could have hoped with. Yeah, instead of a
Roman puppet. Essentially, and I think this is your favorite part.
(05:32):
They start a society of inimitable livers, which when I
read that, I kept thinking of the organ, but I
think they mean more like people who live, although I
don't know, judging by the debauchery that they're known for,
livers might be a important component. I just keep reading
about their dinners. They eat everything from peacocks to cranes
(05:53):
and sturgeons, and everyone wore wreaths of flowers, and they
had dancing girls, and it just sounds completely ridiculous in
one derful way. Yeah, this is probably a cult dedicated
to Dionysus. But during this exciting time they have together,
they also conceived twins, Alexander Helias and Cleopatra Selini. But
(06:15):
Antony is also married let us add a few times
during times um and by the time the twins are born,
he's actually returned to Italy. His wife has died, but
he's married in this political alliance to octavian sister Octavia
Um and they settle in Athens. But meanwhile things with
(06:36):
the Triumvirate start to crumble, and this political marriage, while
it holds things together for a little while, Octavia actually
mediates a dispute between her brother and Anthony. Eventually, Anthony
realizes things are not going to work with Octavian and
consequently there's no reason to stay with his sister then,
(06:59):
so he heads back to the East and has another
child with Cleopatra Ptolemy Philadelphis, so they have three together now.
And after a big success in Armenia, Anthony, instead of
going home to Rome, heads to Alexandria, which was unusual.
Normally you would go back to Rome and have the
big triumphant dinner and he's possibly dressed as Dionysius. This
(07:22):
is somewhat iffy with historians, and they staged something called
the Donations of Alexandria, which is even more scandalous than
the Triumph in Alexandria. So on a platform of silver,
Anthony and Cleopatra sit on golden thrones. Cleopatra dressed as
Ices a lot of times. She didn't dress in Egyptian clothing.
(07:44):
She dressed um in Greek styles or Roman styles, whatever
the she she knew, she knew how to dress the part.
Basically hadgeantryat had for this. She goes for this incarnation
of Isis, and the kids are all seated on the
stage in little, tiny thrones, and uh Antony declares Ptolemy Caesar,
(08:06):
Cleopatra's older son, by Caesar as a legitimate son, which
is obviously bad news for Octavian if people are going
to accept this, If Caesar has a legitimate son, what's
Octavian doing exactly? Then he's a you surper. And he
goes ahead and gives some lands to his own children.
(08:26):
Alexander Helius is dressed as a Medean king. And remember
these are little, tiny kids, but they're all under the
age of ten I think, yeah, definitely. He's proclaimed a
great king of Armenia and all of the eastern provinces
of Alexander, the greats Empire that might be recovered as
far as India. So these are lands, they they're not
(08:48):
their lands to give basically. And Ptolemy Philadelphis is dressed
as a Macedonian king. He's proclaimed king of Syria and
Asia Minor. He's just a few years old. He's too,
I don't even know. It must have been a golden
year period or something. Cleopatra's Celini is proclaimed Queen of Saraka.
(09:10):
So this is huge and very scandalous too. Not only
is he giving away land to all of these teeny
tiny little children and stuff that doesn't even necessarily belong
to him at all, and it's not even happening in Rome,
so it starts some fishers in his public image. And
Anthony divorces Octavia around this time too, which could make
(09:33):
room for a legitimate alliance between him and Cleopatra. So
Octavian is it's time for him to act and really
do something about Antony and Cleopatra. So he finds a
will uh you know, who knows, maybe maybe a legit
will maybe not, but he says he gets from the
Vestal Virgins to turn public opinion and says that, oh
(09:58):
my gosh, you know, look what Mark Anthony wants to do.
He wants to transfer our capital from Rome to Alexandria.
He wants to give away our Roman lands to foreigners.
You know, can you believe an upstanding Roman citizen would
do this? But Octavian isn't too big on making a
public conflict with Anthony. He's more interested in going after
the foreign queen Cleopatra. So the Roman Senate declares war
(10:22):
on her in thirty one BC, and this leads to
a naval disaster known as the Battle of Acting m
which I think Candice and Jane talked about in an
earlier podcast. But basically they confront the army, Cleopatra flees
and Anthony follows her, and it's just really did not
work out as planned. To put the things mildly, and then,
(10:43):
as we all know from Shakespeare, we have our romantic
conclusion to their life together. Anthony receives false news that
Cleopatra is dead, falls on his sword and is taken
to her and dies at her retreat. And then she
kills herself with either a snake or poison. No one's
(11:03):
really sure. Early accounts say a snake, but we don't know.
So now we have motherless, fatherless children and what happens
to them. So seventeen year old Ptolemy Caesar is obviously
in a pretty risky position as the heir to the
Ptolemy's now that his mother is dead and his Caesar's
son a huge threat to Octavian. So it's likely that
(11:26):
before Cleopatra's death, he had been sent with his Greek
tutor to escape to baron Icy on the Red Sea coast,
and Octavian's men followed them and killed the boy. We
don't know if the tutor betrayed him or if he
just wasn't a very good guy to escape with, but
either way, the threat to Octavian has been eliminated, or
(11:47):
at least his biggest threat. The other three kids, Cleopatra's
and mark Antony's kids, are sent to Italy and they're
raised by Octavia, which seems rather awkward, but she actually
takes in a lot out of Anthony's wives children and
raises them along with her own. And this is Sarah's very,
very favorite part of the entire story. Cleopatra Selini gets
(12:11):
married to Juba too, which we think is a really
fantastic name, and I'm saving that up for my own
future children. Maybe Juba three, I don't know. So we
don't quite know what happens to the boys, Tommy Philadelphis
and Alexander Helias. Uh. There aren't any records documenting marriages,
military services, disappear, death, so it's likely that they didn't
(12:33):
make it to adulthood, but they probably did go with
their sister, Cleopatra Selini and Jubetu upon her marriage, and
Jubetu was king of Numidia which is now Algeria and
Tunisia in Mauritania, which is Morocco and Algeria. And interestingly enough,
(12:54):
he was also this sort of sad little orphan paraded
through Rome as a kid like his his wife big
humper yeah um, but had gotten a Roman education and
was in good with Octavianum, which helped his politics, because Harry,
if you're in with Octavia and you're good. And Cleopatra Selini,
(13:15):
Sarah was saying, like a true Macedonian queen has a
lot of influence on what he does. We're actually going
to take it one generation further to carry out this
full line of Ptolemy's, so Cleopatra Seleni and Jubet to
have a son together, Ptolemy of Mauritania, and after a
good Roman education, he ends up ruling jointly with his
(13:39):
father until the father dies, and then he is the
sole ruler of Mauritania and a client king of Rome,
a very loyal one at that, and so everything seems
to be going pretty well for him until about forty
a d. When he's invited to Rome by the Emperor Caligula,
which don't take Caligula's invitation, so he's received well, this
(14:02):
isn't like a scary visit, like come see me in Rome.
It's it's a good thing. So everything's going well until
they go to a gladiatorial match together and Ptolemy comes
in in this really flashy purple cloak and it seems
like the crowd really likes it, and Caligula is super
jealous and has him executed on his way home. Uh
(14:27):
it's this is according to the Roman historian sweet Tonias,
So we don't know for sure. Coligulative, I don't know.
It doesn't sound sound that unlikely. It sounds a lot
like something. But we should also say that Tommy had
a lot of money, and it might have been more
about that Caligula might have just wanted his money. But
(14:47):
anyway you cut it, that's the end of the dynasty
of the Ptolemy's and Cleopatra. So I don't know. Maybe
that's why people have to say they're a reincarnation of Cleopatra.
Now you can't say you're a descendant. Well exactly. The
reader who sent that in Molly was wondering if there
were any of her descendants still alive today, like anyone
descended from the lineage of Cleopatra, And I'm going to
(15:08):
say the Ptolemy's they died out with Ptolemy of Mauritania.
So if you'd like to learn more about Cleopatra, come
check out our article did Cleopatra really Lose the Battle
of Actam? And check out our blog while you're there
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