Betwixt The Sheets: The History of Sex, Scandal & Society - The Real Cleopatra

Episode Date: August 13, 2024

Cleopatra. One of the most famous people from history, and remembered for her beauty, power and scandalous love affairs. But how accurate is her legacy?Did you know she married not one, but two of her brothers? Or that she could speak eight languages? Or that she lived closer to the invention of the iPhone, than the construction of the pyramids (what?!).Egyptologist Sarah Parcak joins Kate to get to the bottom of who the REAL Cleopatra was.Mixer: Tomos Delargy. Producer: Stuart Beckwith. Senior Producer: Charlotte LongEnjoy unlimited access to award-winning original documentaries that are released weekly and AD-FREE podcasts. Sign here for up to 50% for 3 months using code BETWIXTYou can take part in our listener survey here.Betwixt the Sheets: History of Sex, Scandal & Society is a History Hit podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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We will be ever so grateful. Thank you so much. And for the rest of you, on with the show. Cleopatra has to be one of the most iconic and, by all accounts, charismatic women in the whole of history. So to witness her wedding as an 18-year-old woman must have been quite a sight. Her wedding too, let me just check my notes here, her 10-year-old brother. I don't know if they had Hello magazine around at the time,

but I guess this would have been on the front pages. Her brother, oh my God. Sibling rivalries are fractious at the best of times, because you even imagine having to marry your sibling. My God, it doesn't even bear thinking about. I wouldn't have thought that this was ideal grounds for a successful marriage, not by any stretch of the imagination. And even by its own measures of fortifying the Ptolemaic

dynasty. It's one that ended in civil war and murder. As first marriages go, Cleo was off to a flying start. But if you were thinking that marrying your brother would have been the most back-crap crazy thing that this woman would do, then you would be sorely wrong. She was only just getting going. Let's find out. Hello and welcome back to Betwixt the Sheets, the history of sex scandal in society with me, Kate Lister. It's always important to give some historical context when we are diving into the past. So you get some perspective for the time and cultures that we are talking about. And when you're dealing with ancient Egypt, particularly Cleopatra, there's a popular way of setting her in time that you might have heard of. Did you know that she was born in 69 BC closer to the

invention of the iPhone than to the building of the great pyramids? All right, that one is pretty wild. But who was the real Cleopatra behind the myths? Why did she get into bed with those Roman bad boys, Julia Caesar and Mark Anthony. Not at the same time, I haste twad, at least not as far as we know. And what was it that led to her ultimate downfall? Joining me today is a returning guest, archaeologist, and Egyptologist Sarah Parkak, to help us get to know one of history's most iconic women a little bit better. She has also been on our podcast to talk about sex and incest in ancient Egypt, so scroll back to give that one a listen if you fancy. And if you ever wonder what Cleopatra smelt like, then you can listen to our episode on perfumes of powerful women

to find out how she and other historical women, such as Jane Austen, might have smelt. I am ready to do this one if you are. Hello and welcome back to Betwigs the Sheets. It's only Sarah Parkak. How are you doing? Hey, I'm so happy to be here. I'm great. I'm so pleased that you're back. You were so much fun last time. And of course we have to get you back to talk about the one, the only, the legendary Cleopatra.

I'm so excited. So my name, my email name as an undergraduate was Cleopatra. And when I played football for my college at Cambridge, I had Cleopatra on the back of my football jersey. So I'm just a little bit obsessed. So you're a super fan. Big time. Hashtag, biggest fan ever. She is one of the big headliners of ancient Egyptian history. I mean, even if you know nothing about ancient Egypt, the odds are that you know.

that name, maybe even the most enduring name from ancient Egypt. She is. And kind of a fact that tends to blow everyone's minds when I share it, do you know that we are closer in time to the age of Cleopatra than she was to the great pyramids of Giza? So just to give you a sense of time and scale, she's more modern compared to the ancient Egyptians. So when she was around and I'm calling her an ancient Egyptian, there was. was already in ancient Egypt. It was pretty ancient. A very ancient. But so we can get to that later in the episode, but what she did in her life and how she understood her place in history, I think more than nearly any other historical figure, she understood the importance of what she could do

to make Egypt last. And the sacrifices she made and the choices she made and how she gamed out Her life was mind-blowing. She understood how history would work, and she did exactly what she wanted to do, the fact that, to your point, she is the most well-known ancient Egyptian personality, even 2,000-plus years later speaks to the role she served. So she is one of the more modern of the ancients,

but put it into context to me, had there been other women pharaohs? I don't know. I kind of think if she was the original. original, but she might not have been. So the other one that's really well known, of course, is Hatshepsut. With the beard. With the beard. With the beard, you know, from, of course, over a thousand years before Cleopatra. And, you know, she gets kind of badly treated. She was a really interesting person. Of course, she came to power in a complicated time. There's

the famous Punt expedition where you have a whole temple at Daryl Bacri and Luxor that were these huge massive wall reliefs talking about it. So she tends to be the other one that's really, really well known. And I think she was a pretty good pharaoh. And there were earlier females who ruled. There's one from the old kingdom. So yeah, Cleopatra certainly wasn't the first, but definitely, of course, the one that we know the best.

Okay, so let's start right at the beginning. Let's start with Cleopatra's origin story. What was her family? When was she born? What kind of world was she born into? So the first point that a lot of people don't know, everyone thinks, okay, Cleopatra, she's Cleopatra. She was Cleopatra the seventh.

Whoa. There were a lot of Cleopatra's before her. What happened to the others? They, sorted, you know, married to earlier kings, princesses, daughters. So these are royal Cleopatra's. Royal princesses, right, okay. So Cleopatra, the time of Cleopatra was a, kind of a turning point in ancient Egyptian history because for, you know, roughly 300 years, you have the Ptolemaic dynasty.

Okay. And the Ptolemies came into power because Ptolemy, the first, was one of Alexander the greats generals, and he took over Egypt and started this dynasty. And compared to the earlier ancient Egyptian kings, you know, the Ptolemy's were Greek, very, very Greek, very distinct. You could see it in their art, their architecture, the language, religion. And yet, they also, even though they themselves, until Cleopatra, wouldn't have considered themselves Egyptian, they certainly built many temples,

monuments. So they did what they had to do to kind of get the buy-in of the Egyptian people because they had a kingdom to run. They had a bureaucracy to run. So Cleopatra comes to power or is born in the later, part of the Ptolemaic dynasty. Her father, and actually all the Ptolemys, all the Ptolemys were just nasty pieces of work for the most part. I was just about to ask you, were they a good dynasty? No. So the Ptolemy's were corrupt, evil, debauched, drunk, just not a nice time. I feel like

someone should come up with a Ptolemy rhyme, kind of like the divorce-beheaded died thing for Henry the eighth. Murdered, drunk, debauched. Entombed alive. Yeah, I mean, just not a nice group of people. But Cleopatra, I think, was sort of the apple of her father's eye. And she being brought up in the court, which at the time was, of course, in Alexandria, the capital of the Ptolemies, I think from a very, very young age, it was clear that she was a

very clever child. I mean, right, we all know you can, you can pick out kids that are curious and smart and interested in everything. And again, we don't know this exactly, right? There's no text that say, yes, she could, from the age of two, she picked up a scroll and started reading with. We don't, we don't know that about her. But what we do know is that she was tutored within the sort of academic system existing at the time. So the university of the time, she would have had training in languages and philosophy in math. And she absorbed at all. She was clearly quite brilliant.

And that much we know from later on. So, you know, certainly she was fascinated with politics, with history, and with language. When was she born? What year are we talking about here? So this is the very end of what we consider to be ancient Egyptian civilization. So 69, 68, 69 BC. and debated as to exactly when she's born. So we don't necessarily know her sign.

But who knows, who knows what she might be? What would Cleopatra be? Scorpio, I reckon. Scorpio. I don't know. I'm a Sagittarius. Like, I'm very, to fire sign, good leadership. Oh, she would be fiery, wouldn't she?

Absolutely. But whatever star sign she was, I don't imagine Cleopatra as a teenage girl sitting around reading ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs about what your horoscope said that week. She sounds much more like she was absorbing the world around it. And she sounds like she was born into quite a dangerous world. Because I was reading about, he said, Caligula the other day. And like, he never stood a chance of ending up like a normal person.

Because he was just around bastards the entire time. What was Cleopatra's childhood like? So she's well educated. But is this a group of family where people die a lot in, suspicious circumstances. So the time of Cleopatra, her father was Ptolemy the 12th, right? There had been a lot of other Ptolemy's before her.

It was like the Game of Thrones, but real. Really? Like when we, I remember watching Game of Thrones, I'm like, this is like the Ptolemaic period. It's the same thing. Deception, power grabs, maneuverings, machinations, incest, behind the scenes, everyone's trying to get a step up.

Because of not just within Egypt, but what's going on in the wider world, which I know we'll get to, all the power challenges. I think because she would have been recognized as a clever child, and they certainly didn't have any issues with women being educated. You know, she's in the court. You don't want a daft prince or princess, right? Regardless, regardless of whether or not they become king or queen, they are going to be interacting with emissaries, from foreign lands, there's a chance that certainly a daughter could potentially be married off to a foreign king or have a princess join and marry an Egyptian prince. So you're going to have to be educated. And what's debated within Egyptology is, you know, why does this very Greek girl

know ancient Egyptian? Because she not only knows ancient Egyptian and hieroglyphs, but she is deeply immersed in ancient Egyptian religious, religious practices, and worship. And what has been suggested by Egyptologists, and again, we'll never know for sure unless, you know, a document appears, it's suggested that her mother could have been ancient Egyptian. Oh, plot twist. Yes. So either an, maybe an aunt, maybe a grandmother, but I, she's raised in, this language. She knows it like we know English. And the ancient Egyptians, or at least the Egyptians

of the time, accept her as Egyptian. She clearly feels Egyptian. She fully identifies as someone who is from Egypt. And I know we have all these debates and discussions right now about ethnicity and belonging and immigrants, which is outside the scope of this conversation. But we see a lot of that playing out during the Tolmaic period. You know, who are the elites, who's getting the chance to have business opportunities, who are the leaders in all of these communities? And Cleo is beloved by the people because they see her as one of them, even though she clearly is elite. That's smart. She might well have been really interested in the history, in the culture and everything, but also any great political leader needs the love of the people. So the fact that she was

cultivating that when the rest of the dynasty weren't, that sounds pretty smart to me. She's much more clever about it. Now, certainly, you know, we know from the temples, these beautiful, beautiful temples from the Ptolemaic period. So they're located, I mean, they're all over Egypt, but the most well-known ones, you have, you know, Esna and Edfu, which is the most well-preserved temple from ancient Egypt. We have the temple of Phile. We have parts of Karnak. We certainly know that the Tommies are participating in rituals. They're making offerings. They're doing what they have to do. But it feels more like, yeah, yeah, okay, let's get on with it. They're not embodying the spirit. Throw the dog a bone. Yeah. Whereas Cleopatra is the living

Isis. That was her entire vibe. She was a goddess. She felt like a goddess. I mean, I liken her. you're like if you want to know what she would have been like, her presence, her identity, her passion and the way people saw her as elevated, Beyonce. Beyonce. Just she is otherworldly. She is a goddess. She is. Bootylicious.

She's a genius. Her creativeness clearly comes from another world because she exists on a plane that the rest of us can only gaze at. To me, that's Cleopatra. I'm really interested in the fact that you said, that the Egyptians were quite happy, in fact, encouraged women to be educated to quite a high standard, it would seem.

But they were also quite binary in their understandings of gender. And one of the things they seem to have been pretty keen on is that girls should not be pharaohs unless there is absolutely no other option. We've exhausted everyone else with a penis first. So how did this Greek girl who really likes the Egyptian culture,

sees herself as a goddess, and was seventh of the Cleopatra's, how does she end up being Pharaoh? How does that happen? So Cleopatra was unique. Certainly we know of other instances throughout ancient Egyptian history where women were literate,

but it would have only been, you know, a teeny tiny percentage of the, whatever, four to five to six percent of the population that's estimated to know how to read and write. And she's put loads of languages as well, didn't she? Yeah, eight languages. Eight? Eight.

Eight. I didn't even get past, G-C-S-E German. Eight languages. Yeah, amazing. That's why I'm not a queen, though. Yeah, well, I think you're your own queen, Kate. I think let's acknowledge that. Thank you.

My mother has pictures of me eating dirt as a child, so I don't know if I was particularly gifted. But, you know, I'm doing my own thing. I dig dirt for a living, so I mean, fair. So, in growing up in the court of the king, and growing up in the palaces of Alexandria, you know, having access to the library. And, you know, think of like Cambridge, Oxford, Harvard, Yale, all the great scholars,

they would have been at the university in Alexandria. They would have been at the library. That had the collective knowledge of the world in one place. People would come from all over the known world to study there. So that was her, she would have had access to all of these brilliant minds. And she wanted, she craved all of this knowledge. She wasn't just interested in. language and history. She knew a great deal about medicine, about poison, which of course we're going to talk about later on. And I think she started to see all of the issues and problems going on between Egypt and Rome, because Rome, their power was expanding. This guy, Julius Caesar, was conquering, he was consolidating power, and of course, Rome wanted Egypt to pay massive tributes.

And she could see the writing on the, being Asian Egyptian, she could see the writing on the wall. She could see where things were going. Hey, see what I did there. So I think she became very aware of what she would need to do. And I think from, again, we don't know this, but this is my sense from having read about her and understanding the world in which she lived and who she was as a person. I think she knew from a very young age what she would need to do to at least try to save Egypt, to try to keep Egypt independent from Rome. And her goal became different later, which we'll talk about. But I think so she understood she knew she had this dingbat brother, Ptolemy the 13th. And I don't know, to me he just is a whiny.

brat. Younger brother? Younger brother. Younger, okay. And she just knew that he couldn't handle ruling. And so, so there was one Ptolemy the 13th and then he got killed and then another brother became Ptolemy the 13th. This is what happens all the time in the Ptolemaic period. So she waited. She had a power play. You know, we'll talk about what she did when she met Julia Caesar, but I think she knew. She knew she had to take control. She married the ding-backer. brother, didn't she? But no one saw that come in. So the dingbat brother is killed and there's another brother that that is made totally the 13th. But to your point about incest and marriage, first of all,

there were a lot of symbolic marriages for ancient Egyptian royal families. And in some instances, we know that the marriages were consummated and there were children because genetic testing has been done. or we have textual records that indicate, you know, yes, this child is the child of these two people who are brother and sister. I think that Cleopatra's marriage to her brother was symbolic. I don't think it was real. Why do you say this? So first of all, like in any powerful family, any ruling family, a powerful female child's virginity is essential. because, of course, it's all about bloodlines.

And I think her power, who she was, her family would have recognized this, that this child has great potential. And I think she would have got along with a marriage to be like, okay, I get it. It's the Isis Osiris Smith. We have to let it play out. But, you know, first of all, the question is, what's the age of the brother?

You know, if he's a kid, like, that's just not going to happen. not if he's under 14, 15 years old. And secondly, you know, it's a question of what would she have done to protect her own virginity? And I hate, like, I don't mean to demean her in talking about sexuality. But she knew that because she was the living goddess Isis, she needed to marry someone like an Osiris, or at least be with someone powerful because her child would be the next ruler of Egypt. she would have been certain of this. So I don't think the marriage was consummated. So it was kind of like a way of like almost keeping her safe. Safe's not the right word, but

more symbolic, more because it had been done before. Yeah. It was part of the tradition of ancient Egypt. And so in some cases, yes, there was sex. In some cases there wasn't. And I think in her case, it was more like an hour like, all right, we're going to get married, kind of like a play marriage. Okay. I'll be back with Sarah and Cleopatra after this short break. So let's get on to some of Cleo's love affairs, because that is one of the things that she is very, very well known for, perhaps unfairly when you consider what else she was up to.

Her sex life is probably not the most interested thing about her, but it certainly impacted world history. So how did she meet Julius Caesar? Were they just swiping left and right on papyrus tinder? Did he find her on for only? fans. She was totally beyond only fans as well.

So long story short, Julie Caesar was in Egypt. There had been this battle and without kind of going into too many details, Cleopatra of course would have understood who Julius Caesar was. She would have known his power, known his influence and certainly would have

heard about his conquest. He did have quite a reputation as a ladies man. Oh, he did, didn't he? He really did. Mm-hmm. Or a person's person, shall we say, not just a ladies' man. Yes, not just a lady's man. Just in everybody's everybody. Brilliant man, great shape, super fit. To me, I don't know, every time I see his image, I think of Patrick Stewart, right? That beautiful, shizzled face, balding, grand, that sort of presence. So she knew she had to get, in front of him to plead Egypt's case because he's the guy that's going to have the keys to the

kingdom. And so she gets smuggled into the room where he is. And she gets one of her confidence to do it. And I don't know if she was actually smuggled in a rug, but probably in some kind of weaving or tapestry. That kind of rings true. And And lo and behold, she emerges in front of him. And they didn't immediately fall into bed. That's not how that probably worked. Well, that could have been a slightly awkward meeting, couldn't it? Is if you've just wrapped yourself up in a tapestry and then the other person doesn't

quite get what you're doing, it must just be a bit like, oh, okay, hello. But he, of course, would have known a lot about her. And I think it's a sizing up, right? he's going, okay, this young upstart, who is she? And the second she opened her mouth, he would have known, holy smokes, who is this? Like, she may be a young woman, barely of age, and yet she's carrying herself with such confidence.

She's speaking about politics like a diplomat. And she is telling him what Egypt needs. And she's stunning. and she's fit and of course she's wearing probably a very tight dress and lots of perfume. She knew what she was doing. And he knew she knew what she was doing. And here's this guy who's very hunky and also brilliant. And yes, 30 years older.

And yes, there's clearly a whole lot of daddy issues that are being expressed. To be honest, I think that's probably the least of their worries. If you just married your brother, the fact that your next conquest is 30 years. years older than years, pretty small potatoes, I think, really. But they would have been very well matched. And, you know, everyone, you know, later on, she gets maligned as this whore, first Julius Caesar and then Mark Antony. But she wasn't like that. She was particular with, I mean, that was it for her. Julius Caesar and Mark Antony were it, as far as we know. And I think she initially was very calculating and figured, all right, if I can get this guy into bed, chances are pretty good. I'm

to get pregnant. But I think they fell hard for each other. That much is clear. You think that they really loved each other? I do. I think he admired and respected her. I think he mentored her. I think, you know, obviously he's got all this knowledge from his conquest, from running Rome, all the machinations of it. And she sees the way she is. He sees her languages. He sees her knowledge of history and philosophy. So she was a willing student, I think, in all the lot of ways, and they deeply connected. So that was it. They're together, and soon they're taking this great trip up the Nile, and by this point, she's pregnant. And they were both married, weren't they? Caesar was married. His poor old missus was at home, just, you know, hoping that

everything's going well on his trip to Egypt. And Cleopatra was also married. Well, I mean, married in quotes. But yeah, for Caesar, you know, word would have filtered back, I think, pretty quickly that he's taken up with this Egyptian, Pharaoh, even though, yes, she's Greek, but she's really Egyptian. But he was having the time of his life, you know, this gorgeous younger woman, restores his virility, reinforces his power, his strength, and he's learning about Egypt. They're going up the Nile. She's telling him how Egypt works. And I think he's deeply impressed to really see Egypt. firsthand. I mean, you think the first time any of us go to Egypt and sail up the Nile and understand,

and we make that connection between why ancient Egypt lasted for as long as it did, and you see the Nile and you see the field, you're like, oh, I get it. I get how this place works. He would have seen that, and he would have seen it through her. And I think he would have fallen in love with her more, you know, seeing her talk about the religion and the culture and the geography and the history. I think he was quite smitten. And he took it back to Rome as well. And he took her back to Rome as well. didn't it, which is a bold move when you were a married man, and the people that you rule over are quite distrustful of the Egyptians. They don't think, they think of Egypt as a kind of, sort of an effeminate place where people do strange things. It was this other place,

and weird and strange and uncivilized and barbarian. They did not think highly of ancient Egypt. But what's interesting is this glamorous princess, and then ultimately queen, goes back to Rome. And the goddess Isis, right? She is the living embodiment, the spirit of the goddess Isis. Everyone starts wearing Isis jewelry. Everyone starts doing their hair like her. We see this growth and popularity of the goddess Isis, which of course makes everyone mad because she has such great cultural influence. So to me, Cleopatra is so modern in

so many ways that we wouldn't think of. There are all these things that happen today with popularity, with power, with how women are perceived in society, and we see that with her 2000 years ago. I think she's our first really modern politician. And I

think one of our first really modern famous people. She has this glamour about her, whether she's like a Marilyn Monroe or a Bayonet, she's super, super popular. People really like her. It doesn't last for her, though, in Rome, does she? Because one of the things I only learned quite recently is that she was actually in Rome hanging out at Caesar's house when he was bumped off, which must have been a pretty mad scramble for fuck, what are we going to do now?

Right. And at this point, she's got Caesarian. The little boy. Which, yeah, little boy, Caesar's Caesarian. I mean, everyone knows because he looks just like his father. mother and she's there and he's sort of keeping her at arms distance but she's charming everybody his wife is furious but what you're going to do it's what your husband does what are you going to do and the fact that he doesn't see it coming he doesn't hear he puts his trust in the wrong people and she has got to get the heck out of dodge she sneaks out in the middle of the night I mean we don't again we don't know for sure but we can guess it'd be a hasty exit wouldn't Yeah. And the grief, I can't imagine. She thinks she's in Rome and it's going to be fine and she's going to be accepted. And then this man with whom you have a child is murdered, very unexpectedly. Like Dorothy Parker said, don't put all your eggs in one bastard. And that's what Cleopatra did. She did. And so she's waves of grief, but she's like, I could be next. And the son as well, because if they've just bumped off Caesar, there must have been people go, well, if that's his son,

You know, he's in the firing line, surely. Yeah, no, and she would have known. And so she left, and, you know, Roma's in chaos. No one knows what's going on. Who's going to end up in charge? And she gets out in time, and she gets back to Egypt. So there she is. She's in Egypt.

She's queen. She has Caesar's son. And then the winds change. Where does Mark Anthony come from then? Have they met before? Does he turn up in Egypt? So I'm pretty sure they would have met, you know, they would have met in Rome. Because, of course, he was a general, he was very popular, he was close to Caesar, he was a party boy.

Nothing salacious seems to have happened. She was pretty devoted to Julius Caesar. But I think they definitely would have known each other. And, you know, good looking guy, beautiful woman, nice to meet you, friendly chet-chat. So she would have been very aware of him, who he was, what he was doing. And back in Egypt, you know, she knows that with Octavian taking control, with Rome being far more interested in taking over Egypt, she had to try to do something to protect Egypt from the Roman Empire.

Do you think she set out for a sexual alliance with Mark Anthony? I just think that was just a perk. I think when they met, I think she kind of knew. But, you know, here's this guy, this sort of rough and tumble, general, a bit of a ladies' man. She has a type then. Yeah, a type. I mean, he's a hymbo, total hymbo. And so she, of course, would have known this.

And yet, he's gorgeous, totally different than Caesar. Mark Antony is sort of like your bad frat boy, naughty. I'm with you. A little buff. And yet, they're a similar age. They enjoy having a good time together. And they really like each other a lot. I think her relationship with Caesar was very loving and very deep and very respectful.

But she and Mark Antony ended up falling head over heels in love. Very unexpectedly. I mean, he went to war. for her, didn't he? He did. I mean, that's, is that love? Yeah, I'd say that that's love if you're willing to break with your home nation and go to war with somebody. I mean, it's got to be, you know, quite close to love. You know, I think there was a lot of lust as well. A lot, a lot of lust. You know, he's this buff, good-looking guy, and she's a gorgeous queen. I mean, I do think,

sort of similar to Julius Caesar, you know, again, when she boards his boat, you know, she's beautiful, she's wearing perfumes again, she's dressed in a certain way, but he knows how to play it. And he knows that with the winds changing in Rome, with Caesar not being in power with Octavian coming to power, he's got to do what he can to try to maintain power, try to maintain control. And Octavian does not like Mark Antony. You know, Octavian, to me, is just very whiny and obnoxious and not powerful at all. And he wants to be. He wants to very much, pick me, pick me. And he's sniveling. He's just, he's total Slytherin. And here's Mark Antony, this beloved hero, right? He wins battles. Yeah, Hufflepah, total Hufflepuff. Buff guy, good looking,

and Octavian is very jealous. And so he hears that Mark Antony has taken up with Leopatra. and is furious. He tells him, drop this nonsense right now and come home. You're Roman. Get away from this whore. And Mark Anthony is like, yeah, no, actually. Not doing it. No, thanks. Not doing it. She's a mega babe, it would seem, certainly enough to keep him captivated. There's a war and it doesn't go well for Cleo and Anthony. It all kind of comes crashing down. But I think one of the most mythologized aspects of Cleopatra's life has got to be her. death, which has been encapsulated in many paintings and stories and Shakespeare. Could you unpick for me what is true about that? Is the snake thing true?

So we'll back up a little bit. So yeah, I've missed out the entire war and I've just gone for snake. So what happens is it's a big battle, right? Rome and Egypt are battling. And Rome has, of course, supremacy with their navy, with supply lines. And then, there's this actually brand new theory that's just come out, which I buy. So a volcano erupted in Alaska. I'm going to sound like I'm wearing a tinfoil hat for a second, but this is published in top peer-reviewed journals. So a study has come out looking at ice cores, and this volcano and the extent and scale of the eruption seems to have had a pretty significant impact on global weather patterns. And for years and years during Cleopatra's rule,

there were problems with drought, which was connected, of course, to the Nile and flooding. But one of the main issues, one of the main reasons that Rome was able to prevail is that for the winter and the year before, tens of thousands of Cleopatra and Mark Antony's troops died of starvation and disease. Oh, I see. Okay. And so it's possible that through coincidence, right, these events happen, they couldn't supply their troops. They were weak. There was a lot of defection, corruption. Crops failed. Crops failed. And all of that, maybe wasn't the reason. Maybe Rome would have prevailed ultimately, but all of that contributed to them ultimately losing at the battle of Actium. They were vastly outmanned, you know, there was a switcheroo, there was corruption. And so Cleopatra and Mark Antony

hightailed it back to Egypt with a boat that had, of course, all of had the treasury in it. And Octavian and Roman troops, they wanted it. So they followed them back. And Mark Antony, of course, he's dying and Cleopatra at this point Octavian is in Rome and he captures Cleopatra and he wants nothing more than to take Cleopatra back to Rome for a tribute right and Cleopatra would have seen this as a child you know she knew what happened with leaders of countries that were taken back to and they would have put in chains and dragged through the streets and she's like not me that is not going to happened to me, but to solidify his power, Octavian needed to do this. So Cleopatra lies to him, I think. And this is kind of what historians generally believe, although I'm sure I'm going to get

angry notes from colleagues. Or like, no, that's not exactly what happened. By the way, Egyptologists and classicists, like we bash heads about Cleopatra, big time. So she basically says to Octavian, look, let me see Mark Antony. Let me go grieve. You know, woe is me. I have to go see him. And I promise you, you can take me back to Rome. And like the slightly gormless, spineless idiot that he is, take that classics people. All Egyptologists hate, we hate Octavian. Ew, he ruined everything. She goes supposedly to go see him.

At this point, she's with her two attendants. And at this point, she realizes, Egypt is lost. Egypt, it's done. the only thing I can do and the most important thing that she would have held from ancient Egypt, the most important thing is to have your name be remembered. That's it. To say a name in a tomb is to bring that person back to life. So she understood at this pivotal point in history that her job was to ensure that she be remembered and thus Egypt be remembered.

That would be it. That was the only route for Egypt's real survival. in the memory of the world. And so even though everyone says, you know, she had an ass and she snuck it into her bedroom and held it to her breast, first of all, like, that's a really yucky way to go. And it's very, very painful. It's not very effective, is it? No, it's not.

So the chances are pretty good that given her knowledge of poisons, you know, she had poison in a hairpin. Yes. And she would have known what poison to give herself so that she would basically fall asleep. and it would have been relatively painless. And that's how she chose to go. And I just have this image of Octavian. Must have been so pissed.

Oh, delicious. Delicious. Because he would have known. And of course, immediately he's like, the horror is dead. Egypt is dead. It's Roman. No one's going to remember her. But she knew what she was doing.

And the irony being, it's because of her that all the early explorers going to Egypt, you know, they would have known their Shakespeare. They would have known their Cleopatra. And she kept the door open. She knew if people are interested in me, if people want to learn more, Egypt may not be there, but it will rise again in its own life. And that's why we know about Egypt today. It was her. A hundred percent, Cleopatra kept the memory of ancient Egypt alive. I credit her with the birth of Egyptology. It's her. So final question, although I could speak to her about Cleopatra for forever and ever. This might not be a very quick one to answer.

Where is Cleopatra's tomb? Where is she buried? So this is also kind of controversial and debated, and I don't want to get into trouble with my Egyptological colleagues. But the chances are she would have been buried with her ancestors, right? With her parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, in the mausoleum, which would have been, you know, within this larger palace complex or adjacent to it, in Alexandria. There's this question, is she buried in this town called Tapasirus Magna?

One of my colleagues has been digging for her there, claims that she's buried there. I wish her luck. Maybe she'll find her someday. Good luck. All the luck in the world. We found Richard the third under a car park. You never know. You never know. You never know. But the reality is Alexandria was her home. She would have been connected to Alexander. She knew that's where she was comfortable.

It's where she'd fallen in love with Caesar. So of course she would have wanted to be buried with her ancestors. So that's where her tomb was and still is to this day. Now, unfortunately, you know, over time because of earthquakes, a huge chunk of ancient Alexandria is beneath. the ocean. Yeah, there's a fortress of Kite Bay, which is standing to this day, and it's been made constructed out of a lot of the blocks that were originally part of the Great Lighthouse of Alexandria. Wow. So in a sense, it's still there, but her tomb is somewhere underwater. It's weird, you know,

being obsessed with Cleopatra, being a total fan girl, but like, I hope she's never found. I know that's weird. I was just going to ask you, would you want her to be found or is it part of the mystery? I don't know if what would have happened to her body if it sunk beneath the waves, but she's long gone and it's better that way. She's there. She's in Egypt. She's still alive. She's in the temple. She's in everyone who comes to Egypt. You know, everyone gets taken to Cleopatra's gate at Karnak. It's just part of the tour. And so her memory lives on. So we don't need to find her. We've already found her.

She exists. She's alive. As alive today, almost not quite, of course, as she was 2,000 years ago. And for the ancient Egyptians, that was their goal, right, to have their name be remembered. She knew it just wasn't her name. She knew that with her came the memory of her ancestors and all the kings and queens before her. Sarah, you have been wonderful to talk to. You always are.

And if people want to know more about you and your work, where can the... I find you. So I have a book that came out a couple years ago called Archaeology from Space, how the future shapes are past, which is about my work with satellite imagery. And I have a book coming out in, I don't know the exact date, probably 2026, called Humanity of Survival Guide, which is a very hopeful look at how we can survive through time. I've easily findable on the internet. I have a Patreon account that supports our archaeological work in Egypt, but there's loads about me on the internet, so I'm easily, easily Googlable, and I don't want to, like, do a hard sell of anything. A lot is out there about me, lots of free lectures and talks from on the internet.

Thank you so much for joining me and to talk about this completely amazing woman. Thank you so much for having me. It's always a pleasure. Thank you for listening. Thank you so much to Sarah for joining me. And if you like what you heard, please don't forget to like review and follow along, whatever it is that you get your podcasts. If you'd like us to explore a subject, or maybe you just wanted to say hello, then you can email us at betwixt at historyhit.com. We've got episodes on everything from medieval life during plague and war to how to be a successful Renaissance woman, all coming your way.

And if this wet your appetite for more ancient stories, then why not check out our sister podcast, The Ancients? This podcast was edited by Tom Delaggy and produced by Stuart Beckwith. The Senior Producer was Charlotte Long. Join me again Betwixt the Sheets, The History of Sex Scandal in Society, a podcast by History Hit. This podcast contains music from Epidemic Sound. sound.