Monday, August 6, 2007

Cleopatra VII (69-30 BCE)

Sierra Club

Quotation

Fool! Don't you see now that I could have poisoned you a hundred times had I been able to live without you. - from Pliny the Elder

Books

Please browse our Amazon list of titles about Cleopatra VII. For rare and hard to find works we recommend our Alibris list of titles about Cleopatra VII.

AlibrisResearch

COPAC UK: Cleopatra
Library of Canada: Cleopatra
Library of Congress: Cleopatra
Other Library Catalogs: Cleopatra

Biographical

Cleopatra VII (69 BC - 30 BC) was pharaoh of ancient Egypt. Cleopatra's life has formed the basis for several literary works including the plays Antony and Cleopatra by Shakespeare, All for Love by the English dramatist John Dryden, and Caesar and Cleopatra by George Bernard Shaw. She was the last member of the Ptolemaic dynasty to rule ancient Egypt. Cleopatra VII took the throne alone at the death of her father, Ptolemy XII of Egypt Auletes in 51 B.C. She was subsequently co-ruler with two of her brothers, Ptolemy XIII of Egypt, who opposed the Roman domination, and Ptolemy XIV of Egypt (47-45). Cleopatra is reputed to have been the first member of her family in their 300 year reign in Egypt to have learned the Egyptian language.

When Julius Caesar captured Egypt in 47 B.C., she preserved her own political advantage by becoming his mistress, and named a son Caesarion, a Greek form of Caesar's name. Caesar never legally recognized the child. She visited Rome between 46 and 44. In 41 B.C. she sought out an alliance with Mark Antony, who was ruling the eastern Mediterranean possessions of the Romans. She had at least 2 children by him. Cleopatra ruled Egypt as "queen of kings", installing Caesarion as "king of kings" in Cyprus. Her sons by Antony were assigned titles as king east of the Euphrates and west of the Euphrates. She committed suicide as Octavian (the future Augustus) captured Alexandria in August of 30 B.C. [This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License and uses material adapted in whole or in part from the Wikipedia article on Cleopatra VII.]

Books from Alibris: Cleopatra

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow,that is a good saying. I hope you put more!

Anonymous said...

From what play or history does the quote come? Anthony & Cleopatra?

Anonymous said...

from Pliny the Elder

Anonymous said...

I'm more than skeptical of your above work as you fail to list proper references, other than Wikipedia. Please note that Alibris is not a reference.

Wikipedia is a Web 2.0 application, allowing its information to be easily manipulated by anyone; therefore, making it a non-worthy/dependable site to seek factual information. Both the trained and untrained hand can add information to such site.

I'm higly intrigued by this subject; however, without concrete references, your information is uncredible.

Russell McNeil said...

You are right to question any and all sources of information on the web. Please note that Alibris is not noted here as a reference. However if you follow the Wikipedia link in the article you will find forty-one references that would offer you an excellent starting place for more thorough research. These range from Josephus and Cassio Dio to Virgil, Horace and Plutarch.

In most cases, this site is not intended as anything other than a starting place for research and the best research is available through the library links provided on each page above the brief biographies. In this case there are Cleopatra related links to COPAC UK, the Library of Congress, the Library of Canada, and to a list of major research libraries throughout the world.

Russell McNeil said...

When you follow the library links you will need to wait for a few moments (10-15 seconds) for the library retrievals to load - these are NOT stored as web resources. The Alibris search box above the library records is offered as a convenience for those who wish to search for titles located from the library retrievals.