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Cleopatra: Ms. Understood · Stuff You Should Know

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Speaker 1: dot com. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production
0:53
Speaker 1: of Ive Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, and welcome
1:02
Speaker 1: to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant,
1:06
Speaker 1: There's Jerry Jerome rolland over there sitting on Frank the
1:10
Speaker 1: chair was not very happy about that. But still, this
1:14
Speaker 1: is stuff you should know. I thought Jerry's entrance today
1:16
Speaker 1: was unique. Oh yeah, yeah, man. When they when Matt
1:22
Speaker 1: and Tyler brought her end rolled up in a carpet
1:25
Speaker 1: to out on the studio floor and she said fire me.
1:32
Speaker 1: We said, Jerry, we don't have that kind of power.
1:35
Speaker 1: But she just it was amazing. It was almost like
1:37
Speaker 1: playing the whole thing reverse. She rolled herself back up
1:39
Speaker 1: in the carpet in one swift motion. That's right. And
1:42
Speaker 1: if you are a Cleo pat write, then uh you
1:46
Speaker 1: got a little chuckle out of that joke. If not,
1:49
Speaker 1: you're probably thinking that we're on drugs or something. Yeah,
1:53
Speaker 1: I guess you could probably think both, but um, neither
1:56
Speaker 1: is true. What is true is that you're about to
1:59
Speaker 1: be confused for the minutes. That's a great set up, man,
2:04
Speaker 1: We're gonna confuse everybody. Yeah boy, this is good dentse uh.
2:09
Speaker 1: And there are a lot, a lot, a lot of
2:11
Speaker 1: names with the numbers that follow in uh, not triumbrates
2:16
Speaker 1: and not even regular numbers, numbers that are actually letters
2:20
Speaker 1: Roman style. So here we go. This is gonna be good, Chuck. Oh.
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Speaker 1: a lot of fun. And if you have, just come
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Speaker 1: on back and get a second helping of us, yep
3:10
Speaker 1: uh second heapen helping of our hospitality. Now onto Cleopatra.
3:16
Speaker 1: Good call, by the way, good call for for saying
3:19
Speaker 1: all that. Great So Cleopatra, She's one of those historical
3:24
Speaker 1: figures that everybody knows about. But if you stop and
3:26
Speaker 1: ask yourself what do you know about her? And realize
3:29
Speaker 1: you know next to nothing about her. You know, she
3:32
Speaker 1: was amazingly beautiful. She um looked like Liz Taylor. Um
3:38
Speaker 1: she uh, she loved Julius Caesar and maybe Mark Anthony too.
3:44
Speaker 1: And wait a minute, how did she love both? Were?
3:47
Speaker 1: What's going on here? You just realize you get confused
3:49
Speaker 1: pretty quickly. Was she a feminist icon? Was she actually
3:53
Speaker 1: just kind of a uh, a wily woman who used
3:57
Speaker 1: sexuality to get what she wants? Who knows? The problem
4:01
Speaker 1: is this, She's one of those historical figures that we
4:05
Speaker 1: know very little about because historians know very little about her. Like,
4:09
Speaker 1: she was not extensively document as famous as she is,
4:13
Speaker 1: she was not extensively documented by her own people, the Egyptians. Yeah,
4:18
Speaker 1: which is a little strange, because she was beloved by
4:21
Speaker 1: the Egyptians from what we can tell, yea, from what
4:24
Speaker 1: we can tell. But most of the information we have
4:26
Speaker 1: is very Greco Roman, especially this Plutarch chump, well Plutarch
4:34
Speaker 1: actually he was the first to to show any sympathy whatsoever.
4:40
Speaker 1: The guys who came a little before him, they were
4:42
Speaker 1: they were just all out meanings. Because the Romans did
4:46
Speaker 1: not like um Cleopatra in general. They found her um
4:52
Speaker 1: at the very least problematic, and that she kept luring
4:55
Speaker 1: away some of their favorite sons. And then usually of
5:00
Speaker 1: the detriment of Rome or symbolically, the idea if she
5:05
Speaker 1: was a great ruler, as as she seems to have
5:08
Speaker 1: been at least above average, if not like one of
5:12
Speaker 1: the better, better rules around. If there was this woman
5:16
Speaker 1: who was you know, kind of in the public eye
5:18
Speaker 1: and basically in ancient, old timing Roman news all the time,
5:22
Speaker 1: and she was a female who was really good at
5:25
Speaker 1: ruling that was a threat to Rome's established patriarchy, that
5:29
Speaker 1: wasn't supposed to be able to happen. And so Rome
5:31
Speaker 1: came up with all of these popular ideas for why
5:34
Speaker 1: she was able to do that, and usually it came
5:36
Speaker 1: down to sex and or magic um, and that that
5:41
Speaker 1: was how Cleopatra got through. And so over the last
5:44
Speaker 1: couple of thousand years, UM, it's kind of our idea
5:49
Speaker 1: or image of Cleopatra's kind of come up from this
5:52
Speaker 1: this brew Uh seen through Roman eyes, and it's only
5:57
Speaker 1: very recent that people have really kind of started to
6:00
Speaker 1: dig in and try to examine her academically and with
6:04
Speaker 1: what you know, small, meager firsthand sources and accounts exist. Yeah,
6:10
Speaker 1: I mean she ruled ancient Egypt. She was the last pharaoh. Um.
6:15
Speaker 1: She was the first woman sovereign who rule all by
6:19
Speaker 1: herself for more than a decade, which was quite an accomplishment.
6:24
Speaker 1: And um, how she got there is a very long
6:27
Speaker 1: and sort of convoluted story. Yeah. When you think of Egypt, Chuck,
6:31
Speaker 1: we think of like pharaohs and Isis and Osiris and
6:35
Speaker 1: all of that. Um, and when you think of Cleopatra too.
6:39
Speaker 1: But Cleopatra was different. She was different from all the
6:42
Speaker 1: pharaohs that came before. She was um different from most
6:45
Speaker 1: of the pharaos that came before, and that she came
6:48
Speaker 1: from a family line that had been established only about
6:51
Speaker 1: three and fifty years before when Alexander the Great, General
6:55
Speaker 1: Ptolemy UM said Alexander died, we're dividing up as king.
7:00
Speaker 1: I'm taking Egypt. And he said, hey, Egyptians, you know
7:03
Speaker 1: how you had this line of pharaohs that ruled the country.
7:06
Speaker 1: Well you got a new one. And it's me and
7:08
Speaker 1: my descendants. And I'm not Egyptian, I'm actually Macedonian. But
7:13
Speaker 1: I'm in charge here and I'm naming myself um Ptolemy
7:16
Speaker 1: the first uh, suitor. I believe it's s u t
7:20
Speaker 1: o r, which means savior of Egypt. And he established
7:24
Speaker 1: the Ptolemaic line, and from that point on um all
7:29
Speaker 1: of the people who ruled as pharaohs over Egypt came
7:33
Speaker 1: from Ptolemy UM and his his um children. Yeah, I
7:37
Speaker 1: mean that was a few hundred years worth a pretty
7:39
Speaker 1: good run there. It was a pretty good run. But
7:42
Speaker 1: you don't think of that like, you know, you think
7:43
Speaker 1: of Cleopatra as a pharaoh like any other pharaoh. She wasn't.
7:47
Speaker 1: She was different. She was probably of Macedonian descent because
7:50
Speaker 1: she was descended from Ptolemy. But they also are not
7:53
Speaker 1: sure was she Egyptian to like ethnic Egyptian Um. Some
7:58
Speaker 1: people believe that she was subsa Air and African descent. Um.
8:02
Speaker 1: It's just totally up in the air of exactly what
8:04
Speaker 1: her ethnicity was. But she was definitely not descended from
8:09
Speaker 1: the pharaohs before. But in establishing this line, Ptolemy said, well,
8:13
Speaker 1: I get that you guys are really big into the
8:15
Speaker 1: idea that that kings or pharaohs and queens are divine.
8:19
Speaker 1: So we're gonna say that that applies to my line too.
8:22
Speaker 1: And what's this incest you guys are into. We'll give
8:25
Speaker 1: that a try to. And the Ptolemaic line carried on
8:28
Speaker 1: those customs as well. Yeah, so the Ptolemy's, Ptolemy's, Ptolemy's
8:35
Speaker 1: whatever you want to say, man Um, they were Greek
8:38
Speaker 1: speakers and observed Greek customs, um, which if you're living
8:42
Speaker 1: in Egypt, seems like a bit of a contradiction because
8:46
Speaker 1: people in Egypt weren't Greek, and that kind of caused
8:49
Speaker 1: a separation. Um, Cleopatrick was was Cleopatrick. What I said
8:56
Speaker 1: Cleopatra was sounds like Cleopatrick sounds like a new comedy
8:59
Speaker 1: come this fall, and it totally does. Oh boy, Um
9:04
Speaker 1: who rules like her local you know, uh Brooklyn apartment
9:08
Speaker 1: building or something, and she comes in. How they introduced
9:12
Speaker 1: her as a character as she comes and rolled up
9:14
Speaker 1: in the carpet in the pilot that she made herself. Man,
9:17
Speaker 1: this thing writes itself. So Cleopatra distinguished herself by coming
9:22
Speaker 1: in And we'll get to all this in more detail.
9:24
Speaker 1: But she was popular in Egypt because she came in
9:26
Speaker 1: and she was like, Hey, what do you need Egypt.
9:28
Speaker 1: I'm gonna speak your languages. I'm gonna I'm gonna be
9:32
Speaker 1: patriotic for Egypt, and I'm gonna speak a lot of
9:35
Speaker 1: languages because I'm super smart, and I don't. In fact,
9:38
Speaker 1: I speak so many languages when I go to meet
9:41
Speaker 1: with other leaders of other countries and kingdoms, I'm not
9:45
Speaker 1: even gonna need my translators and I'm not even gonna
9:48
Speaker 1: need my advisors around. I can make my own decisions
9:51
Speaker 1: because I'm speaking directly to them in their native tongue.
9:54
Speaker 1: Egyptians love that. But her officials in her tram while
9:57
Speaker 1: against her translators didn't really have a say. But her
10:00
Speaker 1: officials were like, uh, this is upsetting. Well, yeah, because
10:04
Speaker 1: it diminished their power. They said, well, you don't you know,
10:07
Speaker 1: you're not consulting with us before you start speaking to
10:10
Speaker 1: these other foreign powers, these other leaders. And She's like, well,
10:14
Speaker 1: I don't need to. I speak their language. I can
10:16
Speaker 1: ask them and decide for myself whether they're telling the
10:18
Speaker 1: truth or what they actually need or what they what
10:21
Speaker 1: they should get. Um. So yeah, just the ascension of
10:24
Speaker 1: Cleopatra was different two ways. It diminished the power of
10:29
Speaker 1: the officials that had been established by the time her
10:32
Speaker 1: father died and left the place to her, and she
10:35
Speaker 1: was known as basically a very patriotic pharaoh, and that
10:39
Speaker 1: she spoke Egyptian and followed Egyptian customs way more than
10:43
Speaker 1: any of the Ptolemy's before her had. So that was
10:47
Speaker 1: she was different in that respect a big time right
10:49
Speaker 1: out of the gate. Yeah. So she assumed the throne
10:53
Speaker 1: as a I guess even for the time a young
10:55
Speaker 1: woman of eighteen years old, along with her her braddy,
10:59
Speaker 1: little ten year old brother. They're told that guy, uh,
11:03
Speaker 1: there was a tradition there that basically said, if you're
11:05
Speaker 1: a woman, you need a male consort to rule UM.
11:09
Speaker 1: So by the way, marry him, say what? And by
11:12
Speaker 1: the way to marry him? Yeah, like technically you have
11:15
Speaker 1: to get ceremonially ceremonially married. But you know, that's kind
11:19
Speaker 1: of where it ends, unless you don't want it to
11:21
Speaker 1: end there, because we're pretty liberal on that front. Sure.
11:26
Speaker 1: But the kingdom of Egypt that she inherited was um
11:30
Speaker 1: not a healthy one. Um. It had floods and famine,
11:33
Speaker 1: it had a bad economy, and it was really up
11:36
Speaker 1: to her to forge alliances, um with other places and
11:41
Speaker 1: other men in power to to make Egypt what she
11:45
Speaker 1: thought it could be. Starting with Julius Caesar. Yeah. So
11:49
Speaker 1: at the time, so her father had kind of mortgaged
11:53
Speaker 1: Egypt over to Rome to help bail the economy out
11:57
Speaker 1: because things are it was hard times even before Cleopatra
12:01
Speaker 1: rose of power, and that's what she inherited. Um. So
12:04
Speaker 1: Rome already had a pretty big interest in Egypt. Egypt
12:08
Speaker 1: was a client state of Rome. Rather than Rome officially
12:13
Speaker 1: ruling Egypt and saying like we install the governor all
12:17
Speaker 1: that stuff, they said, you can exist and we're gonna
12:19
Speaker 1: trade with you. But basically, if we tell you to
12:22
Speaker 1: do something, you do it. And that was kind of
12:24
Speaker 1: the relationship between Rome and Egypt. So it makes sense
12:27
Speaker 1: that she would say, let me, let me get even
12:30
Speaker 1: more um cozy with Rome. But who's in power? That
12:35
Speaker 1: was a really big question at the time because when
12:37
Speaker 1: she rose to power as co ruler with her little brother,
12:42
Speaker 1: who by the way, she basically just wrote out of
12:44
Speaker 1: power immediately. Um. She That was not an easy question
12:49
Speaker 1: to answer because at the time Rome was racked by
12:51
Speaker 1: civil wars and specifically there was a triumvirate uh kind
12:56
Speaker 1: of a shaky power sharing agreement between Julius Caesar, um
13:02
Speaker 1: Pompey and crass as I believe right, that's right. Uh,
13:07
Speaker 1: And that is Pompey. He pronounced that. We can't say
13:10
Speaker 1: Pompey because I will get confusing. Yeah, it's pomp I
13:13
Speaker 1: always said Pompey. It sounds so cute, but he was
13:16
Speaker 1: a murderous general. Give me a little Pompey. Alright, let
13:19
Speaker 1: stick that knife in somebody. Um. And also, by the way,
13:23
Speaker 1: later on Octavian, when did he become Augustus. Oh, that's
13:28
Speaker 1: the big finish man. We'll get to that eventually, spoiler,
13:33
Speaker 1: because that got a little confusing to all these different names. Yes,
13:37
Speaker 1: but that you are correct. Octavian is Augustus or one
13:40
Speaker 1: and the same, right, so they both Joaquin Phoenix. The
13:46
Speaker 1: Roman Senate was on the side of Pompey. So Julius Caesar,
13:52
Speaker 1: um like you said that there was this this this
13:54
Speaker 1: sort of deal that they had going on was a
13:57
Speaker 1: really kind of um steady detante between civil wars, and
14:03
Speaker 1: the Roman Senate supported Pompey and said, Caesar, you gotta
14:05
Speaker 1: give up your army. Man. He said, I'm not doing it.
14:08
Speaker 1: In fact, not only that, but I'm coming to Italy, guys.
14:12
Speaker 1: He leads his his people into Italy across the Rubicon
14:16
Speaker 1: and declares war against Pompey and his forces, and he wins.
14:21
Speaker 1: He eventually won, quite quite surprisingly because Pompey again had
14:25
Speaker 1: the Senate UM backing, and so he had the senatorial forces,
14:30
Speaker 1: which vastly outnumbered Caesar's forces, but they were just superior forces,
14:34
Speaker 1: and Caesar eventually defeated Pompey well. Pompey UM, being closely
14:40
Speaker 1: aligned with Egypt, fled to Egypt, which is pretty understandable. Um,
14:45
Speaker 1: you can also understand why he would have fled to Egypt.
14:48
Speaker 1: He was the state designated guardian of Ptolemy the twelve Kids,
14:54
Speaker 1: which was Cleopatra and told me the thirteen among others,
14:58
Speaker 1: here we go. So he went, thought, Okay, this will
15:01
Speaker 1: be great. I'll just sit around and eat grapes for
15:04
Speaker 1: the rest of my days in Egypt. It's not a
15:05
Speaker 1: bad forced retirement. But when he got there he found
15:09
Speaker 1: that Cleopatra and her sister ar Sinewy had been had
15:15
Speaker 1: been forced into exile, and that Pompey was was in
15:20
Speaker 1: or not. I'm sorry tooleom me the thirteen like it's
15:23
Speaker 1: not confusing enough. Already Um was in power. This little
15:27
Speaker 1: boy king boy Pharaoh was in power, and and Ptolemy
15:32
Speaker 1: thought Caesar just won his his vanquished enemy just showed
15:36
Speaker 1: up in my doorstep. I'm gonna get killed for harboring
15:40
Speaker 1: this guy. So I'm gonna have Pompey killed. And he did.
15:44
Speaker 1: He had Pompey killed and decapitated in an effort to
15:48
Speaker 1: curry favor with Caesar. Didn't work, No, it did not work,
15:52
Speaker 1: because Caesar said, hey, hey, hey, I was gonna pardon
15:55
Speaker 1: that guy, you moron, and and like become beloved to
15:59
Speaker 1: the Roman citizen, and he just cut his head off.
16:01
Speaker 1: I'm coming for you. And so Caesar um crossed into
16:05
Speaker 1: Egypt to invade and basically depose Ptolemy. That's right. So
16:11
Speaker 1: he gets to Egypt. Now Caesar does, he declares martial
16:13
Speaker 1: law and basically moves into the royal palace ands like
16:17
Speaker 1: this is my place. Now, it's my place. And so
16:20
Speaker 1: Cleopatra at this point is like, all right, here's the deal.
16:23
Speaker 1: I need Caesar support here if I'm gonna get back
16:26
Speaker 1: on that throne um, So I need to curry favor
16:29
Speaker 1: with him. And this is the big carpet scene that
16:32
Speaker 1: we're talking about, and every sort of pop culture um
16:38
Speaker 1: retelling of Cleopatra's story, so which means this is probably true.
16:43
Speaker 1: Cleopatra gets back in there by sneaking in, uh skirting
16:47
Speaker 1: the enemy lines and the Roman barricades coming in and
16:51
Speaker 1: under the under the dead of night, rolled up in
16:54
Speaker 1: a carpet and is then presented to Caesar unrolled, and
17:00
Speaker 1: he's like, that was fantastic. He just stands up and
17:04
Speaker 1: colass roller back up there and do it again. I've
17:07
Speaker 1: never seen anything like it. She begs Caesar for aid,
17:10
Speaker 1: and it really did apparently win him over, and he
17:14
Speaker 1: was like, I like, I like the cut of her jib. Right,
17:17
Speaker 1: so they became uh friends with benefits pretty quickly out
17:24
Speaker 1: of the gate um. But but from from every account
17:30
Speaker 1: of this it was and again it was either carpet
17:33
Speaker 1: she was rolled up in a carpet or in like
17:35
Speaker 1: a um, some sort of bag like that you carry
17:37
Speaker 1: bed in like beg clothes in or whatever. Um. She
17:42
Speaker 1: got Caesar on her side like almost immediately, and so
17:45
Speaker 1: all of a sudden Cleopatra, who had been forced out
17:48
Speaker 1: of rule by Ptolomy, was now aligned with the guy
17:55
Speaker 1: who had just invaded Egypt and taken over and declared
17:57
Speaker 1: martial law, which was bad news for Tolom, and it
18:00
Speaker 1: was also bad news for ar Sinewy, who had who
18:03
Speaker 1: had left. She had come back with Cleopatra and then
18:07
Speaker 1: left to go have Ptolemy proclaimed her queen of Egypt Um.
18:11
Speaker 1: So she traded sides, and so Cleopatra said, hey, Julius,
18:17
Speaker 1: just a couple of quick favors. I want to get
18:20
Speaker 1: rid of Tlem also, who actually they found out later
18:24
Speaker 1: that he drowned fleeing. He drowned in the Nile. So
18:27
Speaker 1: told me the thirteenth is taken care of. The only
18:30
Speaker 1: person left out of all I think five or six
18:33
Speaker 1: kids in Cleopatra's family, there's one left, Ar Sineway, her
18:38
Speaker 1: younger sister. She's like, I can't have a running around.
18:41
Speaker 1: She's already shown that she's duplicitus get rid of her.
18:45
Speaker 1: So caesar Um to kind of show off that he
18:48
Speaker 1: has taken over Egypt. Parades are Sinewy through the town
18:52
Speaker 1: through exposed Alexandria in chains, showing that he's vanquished her Um,
18:59
Speaker 1: and he, to his surprise, found that this aroused the
19:03
Speaker 1: sympathy of the people living in the town, and so
19:07
Speaker 1: he ends up sparing our sinewise life, which will come
19:10
Speaker 1: back into play later and he he vanquishes her in
19:13
Speaker 1: exile to the Temple of Artemis at a Fesus, which
19:17
Speaker 1: we talked about in the Seven Wonders of the Ancient
19:19
Speaker 1: World episode. But So just put a pin in that,
19:23
Speaker 1: Chuck that our Sinewy is alive. She just lives in
19:27
Speaker 1: Turkey and exile now, and she is the only person
19:30
Speaker 1: who can challenge Cleopatra's claim to the Egyptian throne. All Right,
19:35
Speaker 1: let's take a break. Okay, let's get her ducks in
19:38
Speaker 1: a row. All right, we'll come back talk more about
19:41
Speaker 1: that carpet trick. Okay, So told me he's dead, little brothers,
20:06
Speaker 1: dead sisters, vanquished, Uh Caesar. At this point, Um needs
20:12
Speaker 1: to he needs money. He needs to fund his return
20:15
Speaker 1: to Rome. Uh and returned to power and Cleopatra's dad
20:20
Speaker 1: Uh incurred a lot of debts via Egypt, and he's like, hey, listen,
20:25
Speaker 1: I gotta like get this money back. And he said,
20:27
Speaker 1: you're pretty cool. That carpet trick was awesome, just Gangbusters, Gangbusters.
20:34
Speaker 1: So I need Uh. It's fine, you can rule Egypt.
20:37
Speaker 1: The two of us here, we're great. We have the
20:39
Speaker 1: same you know. I feel like we're on the same level,
20:41
Speaker 1: which was a very big deal to uh, for someone
20:44
Speaker 1: like Julius Caesar to say that about a female ruler.
20:47
Speaker 1: And he stayed there for a while, and they had
20:50
Speaker 1: a kid. His name was told me Caesar. Um he was,
20:54
Speaker 1: you know, later fully acknowledged from Caesar that he was
20:57
Speaker 1: his child. But it was kind of like the love
20:59
Speaker 1: child thing, right. He he said, yeah, that's my kid,
21:02
Speaker 1: and he's great, good, good looking kid. But he is
21:05
Speaker 1: not my official heir. No. But his name, like I said,
21:09
Speaker 1: I was told me Caesar. They called him Caesarion or
21:12
Speaker 1: little Caesar or Pizza Pizza. Right. I'm sure he saw
21:17
Speaker 1: that coming from a mile way. If you hadn't said it,
21:19
Speaker 1: I would have said him myself. So all of a sudden,
21:23
Speaker 1: Cleopatra is there. Um, she's really sort of solidified her
21:27
Speaker 1: position on every front, right, right, So she's got the
21:30
Speaker 1: backing of Julius Caesar, who has named himself dictator for life.
21:34
Speaker 1: By this time, she got a little brother out of
21:36
Speaker 1: the way and sister out of the way for now.
21:38
Speaker 1: And and this is this is it's really tough to
21:41
Speaker 1: overstate this. She has born an heir. She's the only
21:45
Speaker 1: the only she's the pharaoh, she's the ruler of Egypt,
21:47
Speaker 1: and she's now born an heir, a male heir who
21:51
Speaker 1: is not only a male hera going to be the
21:53
Speaker 1: next pharaoh, but he is the blood descendant of Julius
21:58
Speaker 1: Caesar himself. So Egypt is real happy with Cleopatra at
22:02
Speaker 1: this moment. Rome is not so happy. But it doesn't
22:05
Speaker 1: matter because Caesar's like the top dog in charge of everything,
22:09
Speaker 1: and things are going well for a little while. Um,
22:11
Speaker 1: so much so that Caesar or that um uh, Cleopatra
22:16
Speaker 1: and little Caesar go visit Big Caesar in Rome for
22:19
Speaker 1: a little while and set up household right across the
22:22
Speaker 1: river from Caesar's house. And at Caesar's house, if you
22:25
Speaker 1: had happened to to to go across the way and
22:28
Speaker 1: um peek in one of the windows, you'd find, Oh,
22:31
Speaker 1: Caesar has another family. He's got a wife and kids,
22:34
Speaker 1: and um, they're not super happy with him for having
22:37
Speaker 1: run around on them and had another kid with Cleopatra.
22:41
Speaker 1: But what are you gonna do. She's the ruler of Egypt,
22:44
Speaker 1: and by the way, she's spending the summer across the
22:47
Speaker 1: river from us. That's right, So as a ruler, things
22:50
Speaker 1: are going pretty great for Cleopatra. Um. Like I mentioned earlier,
22:54
Speaker 1: they really liked her. She was she related to the people,
22:59
Speaker 1: They related to her her. Um, like you said, she
23:02
Speaker 1: lived the Egyptian lifestyle. She whenever she had portraits drawn
23:05
Speaker 1: of herself, she was like, do the Egyptian thing, because
23:09
Speaker 1: it's great and the people will love it. Um. She
23:12
Speaker 1: was identified on a papyrus and thirty five b c.
23:16
Speaker 1: As she who loves her country. Yeah, Philip patter in Greek,
23:20
Speaker 1: she who loves her country. That's right. But she was
23:23
Speaker 1: a fully Egyptian pharaoh and a very patriotic and that
23:27
Speaker 1: just further like cemented her position as someone beloved by
23:32
Speaker 1: the Egyptians. And it's at this point that it's like
23:36
Speaker 1: it's pretty obvious that it's a real shame that you
23:38
Speaker 1: didn't get any writings from the Egyptians, you know. Yeah, yeah,
23:42
Speaker 1: that there was there were some busts I believe of
23:48
Speaker 1: her possibly um that may have been lost. There was
23:52
Speaker 1: a coin that turned up, but for the most part,
23:54
Speaker 1: like they didn't really document her rule, which again it's
23:57
Speaker 1: really really weird. Um. But there are some like like
24:01
Speaker 1: it was a massive bureaucracy that she operated. It was
24:04
Speaker 1: not just Egypt, but it was a huge chunk of
24:08
Speaker 1: northeast Africa and southwest Mediterranean UM that she ruled over. UM.
24:18
Speaker 1: And you know, being in league with Caesar definitely didn't
24:20
Speaker 1: hurt things, so empire kept expanding. She but on her own.
24:24
Speaker 1: This is the thing, Like, it's not lost on us,
24:26
Speaker 1: everybody who's listening that we're telling this story through the
24:30
Speaker 1: fact that Caesar is a huge part of her life
24:34
Speaker 1: or that room, whatever Rome's doing. UM. This is the
24:37
Speaker 1: documentary evidence we have. But there's also other evidence too,
24:41
Speaker 1: very sparse evidence, but there is evidence that like with
24:44
Speaker 1: or without Caesar, like she she was afforded like a
24:47
Speaker 1: bigger opportunity by being in league with Caesar, but she
24:51
Speaker 1: took that and ran with it on her own, without
24:53
Speaker 1: the direct aid of Caesar. So she expanded her empire.
24:57
Speaker 1: She started trading to further and further areas like Arabia.
25:00
Speaker 1: There's potential evidence that they were trading as far away
25:04
Speaker 1: as India at the time. UM. And she was really good,
25:08
Speaker 1: from what we could tell, at figuring out what somebody
25:12
Speaker 1: needed and making them dependent on her for it. UM.
25:16
Speaker 1: One of the ways she would do that was um
25:18
Speaker 1: like she identified people who could help her to like
25:22
Speaker 1: later on, after Caesar died, there would be a general
25:26
Speaker 1: Um who was really important. He was stationed in Egypt,
25:31
Speaker 1: so it was it was really good for her to
25:34
Speaker 1: be on good terms with them. So she basically gave
25:36
Speaker 1: him a tax break that said, hey, you can bring
25:38
Speaker 1: in UM five thousand and four of wine from Rome
25:43
Speaker 1: every year tax free. You can export ten thousand UM
25:47
Speaker 1: bags of wheat tax free. That must have been an
25:51
Speaker 1: enormous amount of money that that this guy saved. And
25:55
Speaker 1: the way that she would do this in her own
25:57
Speaker 1: style was found later on. So on this royal decrease,
26:01
Speaker 1: saying that this is the case. In her handwriting, she
26:04
Speaker 1: wrote um guinness stoy, which is Greek for make it so,
26:11
Speaker 1: And they found this. There's like a document out there
26:13
Speaker 1: that has Cleopatra's handwriting on it. Um. But it was
26:17
Speaker 1: basically to to to make sure that this guy felt
26:19
Speaker 1: taken care of so he would remain her ally. And
26:21
Speaker 1: that's how she operated. She knew very clearly how to
26:26
Speaker 1: um make people like her or how to make them
26:28
Speaker 1: dependent on her. And then under that she signed her
26:31
Speaker 1: name and then put TCB with a lightning bolt through it. Right,
26:38
Speaker 1: you know what's cool is that document. They found it accidentally.
26:42
Speaker 1: It was used as lining for a sarcophagus that a
26:46
Speaker 1: mummy was found in, and somehow they found this thing
26:49
Speaker 1: and figured out this is Cleopatra's handwriting. Amazing. It is
26:54
Speaker 1: pretty amazing to have that that that relic, you know,
26:57
Speaker 1: exists in the world still. So later on forty six BC,
27:02
Speaker 1: Caesar Um returned to Rome and then Cleopatra, like you said,
27:07
Speaker 1: we went there at some point to visit. And this
27:09
Speaker 1: is where this is where the big acknowledgement that little
27:12
Speaker 1: Caesar was was his son, but not the airs where
27:15
Speaker 1: that finally happened Um, and Caesar was murdered very famously.
27:21
Speaker 1: I don't know a few people have heard about that,
27:23
Speaker 1: but he was stabbing in the back quite literally. On
27:27
Speaker 1: my birthday. Cleopatra goes back to Egypt. UM told me
27:32
Speaker 1: fourteen dies soon after this, and that means little Caesar
27:39
Speaker 1: as all of a sudden co regent with mommy as
27:42
Speaker 1: told me, I'm sorry, right, told me fifteen. Right. So
27:47
Speaker 1: now little Caesar is officially the air. I think by
27:50
Speaker 1: this time he was like thirteen or sixteen or something
27:54
Speaker 1: like that. He was he was getting up there in
27:57
Speaker 1: years no, I'm sorry. That was later on. So yeah,
27:59
Speaker 1: he was a little kids still use three. Oh he
28:01
Speaker 1: was three? Okay. So, um, after Caesar dies, like, everything's
28:06
Speaker 1: kind of up in the air. This is a pretty
28:08
Speaker 1: big surprise to everybody. But Caesar had boys, right, He
28:12
Speaker 1: had people that loved him, one of which was Octavian,
28:16
Speaker 1: who was his grand nephew I think, who Caesar allegedly adopted. Um.
28:22
Speaker 1: There was also another one named Mark Antony, who was
28:25
Speaker 1: Caesar's kind of right hand man. Um. And they said, hey,
28:30
Speaker 1: you know what, this is not cool. We're gonna get
28:32
Speaker 1: Brutus and Cassius who orchestrated this assassination, and another civil
28:38
Speaker 1: war erupted in Rome. Yeah, and we can't leave out
28:40
Speaker 1: Lapidis because this was the official second triumvirate. Okay, you're right, Uh,
28:44
Speaker 1: And you can't be a triumvirate without Lapidis. No, I
28:47
Speaker 1: gotta have that third guy in there. It's just a
28:49
Speaker 1: do um for it. No one likes those, that's right.
28:53
Speaker 1: So forty two b C. There was the Battle of
28:55
Speaker 1: Philippe uh, and the forces of Mark Antony and Octavian
28:59
Speaker 1: defeated Brutus and Cassius. And then that means Mark Antony
29:03
Speaker 1: can emerge as ruler of the East, which included Egypt
29:06
Speaker 1: very importantly, and Octavian held the West on the west side,
29:10
Speaker 1: al right, but both of them said we need the
29:12
Speaker 1: support of Egypt, which is a very big deal. Um.
29:16
Speaker 1: Cleopatra basically, you know, was summoned by Mark Antony and
29:21
Speaker 1: she was like, you know what, uh summoned to Sicily
29:24
Speaker 1: and she was like, I'm gonna c Cleopatra. I'm gonna
29:27
Speaker 1: come when I want to come, right, which was sort
29:30
Speaker 1: of a bold move at the time. Yeah, yeah, because
29:33
Speaker 1: he was basically accusing her of potentially having given aid
29:36
Speaker 1: to brutus Um and Cassius during the Civil War. And
29:41
Speaker 1: she and she's saying, not only am I not even
29:44
Speaker 1: responding to the allegation, I'm not even gonna show up
29:46
Speaker 1: to talk to you until I want to. But when
29:48
Speaker 1: she does show up, apparently she made another very grand entrance,
29:54
Speaker 1: and this one was memorialized by William Shakespeare in the
29:57
Speaker 1: play um Uh, Mark Anthony and Cleopatra appropriately Um, and
30:03
Speaker 1: she shows up in this this town um called Tarsus
30:09
Speaker 1: in modern day Turkey, um on a barge, a royal barge,
30:13
Speaker 1: and these barges by the way, dude, these are like,
30:16
Speaker 1: this is not what you think of as like a barge,
30:18
Speaker 1: you know, I guess it is kind of what you
30:20
Speaker 1: think of as barge, but larger and more opulent. How
30:22
Speaker 1: about that? Yeah, I mean it was she came in
30:25
Speaker 1: to make a statement. Uh. They were. She was dressed
30:28
Speaker 1: as aphrodite. There were purple purple sales, there were loots playing,
30:32
Speaker 1: she basically had a band. Um. She was laying on
30:36
Speaker 1: a couch on clouds of incense. And Mark Anthony, just
30:42
Speaker 1: like Julius Caesar, was like, whoa, we really know how
30:45
Speaker 1: to make an entrance. Yeah, and he said, you know
30:48
Speaker 1: what I'd like to dine with you? Um, can you
30:51
Speaker 1: come here and dine with me? And she said, no,
30:53
Speaker 1: why don't you come upon this ship and you dine
30:56
Speaker 1: with me? He very famously said, can you come here
30:58
Speaker 1: and dine with me? And he did get aboard that
31:01
Speaker 1: ship and he did dine with her, and he was
31:04
Speaker 1: very much taken with her. Um, and she you know, uh, ultimately,
31:10
Speaker 1: I think she very much loved him in the end,
31:13
Speaker 1: but she early on at the very least knew what
31:16
Speaker 1: she needed from him. Yeah. Because again, this guy's the
31:20
Speaker 1: Roman ruler of Egypt basically, and her job is to
31:25
Speaker 1: make it so Rome doesn't ever officially rule Egypt, so
31:28
Speaker 1: at the very least it stays at arm's length enough
31:31
Speaker 1: so Egypt can can be a client state. But she
31:34
Speaker 1: also needs to make sure that she doesn't go to
31:35
Speaker 1: war with them because they would probably crush Egypt. So
31:39
Speaker 1: she's dancing this real fine line. And again, just like
31:43
Speaker 1: with Caesar, she basically said, hey guy, I like the
31:46
Speaker 1: I like the cut of your jib. Let's figure out
31:48
Speaker 1: an alliance and let's also do it a lot too,
31:52
Speaker 1: and with what it's like you said though, it's like
31:53
Speaker 1: you said that, like whether whether it was because she
31:57
Speaker 1: needed something from him, and he also was very much
31:59
Speaker 1: dazzled by her wealth as well or her display of wealth.
32:02
Speaker 1: But there there does seem to have been unless it's
32:05
Speaker 1: just totally fabricated a real love story between the two
32:09
Speaker 1: of them. Yeah, I mean they had three kids together. Uh.
32:12
Speaker 1: She goes back to Egypt and he's not too far
32:15
Speaker 1: behind at this point. Um He's like, all right, I
32:18
Speaker 1: gotta I gotta get over there to Egypt and seem
32:20
Speaker 1: a lady. Um and his wife Fulvia said, wait a minute,
32:25
Speaker 1: I'm your lady and we have kids together. And he says, yeah,
32:29
Speaker 1: but you know what, I'm gonna go over there anyway,
32:31
Speaker 1: because you know, that's just kind of how things worked
32:33
Speaker 1: back then before texts. That's right. Uh. He spent the
32:38
Speaker 1: winter of one there in Alexandria. Um. They were getting
32:43
Speaker 1: along famously. They formed a drinking group called the Inimitable Livers,
32:48
Speaker 1: where they had these big, huge parties and feasts. And
32:52
Speaker 1: this is one of the very famous legends of Cleopatra
32:54
Speaker 1: came about when she took a pearl and dissolved it.
32:58
Speaker 1: It was a very expensive pearl, value at ten million
33:01
Speaker 1: smolean's which was enough to maintain ten thousand Roman soldiers
33:05
Speaker 1: for a full year. That's a lot of dough. That's
33:08
Speaker 1: a lot of dough. And just to prove her wealth,
33:10
Speaker 1: she dissolves this thing in a cup of vinegar and
33:13
Speaker 1: drinks it. And Mark Antony was like, oh my gosh,
33:16
Speaker 1: this lady amazing. Did you see what she just did.
33:21
Speaker 1: She just drank a pearl. She just wasted so much money.
33:24
Speaker 1: I'm so turned on right now. So, uh, they have twins,
33:29
Speaker 1: Alexander Helios and Cleopatra Seline, and this is kind of
33:34
Speaker 1: the boom time for Cleopatra and Egypt. She's really solidified
33:38
Speaker 1: her stronghold and um, everything is sort of going her
33:43
Speaker 1: way at this point. Yeah, in part because Mark Anthony said,
33:46
Speaker 1: I got to get back to Rome. I'd like to
33:49
Speaker 1: show up really victorious. You know, one of those barges
33:51
Speaker 1: you've got, I'd love to have one of those. I
33:53
Speaker 1: need some money from you. And with Caesar before again,
33:58
Speaker 1: um uh, Cleopatra, his father taught me the twelfth had
34:01
Speaker 1: kind of level mortgaged Egypt to Rome. This had not happened.
34:06
Speaker 1: Egypt had grown, had kind of gotten out of that
34:08
Speaker 1: economic funk when Cleopatra had um had taken over, and
34:13
Speaker 1: she had started to steer it even better in better directions.
34:16
Speaker 1: So now this was just straight up Mark Anthony um
34:20
Speaker 1: borrowing from Egypt, which helped put him in her pocket.
34:25
Speaker 1: And she said, I would like to expand my empire.
34:27
Speaker 1: He said, done, so he gave to Cleopatra a lot
34:32
Speaker 1: of Roman holdings that Egypt had formerly held, and the
34:36
Speaker 1: empire just expanded by a pretty decent proportion overnight, just
34:40
Speaker 1: with the sweep of Mark Antony's hand in exchange for
34:44
Speaker 1: her setting him up to go back to Roman style,
34:47
Speaker 1: which he did all right, So let's take a break, okay,
34:50
Speaker 1: and we're gonna come back and talk about, uh the
34:53
Speaker 1: cracks that start to form right after this. Chuck, so chuck,
35:16
Speaker 1: No good time can go on forever. It turns out
35:18
Speaker 1: in Cleopatra's story definitely brings that one home to That's right.
35:24
Speaker 1: So you didn't like that set up, No, I thought
35:26
Speaker 1: it was great. It was like I put the ball
35:29
Speaker 1: on the the orange cone and it just kind of
35:31
Speaker 1: fell over. So Mark Anthony does a very controversial thing.
35:36
Speaker 1: Um he declares little Caesar rightful air rather than Octavian
35:44
Speaker 1: right to Julius Caesar. That's correct, And he awarded land
35:48
Speaker 1: to each of his children with Cleopatra. We mentioned the twins,
35:51
Speaker 1: we did not mention totally me, uh Philadelphos, who's the
35:55
Speaker 1: third kid? And this really upset Octavian um as it
35:59
Speaker 1: probably should. So he knew that that the Roman people
36:03
Speaker 1: were kind of sick of hearing about Cleopatra. Uh, they
36:07
Speaker 1: were sick of hearing about uh all of these wars
36:10
Speaker 1: going on that these generals are carrying out. And he
36:13
Speaker 1: knew that the He knew that it was sort of
36:15
Speaker 1: the perfect time to mount a propaganda campaign to turn
36:19
Speaker 1: everyone against them. Yeah, because the Romans were like had
36:22
Speaker 1: another civil war between two powerful generals that are co ruling.
36:26
Speaker 1: Come on, and Octavian had a really good idea of saying, okay, okay,
36:31
Speaker 1: I can't turn everybody against Mark Anthony directly, but I
36:35
Speaker 1: can turn him against Cleopatra really easily. So I'll just
36:38
Speaker 1: start this propaganda campaign that says, um, Cleopatra is a
36:42
Speaker 1: threat to Rome. She has using her her wiles or
36:46
Speaker 1: her her magic or whatever, Um convinced Mark Anthony to
36:51
Speaker 1: give up chunks of Rome and to declare her son
36:54
Speaker 1: Caesar's rightful heir. We gotta get rid of Cleopatra. Poor
36:58
Speaker 1: Mark Anthony is just her her mesmerized puppet basically. So
37:03
Speaker 1: we achieved the same end turning people on Mark Antony,
37:06
Speaker 1: but rather than doing it directly, he uses uh Cleopatra,
37:10
Speaker 1: and they're kind of suspicion of her being a foreign
37:13
Speaker 1: temptress as um as as the crux through which he
37:17
Speaker 1: does it. Yeah, and you know, some of this was
37:21
Speaker 1: some of this stuff was true, some of it was
37:23
Speaker 1: made up. Um Octavian said, hey, listen, I've got his will,
37:28
Speaker 1: and you know what he's done. He's turned over Roman
37:31
Speaker 1: possessions to Cleopatra and you know what, he's gonna make
37:34
Speaker 1: Alexandria in Egypt the capital of Rome. You can just
37:38
Speaker 1: hear the gasp. Oh yeah, And it was a big,
37:41
Speaker 1: big deal. So in thirty two BC, the Roman Senate
37:44
Speaker 1: got involved. Uh, they strip Mark Anthony of his titles. UM,
37:48
Speaker 1: and Octavian says, al right, Cleopatra, it's time for us
37:51
Speaker 1: to go at it. We're going to war. Your charms
37:54
Speaker 1: will not work on me, um and they had not worked, UM.
37:58
Speaker 1: And I think Cleopatra knew this all along. So this
38:01
Speaker 1: all fed into the narrative that Cleopatra was uh, from
38:05
Speaker 1: Egypt and from a different culture that they don't align with. Um,
38:10
Speaker 1: she lives there, and she's super wealthy, and she's doing
38:14
Speaker 1: these dealings with the Far East in India and at
38:17
Speaker 1: the time those places where I guess in Rome scene
38:21
Speaker 1: is just very sort of controversial and weird, and they
38:25
Speaker 1: thought they practiced in the occult and alchemy and all
38:28
Speaker 1: these strange things, and she's doing business with them, and
38:32
Speaker 1: she's she's a bad, bad lady, right right, So yeah,
38:36
Speaker 1: it was just foreign and weird is basically how Rome
38:40
Speaker 1: viewed Egypt. Right. So the idea that that was going
38:42
Speaker 1: to be their new set of power did not sit
38:45
Speaker 1: very well with them. Whether that was true or not,
38:47
Speaker 1: I don't know, but it worked. It got it got
38:50
Speaker 1: the um Roman Senate, and the people turned against mark
38:54
Speaker 1: Antony so much so that Octavian was able to launch
38:57
Speaker 1: an assault on Egypt and Cleopatra and mark Antony, which
39:02
Speaker 1: was successful. Right, and that this article makes it kind
39:05
Speaker 1: of sound like it happened almost overnight. I think it
39:07
Speaker 1: took place over the course of a year or so
39:09
Speaker 1: between when the when Rome turned on mark Antony and
39:13
Speaker 1: when Octavian was at Egypt store Um. But at some
39:18
Speaker 1: point Uh mark Antony during the siege, during this this
39:22
Speaker 1: war between Egypt and Rome, which is something Cleopatra had
39:26
Speaker 1: avoided the whole time. Basically, her whole reign was about
39:29
Speaker 1: preventing this from happening, Um mark Antony decided that he
39:34
Speaker 1: had he had um lost his place of honor in
39:38
Speaker 1: the world, and that he should take his own life.
39:41
Speaker 1: He also, according to legend, heard that Cleopatra had taken
39:45
Speaker 1: her life, and so in response and because he had
39:48
Speaker 1: lost his place of honor, he Um killed himself basically
39:52
Speaker 1: through Harri Curry, which is like stabbing yourself with your sword,
39:56
Speaker 1: disemboweling yourself. That's what he did with his own, so
40:00
Speaker 1: word and um and and I was at death's door.
40:05
Speaker 1: I guess when he heard. Oh wait, wait, that was
40:07
Speaker 1: just a rumor. Cleopatra didn't actually kill herself. Yeah, And supposedly,
40:11
Speaker 1: if you believe the legend, Octavian did allow him to
40:16
Speaker 1: be brought to Cleopatra. And he died in her arms,
40:20
Speaker 1: and she tore it her clothes and and smeared his
40:24
Speaker 1: blood all over her face and shrieked out, he is
40:28
Speaker 1: my master and husband and commander. Um. And that's if
40:32
Speaker 1: you believe the legend. Of course, it sounds a little
40:35
Speaker 1: trumped up to me, but you never know. Um. So
40:38
Speaker 1: Octaviana at this point is in a pretty good position. Um.
40:42
Speaker 1: He says he's got it right where he wants her,
40:45
Speaker 1: and he knows it, and she knows it. And he said, listen,
40:48
Speaker 1: I want you, um to come back to Rome, and
40:52
Speaker 1: you're gonna be a captive and I'm gonna kind of
40:54
Speaker 1: parade you through the streets as a symbol of our victory.
40:58
Speaker 1: And she knew that this would be like just that,
41:00
Speaker 1: the great humiliation of her life, and career. So she said,
41:04
Speaker 1: all right, I need a little time to prepare myself. Um,
41:07
Speaker 1: which you know the writings on the wall here that
41:09
Speaker 1: she is going to die a noble death by taking
41:12
Speaker 1: her own life. But she didn't do it right away. Uh.
41:15
Speaker 1: It took about a week, um, because she was still
41:18
Speaker 1: trying to still trying to save things up until the
41:22
Speaker 1: very end, which is pretty remarkable. So on August twelve,
41:27
Speaker 1: thirty b c. Uh, Anthony is buried. Um, Cleopatra meets
41:31
Speaker 1: with Octavian. She closes herself into chamber with two of
41:35
Speaker 1: her servants and UM, we're not exactly sure how she
41:39
Speaker 1: got It depends on the legend that you that you
41:41
Speaker 1: choose to believe, but she got poison and committed suicide
41:45
Speaker 1: along with her servants. Uh. And apparently, and this is
41:48
Speaker 1: from Plutarch's records, Um, one of the Roman officers burst
41:53
Speaker 1: in as this was happening and yelled to fine deed
41:56
Speaker 1: this And one of the one of the servants was
41:59
Speaker 1: bay sically like, yeah, it is a fine thing because
42:02
Speaker 1: she went out on her own terms. Jerk. Yeah, basically
42:06
Speaker 1: that's a I guess paraphrasing. Sure, she said nothing could
42:09
Speaker 1: be finder for this lady the descendant of so many kings, right,
42:12
Speaker 1: that was Charmian and the other servant was Iris I
42:16
Speaker 1: R A S. And like you said, like, they're not
42:19
Speaker 1: quite sure how she got that poison, And so a
42:22
Speaker 1: legend grew up that she had used an ass but cobra,
42:27
Speaker 1: and it allowed it to bite her so that she
42:29
Speaker 1: could die. But if if you kind of put two
42:31
Speaker 1: and two together, supposedly, um, she sent a note to
42:36
Speaker 1: Octavian to stall for time, but was he figured out
42:41
Speaker 1: what she was doing fast enough that there was maybe
42:43
Speaker 1: a course of minutes that transpired between uh that she
42:46
Speaker 1: would have had to have taken this poison and died.
42:49
Speaker 1: And it takes like an hour or something like that
42:51
Speaker 1: to die from a cobra bite. So people say, probably
42:53
Speaker 1: not cobra. But where would she have gotten that poison
42:56
Speaker 1: since she was under such close guard. And one theory
42:59
Speaker 1: that's emerged is do you remember when Caesar paraded our
43:04
Speaker 1: sinewy through the streets and ended up generating sympathy for
43:08
Speaker 1: her unintentionally? Supposedly Octavian remembered that, and, according to this theory,
43:16
Speaker 1: and didn't want to do the same thing by parading
43:18
Speaker 1: Cleopatra through the streets, so he never had any intention
43:21
Speaker 1: of doing that and instead went to her and said, look,
43:24
Speaker 1: I can kill you, you can take your own life.
43:27
Speaker 1: You seem like the kind of lady who'd want to
43:28
Speaker 1: take her own life. If you do this, will celebrate it,
43:31
Speaker 1: that kind of thing. And um, and that's that's why
43:36
Speaker 1: she or how she got the poison, because she was
43:38
Speaker 1: kind of allowed to be given that option. That's just
43:41
Speaker 1: a theory, um, But no one knows. All we know
43:45
Speaker 1: is that Cleopatra almost certainly did take her own life,
43:49
Speaker 1: most likely through poison as some sort that's right. So
43:52
Speaker 1: she was buried next to Mark Anthony um, which was
43:56
Speaker 1: according to her wishes of course. And um, you know,
44:02
Speaker 1: because we don't have writings from Egyptians, it's mainly, like
44:05
Speaker 1: we said, from the Roman perspective, she's viewed through different lenses. Um.
44:11
Speaker 1: Some people have portrayed her, like we said earlier, as
44:14
Speaker 1: super capable and dynamic and super smart, and other people
44:18
Speaker 1: have portrayed her as just like leaning on her whiles
44:21
Speaker 1: as a woman and being more cunning than strategic. Um.
44:26
Speaker 1: I think you know, somewhere in the middle is probably
44:29
Speaker 1: the truth. She probably did what she had to do
44:30
Speaker 1: in certain occasions, but that certainly doesn't mean she also
44:33
Speaker 1: wasn't like a brilliant leader on her own terms, right,
44:35
Speaker 1: And this article actually points out it's pretty ironic that
44:38
Speaker 1: were it not for the propagandists who were working for Octavian,
44:44
Speaker 1: who were trying to basically disassemble any good memory of
44:48
Speaker 1: her and paint her as a terrible person who almost
44:50
Speaker 1: brought down Rome, were it not for Octavian to save
44:54
Speaker 1: Rome itself, Um, she would have. Were it not for
44:58
Speaker 1: those biographers, she may have been lost to history. Like
45:01
Speaker 1: there's a lot of pharaoh's in Egypt's history that we
45:04
Speaker 1: just don't know anything about, and she could have ended
45:07
Speaker 1: up being one of them. Even though she was a
45:08
Speaker 1: successful pharaoh for Egypt. We we may never have known
45:12
Speaker 1: about her were it not for these guys like Luken
45:15
Speaker 1: and um Plutarch who wrote about her and commemorated or
45:19
Speaker 1: memorialized her. Yeah, and I think, I mean, I don't
45:22
Speaker 1: think there's any disputing the fact that she was um
45:26
Speaker 1: at the very least one of the more charming uh
45:29
Speaker 1: and intelligent uh rulers of the time. She just had
45:34
Speaker 1: sort of a way about her from all the readings
45:36
Speaker 1: where like you couldn't help but be captivated by her
45:39
Speaker 1: when you're in her presence. Her speaking voice has always
45:43
Speaker 1: been written about, UM, and I think she just she
45:46
Speaker 1: had that that just certain indefinable quality. Um. There's been
45:52
Speaker 1: a lot of debate on her looks over the years,
45:53
Speaker 1: but to me, that's I don't even know why people
45:56
Speaker 1: still talk about that stuff. It's funny because people do
45:59
Speaker 1: in both an end, women do like whenever somebody like
46:02
Speaker 1: shows a picture of what she probably looked like in
46:05
Speaker 1: real life based on like like a coin came out
46:08
Speaker 1: in or came to light in two thousand and seven,
46:11
Speaker 1: and people are like, well, she's not pretty. How how
46:14
Speaker 1: could she possibly have have you know, achieved all this
46:17
Speaker 1: if she wasn't pretty. Uh, there's just a bunch wrong
46:20
Speaker 1: with that. But this, this one historian um put it
46:23
Speaker 1: really really well. The impact she made on the ancient
46:26
Speaker 1: world has overlooked because the world has this obsession when
46:29
Speaker 1: it comes to women. People can only judge them on
46:32
Speaker 1: whether they were beautiful. Nobody ever said Mark Antony, how
46:35
Speaker 1: handsome was he? And that's really just just really drives
46:40
Speaker 1: the point home really well. I think that that people
46:43
Speaker 1: are obsessed with this idea of that she was beautiful,
46:46
Speaker 1: and it really does undermine like whatever she was capable of.
46:50
Speaker 1: And when people think like that, you're just carrying on
46:53
Speaker 1: a two thousand year old tradition that began in Rome
46:55
Speaker 1: around the time of Octavian. I'm not going to talk
46:58
Speaker 1: about it. So, um, you you asked about Octavian becoming Augustus, right, Uh, No,
47:05
Speaker 1: I didn't ask. I was just yes, you were setting
47:08
Speaker 1: me up for it. That story. I want to tell
47:10
Speaker 1: this story. You don't mind, I don't so. Uh. Cleopatra
47:15
Speaker 1: killed herself on August twelve of thirty BC, and Octavian
47:21
Speaker 1: decided to commemorate this extraordinary triumph over Cleopatra in Egypt
47:27
Speaker 1: and over mark Antony and his ascension to full ruler
47:30
Speaker 1: of Rome by taking the name Augustus. So when we're
47:35
Speaker 1: marking the month of August, the eighth month of the year,
47:38
Speaker 1: we're actually commemorating the defeat and the death of Cleopatra. Amazing,
47:44
Speaker 1: it is amazing. You knew that all along. Huh. All
47:47
Speaker 1: I know is that we have four live shows in
47:48
Speaker 1: August to commemorate this event. Where would you get tickets
47:52
Speaker 1: if you were gonna go Chuck s y sk Live
47:55
Speaker 1: if you lived in one particular city that you had
47:58
Speaker 1: to pick to go get tickets as many people as possible,
48:01
Speaker 1: what would that city be? Poor Chicago and Portland, Maine. Okay, great,
48:05
Speaker 1: well you heard Chuck. Everybody do it for Cleopatra. She
48:08
Speaker 1: wills it. That's right. If you want to know more
48:11
Speaker 1: about Cleopatra, just go start reading up. There's apparently a
48:14
Speaker 1: whole slate of really good biographies that have come out recently,
48:17
Speaker 1: so you've got plenty of stuff to work with. Uh.
48:20
Speaker 1: And since I said that, it's time for a listener mail, Hey, guys,
48:25
Speaker 1: want to reach out and let you know that my
48:27
Speaker 1: stepson loves listening to your show. UM. We share custody
48:31
Speaker 1: with my husband's ex wife. And not to go into
48:33
Speaker 1: those complicated details, but to be able to spend time, UM,
48:37
Speaker 1: spend as much time as I possibly can with him,
48:40
Speaker 1: drive him to school and pick him up from school.
48:42
Speaker 1: You can take anywhere from thirty to sixty minutes. UH.
48:45
Speaker 1: Zack is a d h D and on an I
48:48
Speaker 1: E P. And the typical school environment can be challenging
48:50
Speaker 1: for him. He's worked really hard this year building skills
48:53
Speaker 1: and has come quite a long way. In the fourth
48:55
Speaker 1: grade yeah, man, But when we find an alternative way
48:59
Speaker 1: to foster at this love of learning that he enjoys,
49:02
Speaker 1: we really embrace it. Uh. He really loves listening to
49:04
Speaker 1: stuff you should know during the long car rides. Way
49:07
Speaker 1: to go Zack again. He is a super smart kiddo
49:09
Speaker 1: and is especially engaged in the topics you guys cover.
49:13
Speaker 1: His latest favorite was uh, Tinnish cases of really bad luck.
49:17
Speaker 1: So his dad and I strive to model our value
49:19
Speaker 1: is one of the great One of great importance is
49:21
Speaker 1: that time together and experience his trump material goods. With
49:25
Speaker 1: his tenure milestone birthday approaching, I've been thinking about this
49:29
Speaker 1: quite a bit and I thought maybe, just maybe Josh
49:31
Speaker 1: and Chuck could give him a shout out. It would
49:34
Speaker 1: be the highlight of his decade and a killer birthday
49:36
Speaker 1: present from a killer step mom to her beloved kiddo.
49:39
Speaker 1: That is from Mandy, so Zach buddy, the happiest, happiest
49:45
Speaker 1: of birthdays to you as you turned ten. That is
49:48
Speaker 1: a very big deal because you are a double digit
49:51
Speaker 1: human being now and it sounds like you are doing
49:53
Speaker 1: great and sailing towards your teenage years with with confidence
49:58
Speaker 1: and intelligence. Congratulations on your big one. Oh Zach's Yes
50:04
Speaker 1: it is happy birthday. Um. Wow, that was a nice one, Chuck,
50:08
Speaker 1: well done. Thanks. If you want to get in touch
50:12
Speaker 1: with us like Mandy did, that's pretty rare that we
50:14
Speaker 1: do that kind of thing, But you never know. I
50:16
Speaker 1: guess you could take a shot, right yes, okay? Um,
50:20
Speaker 1: you can go on to stuff you Should Know dot
50:22
Speaker 1: com and check out our social links. Uh, that's probably
50:26
Speaker 1: not going to help much, so if you really want
50:28
Speaker 1: to get something like this done, you should write us
50:30
Speaker 1: an email. You're can wrap it up, spank it on
50:33
Speaker 1: the bottom, and send it off to stuff Podcasts at
50:37
Speaker 1: iHeart radio dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a
50:42
Speaker 1: production of iHeart Radio's How Stuff Works. For more podcasts
50:45
Speaker 1: for my heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
50:48
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.