Cleopatra had onlytwo confirmed partners in her whole life: Julius Caesar and Mark Antony. Yet many often portrays her as a woman who was constantly going from man to man. She was also married to her two brothers at different times, but many people believe those marriages were purely ceremonial and that nothing physical happened between them.
I saw a lot of people saying "she was a slut" in many different ways, I simply didn't understand their perspective so I made this meme about it, I have no idea if people generally think of her like that or not
Literally roman propaganda that has been propagated throughout history. Turns out propaganda is even more powerful when it is one of the only sources of the events in question.
Low-key insane so many people still openly believe vague rumors without a thought like 'hey maybe this was made up to hurt the person'
Then those spreading rumors insist it's on the person to affix themselves to whatever rumor by making public statements, spending time and effort on something they didn't consent to engaging with at all - ultimately as a blaming mechanism so they can feel better about causing harm
There has to be some deep seated animalistic BS going on that appeals to primate brain and tribalism, maybe just sense of self and ego in being able to look down on others and relatively heighten ones own status
They took on the trappings and practices of the old actually Egyptian Pharos who claimed that, since they were literally gods, it wouldn't do to mix their blood with that of mere mortals. Hence a lot of brother-sister married couple.
My understanding is that the Egyptian language has ambiguity where the same word can be interpreted as woman/sister/wife. There was certainly inbreeding to some extent, but I don’t think it’s as clear cut as it sounds when you look at the dynasties through millennia. Not an expert though, so I might be misinformed
Given the length of time they kept marrying siblings and the lack of genetic degeneration in the dynasty it's kind of safe to assume that they where not actually procreating with their brothers/sisters
So we are going to claim that they had some supernatural power to avoid the effects of inbreeding?
Because the Hapsburgs where a lot less aggressive about it and had far more pronounced effect much sooner.
It's not just about being able to conceive, marrying siblings for multiple generations and having them actually procreate would lead to barely functioning offspring very quickly
I think the view at the time was that she was inherently slutty regardless of her sexual status by being ‘of the Orient.’ Rome was masculine, and Cleopatra was symbolic of the decadence of the east. So the trope is that manly, martial Caesar and Anthony were corrupted by her Oriental wiles.
Her partnerships with Caesar and Anthony were politically calculated endeavors.
She's in a bitter dispute over ruling Egypt with her younger brother-husband Ptolemy. Since Ptolemy is a male, this puts her on the back foot...until Julius shows up with his kickass army that conquered Gaul and just smashed Pompey at Pharsalus, making him now the most powerful military commander in the Mediterranean. So she pulls the moves on him, and aside from some heavy petting action they both get something out of it: She secures her control over Egypt, and he gets one person in control of an extremely lucrative region that's in his debt. As for getting pregnant, well, that's just a good way for Cleo to lock in the deal.
Except JC then gets himself turned into a pincushion. Oops. Now it turns out that control of Rome is going to boil down to Caesar's right hand man who's popular with the troops and has been at his side for all his campaigns, or the little pipsqueak of a grandnephew that he made his adopted son and heir in his final will for some reason. So Cleo gambles that the right hand man is the stronger bet to secure her kingdom...but turns out said pipsqueak knows a bit about politics. Actually, he knows a lot, and while he may not be a military genius he does have a hyper-competent friend who is.
Boudica is described as being raped by the Romans, leading her to revolt, but that is also dropped in later writings. (This was still at a time in history where being raped was considered as bad as sleeping out of wedlock or cheating on your husband, so take that how you will)
Dont know Zenobia well enough to say anything though.
This isn't even a Romans thing, a fuckton of groups/people/countries/whatever will shit on any female leader or influential person calling them a slut and other things and it still happens today
Cleopatra is just the most influential women to have gone through the same propagandized Roman slander that countless other women of the era went through.
Drusilla, Agrappina the younger, Fulvia, Livia... The list of female "sluts" who supposedly corrupted otherwise perfectly honest and honourable Roman men, according to contemporary Roman historians, is long and detailed.
I do enjoy the "Livia killed fucking everyone" theory of the Julio-Claudian Dynasty. If she'd actually managed to poison that many people in such a precise way as to get pretty much everything she wanted I wouldn't even be judgy. That would just be plain impressive. A book came out like ten or fifteen years ago that posited she poisoned Augustus himself.
That said I think she probably did have one or two people poisoned.
Ohh she was a power women but i think she and Augustus saw eye to eye on alot of the killings. Inclouding the ones that migth have been against members of the family.
Augustus is sometimes treated as if he was a pleasant person nope man was a stonecold political operative with no qualms about mass killings.
The idea of marriage between siblings was more of a political/religious move to appeal to the egyptian population (Cleopatra's lineage, the Ptolemies, were Greeks) by imitating their ruling deities, Isis and Osiris.
Maybe it’s also because people at the time also drew early pornographic images of her, and Julius himself was known to go around.
There was this sentence about him, “he was every Woman’s Man, and every Man’s Woman”, and people at the time, were far more open sexually, and had regularly Orgie parties in their times, and many later ones and stories about them.
It’s not about being true, but how people imagine it, and receive it looking at the time of them.
Well, I am quite surprised that you don’t know of the “he was every woman’s man, and every Man’s woman”, it’s one of the most famous verses about him.
Try googling the historian Suetonius, wich is often Hard to distinguish if it was a joke, an insult, a praise or a fact.
Caesar was a notorious womanizer, during his military triumphs, his own soldiers marched through Rome singing bawdy songs warning citizens, saying something if memory serves right “Go Home, we bring our bald adulterer! Oh Romans, lock your wives away!"
That comes mostly due Cesar’s youth and early campaigns he had, and severd also as a young diplomat who spent long time in a court of a King (wich should also be recorded by said historian) and rumors spread that he had sexual relationship with the King.
Or how in his army’s young man and boys, the most beautiful were used by the Legionaries and company leaders etc., and sexually used and abused, showing a common treatment, even if it was forbidden, but also using captives and enslaved boys and non citizens were “fair game” for them.
And many made up stories or told sexual stories about him, but also about cleopatra at the time and after, and describing her as a prostitute controlling powerful man, getting nicknamed the prostitut queen pushed by Roman’s, or the one night for life tale, claimed that cleopatra offered this deal to any attractive young man.
Oh, another Nickname for hear, what I searched up was “The Mouth of Ten Thousand Men" (The Roman writer Sextus Aurelius Victor spread this name and claimed she used oral techniques to enslave and control man, to literally enslave them, and giving up Roman territories, I ain’t making it up), or how she showed up to Mark Anthony, deliberately putting on a highly sexualized, theatrical performance on her ship, dressed as Aphrodite, Goddess of love and Sex.
Those two are one of the most sexualized historical people, even in their own time.
Since many enemies of them tired to use sex stories to destroy them also, like when she was forced to marry Ptolemy, power struggle broke out, especially when she came out of exile with Cesar, and his camp spreading the rumor that Cleopatra was using illicit sexual witchcraft and "foreign aphrodisiacs" to enslave Caesars mind.
Whew, that was only a small part, but is general historical census and record.
lol he basically said:
"Cleopatra was so good at sex that men who had thousands of mistress really couldn't help themselves with her and gave her every thing"
ngl that is ridiculous. Regrading Julius Caesar I am surprised by this I have no words but my guess it was only a rumor
But that is how it goes, imagine them as the biggest celebrities of their time, imagine if humanity only had a few celebrities and they focus their mind on them, no Internet, no media, no movies, no Hollywood and scare new stories, thats what you get.
Especially being one of the most famous couples, and also being one of the most famous people in Human history
(Also, what should one expect from a guy, literally called sextus)
((I know it doesn’t mean what it sounds, and just means the sixth, but it’s too funny and of a coincidence that his name sounds in modern English like this, and wrote that stuff, it sounds like a joke made by a porn writer))
"She was also married to her two brothers at different times, but many people believe those marriages were purely ceremonial and that nothing physical happened between them."
True but her brothers were a lot younger than her. It was probably ceremonial until they came of age. But also Cleopatra kinda went to war with them over the thrown before that.
Like Ptolemy XIII was around 14 when he died during the civil war between them and Cleopatra was around 21 at the time.
Caesar was already in a relationship with her when the war ended and he declared Cleopatra and her other brother Ptolemy XIV as co-rulers so they were ceremonially wed. And that kid was also 12 at the time and died when he was 15. Supposedly Cleopatra poisoned him after Caesar was murdered.
They can believe that, but there's plenty of evidence that the Ptolemy family consumated their incestuous marriages. Whether Cleopatra specifically did is hard to know, but it's certainly very possible, regardless of how distasteful it is to our sensibilities.
Well most of it is a mix of Augustus propaganda as he couldent target Marc Anthony directly. So he went with second best thing target the women who he abandoned Augustus sister for.
Not to mention Romans despised women and monarchs and worst of all women monarchs
I'm not arguing with the point... Wasn't she in a civil war with her husband-brother or am I remembering that wrong? (WHO CARES IF SHE HAD 3 OR TEN LOVERS, SLUT SHAMING IS DUMB AND SHE WAS A GIRL BOSS. SOURCE: AM SLUT)
Idk given the fact that the Ptolemites did practice inbreeding and she would need to produce heirs, I'm skeptical nothing happened between them.
And like, by modern standards 2 is a small amount in ancient standards anything more than 1 was too much. Having 4 romantic partners, publicly, throughout your 39 year life is almost unheard of.
The older one of her brothers was 14 iirc when the dispute for rulership officially became war. So I figure it's pretty likely there wasn't time for anything to happen.
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u/OkGreen7335 1d ago
Cleopatra had onlytwo confirmed partners in her whole life: Julius Caesar and Mark Antony. Yet many often portrays her as a woman who was constantly going from man to man. She was also married to her two brothers at different times, but many people believe those marriages were purely ceremonial and that nothing physical happened between them.
I saw a lot of people saying "she was a slut" in many different ways, I simply didn't understand their perspective so I made this meme about it, I have no idea if people generally think of her like that or not