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Reviews
War and Civil War "far from being a personal account,... are written in the
third person, which would accord with the work being written by Aulus Hirtius" (p. 17): all Caesar's commentarii are written in the third person. There is
also the reference to "the poet Sextus Aurelius Propertius": Aurelius, and also
Aurelius Nauta, occur in some MSS, but the names have no authority and are
not usually used.
In Ch. 3, "King's Daughter, King's Sister, Great Royal Wife," A. situates
Cleopatra within the context of the Ptolemaic ideology of kingship, which
she traces back to the time of Cleopatra II and III in the second century BCE.
Her explanation in section 3.3, "Cleopatra, King's Daughter," of Cleopatra's
genealogy is far from clear. Two versions of the family tree are given. There
is the traditional stemma (fig. 3.1), correctly omitting Cleopatra VI (Tryphaena), although in the text on p. 31 she is stated to be a daughter of Ptolemy
XII, wrongly I think. Fig. 3.2 is a variant of Hdlbl's stemma 2 (History of the
Ptolemaic Empire [London and New York 2001]). But no indication is given
in the text as to which is which. In addition Berenice IV, Ptolemy XII's only
legitimate daughter according to Huss and Hdlbl, has disappeared completely.
There are also a number of typos in both figures. Late Ptolemaic genealogy is
a fiendishly difficult topic, and perhaps it would have been better left alone in
a book of this nature.
Matters improve with A.'s account of what is known of the reign of Cleopatra's father Ptolemy XII, his influence upon her after he took her as his coregent in 52 BCE, and her relationship with her siblings. The chapter concludes
with an account of Cleopatra's visit to Caesar in Rome. There is strangely no
mention here of her sister Arsinoe IV being forced, perhaps at Cleopatra's own
urging, to walk in Caesar's quadruple triumph at Rome in 46 BCE. Caesar
subsequently exiled her to Ephesus (p. 43 gives the impression that she was
exiled immediately after her capture at the end of the Alexandrian War). There
she would be put to death by Antony at Cleopatra's request in 41 BCE, a typical
piece of familial ruthlessness which is mentioned only briefly by A. (pp. 41 and
44). Incidentally, in relation to Arsinoe's exile, Hdlbl, History, p. 237, suggested
that Caesar may have wanted to keep her alive as a legitimate heir should the
need arise, which somewhat undercuts the reports in some Roman writers of
Caesar's love and affection for Cleopatra referred to on p. 55. The chapter ends
with a discussion of the (few) archaeological traces of Cleopatra in Rome.
Ch. 4, "Ruler, Regent and Pharaoh," begins with a discussion of Cleopatra's possible female role models. In keeping with her Egyptian slant, A.
discusses such figures as Hatshepsut, Tiye, and Nefertiti, although Cleopatra
is more likely to have found models within her own dynasty, such as Arsinoe
II, Cleopatra III, or the latter's older sister Cleopatra Thea, the great queen of
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