I’m an American.

My country is only a few hundred years old.

My countrymen can be insular; even with jet planes the rest of the world seems very far away. And so, when we hear that a tank was captured by rebel forces in Homs it may not register as part of our collective experience. In that, I’m different because I spend all my days writing about the world of Cleopatra’s daughter.

Modern day Homs is the ancient kingdom of Emesa–an integral part of Selene’s parents’ plans for world domination and the place, ultimately, where Cleopatra’s legacy may have been preserved.

The Emesans were extremely religious, their city sacred to a sun god. The royal family of Emesa were priests of that cult. Emesa was a wealthy port city with rich soil perfect for the cultivation of important crops like wheat and olives. It was loyal to Rome and a strategic ally, unfortunately caught up as a pawn in the Roman civil wars.

Two royal brothers split their loyalties between Octavian and Antony. After the Battle of Actium, Prince Alexander (Alexio I) of Emesa was taken captive and marched beside Cleopatra Selene and her brothers in Octavian’s triumph, after which he was executed. In my novel, Lily of the Nile, this is a dramatic moment that affected Selene deeply and would help create a lifelong connection between her and the Emesan royals.

I chose to write it this way because if the line of Cleopatra lasted beyond the death of her grandchildren, it was here, in the kingdom of Emesa where Drusilla of Mauretania (Cleopatra Selene’s granddaughter) is thought to have married into the royal line. Later, another famously powerful queen, Zenobia of Palmyra, would claim to be descended from Cleopatra and if her claim is to be given any credence, it would be through this connection to the Kingdom of Emesa.

Homs is a special city for more reasons than I could list here and so my heart aches to see it as the center of violence in the news today; but if it becomes the place where a successful rebellion is staged in which the lives of women are ultimately improved, I cannot help but think Cleopatra and her daughter might smile just a little bit.

Though no ancient sources directly link the two monarchs, it’s difficult to write a novel about the life of Cleopatra’s daughter without referencing one of her mother’s bitterest enemies.

Herod the Great was Cleopatra VII’s rival even before her affair with the Roman Triumvir, Antony. As a Ptolemy, Cleopatra maintained a hereditary claim on Judea, but that wasn’t the only source of her conflict with King Herod.

To say that Herod’s personal life was a study in dysfunction is to put it lightly. When he entered on a campaign to rid himself of his wife’s relatives, of the Hasmonean Dynasty that preceded him, his mother-in-law found a sympathetic ally in Cleopatra VII. The Queen of Egypt tried to intercede on behalf of her friend, and apparently won Herod’s lifelong enmity as a result.

The feeling appears to have been mutual. Cleopatra would later demand from Antony that Herod’s whole kingdom be surrendered to her, but because Herod had been a loyal friend to Antony, he only stripped Herod of date and balsam plantations in Jericho and Ein Gedi.

The rivalry reached such a fever pitch that Herod is said to have considered assassinating Cleopatra, but was dissuaded by his advisors, who assured him that Antony would never forgive him. After Antony and Cleopatra’s defeat, King Herod went over to Octavian, asserting that he had given Antony the best possible advice: Kill Cleopatra.

Did the rivalry end there, or did Herod continue to fear the Ptolemies even after the famous queen took her own life?

Three of Cleopatra’s children survived the civil war: little Ptolemy Philadelphus, Cleopatra Selene, and her twin brother, Alexander Helios. As Ptolemies, all three could exert a claim over Judea, and because they were half-Roman, it might well have been feared that their claims might be supported against Herod if the political fortunes of Octavian should change. Even dead, Cleopatra and Antony still had their partisans, in Rome and elsewhere. Alexandrian cults like those surrounding the goddess Isis still held enormous political sway. If we credit the gospel of Matthew, then we also know that Herod was particularly threatened by children born under auspices and omens, which would have led him to be doubly wary of Cleopatra’s twins.

Given the portrait of Herod that has come down to us through the ages–namely that he was so power hungry and paranoid that he had his own sons put to death as rivals–it is difficult to believe that he ever viewed Cleopatra’s daughter with dispassion. Cleopatra Selene not only survived childhood, but went on to become Queen of Mauretania. Are we to believe that King Herod was not made uneasy to see his enemy’s daughter given more territory to rule than all the other client kingdoms in the empire put together?

Cleopatra Selene and her husband Juba appear to have had the implicit trust of Augustus, and did not need to make frequent visits back to the capitol to secure his good will, but Herod was less secure. Whereas Selene and Juba founded a port city and named it after Caesar, Herod commenced building two such cities, naming them both after Augustus. Whereas Cleopatra Selene and Juba appear to have worked in easy concert with their proconsular neighbors in Africa Novo, Herod was obliged to get permission for his military exploits, and overstepped on at least one occasion, prompting an angry letter from Augustus. Given these tensions, it is hard to imagine that Herod and Selene did not wish one another ill.

However, whether or not an active rivalry between Herod and Cleopatra Selene existed, the King of Judea was a pivotal contemporary figure in her life by which she must have measured most of her accomplishments as a client queen. That Herod comes down to us through history more well-known than Cleopatra Selene is partially a function of her gender, but also because her reign was one of relative peace and prosperity, lacking the big splashy family drama that marked Herod’s rule.

When Cleopatra was wooing Marc Antony, she bet him that she could spend a veritable fortune on a single meal. He doubted her. In response, she is said to have dissolved a valuable pearl in vinegar and gulped it down. But is the story true? No one knows for certain, but new research shows that it is not out of the realm of possibility. My favorite line in the article?

The cocktail would have been less appetizing than a martini with the traditional olive, but still palatable.

One of the biggest “bombs” Hollywood ever made was the 1963 classic, Cleopatra. Starring Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, and Rex Harrison, it was both splashy and fairly faithful to history, considering its big budget glam and the temptation to embellish. It got a few things wrong, and it chose to ignore Cleopatra’s other children altogether–including the twins, Alexander Helios and Cleopatra Selene. But long after it “failed” at the box office, it has remained the most enduring and iconic movie about the Queen of the Nile.

Among the most delicious things about the 1963 classic–aside from the over-the-top drama, the wonderfully quotable lines, the sumptuous sets, and a performance by Roddy McDowell that should have won him an Oscar were it not for a clerical error–was the real life romantic drama going on behind the set. Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton fell in love, their lives echoing the forbidden and notorious passions of their characters as Cleopatra and Antony.

Cover of Cleopatra: A Life

It should probably be no surprise then that when searching for a new Cleopatra to play the upcoming role in an adaptation of Pulitzer prize-winner Stacy Schiff’s new biography, Hollywood turned to their own reigning queen, Angelina Jolie. What’s more, now there are rumors that Brad Pitt is being considered for the role of Antony. If we should be gearing up for another gossip-filled, scandalous, decadent movie in the 1960’s style, this is definitely the way to go.

But my guess is that tastes have changed, and Stacy Schiff’s book already has the whiff of a more serious drama about it. The cover eschews the queen’s Egyptophilia in favor of her identity as a Hellenistic Queen, and I have all kinds of goosebumps about it.