Most novels about Cleopatra focus on the tumultuous events of her adult life–the love affairs, the heart-break, the warfare, and ultimately, her tragic failure. This new novel by historical fiction author Carolyn Meyer zeroes in on Cleopatra’s early life, the unlikely journey of a third-born daughter whose rivalry with her siblings was nothing short of a deadly power struggle.

The book’s creator, CAROLYN MEYER, is the celebrated author of more than fifty books for young people, many of which have received awards and honors. She lives with her husband in Albuquerque, New Mexico. She’s also agreed to stop by and answer some questions here today.

I’ve written a number of novels about various queens of Europe–the Tudors, Catherine de’ Medici, Marie Antoinette, and (coming soon) Mary, Queen of Scots–and I was ready to try something completely different. Cleopatra immediately came to mind, and I was  fascinated, because–despite her great fame–so little is actually known about her.

What does she really have to confess?

Her relationships with her sisters and brothers  were shockingly confession-worthy.

What can young people learn from the Queen of Kings?

That being a queen is not a glamour job. And then there’s always somebody lurking nearby who wants to do you in.

Do you think she really loved either of her Roman consorts or were these affairs of political convenience?

I believe she was drawn to these powerful men on every level–physical, emotional, intellectual. For her, that equalled love. I don’t think she had other lovers, although her lovers certainly did–and wives, too.

Where do you come down on the question of how she died? Was it murder? Poison? Serpenticide?

I’ve read that being bitten by an asp/cobra is an extraordinarily painful and inefficient way to die, but that’s part of the Cleopatra legend, and so I’m sticking with it.

(Interviewer’s Note: I made the same choice for Lily of the Nile: A Novel of Cleopatra’s Daughter, and for the same reason, as explained in my article, How Did Cleopatra Really Die?)

What was the most surprising or confusing thing you learned about Cleopatra while writing this book?

One of the great mysteries surrounding Cleopatra is her physical appearance. The legend, again, paints her as exotically and erotically beautiful, but the only contemporary image, on a coin, shows her as hawk-nosed with a fat neck. My gut-feeling is that she was one of those women who are so fascinating that their actual physical appearance is irrelevant. I finally concluded that she was nothing like Elizabeth Taylor, was in fact quite ordinary looking but with great charisma and charm.

(Interviewer’s Note: In my article Was Cleopatra Ugly? I  argued that she was probably neither a raving beauty nor an ugly old hag, so an ordinary person with great charisma sounds right to me.)

Historical Fiction Author Carolyn Meyer

Your thoughts on Octavian?

I try NOT to think about Octavian, but he must have had something going for him that convinced Caesar to make him his heir.

It’s difficult to give Octavian his due when you find yourself identifying with Cleopatra, I admit. I think he was a brilliant leader, but I’d have preferred it if Cleopatra won that battle. What legacy do you think Cleopatra left for her children–especially Cleopatra Selene?

I know very little about Selene. That’s your department.

What trends have you noticed in Cleopatra fiction lately? Has the Queen of the Nile inspired Egyptomania again after all these years?

I really don’t know how to account for it. The recent appearance of all sorts of novels about Cleopatra, and now her daughter, began long after I had begun working on my book. Or at least I hadn’t noticed them.

I’d like to thank Carolyn for stopping by and encourage my readers and Cleopatraphiles to pick up this wonderful book!

Augustus Caesar’s most lasting monument is the Ara Pacis, a monument to peace. It’s a splendid work of propaganda, and one could spend a lifetime unraveling all its hidden symbols and meanings. After having defeated Cleopatra and Mark Antony, Augustus wanted to usher in a Golden Age. He wanted to be remembered for restoring peace. What fascinates me, of course, is that one of the mysterious children depicted on the monument has been tentatively identified as Ptolemy of Mauretania–the grandson of Cleopatra VII, son of Cleopatra Selene and Juba II.

If the Hellenistic figure is actually Selene’s son, an argument can be made that the Mauretanian royal family was far more important to Augustus than historians have led us to believe. It is possible that Ptolemy’s inclusion on the monument is as a royal hostage–Augustus wasn’t shy in pointing out that he held the children of Gaul and Parthia as his ‘guests’. This figure may count as evidence that Selene’s children were raised in Rome, just as she had been, as wards of the emperor.

On the other hand, Mauretania wasn’t a conquered nation and Selene was a nominal member of the imperial family. She was the half-sister of the Antonias and a favorite of the emperor’s sister, Octavia. She’d been raised in their household. Perhaps it’s not so strange that her child should be portrayed on what is, in the end, a family monument.

Either way, Ptolemy’s inclusion on the Ara Pacis casts the importance of Mauretania, which has previously been considered a sort of minor league western frontier, in a new light. Certainly, Virgil’s insistence that Rome would expand beyond the Garamantes (a Numidian and Mauretanian tribal group) gives us a hint as to Augustus’ ambitions. Perhaps it was no accident that he put Selene and Juba II at the western border of the empire where he would need strong allies for a new campaign.

But back to the monument. What captured my attention is the swan in the so-called Tellus Panel, which cannot help but call to mind the mythology of Apollo and Cyrene, whose son became the patron god of cattle, fruit trees, hunting, husbandry. (Selene, of course, was the nominal successor to Cyrene as the queen of Cyrenaica in title if not in fact.) Then, of course, there is the similarity between the portrait of the goddess (identified variously as Tellus, Ceres, Pax and Venus) with her straight over-masculine nose, and the surviving portraits of Cleopatra Selene. But those are the kinds of eye-of-the-beholder things that an author of fiction is bound to make hay with.

If you want a little tour of the Ara Pacis monument, check out this video:

Cross-posted from: Unusual Historicals

Stephanie Dray’s debut historical fiction novel, LILY OF THE NILE , was just release by Berkley Books. The sequel is expected to release at the end of 2011. Both novels are set in the Augustan Age and feature Cleopatra’s daughter.

Cross-posted from: Unusual Historicals Blog

Entertainment in the ancient world relied upon trained performers. Such training didn’t come cheap, so royal patronage was highly sought after by would-be entertainers. The most prestigious patronage to secure in the Augustan Age was, of course, the imperial court in Rome, but if a budding young entertainer couldn’t find a place there, other opportunities beckoned.

The king and queen were enthusiasts of plays–and one of the first things they built in their new kingdom was an outdoor theater, carved into the hillside, in Greek fashion, with stepped seats for playgoers to gather on. There, actors would bring to life the plays of Sophocles, Euripedes, and Aristophanes. Some plays that may have been performed on that stage are still popular today, including Medea, Oedipus the King, and Antigone. But new works were undoubtedly commissioned and enacted as well, for we know that one tragedian, Leonteus of Argos, was a member of the Mauretanian court.

Having a court poet was a a sign of status in the ancient world. Certainly, Augustus made the most of his stable of poets to reshape his image. The poetry written during his reign has outlasted many of the histories. The poet as chronicler was a long-standing tradition. So, while Virgil, Horace and Ovid penned verse in Rome, Cleopatra Selene and Juba II certainly had a court poet of their own, and he was almost certainly Crinagoras of Mytilene. The venerable old poet was a man of some distinction, having apparently served as an ambassador. He rubbed elbows with the highest society–he seems to have been present when Caesar indulged in his scandalous affair with Cleopatra and undoubtedly met the Queen of the Nile when she was in Rome. Perhaps this is when the Greek Epigrammatist took an interest in Cleopatra and her children, for he is best known for the verse he wrote in honor of her daughter, Cleopatra Selene. His two most famous works were written on the occasion of Cleopatra Selene’s marriage to Juba and upon her death during a lunar eclipse.

More lighthearted entertainment was to be had in Mauretania too. We know that the King also employed mimes, for one of them, a young girl named Ecloga, apparently died in Rome. (The connection between Juba II, Cleopatra Selene and the imperial family in Rome was a close one and it’s quite likely that the king and queen maintained a home there in which they entertained in high style.)

Given King Juba’s lineage as a Numidian and his alleged horsemanship, it’s likely that chariot races were a common type of entertainment in Mauretania. However, instead of a circus, we find amongst the ruins of the Mauretanian capital city of Iol-Caesaria, an amphitheatre. Though gladiator games in which the fighters battled to the death were unknown in Cleopatra Selene’s native Egypt, Mauretania was filled with Roman veterans who expected such entertainment as their due. Consequently, the amphitheatre would have been a hot spot for the subjects of Cleopatra Selene and Juba II to gather for bloody entertainment.

One last form of entertainment in Mauretania is worth mentioning. In North Africa, then, as now, snake charmers mesmerized and entertained passersby with cobras who would lift up from their baskets to dance for their owners. Given that Cleopatra Selene’s mother was said to have committed suicide by surrendering to the bite of one of these vipers, one has to wonder how much Selene enjoyed such displays!

Stephanie Dray’s debut historical fiction novel, LILY OF THE NILE , was just release by Berkley Books. The sequel is expected to release at the end of 2011. Both novels are set in the Augustan Age and feature Cleopatra’s daughter.

A common misconception held even by some classics majors who ought to know better is that Rome was tolerant of every foreign god and the idea that Augustus suppressed Isis worship is a fictional literary flourish.

While it’s true that Rome generally accorded respect to foreign gods, there are a few religions that fell afoul of the powers-that-be. Rome virtually exterminated the Druids. They burned Christians and fed them to the lions. And we learn from Tertullian, Cassius Dio, Valerius Maximus, Josephus and others, they cracked down on Isis worship too.

The female-centric Alexandrine cult promoted unorthodox ideas about gender roles, war and slavery; it was thought to be a threat to the moral fiber of Rome. Writers like Juvenal and Cattullus propagated the idea that the religion was obscene and orgiastic. Certainly, Isis was a favorite amongst prostitutes, which couldn’t have earned her any points with the musty old conscript fathers in Rome.

Valerius Maximus tells us that the authorities attempted to purge the cult from Rome, going so far as to destroy her temples–though none of the workmen would take up an axe so the politician in charge had to remove his toga and start trashing the temple himself. Isis enjoyed a brief reprieve under Julius Caesar and Mark Antony–which may have had something to do with the fact that both men were sleeping with Cleopatra VII of Egypt, the New Isis.

After Cleopatra’s defeat, however, Octavian took up the mantle of protecting the moral fiber of Rome from Isis worship which, he apparently believed, subverted the proper relations of the sexes. That is to say, he didn’t believe that women should think themselves equal to men, and said so. At first he banned the worship of Isis within the sacred boundary of Rome–an indication of its status as un-Roman. However, while Augustus was away in 21 BC, his second-in-command, Agrippa, pushed the Isiacs out of the city entirely and forbid worship within a mile of Rome.

It should be pointed out that while Augustus set about destroying the Temples of Isis in Rome, he allowed himself to be portrayed making offers to Isis in traditional style on temples in Egypt. But that was Egypt, where he wanted to claim the power of the Pharaohs and make a seamless transition in rule. It’s also not clear that all these carvings were made at his direction, or on his behalf by well-meaning priests eager to curry his favor. Moreover, the appearance of Isis in frescoes and artwork on the Palatine should not be taken as an endorsement of the goddess. In the aftermath of Cleopatra’s defeat, Egyptomania took hold and it became the fashion to decorate gardens with obelisks and sphinx statues, regardless of their religious significance. That Julia, the daughter of Augustus, may have been an Isis worshipper is an interesting possibility that leads one to wonder if it was an honest spiritual calling or one more rebellion against her overbearing father.

The official Roman antipathy for Isis lasted after Augustus’ death. Josephus tells us that after a scandal during his reign, Tiberius (who was Augustus’ successor and Julia’s husband) crucified Isiac priests and threw a cult statue of Isis into the Tiber.

Much of this happened during Cleopatra Selene’s lifetime. That she continued to promote the worship of Isis in spite of this official antipathy for her goddess is an interesting facet of her life considering she would have been the most prominent Isis worshipper and a nominal member of the imperial family. It would be her nephew, Caligula, who would restore Isis worship in Rome where it would eventually flourish until the rise of Christianity.