May 09
10
Cleopatra – The mystery continues…
Cleopatra – this name is the synonym of love, lust, power, seduction, mystery, and beauty. Many of them are myths. The fact that her tomb is still not found increases the mystery surrounding her.
Cleopatra died pretty young, 2039 years ago in 30 BC at the age of 39. Of these 39 years she ruled Egypt for 17 years from 51 BC till the time of her death. She was 17 when she became the Queen, possibly the youngest ever. Cleopatra is the original seductress and for power and country she slept with two of the most powerful men of her age – Julius Caesar and Mark Antony. In 48 BC she married Julius Caesar and after his death in 44 BC, she married again with Mark Antony in 37 BC. But before getting married with Caesar she married both her brothers to rule Egypt, mostly alone, which is essentially as a female king. She had a child with Caesar and three from Antony.
2nd September, 31 BC Antony & Cleopatra’s armies attacked Octavian but were defeated. They both fled battle fields and after a year on 1 Aug, 30 BC Antony committed suicide. 10 days after Antony’s death on 12th Aug, 30 BC Cleopatra also committed suicide, as popularly believed.
Zahi Hawasss, Director of Egypt’s Antiquities, is leading the effort to find Cleopatra’s tomb. According to him “if we find Cleopatra’s tomb we may well be able to solve the mystery of her death.” If her tomb is found then we may well be able to find if she committed suicide or was in fact murdered, or whether she died from a serpent’s bite or ingested a deadly dose of poison.
There are different views about her beauty & sexuality. Many historians believe that she was not all that beautiful based on her picture on the coin. As Margaret Atwood has written of Jezebel, “The amount of sexual baggage that has accumulated around her is astounding, since she doesn’t do any thing remotely sexual, except put on makeup.” The sheer absence of truth has made it a legend. If a tomb is found, probably this is the greatest mystery to be solved. Point to ponder over is if she was not so beautiful than why did the two most powerful men of her time fall for her? It is know that se had a velvety voice, knew many languages, and her conversation stimulating, adding to it were excellent persuasion powers.
We will only know all this if we ever find her tomb.
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