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Posted
Wednesday, April 22, 2009 3:44 PM
| By
Nina Shen Rastogi
Stacy Schiff has a fantastic essay in the New York Times
about the legend of Cleopatra—who, Shiff points out, was not just the
lover of two of the most powerful men of her time but a fearsome
monarch in her own right, a woman whose "antecedents were the
rancorous, meddlesome Macedonian queens who
routinely poisoned brothers and sent armies against sons...These
women were raised to rule."
And yet, as we all know, Cleopatra's legacy has little to do with her political prowess:
Cleopatra has gone down in history as a wanton seductress. She is the original bad girl, the
Monica Lewinsky of the ancient world. And all because she turns up at
one of the most dangerous intersections in history, that of women and
power.
She presides eternally over the chasm between
promiscuity and virility, the forest of connotations that separate
“adventuress” from “adventurer.” Women schemed while men strategized in
the ancient world, too.
So
is a double standard simply inevitable when it comes to female leaders?
Cleo herself is mum on the topic. As Schiff notes, "No matter what the
tombs of Taposiris yield, they are unlikely to offer
up an answer to the vexed question of women and power." (Though in Shakespeare's version,
our queen has some choice words on the subject, perceptively declaring
that future dramatists would chalk up Antony's indiscretions to
drunkenness, while she herself would have to suffer seeing "some
squeaking Cleopatra boy my greatness / I' the posture of a whore.")
But according to the BBC, the dig may solve another eternally vexing question:
Zahi Hawass, Egypt's chief archaeologist, said the coins found at the
temple refuted "what some scholars have said about Cleopatra being very
ugly".
"The finds from Taposiris reflect a charm... and indicate that Cleopatra was in no way unattractive," he said.
Well, thank Amun-Ra for that.
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