Citation Needed - Cleopatra

Episode Date: January 17, 2024

Cleopatra VII Thea Philopator (Koinē Greek: Κλεοπάτρα Θεά Φιλοπάτωρ[note 5] lit. Cleopatra "father-loving goddess";[note 6] 70/69 BC – 10 August 30 BC) was Queen of the Ptolemaic Kingdom of Egypt from 51 to 30 BC, and its last active ruler.[note 7] A member of the Ptolemaic dynasty, she was a descendant of its founder Ptolemy I Soter, a Macedonian Greek general and companion of Alexander the Great.[note 8] After the death of Cleopatra, Egypt became a province of the Roman Empire, marking the end of the last Hellenistic-period state in the Mediterranean and of the age that had lasted since the reign of Alexander (336–323 BC).[note 9] Her first language was Koine Greek and she is the only known Ptolemaic ruler to learn the Egyptian language.[note 10]

Hello and welcome to Sightation Needed. Podcasts were chosen to subject read a single article about unwikipedia and pretend we're experts because this is the internet and that's how it works now. I'm Cecil and I'll be navigating this Nile Delta, but I'm going to need Mike Oarsman for guys who will row, row, row this boat gently down the stream. Keith, Tom, Noah, and Eli. Hello, Cecil's the Cox. Nice. If life was but a dream, I would very much like to wake up now, though, Cecil.

Very much. Oh, man. Who am I? In the cold summer. In the cold summer. Oh, God. I'd like to know which of us's dream it is, too. Like, I'm worried regardless by what I know which direction to be worried in.

Right? Right? Right? It's very obviously me. We all know it's me, right? Patrons, you're the wind in our sales. If you'd like to learn how to join their ranks, be sure to stick around until the end of the show. And with that all the way, tell us Eli. What's person-place thing concept phenomenon or event? Are we going to be talking about today?

We're going to be live here. Here he is. Thank you. That's my dream. We'll be talking about Cleopatra. Okay. All right. Noah, why did you pick this particular topic? Well, she's, so she's been on my list forever, but after you did Julia Caesar last week, how could I not? right? Right? It totally fits. Okay. So who is Cleopatra? Well, okay. So Cleopatra was, as it turns out, one out of every four women in Egyptian fucking history.

Apparently, the story is really confusing because every damn woman is named Cleopatra. Right? Her mother, a great grandmother, great aunt, great, great grandmother. It's just, it's wall-to-wall Cleopatra's. Apparently, Cleopatra's. Apparently Cleopatra meant glory of her father. So once you got one of those in the family, you have to have one in every generation, I guess.

Anyway, the Cleopatra that we're gonna focus on though is Cleopatra the seventh Thea Phillipator or Cleopatra the seventh, the father loving goddess. So yeah, feminist icon or no, her official title had two references to her dad in. All right, so where does this story start? With Alexander the Great, I guess. So he conquered a huge S empire and then he died while he was still really young, so that empire wound up getting divvied up amongst his generals. And one of those generals, guy named Tolemie, wound

up with Egypt. And he would kick off a dynasty with the would last through 12 generations of his family ending with Cleopatra. Seventh the Affiliate or here and referred to us just Cleopatra. Thank God. Incidentally, it's about the Cleopatra. We all know the one. The one the one. Yeah.

The aunt. She's like share in that way. Incidentally, the genealogy here more of a family vine than a family tree. So she was also super duper in bread. Wait, you're telling me the family who named their daughter daddy's girl of the girl who is daddy's had some. No beauty standards change over time. We don't maybe webbed fingers were hot back in the day. We don't know. Clearly, obviously, a lot of time.

Timeless, Tom. Tom, look at me. Timeless. Now, her family had been ruling Egypt for 12 generations, but they did so as Greeks. So like, even though their family had been in Egypt longer than, you know, any of our families have been in America, probably, they considered themselves Greek and they went to great lengths to separate themselves

from the Hoi Palloy Egyptians. Uh, in fact, in more than two centuries of rule, not a single, Tala meyak ruler had even bothered to learn the Egyptian language. That's awesome. Right. But Cleopatra would change that. She was actually quite the polyglot. In fact, before she'd even reached adulthood, she could apparently speak Egyptian, Ethiopian,

Hebrew, Syriac, Latin, Median, and Parthian. And I believe she adds more languages before she's dead in this story. Her secret, she had a real owl passive aggressively stare at her if she didn't grab me again. I really did the trick. I'm just tapping its foot. The previous kings that didn't learn the language just sat on the throne and progressively spoke louder and slower in a foreign language, helping people would understand them need moochow fucking wine bottle So anyway, so clear clear patria was born in 69 BCE

number gaysa nice To tolamies 12 There's actually a bit of question about who her mother was but I feel like most of that question arises from Roman propaganda her mother was probably Cleopatra the fifth trifina. I'm probably pronouncing that wrong, but whatever. And that might also, by the way, be the same person as Cleopatra the sixth trifina. Of course. Historical records are weird. Anyway, little Cleo has an older sister named Baronista fourth and younger sister named Arsene of the fourth

and two younger brothers, Tallah, me the 13th, the Tallah, me the 14th. So just file those names away for quickie obituaries later in this story. It's all the same name. If I file away, I mean, forget them already. Noah, I'm way ahead of you. Okay. I'd just be surprised later when I start killing off siblings. That's all I'm saying.

Now of course, long before Cleopatra came along, the Tala Mag dynasty had fallen on hard times. They'd managed to maintain control of Egypt, but they'd done so only with Rome in assistance. Enough so that by the time she was born, Tala Mag Egypt was a client state of Rome, and in Rome, it was talk of going one step further and just straight up annexing the wealthy kingdom. In response to threats of annexation, Cleopatra's dad lavish gifts on all the most powerful Romans to the point where he essentially bankrupted his kingdom, then Roman ex-Cypress, which was controlled by Tallah me the 12th brother, Tallah me of Cypress. Well, that Tallah me chose suicide over exile, and the other Tallah me didn't say shit about it.

Needless to say, his policy of seating traditional and old, Taliban lands to Romans and then paying them not to take more, not super popular among the Egyptian people. So in 58 BCE, they exiled him. Yeah. And he was like, cool. Yeah, I actually wanted a couple weeks off. This is great. I'll check back in after Rome kills all of you.

Yeah. I was paying them not after Rome kills all of you. Yeah. I was paying them not to. But you get spoilers. He's. He's. No. So we don't know for sure, but it's widely believed that Ptolemy the 12th took Cleopatra with him when he was exiled.

His eldest daughter, Baronista fourth, took over his ruler, but that wouldn't last long. A lot of very powerful Romans were losing a lot of money with Ptolemy off the throne. So in 55 BCE, the Roman governor of Syria invaded Egypt and restored Ptolemy to power. Now, one of the Roman soldiers who really distinguished himself in that campaign was a young hottie by the name of Mark Antony, Cleopatra, who would have been 14 at the time, accompanied the Roman army along with her dad and would later confess that she fell in love with Mark Antony during that trip. Big ol' pin in that. Yeah. Hey, Noah, before we stick pins and things, quick note that Mark Antony was 26 when the

14 year old fell in love with him. So now I'm picturing him marching through the streets of Egypt in a monster energy hat and with like a wrap. He's rolling coal like literally taking coal from one place to. And we're still a dinosaur. He's rolling dinosaur. That's probably the nice little service. So tell me you read it, Tuneberg. That'll make sense eventually.

So tell me the 12th was back on the throne. He had his usurper daughter like eggsiled along with all her wealthy supporters. A bunch of them were executed as well. I seized their property, used that to pay off the expenses that he incurred, convincing Romans to restore his rule. And in all of this Cleopatra learns some really important lessons about courting Roman power and murdering your siblings when you have the chance.

Those would come in very handy later in her life. But not that much later, because in early 51 BCE, a mere four years after returning to the throne, Ptolemy XII would die. Now, just to keep things good and fragile, Cytle, Ptolemy appointed both Cleopatra and her younger brother, Ptolemy Xteenth as co-rulers and she just be clio atra if he's tholomea are we skipping

the skippin piece so and keep in mind that she's eighteen years old at this point and while there's no official record of it that i'm aware of it's safe to assume that she then married said little brother to consolidate their rule. Hey, Skryde rolled it up. We are not doing documents for this one. Skryde is going to fall down.

So actually, sibling marriage had been the norm in TallahMegh Egypt going all the way back to TallahMegh the second. And there's no reason to think that it would have stopped with her. And I should note, by the way, that, you know, much of the ancient world thought that that practice was every bit as gross as we think it is now, including the Greeks of the time. I've always said, Heath is the ancient Egypt of our podcast. Okay.

And the step is different. And I don't need to think whatever. The landisters are a handful. Read a book. When they, when they inevitably smash their celebrity names together, did the couple go by Tallah Patra or Cleolomy? Which one will be? All right, Cleolomy. Cleolomy is amazing. So within months of dad's death, official documents

were listed Cleopatra as the sole ruler. At no doubt, she'd effectively side-land her little brother early on, but he still had powerful allies that were way less willing to roll over and let her have the throne. Pretty soon, that turns into a civil war, though it manages to stay on kind of a, like, a low-broil for a while. Yeah, so says you, but until there's a Ken Burns documentary, slow-panting over like, scrolls of love letters from the front, there's only one civil war for my heart. Okay. Yeah. Right. Another interesting. I wrote, and of course, it's around here. This story intersects with Cecil's essay

from last week in the summer of 49 BCE. Poppy, great son, Pompey, the pretty good showed up in Alexandria asking for Egyptian help, fighting off Caesar's bid to overthrow the Roman Republic. In what might well have been their last joint degree, both Cleopatra and Talami the 13th agreed to throw in with Pompey and send 60 ships and 500 soldiers to aid in their war efforts. Pompi's second kid always resented being called Pompi the okay-ish. He really did. He was totally. He was easily a think-so, but from experience, I'll tell you, it's a lot less pressure.

A lot. Yeah, no, it's a second son. I got him with easy, easy. Yeah. Pompi. So the podcaster. All right, no, that hit. That hit a low close to home, Eli.

I like you to take that one and then drop. All right, no, that hit a load close to home, Eli. I like you to take that one and then drop. So shortly after that, Cleopatra's brother gets the upper hand in the conflict. She has to flee Alexandria, which is the capital of Egypt at the time. And while that probably seemed like quite a victory to them at that time, it also forced her to go elsewhere,

which is where all the allies were. So she goes to Syria, she raises an army, her army marches on Alexandria, they get bogged down along the way. Oh, oh, holding army over. I just saw the cutest little vintage store. I have. I have. All right. They're not going to have your size. They never have your size. I'd like to say to myself from eats. Yes. like to distance myself from your thing. I'd like to distance myself from both

things in the meantime. I've got terrible news about the company you were turned out to. So in the meantime, Caesars were spilled into Greece where poppy's forces get their asses kicked in the battle of Farseless. Naturally, Poppy decides to flee to Egypt. He's had this long, close relationship with the Talamis.

They just recently contributed a massive force to aid him in the war. It's the only place left where he feels like he can really re-raise an army. So he halls-ass there while Caesars mopping up his forces left in Europe. But Talamis' advisors are starting to rethink their allegiance, right? Rome is looking for an excuse to annex Egypt already. And they figured harboring one half of the Civil War was a great way to bring that about. So when Poppy shows up, they stab him, they chop off his head, and they present it to Caesars when he shows up a few weeks later.

He picks it up. He picks up Crasses' head on the the way down and they had a wicked puppet show. Just amazing. That's filled with. All right. I got to do a new voice. Um. No, no.

I'm Christ. No. No. So Caesar's super distraught over the killing of Pompey. No, for real. So look how distraught he is. So he sets up shop in Egypt for a while to remind them who's who's client here. And this is of course where we get the famous meeting between Caesar and Cleopatra. There are three versions of the

story here in Cassius Dio's version. She hears that Caesar likes to have affairs with royal women so she gets all gussied up without informing her brother. She shows up at the palace to seduce Caesar in Plutonx version. She's actually smuggled in to the palace where he's staying inside a bed sack. And in Hollywood's version, she arrives rolled up in a carpet. But however, it actually happened, the two met and it sparked off an affair so famous that we're still talking about it 2,000 years later. Well, while Caesar yons through the most boring nothing inside this carpet trick of all time We're gonna take a quick break Caesar a gift has arrived from you from the beautiful queen of Egypt [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪

Caesar, a gift has arrived from you from the beautiful Queen of Egypt. Send it in. A beautiful hand-woven carpet. Yeah, that's excellent. Put it in the treasury, please. You're the brother of the oven! But, but, I'm sorry. Is there someone inside there? I didn't get that. Yeah, I mean either I didn't get it either.

I said open it and see. Do we cut it open? What? What? No, unroll it. Unroll it. Here? Like a unroll it.

On the floor. Idiot. Unroll it. Here? Like unroll it. On the floor idiot. Right, sorry. Geez. I'm sorry, but who are you? I am cool. Oh, sorry. That perfect thing made me really dizzy. Are you gonna throw up? No, nope, don't say it, but I'm not, I'm not. I'm just, oh, give me a second.

It takes a time. Okay, I am good. I am good, no, I'm not, I am not, yep. Wow, you're so sweaty, you're like listening. I was gonna say, listening. Because I was rolled up in a carpet'm not, yep. Wow, you're so sweaty like listening. I was gonna say, listening. Because I was rolled up in a carpet in Egypt, man, I was in there for like an hour. I mean, you could have told us

that you had like a prepared bit and we would have just had. No, that would have ruined the point is, I, hello, hi, I would like to sell sexily. Welcome you to my country. These are it. Okay, well, wow. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. You're welcome. So, if you'll excuse me, you're highness. You ain't a gustor up now. Yeah, in like four seconds. All right, this way, come on over here. You think I said doost him?

Probably not, no. Fucking shit, boss. Before we took a break, Cleopatra was smuggled in the Caesar's room for some alone time. Noah did the rolled up carpet match the drapes. So it seems like with their talking about the rest of the rest of the rest of the rest of the rest of the rest of the rest of the rest of the rest of the rest of the rest of the rest of the rest of the rest of the rest of the rest of the rest of the rest of the rest of the rest of the rest of the rest of the rest of the rest of the rest of the rest of the rest of the rest of the rest of the rest of the rest of the rest of the rest of the rest of the

rest of the rest of the rest of the rest of the rest of the rest of the rest of the rest of the rest of the rest of the rest of the rest of the rest of the rest of the rest of the rest of the rest of the rest of the rest of the rest of the rest of the rest of the rest of the rest of the rest of the rest of the rest of the rest of the rest of the rest of the rest of the rest of the rest of the the rest of the rest of the rest of the rest of the rest of the rest of the rest of the rest of the rest of the rest of the rest of the rest of the rest of the rest of the rest of the rest of the rest of the rest of the rest of the rest of the rest of the rest of the rest of the rest of the rest of the rest of the rest of the rest of the rest of the rest of the rest of the rest of the rest of the rest of the rest of the rest of the rest of the rest of the rest of the rest of the rest of the rest of the rest of the rest of the rest of the rest of the rest of the rest of the rest of the rest of the rest of the rest of the rest of the rest of the rest of the rest of the rest of the rest of the rest good joke just went under the radar. So I might just want to say it. No, yeah. We would draw a circle around it. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. Just really good, really good joke. Just, no, forget it. Just go ahead. Just forget it. It's not our might have gone to his easels at a little bit. Wow. Brutal. I can rough room. Go ahead Noah. Super rough room. Anyway. So it seems like when they're talking about Cleopatra, no matter how serious a historian you're dealing with, the question of how hot she was invariably comes up,

we're going to sidestep that question entirely because it's been answered way more times than it needs to be. But okay, she's 12 generations. Right? So like not. All right, maybe we're not talking about this. And it's like, wow, a lot of things. A lot. Oh, web. I can't even tell where your nose starts or begins. It's like a fucking Picasso.

It's amazing. I hope you like chromosomes. All right. I got to answer. All right. So what I want to point out though is that the time of their meeting, Cleopatra would have been about 22 years old, I think, 21. And Julius Caesar would have had about 53.

Yeah. And as much as history loves to portray her beguiling Caesar with her irresistible charms, one member of the relationship was notorious for seducing everyone they possibly could seduce and it wasn't a bad term. Yeah, it's history's version of your buddy who tells you the story of how he met his third wife. You're like, oh, really? You're both like skiing. You had a driver's license when she was born, my guy. He's got a house, a story. Okay, and today I learned about Leonardo the Caprio's family line. So that's fascinating. Yeah, he's very in bread.

A lot of people don't know that. But you could look at him. You could look at him. Yeah, right, right. No, a lot of fingers there, but their couple name could be Clean. Right. That's right. The good one.

Perfect. Leo Patrick doesn't work as well. All right, so but that's for you. That's for you. That's for you. That's for so but that's pretty, that's pretty good work. So regardless of who seduced who, the two of them hook up, when TallahMah the 13th figured out out, he was livid, he tries to instigate a riot over it. So Caesar has him arrested. And then at first Caesar tries to play Kate everybody, right?

He tries to enforce the joint rule edict from TallahMah the 12th's will and even tries to assuage the the anger over an exing Cyprus by offering to let the remaining siblings govern there. But Tullamy's side, you know, they figured they've already got control of Alexandria. Why give half of that up? What's more, they figured they got 20,000 troops. Caesar's only got about 4,000 with him. And what's more, he's got a lot of enemies in Rome that might

love to see the whole civil war problem just work itself out on Egyptian soil. So, Taliban's forces lay siege to the palace where Caesar and Cleopatra are holed up. And that lasts for a few months. And Caesar's like, oh, no, please don't trap me in here for several months with nobody keeping me company except for your super hot half my age sister. And then his reappointment show fingers. Yeah, there's an advantage to eight fingers. Yeah. Um, but Tallahbi's forces flee. Caesar attacks him while they're on the run. He defeat them. And then while Tallahbi is is trying to get away his boat hapsizes and he dies. Cleopatra comes away from the whole ordeal pregnant with Julius Jr. So you could say, Seaman, we're spilling everywhere that somewhere.

I could say that. I think he's saying Seaman landed his air. I think that's what he said. Sure. No. No, the seeds are salad. That's good. That's good.

Salad. Salad. Really good. Despite all of this shit they just been through with Tala Me the 13th, That's good. That's good. That's good. That's good. That's good. That's good. That's good. That's good. That's good. That's good. That's good. That's good. That's good. That's good. That's good. That's good. That's good. That's good. That's good. That's good. That's good. That's good. That's good. That's good. That's good. That's good. That's good. That's good. That's good. That's good. That's good. That's good. That's good. That's good. That's good. That's good. That's good. That's good. That's good. That's good. That's good. That's good. That's good. That's good. That's good. That's good. That's good. That's good. That's good. That's good. That's good. That's good. That's good. That's good. That's good. That's good. That's good. That's good. That's good. That's good. That's good. That's good. That's good. That's good. That's good. That's good. That's good. That's good. That's good. That's good. That's good. That's good. That's good. That's good. That's good. That's good. That's good. That's good. That's good. That's good. That's good. That's good. That's good. That's good. That's good. That's good. That's good. That's good. That's good. That's good. That's good. That's good. That's good. That's good. That's good. That's good. That's good. That's good. That's good. That's good. That's good. That's good. That's good. That's good. That's good. That's good. That's good. That's good. That's good. That's good. That's good. rule with her youngest brother, the 12 year old, Tala me the 14th, which is a lot like being invited to a company to named characters on a dangerous mission and Star Trek. So you just don't get attached to this. Yeah, don't worry about that. No, there's like 19 guys named Tala me in the story.

And I think that was the 14th. He's the 14th. Tom and I don't even make sense. We already forgot who's who is what. Right. We're not a real Roman history is already forgot who's who is one of them. Right. We're not attached. Yeah, for real, Roman history is like a who's who of who the fuck is actually who? That's the who.

Yes. Right. No, of course, it's at this point that Caesar and Cleopatra famously cruised the Nile together for a few months and leave everybody else wondering what the newly installed Roman dictator is thinking. We're not. It turns out this might not actually happen, according to the wiki, that might be quote, a romantic tale, reflecting later well to do Roman proclivities and not a real historical event. End quote. So anyway, so in April of 47 BCE, Caesar leaves, probably to avoid

being seen with Cleopatra and her brand new kid. He leaves behind three legions to help protect her tenuous grip on power and like all troops, Garrison, Denoclient Kingdom, they're also there to make sure that she doesn't get out of life. Two months after he left, she gives birth to their bouncing baby boy and just in case there might ever be any historical doubt about the parentage, she names the kids Cesar Serian. Now, Caesar himself would never publicly admit to being the kids dead, but Pia Petra rarely missed an opportunity to tell the world where that sperm came from for that one. Yeah, I get it.

She was like, hey, scribe guy, I need a very graphic flip book with all those fucking spermol dynamics, just a diagram, everything that happens on conception night. Well, I had her confidant very classily kept her blue dress. So you know, no getting around it there. Right. Yes. Mori's first episode was that. So she spent a little time tamping down rebellion and establishing herself as a beloved

ruler, not super hard to do when the first person to rule a country in 13 generations that actually bothered to speak its language, right? And then she decided to take an extended trip to Rome. While she was there, her in-sis are rekindled their affair until he got stabbed to death, obviously. Mm, citation needed. What I'm saying is here on citation needed, that is not obvious.

It's not so obvious that I didn't feel the need to mention it. Correct. Yeah. So she stuck around a few months after the assassination in the hopes that maybe Caesar was going to name their son as his heir, but that would not be the case. His will was read shortly thereafter. And of course, his grand nephew Octavian was named as his primary heir around the time that Octavian showed up to claim his inheritance. Cleopatra wisely got the fuck out of town. She was going to do the carpet thing again, but her orthopedic shoes kept

sticking out of one end. So fast forward a couple of months. So many Eli plots were poiled. And if you're about 100% of a carpet when he was doing a car talk thing. Yeah, right, right. Yeah. Fast forward a couple of months. Cleopatra Poisons are a little brother or slash co-ruler and elevates her infant son to the position.

Meanwhile, a tenuous truce is growing in Rome between Octavian, Mark Antony and Marcus Amelia's lepidus that history would call the Second Triumvirate, and while it never reached the lofty heights of the first one, it would end about the same. But before it did, the three were united with the ostensible goal of bringing Caesar's assassins to justice, and the ensuing war would once again draw Egypt in with both the assassins and the Second Triumvirate appealing to Cleopatra for eight. And she answered the call on the side of the triumvir's.

In fact, she actually personally led her fleet in degrees to help Octavian and Antony, though she arrived too late to get in on any of the action. Second triumvir is just sitting around the table as they're going through their rules and they form. Okay, guys, in section three here, it's going to list how we want our heads handled after we die. Okay, I want a cool voice for the puppet show. I can describe right down. Think about it beforehand or just wing it. So eventually the triumvirate starts to break down. Octavian is basically in control of the Western Empire. Anthony is in control of the Eastern Empire and Lapidus can fuck right off. He's got nothing.

He sucks. And Anthony starts to think that maybe his best shot at consolidating his rule is Cleopatra's support. So he starts sending her, do you like me? Check this box notes? And those she resists to the first she eventually agrees to go on one date with him if he'll have her exiled sister executed. So he does that. So the two of them hook up and Cleopatra quickly uses their relationship to her advantage and gets Rome to see Cyprus and Celicia back to Egyptian control. That makes Anthony a darling of the Egyptian people, right, along with the fact that when he came to Alexandria to bone their queen,

unlike Caesar, he didn't feel the need to bring an occupying army with him. Meanwhile, he's just soaking up the royal lifestyle and realizing that being a king is way better than being one-third of a dictator. That's what Eli is going to tell Noah and Heath when he starts his my little pony podcast solo. My solo projects do so well. He saw that. Right.

Right. So by the end of 40 BCE, Cleopatra gives birth to twins, a boy and a girl who mark Anthony freely admitted to fathering. But by then, Anthony was away doing Roman shit. And I should point out that like Caesar, Anthony was married to fathering, but by then Anthony was away doing Roman shit and I should point out that like Caesar Anthony was married to a Roman lady through all of his Plyapatra fucking well, so while he was away playing Pharaoh she his wife was back in Rome provoking a war with Octavian in the hopes of making her husband the Undisputed leader of Rome

Well, all she really managed to do was get herself killed, which singled Anthony up enough to marry Octavian sister Octavia, the younger. Yeah, they only had so many names there. And thereby reconciled their differences for a bit longer. Needless to say, Cleopatra's sourdough had been on Anthony when he doubled down on marrying women that weren't her, but it didn't like sour their relationship so much that he didn't father another one of her kids later. And he also continued to expand her kingdom, but that very act was weakening him back home.

And Octavian was taking full advantage. He pushed the narrative that Anthony was under the spell of some foreign seductress that was like talking him into giving away Roman terrorists, right? Which was regardless of Anthony's grandios plans for a future joint empire or whatever, more or less true. So Anthony's reputation wasn't improved by the fact that soon after all of this, he got his ass absolutely handed to him in parthia. Octavian cranked up the propaganda war against him, and Anthony made it easy by participating in all these rituals that Cleopatra

Was to these very public rituals where she was like declaring herself a living God and shit He even apparently married her despite still being married to Octavia and in keeping with the misogyny of the day The natural narrative was that Cleopatra had brainwashed him with witchcraft and was set on taking over all of Rome. Yeah. And then they started a podcast about relationships without even telling you about it. It was pretty easy. All right.

I sent you the requisite formal notice of adjacent podcasting project startup. It was a standard form 11b36f. You need to do a better job with your record game. I'm sorry. It's him. Did you put the proper cover sheet on? In a note review. You just show me the form.

You lost it. You lost it again. So by 323 BCE. They're frosty. What numbers pop into your head? Mine. So by 323 BCE, Octavian was using official speeches to accuse Anthony of subverting Roman freedoms as a slave to his Oriental Queen.

Anthony, for his part, was claiming that Cleopatra's oldest son was Caesar's true heir. There was nowhere for this shit to go but war. And when it did, Octavian convinced the Roman Senate to declare war not on Antony, but on Cleopatra. Oh man, babe. Looks like bad news. Like just for you. This year's. All right, so now Cleo's side had the bigger Navy. And it's hard to figure out exactly what happens from here, because the truth is just drowning in propaganda at this point. But there are a lot of claims that Cleopatra started overriding Anthony's military decisions and forcing him to make dumb moves.

This probably isn't true. Every indication is that she was super duper smart and we know that pretty much all of our sources had invested interest in blaming the foreign queen for everything that went wrong. Suffice to say, when the two fleets met in September of 31 BCE for the Battle of Actium, the smaller force devastated the larger, and Anthony and Cleopatra got the fuck out of there. They make it back to Egypt, they spend some time licking their wounds. So Anthony went off on a fruitless search for allies, and Cleopatra entered into reluctant negotiations with Octavian, but the negotiations ultimately came to nothing.

And in the spring of 30 BCE, Octavian invaded Egypt, Anthony fought them for a bid, but soon after the invasion, his fleet and his cavalry surrendered Octavian, after hearing that Cleopatra had taken her own life in despair, Anthony stabbed himself to death. She hadn't taken her own life in despair, but a few days later, uh, she would do so when it became clear that Octavian planned to have her paraded through Rome in a triumph, like a, like a victory prize. But despite all the legends, she did not kill herself with an ass. She just, she was just running the mail poison, uh, though I guess, and according to the

Wiki, some historians believe that she delivered that Poison with a needle which would have provided the puncture wounds that would have been given like an explanation to the snake story Now to be honest to me the most interesting aspect to Cleopatra isn't so much her history as her historiography Right, that is how the teaching of her history has changed over time. Because of course, for centuries, she was just like the epitome of the foul, evil, oriental seductress that was like all the dark aspects of femininity rolled into one. And then she was sort of rescued, but turned into this victim of happenstance that's just tossed around by historical trends and forces beyond her control. The thing is, to be rescued be rescued from seductress that I epitomized the dark aspects of that.

That's awesome. That's great. That's the thing. There are settings between evil, succubus, and damsel, and distress, and she clearly falls into one of those. And as we sift through the mountains of propaganda meant to denigrate her character and destroy her historical reputation, all we can really say for certain is that she was brilliant, formidable, and fascinating. And if you had to summarize what you learned in one sentence, what would it be? I just did. She was brilliant, formidable, and fascinating.

Bravo. Actually, I'm included. Now you're ready for the quiz. I am. All right. Noah. Where the history is salacious, this is Cleopatra. A porn parody is inevitable.

What should it be called? Hey, when that happens, yeah. Yeah. Hey, on your mark Anthony, we taking it up the ass. Well done. Or C, carpet buncher seven. Yeah.

All right, these are all very good. Actually, Eli, very good. Well done. I'm gonna go with taking it up the ass. Yeah, that's the one I wore. Correct. Caliente. All right, I know.

Ptolemy Banana. Ptolemy Banana. Ptolemy Banana. Ptolemy Banana. Ptolemy Banana. Ptolemy Banana. Ptolemy Banana. Ptolemy Banana.

Ptolemy Banana. Ptolemy Banana. Ptolemy Banana. P know. I am not going to lie to you. These Roman histories are always a bit of a challenge for me to keep track of. Why is that? Hey, because when dividing up the spoils of war, they still only divide the names for weight. Everyone has the same name. Jesus fucking Christ. You don't need a BC or D. It's a, it's a. Well done. All right Noah, which of the following is my favorite, weirdly aggressive history argument that I learned about when I looked up Leopatra? Hey, when she was living with Mark Antony in Egypt, they started a drinking club. Some historians say it was because Antony thought

he was the incarnation of the wine god Dionysus. Other historians say, fuck you, it was a regular dinner club with drunk and orgies to one another. What's the matter? Be, the drinking club was called the Inimitable Livers. Some people think it was a clever double-entandra about living people livers and the organ livers that helps process alcohol. Other people pointed

out, it wouldn't work as a double-entandra in Greek, you fucking idiot. See, some sources mentioned that when the drinking orgy was done, Cleopatra and Anthony would dress up as common people and walk around Alexandria doing pranks. Other sources mentioned, hey, did you read that on grunge.com? He might be made up. Although I love it, I love that they were maybe doing pranks, but probably not.

D, according to Pliny, the Elder, in his book Natural History, Cleopatra made a bet with Mark Antony. Yes. That she could spend 10 million Cestersees, which is about $10 or $20 million in today's money on a single meal. She ordered allegedly a cup of vinegar, and then she took a giant pearl from one of her earrings, and allegedly this was the biggest pearl in the history of the world according to Pliny, and she dropped the pearl into the vinegar. After it dissolved,

she drank vinegar and won the bet. According to everyone else, finding the elder is a liar, a good deal of the time. Also, that wouldn't work. It doesn't even make sense. But then a chemistry professor in New Jersey was like, fuck you, I stand Cleopatra and planning. I'm gonna prove this. And the professor proved, did an experiment on this,

proved that you actually can dissolve a five gram pearl in the vinegar that we a patria would have had at that time. But that would take like 36 hours to solve. So everybody's like, that was dumb. Your experiment was dumb. You were just dumb. But then the professor showed that if you crushed up the pearl, like if you had a big knife and you smushed the pearl and then you've yet the vinegar be boiling when it comes out. Sure. The restaurant. You could dissolve the pearl in about 10 minutes. And everybody was like, oh, so she chugged a pint of boiling vinegar.

And the professor's a professor was like, you probably waited until it cooled. I don't know. Shut up. I wasted two pearls on it. Or was it E, all of the above? I enjoyed all of those. I enjoyed that. All of the above.

And I enjoyed that. I enjoyed that. Do you guys think indeed correct when your boiling vinegar comes out that the moms at the other tables are like, oh, I might order one of those. That looks fun. Yes. Oh, sizzling I might order one of those. That looks fun. Yes. Oh, the sizzling pearl winner. Mm.

All right. Well, I'll tell you what, I was actually really disappointed that I couldn't get the pearl story into the essay in some other way. So I want Heath to do an essay next week. Oh, okay. Thanks for that. Pearl's one, come.

All right. I'm going to go back. Well, for Noah Heath, Tom and Eli, I'm Cecil. Thank you for bringing out with us today. We'll be back next week. By then, Heath will be an expert on something else. To be now and then listen to Tom's new show Talking Ship, a relationship podcast,

not a sailing podcast. I know people are confused. Are you not doing any sailing? I'll say we're not. I mean, you can do both, right? There may be not involved. You're a little bit of sailing stuff. You're looped by a lake.

What if you fuck on a boat? Are you ready to eat it right? You'd like to help keep this show going. You can make a per episode donation at patreon.com slash citation pod or if you leave us a five star view every weekend, you can get in touch with us. Check out past episodes connected with us on social media or check the show notes. Be sure to check out citation pod dot com.

And then we'll move troops here and here. And you have to stop it's the floor. Yeah, you don't have to roll yourself up every time you need something. I know. Do you, do you know? Yeah. Yeah.