Why Cleopatra was more than a bewitching beauty

Summary

HistoryExtra Podcast

Episode: Why Cleopatra Was More Than a Bewitching Beauty

Date: June 6, 2026
Host: History Extra Podcast Presenter
Guest: Professor Islam Issa (Birmingham City University)

Episode Overview

This episode, the third in a four-part Sunday series on Cleopatra, challenges the enduring myth of Cleopatra as merely a "bewitching beauty" and foregrounds her real power as a leader, diplomat, and strategist. Professor Islam Issa illuminates how Cleopatra's actions and policies shaped Egypt and rippled across Rome, as well as how her legacy was indelibly shaped by politics, propaganda, and rivalry.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Setting the Stage: Cleopatra and Caesar's Relationship

Timestamps: 03:40–09:16

• Cleopatra's political positioning in the final years of Caesar's life:

  • She and Caesar were engaged in bold mutual displays of power (e.g., Cleopatra’s statue in Rome, the Caesareum in Alexandria).
  • Cleopatra straddled two worlds – fluent in both Alexandria’s intellectual influence and Roman politics.
  • Quote:
    “There are certain aspects of their relationship that are less well known... Caesar does erect a bronze statue of Cleopatra as a goddess in Rome. That's a very bold move... Cleopatra, in turn, begins constructing a building in Alexandria called the Caesareum in a prime spot on the harbour to honor Julius Caesar.”
    — Prof. Islam Issa [04:56]

• Alexandrian influence on Rome:

  • Alexandrian scholars, via Cleopatra, helped shape the Julian calendar.
  • Quote:
    “That's how we get the Julian calendar that's going to be ever so slightly tweaked to become the Gregorian calendar.”
    — Prof. Islam Issa [07:04]

• Rome’s view of Alexandria:

  • A hub of knowledge but perceived as a place of excess and "otherness," with Cleopatra as a foreign outsider.
  • Quote:
    “It's a knowledge hub and knowledge capital. But it's also seen as a place of excess and a place where people are frivolous... Cleopatra's therefore a foreigner.”
    — Prof. Islam Issa [07:51]

2. Cleopatra’s Political Calculus After Caesar’s Death

Timestamps: 09:16–13:32

• Cleopatra was in Rome at the time of Caesar’s assassination, aiming to advance her son Caesarion as heir.

  • Quote:
    “I don't anticipate that she's just gone to Rome to sit there and hang out. She's probably making moves to try and ensure that her son, Caesarion, little Caesar, is the heir to the Roman Republic.”
    — Prof. Islam Issa [09:25]

• The unpredictability of Roman politics:

  • Caesar’s will names Octavian (grand-nephew), not Caesarion, as heir.
  • Cleopatra returns to Alexandria, needing to regroup and manage domestic issues.

3. Egypt’s Dire Financial State

Timestamps: 13:59–15:17

• Cleopatra inherited a kingdom almost bankrupt thanks to her father’s debts to Rome.

  • Quote:
    “She inherits what in today's money would be about half a billion pounds of debt. So she's already inferior to Rome as a result.”
    — Prof. Islam Issa [14:14]

• Additional woes included raised taxes and drought, stacking the odds against her from the beginning.

4. Cleopatra’s Leadership, Diplomacy, and Economic Policy

Timestamps: 16:01–19:11

• Active day-to-day leadership:
  • Evidence shows Cleopatra was hands-on, signing off on crucial documents (“Let it be done”).
• Innovative economic strategies:
  • She debased coinage to stretch resources, shifted focus to bronze coins with her own image to underscore accessibility and connection to the populace.
  • Quote:
    “She increases the bronze coins in circulation. And what she also does is she puts her face on them... she's saying, I'm a queen for the people.”
    — Prof. Islam Issa [17:29]
• Image and symbolism:
  • Self-presentation as both Hellenistic and Egyptian, actively repairing relations with Alexandria’s Jewish community.

5. Religion as Political Legitimacy

Timestamps: 19:11–22:10

• Cleopatra portrayed herself as Isis, underscoring her role as both a divine ruler and nurturing mother to Caesarion (paralleled as Horus).

  • Quote:
    “The key thing she does is she presents herself as Isis the queen, as the goddess Isis... It's a very clever move because Isis is the goddess of life, fertility, sustenance, all these things that are important to Egyptians at that time.”
    — Prof. Islam Issa [19:17]

• This dual identity helped integrate and legitimize her rule among Greeks, Egyptians, and minorities.

6. Ruthlessness in Power: The Fate of Arsinoe

Timestamps: 24:42–27:28

• Cleopatra was not above removing rivals to secure her position—her sister Arsinoe was eventually executed (on Cleopatra’s urging but through intermediaries).
  • Quote:
    “One thing that's intriguing is she doesn't seem to kill her siblings herself. She seems to ask other people to kill them.”
    — Prof. Islam Issa [24:59]
• Dynastic conflict is described as normalized dysfunction within the Ptolemaic dynasty.

7. Navigating the Roman Political Storm: Antony and Octavian

Timestamps: 27:28–31:39

• Cleopatra had to decide between backing Caesar’s assassins or aligning with Octavian and Antony (ultimately siding with Caesar’s loyalists).
  • Antony’s need for money and Cleopatra’s need for military and political support created a pragmatic alliance.
  • The relationship became both personal and political—“By the end of their meeting, they are allies. He's protecting her rule of Egypt. She’s helping fund him. And they are in love.” [Prof. Issa, 29:37]

8. The Power of Propaganda and Image-Making

Timestamps: 31:39–35:36

• Octavian’s campaign painted Antony as under Cleopatra’s spell and Cleopatra as a seductive, foreign threat to Rome.

  • Quote:
    “This idea that this foreign woman can wield such power over two great Romans, two heroes... must have been quite uncomfortable for some people. And Octavian makes use of that.”
    — Prof. Islam Issa [32:47]

• These images, rumors, and stories have deeply colored Cleopatra’s historical reputation.

  • Quote:
    “It really was written by the enemy, her history.”
    — Prof. Islam Issa [33:48]

• The “flattening” of Cleopatra’s identity by propaganda persists, with primary sources (e.g., Plutarch) being deeply influenced by her political enemies.

9. Alexandria as Stage for Power and Celebration

Timestamps: 37:07–42:00

• Alexandria’s culture of spectacle and festival provided the perfect setting for the dramatic “Donations of Alexandria” (34 BC), where Cleopatra and Antony publicly crowned their children and styled themselves as incarnations of Isis and Bacchus.

  • Quote:
    “She dresses as Isis, the queen... he dresses as Bacchus... and Cleopatra is then declared, and I love this phrase, queen of kings. She's the queen of kings.”
    — Prof. Islam Issa [39:45]

• This ceremony alarmed Rome, as Cleopatra gave her children grandiose titles and land—actions unapproved by the Roman Senate.

  • Octavian used this “hostile” act as justification for future intervention against Cleopatra and Antony.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Cleopatra’s intelligence and ambition:
  “We often don't give her the credit for thinking outside the box in that way. It's an outlandish idea. It's a kind of wild card, isn't it? If she pulls it off, she's really pulled something off. But there's a huge risk. The risk factor is great, but the reward could have been unimaginable.”
  — Prof. Islam Issa [12:16]

• On propaganda’s enduring impact:
  “What's almost bizarre is that two millennia later, those [rumors] have still had an influence on our perception of her today.”
  — Prof. Islam Issa [33:39]

• On writing history versus propaganda:
  “It's not written necessarily for the purpose of history or chronicling history, but rather for political ends. And even today... it's no different then...”
  — Prof. Islam Issa [35:01]

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Important Timestamps & Segment Highlights

• 03:40 – Introduction of Cleopatra’s leadership legacy and relationship with Caesar.
• 07:04 – Alexandria’s impact on Roman policy (Julian calendar).
• 09:25 – Cleopatra’s political maneuvering after Caesar’s death.
• 14:14 – Egypt’s financial crisis inherited by Cleopatra.
• 16:12 – Economic policies and currency reforms.
• 19:17 – Adoption of Isis imagery for legitimacy.
• 24:59 – The ruthless handling of her sister Arsinoe.
• 27:28 – The roles of Mark Antony and Octavian.
• 31:39 – Propaganda’s role in defining Cleopatra’s image.
• 39:45 – “Donations of Alexandria,” the extravagant public declaration of power.

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Episode Summary

This episode moves listeners far beyond the seductive myth of Cleopatra. Through engaging discussion, Professor Islam Issa and the host detail her political astuteness, economic reforms, shrewd diplomacy, and ability to mold powerful religious and cultural symbols to her advantage. They also expose the gendered and foreigner-focused biases that, amplified through Roman propaganda and centuries of retelling, have flattened Cleopatra into a caricature of a "seductress" rather than a complex, visionary sovereign. The show ends with Cleopatra and Antony’s extravagant assertion of royal power in Alexandria—a move that would provoke Rome’s ire and set the stage for the drama to come in the final episode.

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Transcript

[Host (History Extra Podcast Presenter)]

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[Host (History Extra Podcast Presenter)]

Welcome to the History Extra Podcast. We often think of Cleopatra as a bewitching beauty who used her feminine wiles to get to the top. But was that really the case? And what other skills and qualities did she have? In today's third installment of our four part Sunday series on the life and times of Cleopatra, I'll be tackling these questions with my expert guest, Professor Islam Issa from Birmingham City University. He's an author and broadcaster whose books include the City that Changed the World and the Perfect Person to help us get a sense of the Real Cleopatra. Islam, thank you so much for being with us. Again. In our third episode, we're going to be exploring a particular aspect of Cleopatra, and that's her as a leader and trying to reframe the narrative around her strengths and her skills at that role. I'd like to start today's episode with one of the most famous dates in all of ancient history, which is 15-3-44 BC which is of course the moment when Julius Caesar was assassinated. To fill us in on the lead up to this and to Santa Cleopatra in this story, where had Cleopatra been in the months and the years leading up to this point? And what was the relationship now like between these two figures?

[Professor Islam Issa]

Yeah, thinking about such a monumental event in world history, one of the most famous deaths in world history, Julius Caesar's before that. Of course, they've had their relationship. She's had a child, Caesarian, little Caesar, whom Caesar of course is not really recognizing as his child, but who is really Championed as a kind of pharaoh figure in Egypt by Cleopatra. There are certain aspects of their relationship that are less well known. Caesar does erect a bronze statue of Cleopatra as a goddess in, in Rome. That's a very bold move because the Romans, let's say, wanted to keep that kind of statue for their own divine figures. And also they tended to put statues of people who'd left this world, not people who were still in it. Cleopatra, in turn begins constructing a building in Alexandria called the Caesareum in a prime spot on the harbour to honor Julius Caesar. So they're doing these little moves, big moves maybe to honor each other, and they're quite public and they're very sort of brazen. But Cleopatra's essentially commuting between Alexandria and Rome. By this time, she's spending a lot of time in Rome. She's staying in a suburban park villa in Rome. We know, for example, that Caesar seeks her support, or let's say Alexandria's support in the calendar reforms, because there was a calendar that was made in the research centre at the Library of Alexandria that actually is the first to account for Lepias. So Lepias basically invented in Alexandria, but when it was introduced by early Ptolemies in Egypt, it's not welcomed by the Egyptian priests because they have their own traditions and they fear that this calendar reform is going to change the Egyptian traditions. When Caesar comes along, he actually decides to use that calendar reform. So Alexandrians, through Cleopatra, are sent to Rome to. To create the calendar reforms for him. And that's how we get the Julian calendar that's going to be ever so slightly tweaked to become the Gregorian calendar.

[Host (History Extra Podcast Presenter)]

I had no idea about that context. That's really interesting.

[Professor Islam Issa]

Those are the kinds of influences that Alexandria has now that Rome has access to the knowledge that's coming out of Alexandria because the library is still operating, the research center and so on, albeit not quite as extensively as it was with her grandparents. But the knowledge is still there. And there's an interesting letter where Cicero, who's a statesman and a writer, he writes that Cleopatra's arrogant because she didn't bring him the books that he requested. So what we get from that is actually an indication that the Romans were asking Cleopatra to bring knowledge with her books with her from Alexandria.

[Host (History Extra Podcast Presenter)]

It's interesting that even at this point, that is what this city is associated with knowledge. It's a real powerhouse still of, of knowledge and of books.

[Professor Islam Issa]

It's interesting because it's a knowledge hub and knowledge capital. But it's also seen as A place of excess and a place where people are frivolous and they're like foodies and they're very liberal because there's lots of different religions there. And the Greeks, the Romans, the Egyptians, the Jews. So it's also looked down upon in some way. There's a bit of a contrasting image going on here. It is knowledge capital that they can benefit from. And it's also a very different foreign place. And Cleopatra's therefore a foreigner.

[Host (History Extra Podcast Presenter)]

And that's really interesting because we've talked there about the way these cultures were perceived. Did that map onto the way in which these two individuals were perceived and how they saw each other?

[Professor Islam Issa]

Even at this point, I would say that they needed each other. In some way, Caesar was benefiting, as we've said, from Cleopatra in ways that we might not originally have thought of, like these knowledge reforms that he's trying to carry out in Rome. She's benefiting from him as an ally. And by Ptolemaic standards, this is relatively stable. Her siblings are not attacking her. There's no usurpation, there's no protests in Egypt. So it's relative stability. And she probably has Rome to thank for that, in some part at least. But he's still not recognizing Caesarian as their son. That's probably a key factor.

[Host (History Extra Podcast Presenter)]

So to return us to the moment at which Julius Caesar is assassinated, where is Cleopatra? And do we know what she was doing in the lead up to this pretty seismic event?

[Professor Islam Issa]

What we do know is that Cleopatra couldn't see an obvious heir, let's say, and nobody knew quite who the heir would be should Caesar die. And what we do know is that Cleopatra waits in Rome to find out who the heir is. That's quite an important detail. She's not just hanging around in Alexandria. She's in Rome trying to find out who the heir is. I don't anticipate that she's just gone to Rome to sit there and hang out. She's probably making moves to try and ensure that her son, Caesarion, little Caesar, is the heir to the Roman Republic. So I think that says a lot, the fact that she goes to Rome and she wants to ensure the Caesarian has this new role.

[Host (History Extra Podcast Presenter)]

So she might not have been aware of the wider political machinations that were going on, but she was looking after her own interests and had her own agenda that she was trying to make sure came into force.

[Professor Islam Issa]

Yeah. And when you think about it, it's a long time in the making. It's a serious endeavor to become an ally with Caesar to basically rule the Ptolemaic dynasty alone, to have a child with Caesar, I mean, that's quite the long game. And in some ways, history could have been very different for Egypt and Cleopatra as well, had Caesar not been assassinated. Who knows? We don't often think of it in these terms, but if he'd have lived another 10, 20 years, would he have been convinced to recognize Caesarion? Maybe Cleopatra would have. Would have worked her magic and that would have happened, and we'd have had a very different world history. But instead, it is, at the end of the day, unexpected. Yes, there were people who disliked Caesar and he did upset his Senate and the rest of it. But it's still an outlandish event, isn't it, the assassination?

[Host (History Extra Podcast Presenter)]

These are shifting sands, and what Cleopatra seems like she's doing is trying to react shrewdly to them as they evolve, even if she herself didn't know that he was going to be assassinated or didn't know what might happen next. Is that fair to say?

[Professor Islam Issa]

It is fair to say, but I'd add to that that she's playing the long game. I don't think that necessarily. Her plan was complete yet, and the assassination changed the landscape of that plan. And it makes sense for her to think that Caesarion had a good chance at being heir.

[Host (History Extra Podcast Presenter)]

And just to clarify, if he was to become heir, as was her plan, what would he have been heir of? What would he have been the figurehead of, if you like?

[Professor Islam Issa]

I think at that stage it would be the Roman Republic and the Ptolemaic in the same way that he's Caesar, Cleopatra, Rome, Egypt. He would be leader of the Romans and leader of the Egyptians. It's almost unimaginable.

[Host (History Extra Podcast Presenter)]

As I say it in a previous episode, you referred to him as being almost like a super baby. And that really gets over the extent to which this would have been a

[Professor Islam Issa]

huge undertaking and the extent to which she's thinking outside the box. We often don't give her the credit for thinking outside the box in that way. It's an outlandish idea. It's a kind of wild card, isn't it? If she pulls it off, she's really pulled something off. But there's a huge risk. The risk factor is great, but the reward could have been unimaginable.

[Host (History Extra Podcast Presenter)]

These are big moves on a massive stage. What were the repercussions of Caesar's assassination?

[Professor Islam Issa]

Well, he seems to have left Rome heirless initially, and that's why Cleopatra is in Rome waiting to see if her plan has worked. His only daughter had died. He was married to Calpurnia, and he hadn't had any children with Calpurnia. So it made sense that, that there was a chance for her son to be heir. But he'd actually left a will naming Octavian, who's his grand nephew, as heir. It's not the most immediate, we often say nephew, but it's actually grand nephew. Like it's not the most immediately obvious heir.

[Host (History Extra Podcast Presenter)]

Okay.

[Professor Islam Issa]

And so as far as the repercussions are concerned for Cleopatra, within a month of Caesar's death, she is back in Alexandria. It's a very difficult situation for her to be in Rome. Now she's back in Alexandria, she has to take care of domestic issues. She maybe has to regroup and replant.

[Host (History Extra Podcast Presenter)]

And Octavian, who you mentioned there, who will go on to become really important other than being grand nephew, what is his role at this point in the story?

[Professor Islam Issa]

Well, Octavian at this point in the story has been on Caesar's side, but he's also still a teenager. That's something people don't notice. So Octavian is a teenager. He's been on Caesar's side. He's had political training, he's had military training, but he's a, a young aspiring candidate for the role.

[Host (History Extra Podcast Presenter)]

Let's say you spoke in a previous episode about the perilous financial situation in which Egypt found itself, which is an idea I'd like to return to at this point. How important a factor was it that Egypt was virtually on the verge of bankruptcy? I think I'm right in saying when

[Professor Islam Issa]

Cleopatra came to the throne, this is her father's ineptitude. So her father was taking loans from Rome. He was using those loans to bribe Roman officials or to win them over for military campaigns and that kind of thing. So she inherits what in today's money would be about half a billion pounds of debt. So she's already inferior to Rome as a result. So there's a political thing, not just an economic thing going on here because it sets the hierarchy against her. It's not in her favor. But then she's also got to deal with the raised taxes that her father had put in place because he needed to get that money back. Raised prices as well. So Alexandria and Egypt are more expensive than they used to be. She's also unlucky in the sense that nature is not cooperating, let's say. So there's a drought. The annual Nile flooding has come in at a lower level than usual that year as well.

[Host (History Extra Podcast Presenter)]

And just to fill us in on this detail, she's returned to Alexandria after Caesar was assassinated. In what capacity has she returned? Is she now queen outright or is she ruling with somebody else? What's the situation there?

[Professor Islam Issa]

She very much is queen outright. Her young son is also nominally co ruler as well, but she's got huge powers. And there's an interesting document signed by her in her hand about a tax issue where she signs, let it be done, something along those lines. So she's obviously involved in the day to day running of the country. She's not just like an image or a puppet or in some bubble. She seems like she's very involved.

[Host (History Extra Podcast Presenter)]

And this feels like a really good point at which to pause and to consider her as a leader. What do you think her economic and political strategies were and her skills of diplomacy?

[Professor Islam Issa]

Well, we've seen some of those skills of diplomacy already in the way that she's dealing with Rome economically, with the rising prices. She does something very interesting. Alexandria has been minting its own coins for some time. They often have very relevant images on them actually, like the local temple, the God Serapis who is championed by her ancestors and so on. The Pharos Lighthouse, which was an ancient wonder of the world. But what she does is she reduces the silver and bronze content in the coins. So what she's doing is she's creating more emphasis on the nominal value of the coin rather than the actual, what would you call it, material value of the coin. That's a smart move because it means that they can mint more coins that are worth more while actually costing them less as a government. So that nominal rather than tangible value I think is a good move. She increases the production of bronze coins which means that there's more circulation of lower denomination coins. So that's the intention behind that, is for prices to drop for confidence of people. I don't know if you remember there was a phase a couple of governments ago where they thought of canceling the 1p and 2p.

[Host (History Extra Podcast Presenter)]

I do remember this, yes.

[Professor Islam Issa]

And there was a symbolic outcry because it's like the. You're saying that life is now more expensive, that some people don't need 1 and 2p coins. It was seen as a kind of elitist thing to do. So she does the opposite of that. She increases the bronze coins in circulation. And what she also does is she puts her face on them. Now many of her ancestors didn't do that. They put their face on the silver coins because they're worth more. But she's saying, I'm a queen for the people. So my face is on the bronze coins as well. So in your day to day, you encounter this queen who's trying to make life more affordable when you're buying bread or whatever staple you're buying as an Egyptian at that time.

[Host (History Extra Podcast Presenter)]

I'm so struck again here in this part of the story at how important an ability to understand the power of image and symbolism was to leadership in this era and Cleopatra's ability to. To navigate those currents.

[Professor Islam Issa]

And she's able to do that because of the kinds of things that we talked about in earlier episodes about her upbringing as well. She's able to do that because she understands the importance of being Hellenistic and Egyptian. And there's evidence actually that she repaired or approved the repair of synagogues in Alexandria. So she's even portraying herself as a queen for the Jewish population in Alexandria, despite the fact that some of her ancestors persecuted Jewish people. The vast majority of the Ptolemies didn't. But there were phases where that happened. So it's a fascinatingly broad, nuanced understanding of what it means to be a leader.

[Host (History Extra Podcast Presenter)]

Let's explore that some more then. How did she use religion specifically to boost her power?

[Professor Islam Issa]

The key thing she does is she presents herself as Isis the queen, as the goddess Isis. She's the second Cleopatra to do that. But it's a very clever move because Isis is the goddess of life, fertility, sustenance, all these things that are important to Egyptians at that time and her dynasty at that time, when it's being attacked, when the prices are high, the economic situation isn't as good, and when the harvest isn't as good as it could be. But there's another element to presenting herself as Isis, which is that Isis is the mother of Horus. Now, it's one of the most influential stories of the time for Egyptians, which is that Set kills and dismembers his brother Osiris and throws his pieces into the Nile. That story of the brother, the evil brother who tries to usurp, which has a huge influence later on, actually, in the Old Testament, Cain and Abel. Later on we have Hamlet and the Lion King and so on. So what Isis does is she remains loyal to Osiris, manages to locate his different pieces, puts them together like a puzzle and brings him back to life. So she's a loyal woman, and Osiris is in the Nile, and his blood is the essence of the Nile. So the Nile was the center of Egypt's prosperity. When you think about the way that we see these images of Egypt, which was Pretty much a desert and it's all green. In the ancient times, it's because of the Nile and obviously the Mediterranean. But the Nile is in many ways more important to ancient Egyptian culture. So she brings him back to life and they have their son Horus. And Horus is a very influential, important God who's going to bring justice, especially against his uncle. And so suddenly, if she's Isis, who's Caesarion, Caesarion, her son is Horus. And then she can also be that mother goddess because she's looking after Horus. It's almost like a miraculous mother who's doing it alone. Kind of like preempting Mary in some ways, mother of Jesus, this mother who does everything, who raises this holy child. So it gives her legitimacy, it gives Caesarian legitimacy. And it also tells the Egyptian people, Egyptian priesthood, that she's part of their culture, she's aligning herself with them.

[Host (History Extra Podcast Presenter)]

So we've got here her using currency, which she spoke about just then, and then also religion, in an attempt to present or to shift a particular image of herself. Do we get a sense of how the Egyptian population is did see her and the extent to which these attempts were successful?

[Professor Islam Issa]

I think the emphasis on religion made her popular, that they saw her as somebody who understands their culture. She's respectful of both Egyptian and Greek culture. I've given an example of where she was seen as respectful to other cultures like the Jews of Alexandria. So I'd say she becomes a more popular queen. There's an element of stability and we have to think in relative terms. It's relative in relation to the previous Ptolemies. The last few decades have been quite horrible. There's been uprisings, there have been riots, there's been real corruption. So previous Ptolemies were seen as quite greedy. Some of them were seen as like having a lavish lifestyle while people struggled. They had, for example, what we today consider super yachts and that kind of thing. So she's not going for that image. She's somebody who understands all the different cultures, who's putting Egypt's best interest first. And I think to a large extent that stability is welcome.

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[Host (History Extra Podcast Presenter)]

she wasn't afraid, though, to also be ruthless. And I think we can see that most strikingly, perhaps, in the treatment of her sister Arsinoe. What did she do? Because we've spoken about Sibling W or in previous episodes, what happened in this particular episode here and why is it important?

[Professor Islam Issa]

Well, Arsinoe is initially taken to Cyprus to rule there. That was Caesar's idea. Now, Cleopatra had already asked Caesar to kill her sister. I'm still not sure why she doesn't do it herself, because she's obviously capable of it. One thing that's intriguing is she doesn't seem to kill her siblings herself. She seems to ask other people to kill them. But Caesar spared Arsenouy's life at the time, and it's obviously still bothering her. Cleopatra's seen her older sister in the past usurp her father. She knows all about the history of the Ptolemies and how sibling rivalry has really been quite lethal and changed the political landscape. And she doesn't want to rest until her sister is gone.

[Host (History Extra Podcast Presenter)]

And so she doesn't do it herself. Caesar does it on her behalf.

[Professor Islam Issa]

She does ask others to do it for her. Yeah, and her sister will fittingly disappear.

[Host (History Extra Podcast Presenter)]

And I suppose this might be an impossible question. We've spoken a little bit in previous episodes as well about the extent to which these siblings fought with each other and the extent to which this was a family in which really this kind of rivalry was nothing new. Do we get any sense of the emotional impact of these kinds of decisions? Not specifically on Cleopatra, perhaps, but on this family as a whole?

[Professor Islam Issa]

I mean, there's just so much happening, isn't There they are almost always in a state of dysfunction. It's a very dysfunctional family, isn't it? Yes, I. It's a tough question. I think Cleopatra's certainly human and they're all human. They can't be otherwise. But they've kind of normalized this ridiculous behavior. And maybe she's become immune to those kinds of sensitivities when something so big is at stake and as the Ptolemaic dynasty. So what's slightly ironic about Cleopatra, I guess, is that she's really concerned about keeping the Ptolemaic dynasty alive, but in doing so, she has to get rid of other Ptolemies. Yeah, I'm not so sure that previous Ptolemies were quite so concerned about the dynasty as they were about themselves.

[Host (History Extra Podcast Presenter)]

So again, that's that long game idea playing out here as well.

[Professor Islam Issa]

It's a long game idea and we've seen with other Ptolemies that they don't just kill their siblings, they kill their children. Whatever it is to remain in power. On this occasion, she's planned it a bit differently. But yes, whatever it is to remain in power.

[Host (History Extra Podcast Presenter)]

We should pause at this point and just check in on two figures who have been floating in and out of this story as we've told it, and that's Mark Antony and Octavian. Can you reintroduce us to these two men, what they're doing at this point and why it's important?

[Professor Islam Issa]

Octavian and Mark Anthony are both on Caesar's side. That's probably the first thing we should mention because obviously lots of people are not on Caesar's side, hence the assassination that took place in which many people contributed to. Octavian has been trained, he's a military man, he's a politician in the making. He's still a teenager. Mark Anthony was a commoner, a pleb, as they would have said, and he has risen up the ranks to become an influential military man. He was in 55 BC when Cleopatra's father went back to Alexandria after his daughter had used, not Cleopatra had usurped his throne. Mark Antony was leading that cavalry that helped Cleopatra's father back into power. At this stage, Mark Antony is going to be almost 40, about 39, when Caesar's assassinated. So he's a good couple of decades older than Octavian. He's obviously wielding a lot of power. He has an army at his disposal. And what Mark Anthony does is he quickly seizes the state treasury and Caesar's widow Calpurnia gives him possession of Caesar's properties, Caesar's documents So suddenly, he's playing the role of Caesar's heir in a way that maybe Octavian isn't doing. But Octavian, on paper is Caesar's heir, Caesar's great nephew. And that's intriguing, because although Caesar's clear in his will that it's Octavian who's the heir, Antony, to me, is basically acting like he is the new Caesar.

[Host (History Extra Podcast Presenter)]

You get a real sense there of the shifting power play between these two men. How did this play out? I suppose specifically in the way in which it impacted on Cleopatra.

[Professor Islam Issa]

So you have these two groups in Rome. Essentially, you have the group that's assassinated Caesar, like Brutus, most famously, and then you have the pro Caesar group, which has both Antony and Octavian in it. So Cleopatra has to make a choice initially. Who does she side with? Does she side with Cassius and the people who assassinated Caesar, or does she side with Caesar's people? That's actually a tougher decision than it sounds because at that stage, there's a chance that actually Caesar's folk are going to lose power, and maybe she should side with the people who assassinated him. I guess she makes the decision to be loyal to Caesar even in his death. That's my reading of it. Because she picks the side of Antony and Octavian. Antony and Octavian are initially on the same side. There are a couple of contexts that might explain why. One of them is that Anthony has a lot of fighters, and he has made the error of promising them huge bonuses for their fighting, and he can't really afford those bonuses. Interestingly, there's a kind of inversion here of the economic dynamic, because Cleopatra is the one who's going to help fund Antony going forward. Pompey, who appears in the story, is obviously dead, but his son is threatening to attack Alexandria, and he has a fleet of pirate ships around Sicily. So Cleopatra thinks, well, Antony's navy can help protect me from him. So there's a kind of mutual benefit going on. And it's for that reason, I think, that she begins to side with Antony. She also, going back to your earlier question, wanted someone to execute Arsinoe, her sister, for her. And she thought that Antony would be the right person to do that, so she asks him to do that as well. And so it came to be that they needed one another. And so she sides with Antony and Octavian. Anthony needs money. Cleopatra needs protection. By the end of their meeting, they are allies. He's protecting her rule of Egypt. She's helping fund him. And they are in love.

[Host (History Extra Podcast Presenter)]

We're gonna start to Pull some of these threads together as we head into the final stretch of this episode to explore this evolving relationship between these three individuals a bit more. What role do we see propaganda playing in how it changes over time?

[Professor Islam Issa]

Well, the propaganda is rife for Octavian. Certainly he's uncomfortable with Anthony's position now that Anthony seems to be spending a lot of time in Alexandria and a lot of time with Cleopatra. So he doesn't quite trust what's happening there. There's a rumor that begins that Antony wants to move the capital, the Roman capital, to Alexandria. So that's something that will make him hugely unpopular. I don't think it's true in any way, but that's one of the rumors that comes out. While we may think that the rumors are only about Cleopatra, no, they're actually about both. There were also illustrations, engravings of them in very lewd positions together, actually. Antony and Cleopatra. So this idea that they were sort of these sexual maniacs existed in their

[Host (History Extra Podcast Presenter)]

time, why was that an important thing to have happened? Why were those images so powerful?

[Professor Islam Issa]

The idea that. That Anthony isn't putting Rome's best interest first, he's putting his own best interest first, and he's succumbing to the beauty of this foreign woman. This idea that this foreign woman can wield such power over two great Romans, two heroes, Julius Caesar and Mark Anthony, must have been quite uncomfortable for some people. And Octavian makes use of that. How could she do that? Well, she must be a witch or a seductress or an evil person. And so that's the kind of image that begins of Cleopatra at that time, that she's sexually mad, that she's a seductress. And what's almost bizarre is that two millennia later, those have still had an influence on our perception of her today.

[Host (History Extra Podcast Presenter)]

It's like those propaganda images and thoughts have become so flattened into our image of her that we trouble picking them apart even now, as you say, all

[Professor Islam Issa]

this time later, to such an extent that Octavian actually wrote about it. Octavian is obviously a biased source, and he's one of the key sources for Plutarch a century later. And Plutarch is one of our key sources today about Cleopatra. He's a source that we've used in the podcast. He's a source that Shakespeare used for his play. So it really was written by the enemy, her history.

[Host (History Extra Podcast Presenter)]

And it was deliberately designed propaganda to shape the way in which she was seen and in which he was seen.

[Professor Islam Issa]

Yes, like I said, not just Cleopatra, but this danger that Cleopatra's posing to the Romans through her relationship with Mark Anthony. Mark Antony said, again, I don't know this one. I like to believe that he took off his tunic and began wearing Alexandrian cloaks. I like to believe that because it's a nice image. But that could be a piece of propaganda as well that's telling us, oh, look, he's in his attire, he's forgotten about his own culture and he's now part of Cleopatra's culture.

[Host (History Extra Podcast Presenter)]

So we have to be really careful when we're telling these stories and talking about these people, that we're really conscious of the fact that a lot of what we think we know about them is a story written by someone else for a deliberate purpose.

[Professor Islam Issa]

Yeah. And it's not written necessarily for the purpose of history or chronicling history, but rather for political ends. And even today where we have political propaganda, political stories, they can be very different to rigorous scholarly history. Right. And it's no different then. But because they are what we might call classical or ancient texts, we might assume that they are histories, whereas in reality they were very political texts. And it's not just the case here. It's throughout the centuries that follow.

[Host (History Extra Podcast Presenter)]

But what's really striking to me about this particular time and place we're talking about here is how complicated and how sophisticated these techniques are and how skillful people need to be in order to make sense of them or to try to wrest back control of the narrative.

[Professor Islam Issa]

It's difficult. And we live in a time now where news travels so fast, where people's responses are so fast, politicians these days might put something on social media within a minute of an event happening. So it's a different world. It's a fast moving world, but we also have access to lots of different perspectives through the web and that kind of thing. So it's a different world. It's a world where you could control the narrative in a slower way. It takes longer for things to be debunked, for example, and there is an element of state censorship that we have to remember as well. Now, I'm not saying that that's only on the Roman side because Cleopatra herself was very careful about her own image. We've spoken about how she portrayed herself as the goddess Isis and that kind of thing. So she's also careful about her image, but maybe less of that survives. Like, we don't actually know what the anti Roman propaganda was because as we've said, things like ancient Alexandria, Library of Alexandria, much of her city is under the modern city or under the water. Today. So there's a chance as well that there was anti Roman propaganda, surely.

[Host (History Extra Podcast Presenter)]

So let's foreground now Alexandria as a place, as a place in time and start talking about the ways in which it played a role or it was the backdrop against which the final breakdown happened between Octavian and between Mark Antony. What happened? Can you talk us through these pretty seismic events?

[Professor Islam Issa]

I suppose, yeah. So like we said, they initially are on the same side. They're the pro Caesar group. There's a discomfort with the relationship that Antony has with Cleopatra. She's assisting him, he's assisting her. And then they have a battle that Anthony wins separate to this, that they begin to celebrate. So this is a battle between Antony and the Parthians.

[Host (History Extra Podcast Presenter)]

Okay.

[Professor Islam Issa]

Yeah. They celebrate that kind of victory and also to an extent celebrating their relationship, I would say. And they celebrate in Alexandria now, Alexandria to ground things again. The people love the festival. And still today, Alexandrians are a fun people. They love the festival. And since the time of Ptolemy I, Ptolemy ii, they had these huge festivals. The inventors from the research center by the library created these floats, mechanical floats. Wine would come out of them and milk and fountain and the first vending machines, by the way, in Alexandria. So you have these festivals. So I believe that when we think about this moment in time where Cleopatra and Anthony decide to have a festival celebrating their successes, we put it into the context of the Alexandrian people loving a festival.

[Host (History Extra Podcast Presenter)]

So their baseline is quite high already for wanting a good time.

[Professor Islam Issa]

Yes. And so she's giving the people what they want. She's also formalising her relationship with Antony and the importance of her son, again, caesarion. So in 34 BC, we have this event that's known as donations of Alexandria. The best way of explaining it is that it's a big celebration. It sounds very serious and it does have elements of a coronation. But we know even in recent years that a coronation can also be a celebration. So they have that event. She dresses as Isis, the queen. What's interesting is he dresses as Bakus. I say it in the Egyptian way, Bakus, because my family is from an area of Alexandria called Bakus, because he was such an important God, the God of wine and festivity to Alexandrians.

[Host (History Extra Podcast Presenter)]

I had no idea it was such an important figure. That's interesting.

[Professor Islam Issa]

Yeah. So the fact that he dresses as Bakus and that he kind of takes Bakus as his patron deity is probably unsettling to the Romans because Bakus remains the Greek God.

[Host (History Extra Podcast Presenter)]

Okay.

[Professor Islam Issa]

So they're dressed as Isis and Bakus. They Parade through the city. They're sitting on golden thrones. It's a very extravagant show of their power, but of their relationship as well. They arrive at the gymnasium, which is where you'll have these big events, and Cleopatra is then declared, and I love this phrase, queen of kings. She's the queen of kings. Why is she queen of kings? Because her son Caesarion, little Caesar from Julius Caesar, is king of kings, which is a very unsettling phrase for the Romans, for Caesarion to be king of kings, especially because she's claiming that he is the son of this great Roman figure, Julius Caesar, whom some people venerate and some people hate. And she begins to distribute the territories of her dynasty to her children. But the Roman Senate hadn't approved this. Distributing her empire and having such a celebration that the Romans reserved for their huge victories was something that the Romans didn't like. The Roman Senate hadn't approved of either of these things. They hadn't approved of the distribution of the land, they hadn't approved of these titles, they hadn't approved of such a ceremony. And actually they were probably insulted that she was carrying out such a ceremony in that style outside of Rome and for what to them was a kind of non event. This was reserved for the biggest and most important victories. Octavian, let's say, seems to have interpreted this as a declaration of hostility. It wasn't an innocent event as far as they were concerned. And it's at that moment, actually, that Octavian's propaganda machine really does hit full swing. And it's at that moment that Octavian probably makes the decision that he's going to venture to Alexandria and Antony and Cleopatra are going to have to face his full force.

[Host (History Extra Podcast Presenter)]

And that is a big moment in this story. And we're going to pick up on that and its implications and what happens next in our next episode. But for now, thank you so much again and thank you for listening to this third episode of of our four part series on the life and times of Cleopatra. If you've enjoyed this episode and want to go beyond the podcast, you can visit the History Extra app where I've curated a list of wider content that explores the life and afterlife of this fascinating figure. You can find a link to that in the episode description. Dish has been connecting communities like yours for the last 45 years, providing the TV you love at a price you can trust. Watch live sports news and the latest movies, plus your favorite streaming apps, all in one place. Switch to DISH today and lock in the lowest price in satellite TV starting at $89.99 a month with our two year price guarantee. Call 888-add-D dish or visit dish.com today.