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The Many Faces of Cleopatra Prom Propaganda to :Myth By NAOMI SUSAN HARDMAN SEPTEMBER 2003 PIETERMARITZBURG Submitted in partial fulfilment ofthe requirements ofthe degree of MASTER OF ARTS (CLASSICAL CIVILIZATION) in the SCHOOL OF LANGUAGE, CULTURE AND COMMUNICATION UNIVERSITY OF NATAL, PIETERMARITZBURG DECLARATION Ihereby certify that, unless specifically indicated to the contrary, this dissertation is the result ofmy own original work, which has not already been accepted in substance for any degree, and is not being submitted in candidature for any other degree. Signed: _ Naomi Susan Hardman ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The author would like to thank the following persons who made this study possible: Mr Michael Lambert Thank you for your committed and enthusiastic supervision ofthis dissertation - for your speedy return ofdraft copies, attention to detail, and your tireless efforts to make this dissertation better. Thank you, also, for all your assistance throughout my post-graduate years ofstudy, and for leading us through the fundamental stages in the exciting adventure oflearning Greek! Professor Peter Tennant Thank you for reading through this dissertation in its final stages, and for your helpful suggestions. Thank you for your encouragement and participation in my university studies. Professor David Pike Thank you for your confidence in, and support of, me, during the years I have spent in Classics, the best department on campus! Dr Catherine Woeber Thank you for so generously reading through the third chapter ofthis dissertation, and for the most insightful suggestions you offered towards refining it. My husband, Paul Hardman Thank you for believing so intensely in me, for your example of diligence, and for all your support, prayer and understanding while I have been studying. My parents, Howard and Helen Gee Thank you, Mom and Dad, for your unconditional support ofme during the pasttwenty-three years, and for being so interested in my studies. The Lord Jesus Christ You are a mighty God - always my inspiration and hope. Thank you for Your faithfulness to me. 11 ABSTRACT Few women ofantiquity have gripped the public imagination as Cleopatra has. For centuries, she has inspired playwrights, poets, artists and film-makers, with the result that she and Antony are arguably history's most famous lovers. However, I have not yet encountered a study which discusses, in one work, the multiple constructions of Cleopatra across the range of genres in which she has been represented. Certainly, many books and articles are devoted to revealing how Cleopatra has been constructed in one or other specific genre, but it seems as though no attempts have been made to portray, in juxtaposition to one another, the many faces ofCleopatra. This dissertation seeks to do just that. Although I could not possibly include a discussion ofevery genre in which Cleopatra has been constructed, I have chosen six areas for study: ancient Greek biography (using Plutarch's Life ofAntony); the poetry ofthe Augustan poets: Vergil (the Aeneid), Horace (Ode 1.37) and Propertius (Elegies 3.11); Shakespearean tragedy (Antony andCleopatra); art (numismatics and ancient sculpture); film (Joseph Mankiewicz's Cleopatra), and, briefly, Africanist historiography. I have chosen these areas because each offers such diverse constructions ofCleopatra that one begins to appreciate how historiography, propaganda and representation have contributed to the shaping ofthe Cleopatra myth, coloured by the ideology ofthe age in which she has been interpreted afresh. Current Africanist appropriations ofCleopatra suggest that historiography is never neutral: race and gender often intersect to create 'historical' identities. 111 TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 11 ABSTRACT 111 TABLE OF CONTENTS IV INTRODUCTION 1 CHAPTER ONE 3 1.1. Introduction to Plutarch 3 1.2. The Choice ofGenre - Biography 5 1.3. Ancient Views on Character 7 1.4. Plutarch's Audience and the Nature ofhis Sources 11 1.5. Antony as constructed by Plutarch 23 1.6. Cleopatra as constructed by Plutarch 35 CHAPTER TWO 46 2.1. Introduction to the Roman Sources 46 2.2. Vergil 48 2.3. Horace 66 2.4. Propertius 81 CHAPTER THREE 92 3.1. Introduction to William Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra 92 3.2. Shakespeare's Use ofthe Roman Sources 96 IV 3.3. Shakespeare's Use ofPiutarch 108 CHAPTER FOUR 165 4.1. Introduction to Cleopatra in Numismatics and Sculpture 165 4.2. Cleopatra's National Image 172 4.3. Cleopatra's International Image 185 CHAPTER FIVE 193 5.1. Introduction to Cleopatra (1963) 193 5.2. Joseph Mankiewicz's Cleopatra (1963) 198 5.3. Mankiewicz's construction ofCleopatra 201 CONCLUSION 211 BIBLIOGRAPHY 222 v INTRODUCTION In this dissertation, I shall explore how Queen Cleopatra VII of Egypt has been constructed in a range of genres spanning ancient biography, nationalist poetry, Renaissance tragedy, art, coinage, film and Africanist historiography. In chapter one, I shall investigate howthe ancient Greek biographer, Plutarch, characterized Antony and Cleopatra in his Life ofAntony, written in the early second century A.D. I shall discuss why Plutarch chose, for his Life ofAntony, the genre ofbiography, and how this work was influenced by ancient views on character. I shall also investigate howPlutarch's sources shapedhis representations ofAntony and Cleopatra. The second chapter ofthis dissertation examines how Cleopatra is portrayed in the Latin poetry of the Augustan poets, Vergil, Horace and Propertius. Starting with Vergil's epic poem, the Aeneid, I shall evaluate howVergil's Cleopatrahas been allegorically linked to another African queen, Dido, and whether this zeugma is credible. I shall then discuss how Cleopatra and Egypt are characterized by Vergil in the shield ofAeneas, in the eighth book ofthe Aeneid. I shall conclude my study of Vergil by discussing the contribution ofhis poem to Roman society, before focussing on the poetry of Horace and Propertius. Having explained the personal contexts in which both Horace and Propertius composed their poetry during the Principate of Augustus, I shall first explore how Cleopatra is demonized in Horace's Ode 1.37, commonly known as the'Cleopatra Ode,' and then how she is constructed by Propertius in Elegies 3.11. I shall devote the most substantial part of this dissertation to the exploration of William Shakespeare's construction ofCleopatra in his fine tragedy, AntonyandCleopatra, in chapterthree. Since Shakespeare used, for this play, Sir Thomas North's mediated translation ofPiutarch's Life ofAntony, in chapter three, I will use North's Life ofMarcus Antonius, as opposed to a modem translation ofthe original Greek. I shall then summarize how the Augustan poetry ofchapter two influenced Shakespeare in his constructions of Cleopatra and Antony, and Egypt and Rome, in Antony and Cleopatra. I then intend to reveal to what extent the Renaissance playwright was similarly inspired by Plutarch in his portrayal ofthe famous lovers. 1 In chapter four I shall deviate from the literary sources and concentrate on how Cleopatra is portrayed (and her political and social ideology conveyed) in visual representations on coins and in sculpture from the first century B.C. I shall describe how Cleopatra had her own image and identity manipulated for both national and international consumption. In 2001, the British Museum Press published a comprehensive catalogue ofcoins, statues, and numerous other artefacts to accompany a touring exhibition celebrating the life ofCleopatra. In this chapter ofmy dissertation, all visual representations are reproduced from this catalogue. The final chapter ofthis dissertation discusses how Cleopatra is constructed in twentieth-century film. Although I will briefly examine how the Ptolemaic queen is portrayed in a range of'Cleopatra films' of both American and Italian production, my case-study for this chapter is Joseph Mankiewicz's Cleopatra, starring as its heroine Elizabeth Taylor. In this chapter I shall discuss how Taylor's off-screen behaviour influenced modern interpretations of Cleopatra, as well as how the myth ofCleopatra's sexuality glamorously shaped the reception ofTaylor's adulterous affair with her co-star, Richard Burton. In my conclusion I shall also briefly examine how scholars engaged in Afrocentric studies have responded to these historical and artistic interpretations of Cleopatra. Although this is a comparatively new field of scholarship and debate, its challenges to accepted conventions and versions ofhistory offer exciting research opportunities for South African scholars today. My hope is that this dissertation might encourage such a scholar to explore further the legacy ofCleopatra in a local context. 2 CHAPTER ONE 1.1. Introduction to Plutarch The most important extant source (Greek or Roman) for Cleopatra which we possess is Plutarch's Life ofAntony. Described by one modem scholar as 'an unforgettable masterpiece of Greek literature,'! Plutarch's Life ofAntony (in the greater context ofhis Parallel Lives) holds, according to C. P. Jones (1971:81), as dominant a place today in the study of ancient biography as it did in antiquity. Although, as the title suggests, this is a work whose main subject is MarkAntony, it is also the most extensive and eloquent source for the study ofCleopatra VII, Queen ofEgypt. Born about seventy-five years after Actium,2 Plutarch lived in a period in which the Greek and Roman worlds were politically more unified: well-born men from the Greek-speaking East were increasingly entering the
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