THE PERSONALITY OF CLEOPATRA VII essays

THE PERSONALITY OF CLEOPATRA VII essays Cleopatra VIIs personal abilities, such as her apparent intellectual ease for learning and her political awareness along with her personal attributes, such as her suggested beauty or captivating presence led her to be viewed in equally positive and negative ways in both the Roman and Hellenistic worlds. Her background, social position and status, and rise to prominence also helped generate the idea that she was a woman who could threaten many men around her. Many people (especially the Romans) did not like her because she, being Queen of Egypt, presented a danger to the Roman Empire. Cleopatra was one of the most powerful leaders of that time, so unavoidably people either held her in esteem or disliked her intensely. The relevance of Cleopatras background is significant when attempting to understand her personality and her rise to prominence. Firstly, she belonged to the Ptolemy Family, a royal family notorious for incest and vicious infighting. It may be the supposedly unstable nature implied of the Ptolemy family that can be held responsible for the fact that some people did not trust her and saw her as an unstable and therefore unpredictable ruler. It can also be said that because the Ptolemies were often viewed as particularly inept and poor specimens of humanity it may have damaged her rule before it had even begun as people may have thought the same of her. Rather paradoxically, Cleopatra was believed to be highly regarded socially unlike her family was. Famous historian Plutarch says that she was to be of a rather exalted position. Knowing several languages, being very intelligent and being able to captivate her listeners when she spoke would have intimidated the Romans because she had the ability to influence Rome s men and use them for her benefit. Appian once said in his Civil Wars that when Cleopatra met Mark Antony (he) was amazed at her wit as well as her good looks a...