Cleopatra's in while Bodica is out
What qualifies a woman to be included in a world history textbook?
We are researching the women who make it into world history textbooks. Why does Queen Cleopatra appear in four of the six textbooks while Queen Boudica is left out? Do textbook writers have criteria to guide them in deciding what women (and/or men) are important to include in a world history textbook? To pursue this question, I first need to clarify the term “world history.”
The American Historical Association webpage titled “Introduction to doing world history” by David Richard Smith is my source for the following:
World history is more superficial and general than regional or national histories.
World history emphasizes events and people that transcend national, regional, or cultural boundaries.
World history seeks patterns and connections to understand the development of the world as we know it today.
World history textbooks are largely written from secondary sources.
World history looks at the forest in that it searches for the overall, global meaning of history.
Smith’s reference to the idiom “not seeing the forest for the trees” leads me to think of the trees as the people and the forest as the global trends, patterns and connections in world history. Does the content about Cleopatra in our three main textbooks help us see a “forest?” Did Cleopatra contribute to the big picture (the forest) of world history?
Routledge Textbook:
It was a naval battle-the Battle of Actium in 31 BCE, in which the forces of the future emperor Augustus defeated the navy of Roman general Marc Antony and the Egyptian queen Cleopatra-that inaugurated the Roman Empire (Szostak, R. 2020, p. 685).
This is the only mention of Cleopatra in the Routledge textbook. Mention is the operative word here. All a student reader learns is that she and Antony were defeated by Augustus. This is not helpful in appreciating Cleopatra’s role in the cultural exchange of ideas between Egypt and Rome or her political authority as a woman leader.
Pearson Textbook:
Caesar had dreamed of uniting Rome and Egypt hoping to transfer his capital eastward. He had courted the Queen of Egypt, the clever Cleopatra VII, last of the Ptolemaic dynasty that had ruled that land since the death of Alexander the Great. Caesar had acknowledged to friends his paternity of her son Caesarion (seh-Zairē-un), born in 47 b.c.e. Now Antony seemed to take Caesar’s place spending the winter of 41-40 b.c.e. with Cleopatra in Alexandria and, in 32 b.c.e., marrying her.
Octavian resolved to destroy Antony, fearing that if Antony became sole leader of Rome, he and Cleopatra would probably subordinate Italy to Egypt. Cleverly Octavian declared war against Cleopatra rather than Antony, mobilizing Rome’s forces in a patriotic struggle to preserve Italian supremacy. Antony and Cleopatra responded by urging eastern princes to fight for their liberation from the tyranny of Rome. In Septemeber 31 b.c.e., Octavian’s forces defeated Antony and Cleopatra at the battle of Actium (ACK-tē-um). The following year Octavian’s armies attacked Egypt itself. Antony, hearing a rumor that Cleopatra had been killed, took his own life by falling on his sword; the Queen of Egypt after her lover’s suicide and her empire’s defeat, put an asp to her breast and died from its venom. Returning to Rome in triumph, Octavian was hailed as the man who ended decades of civil war. In 27 b.c.e. the senate voted him the title Augustus, meaning ‘one who rules with majesty and grandeur.’ Octavian now called himself Caesar Augustus. (pp. 162-163)
In the Pearson textbook a student reader will learn that Cleopatra's political maneuverings and alliances with Julius Caesar and Mark Antony significantly impacted the Mediterranean's political landscape. Her relationship with Caesar stabilized Egypt's position and fostered cultural exchange, while her alliance with Antony deepened the political entanglement between Rome and Egypt. Octavian's fear of Cleopatra's influence on Antony and Egypt's potential dominance led to the Battle of Actium, resulting in Cleopatra's defeat and Egypt's incorporation into the Roman Empire. Thus there is evidence that Cleopatra's actions and alliances transcended national boundaries, altering power dynamics and leaving a lasting legacy.
USG Textbook:
Lasting from death of Alexander in 323 BCE to the death of Cleopatra VII in 30 BCE, the Ptolemaic kingdom proved to be the longest lasting and most successful of the kingdoms carved from Alexander’s initial empire (p. 219).
The last of the Ptolemaic rulers, Cleopatra VII, first married and ruled jointly with her brother Ptolemy XIII. After defeating him in a civil war, she then married another brother, Ptolemy XIV, remaining his wife until his death, possibly from sisterly poisoning. Best known for her affairs with Julius Caesar and after Caesar’s death, with Marcus Antonius, Cleopatra teamed with Marcus Antonius in a bid for the Roman Empire. The last surviving rule who was descended from one of Alexander’s generals, she was finally defeated by Octavian, the future Roman emperor Augustus, in 30 BCE (p. 220).
When he arrived in Egypt in pursuit of Pompey, Caesar, however sided with Ptolemy’s sister Cleopatra VII and appears to have fathered a son with her, Caesarion….Since Caesar did not have legitimate sons who could inherit Caesarion, his son with Cleopatra, was illegitimate-he adopted an heir in his will, a common Roman practice. The heir in question was his grand nephew Gaius Octavius (p. 252).
Marcus Antonius, who claimed Egypt, although it was not yet a Roman province, proceeded to marry Cleopatra and rule Egypt with her over the following decade (p. 253).
The USG textbook account of Cleopatra focusses more on her personal life, including marriages to her brothers Ptolemy XIII and Ptolemy XIII and her relationships with Julius Caesar and Mark Antony. Whereas the Pearson textbook focuses more on Cleopatra’s political maneuvering and her role in the power struggles between Rome and Egypt.
Writing about Cleopatra has its challenges. There are few surviving primary sources from Cleopatra’s time that provide direct information. Also the earliest sources about Cleopatra are Roman histories that portray her negatively because she was their enemy. Cleopatra, according to Duane Roller (2010)1, “suffers from male-dominated historiography in both ancient and modern times and was often seen merely as an appendage of the men in her life or was stereotyped into typical chauvinistic female roles such as seductress or sorceress, one whose primary accomplishement was ruining the men that she was involved with” (pps. 1-2).
If I was writing a world history textbook I would draw from this paragraph.
Cleopatra (Kleopatra) VII is arguably the most famous woman from classical antiquity, and one of the most familiar personalities in human history. She is best known through the extensive art and literature that was generated after her death. The information from Greek and Roman sources about Cleopatra herself is surprisingly sparse and generally misinterpreted. She is familiar today largely through her representation by Shakespeare and in modern film, as a seductress who ruined the men in her life and destroyed her kingdom, an erroneous depiction that is in large part the result of extremely eloquent opponents and male-dominated historiography. More accurately, she was a capable administrator and military commander, a linguist who knew a dozen languages, and a published scholarly author. Yet she was also the last ruler of her kingdom, and her defeat by the Romans led to the destruction of her reputation. She ruled for twenty-one years, from 51 to 30 BCE, and skillfully attempted to salvage her dying kingdom in the face of growing Roman power and involvement in the affairs of the eastern Mediterranean. Best remembered for her liaisons with Julius Caesar, and Marcus Antonius (Mark Antony), she in fact carefully chose her partners in order to produce heirs who could carry on the kingdom. But her own plans became caught up in the ongoing civil war at Rome, beginning with the assassination of Caesar in 44 BCE. Her original relations with Antonius were a matter of stabilizing her kingdom and creating a mutually beneficial relationship between Egypt and Rome, but the personal involvement between the two eventually hampered these plans, and allowed Octavian (the future emperor Augustus), in power in Rome, to marginalize Antonius (who was his brother-in-law) and to claim that he was being destroyed by an eastern seductress. Matters quickly moved out of control in the 30s BCE, and eventually a Roman invasion of Greece was mounted. Cleopatra attempted to disassociate herself from Antonius in order to salvage her kingdom, but would not give it over to Octavian, and was driven to suicide in August of 30 BCE at the age of thirty-nine. DOI: 10.1093/OBO/9780195389661-0130
By the way I have not forgotten about Queen Boudica. She will be the topic of a future post to examine why she is left out as a named women in the lists from six school textbooks.
Roller, D. W. (2011). Cleopatra : A biography. Oxford University Press, Incorporated.