Cleopatra's Daughter by Jane Draycott

Author:Jane Draycott [Draycott, Jane]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781800244818
Publisher: Head of Zeus

Marble portrait busts of Antonia Major and Minor, daughters of Antony and Octavia the Younger.

© Marie-Lan Nguyen / Wikimedia Commons / Lanmas / Alamy Stock Photo

Regarding Cleopatra Selene, though, the solution was neither quite so simple nor so neat. Her father had been a Roman citizen, and it is entirely possible that her mother had been gifted Roman citizenship by one of the many influential Romans she had known, as was a common occurrence when members of the Roman elite developed close working relationships with allied kings and queens. There was no getting away from the fact that, as a queen in her own right, she was in an entirely different class to her Roman half-brother and half-sisters, let alone her numerous newly acquired stepbrothers and sisters, and foster brothers and sisters, who all lived alongside her on the Palatine Hill in the years between 29 and 25 BCE.5 As a young man, Octavian had owned a house near the Forum on the northern slope of the Palatine Hill. It had formerly been owned by Gaius Licinius Macer Calvus, an orator and poet who wrote in a similar vein to the more famous Catullus, loathed both Caesar and Pompey the Great with equal intensity and was particularly famous for his short stature.6 Later in life, however, once Octavian was both more affluent and more influential, he purchased a house on the summit of the Palatine Hill, one formerly owned by the renowned orator Quintus Hortensius Hortalus, and it was here that he lived for the rest of his life.7 Octavia lived in an adjoining house, and this compound gradually became not just a home to Augustus and his extended family but also, when the princeps was in residence, the political centre of the Roman Empire. Later emperors would gradually transform it into an elaborate palace complex that reflected this, and it is the remains of this that survive today and are visited by millions of tourists each year, including, from time to time, myself and groups of students.8 Consequently, it also came to serve as a sort of finishing school for wealthy young Romans and Roman allies, not just educating these individuals but also training them for their bright futures as ambassadors of the Roman way of life, assuming that they returned to their places of origin.9

As the daughter of Antony, Cleopatra Selene would have been considered a member of an ancient family attested in Roman historical records as early as the fifth century BCE. The family was exceedingly proud to be able to trace its lineage back to Anton, a son of Hercules.10 Indeed, when he was young, Antony would emphasise his physical resemblance to his divine ancestor as much as possible, even appearing in public dressed in his distinctive style.11 This relationship and resemblance did not always work in his favour, however. One of the myths that circulated about Hercules was that after the completion of his twelve labours he had entered the service of Omphale, the Queen of Lydia.

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