Título: CLEOPATRA'S DAUGHTER: EGYPTIAN PRINCESS, ROMAN PRISONER, AFRICAN QUEEN
Autor: DRAYCOTT, JANE
Año: 2022
Género: BIOGRAFÍAS Y MEMORIAS
Formato: EPUB
The first modern biography of one of the most fascinating, and unjustly neglected, female rulers of the ancient world: Cleopatra Selene. Princess, prisoner, African queen –and surviving daughter of Cleopatra VII.
In 1895, archaeologists excavating a villa at Boscoreale, outside Pompeii, uncovered a spectacular hoard of high-quality Roman silverware. In the centre of one especially fine gilded dish was a bust of a female figure with thick curly hair, deep-set eyes, a slightly hooked nose and a strong jaw, sporting an elephant's scalp headdress. For decades, theories circulated about her identity –until, at last, she was ascertained to be Cleopatra Selene, one of three children born to Egyptian Queen Cleopatra VII and the Roman Triumvir Mark Antony.
Using this discovery as her starting point and creating a narrative from mere fragments in the archaeological record, historian Jane Draycott reconstructs the exceptional life and times of a remarkable woman –the sole member of the Ptolemaic dynasty to survive following her parents' defeat at the Battle of Actium. Unlike her siblings, who were either executed as threat to Rome's new ruler, Augustus Caesar –or simply forgotten–, Cleopatra Selene was held captive by Augustus Caesar and his sister, Octavia “the Younger”, after her parents' demise. Then she married a north African prince, Juba II of Numidia, and became co-ruler with him of the Roman client kingdom of Mauretania.
Cleopatra Selene was a princess who became a prisoner; a prisoner who became a queen; an Egyptian who became Roman; and a woman who became a powerful ruler in her own right at a time when most women were marginalised. Her life shines new and revelatory light on Roman politics, society and culture in the early years of the Empire, on Roman perceptions of Egypt, and on the relationship between Rome and one of its most significant allied kingdoms.
Jane Draycott is a Roman historian and archaeologist. She has a special interest in Graeco-Roman Egypt and the Roman client kingdom of Mauretania.
 |  |