This message for Social Network lovers who need to extend their relationship beyond overseas. Google+ objective is to make relationship more easier than Facebook. Try this link to Entire New World of Google+.
https://plus.google.com
Sunday, July 10, 2011
Google+ Social Network Active
This message for Social Network lovers who need to extend their relationship beyond overseas. Google+ objective is to make relationship more easier than Facebook. Try this link to Entire New World of Google+.
https://plus.google.com
Videocon V7500 Zeus
Videocon Zeus – Videocon V7500
The new Videocon Zeus Evolve V7500 is a full 3.2-inch capacitive Touchscreen display mobile phone running the popular Android mobile OS. Videocon V7500 is the first Android mobile phone from Videocon .Videocon Zeus V7500 features 3G,WiFi,GPS,and 5 megapixel camera.Videocon Zeus V7500 will come with an additional battery i.e. it comes with 2 batteries.Videocon Zeus comes with Android 1.6 and will be upgradeable to Android 2.1 in October 2010.It is not upgradeable to the latest Android 2.2 (Froyo).Videocon Zeus V7500 Evolve mobile phone key features :
- Powered by Android. Android 2.1 Eclair Ready
- Download 70,000 Applications via Android Marketplace
- Pre-bundled 8GB Micro SD Card
- 5MP Camera with 24FPS video capture
- 3.5G, WiFi, A-GPS, Push Mail Client with G-Mail Server
- 3.2-inch Multi-touch (Capacitive) screen with Motion G Sensor
- 1230 mAh x 2 (two) Batteries + Car Charger + Application Guide.
- Android Operating System : Android 1.6 Operating System. Upgradeable to Android 2.1 Eclair
- Display, Dimension and Battery Life 8cms (3.2″) Multi-touch Capacitive TFT screen
- 480×320 pixel screen with 262K Colour
- 114.9 mm x 56.8 mm x 12.6 mm
- 1230 mAH battery x 2 nos:Up to 7 hrs Talk Time
- Up to 17 days Standby Time
- One spare battery for extra long usage
- 114 gms weight (with battery)
- Camera : 5 mega-pixel auto-focus Camera with dedicated Camera key and LED Flash
- Video Recording Formats: H.263 and MP4 formats
- Video Recording Frame Rates: 24 frames per second
- Entertainment Music player with multi format support (AMR, AAC, AAC+, EAAC+, MIDI, MP3, WAV)
- 3.5 mm Headset Jack
- Audio Recorder
- Loud Speakers
- Video Player with multi format support (H.263, H.264 AVC, MPEG-4 SP)
- Memory Up-to 32 GB expandable memory
- 8 GB inbox
- 512 MB internal memory
- Connectivity 3.5G (HSDPA 7.2MBPS/HSUPA 2MBPS)
- Quadband 2G: 850/900/1800/1900 with UMTS 2100
- WCDMA
- Multiple Bluetooth profiles: A2DP, GAP, HFP, HSP
- GPS and Geo-Tagging
- Wi-Fi
- USB 2.0 and PC Suite in handset
- POP3 Email Client
- Email and Calendar synchronization with exchange server
- USB modem for accessing internet
- Enterprise Applications Wireless Push Email
- Other Enterprise Apps from Android Marketplace
- Others 5 customizable screens
- Gmail, Gtalk, YouTube, Facebook, Google Maps, Java Enabled, Android Marketplace, Document to Go, RSS reader, Notepad
- Accelerometer, Proximity Sensor, Digital Compass
- Inbox Contents 8GB Micro SD Card Inside
- Car Charger
- Battery (Two Nos)
- Carrying Case
- Charging Adaptor
- USB Data Cable
- Stereo Handsfree
- Service centre directory
- Users Manual
- Warranty Card
- Application Guide.
Tips to accelerate Android
There are a lot of hidden Android tips and tricks that manufacturers simply can’t incorporate into the user manual after all, who would want to read a 500-page book before using a phone! Things like contextual menus, block lists, web browser tips are all available and they’ll help you work faster and play harder.
Mobile phones that run Google’s Android operating system come in various shapes, sizes and features, unlike Apple’s iPhones. But despite the variety of Android phones there are a lot of useful features common to all. Here are some tips on finding them:THE LONG PRESS
The key to many of these tips is the long press: Instead of tapping a button, word or icon on the screen, press and hold your finger on it for two seconds. Often, this will bring up a menu of options specific to the type of item, like one to bookmark a Web link.
You can also long press the hardware keys on the phone, and the background of the home screen, to reveal various options. In general, long-press functions are intended to save you from tapping through a series of menus to perform a common task.
It’s the equivalent of right-clicking your mouse on a PC screen. So, for example, you can long press the home key on your phone’s case the one that looks like a little house to bring up a menu of your eight most recently used apps. This lets you hop quickly between, say, an e-mail you are composing and your Web browser.
You can also long press the search key it looks like a magnifying glass to pop up a microphone icon labeled ‘Speak Now.’ Android’s Voice Commands system understands at least 10 commands, like ‘Send text to Ram Kumar, running late will see you at 6,’ ‘Navigate to the nearest pizza place,’ ‘Listen to Taylor Swift,’ and of course, ‘Note to self.’
If you don’t begin with a special command, Android will assume you are speaking a Web search. Within the browser app, long press the back key the one labeled with an arrow U-turning left to snap open a screen with your bookmarks, most visited pages and browsing history displayed in tabs. Long press on your home screen’s background to bring up a menu of options that includes Shortcuts.
You can create a shortcut, which looks just like an app on your home screen, that links directly to a bookmarked Web page, a person in your contact list or a navigation destination. Android will label the shortcut with the Web site’s logo, the person’s face or an icon you choose for destinations. Too many icons on your home screen? Long press on the screen to pop up a menu that includes a Folders option.
You can create a folder icon and call it, say, Games, into which you can drag all your game apps. Long press a link on a Web page to pop up a menu that lets you open the link in a new window. To switch windows, press the menu key the one that’s a grid of four squares and tap Windows in the options that appear onscreen. And long press can also be used for accent marks. To insert, say, an e with an accent grave into a message, long press the ‘e’ on your keyboard. That pops up a menu of ‘e’ characters with various accent marks.
FAST ACCESS TO PHONE, TEXT & E-MAIL
In your address book, don’t tap the person’s name. Tap their photo. That pops up a menu of icons to call, text or e-mail. There are also options to send messages through Twitter and Facebook.
TAKE PHOTOS OF YOURSELF
Android cameras without a second camera for self-portraits have a Self Portrait mode in the camera app. Tap it, and the camera will begin searching for faces in its viewfinder using facial-recognition software. The phone will shoot a new photo of you every few seconds, adding the pictures to your camera roll. It’s more hit or miss than taking your photo in a mirror, but it’s more fun.
FASTER SENTENCES
Android picked up a trick from old-school BlackBerry phones: When typing a text or e-mail message, you don’t need to fumble for the period key at the end of a sentence. Just press the spacebar twice. Android will insert one period and one space much faster than you could type them yourself.
EMAIL SHORTCUTS
If you use Gmail on your Android phone, you can create separate shortcut icons, as described above, to specific accounts, folders and Gmail labels. This lets you have separate icons for work e-mail and personal e-mail, rather than opening whatever you last read when you tap the Gmail icon. Once you’re in the e-mail app, you can also switch folders by tapping the name of the current folder at the top of the screen.
SILENCING A CALL
Most users figure out they can get rid of a phone call by sliding/tapping the red button that appears onscreen when the phone is ringing. But not everyone realises you can stop the phone from ringing by pressing the power button or either of the volume buttons .
FIND ON PAGE
To search for words within a Web page, press the menu key, tap More, and then tap ‘Find on page.’ A search box and keyboard will appear to let you type in search terms.
SHARE A PAGE ON FACEBOOK
Another option on the browser’s More menu is the Share page. One of the options to share is Facebook. Tapping it will open Facebook in the browser (rather than using Facebook’s Android app) and set up the link to be shared, complete with a thumbnail image and a space to type your comments.
SEE TODAY’S DATE
Android shows the time but not the date on your home screen. If you drag down the notification tray at the top of the screen, today’s date appears in the upper left corner.
FOREIGN LANGUAGE KEYBOARDS
Most Android phones will only come with an English keyboards installed for the touch screen. To add, say, a German keyboard, go to Android Market and search for ‘German keyboard.’ Expect to pay around $3 for most keyboard apps.
GET RID OF PESKY CALLERS
Do you have a frequent caller whom you never want to answer? Add them to your address book if they’re not already there. Then edit their entry, and scroll to the bottom for the option ‘Additional info.’ It’s tricky to open the option; you have to tap the arrow to show more options, then click ‘send directly to voicemail’.
3D MAPS
Get the latest release of Google Maps, a free download via Android Market. While looking at a map, you can tilt it by sliding two fingers vertically up or down the screen, and rotate it by placing two fingers on the map one at the top and one at the bottom, or one on each side and making a circular motion.
BIGGER BROWSER FONT
Do you find yourself constantly stretching Web pages with your fingertips to read them? Change the default font size instead. While looking at the Browser app, press the menu button on your phone. Tap the More option, then choose Settings at the very bottom (you may have to scroll down.) Change the first option, Text Size, from Normal to Large.
STOP THE SCREEN FROM TURNING OFF
Stop the screen from turning off While your phone is plugged in, you can have it disable the battery-saving function that turns off the screen while you are reading, or using the phone as a bedside clock radio. Bring up the Settings app. Tap Applications, then Development. Turn on the ‘Stay awake’ option. It was put there to help software developers. But we end users, in geek jargon, have plenty of uses for it.
TYPE CONTACT NAMES ON THE KEYPAD
There are some tips that are specific to devices from certain manufacturers. For example, in some HTC phones, instead of finding address book contacts by bringing up your address book and then typing their names into the onscreen keyboard, bring up the phone’s keypad dialer, which has much larger, easier-to-tap keys. Tap your contact’s name on the keypad e.g. 5-6-4 to spell J-O-H for John.
The phone app will pop up a list of auto-complete options for the name from your address book. It’s both faster and easier than going through the address book. Dear Google: Can you build this into all Android phones?
Saturday, July 9, 2011
Thursday, July 7, 2011
Cleopatra
Primary Contributor: Joyce Tyldesley
Cleopatra, (Greek: “Famous in Her Father”) in full Cleopatra VII Thea Philopator (“Cleopatra the Father-Loving Goddess”) (born 70/69 bc—died August of 30 bc, Alexandria), Egyptian queen, famous in history and drama as the lover of Julius Caesar and later the wife of Mark Antony. She became queen on the death of her father, Ptolemy XII, in 51 bc and ruled successively with her two brothers Ptolemy XIII (51–47) and Ptolemy XIV (47–44) and her son Ptolemy XV Caesar (44–30). After the Roman armies of Octavian (the future emperor Augustus) defeated their combined forces, Antony and Cleopatra committed suicide, and Egypt fell under Roman domination. Cleopatra actively influenced Roman politics at a crucial period, and she came to represent, as did no other woman of antiquity, the prototype of the romantic femme fatale.
Life and reign
Daughter of King Ptolemy XII Auletes, Cleopatra was destined to become the last queen of the Macedonian dynasty that ruled Egypt between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 bc and its annexation by Rome in 30 bc. The line had been founded by Alexander’s general Ptolemy, who became King Ptolemy I Soter of Egypt. Cleopatra was of Macedonian descent and had little, if any, Egyptian blood, although the Classical author Plutarch wrote that she alone of her house took the trouble to learn Egyptian and, for political reasons, styled herself as the new Isis, a title that distinguished her from the earlier Ptolemaic queen Cleopatra III, who had also claimed to be the living embodiment of the goddess Isis. Coin portraits of Cleopatra show a countenance alive rather than beautiful, with a sensitive mouth, firm chin, liquid eyes, broad forehead, and prominent nose. When Ptolemy XII died in 51 bc, the throne passed to his young son, Ptolemy XIII, and daughter, Cleopatra VII. It is likely, but not proven, that the two married soon after their father’s death. The 18-year-old Cleopatra, older than her brother by about eight years, became the dominant ruler. Evidence shows that the first decree in which Ptolemy’s name precedes Cleopatra’s was in October of 50 bc. Soon after, Cleopatra was forced to flee Egypt for Syria, where she raised an army and in 48 bc returned to face her brother at Pelusium, on Egypt’s eastern border. The murder of the Roman general Pompey, who had sought refuge from Ptolemy XIII at Pelusium, and the arrival of Julius Caesar brought temporary peace.
Cleopatra realized that she needed Roman support, or, more specifically, Caesar’s support, if she was to regain her throne. Each was determined to use the other. Caesar sought money for repayment of the debts incurred by Cleopatra’s father, Auletes, as he struggled to retain his throne. Cleopatra was determined to keep her throne and, if possible, to restore the glories of the first Ptolemies and recover as much as possible of their dominions, which had included southern Syria and Palestine. Caesar and Cleopatra became lovers and spent the winter besieged in Alexandria. Roman reinforcements arrived the following spring, and Ptolemy XIII fled and drowned in the Nile. Cleopatra, now married to her brother Ptolemy XIV, was restored to her throne. In June 47 bc she gave birth to Ptolemy Caesar (known to the people of Alexandria as Caesarion, or “little Caesar”). Whether Caesar was the father of Caesarion, as his name implies, cannot now be known.
It took Caesar two years to extinguish the last flames of Pompeian opposition. As soon as he returned to Rome, in 46 bc, he celebrated a four-day triumph—the ceremonial in honour of a general after his victory over a foreign enemy—in which Arsinoe, Cleopatra’s younger and hostile sister, was paraded. Cleopatra paid at least one state visit to Rome, accompanied by her husband-brother and son. She was accommodated in Caesar’s private villa beyond the Tiber River and may have been present to witness the dedication of a golden statue of herself in the temple of Venus Genetrix, the ancestress of the Julian family to which Caesar belonged. Cleopatra was in Rome when Caesar was murdered in 44 bc.
Soon after her return to Alexandria, in 44 bc, Cleopatra’s coruler, Ptolemy XIV, died. Cleopatra now ruled with her infant son, Ptolemy XV Caesar. When, at the Battle of Philippi in 42 bc, Caesar’s assassins were routed, Mark Antony became the heir apparent of Caesar’s authority—or so it seemed, for Caesar’s great-nephew and personal heir, Octavian, was but a sickly boy. Antony, now controller of Rome’s eastern territories, sent for Cleopatra so that she might explain her role in the aftermath of Caesar’s assassination. She set out for Tarsus in Asia Minor loaded with gifts, having delayed her departure to heighten Antony’s expectation. She entered the city by sailing up the Cydnus River in a barge while dressed in the robes of the new Isis. Antony, who equated himself with the god Dionysus, was captivated. Forgetting his wife, Fulvia, who in Italy was doing her best to maintain her husband’s interests against the growing menace of young Octavian, Antony returned to Alexandria, where he treated Cleopatra not as a “protected” sovereign but as an independent monarch.
In Alexandria, Cleopatra and Antony formed a society of “inimitable livers” whose members lived what some historians have interpreted as a life of debauchery and folly and others have interpreted as lives dedicated to the cult of the mystical god Dionysus.
In 40 bc Cleopatra gave birth to twins, whom she named Alexander Helios and Cleopatra Selene. Antony had already left Alexandria to return to Italy, where he was forced to conclude a temporary settlement with Octavian. As part of this settlement, he married Octavian’s sister, Octavia (Fulvia having died). Three years later Antony was convinced that he and Octavian could never come to terms. His marriage to Octavia now an irrelevance, he returned to the east and reunited with Cleopatra. Antony needed Cleopatra’s financial support for his postponed Parthian campaign; in return, Cleopatra requested the return of much of Egypt’s eastern empire, including large portions of Syria and Lebanon and even the rich balsam groves of Jericho.
The Parthian campaign was a costly failure, as was the temporary conquest of Armenia. Nevertheless, in 34 bc Antony celebrated a triumphal return to Alexandria. This was followed by a celebration known as “the Donations of Alexandria.” Crowds flocked to the Gymnasium to see Cleopatra and Antony seated on golden thrones on a silver platform with their children sitting on slightly lower thrones beside them. Antony proclaimed Caesarion to be Caesar’s son—thus relegating Octavian, who had been adopted by Caesar as his son and heir, to legal bastardy. Cleopatra was hailed as queen of kings, Caesarion as king of kings. Alexander Helios was awarded Armenia and the territory beyond the Euphrates, his infant brother Ptolemy the lands to the west of it. The boys’ sister, Cleopatra Selene, was to be ruler of Cyrene. It was clear to Octavian, watching from Rome, that Antony intended his extended family to rule the civilized world. A propaganda war erupted. Octavian seized Antony’s will (or what he claimed to be Antony’s will) from the temple of the Vestal Virgins, to whom it had been entrusted, and revealed to the Roman people that not only had Antony bestowed Roman possessions on a foreign woman but intended to be buried beside her in Egypt. The rumour quickly spread that Antony also intended to transfer the capital from Rome to Alexandria.
Antony and Cleopatra spent the winter of 32–31 bc in Greece. The Roman Senate deprived Antony of his prospective consulate for the following year, and it then declared war against Cleopatra. The naval Battle of Actium, in which Octavian faced the combined forces of Antony and Cleopatra on Sept. 2, 31 bc, was a disaster for the Egyptians. Antony and Cleopatra fled to Egypt, and Cleopatra retired to her mausoleum as Antony went off to fight his last battle. Receiving the false news that Cleopatra had died, Antony fell on his sword. In a last excess of devotion, he had himself carried to Cleopatra’s retreat and there died, after bidding her to make her peace with Octavian.
Cleopatra buried Antony and then committed suicide. The means of her death is uncertain, though Classical writers came to believe that she had killed herself by means of an asp, symbol of divine royalty. She was 39 and had been a queen for 22 years and Antony’s partner for 11. They were buried together, as both of them had wished, and with them was buried the Roman Republic.
Cleopatra through the ages
The vast majority of Egypt’s many hundreds of queens, although famed throughout their own land, were more or less unknown in the outside world. As the dynastic age ended and the hieroglyphic script was lost, the queens’ stories were forgotten and their monuments buried under Egypt’s sands. But Cleopatra had lived in a highly literate age, and her actions had influenced the formation of the Roman Empire; her story could not be forgotten. Octavian (the future emperor Augustus) was determined that Roman history should be recorded in a way that confirmed his right to rule. To achieve this, he published his own autobiography and censored Rome’s official records. As Cleopatra had played a key role in his struggle to power, her story was preserved as an integral part of his. But it was diminished to just two episodes: her relationships with Julius Caesar and Mark Antony. Cleopatra, stripped of any political validity, was to be remembered as an immoral foreign woman who tempted upright Roman men. As such, she became a useful enemy for Octavian, who preferred to be remembered for fighting against foreigners rather than against his fellow Romans.
This official Roman version of a predatory, immoral Cleopatra passed into Western culture, where it was retold and reinterpreted as the years passed, until it evolved into a story of a wicked life made good by an honourable death. Meanwhile, Muslim scholars, writing after the Arab conquest of Egypt about ad 640, developed their own version of the queen. Their Cleopatra was first and foremost a scholar and a scientist, a gifted philosopher and a chemist.
Plutarch’s Parallel Lives, translated from the Greek into French by Jacques Amyot (1559) and then from the French into English by Sir Thomas North (1579), served as the inspiration behind Shakespeare’s play Antony and Cleopatra (1606–07).
Shakespeare dropped some of Plutarch’s disapproval and allowed his queen to become a true heroine. His was by no means the first revision of Cleopatra, nor was it to be the last, but his is the Cleopatra that has lingered longest in the public imagination. From Shakespeare stems a wealth of Cleopatra-themed art—plays, poetry, paintings, and operas. In the 20th century Cleopatra’s story was preserved and further developed through film. Many actresses, including Theda Bara (1917), Claudette Colbert (1934), and Elizabeth Taylor (1963), have played the queen, typically in expensive, exotic films that concentrate on the queen’s love life rather than her politics. Meanwhile, Cleopatra’s seductive beauty—a seductive beauty that is not supported by the queen’s contemporary portraiture—has been used to sell a wide range of products, from cosmetics to cigarettes. In the late 20th century Cleopatra’s racial heritage became a subject of intense academic debate, with some African American scholars embracing Cleopatra as a black African heroine.
Detailed examinations of the evidence of Cleopatra’s life are available in Joyce Tyldesley, Cleopatra: The Last Queen of Egypt (2008); and Michel Chauveau, Cleopatra: Beyond the Myth (2002; originally published in French, 1998). Susan Walker and Peter Higgs (eds.), Cleopatra of Egypt: From History to Myth (2001), is a highly illustrated volume of essays on Cleopatra originally published as a catalog for a traveling exhibition on the queen. Other biographies include Ernle Dusgate Selby Bradford, Cleopatra (1971, reprinted 2000); Michael Grant, Cleopatra (1972, reissued 2000); and Edith Flamarion, Cleopatra: The Life and Death of a Pharoah (1997; originally published in French, 1993). Michael Foss, The Search for Cleopatra (1997), discusses the controversial issue of Cleopatra’s antecedents. Evidence for the Cleopatra myth is reviewed in Lucy Hughes-Hallet, Cleopatra: Histories, Dreams, and Distortions (1990). The cultural differences between the Hellenistic world and Rome are examined in Diane E.E. Kleiner, Cleopatra and Rome (2005). An alternative approach to understanding Cleopatra is provided in Okasha El-Daly, Egyptology: The Missing Millennium: Ancient Egypt in Medieval Arabic Writings (2005).
Hans Volkmann, Cleopatra: A Study in Politics and Propaganda (1958; originally published in German, 1953), a standard work on the subject, includes an appendix that lists the available sources on Cleopatra, including papyri, inscriptions, and coins. These include Plutarch, the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus, and Dio Cassius, a Bithynian who wrote a history of Rome in Greek at the end of the 2nd century ad.
Cleopatra, (Greek: “Famous in Her Father”) in full Cleopatra VII Thea Philopator (“Cleopatra the Father-Loving Goddess”) (born 70/69 bc—died August of 30 bc, Alexandria), Egyptian queen, famous in history and drama as the lover of Julius Caesar and later the wife of Mark Antony. She became queen on the death of her father, Ptolemy XII, in 51 bc and ruled successively with her two brothers Ptolemy XIII (51–47) and Ptolemy XIV (47–44) and her son Ptolemy XV Caesar (44–30). After the Roman armies of Octavian (the future emperor Augustus) defeated their combined forces, Antony and Cleopatra committed suicide, and Egypt fell under Roman domination. Cleopatra actively influenced Roman politics at a crucial period, and she came to represent, as did no other woman of antiquity, the prototype of the romantic femme fatale.
Life and reign
Daughter of King Ptolemy XII Auletes, Cleopatra was destined to become the last queen of the Macedonian dynasty that ruled Egypt between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 bc and its annexation by Rome in 30 bc. The line had been founded by Alexander’s general Ptolemy, who became King Ptolemy I Soter of Egypt. Cleopatra was of Macedonian descent and had little, if any, Egyptian blood, although the Classical author Plutarch wrote that she alone of her house took the trouble to learn Egyptian and, for political reasons, styled herself as the new Isis, a title that distinguished her from the earlier Ptolemaic queen Cleopatra III, who had also claimed to be the living embodiment of the goddess Isis. Coin portraits of Cleopatra show a countenance alive rather than beautiful, with a sensitive mouth, firm chin, liquid eyes, broad forehead, and prominent nose. When Ptolemy XII died in 51 bc, the throne passed to his young son, Ptolemy XIII, and daughter, Cleopatra VII. It is likely, but not proven, that the two married soon after their father’s death. The 18-year-old Cleopatra, older than her brother by about eight years, became the dominant ruler. Evidence shows that the first decree in which Ptolemy’s name precedes Cleopatra’s was in October of 50 bc. Soon after, Cleopatra was forced to flee Egypt for Syria, where she raised an army and in 48 bc returned to face her brother at Pelusium, on Egypt’s eastern border. The murder of the Roman general Pompey, who had sought refuge from Ptolemy XIII at Pelusium, and the arrival of Julius Caesar brought temporary peace.
Cleopatra realized that she needed Roman support, or, more specifically, Caesar’s support, if she was to regain her throne. Each was determined to use the other. Caesar sought money for repayment of the debts incurred by Cleopatra’s father, Auletes, as he struggled to retain his throne. Cleopatra was determined to keep her throne and, if possible, to restore the glories of the first Ptolemies and recover as much as possible of their dominions, which had included southern Syria and Palestine. Caesar and Cleopatra became lovers and spent the winter besieged in Alexandria. Roman reinforcements arrived the following spring, and Ptolemy XIII fled and drowned in the Nile. Cleopatra, now married to her brother Ptolemy XIV, was restored to her throne. In June 47 bc she gave birth to Ptolemy Caesar (known to the people of Alexandria as Caesarion, or “little Caesar”). Whether Caesar was the father of Caesarion, as his name implies, cannot now be known.
It took Caesar two years to extinguish the last flames of Pompeian opposition. As soon as he returned to Rome, in 46 bc, he celebrated a four-day triumph—the ceremonial in honour of a general after his victory over a foreign enemy—in which Arsinoe, Cleopatra’s younger and hostile sister, was paraded. Cleopatra paid at least one state visit to Rome, accompanied by her husband-brother and son. She was accommodated in Caesar’s private villa beyond the Tiber River and may have been present to witness the dedication of a golden statue of herself in the temple of Venus Genetrix, the ancestress of the Julian family to which Caesar belonged. Cleopatra was in Rome when Caesar was murdered in 44 bc.
Soon after her return to Alexandria, in 44 bc, Cleopatra’s coruler, Ptolemy XIV, died. Cleopatra now ruled with her infant son, Ptolemy XV Caesar. When, at the Battle of Philippi in 42 bc, Caesar’s assassins were routed, Mark Antony became the heir apparent of Caesar’s authority—or so it seemed, for Caesar’s great-nephew and personal heir, Octavian, was but a sickly boy. Antony, now controller of Rome’s eastern territories, sent for Cleopatra so that she might explain her role in the aftermath of Caesar’s assassination. She set out for Tarsus in Asia Minor loaded with gifts, having delayed her departure to heighten Antony’s expectation. She entered the city by sailing up the Cydnus River in a barge while dressed in the robes of the new Isis. Antony, who equated himself with the god Dionysus, was captivated. Forgetting his wife, Fulvia, who in Italy was doing her best to maintain her husband’s interests against the growing menace of young Octavian, Antony returned to Alexandria, where he treated Cleopatra not as a “protected” sovereign but as an independent monarch.
In Alexandria, Cleopatra and Antony formed a society of “inimitable livers” whose members lived what some historians have interpreted as a life of debauchery and folly and others have interpreted as lives dedicated to the cult of the mystical god Dionysus.
In 40 bc Cleopatra gave birth to twins, whom she named Alexander Helios and Cleopatra Selene. Antony had already left Alexandria to return to Italy, where he was forced to conclude a temporary settlement with Octavian. As part of this settlement, he married Octavian’s sister, Octavia (Fulvia having died). Three years later Antony was convinced that he and Octavian could never come to terms. His marriage to Octavia now an irrelevance, he returned to the east and reunited with Cleopatra. Antony needed Cleopatra’s financial support for his postponed Parthian campaign; in return, Cleopatra requested the return of much of Egypt’s eastern empire, including large portions of Syria and Lebanon and even the rich balsam groves of Jericho.
The Parthian campaign was a costly failure, as was the temporary conquest of Armenia. Nevertheless, in 34 bc Antony celebrated a triumphal return to Alexandria. This was followed by a celebration known as “the Donations of Alexandria.” Crowds flocked to the Gymnasium to see Cleopatra and Antony seated on golden thrones on a silver platform with their children sitting on slightly lower thrones beside them. Antony proclaimed Caesarion to be Caesar’s son—thus relegating Octavian, who had been adopted by Caesar as his son and heir, to legal bastardy. Cleopatra was hailed as queen of kings, Caesarion as king of kings. Alexander Helios was awarded Armenia and the territory beyond the Euphrates, his infant brother Ptolemy the lands to the west of it. The boys’ sister, Cleopatra Selene, was to be ruler of Cyrene. It was clear to Octavian, watching from Rome, that Antony intended his extended family to rule the civilized world. A propaganda war erupted. Octavian seized Antony’s will (or what he claimed to be Antony’s will) from the temple of the Vestal Virgins, to whom it had been entrusted, and revealed to the Roman people that not only had Antony bestowed Roman possessions on a foreign woman but intended to be buried beside her in Egypt. The rumour quickly spread that Antony also intended to transfer the capital from Rome to Alexandria.
Antony and Cleopatra spent the winter of 32–31 bc in Greece. The Roman Senate deprived Antony of his prospective consulate for the following year, and it then declared war against Cleopatra. The naval Battle of Actium, in which Octavian faced the combined forces of Antony and Cleopatra on Sept. 2, 31 bc, was a disaster for the Egyptians. Antony and Cleopatra fled to Egypt, and Cleopatra retired to her mausoleum as Antony went off to fight his last battle. Receiving the false news that Cleopatra had died, Antony fell on his sword. In a last excess of devotion, he had himself carried to Cleopatra’s retreat and there died, after bidding her to make her peace with Octavian.
Cleopatra buried Antony and then committed suicide. The means of her death is uncertain, though Classical writers came to believe that she had killed herself by means of an asp, symbol of divine royalty. She was 39 and had been a queen for 22 years and Antony’s partner for 11. They were buried together, as both of them had wished, and with them was buried the Roman Republic.
Cleopatra through the ages
The vast majority of Egypt’s many hundreds of queens, although famed throughout their own land, were more or less unknown in the outside world. As the dynastic age ended and the hieroglyphic script was lost, the queens’ stories were forgotten and their monuments buried under Egypt’s sands. But Cleopatra had lived in a highly literate age, and her actions had influenced the formation of the Roman Empire; her story could not be forgotten. Octavian (the future emperor Augustus) was determined that Roman history should be recorded in a way that confirmed his right to rule. To achieve this, he published his own autobiography and censored Rome’s official records. As Cleopatra had played a key role in his struggle to power, her story was preserved as an integral part of his. But it was diminished to just two episodes: her relationships with Julius Caesar and Mark Antony. Cleopatra, stripped of any political validity, was to be remembered as an immoral foreign woman who tempted upright Roman men. As such, she became a useful enemy for Octavian, who preferred to be remembered for fighting against foreigners rather than against his fellow Romans.
This official Roman version of a predatory, immoral Cleopatra passed into Western culture, where it was retold and reinterpreted as the years passed, until it evolved into a story of a wicked life made good by an honourable death. Meanwhile, Muslim scholars, writing after the Arab conquest of Egypt about ad 640, developed their own version of the queen. Their Cleopatra was first and foremost a scholar and a scientist, a gifted philosopher and a chemist.
Plutarch’s Parallel Lives, translated from the Greek into French by Jacques Amyot (1559) and then from the French into English by Sir Thomas North (1579), served as the inspiration behind Shakespeare’s play Antony and Cleopatra (1606–07).
Shakespeare dropped some of Plutarch’s disapproval and allowed his queen to become a true heroine. His was by no means the first revision of Cleopatra, nor was it to be the last, but his is the Cleopatra that has lingered longest in the public imagination. From Shakespeare stems a wealth of Cleopatra-themed art—plays, poetry, paintings, and operas. In the 20th century Cleopatra’s story was preserved and further developed through film. Many actresses, including Theda Bara (1917), Claudette Colbert (1934), and Elizabeth Taylor (1963), have played the queen, typically in expensive, exotic films that concentrate on the queen’s love life rather than her politics. Meanwhile, Cleopatra’s seductive beauty—a seductive beauty that is not supported by the queen’s contemporary portraiture—has been used to sell a wide range of products, from cosmetics to cigarettes. In the late 20th century Cleopatra’s racial heritage became a subject of intense academic debate, with some African American scholars embracing Cleopatra as a black African heroine.
Detailed examinations of the evidence of Cleopatra’s life are available in Joyce Tyldesley, Cleopatra: The Last Queen of Egypt (2008); and Michel Chauveau, Cleopatra: Beyond the Myth (2002; originally published in French, 1998). Susan Walker and Peter Higgs (eds.), Cleopatra of Egypt: From History to Myth (2001), is a highly illustrated volume of essays on Cleopatra originally published as a catalog for a traveling exhibition on the queen. Other biographies include Ernle Dusgate Selby Bradford, Cleopatra (1971, reprinted 2000); Michael Grant, Cleopatra (1972, reissued 2000); and Edith Flamarion, Cleopatra: The Life and Death of a Pharoah (1997; originally published in French, 1993). Michael Foss, The Search for Cleopatra (1997), discusses the controversial issue of Cleopatra’s antecedents. Evidence for the Cleopatra myth is reviewed in Lucy Hughes-Hallet, Cleopatra: Histories, Dreams, and Distortions (1990). The cultural differences between the Hellenistic world and Rome are examined in Diane E.E. Kleiner, Cleopatra and Rome (2005). An alternative approach to understanding Cleopatra is provided in Okasha El-Daly, Egyptology: The Missing Millennium: Ancient Egypt in Medieval Arabic Writings (2005).
Hans Volkmann, Cleopatra: A Study in Politics and Propaganda (1958; originally published in German, 1953), a standard work on the subject, includes an appendix that lists the available sources on Cleopatra, including papyri, inscriptions, and coins. These include Plutarch, the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus, and Dio Cassius, a Bithynian who wrote a history of Rome in Greek at the end of the 2nd century ad.
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