The Real Cleopatra
One of the most important Roman discoveries of the last fifteen years is still little known. Unearthed in northern Greece, it is the monument erected to commemorate the naval battle of Actium in 31 BC, fought between Octavian (the future emperor Augustus) on the one side and Mark Antony, with his lover and financial backer, Queen Cleopatra VII of Egypt, on the other. Victory effectively handed to Octavian control of the Roman world, and ended the decade of civil wars that had followed the assassination of Julius Caesar. Antony and Cleopatra, the rival claimants to power, sloped back to Alexandria, the capital of Egypt. The vast memorial to the battle is a major work of Roman state art, with terraces, colonnades, freestanding statues, and a large altar covered with sculpture celebrating the new Augustan regime. It stood on a prominent headland, overlooking the site of the battle, reportedly on the exact spot where Octavian had pitched his tent before the engagement and just outside his new city of Nikopolis (“Victory Town”)…
Mary Beard reviews Cleopatra: Last Queen of Egypt by Joyce Tyldesley.
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