14 - 20 June 2001
Issue No.538
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 14 - 20 June 2001 Issue No.538 |
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Queens and generals
Sir-- Allow me to draw your attention to an invaluable book recently published in the Penguin Classics Biography series. Ernle Bradford's Cleopatra is an excellent, if somewhat concise, biography of the great Macedonian-Greek Queen of Egypt.
It is full of gems of information about Alexandria which was second only to Rome in beauty. Its biggest street, the Canopic, was 100 feet wide. In its Great Library scholars classified and codified the literature of Greece. It was in the library that the first definite texts of Homer were put together. Alexandria was more than a great port -- it was also one of the major industrial centres of the world. Egyptians had been famous for centuries for the quality of their work which was prized throughout the Graeco-Roman world. The textile trade was very prosperous and Alexandria was also a great centre of the gem trade and emeralds, amethysts topaz and duyx were converted into superb artefacts. On the relationship between Antony and Cleopatra, Bradford tells us that Antony was so besotted with the Egyptian queen that he used to rub her feet before everyone's gaze at the lavish parties that were held if he was in conference with his generals and she approached, he would break it up and rush after her. Cleopatra, says Bradford, was no mindless seductress. She was a highly intelligent woman, politically astute, who spoke quite a number of languages including Latin. Her voice was so mellifluous that anyone hearing her speak could not help being enchanted by her. She was also ambitious and had Julius Caesar not been murdered she might well have become the Empress of Rome and all the Mediterranean world, perhaps long enough to see it ruled by a Julian- Ptolemaic dynasty. But Antony's defeat at the naval battle of Actium (2 September 31 BC) put an end to all that. Octavian, on the advice of his admiral Xgrippa, had refused a land engagement on the Greek mainland thus giving Antony no choice but to go for a naval battle. Antony's fleet was bolstered by 60 Egyptian warships which Bradford describes as being "second to none" manned as they were by Greek sailors and armoured Egyptian marines. What is astounding is that both Cleopatra's and Antony's fleets put out to sea for a naval engagement with their masts, spars, sails and all their rigging aboard (an absolute no-no for battle) which put them at a great disadvantage. Antony positioned the Egyptian fleet behind his ships and before they took any part in the battle Cleopatra ordered them to turn tail and sail home. This led Antony to break off the battle and blindly follow his beloved queen. No historian, including Bradford, has yet been able to explain Cleopatra's move. An excellent read.
Ernle Bradford has written numerous history books including the admirable The Year of Thermopylae which is full of praise for the Egyptian navy of the fifth century BC whose armoured marines outfought Athenian hoplites in the naval battle of Artemisium which preceded the decisive battle of Salamis in which the Persian navy was defeated. He is also the author of Hannibal, one of the best accounts of the exploits of the great Carthaginian general. Some time after his defeat by Scipro (Africanus) at the battle of Zama in North Africa, he was asked who he thought was the best general of the ancient world. "Alexander", he said "followed by me and then Scipro." "But what would you have said had you defeated Scipro?" he was asked. "Then I would have been the world's best general!"
Mamdouh El Dakhakhni
Alexandria
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