Cleopatra, from propaganda to myth

The war between Mark Antony and Octavian, started in the year 32 BE, was the last conflict of the Roman Civil Wars of the Roman Republic. Cleopatra and Antony were allies, and lovers. They retired to Alexandria, a besieged city, and committed suicide there.

Historian Maurice Sartre explains: "Winning a civil war is not glorious for anyone. So Octavian charged Cleopatra with being the scapegoat. Simply, he made this episode of the Roman civil war pass as an episode of foreign war."

This Roman propaganda was first carried by historians and contemporary poets of Octavian, who were also politicians. Historian Violaine Sebillotte-Cuchet claims: "These are not people who will wonder about what Cleopatra did exactly, seek to find out why we got there. So it was quite easy to fall into the stereotype of the warmonger. War is a woman's fault. And that's a very old stereotype."

Christian-Georges Schwentzel, historian, adds: "These calumnies are relayed by Latin poets close to Octavian who became Emperor Augustus. This is particularly the case of Horace, Virgil or even Properce. Properce, close of the Emperor Augustus, is finally the worst among these Latin poets. He is the inventor in particular of the expression meretrix regina, that is to say the prostitute queen."

From the first century, Cleopatra turns into a fantasy, the poet Lucan is the first to describe her as an object of desire, this sensual image will settle in popular culture, and it is this representation that will allow the legend of Cleopatra to survive.

In the middle Ages, the queen appears as the protagonist of Illuminated manuscripts, in particular one from the 15th century which accompanies a text by the poet Giovanni Boccaccio, she is represented bare-chested, her breasts bitten by 2 snakes.

Her death is represented as an orgasm, her suicide becomes the pretext to circumvent religious censorship and show her naked. A lascivious image that will last for centuries, until the orientalist movement in the 19th century.

in 1607, William Shakespeare wrote Antony and Cleopatra, many consider Shakespeare's Cleopatra as one of the most complex and fully developed female characters in the playwright's body of work. In 1670, the french philosopher Blaise Pascal anticipated the chaos theory writing "Cleopatra's nose: had it been shorter, the whole aspect of the world would have been altered"

Bonaparte and his expedition to Egypt in 1798, imposed the Egyptian fashion in Europe, an Egyptomania whose icon was Cleopatra, a trend which gave rise to the orientalism artistic and literary movement.

1899, Georges Melies shoots Cleopatre, the first of more than 20 films that she inspired, including of course the famous film starring Liz taylor.

Today, she is a feminist, anti-racist icon and her figure remains at the heart of political and cultural issues. Cleopatra prestige is infinitely superior to that of her Roman lovers, she has finally taken her revenge on the ancient stereotypes that have held her so long shut in. Finally, we talk about her political successes and her legacy as a great sovereign.