Cleopatra A Sign of the Times Essay - 3711 Words

Cleopatra: A Sign of the Times For Rome, who had never condescended to fear any nation or people, did in her time fear two human beings; one was Hannibal, and the other was a woman (Lefkowitz 126). Abstract Cleopatra VII, the last reigning queen of Egypt, has intrigued us for centuries. Her story is one that has been told many times, and the many different and vastly varied representations of her and her story are solely based on the ways in which men and society have perceived women and their role in society throughout history. By looking at the perceptions of women starting from the Hellenes, the Greeks who greatly influenced Roman ideals, and following those perceptions through to the end of the 19th Century, it is easy to†¦show more content†¦They were assigned systematically with ethical or psychological traits; avarice, cruelty, lawlessness, hierarchalism, luxuriousness, effeminacy, unrestrained emotionalism associated with the barbarians, and, moderation, judiciousness, lawfulness, equality, simplicity, manliness and reason associated with the Greeks (Nyquist 88). The Greeks constructed female rule as barbaric to stigmatize the other, to keep the female in their place an d, most of all, to propagate white male rule. The Romans during Cleopatras reign adopted these ideas of barbarism from the Greeks, and the negative image of Cleopatra was encouraged by the clash in Roman and Egyptian culture. In Egypt there was less differences between the rights of males and females, and the ability for females to have control over their lives was seen as scandalous in Rome. The Romans did not subscribe to the†¦concept of tryphe, which included the demonstration of power through the display of luxury (Hammer 5). This rejection, in combination with female power, made it so that Cleopatras displays of herself missed their mark and the political force of her display was lost in the cultural difference (Hammer 18). After having been conquered, the various representations of Cleopatra are politically motivated. The Romans who conquered her used her image as a sign of their own military and cultural superiority (Hammer 4). The winner of aShow MoreRelatedCleopatra- A sign of times Essay3679 Words   |  15 Pagesï » ¿Cleopatra: A Sign of the Times by Diana Lerman For Rome, who had never condescended to fear any nation or people, did in her time fear two human beings; one was Hannibal, and the other was a woman (Lefkowitz 126). Abstract Cleopatra VII, the last reigning queen of Egypt, has intrigued us for centuries. Her story is one that has been told many times, and the many different and vastly varied representations of her and her story are solely based on the ways in which men and society have perceivedRead MoreEssay Cleopatra957 Words   |  4 Pages Significant Woman: Cleopatra amp;#9;I chose to write my amp;quot;Significant Womanamp;quot; paper on Egypt’s last pharaoh, Cleopatra. When I began my report, I knew very little about Cleopatra, except that she was the mistress of both Julius Caesar and Mark Antony of Rome. 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However it is these characteristics which in some ways, form