|
|
FEATURES
|
 Hatshepsut
Phryne
Nefertiti
|
|
 |
|
One of the most famous women in history, Cleopatra remains densely shrouded in myth because the written accounts from her days give
only a few glimpse of this Macedonian descendant. Most records came through the distorted lenses of her Roman enemies. Ancient
historians such as Plutarch and Suetonius provide us with only fragments of her story. We know Cleopatra today—not from
ancient documents, but from the later writers, especially Shakespeare who fictionalized her into immortality.
In most portrayals, Cleopatra turned into a wanton temptress who ensnared men to further her hot ambition and satisfy her
sexual appetite. Maybe, we might as well take a look at her from a different angle. She might have been a brilliant and
visionary woman. Apart from the common belief, Cleopatra seems to have loved only two men in her life. She remained loyal
first to one, then the other, though the latter fidelity cost her life.
Ninety-nine out of a hundred people know about Cleopatra,
- The famous Cleopatra (69-30 B.C.) was the seventh in a row of the Macedonian princesses.
- The sister of Alexander the Great (356-324 B.C.) was also called Cleopatra.
- At 12, she married her younger brother Ptolemy XIII.
- At 17, she ascended the throne.
- Like many Hellenistic queens, she remained passionate but not promiscuous. She had no other lovers than Caesar and
Antony.
Like all the Ptolemaic predecessors, Cleopatra ascended the
throne in a Greek-style coronation at Alexandria. However, far older rites took place at Memphis, the ancient capital
located at the southernmost apex of the delta. In this ancient ceremony, she carried the crook and flail that Egyptian
pharaohs had done so for millennia. On her head perched the double pharaonic crown—the white, bulbous crown of
Upper Egypt and the small red crown of Lower Egypt.
Though furtively, Cleopatra and her brother-husband Ptolemy XIII kept duelling over the power. In the middle of this turmoil, Julius Caesar left Rome for Alexandria in 48 BC.
During his stay in the Palace, he received the most extraordinary gift in history—an oriental carpet with 22-year-old Cleopatra wrapped in. She counted on Caesar’s
support to alienate Ptolemy XIII. With the arrival of the Roman army, and after a few battles in Alexandria, the Roman soldiers defeated and killed Ptolemy XIII.
In the summer of 47 BC, having married her younger brother Ptolemy XIV, Cleopatra and Caesar stepped aboard a legendary boat and set out for a two-month trip along the
Nile. Together, they visited Dendara, where the natives worshiped Cleopatra as Pharaoh—an honor beyond Caesar’s reach. They became lovers, and she bore him a son,
Caesarion. In 45 BC, Cleopatra and Caesarion left Alexandria for Rome, where they stayed in a palace built by Caesar in their honor.
The Romans hardly overlooked Caesar’s acts. In 44 BC, the Senators conspired and killed Cleopatra’s lover. With his death, Rome split into two factions between Mark
Antony and Octavian. Cleopatra watched in silence, and when Mark Antony seemed to prevail, she supported him and, shortly afterward, they became lovers.
Mark Antony’s alliance with Cleopatra infuriated Rome even more. The senators called her a sorceress, and accused her of all sorts of evil. The Romans became
even more furious as Antony gave away regions of their Empire—Tarsus, Cyrene, Crete, Cyprus and Palestine.
Eventually, Octavian declared war on Cleopatra, and off the coast of Greece in the Adriatic Sea, they fought one of the most notable battles in history—Actium.
Although the modern historians discredit this one-sided judgement, many had blamed Cleopatra for the Egyptian defeat because she had withdrawn in the early stage of
the battle.
Octavian waited for a year before he claimed Egypt as a Roman province. He arrived in Alexandria and easily defeated Mark Antony outside the city. He died in Cleopatra’s
arms.
Ocatvian entered Alexandria in 30 BC. Cleopatra fell into captivity.
The Roman Emperor met her but showed no interest in relationship with her. Realizing her own destiny, she decided to put an end to her life. Nobody knows for sure how
she killed herself, but many believe she used an asp as her death instrument.
With the death of Cleopatra, the Ptolemaic Dynasty came to an end. Alexandria remained capital of Egypt, but Egypt became a Roman province. The
Egyptian monarchs gave way to the Roman Emperors. Though the Ptolemies came from Macedonia, they had ruled Egypt according to the Egyptian customs, instead of
Macedonian way. After reigning over Egypt for three centuries, the dynasty saw Cleopatra die as the last Pharaoh.
|
|
|
 |
|
Hatshepsut, who reigned from 1473 to 1458 B.C., probably ranks fourth on the long list of Egyptian mysteries after the pyramids, sphinxes and Akhenaten—in terms of volume of
literature and intensity of controversy. The mortuary temple of Deir el-Bahari and the remains of other monuments erected by Hatshepsut reveal nothing factual or verifiable about
her reign. However, from the dates on the inscriptions and the subsequent effacement of the inscriptions by her successor, Tuthmosis III, and later pharaohs, emerged elaborate stories that tell us
about unproven palace intrigues and hypothetical romances.
| But do you know the bare facts about Hatshepsut? |
- Hatshepsut, the daughter of Tuthmosis I, married
her half brother and heir, Tuthmosis II.
- Hatshepsut carried the blood of Ahmose who, two generations earlier, had finally freed Egypt from Hyksos (a nomadic people originally from Asia) rule and established the New
Kingdom.
- Her husband, Tuthmosis II, died before she could bear him
an heir, and one of his secondary wives gave birth to the heir apparent, Tuthmosis III.
- At the death of the pharaoh, however, Hatshepsut did not
step down, but reigned as the king’s widow. Afterward, she took
even the unprecedented step of declaring
herself pharaoh—not regent, not even queen.
- Twice before, queens had reigned for brief periods,
but never had they taken the title of pharaoh, which had remained
only for men. In keeping with the masculinity of the kingship, Hatshepsut had herself portrayed as a man, wearing the royal
false beard.
Hatshepsut’s marriage to her half brother was not unusual—rather normal in the ancient Egyptian history. The royal family ensured
the legitimacy of the line. When he died after a short rule,
she took over the reigns of government as regent during the
minority of Tuthmosis III, a child her husband had fathered by
a subordinate wife in the harem. Hatshepsut at first ruled in his name. But she soon abandoned the pretense and established herself as Pharaoh.
Pharaonic Egypt produced a series of exceptional women,
of whom Hatshepsut became the most outstanding. Many queens had emerged as a strong figure alongside their husbands, and
two had briefly governed, but Hatshepsut turned into the first woman who assumed the godship as well as the kingship—not as a woman but a man. She wore the
traditional Double Crown, indicating sovereignty over the two lands of Upper and Lower Egypt. She wore
the masculine attire of the kingship and the long-established
false beard. Unlike other pharaohs, however, Hatshepsut forsook
battle and returned Egypt to peaceful pursuits, erecting great monuments and keeping open the trade routes, which had been closed during the Hyksos rule.
Hatshepsut could not have done all she did alone. She
obviously had the help of powerful supporters. One in
particular was a certain Senmut, who held, according to
some accounts, more than eighty different official titles and
who must have been her most trusted assistant. As Minister
of Public Works, Senmut supervised the construction of his
mistress’s mortuary temple—which was, like all other royal
monuments, constructed during her lifetime and under her
direction. To get himself a share in her eternal
blessedness, Senmut ingeniously sneaked carvings of his own
image onto some carefully selected, though unobtrusive,
walls.
One of the surest proofs of Hatshepsut’s greatness
was her ability to keep a man of Tuthmosis III’s
dimensions under her thumb for so long. Tuthmosis had
brains, vision and drive. Later, he would indeed create
Egypt’s empire—achievement equal to that of Alexander
the Great. Yet for twenty years he lived in the shadow of the strong-minded woman who turned out both his stepmother and his
aunt. Finally he gathered the backing he needed to unseat her.
| Was Senmut Hatshepsut’s lover? |
While Tuthmosis III in his late teens kept himself busy fighting foreign wars, the great architect, Senmut, a commoner by birth,
rose to a prominent
position in the court. Many believed that Hatshepsut loved him
as her lover. Some considered it a mere conjecture. In either case, it doesn’t make the slightest bit of
difference to the extent of Senmut’s genius. Those who believe their romantic relationship base their claim on Senmut’s position of preeminence—unusual, but not unprecedented.
Imhotep (the grand vizier of Pharaoh Zoser of the Third Dynasty 2630-2611 B.C.) enjoyed an even more exalted position. In the days of Hatshepsut, the Egyptians even revered Imhotep as a demigod.
Behind her back, Senmut created small chapels in her
temple at Deir el-Bahari, with reliefs of the architect carved
into the walls. Apparently, Hatshepsut didn’t make a thorough inspection on the work in progress at her own mortuary
temple—the most important single architectural event in the life of any ruler. However, somebody else discovered it.
In a rage, she had hacked most—but amazingly, not all—of the reliefs of senmut. Five years prior to the end of Hatshepsut’s
reign, records of his activities ceased.
| Equally unknown is the reason for
Hatshepsut’s death. |
In the five years remaining of her reign, Egypt went through
internal and external difficulties. Tuthmosis had to fight wars in Canaan. However, the internal difficulties remained unclear. In 1458 B.C., she stepped down from the throne, succeeded by
Tuthmosis III who would rule in splendor for more than a quarter of a century.
What happened? From the above facts, all sorts of stories about Hatshepsut’s romances and court officials’ intrigues had
sprouted out. Nobody has so far come up with enough evidence to
explain this much-talked-about transition. If you want to know more about it, read
Hatshepsut and Tuthmosis—a well-researched rendition of this intriguing power struggle between the strong-willed, passionate woman and her equally
ambitious, amorous step-son and nephew.
|
|
|
 |
Phryne the courtesan |
Phryne came from Thespiae in Boeotia.
She became, in particular, the mistress of the great
Athenian sculptor Praxiteles, who used her as a model
for his statues of Aphrodite. He actually erected one
of his sculpted works of her between those of the goddess and
Eros in a temple at Thespiae. Her real name—Mnesarete—means
that “she who remembers virtue”, though it seems an odd way of
describing a future courtesan. The word phryne means “toad”.
Her clients called her Phryne because of her yellowish complexion.
But whatever the color of her skin—which she may have improved
with white lead—she had a splendid figure. In Hellas (the ancient Greece),
the Greeks attributed more importance to this feature than to the face.
In the fourth century B.C., the beauty of Phryne became the talk
of Athens since, supposedly, she never appeared in public except
completely veiled. At the Eleusinian festival and again on the
feast of the Poseidonia, however, she took off her clothes in the
sight of all, let down her hair, and bathed in the sea. For a time
she loved and inspired Praxiteles, and posed for his
“Aphrodites”. From her, too, Apelles created his famous
Aphrodite Anadyomene.
Phryne grew so rich that she offered to rebuild the
walls of Thebes if the Thebans would inscribe her name on the
structure, which they stubbornly refused to do.
Some believe that Phryne asked too large an honorarium
from Euthias (a councilor of Thebes), who took revenge by indicting her on a charge of
impiety. But a member of the court turned out one of
her clients. So did Hypereides—the orator, who became one of
her devoted lovers and defended her not only with eloquence but
by opening her tunic and revealing her gorgeous bosom to the court.
Impressed by the soul-snatching sight, the judges vindicated her
impiety.
The representation of sensuous beauty and grace came to
perfection in Praxiteles. All the Greeks knew that he courted
Phryne, and gave a lasting form to her loveliness, but no one
knew when he was born and when he died. About 360 B.C., Cos
commissioned him to carve an “Aphrodite”. With Phryne’s help
he came up with a marvelous work, but the Coans found the goddess
quite nude. Praxiteles mollified the conservative citizens by
making another Aphrodite, clothed, while Cnidus bought the first.
King Nicomedes of Bithynia offered to pay the heavy public debt
of the city in return for the statue, but Cnidus preferred
immortality. Tourists came from every nook of the Mediterranean
to see the work. Collecting the fees, the city eventually paid off the debt.
The contemporary critics pronounced it the finest statue yet made in Greece.
As Cnidus achieved fame through the Aphrodite, so the
little town of Thespiae in Boeotia, birthplace of Phryne,
attracted travelers because Phryne had dedicated there
a marble “Eros” by Praxiteles. Why Eros? Here’s the story.
Phryne once asked Praxiteles, “What is the most beautiful
work in your studio?”
“Why asking me?”
Phryne told him about her intention.
“What do you think is the best?”
“I’m asking you.”
“Well, I’d rather leave the choice to you.”
However, Phryne wanted to discover his own estimate.
So, a couple of days later, she ran to him with news that
his studio caught fire. Hearing this, he cried out, “Oh, no!
I am lost if my Satyr and my Eros are burned.”
Phryne chose the Eros, and gave it to her native town.
Later, Nero had it brought to Rome, where it perished in the
conflagration of A.D. 64.
Eros, once the creator god of Hesiod, became in Praxiteles’ conception a delicate and dreamy youth,
symbolizing the power of love to capture the soul. Eros had not
yet become the mischievous and sportive Cupid of Hellenistic and
Roman art.
Once Demosthenes, the Athenian statesman, offered to pay Phryne
for her favors an amount equal to a man’s annual wages. She refused
his offer, yet gave them freely to the penniless philosopher—Diogenes.
Phryne became so sought-after that she had no need to display herself
naked, as others did, to bring in business. As a concession to widespread
curiosity, she made an exception for the annual religious festivals.
To honor the sea-god Poseidon, she enacted the role of Aphrodite emerging
from the sea, performing a pious strip-tease at the water’s edge.
The fame she won by such exhibitions inspired a deplorable jealousy among
the rivals, one of whom lodged a formal complaint that her performance
profaned the sacred mysteries—a capital offence.
When her case
almost lost, her defence counsel Hyperides again tore off her clothes to
reveal her naked beauty to the judges.
“How could a festival in honor of
the gods be desecrated by beauty,” asked Hyperides, “which the gods themselves had bestowed?”
The point appeared incontestable, and the evidence remained
overwhelming all the same. The case dismissed. But the judges now
insisted, “From now on, you’d better not reveal her beauty for her
defense. It’s getting just too much for us.”
Accordingly, the court banned nudity for defense.
Far from being disrespectful, however, the hetairai such as Phryne,
Lais and Thais played an important and respected part in Greek social life.
The dramatists portrayed them on stage, and the writers described them in
their books. Those women became legends in their own lifetime, and death
only heightened their mystique.
| But do you know there are more than one Phryne? |
If you want to know more about Phryne, please read this well-researched rendition (“Phryne”) of the hetaira, the highest class of the ancient Greek courtesan.
|
|
|
|
 |
|
Nefertiti became the wife of Akhenaten, who ascended
the throne as pharaoh of the eighteenth dynasty in 1353 B.C.
Her name means “the beautiful woman has come”. Her bust in
the Egyptian Museum, Berlin, has become one of the best known
of all Egyptian treasures. However, little has come out to
light about her origins, though specialists as well as history
buffs speculated a great deal. In the fourth year of Akhenaten’s
reign she appeared with him at the site of Akhetaten—present-day
Tell el-Amarna—the new city dedicated to the god Aten. In the
sixth year, Nefertiti’s name changed to Nefernefruaten, which means
“Beautiful in beauty is Aten”.
Her husband shattered the traditions of ancient Egypt. Toward
the end of the eighteenth Dynasty, Pharaoh Amenhotep IV
moved his capital from Thebes to a virgin site some 250 miles to
the north, and changed his own name from Amenhotep
(Amon-is-satisfied) to Akhenaten (Servant-of-the-Aten) and established as the official religion a form of solar monotheism.
Some historians maintain that Nefertiti had played a major part in this
religious revolution because the scenes depicted on the stone blocks that
once comprised the Aten Temple at Thebes show that Nefertiti had
considerable influence on the new faith.
Nefertiti lived with Akhenaten in
el-Amarna, where he conducted religious ceremonies to Aten. They raised
six daughters there, but no sons. When Maketaten, the second daughter, died,
the couple’s grief turned boundless, depicted in
wall paintings. Mysteriously, Nefertiti disappeared from the court
afterward. Some historians suspected that she had fallen into
disgrace. Yet a piece of evidence tells us that she remained at el-Amarna,
living in a villa called Hataten. Her daughter
replaced her as the king’s principal wife. Smenkhkare, who became
Akhenaten’s successor in 1335 B.C., reportedly assumed Nefertiti’s
religious name. Her body has never been discovered. In a particular
building named Maruaten to the south of the city, Nefertiti’s name had
been constantly erased and replaced by that of the eldest daughter
Merytamon.
The artists at Akhetaten achieved a high standard—both
in painting and statuary—as shown by the famous limestone head of
Nefertiti, found in the workshop of the sculptor Tuthmosis.
The sculptured head, coated with plaster and painted except for
the eye sockets and the blank shoulder ends, created a superb
example of craftsmanship, displaying fine use of colors and
modeling features with none of the exaggerated indications in
the previous Egyptian art. This piece of work testifies to her beauty
as well as to the skill of the artist.
The necropolis at el-Amarna snuggled in the eastern cliffs.
Unlike at Thebes, the tomb decorations don’t concern
themselves with the afterlife, and the Judgement of Osiris,
for example, remains absent; instead, those display vivid
scenes of the everyday.
Many of the unfinished tombs with only a few
reveal signs of burial clearly indicated that the collapse of the
Amarna revolution outpaced mortality. Many archaeologists tried to
find Akhenaten’s body both here and at Thebes, but nobody has found
it. Many believe that, infuriated by his heresy, the officials left
his dead body to rot. The royal tomb lies far back in the wild
valley—the Wadi el Melouk—that divides the north
and south faces of the cliff. On founding Amarna,
Akhenaten proclaimed: “My tomb will be hollowed in the
Eastern Mountain, my burial will be made there in the
multitude of jubilees which Aten my Father has ordained
for me, and the burial of the Great Royal Wife Nefertiti
will take place there in the multitude of years.”
Instead, like an ominous cloud on the Amarna horizon,
it was their young daughter Maketaten who first died and
was entombed here. Akhenaten and Nefertiti as well as joyful
children of the solar disc are shown on the walls of
Maketaten’s sarcophagus chamber in sad mourning.
Nefertiti stayed on at Amarna after her husband’s
death. Living in exile at the north end of the plain, she
had carved on the walls of her palace the names of
Akhenaten and herself, and called this Northern Palace,
which cradled one mile north of the royal palace, the House
of Aten.
|
|
|
|
|
