The first modern biography of one of the most influential yet long-neglected rulers of the ancient world: Cleopatra Selene, daughter of Antony and Cleopatra. “A vibrant, fascinating portrait of a great woman who deserves her place in the pantheon of Roman queens.” —Emma Southon As the only daughter of Roman Triumvir Marc Antony and Egyptian Queen Cleopatra VII, Cleopatra Selene was expected to uphold traditional feminine virtues; to marry well and bear sons; and to legitimize and strengthen her parents’ rule. Yet with their parents’ deaths by suicide, the princess and her brothers found themselves the inheritors of Egypt, a claim that placed them squarely in the warpath of the Roman emperor. “Supported by a feast of visual and literary references” (Caroline Lawrence), Cleopatra’s Daughter reimagines the life of Cleopatra Selene, a woman who, although born into Egyptian royalty and raised in her mother’s court, was cruelly abandoned and held captive by Augustus Caesar. Creating a narrative from frescos and coinage, ivory dolls and bronzes, historian and archaeologist Jane Draycott shows how Cleopatra Selene navigated years of imprisonment on Palatine Hill—where Octavia, the emperor’s sister and Antony’s fourth wife, housed royal children orphaned in the wake of Roman expansion—and emerged a queen. Despite the disrepute of her family, Cleopatra Selene in time endeared herself to her captors through her remarkable intellect and political acumen. Rather than put her to death, Augustus wed her to the Numidian prince Juba, son of the deposed regent Juba I, and installed them both as client rulers of Mauretania in Africa. There, Cleopatra Selene ruled successfully for nearly twenty years, promoting trade, fostering the arts, and reclaiming her mother’s legacy—all at a time, Draycott reminds us, when kingship was an inherently male activity. A princess who became a prisoner and a prisoner who became a queen, Cleopatra Selene here “finally attains her rightful place in history” (Barry Strauss). A much-needed corrective, Cleopatra’s Daughter sheds new and revelatory light on Egyptian and Roman politics, society, and culture in the early days of the Roman Empire.

The first modern biography of one of the most fascinating, and unjustly neglected, female rulers of the ancient world: Cleopatra Selene. Princess, prisoner, African queen – and surviving daughter of Cleopatra VII. In 1895, archaeologists excavating a villa at Boscoreale, outside Pompeii, uncovered a spectacular hoard of high-quality Roman silverware. In the centre of one especially fine gilded dish was a bust of a female figure with thick curly hair, deep-set eyes, a slightly hooked nose and a strong jaw, sporting an elephant's scalp headdress. Modern scholars believe it likely that she represents Cleopatra Selene, one of three children born to Cleopatra VII of Egypt and the Roman triumvir Mark Antony. Using the Boscoreale discovery as her starting-point, Jane Draycott recreates the life and times of a remarkable woman – the sole member of the Ptolemaic dynasty to survive following her parents' defeat at the Battle of Actium. Unlike her siblings, who were either executed as threat to Rome's new ruler, Augustus, or simply forgotten, Cleopatra Selene not only survived but prospered. Brought up in the household of Octavia the Younger, Augustus' sister, she married a north African prince, Juba II of Numidia, and became co-ruler with him of the Roman client kingdom of Mauretania. Cleopatra Selene was a princess who became a prisoner; a prisoner who became a queen; an Egyptian who became Roman; and a woman who became a powerful ruler in her own right at a time when most women were marginalised. Her life shines new and revelatory light on Roman politics, society and culture in the early years of the Empire, on Roman perceptions of Egypt, and on the relationship between Rome and one of its most significant allied kingdoms.

The first biography of one of the most fascinating yet long-neglected rulers of the ancient world: Cleopatra Selene, daughter of Antony and Cleopatra. Years ago, archaeologists excavating near Pompeii unearthed a hoard of Roman treasures, among them a bowl depicting a woman with thick, curly hair and sporting an elephant-scalp headdress. For decades, theories circulated about her identity—until, at last, she was ascertained to be Cleopatra Selene, the only surviving daughter of Roman Triumvir Marc Antony and Egyptian Queen Cleopatra VII. Using this discovery as her starting point and creating a narrative from mere fragments in the archaeological record, historian Jane Draycott reconstructs the exceptional life of this woman who, although born into royalty and raised in her mother’s court, was held captive by Augustus Caesar and his sister, Octavia, after her parents’ demise. Yet as Draycott shows, Cleopatra Selene was destined to emerge as an influential ruler in her own right, as queen, alongside King Juba II, of Mauretania, an ancient African kingdom. A long-overdue historical corrective, Cleopatra’s Daughter reclaims a mighty regent—and her infamous family—for posterity.

A compelling history of the Ptolemies, the decline of Egypt, and the rising power of the Roman Empire The Ptolemaic era, Egypt’s last and one of its longest dynasties, was in many ways a gilded age. Its early rulers restored and even expanded Egyptian power. Over a span of 300 years the period was witness to intellectual enlightenment, imaginative state-building, and some of the most memorable characters in ancient history, including Alexander the Great and Cleopatra VII. But these Macedonian Greek pharaohs embarked on ruinous warfare, faced rebellion, and descended into murderous family feuds. Increasingly reliant on the dizzying rise of Roman power, Ptolemaic Egypt was finally annexed by Augustus in 30 BCE. How did such an ancient civilization come to this? Exploring the lives of the Ptolemaic pharaohs, de la Bédoyère reveals the jealousy, greed, and murderous ambition in their Egypt and the legendary city of Alexandria, their capital. This is a lively, accessible account of Ancient Egypt’s last days—and of the new power rising in its place.

Empresses-in-Waiting comprises case studies of late antique empresses, female members of imperial dynasties, and female members of the highest nobility of the late Roman empire, ranging from the fourth to the seventh centuries AD. Situated in the context of the broader developments of scholarship on late antique and byzantine empresses, this volume explores the political agency, religious authority, and influence of imperial and near-imperial women within the Late Roman imperial court, which is understood as a complex spatial, social, and cultural system, the centre of patronage networks, and an arena for elite competition. The studies explore female performance and representation in literary and visual media as well as in court ceremonial, and discuss the opportunities and constraints of female power within a male dominated court environment and the broader realms of imperial activity. By focusing on imperial women, the volume not only addresses questions of gendered rhetoric and agency but throws into relief general dynamics in the exercise of imperial power during a period in which the classical Mediterranean world at large, as well as the Roman monarchy, underwent crucial transformations.

This edition will be of interest to all Greek scholars, ancient historians, and also the students of English literature since the relevant discussions require no knowledge of Greek.

A Degraded Caste of Society traces the origins of twenty-first-century cases of interracial violence to the separate and unequal protection principles of the criminal law of enslavement in the southern United States. Andrew T. Fede explains how antebellum appellate court opinions and statutes, when read in a context that includes newspaper articles and trial court and census records, extended this doctrine to the South’s free Black people, consigning them to what South Carolina justice John Belton O’Neall called “a degraded caste of society,” in which they were “in no respect, on a perfect equality with the white man.” This written law either criminalized Black insolence or privileged private white interracial violence, which became a badge of slavery that continued to influence the law in action, contrary to the Constitution’s mandate of equal protection of the criminal law. The U.S. Supreme Court enabled this denial of equal justice, as did Congress, which did not make all private white racially motivated violence a crime until 2009, when it adopted the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act. Fede’s analysis supports that law’s constitutionality under the Thirteenth Amendment, while suggesting why—during the Jim Crow era and beyond—equal protection of the criminal law was not always realized, and why the curse of interracial violence has been a lingering badge of slavery.