History vs. Cleopatra - Alex Gendler
View full lesson: ed.ted.com/lessons/history-vs-cleopatra-alex-gendler She was the most notorious woman in ancient history, a queen who enraptured not one but two of Rome's greatest generals....
==========
"Order, order. So who do we have here?" "Your Honor, this is Cleopatra, the Egyptian queen whose lurid affairs destroyed two of Rome's finest generals and brought the end of the Republic." "Your Honor, this is Cleopatra, one of the most powerful women in history whose reign brought Egypt nearly 22 years of stability and prosperity." "Uh, why don't we even know what she looked like?" "Most of the art and descriptions came long after her lifetime in the first century BCE, just like most of the things written about her." "So what do we actually know? Cleopatra VII was the last of the Ptolemaic dynasty, a Macedonian Greek family that governed Egypt after its conquest by Alexander the Great....
==========
"Order, order. So who do we have here?" "Your Honor, this is Cleopatra, the Egyptian queen whose lurid affairs destroyed two of Rome's finest generals and brought the end of the Republic." "Your Honor, this is Cleopatra, one of the most powerful women in history whose reign brought Egypt nearly 22 years of stability and prosperity." "Uh, why don't we even know what she looked like?" "Most of the art and descriptions came long after her lifetime in the first century BCE, just like most of the things written about her." "So what do we actually know? Cleopatra VII was the last of the Ptolemaic dynasty, a Macedonian Greek family that governed Egypt after its conquest by Alexander the Great....
