Geoffrey Sumi
Professor of Classics, Chair of Classics and Italian
Location: Cleveland, L3
 
Cleopatra is one of the most famous figures from classical antiquity. The last queen of the Ptolemaic Dynasty, which ruled Egypt for nearly 300 years (305–30 BCE), she is described in the Graeco-Roman literary tradition as a kind of femme fatale who weaponized her beauty to seduce the Roman commanders, Julius Caesar and Mark Antony, in order to preserve her dynasty. In this lecture, Professor Geoffrey Sumi will counterbalance this Graeco-Roman tradition, often akin to myth and propaganda, with contemporary evidence preserved in temple reliefs, papyrus documents, inscriptions, and coinage in an effort to uncover the historical Cleopatra.