Cleopatra...Interesting?

[thamm1]

   Paolino Veneto

Abbreviamen de las Estorias [Egerton MS 1500] f.15v: Rulers of Egypt, including Cleopatra.

France (after 1323)

Illuminated Manuscript, 380 x 290 mm.

British Library
www.bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/record.asp?MSID=2976&CollID=28&NStart=1500

[anansi]

Why is she interesting?? is it because medieval Europeans knew the ancient Kemitian to be blacks, so they imagined the Greek dynastic Cleopatra to be also Black??
Cleo may have had African ancestors by her mom's side, but she is not much of an interest to most folks on this site, she slept her way through two Roman generals rather than fight them and still lost her life not to mention her nation.
Of bigger interest are Queens Amanishaketo and Amanirenas.



Amanishaketo and Amanirenas who defeated Roman armies in person leading their men in battle sacking Nowe or Thebes taking Romans and their allies as slaves.

Candace Amanirenas and her son Prince Akinidad along with the Meroitic Army kept the Romans out of Nubia-Kush. In this scene, they are witnessing the burning of the Roman Garrison in Aswan. Meroitic-Kush never became part of the Roman empire.



Under the Roman sphere of influence in Egypt, shortly after Augustus took control in ca. 31 B, Kush undertook an offensive policy towards Egypt, which no doubt brought it head to head with the Romans. Though on the continent, and knowing fully well that the Romans were planning to expand their control beyond Egypt and to their territory, the Kushite state decided to take matters into its hand, and preemptively attack territories between them and the then Dynastic Egypt/Kemetian borders, and well into the area of Aswan against a non-African opponent, where they would attack the Roman legionaries stationed there. The Romans would find out just how tough an adversary the Kushites were in the course of their conflict, so much so, that they would eventually cede Qasr Ibrim [and areas north of Qasr Ibrim in the southern portion of the "Thiry-Mile Strip"] to the Kushites ca. 22BC , and sign a peace treaty with the latter in the Island of Samos ca. 21 BC [and follows an earlier attempt at peace negotiations ca. 24 BC], which would put it in writing that the Romans would stay clear of the said regions and absolve the Kusthite state of any responsibility of paying tribute to Rome...

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Between 28-21 B.C.E., his administrators were confronted with disturbances in the Arabian peninsula directly across the Red Sea from Egypt. Wishing to address the situation as expeditiously as possible, the Romans decided to dispatch legions already stationed in Egypt to the troubled area. Once the legions had departed, the Nubians of Lower Egypt [probably a typo; "Nubia" might be what the author had in mind] appear to have revolted and stormed the frontier at Aswan, sacking the area and toppling official monuments, including recently erected statues of Augustus himself.



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The head of one of these bronze images of Augustus was severed from its body and carried off to Meroe, where it was intentionally buried beneath the threshold of one of the palaces so that each time the Meroites entered and exited, they would be symbolically trampling the head of their foe underfoot.

Now those were deserving of the title Queens, they kept Kush or Meroe free and independent for the next 1700 yrs.

[history91]

From his book 'Rise and Fall of Ancient Egypt'

'Of mixed-ancestry, Ptolemy XII's baby daughter carried on her tiny shoulders the hopes and expectations of her diverse countrymen. Her life would be devoted to maintaining their independence; her death would signal the end of pharaonic Egypt. Her name was Cleopatra.'(p490)
Toby Wilkinson (2010)