cleopatra fascinates me . cleopatra lagides the 7th actually.. who ran off with mark Anthony. I gotta find out about her.. but
ive been ill with some flu or another the past few days .
listening to a radio broadcast there was a professor explaining a new concept in education. he characterised it as ‘just in time learning’ after the Japanese kanban management concept.. it is a simple but effective shift in philosophy of education and worth noting...
first you find out what it is that interests a potential student (the direction the professor was arguing was towards ‘hard science’ (math, physics, chem..) that are often viewed as unattractive.) so …say for example ..you ask a kid ‘ how does a space shuttle work?’ then having been hooked, the need for an understanding of periodic tables and differential equations is introduced as necessary tools (which they of course are) for the comprehension of the attractive subject of application. in this way the obstacle of learning boring and seemingly irrelevant material is dumped. its so obviously a winner I’m adopting it. immediately..
right.
so when I go to learn about Cleopatra I need to know what Egypt was like when she came onto the scene. it’s a huge question as it involves the end the ancient/classical world.. and the leap to power of rome.
who was she? what language did she speak? what was the set-up in Egypt? was it just politics or did she really go for mark-anthony? why?
the capital of Egypt at the end of the first century bc was Alexandria. the official language of the ruling class (but not the people) was post-classical greek. the actual stratum of the language is called patristic or koine, Alexandrian, common. new-testament etc. it came about as a common language used by alexander’s soldiers who spoke different dialects at home, not at work. this type of greek lasted up until the middle ages began with the establishment of Constantinople (330ad) as the major city of the Hellenic world (or what it was becoming at least.). it is the main ancestor of modern spoken greek standing between it and the ancient language.
so.. Alexandria and its most famous Cleopatra were a kind of bench mark in the development of civilization. I reckon she would have spoken latin with mark Anthony and I bet she was pretty good at it as well.
the greeks came to be in Egypt through the exploits of alexander the greek (the current Macedonians are a tribe that migrated to the region in the mid first millennium c.e. ) . after alexanders death 330bc, ptolomy, one of his generals and companions, claimed the province of Egypt which his family held from 330 up till Cleopatra 7. passed away in 30 bc..
Alexandria was really the only greek city built there. basically cut off from egypt egypt..
egyptians had their own developed civilization since before teutonic tribes moved into what is now the greek homeland. the greeks had been students of Egyptian science/philosophy (particularly math it seems) already for hundreds of years as the culture of the various dynasties filtered through to the surrounding lands, in large part stimulating the genius of Hellenic culture.
Egypt had become a Persian satrap in 525 bc. but by 332 the egyptians welcomed alexander as a liberator and subsequently accepted the ptolomies as regents.
in return the ptolomies adopted egyptian ways, oversaw a stable dynasty and introduced currency/banking and a waterwheel .. a mercantile ethic and some engineering. their most important contribution was the democratization of writing/ literacy/education... it kinda makes sense coz the most remarkable thing about the hellenes is their love of democracy as their key to freedom. such has been my experience at least. (the genius of egypt is quite different.)
the longevity of the ptolomaic dynasty seems testimony to its acceptance by the egyptians. and while it was well in decline by cleopatra's time, trouble really only set in in roman/christian times --- (libraries burnt, temples desecrated, philosophers murdered..). the romans' interest in Egypt extended to the grain (they needed for the bread and circuses) which egypt produced abundantly: it really came up with the golden eggs.... though the ptolomies had certainly declined in their integrity by the time of cleopatra 7th .. squeezing the country with the economic system they developed .
it’s the powershift from Alexandria to rome that’s interesting. Cleopatra would appear to have been the Egyptian queen in that particular game, but was actually (the inheritor of the mantle of) the king (alexandros o megas). Anthony an obvious knight of rome. it’s a big story.. no wonder shakespere liked it…im gonna have to come back to this one.. with some more kanban. I’ve still got the flu and I haven’t even started on Cleopatra.
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