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| Statue of Cleopatra at the Royal Ontario Museum |
While Roman rights offered great opportunity for financial
freedom, it was a non-Roman who captures the next claim to a Female Financial
First.
Historian William Monter in his excellent The Rise of
Female Kings of Europe, 1300-1800, claims that before the year 1300 there
were approximately two dozen women sovereigns of important monarchies around
the world.[i] Unfortunately, thanks to the ravages of time,
the extant documentary records are incomplete. Yet what has survived is
incontrovertible because it is metal.
"This
hard evidence is first and foremost numismatic. For over two thousand years the
issuing of coins has been a universally recognized method for both male and
female sovereigns to proclaim their official status."[ii]
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| Cleopatra's silhouette is the first woman ruler's likeness on a coin |
Among these madam monarchs, perhaps the best recognized (and
least matronly?) was the woman vilified by the Romans, made famous by
Shakespeare, and (much later) immortalized by Elizabeth Taylor[iii]:
the monarch known today as Cleopatra (69-30 BC). The great Roman poet Lucan,
who was a close, personal friend of the Emperor Nero (at least until Nero ordered
him to commit suicide) devoted his entire final tenth chapter of his “History
of the Civil Wars” to the story of Caesar and Cleopatra, and the tumultuous
times of the previous century. Her legacy
was such that Lucan openly wondered “Whether a woman, not of Roman blood,
Should hold the world in awe.”[iv]
While Cleopatra’s story may not justify subsequent centuries’
fascination, she did contribute a financial first. More properly addressed as
Cleopatra VII, she was “the first woman ruler to put both her image and titles on
numerous coins struck both in Egypt and in several parts of the Eastern
Mediterranean”.[v]
Hailed a “great beauty” by contemporaries[vi],
Cleopatra was also an energetic ruler. Ascending to the throne at the age of
18, she somehow managed to bear children from two of the most powerful Roman
generals of her time: Mark Antony and Julius Caesar. Love and politics rarely
mix well and these matches proved fatal for Cleopatra, who met a difficult and
untimely end (suicide at the age of 39).
Cleopatra was the last in a line of ruling Pharaohs. As such
her story slips easily into European history (even though, by geography, she
belongs equally to Africa and perhaps even to Asia). Still, if we look beyond
our Mediterranean littoral, strong documentary evidence exists of women
involved in financial firsts well before the last of the Pharaohs. It is to the
East that we will turn next.
Endnotes
[i] William Monter, The Rise of Female Kings of
Europe, 1300-1800, claims (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2012), p.2.
Wikipedia has an excellent excerpt on this subject: “Women had a high status in ancient Egypt and enjoyed the legal right to
own, inherit, or will property. A woman becoming pharaoh was rare, however; only Sobekneferu, Neferneferuaten, Cleopatra VII and possibly Khentkaus I and Nitocris[18] preceded her in known records as
ruling solely in their own name. The existence of this last ruler is disputed
and is likely a mis-translation of a male king. Twosret, a female king and the last pharaoh of
the nineteenth dynasty, may have been the only woman to succeed her among the
indigenous rulers. In Egyptian history, there was no word for a "queen
regnant" as in contemporary history, "king" being the Ancient
Egyptian title regardless of gender, and by the time of her reign, pharaoh had
become the name for the ruler. Hatshepsut is not unique, however, in taking the
title of king. Sobekneferu, ruling six dynasties prior to Hatshepsut, also did
so when she ruled Egypt. Hatshepsut had been well trained in her duties as the
daughter of the pharaoh. During her father's reign she held the powerful office
of God's Wife. She had taken a strong role as queen to her husband and was well
experienced in the administration of her kingdom by the time she became
pharaoh. There is no indication of challenges to her leadership and, until her
death, her co-regent remained in a secondary role, quite amicably heading her
powerful army—which would have given him the power necessary to overthrow a
usurper of his rightful place, if that had been the case.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hatshepsut
[ii] William
Monter, The Rise of Female Kings of Europe, 1300-1800, claims (New
Haven: Yale University Press, 2012), p.2
[iii]
See a description of Elizabeth Taylor’s career defining role as Cleopatra here
[iv]
See the online English translation of Book X of Lucan’s “History of the Civil
Wars” here: http://omacl.org/Pharsalia/book10.html
(quote
from lines 79-80). Accessed May 16, 2013
[v]
William Monter, The Rise of Female Kings of Europe, 1300-1800, claims
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 2012), p.6
[vi]
There is great debate about how Cleopatra looked. By contemporaries she was
hailed as a great beauty. The poet Lucan, who theoretically was able to consult
contemporary records, wrote (about 61 AD – 100 years after her death) that
Cleopatra was “so fair haired that Caesar said he had never seen hair so red in
the Rhine country [i.e., Germany]”. Joann Fletcher, Cleopatra the Great: The
Woman Behind the Legend, (New York: Harper Collins, 2008), p.106. A more recent examination of this pressing issue can be found here; http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1095043/Sorry-Liz-THIS-real-face-Cleopatra.html
Copyright 2013 by David Baeckelandt. All rights reserved. No reproduction in any form or format permitted without my express, written permission. Sorry!
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