Duane W. Roller

Seleukid in the time of Cleopatra’s Seleukid ancestors, and with that
kingdom now defunct she could invoke a hereditary claim, believing,
as the only reigning descendant of Seleukid royalty, that the Seleukid
territories which the Parthians had conquered in the second century
b.c. were actually hers. As a skilled linguist she would learn new languages
when it was necessary to do so, in this case perhaps during the lengthy
preparations for Antonius’s Parthian campaign, thus being ready for the
presumed amalgamation of the newly conquered territory of Parthia
into her kingdom. In fact, her son Alexander Helios was named king of
Parthia in the Donations of Alexandria (see p. 100).
Plutarch also stated that Cleopatra knew many other languages.
One can only speculate what these might be, but other than Greek,
Egyptian, and Latin, which can be taken for granted, the most obvious
ones would be the languages of North Africa. Th e Ptolemies had had a
long relationship with Carthage, remaining neutral in the Roman wars;
their possession of Cyrene meant that they were territorially near to
Carthage, with the inevitable trade contacts. Cyrene also had connections
with the major indigenous kingdom of North Africa, Numidia,
southwest of Carthage. Ptolemy VIII, while king of Cyrene, had visited
the court of the legendary Numidian king Massinissa, and Massinissa’s
son Mastanabal had been honored at Cyrene. 25 Th e Numidian kingdom
survived well into Cleopatra’s reign until provincialized by Caesar in
46 b.c., 26 and she may have had ideas of extending her infl uence in
this direction, perhaps with Caesar’s help. It would be expected that
the queen would know something of the local languages of this region,
yet she could not know that in 25 b.c. her daughter Cleopatra Selene
would fulfi ll this promise by marrying Massinissa’s descendant Juba II,
becoming ruler of Mauretania, a vast region of North Africa extending
from just west of Carthage to the Atlantic (see p. 154).
Although Plutarch’s statement refers to speaking ability, it is probable
that Cleopatra could also read some of these languages, a talent that
would assist her in diplomacy. Again, her reading knowledge of Greek,
Egyptian, and Latin are obvious. Scholars at the Library were constantly
involved in the translation of texts, which implies that the originals
were also on fi le. Th e most famous case is the Hebrew Bible, the circumstances
of whose translation into the Septuagint are described in an
extant letter allegedly by a certain Aristeas, which records how Ptolemy
II commissioned Demetrios of Phaleron to supervise the task, eff ected
by 72 scholars sequestered on the island of Pharos for 72 days. 27 Th e tale
48 Cleopatra