Guest speaker Angela Chantry dispelled the myth portrayed by popular movies of Cleopatra VII as being a “sultry, dark-haired femme fatale” at this month’s Javea U3A History Group meeting.
Her thorough research convinced the audience at Casa de Cultura that Cleopatra was in fact far from the figure characterised in films by the likes of Vivien Leigh and Liz Taylor but a woman acclaimed by Egyptians as “a living goddess and monarch, an ambitious leader, a brilliant politician, an erudite scholar and mother-of-four”.
Angela’s excellent presentation described in great detail Cleopatra’s conquests and her marriages to family members as well as Julius Caesar and Marc Antony and her subsequent death from poisoning.
She was thanked by History Group leader Cheda Panajotovic and presented with a gift in recognition of her enlightening talk.
