deTraci Regula
Cleopatra Conquers Rome Palazzo Ruspoli
Via del Corso, 418 - 00186 Roma
Tel. 06/68 33201
Fax 06/68806724
Open Mon-Fri 9:30am to 7:30pm
Saturdays 9:30am to 8:30pm
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Rome, Italy
http://www.palazzoruspoli.it

Through Feb. 25th 2001, then to the British Museum (April-August) and the Field Museum from October 2001 to March 2002. New Exhibit Focuses on Political Mastery, not Erotic Rumors. Cleopatra has returned to Rome in a triumph of her own; Augustus must be spinning in his tomb. A new exhibit focusing on the political savvy of the last Ptolemaic Queen and Pharaoh of Egypt has opened at the Palazzo Ruspoli in Rome. Drawing from hundreds of objects, many lent by the British Museum, the Egyptian Museum in Cairo and the Greco-Roman Museum in Alexandria, the collection acknowledges Augustus' hostility to Cleopatra and how this has colored our own perceptions of this remarkable Queen. As Caesar's adopted son and "heir apparent", Augustus had much to lose if Cleopatra's son by Julius Caesar ever gained acceptance by the Romans. As the winner, Augustus influenced the historians of the time to cast Cleopatra as a conniving seductress; that she was the powerful mother of his own potential rival, who would have become Pharaoh of rich Egypt, is often overlooked. Though Cleopatra's presence in Rome as the mistress and ally of Julius Caesar was hardly welcome to many respectable Romans, the attraction of mysterious Egypt was irresistible. Rome took to all things Egyptian with a passion, even embracing the worship of Egyptian gods and goddesses in the heart of the Roman empire, an "egyptomania" which endured for several hundred years and which still influences art and architecture today.