History is a collection of concerted lies Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay - Napoleon Bonaparte The Ultimate Seductress, The Egyptian Companion, The Deadly Monster, The Whore of Antiquity: these were the ruthless axioms commonly associated with Cleopatra VII, last of the Ptolemaic monarchs. From the moment of her death, the queen was vilified by ancient writers as a means of propaganda and entertainment, attacked and victimized so that moralists, historians and entertainers had the opportunity to achieve their personal and cultural purposes for their respective contextual audiences. However, after thousands of years of defamation, Cleopatra VII rebuilt her personality, becoming a symbol of second-wave feminism and representing everything that its ancient writers despised, but unintentionally considered her to be. But this awakening of his character raises many questions regarding the myths surrounding his personality, including their influences, and how they were changed and shaped in accordance with the purposes and visions of the respective period. From the time of her early death, and into contemporary times, there have been copious representations of Cleopatra VII. Despite conflicting influences and very different contents, almost all accounts unconsciously agree with each other, involuntarily concluding that the queen was an intelligent, ambitious and highly motivated woman. Although her relationship with Mark Antony was extremely popular at the time, and to some extent still is, moralists, historians, and entertainers constantly questioned her "validity" within it. With this in mind, in his biographical series, Parallel Lives, Plutarch identifies Antony's end: his relationship with Cleopatra. Throughout the biography, the ancient moralist spares no expense in explaining Antony's subsequent lack of 'vir': "coming into his hands tamed and broken... entirely obedient to the commands of a mistress" and "dressing... in disguise of servants." However, these claims regarding Cleopatra and her "corrupt" approaches must be carefully analyzed in accordance with Plutarch's context and purpose; an ancient Greco-Roman society in which women were considered inferior to men, and to teach a lesson about the moral failures of great men, or as he himself puts it, to look at "the virtues of these great men [who] serve me as a mirror in which I can see how to fix and make my life more beautiful.” Despite these contextual influences, a defined objective purpose and the goal to “delight and edify the reader” through Cleopatra, a carefully constructed character who according to Jennifer Sheridan Moss it's in the “biography” simply to “serve a narrative purpose,” the queen is still presented as a powerful, ambitious, and intelligent woman through her immense control over Antony, encouraging him to push “war…to spend the winter with her ". Unintentionally, this interpretation became the foundation of all debates for future historians, raising questions about the extent of Cleopatra's influence and how "sneaky" this resulting power was and how she achieved it. Please note: This is just an example Get a custom article from our expert writers now. Get a Custom Essay Subsequently, the queen was symbolized as Antony's downfall, a victim of his "seductive" personality as a means of entertainment and, to some extent, propaganda. With this in mind, the English playwright William Shakespeare, similar to most other historians and entertainers, relied on the Vita”.