It was really hot in Egypt and it was not unusual for men and women both to roam about topless. This part might take a while to digest as Egyptian culture back in the day was very different to the European based values we’re accustomed to, but Cleopatra initially presented herself as a slave. Also, she did not introduce herself as the queen of Egypt at all. She had to climb out of it rather unceremoniously.

The kind where it was like a bed spread, large and square, into which women would put clothes and tie the corners around. The truth, according to Spencer MacDaniel, is that Cleopatra was in a sack. The situation was that Cleopatra was on the run from assassins and needed to find a way into the palace for a mission, hence she needed a way in without being seen. It would be plausible enough a route for Cleopatra to take without rousing any suspicion. Carrying a thick carpet over one’s shoulder in quite easy as it does not bed much across the length and weighs a considerable amount, just enough to cover her own weight. Perhaps it seemed more logical in a technical sense. Plutarch was quite and imaginative man himself, and we can’t be sure if what he wrote was truly accurate either, seeing as how he penned the story down centuries after Cleopatra and Caesar had passed. How historians assumed it was a carpet is beyond most of us, but it’s possible that it appealed more to the imagination. It’s clear that the word was in referrence to anything cloth like, and its understanding depended on the situation of the conversation. Due to lack of clarity of the context in the passage, there are many English words that strōmatódesmon can be attributed to, such as sack, bag, roll, blanket, heap of cloth, and so on. The word strōmatódesmon (στρωματόδεσμον) was mistranslated as carpet. Called The Life of Julius Caesar and published sometime before 120 AD, he details Cleopatra’s entry into Caesar’s chambers.Īny foreign language is fairly difficult to translate to English as some words simply did not exist in isolation, and depended on context.

The fated meeting of Cleopatra and Caesar was recorded in a biography by a philosopher, Ploutarchos of Chaironeia.

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