Cleopatra had the seductive power to make men eat their hearts out and the destructive
prowess to make her siblings bite the dust, but she also had a pretty full plate herself.
When she wasn't busy feasting on Caesar salad, she had a massive empire to manage.
As Live Science describes, her queendom spanned Egypt and Cyprus plus sections of present-day
Libya and other Middle Eastern regions.
She had to grapple with a lethal sibling rivalry and joined her lover, Marc Antony, in a losing
battle against Caesar's assassins during the Roman civil war.
That's a lot to handle, but ultimately, Antony and Cleopatra bit off more than they could
chew, and an asp allegedly bit the fabled pharaoh.
But what did Cleopatra herself usually bite into?
We know from legend that on at least one occasion, she consumed a gigantic pearl just to show
off how rich she was.
According to the histories of Pliny the Elder, Cleopatra found Antony's penchant for decadently
over-eating to be so distasteful that she bet she could best his extravagance at a banquet.
She achieved this by dissolving a half-million-dollar pearl in vinegar and drinking the remains.
Before she could consume any more treasures of antiquity, though, she was declared the
winner .
That story is… probably untrue.
And even if it were true, we know that Cleopatra didn't live off of pearls alone.
So what was her usual diet?
According to History, bread and beer were the bread-and-butter of the ancient Egyptian
diet, while regular Egyptians were also hungry for hippo meat, fish, cranes, hedgehog flesh,
and gazelles.
Cleopatra wasn't a regular Egyptian, though, as her family was actually Greek.
Plus, she was rich.
Queen of a kingdom kind of rich.
Her breakfast likely consisted of wine-soaked wheat or barley bread with olives.
For lunch she'd munch on something light, and dinner would be a sumptuous feast.
She probably had plenty of lentil soup or pâté on her daily menu.
Given her family's roots, her mouth might have watered for onions, garlic and cheese.
When she felt like dining on the animal kingdom, her plate probably included porcupine, quail,
gazelle, goat, or ox meat.
And then there's figs.
"Hi, gang!
Big Fig here!"
The BBC describes figs as "a mainstay of Egyptian agriculture."
Farmers used to train monkeys to harvest them.
Pharaohs were buried with dried figs to feed them in the afterlife.
And according to legend, a meal of figs with a side of deadly venomous snake sent Cleopatra
to the great beyond; in Shakepseare's famous play Antony and Cleopatra, the monarch is
killed by an asp nestled inside a basket of figs.
In truth, the nature of Cleopatra's death was a mystery even to her contemporaries.
The Greek writer Plutarch posited that she poisoned herself with a hollow comb and the
Roman writer Dio reasoned that a snake bit her.
And some versions of her death claim she didn't receive a basket of figs but of flowers.
So where did the fig thing come from?
Well, many historians believe it may have been a sexist smear campaign aimed at ruining
her reputation after death.
See, the Romans associated figs with fertility.
Per the Encyclopedia Britannica, they held a March celebration of the goddess of childbirth
"under a wild fig tree."
Romans also referred to an obscene hand gesture as the "fig hand" (Mano fico) because they
thought it resembled a woman's privates.
In fact, the Italian word for fig doubles as slang for the female genitals.
According to the University of Chicago, it's possible that accounts of Cleopatra's death
that mention figs are meant to discredit her by casting her as a wanton seductress rather
than a powerful ruler worthy of respect.
In fact, there's also the possibility that the legend of the pearl was attributed to
Cleopatra for the same reason, as pearls were associated with Venus, the Roman goddess of
love.
So first they kill her and then they smear her reputation for all time?
That's… pretty tough to swallow, and it doesn't sound like just desserts.
Sounds like her enemies were full of it.
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