Cleopatra's Tongues

Abstract

Cleopatra is said by Plutarch to have known numerous languages, able to converse with envoys of “the Ethiopians, the Trog(l)odytes, Hebrews, Arabians, Syrians, Medes, Parthians and many others” in their own languages. Plutarch makes no mention of Greek or Latin or Macedonian or Egyptian, all of them languages that should figure in such a list. A ruler would be unlikely to speak to envoys in any but the locally relevant language of power. I argue that Plutarch’s report is a fine story but with little or no relation to truth.