Cleopatra
3 of the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf carry an entry for Cleopatra. All 3 are reproduced below, so you can see where they agree and where they differ.
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
kleo-pa'tra (99-30 B. C.). A queen of Egypt. The last of the Ptolemies. She was a handsome, profligate, artful woman. Many tales are told of her beauty, of her extravagance, and of her faithlessness, but none, of her good qualities. Her capital was Alexandria. Her kingdom was one of the fragments of the empire of Alexander. It lay, as she well knew, at the mercy of Rome. She murdered her husband that she might be free to intrigue. By personal influence she secured the good will of Rome during the rule of Julius Caesar, who received her at Rome with great magnificence and to whom she bore a son called Caesarion. After the assassination of Caesar, Antony--the same Mark Antony who made the celebrated speech over Caesar's dead body--visited her at Alexandria and fell into her snares. He forsook his Roman wife and lived chiefly at Alexandria the rest of his days, heaping wealth and honors on Cleopatra. Augustus decided to dissolve partnership with Antony and to overthrow him. This he did in a naval battle at Actium, during which Cleopatra fled home with her sixty ships. Antony followed and committed suicide by falling on his sword. Cleopatra tried to make peace with Augustus as she had with Caesar and with Antony. Finding that she was making no headway, and that Augustus designed to carry her home and have her walk in his triumphal procession through the streets of Rome, she caused a slave to bring her a basket of fruit in which a poisonous asp was concealed. Preferring death to humiliation, she thrust in her bare arm, so runs the story, and received a mortal bite. Conscience, she had none; but her pride was unbounded. Thus perished the last of the Ptolemies. Egypt became thenceforth a Roman province. See Ptolemy ; Dido ; Antony ; Alexandria If Cleopatra's death had been caused by any serpent, the small viper would rather have been chosen than the large asp; but the story is disproved by her having decked herself in "the royal ornaments," and being found dead "without any mark of suspicion of poison on her body." Death from a serpent's bite could not have been mistaken; and her vanity would not have allowed her to choose one which would have disfigured her in so frightful a manner. Other poisons are well understood and easy of access, and no boy would have ventured to carry an asp in a basket of figs, some of which he even offered to the guards as he passed; and Plutarch shows that the story of the asp was doubted. Nor is the statue carried in Augustus' triumph which had an asp upon it any proof of his belief in it, since that snake was the emblem of Egyptian royalty; the statue (or the crown) of Cleopatra could not have been without one, and this was probably the origin of the whole story.--Rawlinson.
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
a Egypt; born 69 b. c., the eldest daughter of Ptolemy Aulētēs. When she was 17 her father died, ied, leaving her as jointheir to the throne with his eldest son Ptolemy, whom she was to marry-such marriages being common among the Ptolemies. Being deprived de of her part in the government (49 B. c.), she won Cæsar to her cause, and was reinstated by his influence. During a second disturbance Ptolemy lost his life, and Cæsar proclaimed Cleopatra Queen of Egypt; though she was compelled to take her brother, the younger Ptolemy, then 11 years old, as husband and colleague. Cæsar continued some time at Cleopatra's court, had a son by her named Cæsarion (afterward put to death by Augustus), and gave her a magnificent reception when she subsequently visited him at Rome. By poisoning her brother she remained sole possessor of the regal power, took the part of the triumvirs in the civil war at Rome, and after the battle of Phillippi sailed to join Antony at Tarsus. Their meeting was celebrated by splendid festivals; she accompanied him to Tyre, and was followed by him on her return to Egypt. After his conquest of Armenia he again returned to her and made his three sons by her, and also Cæsarion, kings. On the commencement of the war between Augustus and Antony the latter lost a whole year in festivals and amusements with Cleopatra at Ephesus, Samos, and Athens, and when at last the fleets met at Actium, Cleopatra suddenly took to flight, with all her ships, and Antony, as if under the influence of frenzy, immediately followed her. They fled to Egypt, and declared to Augustus that if Egypt were left to Cleopatra's children they Augustus, however, demanded Antony's death and advanced on Alexandria. Believing Cleopatra, who had taken refuge in her mausoleum, to be treacherous and dead, Antony threw himself on his sword, and shortly afterward Cleopatra killed herself by applying an asp to her arm to escape the ignominy of being led in a Roman triumph (30 b. c.). With her the dynasty of the Ptolemies ended.
1000 Classical Characters (1900)
Queen of Egypt, daughter of Ptolemy Auletes, was celebrated for her beauty. Antony became enamored of her and married her, ignoring his vows to Octavia , the sister of Augustus. He gave her the greatest part of the eastern provinces of the Roman empire. This caused a rupture between Augustus and Antony, and these two famous men met at Actium, when Cleopatra, by flying with sixty ships, ruined the battle for Antony, and he was defeated. Cleopatra destroyed herself by applying an asp to her breast.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
Aiton's 1910 verdict that "conscience, she had none" and that no tales survive "of her good qualities" is exactly what modern historians no longer accept: the hostile portrait descends from Augustan propaganda relayed by Horace, Plutarch and Dio, and is now read as the winners' account of a defeated enemy. Scholars today stress instead her competence as a ruler of a famine-stricken, indebted kingdom, her command of several languages, and the fact that she was the only Ptolemy known to have learned Egyptian; her surviving coin portraits show a jutting chin and hooked nose rather than the legendary beauty the 1900 entry takes for granted. The Rawlinson note appended to Aiton has largely won the argument on the asp, which most historians now treat as a literary flourish, though what actually killed her in 30 B.C. remains unknown. Aiton's dates (99-30 B.C.) are simply wrong; the 69 B.C. birth given by Collier's in 1921 is still the accepted one, and her tomb has never been found despite excavations at Taposiris Magna west of Alexandria begun in the 2000s.
Written for this edition, 2026.