Source A: Cassius Dio, Roman History 50.24-25 (written in the early 3rd century AD). Before the Battle of Actium, Octavian speaks to his soldiers.
'We are Romans, the rulers of the greatest and best part of the world, and yet we are despised and trampled underfoot by an Egyptian woman... Antony has abandoned all the ways of his ancestors and copies everything foreign and barbarian. He pays no honour to us, or to the laws, or to the gods of his fathers, but he worships that woman as if she were an Isis or a Selene, calls her children Helios and Selene, and in the end calls himself Osiris or Dionysus.'
To what extent did the Romans fear Cleopatra because of her power over a Roman general? Use Source A as a starting point and your own knowledge.
Model answer
Source A suggests that her power over Antony was the main reason. Octavian complains that Romans are 'trampled underfoot by an Egyptian woman', and that Antony has abandoned the ways of his ancestors, the laws and the gods of Rome. Instead he worships her 'as if she were an Isis', names their children Helios and Selene and calls himself Osiris. The fear is that a Roman general, with Roman legions, has become the servant of a foreign queen.
My own knowledge supports this. Cleopatra had already influenced Caesar, who brought her to Rome and put her golden statue in the Temple of Venus Genetrix. Antony gave her and her children lands at the Donations of Alexandria in 34 BC, divorced Octavia, and in his will asked to be buried with her in Egypt. Plutarch says that at Actium Antony was 'dragged along by the woman' when she fled. Octavian even claimed that Antony had been drugged and that Rome was really fighting her eunuch and her maids.
However, Cleopatra was also feared in her own right. She was the richest ruler in the Mediterranean, and Egypt's money and ships paid for much of Antony's fleet. She had ambitions for her children, especially Caesarion, a rival 'son of Caesar' to Octavian. Horace says she was plotting 'ruin for the Capitol', and Propertius has her set barking Anubis against Jupiter, so her foreign religion and her power as a woman and a monarch offended Roman values.
Overall, her power over Antony was the main reason for Roman fear, because it put Roman armies at her service. But this fear was partly created by Octavian's propaganda - and Dio wrote his version of the speech centuries later - while her wealth, ambition and foreignness made her a threat even without Antony.
Explanation
The question asks about one reason, so the best answers test it against others (wealth, Caesarion, religion, gender, monarchy) and reach a judgement. Recognising that Dio's speech is a later composition and that Octavian deliberately stressed Antony's 'enslavement' to turn civil war into foreign war shows the critical analysis Level 4 needs.
