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Aedes Divi Iulii: Julius Caesar and His Times
For discussion of the life of Gaius Julius Caesar, 100-44 BC, and Rome in his time.

Caesar's Contemporaries (8 threads, 728 posts)
    Cleopatra VII, 69-30 BC (52 posts)
    Historical Thread

    Cleopatra's history intertwines with Rome's and yet retains its own riches. ...
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    Cleo's Latin
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    Author: * Demetrios Xanthippos - 2 Posts on this thread out of 958 Posts sitewide.
    Date: Feb 13, 2007 - 09:34

    It isn't surprising that she had no Latin. She would have had no use for it. Every Roman she ever had contact with would have spoken Greek, maybe even better than she did. (God knows what Macedonian koine that developed in Egypt would have sounded like after almost 300 years.) Greek was the lingua franca of the eastern Med, and every upper-class Roman was proud of his skill with it, sometimes even using it to the exclusion of his native Latin. Rather like French in the courts of Poland and Russia in the 18th century.


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