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Hello and welcome to this new series of Legacy.

This time, and I am so excited for this, we are exploring Cleopatra.

Now, you probably have an image in mind when you think about Cleopatra. We've all seen the movies

and the art, reimaginings, the AI generative depictions. When I think about Cleopatra, I think about

her incredible aesthetic, her total awareness of how to manage her brand, but also her political power and historical

legacy, because she was one of the most consequential women in history.

Peter, why do you think Cleopatra's legacy matters?

Well, I love the Egyptians, and I guess Cleopatra was one of the very, very few women that

I heard about when I was doing history at school.

There's Cleopatra. There's Queen Elizabeth I first. And then Queen Victoria, that's about it.

So I think of Cleopatra as a really important, a powerful woman. And I think of as being exceptional.

I didn't really hear that much about other women in antiquity.

So I think that's one of the reasons why her story is captivated so many people,

from filmmakers to poets, playwrights, like Shakespeare, even video games. And I guess part of the

story is because she has an amazing story that involves political power, but also love and death

and darkness. And the displays of power and wealth in ancient Egypt, all of us do have

that idea in our mind, not just about what Cleopatra looked like, but about pyramids and about

mummies and about gold and jewels and wealth. And we do have these narratives we've all heard about

...