Carley Medeiros '24, a history and classics major and recent inductee of Phi Alpha Theta, the history honors society, has been exploring the implications of the various depictions of Cleopatra in ancient sources. In her abstract, Medeiros wrote: "Rome thus sought to condemn her public image and through art, poetry, and literature, vilified the young queen. Statues began to depict her as a vile seductress, literature described her as polluting and diseased, and poetry denoted her deviancy and foreignness. Through an eroticization of Cleopatra Philopater VII’s political image, Roman elites effectively condemned Cleopatra’s ethnic identity and womanhood, expressing the perversity of such a rule — a gynaikokratia. This project seeks to understand how Cleopatra envisioned herself, analyzing ancient sources from a new perspective." Medeiros, who received a Veritas Undergraduate Research Award to support her work, spent part of her summer at the Providence Athenaeum, a private institution...