Daughters of the Nile (79 page)

For example, ancient proto-Berber men are often depicted in art as wearing a great deal of jewelry, but modern Berber men largely eschew it. Moreover, because the indigenous Berber culture in modern Algeria has been suppressed, it’s difficult to reconstruct what these North African people must have been like before the spread of Islam. Indeed, it’s always dangerous to assume that the anthropology of tribes as we observe them now has anything to do with their identity in ancient times. Even so, I decided to risk extrapolating known Berber customs of the Tuaregs, including their jewelry and indigo dye, back through time, though in more modern times, it is the Tuareg men who wear blue veils, not the women.

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BEYOND
these matters, I have made every attempt to hew to the facts when portraying this fascinating and turbulent time in history. Readers familiar with the Julio-Claudian dynasty know that if Selene died in 5
B.C.
, then she was mercifully spared from witnessing the escalating tensions between Julia and Tiberius in Rome and the tragic conclusion of their conflict. It would also mean that Selene did not live long enough to see the spectacle of Livia’s corpse rotting on its bier when Tiberius refused to attend his mother’s funeral.

In life, Cleopatra Selene was a nominal member of the imperial family, at the mercy of Augustus, his family, and their intrigues. But that entanglement lasted beyond her death. If the historical Selene ever had cause to lay a curse on Drusus, then it is a curse that touched off an intimate death spiral between his family and hers. And in the end, Selene’s granddaughter would be another Ptolemaic princess held captive in Rome. But that is another story . . .