There was ample precedent for a Nile trip. It was traditional to welcome a foreign dignitary with a cruise, to introduce hilton the marvel that was Egypt. To generations earlier a high official went to great lengths to ensure that a Roman senator traveling in Egypt be “received with utmost magnificence,” showered with gifts, entrusted to expert guides, supplied with the pastries and roasted meats with which to feel the sacred crocodiles. . . . . For Cleopatra this amounted to a proprietary tour of her personal estate. Everyone in Egypt worked for her; nearly every resource of the country – its fields, its game, its trees, the Nile and its crocodiles themselves – was hers. From her point of view the cruise was not so much a pleasure trip or scientific expedition as a state of obligation. With it she provided a critical display of Roman military might to her people, a display of Egyptian abundance to Rome. . . Page 75
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Dinesh said:
Dinesh said: