Queen Cleopatra's lover, Mark Antony, supported King Herod during the Parthian Wars. In 37 BC, Herod and Mark Antony's armies captured Judea, including Jerusalem and the Dead Sea region. Herod became the puppet King of Judea.

If you look at Dead Sea salt vendors, spas, and cosmetic sellers on the internet, they pretty much all say that Cleopatra went to the Dead Sea and built her own spa there, and was an enthusiastic user of Dead sea salt cosmetics, skin creams, and lotions.

They are all a bit light on actual historical evidence, though. Cleopatra definitely funded the wars, as Mark Antony's brother-in-law in Rome, Octavius, kept promising to fund an army but never quite got round to doing it.

But in the reading I've done on the Parthain War, I've not seen any reference to Cleopatra's Dead Sea Spa.

In Plutarch's Lives, he wrote that Mark Antony sent:



Fonteius Capito to bring Cleopatra into Syria. To whom at her arrival he made no small or trifling present, Phœnicia, Cœle-Syria, Cyprus, great part of Cilicia, that side of Judæa which produces balm, that part of Arabia where the Nabathæans extend to the outer sea; profuse gifts which much displeased the Romans.

So it seems that Mark Antony "gave" the area including the Dead Sea to Cleopatra (nice gift!) but doesn't say she went there. In fact, he goes on to say that Mark Antony sent Cleopatra back to Egypt some time later, then joined her there for the winter.

It's also known that Cleopatra leased the rights to the Dead Sea salt and mineral industries back to the Nabataeans, for 200 silver talents a year (a vast sum).



Nice as it would be to think of this renowned historical beauty at the Dead Sea, until I see some historical reference, the jury's out as far as I'm concerned.

