Legion World Forums LEGION COMPANION The Anywhere Machine The Most CLEVER Women of All Time

Looks fade. Evian can seek out the most beautiful women to help sell their bottled water, but I would celebrate the most clever women of all time. Real or fiction. Suggestions welcome. Thora just got bumped off my list. Helen of Troy should have made the beauty list, IMO, but she was trouble, not clever.

Scheherezade - she told a different story each night (1001 Arabian Nights) in order to avoid being killed.

To be continued...

A few suggestions, although I don't know if they'd make the top 100:

Penelope, wife of Odysseus - by far the more attractive character personality wise in Homer's work, along with Andromiache. She was able to fend off suitors for ten years on wits alone, while waiting for her equally clever husband to return!

Queen Elizabeth - this famous Queen was known more fore her wits and her ability to play off everyone in the royal court against one another to maintain power for an impressive amount of time. Although she had many lovers, she never committed to one and therefore never gave a man the power to be a King.

Maria Theresa - Empress of the Habsburg Empire, one of the largest and richest of the entire late middle ages and early modern period, Maria Theresa reigned for longer than most Emperors ever have. She came to the throne as a scared post-adolescent and soon held a firm grip on power through her smarts alone!

Livia, wife of Augustus Ceaser -this wife of the first Roman Emperor was revered by the Roman people, to the point where she was like a Queen. After Augustus died, she ensured that the Julio-Claudian line continued on (whether it was good or bad), and positioned Tiberius and Caligula into power. She was also famous for being a shrewd politician among the woman in Rome. Like most Romans, she wasn't the most moral person, but she was sure clever!

Queens and Princesses are the easiest for me to remember off-hand, but I'll try to think of others soon

I would've said that Livia Drusus was one of the most *evil* women of all time... but that does denote a certain kind of cleverness.

Maybe my perceptions are clouded by the way she came across in the old Masterpiece Theater production of I, CLAUDIUS. According to that miniseries (based on the writings of Pausanius, I think?), she was responsible for the deaths of most of her relations.

Writers of any genre, including comics, could do worse than basing their villainous femmes on Livia, IMO.

How about Cleopatra? She spoke many languages, including Egyptian-- many claim she was the first of the Ptolomies to learn that tongue. She beguiled (at least politically) one of the most powerful men who ever lived, and saved her country for over a decade.

She was no great beauty, yet she's remembered as a great seductress. I'd call that clever.

Others... Eleanor of Aquitaine... Sappho... Katharine Hepburn...

Todd

Mata Hari
Eleanor Roosevelt
Zelda Fitzgerald
Dorothy Parker
Lucille Ball
Lillian Gish
Susan B. Anthony
Madame Curie
Joan of Arc
Golda Meir
Carmen Electra (she must be clever to have managed to create a career for herself)

Todd! I forget sometimes that you're a big fan of the Greco-Roman world! I'd certainly consider Livia to be one of the most terrible people of all time, which is what I meant by saying she wasn't the most moral of people. She poisioned half of Augustus and Tiberius family to ensure Caligula had a shot at being Ceaser--or at least Suetonius says she might have. Like most of her family, she was a major conniver and had alterior and often terrible motives for what she did. But she was sure clever.

Although I've never seen "I, Claudius" (I really should too, but I'll get around to it), Suetonius and others paint a pretty vivid picture of her cunning, albeit self-serving ways. She seemed to encourage her daughter and granddaughter Julia's promiscuity, and then apparently backed up her husband in exiling the very same granddaughter to a remote island for it. Very shrewd.
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Cleopatra might also be good for the list, but so many Roman sources are biased against her that its hard to tell. She definately was cunning enough to stave off a Roman invasion for over ten years, and she did purposely have a child by Ceaser (named Ceasoron) to create a possible Egyptian/Roman heir to both Empires (although this back-fired when Octavian killed him).

It's interesting that you say she wasn't that pretty, which is something a Roman history Professor that I studied under used to hammer home. She used her power and her wits to seduce both Ceaser and Marc Anthony, and one source even says she made over 100 male and female slaves perform sexual acts in front of Marc Anthony and his officers to arouse them to the point where they couldn't think anymore. All in all, I think I'd add her to the list !

She also was smart enough to end her life the honorable way of the times--through suicide. Octavian did threaten to torture and rape both of them, and her and Marc Anthony made their deaths seem both honorable and something out of love.

And Drake, I agree that Lucille Ball was clever enough to capture the hearts of a generation and create a legacy that will live far into the future.

Livia! - I was trying to think of her name - and my impressions of her as clever come more from "I, Claudius" than from Suetonius. I think they toned down the evil for the TV show. Eleanor Roosevelt was another I was considering, but wasn't sure if she was more brainy than clever - she did have inventiveness, perception, a sharpness to her, especially in later years.

Boaz, mother-in-law of Ruth of the Old Testament - she plotted, manipulated (more "directed", really) and used her daughter-in-law to ensure their joint survival and, according to the story, did really love the young woman.

Boadecia - fought and held off the Roman troops for some time - not just an angry mom fighting for her family's honour in a brave & desperate battle, she really gave them a run for their money.

Catherine Parr Trail - probably unknown outside of Canada, but the quintessential pioneer woman who arrived from England, unprepared for a harsh life of farming in the backwoods. She was high-spirited, optimistic, resourceful, determined & hard-working and literate enough to write about her experiences so we remember her. I'd take her as a representative for all the immigrant and pioneer women who survived - and prospered - in similar circumstances.

Marie Curie - gotta be clever to be a scientist. Not too many women are known for that. And discovering radioactivity is definitely worth noting.

Not too sure that a lot of the women noted are any more than manipulative and caniving (sp?), but does that necessarily make them clever?

I see both Livia and Cleopatra as manipulative and conniving, and therefore very clever, Numf. There are a ton of ways to be clever, but I guess being conniving like them is the easiest way for me to remember them .

I think Boadecia is definately a candidate as well. She was able to lead a whole army against the Romans after some of the most terrible atrocities in history were commited against her daughters and family. She was brave and vengeful, but calculating and cold--clever enough to cause the Romans a host of trouble.

And also to stop other women from being killed.

I just finished reading some of Richard Burton's translation. The story telling gets repetative though. Always praising Allah and people breaking into poetry at the drop of a hat.

Fictionally there was Irene Adler, the one person who outwitted Sherlock Holmes.

Ariadne, without whom Theseus might have killed the Minotaur, but would never have gotten out of the Labrynth, is a decent candidate.

Veronica Franco, the courtesan who saved Venice, and the first published-in-her-name female poet in the Western world.

Few realize that the events depicted with and about her in the recent, gorgeously made film "Dangerous Beauty" are not fiction -- they're drawn from an acclaimed biography with ample scholarly support.

Only the specific dialogue is created, from the spirit of those events. And in some cases, such as her protest before a court of the Inquisition, it's based on a record of her words:

I confess I find more ecstasy in passion than in prayer. My passion is my only prayer. I confess still, I long to feel the touch of my lover's lips and his hands upon me, his arms enfolding me. Such surrender has been mine. I confess, I hunger still to be filled and enflamed to melt into the dream of us beyond this place, to where it can appear we are not even ourselves. To know that always, always, this is mine. If this had not been mine, if I had lived another way, my soul hardened from the lack of love and lack of touch, I confess such endless days and nights would be far more punishment. You hunger for what I give, yet you dare not to see such power in a woman. You call our greatest gift, ourselves, our need to love, filth. I repent not my life that I have loved.

The miniseries is great and you should definitely try to catch it. But I think the books are even better and probably a lot cheaper.

Clever women? The only one that comes to mind is Dolly Levi.

Ken

Oddly enough, whenever I think of these women, I immediately think of Carmen Electra.

Oh, and Anna Nicole Smith

Very clever, indeed. She honed her tricks getting her son Tiberius named Augustus' heir, too. Banishment, extortion, poisoning... and that was just the treatment reserved for members of the 'family'!

Suetonius... that was it... thanks.

You *should* see I, CLAUDIUS. It's entertaining, provacative and has some great actors in it; Patrick Stewart (with hair!), Brian Blessed, John Hurt, Derek Jacobi, Sian Phillips (a chilling, likeably monstrous Livia).

Rent it, if you can find it! Try your local library... or Netflix, if you have an account.

Caesarian, wasn't it? I think the operation got it's name from him. She represented the whole way of life in 'the East' threatening Rome's democracy... like everyone who's vilified to the extent that she was, she had to be standing in for larger 'forces'.

It was said that she had a unique, captivating voice and knew how to make the most of it. And she was supposed to be an entertaining conversationalist... with widespanning interests and a cultivated sense of culture.

She didn't want to be dragged through the streets of Rome as part of Octavian's 'triumph' (there's an idea that some nutcase supervillain oughtta borrow...). She was smart enough to know when she was defeated. All in all, I like her quite a bit more than Octavian.

Todd