Cleopatra

Cleopatra as she appeared on a coin a year or two before her death.

Cleopatra VII (-69 to -30) ruled Egypt from -51 to -30, from age 18 to 39. She is famous as the last queen of Egypt and for seducing two powerful Romans, Julius Caesar and Mark Antony.

Queen: She was the last queen of the Ptolemies, the Macedonian Greek family that had ruled Egypt since the fall of Alexander’s empire 300 years before. For 21 years she kept Egypt independent and got it through famine and plague in one piece. At one point, in -48, her brother, Ptolemy XIII, tried to fight her for Egypt. Just then Caesar showed up and her brother died in battle. She had her two other living siblings, Ptolemy XIV and Arsinoe IV, killed.

Race: She was at least 25% Greek. We do not know who her mother or father’s mother were. Since she was the only Ptolemy who spoke Egyptian, her mother may have been Egyptian.

Beauty: She was famous for her beauty, but Plutarch, the first to write about it (over a hundred years after her death) said she had more charm than beauty. If power is an aphrodisiac, she had that too as Queen of Egypt.

The eastern Mediterranean in -39. Mark Antony controlled the green parts, Cleopatra the pink part. In two years King Herod will control Judaea.

Lovers:

• Julius Caesar, whom she met at age 21. One child. Gave her Cyprus, accidentally burned down the Library of Alexandria while fighting her brother, Ptolemy XIII.
• Mark Antony, whom she met at 27 and later married. Three children. Gave her Crete, Cilicia, Syria, Cyrene, Nabataea (part of Arabia) – and the 200,000 books of the Pergamun Library.

Non-lovers:

• King Herod – Josephus says she tried to seduce Herod but failed.
• Cicero – found her arrogant and insufferable.
• Octavian – would not look her in the eye.

Battle of Actium: Antony and Cleopatra lost the Battle of Actium in -31, which led to the rise of Octavian (later named Emperor Augustus) and the fall of Egypt to Rome a year later on Sextilis 1st -30 (later named August 1st, in part because of Augustus’ victory that day).

Suicide: As Alexandria fell to Octavian on August 1st, Antony killed himself thinking Cleopatra was dead. She killed herself on the 10th. In part it was from from grief (he died in her arms), in part because she did not want to be paraded through the streets of Rome in chains. She probably did not kill herself with an asp: Octavian had her under suicide watch. Octavian buried her with Antony, their tomb now lost under the sea.

Children:

• By Caesar: Caesarion (Ptolemy XV);
• By Antony: Alexander Helios, Cleopatra Selene, Ptolemy Philadelphos.

Roman law saw all her children as bastards, Egyptian law did not.

• Caesarion she tried to save after the fall of Alexandria. He was 17. She sent him to the Red Sea to catch a ship to India. He never made it: his tutor betrayed him. Octavian had him put to death on August 23rd.
• Cleopatra Selene married Juba II, king of Numidia (now part of Algeria).

Cult: She claimed to be a goddess and sometimes dressed like Isis. Her cult lasted at least 400 years after her death.

– Abagond, 2018.

Sources: mainly “Cleopatra, Last Queen of Egypt” (2008) by Joyce Tyldesley.

See also:

• Was Cleopatra beautiful?
• Was Cleopatra Black?
• Ancient Egypt
  • queens
    • Nefertiti
    • Queen Tiye
  • Isis
  • Ptolemaic Egypt
  • Roman Egypt
  • Alexandria
  • Library of Alexandria
• Egypt: a brief history
• Queen of Sheba

574