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Intellectual Devotional Biographies Reading: Cleopatra. Please use this reading on Cleopatra, the last
pharaoh of Egypt, to answer the reading comprehension questions on the worksheet that accompanies it.
The last pharaoh of Egypt, Cleopatra (69-30 BC) was among the most famous and powerful women of the
ancient world. She is an object of enduring fascination for her role in Rome’s civil wars, her romances with
Julius Caesar (100-44 BC) and Mark Antony (83-30 BC)—and her grisly suicide.
Cleopatra was born into a line of Greek-speaking monarchs who had ruled Egypt since the country had been
conquered by Alexander the Great (356-323 BC). When she was eighteen, Cleopatra inherited the throne jointly
with her brother, Ptolemy XIII (c. 61-47 BC)).
The two siblings were married to each other. (This type of incestuous pairing was not uncommon among
Egyptian royalty; in fact, Cleopatra’s mother and father were uncle and niece.) Both siblings schemed
constantly to seize power from each other, until Cleopatra was forced into exile in about 50 BC.
In 48 BC, Cleopatra began her affair with Caesar, who too her side in the ongoing civil war with Ptolemy. With
her lover’s help, Cleopatra was restored to the throne. In 47 BC, she gave birth to a son fathered by Caesar and
named him Caesarion (47-30 BC).
Cleopatra hoped that her son would be Caesar’s successor. But after the dictator’s death in 44 BC, Caesar’s
adopted son, Octavian (63 BC-AD 14), took power, ruling jointly with Antony and another general. Antony and
Cleopatra then became lovers and plotted to wrest power in Rome away from Octavian.
In 31 BC, Octavian went to war against Antony and Cleopatra and defeated their navy at the Battle of Actium.
Both lovers than committed suicide; Cleopatra supposedly induced an asp, a type of poisonous snake, to bite her
on the breast.
Cleopatra was the last in the line of Egyptian pharaohs, ending a succession that had lasted more than 3,000
years. The region became a Roman province, Aegyptus; it would not regain its full independence until the
twentieth century.
Additional Facts
1. Cleopatra was roughly the seventh Egyptian queen by that name; her namesake, Cleopatra I, ruled from
roughly 180 to 176 BC.
2. The ls Egyptian queen was played by actress Elizabeth Taylor (1932-2011) in Cleopatra (1963), her
paycheck of $7 million for the performance was a Hollywood Record at the time.
3. Cleopatra had four children—one (Caesarion) with Caesar and three with Mark Antony. Caesarion was
executed by Octavian, and the other three were arrested, paraded through the streets of Rome in
Octavian’s victory procession, and later raised by foster parents.
Adapted from: Kidder, David S., and Noah Oppenheim. The Intellectual Devotional Biographies: Revive Your
Mind, Complete Your Education, and Acquaint Yourself with the World’s Greatest Personalities Emmaus, PA:
Rodale Press, 2010.