Download Cleopatra: The Last Ruler of Powerful Egypt

Social Studies Rough Draft
Nia Evangeloulis
In movies, Cleopatra is always shown as a beautiful goddess, with silky black
hair, stunning clothes, and golden jewels covering her body. The real Cleopatra may have
had all of these riches, but everyone who wrote about her said she was not very pretty,
with her sharp chin and hooked nose. But they all agreed that she made up for it with her
extreme intelligence and charming personality. Yet, for all of her brains, she led both
Caesar and, later, Mark Antony to be blinded to reality through their great love for her,
leading to all of their deaths and ending Egypt’s Ptolemaic Dynasty.
Cleopatra became queen because she was superior to her brothers and sisters.
First, she had an excellent education and memory. She learned seven languages at the
best university and library at the time, Alexandria University, where scholars from all
over the world taught. She even knew the “common” man’s Egyptian, which none of her
other siblings learned, making her more popular with locals. In addition, she knew math,
literature, astronomy, and medicine. She was more intelligent than her siblings too. She
proved this through the clever things she did to gain favor with Roman leaders. For
example, she rolled herself up in a carpet to hide from Caesar’s guards, and had her
slaves unroll the carpet at his feet. He was both shocked and impressed by her actions,
and eventually fell in love with her and married her. Unfortunately, the Roman Senate
later assassinated him because of it. Another example is when she told Mark Antony that
she could provide him with the most expensive meal he had ever had. He didn’t believe
her, but in the end, she showed him how. She did this by dropping a priceless pearl in her
wine and swallowing it. He was so impressed with her clever trick that he fell in love
with her instantly.
2
Cleopatra married people to keep Egypt free. She first married Caesar, the leader
of Rome, because she was scared about the Romans taking over Egypt. Once they had
their son, Caesarian, Cleopatra and he dreamed of making an empire together so that she
could remain queen of Egypt. But her plans failed because the Roman Senators got
scared that a foreigner would be one of their new leader. They were also angry that
Caesar married a Greek-Egyptian because he was already married to a Roman woman.
His Roman wife warned him not to go to the Senate to speak on March 14, because she
had had a bad dream that he would die. He went anyway, and was stabbed by dozens of
Senators. This made Cleopatra afraid that the Romans would take her throne away again,
so she decided to get Antony to fall in love with her since he was the most powerful
Roman general at the time. The only problem was that he was also married to his fellow
leader’s sister, Octavia. So, when he did fall in love with her and stayed in Egypt for a
long time, Octavius got mad at him. Antony didn’t pay any attention to him, but did get
angry when Octavius only sent 3000 troops instead of 20,000 to conquer some land in the
west. Antony still won that war and, instead of going to Rome to celebrate, made things
worse by celebrating with Cleopatra in Alexandria. After that, whenever he conquered
someone, he gave her the land instead of Rome. Also, eventually he had four children
with Cleopatra and gave them thrones in each of their conquered lands.
Octavius was getting angrier and angrier with every move Antony made for the
benefit of Cleopatra and their children. He even found a copy of Antony’s will, which left
all of his properties to their children and to Caesar’s son, Caesarian. He also asked to be
buried in Alexandria, not Rome, making Octavius fear that he would move the capital to
3
Alexandria if he Republic fell in his hands. The last straw was when he formally divorced
Octavius’ sister and asked that she leave his house in Rome.
Antony finally went to conquer Actium, which Caesar had wanted to defeat, but
never had a chance to. Antony and Cleopatra were resting in Corinth during the winter in
preparation for the war. Meanwhile, Octavius knew that the triumvirate agreement was
about to run out, so he waited until it did before he declared war on Egypt instead of on
Antony, knowing that it would look like a civil war if he attacked Antony directly.
Finally, on October of 32 BC, he announced to the Romans that he was going to destroy
the foreigner, Cleopatra, who wanted to take over Rome, had destroyed Caesar and was
going to make a Roman-Egyptian dynasty with Antony if she was not stopped.. Octavius
started battling smaller posts of Antony’s but Antony was not worried because he knew
he had a better army. But, when Antony went toward Atium, Octavius was already in
Greece and had blocked all passages in the sea so Antony and Cleopatra were trapped in
the bay without supplies of food or weapons.
Octavius waited patiently because he had enough supplies, but he knew that their
supplies were very limited. So, by summer, Antony’s troops were dying of malnutrition
and disease. They decided they had two choices: one, to fight him in Macedonia, or, two,
to fight him at sea. Cleopatra convinced him to fight at sea so that they would have a
chance to get supplies and regroup because she didn’t want to be separated from him if he
went to fight on land. Octavius also bribed many countries to go to his side in the battle,
like Greece, Asia Minor and North Africa.
On September 2, 31 BCE, Antony decided to set sail with his large ships. But
Octavius would not battle him until they were further out in open water. That is when
4
Octavius attacked him because Antony’s ships were bigger and could not turn very
easily. Octavius wanted Cleopatra’s fortune, so he didn’t want to burn the ships, but
Antony would not give up, so Octavius started to set the ships on fire. Cleopatra retreated
with her 60 ships and Antony followed. They abandoned their troops and hoped that they
could regroup somewhere later and fight him on land. But, no other country would be
allies with them now that Octavius had defeated them. So, their only choice was to try to
strike a deal with Octavius. He would not listen to them and came to conquer Alexandria.
When he arrived, the citizens did not put up a fight, but let him stomp into the city.
Octavius asked for Cleopatra so that he could bring her back to Rome.He wanted to drag
her through the streets and make her a slave but she refused.
When Antony heard that Octavius had entered Egypt someone also told him that
Cleopatra was dead. So, Antony killed himself by shoving a knife in his stomach. Then,
suddenly he got a message that she was in a tomb, but it was too late because he had
already stabbed himself. His slaves carried him to her and he died in her arms. After his
funeral, she had her servants bring an asp under a basket of figs to bite her so that she
could be with Antony at his tomb. She also wanted to die because she did not want to be
dragged to Rome as a slave.
Cleopatra became a very powerful and clever leader for Egypt, but she ran away
from the battle and made Antony suffer by fighting at sea instead of on land, like he was
used to. She ended the dynasty of the Ptolemies by a crude death. If she would have let
him fight the way he wanted to, they would have won. Instead, he listened to her and they
both died. She was and continues to be one of the most powerful women in history for
over two thousand years.