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Daughter of a King
By R. Anthony Kugler
Cleopatra's father, Ptolemy XII, did not have an easy time as ruler of Egypt. His efforts to
strengthen his country's ties to Rome were well intentioned, but they angered the fiercely
independent people of Alexandria, his capital city. In 58 b.c., the Alexandrians succeeded in
driving him out, but the Romans soon restored him to his position as ruler in 55 b.c. The
restoration did little to improve his reputation. Once disliked for being too friendly with
Rome, he was now widely hated for being its puppet. Ptolemy's opponents, aware that he
was no longer a young man, looked forward to the chaos that likely would follow his death.
Without a clear successor, they reasoned, the king's death would mean the end of Ptolemaic
control of Egypt.
Like most royal families, the Ptolemies had sometimes experienced difficulty choosing an
heir. It was not easy to pick a new monarch without offending the others who wanted the
position. The Ptolemies' solution was often co-rule: that is, the aging king would select two
members of his family to rule jointly, as equals, when he died. Ptolemy VI, for example,
governed with his mother after his father's death in 180 b.c., while Ptolemy XI was made
co-ruler with his stepmother 100 years later. Soon after taking office, however, he
murdered her, only to be killed himself by an angry crowd of Alexandrians.
Such violence often accompanied this arrangement. Even the friendliest co-rulers frequently
spied on each other. But if the two disliked each other before gaining power, disaster almost
always followed. Ptolemy XII was all too aware of these problems. It was, after all, the
murder of his father, Ptolemy XI, that had put him on the throne. The two strongest
candidates likely to follow Ptolemy XII were his son, Ptolemy XIII, ambitious but lacking in
judgment, and his daughter, the equally ambitious Cleopatra. Ptolemy XIII had tradition on
his side, since thrones usually went to sons, not daughters. But, since Cleopatra was older
and more intelligent than her brother, their father made them joint rulers. In an effort to
further strengthen ties between them, he also ordered them to marry. (This was a common
practice among ancient Egypt's rulers.) So it was that Cleopatra and Ptolemy XIII rose to
power together. When their father was murdered in 51 b.c., Cleopatra was about 18,
Ptolemy XIII no more than 12.
The young Ptolemy's first decisions were disastrous. Rather than adopt a policy of wait-andsee, he took sides in the fierce power struggle then taking place in Rome. When the party
he favored--the one led by General Gnaeus Pompey-- lost, he realized that his support had
won him only the hostility of Rome's most powerful men. The young king might have
recovered from this defeat, had it not been for his advisers. These men, led by a military
commander named Achillas and several other members of the royal court, succeeded in
increasing their own power by turning the king against Cleopatra. Long overshadowed by
his older sister, Ptolemy listened eagerly to his advisers' suggestion that he force her to
leave Alexandria and rule by himself.
Cleopatra did leave, but she was not about to surrender to her brother the right to rule. She
quickly raised an army and returned to confront him. War was delayed temporarily, when
the Roman leader Julius Caesar arrived in Egypt. After evaluating the situation, Caesar
decided to intervene. After all, he reasoned, Ptolemy and Cleopatra would not have gained
the throne had the Roman forces not restored their father to office. Nevertheless, after
Caesar ordered brother and sister to settle their differences, Ptolemy almost immediately
resumed preparations for war. This time, he chose to oppose both his sister and the
Romans.
The Last of the Ptolemies
by Chaddie Kruger
She became queen of Egypt at 18. She spoke Greek and at least eight other languages. She
was the first Ptolemy to learn Egyptian. She was also the last Ptolemy. She was the bright
and vivacious Cleopatra VII.
Beginning her reign in 51 B.C., Cleopatra inherited a tightly centralized administration,
developed mainly by Ptolemy I and Ptolemy II. Alexandria was her capital.
Cleopatra ruled brilliantly. Egyptians worshiped their kings and queens as gods on earth,
specifically as Osiris and his sister-wife Isis. So the Greek Cleopatra cleverly strengthened
Egyptian loyalty to the crown by identifying herself with Isis, and her brothers with Osiris.
Even though the brothers, first one and then the other, co-ruled with her, Cleopatra held
the real authority.
Her first goal was to protect her position against rivals. She also hoped to increase Egypt’s
territories and riches. To accomplish both, Cleopatra recognized that friendship with Rome,
the greatest power in the Mediterranean, was essential.
Cleopatra had seen her father, Ptolemy XII, give Roman leaders enormous bribes so that
he, and not his opposition, would be formally recognized as king of Egypt and a Roman ally.
Nevertheless, there were influential Romans who wanted to make Egypt, with its vast
wealth, a Roman province.
When the Roman ruler Julius Caesar arrived in Alexandria in 48 B.C., Cleopatra resolved to
win his heart. Their love affair became famous. Caesar did defeat Cleopatra’s rebellious
brother, Ptolemy XIII, and officially recognized Cleopatra as queen of Egypt. For the time
being, Egypt remained independent.
The fate of Alexandria, however, became increasingly tied to Rome’s. After Caesar was
assassinated in 44 B.C., Caesar’s friend Mark Antony and Caesar’s nephew Octavian vied
with each other for power. Invited to meet with Antony, Cleopatra made herself irresistible.
The Greek historian Plutarch elaborates:
Cleopatra’s boat arrived with royal purple sails, golden stern, and silver oars. The queen lay
under a gold awning. Luscious perfumes wafted from ship to shore. She then treated Antony
to a sumptuous dinner, with beautiful lights glittering in many intricate patterns.
In 34 B.C., Antony, in a lavish Alexandrian ceremony, granted vast territories to Cleopatra
and her children (rumor said their fathers were Caesar and Antony). Together, Antony and
Cleopatra, who now was called “Queen of Kings,” planned to rule Rome and the East.
The sea battle off the west coast of Greece at Actium shattered these dreams. Octavian
defeated Cleopatra and Antony, and the following year—30 B.C.—he stormed Cleopatra’s
beloved Alexandria and proclaimed Egypt a Roman province. Antony chose death by his own
hand. So, too, did the 39-year-old Cleopatra. Tradition says she died of poisoning, perhaps
from a snake bite.
Centuries later, people in Rome still admired Cleopatra’s gold statue in the Temple of Venus.
Caesar himself had placed it there—a gleaming reminder of the last, and perhaps greatest,
of Alexandria’s Ptolemies.
Cleopatra VII: Boldness and Ambition
Duane Damon
Toting a large rolled carpet, Apollodorus strode boldly through the halls of the Alexandrian
palace. He knew the way well. Until recently, his royal mistress, Queen Cleopatra, had made
her home here. At present, the Roman conqueror Julius Caesar had taken over the palace to
enjoy a brief rest from battling his military and political rival, Pompey.
Like Rome, Egypt was in the throes of its own civil war. Across the Egyptian–Syrian border,
the opposing armies of Ptolemy XIII and his sister Cleopatra eyed each other menacingly.
Hoping to iron out their differences, Caesar had summoned the royal siblings to a meeting
in their own palace. Ptolemy had grudgingly agreed, but his Egyptian troops had walled in
Cleopatra behind the border in Syria.
Bowing, Apollodorus lowered the bulging carpet to the floor and unrolled it. Out tumbled the
queen of Egypt. The astonished Caesar could only marvel at the young woman's
resourcefulness. Soon he would be captivated by her charm and intelligence as well. In one
bold stroke, Cleopatra had escaped Ptolemy's forces and won over the one man who could
help her regain the throne. It was the kind of brazen yet delicate political game she would
play successfully again and again.
Cleopatra was born in 69 B.C. She was actually the seventh queen of Egypt by that name.
Like her predecessors, Cleopatra was not Egyptian, but a Macedonian Greek. Her father was
Ptolemy XII. Because of a family feud in which his wife and other members of his family
plotted against him, Ptolemy attempted to buy the support of Roman legions to ensure the
continuation of his reign. When he died in 51 B.C., eighteen-year-old Cleopatra came to
power all too aware of a basic political fact: Power in Egypt was directly linked to influence
in Rome.
Cleopatra was forced to share the throne with her younger brother Ptolemy XIII. Ambitious
men in the Egyptian court distrusted Cleopatra's independence. They used their influence
with her brother to drive her from Alexandria in 48 B.C.
Escaping to Syria, she organized an army to march against her brother. Ptolemy's army had
confronted hers at the border when Caesar arrived in Alexandria. Cleopatra had herself
smuggled into the palace, where she enlisted the Roman's aid. In short order, Caesar's
legions defeated Ptolemy's forces. Ptolemy drowned while trying to escape.
Cleopatra promptly had herself installed as queen of Egypt with another brother, Ptolemy
XIV. Unlike the earlier Ptolemies, Cleopatra actually learned the language of her subjects.
Well educated and shrewd, she won popular support by adopting the Egyptians’ religious
beliefs and rituals. In turn, they identified their queen with Isis, the most powerful goddess.
Popular histories and dramas have often portrayed Cleopatra as a dark, beautiful temptress.
In reality, since Cleopatra was Greek, she could have had fair skin and blue eyes. Judging
by the images on coins, she was probably attractive but not beautiful. Highly intelligent, she
had an engaging speaking voice and could converse brilliantly. In Cleopatra, men of power,
such as Julius Caesar, found a woman who was their intellectual and political match.
More than anything else, the young queen wanted to ensure that she and her children
would continue to rule Egypt. She also vowed to keep her country independent of the evergrowing Roman Empire. To succeed in the second goal, Cleopatra had to accomplish the
first.
Once Cleopatra had convinced Caesar of her political skill and insight, the two plotted
together. In time, they became lovers, and Cleopatra bore Caesar a son, Caesarion (Little
Caesar). Shortly after his birth, Cleopatra ordered the execution of Ptolemy XIV so that
Caesarion would be the next in line for the throne. Cleopatra was tested in 44 B.C. when
Caesar was assassinated, but his murder did not dampen her hope.
The scramble for power following Caesar's death left several Romans vying for control of the
Roman Empire. One was Octavian (known to history as Augustus Caesar), Caesar's
grandnephew and adopted son. Another was a former general in Caesar's army, the dashing
and pleasure-loving Mark Antony. Antony needed money to defeat Octavian, so he turned to
Egypt for help.
Cleopatra saw Antony's Roman legions as the army she needed for her own purposes. She
and Antony met to discuss business and became lovers. In the spring of 40 B.C., Antony,
financed by the riches of Egypt, marched out against Octavian. (A victory would have made
Cleopatra and Antony the most powerful rulers on earth.) On September 2, 31 B.C.,
Octavian's navy defeated Antony's fleet off Actium in western Greece. When Octavian
advanced on Alexandria, Antony committed suicide. Cleopatra's own efforts to make peace
with Octavian over the next few months failed.
Legend tells us that the Egyptian queen carried with her into the mausoleum where Antony
was buried a poisonous asp concealed in a basket of figs. When Octavian's officers arrived,
they found her dead.
Fearing a later challenge to his power, Octavian ordered Caesarion killed as well. Thus
ended the rule of the Ptolemies in Egypt, which was soon made a province of Rome. The
independence that Cleopatra had sought died with her.
BBC History of CleopatraHer coin portrait shows that her looks were ordinary, however she was certainly an
astute politician, with an ability to bring prosperity and peace to a country that was
bankrupt and in the throws of civil war. By the end of her reign she had managed to reestablish much of Egypt's wealth, which had been squandered previously by her father,
Ptolemy XII. She is believed to have negotiated a highly profitable oil deal with the
Nabatean Arabs, and she was the only member of the ruling Macedonian Greek elite
who knew how to read hieroglyphs; she also spoke many foreign languages.
Clepatra met Julius Caesar in 48 BC and formed an alliance with him, based on shared
politics rather than romantic love. In 47 BC she bore him a child, called Caesarion,
though Caesar never publicly acknowledged him as his son. In 44 BC Caesar was
assassinated, and Cleopatra returned from Rome to Egypt. She murdered her brother
and co-regent, Ptolemy XIV, and appointed Caeasarion to the throne.
In 41 BC Mark Antony (at that time one of the ruling triumvirate of the Roman Republic,
along with Octavian and Lepidus), whom she had met some years previously,
summoned her to meet him in Tarsus, and it is widely believed that they planned to
create an Oriental Empire together. Cleopatra's foreign policy goal, in addition to
preserving her personal power, was to maintain Egypt's independence from the rapidly
expanding Roman Empire. By trading with Eastern nations—Arabia and possibly as far
away as India—she built up Egypt's economy, bolstering her country's status as a world
power. By allying herself with Roman general Mark Antony, Cleopatra hoped to keep
Octavian, Julius Caesar's heir and Antony's rival, from making Egypt a vassal to Rome.
Ancient sources make it clear that Cleopatra and Antony did love each other and that
Cleopatra bore Antony three children; still, the relationship was also very useful to an
Egyptian queen who wished to expand and protect her empire.
On 2 September, in 31 BC, Antony and Cleopatra combined armies to take on those
forces of Rome that were under the control of Octavian - in the ancient world's last great
sea battle, at Actium. Facing defeat, legend has it that Cleopatra turned and fled taking
her treasure with her, yet recent reinterpretations of the events suggest that she was
probably escaping as part of a planned manoeuvre rather than as an act of cowardice.
Antony, seeing that Cleopatra was making her escape, decided to abandon his fleet and
follow her as she made for Egypt, where they continued to live for nearly a year.
However, once Octavian had pursued him to Egypt, Antony's troops deserted him and,
faced with an impossible situation, he took his own life. On 12 August, in 30 BC, 11
days after the death of her lover, Cleopatra chose also to commit suicide rather than live
as a Roman captive. There is still uncertainty as to whether she died from a serpent's
bite or ingested a deadly dose of poison.