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    Cleopatra: Early Life and Ascension To Throne: Digging For The Truth: Cleopatra, The Last Pharaoh On History Vault

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    Gayle Omisol
    Cleopatra VII ruled Egypt for nearly three decades, first as co-regent with family members and then with her son. She came from a line of Macedonian rulers founded by Ptolemy after Alexander the Great's conquest. Cleopatra was a shrewd ruler who could speak many languages and aligned herself with the powerful Romans Julius Caesar and Mark Antony. Her relationships with these Roman leaders and her reputation for beauty became legendary.

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    Cleopatra: Early Life and Ascension To Throne: Digging For The Truth: Cleopatra, The Last Pharaoh On History Vault

    Uploaded by

    Gayle Omisol
    43 views5 pages
    Cleopatra VII ruled Egypt for nearly three decades, first as co-regent with family members and then with her son. She came from a line of Macedonian rulers founded by Ptolemy after Alexander the Great's conquest. Cleopatra was a shrewd ruler who could speak many languages and aligned herself with the powerful Romans Julius Caesar and Mark Antony. Her relationships with these Roman leaders and her reputation for beauty became legendary.

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    Cleopatra

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    Cleopatra VII ruled Egypt for nearly three decades, first as co-regent with family members and then with her son. She came from a line of Macedonian rulers founded by Ptolemy after Alexander the Great's conquest. Cleopatra was a shrewd ruler who could speak many languages and aligned herself with the powerful Romans Julius Caesar and Mark Antony. Her relationships with these Roman leaders and her reputation for beauty became legendary.

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    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    43 views5 pages

    Cleopatra: Early Life and Ascension To Throne: Digging For The Truth: Cleopatra, The Last Pharaoh On History Vault

    Uploaded by

    Gayle Omisol
    Cleopatra VII ruled Egypt for nearly three decades, first as co-regent with family members and then with her son. She came from a line of Macedonian rulers founded by Ptolemy after Alexander the Great's conquest. Cleopatra was a shrewd ruler who could speak many languages and aligned herself with the powerful Romans Julius Caesar and Mark Antony. Her relationships with these Roman leaders and her reputation for beauty became legendary.

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    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
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    of 5

    Cleopatra VII ruled ancient Egypt as co-regent (first with her father,

    then with her two younger brothers and finally with her son) for almost
    three decades. She was part of a dynasty of Macedonian rulers
    founded by Ptolemy, who served as general under Alexander the Great
    during his conquest of Egypt in 332 B.C. Well-educated and clever,
    Cleopatra could speak various languages and served as the dominant
    ruler in all three of her co-regencies. Her romantic liaisons and military
    alliances with the Roman leaders Julius Caesar and Mark Antony, as
    well as her supposed exotic beauty and powers of seduction, earned
    her an enduring place in history and popular myth.

    WATCH:  Digging for the Truth: Cleopatra, the Last Pharaoh on


    HISTORY Vault

    Cleopatra: Early Life and Ascension to


    Throne
    Since no contemporary accounts exist of Cleopatra’s life, it is difficult
    to piece together her biography with much certainty. Much of what is
    known about her life comes from the work of Greco-Roman scholars,
    particularly Plutarch. Born in 70 or 69 B.C., Cleopatra was a daughter
    of Ptolemy XII (Auletes), a descendant of Ptolemy I Soter, one
    of Alexander The Great ’s generals and the founder of the Ptolemaic
    line in Egypt . Her mother was believed to be Cleopatra V Tryphaena,
    the king’s wife (and possibly his half-sister). In 51 B.C., upon the
    apparently natural death of Auletes, the Egyptian throne passed to 18-
    year-old Cleopatra and her 10-year-old brother, Ptolemy XIII.

    Did you know? In the days between Cleopatra's death and Octavian's formal annexation of
    Egypt, her 16-year-old son Caesarion was officially sole ruler. He had no way of taking power,
    however, and was captured and executed shortly after his mother's suicide.
    Soon after the siblings’ ascension to the throne, Ptolemy’s advisers
    acted against Cleopatra, who was forced to flee Egypt for Syria  in 49
    B.C. She raised an army of mercenaries and returned the following
    year to face her brother’s forces in a civil war at Pelusium, on Egypt’s
    eastern border. Meanwhile, after allowing the Roman
    general Pompey  to be murdered, Ptolemy XIII welcomed the arrival of
    Pompey’s rival, Julius Caesar , to Alexandria. In order to help her
    cause, Cleopatra sought Caesar’s support, reportedly smuggling
    herself into the royal palace to plead her case with him.

    Caesar and Cleopatra


    For his part, Caesar needed to fund his own return to power in Rome ,
    and needed Egypt to repay the debts incurred by Auletes. After four
    months of war between Caesar’s outnumbered forces and those of
    Ptolemy XIII, Roman reinforcements arrived; Ptolemy was forced to
    flee Alexandria, and was believed to have drowned in the Nile River.
    Entering Alexandria as an unpopular conqueror, Caesar restored the
    throne to the equally unpopular Cleopatra and her younger brother
    Ptolemy XIV (then 13 years old). Caesar remained in Egypt with
    Cleopatra for a time, and around 47 B.C. she gave birth to a son,
    Ptolemy Caesar. He was believed to be Caesar’s child, and was known
    by the Egyptian people as Caesarion, or Little Caesar.

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    Sometime in 46-45 B.C., Cleopatra traveled with Ptolemy XIV and


    Caesarion to Rome to visit Caesar, who had returned earlier.
    After Caesar was murdered  in March 44 B.C., Cleopatra went back to
    Egypt; Ptolemy XIV was killed soon after (possibly by Cleopatra’s
    agents) and the three-year-old Caesarion was named co-regent with
    his mother, as Ptolemy XV. By this point, Cleopatra had strongly
    identified herself with the goddess Isis, the sister-wife of Osiris and
    mother of Horus. (This was consistent with the ancient Egyptian
    tradition of associating royalty with divinity in order to reinforce the
    position of kings and queens. Cleopatra III had also claimed to be
    associated with Isis, and Cleopatra VII was referred to as the “New
    Isis.”) She spoke as many as a dozen languages and was renowned for
    her “irresistible charm,” according to Plutarch.

    Cleopatra’s Seduction of Mark Antony


    With her infant son as co-regent, Cleopatra’s hold on power in Egypt
    was more secure than it had ever been. Still, unreliable flooding of the
    Nile resulted in failing crops, leading to inflation and hunger.
    Meanwhile, a conflict was raging in Rome between a second
    triumvirate of Caesar’s allies (Mark Antony , Octavian and Lepidus) and
    his assassins, Brutus and Cassius. Both sides asked for Egyptian
    support, and after some stalling Cleopatra sent four Roman legions
    stationed in Egypt by Caesar to support the triumvirate. In 42 B.C.,
    after defeating the forces of Brutus and Cassius in the battles of
    Philippi, Mark Antony and Octavian divided power in Rome.

    Mark Antony soon summoned Cleopatra to the Cicilian city of Tarsus


    (south of modern Turkey) to explain the role she had played in the
    complicated aftermath of Caesar’s assassination. According to the
    story recorded by Plutarch (and later dramatized famously by  William
    Shakespeare ), Cleopatra sailed to Tarsus in an elaborate ship, dressed
    in the robes of Isis. Antony, who associated himself with the Greek
    deity Dionysus, was seduced by her charms. 

    He agreed to protect Egypt and Cleopatra’s crown, pledging support for


    the removal of her younger sister and rival Arsinoe, then in exile.
    Cleopatra returned to Egypt, followed shortly thereafter by Antony, who
    left behind his third wife, Fulvia, and their children in Rome. He spent
    the winter of 41-40 B.C. in Alexandria, during which he and Cleopatra
    famously formed a drinking society called “The Inimitable Livers.” In 40
    B.C., after Antony’s return to Rome, Cleopatra gave birth to twins,
    Alexander Helios (sun) and Cleopatra Selene (moon).

    Cleopatra: Power Struggle


    After Fulvia took ill and died, Antony was forced to prove his loyalty to
    Octavian by making a diplomatic marriage with Octavian’s half-sister
    Octavia. Egypt grew more prosperous under Cleopatra’s rule, and in 37
    B.C. Antony again met with Cleopatra to obtain funds for his long-
    delayed military campaign against the kingdom of Parthia. In
    exchange, he agreed to return much of Egypt’s eastern empire,
    including Cyprus, Crete, Cyrenaica (Libya), Jericho and large portions
    of Syria and Lebanon. They again became lovers, and Cleopatra gave
    birth to another son, Ptolemy Philadelphos, in 36 B.C.

    After a humiliating defeat in Parthia, Antony publicly rejected his wife


    Octavia’s efforts to rejoin him and instead returned to Egypt and
    Cleopatra. In a public celebration in 34 B.C. known as the “Donations
    of Alexandria,” Antony declared Caesarion as Caesar’s son and rightful
    heir (as opposed to his adopted son, Octavian) and awarded land to
    each of his children with Cleopatra. This began a war of propaganda
    between him and the furious Octavian, who claimed that Antony was
    entirely under Cleopatra’s control and would abandon Rome and found
    a new capital in Egypt. In late 32 B.C., the Roman Senate stripped
    Antony of all his titles, and Octavian declared war on Cleopatra.

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