If you think stories about power-plays, treachery and family feuds on dramas like Game of Thrones or even something closer to our present-day lives, like Eastenders, are a bit of an exaggeration, think again!
Let’s consider the awful final years of the Ptolemaic dynasty in Egypt.
Cleopatra’s family
They were Macedonian Greeks that ruled Egypt for 275 years, from 305B.C. to 30B.C.
Her ancestor was Ptolemy I (Ptolemy Soter). He was a Macedonian general, also a close friend and bodyguard of Alexander the Great.
Cleopatra’s father was Ptolemy XII and he lost his throne in a revolt, led by Cleopatra’s eldest sister Bernice IV in 58B.C.
He fled to Rome with his younger daughter Cleopatra but returned in 55B.C. and with the help of the Roman army, Bernice was defeated and then beheaded.
Ptolemy XII died in 51B.C. leaving Egypt to be ruled by his surviving, loyal daughter Cleopatra VII and her younger brother Ptolemy XIII. They shared power together but soon had a falling out that led to a nasty civil-war in Egypt.
Roman strategy
The Roman general, Julius Caesar tried to get Cleopatra VII and her brother Ptolemy XIII to make peace, but Ptolemy didn’t trust Caesar, so he joined forces with Cleopatra’s half-sister Arsinoe IV. He led an army that attacked Caesar and Cleopatra at their palace in Egypt, but, again the Romans came to Caesar’s help and Ptolemy XIII was later killed at the battle of the Nile in 47B.C.
Arsinoe was exiled and Julius Caesar declared that Cleopatra VII should be queen of Egypt and share power with her even younger brother Ptolemy XIV.
Cleopatra later had a son by Caesar and called him Caesarion.
In 44B.C. Julius Caesar was assassinated in Rome (while Cleopatra was staying there with her son Caesarion).
Cleopatra’s ambition
Cleopatra immediately tried to have her son succeed Caesar as ruler, but power went to Caesar’s great nephew and adopted son Octavian. (He was later called Augustus, Rome’s first Emperor).
She then arranged the murder of her younger brother Ptolemy XIV, to take full power in Egypt and joined with Roman general Mark Anthony against Octavian. (Cleopatra went on to have 3 children by Mark Anthony).
Actium
They fought against Octavian in a great sea battle (The Battle of Actium in 31B.C.) in which Octavian’s general Agrippa, defeated their fleet of ships.
Octavian’s army then invaded Egypt in 30B.C. and Mark Anthony committed suicide. Cleopatra, the last true ‘ruling’ Pharaoh of Egypt also took her own life, and according to legend she deliberately let a poisonous snake bite her!
What happened next
Her son, Caesarion, shared power with his mother but was supposed to have been executed by Octavian, in 30B.C. (when he was 17) but the evidence is a little sketchy about this… some people think he may have fled to safety… what do you think?
But she was likely to be descended from Macedonian Greeks and so she would probably dress like a Greek queen rather than an ancient Egyptian.
There have been lots of arguments about her appearance. But we will never truly know.
Image source – https://www.ancient.eu/image/318/bust-of-cleopatra/
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