Cleopatra VII (69 BCE - 30 BCE) was the last active ruler of the Ptolemaic Kingdom of Egypt, reigning from 51 BCE until her death. [1] A skilled diplomat and administrator, she allied herself with Julius Caesar and then with Mark Antony in an effort to preserve Egyptian independence during the collapse of the Roman Republic. [2] Her defeat at the Battle of Actium and subsequent death ended three centuries of Ptolemaic rule and made Egypt a province of Rome. [3]
Background and accession
Cleopatra was born in Alexandria in 69 BCE, a daughter of Ptolemy XII Auletes. [1] The Ptolemies were a Macedonian Greek dynasty founded by a general of Alexander the Great, and they had ruled Egypt since 305 BCE while adopting the titles and religious role of the pharaohs. [3] Ancient writers report that Cleopatra was highly educated and the first of her line to learn the Egyptian language, alongside Greek and several others.
She came to the throne in 51 BCE at about eighteen, ruling jointly with her younger brother Ptolemy XIII in accordance with dynastic custom. [2] Court factions supporting her brother drove her from Alexandria within a few years, and she raised forces on the eastern frontier to reclaim her position.
Caesar and the Alexandrian War
In 48 BCE the Roman civil war reached Egypt when Pompey, defeated at Pharsalus, fled to Alexandria and was murdered on the orders of Ptolemy XIII's advisers. [1] Julius Caesar arrived days later and intervened in the dynastic dispute. Cleopatra reached him inside the palace, according to the tradition smuggled past her brother's guards, and secured his backing.
The resulting Alexandrian War ended with Ptolemy XIII's death and Cleopatra restored, now nominally alongside another brother, Ptolemy XIV. [3] She bore a son, Ptolemy XV, known as Caesarion, whom she presented as Caesar's child, and spent time in Rome as Caesar's guest until his assassination in 44 BCE. She then returned to Egypt, where Ptolemy XIV died and Caesarion was elevated as co-ruler.
Antony and Actium
In 41 BCE Cleopatra met Mark Antony at Tarsus, beginning a political and personal alliance that lasted until their deaths. [2] They had three children: the twins Alexander Helios and Cleopatra Selene, and Ptolemy Philadelphus.
At the ceremony known as the Donations of Alexandria in 34 BCE, Antony distributed eastern territories among Cleopatra and her children and affirmed Caesarion as Caesar's son. [1] Octavian, Caesar's adopted heir, used the event to portray Antony as a man who had abandoned Rome, and turned Roman opinion decisively against them.
War followed. The combined fleets of Antony and Cleopatra were defeated by Octavian's forces under Agrippa at Actium, off the western coast of Greece, in 31 BCE. [3] The pair withdrew to Egypt, and Octavian invaded the following year.
Death and aftermath
Antony took his own life as Alexandria fell. Cleopatra died in the city on or about 12 August 30 BCE at the age of thirty-nine; ancient accounts attribute her death to suicide by snakebite, though the details are uncertain and poison has also been proposed. [1]
Caesarion was killed on Octavian's orders, ending the dynasty. Egypt was annexed as a Roman province under the emperor's personal control, and its grain surplus became essential to Rome.
Legacy
Much of what is written about Cleopatra descends from hostile Roman sources composed after her defeat, and from Plutarch's later biography of Antony. [3] Her story reached early modern Europe through those texts and became a recurring subject in art, opera, drama and film, from Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra onward.
