The movies depict Cleopatra, the last and most famous queen of Egypt, as a beautiful woman living a dramatic life and dying a tragic death. In reality, Cleopatra was not a beauty in the conventional sense. Coins minted during her reign show a woman with masculine features and a hooknose. But her life certainly was dramatic. She was the last pharaoh of Egypt, and two powerful Roman rulers fell in love with her and fought wars in her behalf. She has been portrayed as both a passionate, romantic heroine and an ambitious, calculating ruler. But who really was Cleopatra?
First of all, Cleopatra was not Egyptian. Her ancestors came from the Greek kingdom of Macedon, along with the famous conqueror Alexander the Great. When Alexander swept across the Middle East, he brought with him thousands of soldiers and introduced Greek culture to the areas he conquered. After Alexander’s death in 323 BC, one of his generals, a Macedonian named Ptolemy, took over the kingdom of Egypt. As the pharaoh, Ptolemy began a dynasty that lasted three hundred years, with Cleopatra as his last royal descendant.
"Cleopatra" was a common name given to daughters in the royal family in Ptolemaic Egypt, and the woman known as Cleopatra was actually Cleopatra VII, a daughter born to Ptolemy XII in 69 BC. In Cleopatra’s time, Rome was expanding its boundaries while the pharaoh’s power was shrinking. Cleopatra’s father, Ptolemy XII, had resorted to bribing Roman officials to keep Egypt from being absorbed into Roman territory.
In order to preserve the purity of the royal bloodline in Egypt, brothers and sisters were often married. This was the case for Cleopatra, who was wed to her younger brother Ptolemy XIII when she was around 18 and he was 10. After the death of her father in 51 BC, Cleopatra was the dominant ruler of Egypt for about three years, until her brother-husband and his advisors had her exiled. Undeterred, she raised an army to fight for her position as co-ruler of Egypt.
When Julius Caesar, the ruler of Rome, claimed the right to act as an arbiter between Cleopatra and her brother, Cleopatra realized that having a good relationship with Caesar was essential to regaining her throne. So, after Caesar arrived in Egypt in 48 BC, she persuaded him to support her return as queen. Reportedly, she had her attendant smuggle her into Caesar’s palace concealed in a rolled-up carpet. When she presented herself as the rug was unrolled, Caesar was charmed. Even though Caesar had reinstated Ptolemy XIII as sole ruler of Egypt, he changed his mind after spending one evening with Cleopatra and declared her Ptolemy’s co-ruler the very next day.
As a result of Caesar’s decision, Ptolemy XIII and his army rebelled against him, but during the fighting, Ptolemy XIII drowned in the Nile. At his death, Caesar did not declare Egypt a Roman province but instead allowed Cleopatra to remain queen of an independent Egypt. Egyptian tradition demanded that Cleopatra marry another younger brother to share the throne, which she did, but she and Caesar still became lovers. She took him on sailing tours on the Nile, accompanied by hundreds of Roman boats to display her power to her people. Caesar put off returning to Rome, content to spend his time with Cleopatra. In 47 BC, she gave birth to a son, Caesarion, which means "Little Caesar."
In 46 BC, Caesar did return to Rome, and a few months later, Cleopatra and Caesarion followed. They lived as his guests in the palace, and Caesar even had a statue of Cleopatra erected in a temple, angering many Romans. He also declared himself dictator for life and took control of the Roman government, upsetting those who wanted to keep Rome a republic. In 44 BC, on the ides of March, his political opponents assassinated him in the Senate, stabbing him 23 times.
After Caesar’s murder, Cleopatra returned to her throne in Egypt. With no clear leader to succeed Caesar, civil war broke out in Rome. Caesar’s adopted son, Octavian, and two generals—Mark Lepidus and Mark Antony—won the power struggle and formed a three-man dictatorship. While Octavian ruled the western Roman territories, it was decided that Antony would be in charge of the eastern provinces.
In 41 BC, Antony summoned Cleopatra to meet with him in the city of Tarsus, so she sailed to him in her royal barge, dressed as the Egyptian goddess Isis. Antony was captivated by Cleopatra’s performance and returned to Egypt to spend the winter with her, leaving his wife behind in Rome. Cleopatra became pregnant, and in 40 BC, she gave birth to twins. During the same year, Antony’s Roman wife died of illness.
Mark Antony returned to Rome and married Octavian’s sister, Octavia, in order to try to stabilize his uneasy relationship with Octavian. But when he returned to Egypt, he again fell under Cleopatra’s spell, and made the serious mistake of marrying her as well—without divorcing Octavia. This insulted Octavian, who began to work openly to turn all of Rome against Antony and Cleopatra.
Octavian announced that Antony had given Roman territory to his children with Cleopatra, and that he wished to be buried in Egypt upon his death. Rumors spread about the ambition of the Egyptian queen and Antony. Arguing that they might try to conquer Rome, Octavian was able to persuade the Roman Senate to declare war on Egypt. At the Battle of Actium in 31 BC, the combined fleet of Antony and Cleopatra went to battle with Octavian’s forces. At a crucial moment, Cleopatra fled the battle scene with her fleet, and Antony chased after her, leaving his ships behind to be captured or destroyed.
Cleopatra and Mark Antony returned to Egypt with Octavian’s forces at their heels. With defeat inevitable, Cleopatra locked herself in the mausoleum that she had built. It is said that Antony, on hearing a false report that Cleopatra had died, committed suicide.
Some scholars believe that after Mark Antony’s death, Cleopatra tried to seduce Octavian in order to ally herself with another powerful man, but she was not successful. Aware that she would be paraded through Rome as Octavian’s captive, Cleopatra committed suicide, supposedly by allowing an asp to bite her. The last queen of Egypt died at the age of 39, and Egypt finally became a Roman province.
Throughout Cleopatra’s reign, she understood the significance of the events in her world and responded to each change. She used all her charm, wit, and talents of persuasion to put herself in a position of power. Historians think she had a great sense of theatrical presentation and knew how to impress people with shows of wealth and her natural charisma. This combination of skills was difficult to resist. Although she did not achieve her goal of keeping Egypt independent from Rome, she still left an indelible mark on history. And while we may never succeed in separating the truth from the myth, Cleopatra lives on in the countless works of art she has inspired through the ages.