The last pharaoh of Egypt, Cleopatra (69–30 BC) was among the most famous and powerful women of the ancient world. She is an object of enduring fascination for her role in Rome’s civil wars, her romances with Julius Caesar (100–44 BC) and Mark Antony (83–30 BC)—and her grisly suicide.
Cleopatra was born into a line of Greek-speaking monarchs who had ruled Egypt since the country had been conquered by Alexander the Great (356–323 BC). When she was eighteen, Cleopatra inherited the throne jointly with her brother, Ptolemy XIII (c. 61–47 BC).
The two siblings were then married to each other. (This type of incestuous pairing was not uncommon among Egyptian royalty; in fact, Cleopatra’s mother and father were uncle and niece.) Both siblings schemed constantly to seize power from each other, until Cleopatra was forced into exile in about 50 BC.
In 48 BC, Cleopatra began her affair with Caesar, who took her side in the ongoing civil war with Ptolemy. With her lover’s help, Cleopatra was restored to the throne. In 47 BC, she gave birth to a son fathered by Caesar and named him Caesarion (47–30 BC).
Cleopatra hoped that her son would be Caesar’s successor. But after the dictator’s death in 44 BC, Caesar’s adopted son, Octavian (63 BC–AD 14), took power, ruling jointly with Antony and another general. Antony and Cleopatra then became lovers and plotted to wrest power in Rome away from Octavian.
In 31 BC, Octavian went to war against Antony and Cleopatra and defeated their navy at the Battle of Actium. Both lovers then committed suicide; Cleopatra supposedly induced an asp, a type of poisonous snake, to bite her on the breast.
Cleopatra was the last in the line of Egyptian pharaohs, ending a succession that had lasted more than 3,000 years. The region became a Roman province, Aegyptus; it would not regain its full independence until the twentieth century.
ADDITIONAL FACTS
- Cleopatra was actually the seventh Egyptian queen by that name; her namesake, Cleopatra I, ruled from roughly 180 to 176 BC.
- The last Egyptian queen was played by actress Elizabeth Taylor (1932–) in Cleopatra (1963); her paycheck of $7 million for the performance was a Hollywood record at the time.
- Cleopatra had four children—one (Caesarion) with Caesar and three with Mark Antony. Caesarion was executed by Octavian, and the other three were arrested, paraded through the streets of Rome in Octavian’s victory procession, and later raised by foster parents.
