Cleopatra VII: The Last Great Pharaoh of Ancient Egypt
Cleopatra VII (69-30 BCE, reign 51-30 BCE) was the last ruler of Egypt before it was annexed as a province of Rome. Arguably the most famous Egyptian queen, Cleopatra was ethnically Greek as a member of the Macedonian Ptolemaic Dynasty (323-30 BCE), which ruled Egypt after the death of Alexander the Great (356-323 BCE), but she was culturally Egyptian and presented herself as an Egyptian queen.
She is probably best known for her love affair with the Roman general and statesman Mark Antony (83-30 BCE), as well as her earlier affair with Julius Caesar (100-44 BCE), but was a powerful queen before her interaction with either and a much stronger monarch than any of the later rulers of the Ptolemaic Dynasty.
Cleopatra was fluent in a number of languages, was reported to have been extremely charming, and was an effective diplomat and administrator. Her involvement with both Caesar and Mark Antony came about after she had already successfully ruled and steered Ptolemaic Egypt through a difficult period.
Her affair with Antony brought her into direct conflict with Octavian (later known as Augustus, reign 27 BCE to 14 CE), who was Antony's brother-in-law. Octavian would defeat Cleopatra and Antony in the Battle of Actium in 31 BCE, ending her reign. She and Antony would then both commit suicide the following year, and Octavian would found the Roman Empire and relegate Cleopatra to a minor chapter in Rome's past. Scholar Stacy Schiff comments:
The rewriting of history began almost immediately. Not only did Mark Antony disappear from the record, but Actium wondrously transformed itself into a major engagement, a resounding victory, a historical turning point. It went from an end to a beginning. Augustus had rescued the country from great peril.
(297)
The Roman historians seized on the concept of the seductive woman from the East who had threatened Rome and paid the price. This image of Cleopatra has, unfortunately, remained through the intervening centuries, and only in the last century have scholarly attempts been made to portray her in a more realistic and flattering light.
Youth & Succession
In June of 323 BCE, Alexander the Great died, and his vast empire was divided among his generals in the War of the Diadochi. One of these generals was Ptolemy I Soter (reign 323-282 BCE), a fellow Macedonian, who would found the Ptolemaic Dynasty in ancient Egypt.
The Ptolemaic line, of Macedonian-Greek ethnicity, would continue to rule Egypt until the death of Cleopatra VII in 30 BCE, when it was taken by Rome. Ptolemy I, Ptolemy II (reign 285-246 BCE), and Ptolemy III (reign 246-222 BCE) governed Egypt well, but after them, their successors ruled poorly until Cleopatra came to the throne. In fact, the difficulties she had to overcome were primarily the legacy of her predecessors.
Cleopatra VII Philopator was born in 69 BCE and ruled jointly with her father, Ptolemy XII Auletes. When she was 18 years old, her father died, leaving her the throne. Because Egyptian tradition held that a woman needed a male consort to reign, her 12-year-old brother, Ptolemy XIII, was ceremonially married to her. Cleopatra soon dropped his name from all official documents, however, and ruled alone.
The Ptolemies, insisting on Macedonian-Greek superiority, had ruled in Egypt for centuries without ever learning the Egyptian language or fully embracing the customs. Cleopatra, however, was fluent in Egyptian, eloquent in her native Greek, and proficient in other languages as well. Because of this, she was able to communicate easily with diplomats from other countries without the need of a translator and, shortly after assuming the throne, without bothering to hear the counsel of her advisors on matters of state. Schiff notes how "Cleopatra had the gift of languages and glided easily among them" (160). Plutarch, from whose works Schiff draws this observation, writes:
It was a pleasure merely to hear the sound of her voice, with which, like an instrument of many strings, she could pass from one language to another; so that there were few of the barbarian nations that she answered by an interpreter.
(Lives, Antony and Cleopatra, Ch. 8)
Her habit of making decisions and acting on them without the counsel of the members of her court upset some of the high-ranking officials. One example of this was when Roman mercenary lieutenants employed by the Ptolemaic crown murdered the sons of the Roman governor of Syria to prevent them from requesting her assistance. She immediately arrested the lieutenants responsible and turned them over to the aggrieved father for punishment.
In spite of her many achievements, her court was not pleased with her independent attitude. In 48 BCE, her chief advisor, Pothinus, along with another, Theodotus of Chios, and the General Achillas, overthrew her and placed Ptolemy XIII on the throne, believing him to be easier to control than his sister. Cleopatra and her half-sister, Arsinoë IV, fled to Thebaid for safety.
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