Cleopatra VII: Last Ptolemaic Ruler of Egypt (51-30 BC)

Cleopatra VII Philopator was the last active ruler of the Ptolemaic dynasty of Egypt, reigning from 51 BC until her death in August 30 BC. Through her alliances, first with Julius Caesar and then with Mark Antony, she tried to preserve Egypt’s independence as Rome came to dominate the Mediterranean. Her defeat by Octavian at Actium and her death in Alexandria ended three centuries of Ptolemaic rule and turned Egypt into a Roman province.

Background: the Ptolemaic kingdom

The Ptolemies were descended from Ptolemy I Soter, a Macedonian general of Alexander the Great who took Egypt after Alexander’s death in 323 BC. From their capital at Alexandria they ruled a rich kingdom whose grain, trade and scholarship, centred on the Library of Alexandria, made it one of the great powers of the Hellenistic world.

By the 1st century BC the dynasty had been weakened by family feuds and civil wars, and Rome increasingly decided its fate. Cleopatra’s father, Ptolemy XII Auletes, paid huge bribes to Roman politicians to be recognised as king. Driven out by the Alexandrians in 58 BC, he was restored in 55 BC by a Roman army under Aulus Gabinius, which left soldiers in Alexandria.

Cleopatra was born in 69 BC, probably in Alexandria. Her mother is not securely identified; she may have been Cleopatra V Tryphaena or another woman. She was well educated, and Plutarch claims she spoke many languages and was the first of her family to learn Egyptian.

Early reign and civil war

When Ptolemy XII died in 51 BC, his will named Cleopatra, then about 18, and her brother Ptolemy XIII, about 10, as joint rulers under the protection of Rome. Cleopatra appears to have tried to rule alone at first, but the young king’s advisers, led by the eunuch Pothinus and the general Achillas, turned the court against her. Around 49 BC she was forced out of Alexandria and raised an army on the border with Syria.

In 48 BC the Roman civil war arrived in Egypt. After his defeat by Caesar at Pharsalus in Greece, Pompey the Great fled to Egypt and was murdered on 28 September as he landed, on the orders of Ptolemy XIII’s advisers. Julius Caesar arrived in Alexandria a few days later.

Cleopatra and Caesar

Caesar summoned both rulers to settle the dispute. Cleopatra, whose way into the city was blocked, was smuggled into the palace by her follower Apollodorus the Sicilian, hidden, according to Plutarch, in a bag for bedding. She and Caesar became lovers and political allies.

The Alexandrians and Ptolemy XIII’s army rose against Caesar, beginning the Alexandrian War. Caesar, besieged in the palace quarter, held out until reinforcements arrived. In early 47 BC Ptolemy XIII drowned in the Nile after his army’s defeat. Caesar made Cleopatra queen with another younger brother, Ptolemy XIV, as her nominal co-ruler.

In 47 BC Cleopatra gave birth to a son, Ptolemy Caesar, nicknamed Caesarion (“little Caesar”). Caesar did not officially acknowledge him, but Cleopatra presented him as Caesar’s child and heir. From 46 BC Cleopatra stayed in Rome as Caesar’s guest in his villa across the Tiber, a visit that caused scandal among Romans. She was still there when Caesar was assassinated on the Ides of March 44 BC, and she then returned to Egypt. Ptolemy XIV died soon afterwards, possibly poisoned on her orders, and Caesarion became her co-ruler as Ptolemy XV.

Cleopatra and Mark Antony

After Caesar’s death, power in Rome passed to the Second Triumvirate of Octavian, Mark Antony and Lepidus. Antony took charge of the eastern provinces, and in 41 BC he summoned Cleopatra to Tarsus in Cilicia. Plutarch’s famous description has her sailing up the river Cydnus in a barge with a gilded stern, purple sails and silver oars, dressed as Venus.

Antony spent the winter of 41–40 BC with her in Alexandria. Cleopatra persuaded him to have her sister Arsinoe IV, a former rival, executed at Ephesus. In 40 BC she gave birth to twins, Alexander Helios and Cleopatra Selene, but Antony returned to Italy and married Octavian’s sister Octavia to seal a political agreement.

From 37 BC Antony and Cleopatra were together again, and a third child, Ptolemy Philadelphus, was born in 36 BC. Antony needed Egyptian money and supplies for his campaign against Parthia, which failed badly in 36 BC. Cleopatra, in return, gained territories in Syria, Phoenicia, Cyprus and elsewhere, restoring much of the old Ptolemaic empire.

In 34 BC, in a ceremony known as the Donations of Alexandria, Antony proclaimed Cleopatra “Queen of Kings” and Caesarion “King of Kings”, and assigned eastern lands to their children. Octavian used this to portray Antony as a Roman who had betrayed Rome for a foreign queen.

Actium and the end

In 32 BC Antony divorced Octavia, and Rome declared war, formally on Cleopatra alone. The decisive clash came at the Battle of Actium off western Greece on 2 September 31 BC. Octavian’s fleet under Marcus Agrippa defeated Antony’s, and Cleopatra’s squadron broke away and sailed for Egypt, followed by Antony.

Octavian advanced on Egypt in 30 BC. When his army reached Alexandria on 1 August, Antony’s remaining forces deserted, and Antony stabbed himself, dying, according to Plutarch, in Cleopatra’s arms. Cleopatra was taken prisoner. Fearing that she would be paraded in Octavian’s triumph in Rome, she took her own life, traditionally dated to 10 or 12 August 30 BC.

Plutarch reports that an asp was smuggled to her in a basket of figs, but he and the geographer Strabo both note that the method was uncertain and that poison was also suggested. Octavian had Caesarion, then about 17 and a potential rival as a son of Caesar, killed, while Antony’s children by Cleopatra were taken to Rome and raised by Octavia. Cleopatra Selene later married King Juba II of Mauretania; their son Ptolemy of Mauretania ruled that kingdom until he was executed by the emperor Caligula in AD 40.

Ruler and image

Cleopatra was a capable administrator. She managed the economy through a period of famines and low Nile floods, issued coinage in her own name and took a personal part in religious ceremonies as a living goddess, identified with Isis. Temples continued to be built in her name, notably at Dendera, where a large relief shows her with Caesarion.

Most ancient accounts of her come from Roman writers, whose views were shaped by Octavian’s propaganda. They describe her as a dangerous seductress who corrupted Roman men. Modern historians stress instead her intelligence, education and political skill as a ruler trying to keep her kingdom independent against overwhelming Roman power.

Myths and facts

Cleopatra was an ethnic Egyptian. Her family was Macedonian Greek, although she was born in Egypt and embraced its religion. Part of her ancestry is unknown because her mother and paternal grandmother are not securely identified.

She seduced Caesar by arriving in a carpet. Plutarch mentions a bedding bag; the carpet comes from later retellings.

She was famed for overwhelming beauty. Plutarch says her charm and conversation, more than her looks, made her captivating.

Her tomb has been found. Despite periodic headlines, her tomb, which ancient sources place near the palace in Alexandria, has never been located.

Legacy

Cleopatra’s reputation was shaped first by her enemies. Augustan poets such as Horace and Virgil cast her as a foreign threat to Rome, though Horace also admired the courage of her death. Plutarch’s Life of Antony, written more than a century later, provided the detailed story that later writers followed.

In the Renaissance, Plutarch’s account inspired William Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra (c. 1606), which presents her as a complex, passionate queen. Painters from the 16th to the 19th century returned again and again to her meeting with Antony and her death. In the 20th century, films, above all the lavish 1963 Hollywood production starring Elizabeth Taylor, fixed a glamorous image in popular culture.

Historians today read the evidence differently. Her surviving coins, a papyrus document from 33 BC that may carry her own handwritten Greek word “ginesthoi” (“let it be done”), and Egyptian temple reliefs show a working monarch engaged in government and religion. Scholars also continue to debate her portraits: the few sculptures identified as Cleopatra, such as the marble head in Berlin, show a woman in Greek royal style with a diadem rather than an exotic beauty.

Timeline

• 69 BC: Cleopatra is born, probably in Alexandria.
• 51 BC: She becomes queen with her brother Ptolemy XIII.
• 48 BC: Pompey is murdered in Egypt; Caesar arrives and backs Cleopatra.
• 47 BC: Ptolemy XIII drowns; Caesarion is born.
• 44 BC: Caesar is assassinated; Cleopatra returns to Egypt.
• 41 BC: Cleopatra meets Mark Antony at Tarsus.
• 34 BC: The Donations of Alexandria.
• 2 September 31 BC: Defeat at the Battle of Actium.
• August 30 BC: Octavian takes Alexandria; Antony and Cleopatra die.

Why it matters

Cleopatra’s death marked the end of the Hellenistic age that began with Alexander the Great and the final absorption of the eastern Mediterranean into Rome. Egypt’s wealth helped Octavian become Augustus, the first Roman emperor. Her story, retold by Shakespeare, painters and filmmakers, has made her one of the most famous women in history.