A Greek Queen on an Egyptian Throne
The most famous Egyptian queen in history was not Egyptian. Cleopatra VII was a member of the Ptolemaic dynasty, descended from Ptolemy I Soter, a Macedonian Greek general and companion of Alexander the Great, and her first language was Koine Greek.
For nearly three centuries her family ruled Egypt without learning the language of the people they governed. Cleopatra broke the pattern: she is the only Ptolemaic ruler known to have learned Egyptian.
She did not stop there. She reportedly also spoke Ethiopian, Hebrew or Aramaic, Arabic, the Syrian language, Median, and Parthian, and possibly Latin as well. The linguistic arsenal was not a party trick; it matched her ambition to restore the territories across North Africa and Western Asia that had once belonged to the Ptolemaic Kingdom.
Caesar, a Civil War, and a Son
Cleopatra inherited the throne in 51 BC alongside her brother Ptolemy XIII, and the arrangement collapsed into civil war. Rome's own civil war then crashed into Egypt's: the defeated Roman statesman Pompey fled to Egypt in 48 BC, where Ptolemy XIII had him ambushed and killed, hoping to please the arriving Julius Caesar.
Caesar occupied Alexandria and took Cleopatra's side. Ptolemy XIII's forces besieged them in the palace, but reinforcements broke the siege and the young king drowned in the Battle of the Nile.
Caesar declared Cleopatra joint ruler with another brother and continued a private affair with her that produced a son, Caesarion, born in 47 BC. She visited Rome as a client queen in 46 and 44 BC, staying at Caesar's villa, and a golden statue of her was placed in the Temple of Venus Genetrix, an extraordinary honor for a foreign queen.
Antony and the Donations
Caesar's assassination in 44 BC reshuffled the world, and Cleopatra played her hand again. In the civil war that followed, she sided with the Second Triumvirate, the alliance of Octavian, Mark Antony, and Lepidus formed to avenge Caesar.
She met Antony at Tarsos in 41 BC, and the political alliance became an affair that produced three children. Antony grew increasingly dependent on Cleopatra for both funding and military aid as he launched invasions of the Parthian Empire and the Kingdom of Armenia.
Then came the provocation history remembers: the Donations of Alexandria, in which their children were declared rulers over various territories under Antony's authority. Octavian portrayed the ceremony as treason against Rome, forced Antony's allies in the Senate to flee the city in 32 BC, and declared war, aiming his propaganda not at Antony but at the foreign queen.
The Last Pharaoh
The end came at sea. Octavian's forces defeated Antony and Cleopatra's naval fleet at the Battle of Actium in 31 BC, then invaded Egypt in 30 BC. Antony, defeated, took his own life.
Cleopatra reportedly killed herself as well, probably by poisoning, choosing death over being publicly displayed in Octavian's triumphal procession through Rome. With her died an era: Egypt became a province of the Roman Empire, closing the Hellenistic period that had begun with Alexander's reign three centuries earlier.
Rome wrote her story first, and wrote it unkindly, with Roman historians and Latin poets producing the critical portrait that echoed through medieval and Renaissance literature. Yet her ancient depictions on coins, busts, and reliefs survive, ancient sources dwelt on her intellect and charm, and she has been reborn endlessly since, from Renaissance opera to Hollywood film, as a permanent icon of power.
