History of Cleopatra

Ptolemy XII Neos Dionysos Philopator Philadelphos was a Pharaoh of the Ptolemaic dynasty of Ancient Egypt.

Cleopatra V was a Ptolemaic Queen of Egypt. She is the only surely attested wife of Ptolemy XII.

Roman interventionism in Egypt predated the reign of Cleopatra. When Ptolemy IX Lathyrus died in late 81 BC.

The Romans chose instead to divide the Ptolemaic realm among the illegitimate sons of Ptolemy IX, bestowing Cyprus to Ptolemy of Cyprus and Egypt to Ptolemy XII Auletes.

Cleopatra VII was born in early 69 BC to the ruling Ptolemaic pharaoh Ptolemy XII and an unknown mother, presumably Ptolemy XII's wife Cleopatra VI Tryphaena.

In 65 BC the Roman censor Marcus Licinius Crassus argued before the Roman Senate that Ptolemaic Egypt should be annexed (perhaps based on the previous will in exchange for loans), but his proposed bill was scuttled by Cicero's rhetoric.

Ptolemy XIII Theos Philopator was Pharaoh of Egypt from 51 to 47 BC, and one of the last members of the Ptolemaic dynasty (305–30 BC). He was the son of Ptolemy XII and the brother of and co-ruler with Cleopatra VII.

Ptolemy XII responded to the threatened Roman annexation of Egypt by offering lavish gifts to powerful Roman statesmen and military commanders, such as Pompey the Great (during his campaign against Mithridates VI of Pontus in the Third Mithridatic War) and Julius Caesar after the latter became consul in 59 BC.

Ptolemy XIII believed he had demonstrated his power and simultaneously defused the situation by having Pompey's severed head sent to Caesar, who arrived in Alexandria by early October and resided at the royal palace.

Caesar then brought Cleopatra VII and Ptolemy XIII before the assembly of Alexandria. Here he revealed the written will of Ptolemy XII—previously possessed by Pompey—naming Cleopatra and Ptolemy XIII as his joint-heirs. Caesar then attempted to arrange for the other two siblings, Arsinoe IV and Ptolemy XIV, to rule together over Cyprus, thus removing potential rival claimants to the Egyptian throne. This would also appease the Ptolemaic subjects still bitter over the loss of Cyprus to the Romans in 58 BC.

In 58 BC, after Roman senator Publius Clodius Pulcher accused Ptolemy XII's brother of aiding pirates who disrupted Roman shipping, the Roman Republic annexed Cyprus and drove Ptolemy of Cyprus, where he committed suicide rather than face exile to Paphos as a priest of Apollo.

The Roman Senate denied Ptolemy XII the offer of an armed escort and provisions for a return to Egypt, so he decided to leave Rome in late 57 BC for the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus.

Pompey eventually convinced Aulus Gabinius, the Roman governor of Syria, to invade Egypt and restore Ptolemy XII to power. In the spring of 55 BC, Gabinius' invasion force arrived.

Although established earlier, Cleopatra resumed construction of the Dendera Temple complex. Reliefs were made depicting Cleopatra and her son Caesarion presenting offerings to the deities Hathor and Ihy, mirroring images of offerings to Isis and Horus.

Ptolemy XII made Cleopatra his regent and joint ruler in 52 BC, naming her and his son (Ptolemy XIII) joint successors in his will and testament.

On 31 May 52 BC Cleopatra was made a regent of Ptolemy XII as indicated by an inscription in the Temple of Hathor at Dendera.

Both Ptolemy XII and Cleopatra VII found it necessary to debase Ptolemaic coinage due to financial troubles. No gold coins are known from Cleopatra's reign, while the use of bronze coins was revived and the silver currency was debased roughly 40% by the end of her reign.

Although Cleopatra had rejected her 11-year-old brother as a joint ruler in 51 BC, Ptolemy XIII still retained strong allies, notably Potheinos, his tutor and administrator of his properties.

The reign of Cleopatra VII of the Ptolemaic Kingdom of Egypt began with the death of her father, the ruling pharaoh Ptolemy XII Auletes, by March 51 BC.

Ptolemy XII died by 22 March 51 BC, the date of Cleopatra's first known act as queen.

She accessed the throne by March 51 BC. During her early childhood, Cleopatra was brought up in the palace of Alexandria in Egypt and received a primarily Hellenistic Greek education from her tutor, Philostratus. By adulthood, she was well-versed in many languages, including Egyptian, Ethiopian, Hebrew, Arabic, Median, Parthian, Latin, and her native Koine Greek.

Cleopatra seems to have attempted a short-lived alliance with her brother Ptolemy XIV, but by the autumn of 50 BC, Ptolemy XIII had the upper hand in their conflict and began signing documents with his name before that of his sister.

In 50 BC Marcus Calpurnius Bibulus, proconsul of Syria, sent his two eldest sons to Egypt.

Cleopatra and her forces were still holding their ground against Ptolemy XIII within Alexandria when Gnaeus Pompeius, son of Pompey, arrived at Alexandria in the summer of 49 BC seeking military aid on behalf of his father.

Caesar forced Pompey and his supporters to flee to Greece in a Roman civil war. In perhaps their last joint decree, both Cleopatra and Ptolemy XIII agreed to Gnaeus Pompeius' request. They sent his father 60 ships and 500 troops, including the Gabiniani, a move that helped erase some of the debt owed to Rome by the Ptolemies.

Cleopatra and her forces were still holding their ground against Ptolemy XIII within Alexandria when Gnaeus Pompeius, son of Pompey, arrived at Alexandria in the summer of 49 BC seeking military aid on behalf of his father.

Caesar's term as consul has expired at the end of 48 BC.

In the meantime, however, she inherited her father's debts and owed the Roman Republic 17.5 million drachmas by the time Julius Caesar arrived at Alexandria in 48 BC.

Cleopatra and her younger brother Ptolemy XIII acceded to the throne as joint rulers, but a fallout between them led to open civil war. Cleopatra fled briefly to Roman Syria in 48 BC but returned later that year with an army to confront Ptolemy XIII.

In a scheme devised by Theodotos, Pompey arrived by ship near Pelousion after being invited by written message, only to be ambushed and stabbed to death on 28 September 48 BC.

In Greece, Caesar and Pompey's forces engaged each other at the decisive Battle of Pharsalus on 9 August 48 BC, leading to the destruction of most of Pompey's army and his forced flight to Tyre, Lebanon.

Ganymedes was perhaps killed in the battle. Theodotos was found years later in Asia by Marcus Brutus and executed. Arsinoe IV was forcefully paraded in Caesar's triumph in Rome before being exiled to the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus.

The Battle of the Nile in 47 BC saw the combined Roman–Egyptian armies of Julius Caesar and Cleopatra VII defeat those of the rival Queen Arsinoe IV and King Ptolemy XIII and secure the throne of Egypt.

Cleopatra's alleged child with Caesar was born 23 June 47 BC, as preserved on a stele at the Serapeion in Memphis.

Cleopatra VII and her nominal joint ruler Ptolemy XIV visited Rome sometime in late 46 BC.

Cleopatra traveled to Rome as a client queen in 46 and 44 BC, staying at his villa. Following Caesar's assassination in 44 BC Cleopatra attempted to have Caesarion named as his heir.

The Temple of Venus Genetrix, established in the Forum of Caesar on 25 September 46 BC, contained a golden statue of Cleopatra, associating the mother of Caesar's child directly with the goddess Venus, mother of the Romans.

Sosigenes of Alexandria, one of the members of Cleopatra's court, aided Caesar in the calculations for the new Julian Calendar, put into effect 1 January 45 BC.

Caesar was assassinated on the Ides of March (15 March 44 BC), but Cleopatra stayed in Rome until about mid-April, in the vain hope of having Caesarion recognized as Caesar's heir.

Cleopatra then had her brother Ptolemy XIV killed and elevated her son Caesarion as co-ruler. In the Liberators' civil war of 43–42 BC, Cleopatra sided with the Roman Second Triumvirate formed by Octavian, Mark Antony, and Marcus Aemilius Lepidus.

Although Antony said years later that it was then that he fell in love with Cleopatra, their affair did not begin until 41 BC.

In 36 BC, Cleopatra accompanied Antony to the Euphrates in his journey toward invading the Parthian Empire. She then returned to Egypt, perhaps due to her advanced state of pregnancy. By the summer of 36 BC, she had given birth to Ptolemy Philadelphus, her second son with Antony.

On 1 January 33 BC, Octavian accused Antony of attempting to subvert Roman freedoms and authority as a slave to his Oriental queen, who he said was given lands that rightfully belonged to the Romans.

During the spring of 32 BC, Antony and Cleopatra traveled to Samos and then Athens, where Cleopatra was reportedly well-received.

Antony was still fundamentally reliant on Cleopatra for military support. The couple traveled together to Ephesus in 32 BC, where Cleopatra provided him with 200 naval ships of the 800 total he was able to acquire.

On 2 September 31 BC the naval forces of Octavian, led by Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa, met those of Antony and Cleopatra for a decisive engagement, the Battle of Actium.

Octavian's forces invaded Egypt in 30 BC. Although Antony and Cleopatra offered military resistance, Octavian defeated their forces, leading to Antony's suicide. When it became clear that Octavian planned to have Cleopatra brought to Rome as a prisoner for his triumphal procession, she also committed suicide, the cause of death reportedly by use of poison. The popular belief is that she was bitten by an asp.

The Ptolemaic army was the army of the Ptolemaic Macedonian kings that ruled Egypt from 305 to 30 BC.

Cleopatra, though long desiring to preserve her kingdom, decided in her last moments to send Caesarion away to Upper Egypt perhaps with plans to flee to Nubia, Ethiopia, or India. Caesarion, now Ptolemy XV, reigned for a mere eighteen days until he has executed on the orders of Octavian on 29 August 30 BC.

Cleopatra's death on 10 or 12 August 30 BC.

In January 27 BC Octavian was renamed Augustus and amassed constitutional powers that established him as the first Roman emperor, inaugurating the Principate era of the Roman Empire.

She established a Caesareum temple dedicated to the worship of her partner Julius Caesar near the palatial seafront of Alexandria. Its entrance was flanked by 200-ton rose granite obelisks, monuments placed there by Augustus in 13/12 BC.