Cleopatra’s family ruled Egypt for more than 100 years before she was born August 69 B.C. Cleopatra was a queen of Egypt but she was not Egyptian. She was the last of the Macedonian Greek dynasty that ruled Egypt from the time of Alexander the Great's death in 323 BCE to about 30 BCE. She was a talented and resourceful individual of great charm but ruthless when she felt she had to be. Cleopatra was the only one of her family that learned to speak the Egyptian (Coptic) language. She knew a half dozen to a dozen other languages. She was an educated intellectual and a capable administrator. Despite her abilities and effort she failed and her life was one of sadness rather than glamour. Cleopatra became one of the most known ancient Egyptian because
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Ptolemy XIII had gone to bed that night a happy lad, secure in the knowledge that his sister, trapped at Pelusium, would be unable to plead her case before Caesar,” writes Egyptologist Joyce Tyldesley in her book “Cleopatra, Last Queen of Egypt” (Profile Books, 2008). “He woke up the next morning to find that his sister had somehow arrived at the palace. She was already on the most intimate of terms with Caesar and had managed to persuade him to support her cause, she writes. It was all too much for a thirteen-year-old boy to bear. Rushing from the palace he ripped off his diadem and, in a well-orchestrated public display of anger, the crowd surged forward, intent on mobbing the palace.” However, “Caesar would not be intimidated. Before a formal assembly he read out (Ptolemy XII’s) will, making it clear that he expected the elder brother and sister to rule Egypt together. ”Caesar had saved Cleopatra and returned her to power. The two became intimate and had a son known as Caesarion (although Caesar was said to have been hesitant to acknowledge that the child was …show more content…
“But now she was to be specifically identified with Egypt’s most famous single mother, the goddess Isis.” With the assassination of Julius Caesar in 44 B.C. on the Ides of March, Cleopatra found herself in an awkward position. Ancient writers say that she was in Rome when the assassination occurred and she quickly returned to Egypt. A civil war broke out between forces led by Antony and Octavian against those who had organized Caesar’s assassination. After they prevailed, Octavian, renamed Augustus Caesar, ruled the western half of the empire while Antony controlled the east. After Antony took power in the east, he summoned Cleopatra to Asia Minor (modern-day Turkey) to question why she had not given support to his troops while they were fighting Caesar’s assassins. Cleopatra said that she had assembled a fleet to attack the assassins but it could not reach the battlefield in time. “Antony, struck by her intelligence as well as her appearance, was captivated by her as if he were a young lad, although he was forty years old,” wrote Appian, who lived in the second century A.D. (translation by Prudence Jones). “The acute interest Antony had once shown in all things suddenly dulled; whatever Cleopatra dictated was done, without regard for the laws of man or nature.” In the years leading up to the Battle of Actium, Antony and Cleopatra forged a close bond and had three children together, including the
Ptolemy XIII had gone to bed that night a happy lad, secure in the knowledge that his sister, trapped at Pelusium, would be unable to plead her case before Caesar,” writes Egyptologist Joyce Tyldesley in her book “Cleopatra, Last Queen of Egypt” (Profile Books, 2008). “He woke up the next morning to find that his sister had somehow arrived at the palace. She was already on the most intimate of terms with Caesar and had managed to persuade him to support her cause, she writes. It was all too much for a thirteen-year-old boy to bear. Rushing from the palace he ripped off his diadem and, in a well-orchestrated public display of anger, the crowd surged forward, intent on mobbing the palace.” However, “Caesar would not be intimidated. Before a formal assembly he read out (Ptolemy XII’s) will, making it clear that he expected the elder brother and sister to rule Egypt together. ”Caesar had saved Cleopatra and returned her to power. The two became intimate and had a son known as Caesarion (although Caesar was said to have been hesitant to acknowledge that the child was …show more content…
“But now she was to be specifically identified with Egypt’s most famous single mother, the goddess Isis.” With the assassination of Julius Caesar in 44 B.C. on the Ides of March, Cleopatra found herself in an awkward position. Ancient writers say that she was in Rome when the assassination occurred and she quickly returned to Egypt. A civil war broke out between forces led by Antony and Octavian against those who had organized Caesar’s assassination. After they prevailed, Octavian, renamed Augustus Caesar, ruled the western half of the empire while Antony controlled the east. After Antony took power in the east, he summoned Cleopatra to Asia Minor (modern-day Turkey) to question why she had not given support to his troops while they were fighting Caesar’s assassins. Cleopatra said that she had assembled a fleet to attack the assassins but it could not reach the battlefield in time. “Antony, struck by her intelligence as well as her appearance, was captivated by her as if he were a young lad, although he was forty years old,” wrote Appian, who lived in the second century A.D. (translation by Prudence Jones). “The acute interest Antony had once shown in all things suddenly dulled; whatever Cleopatra dictated was done, without regard for the laws of man or nature.” In the years leading up to the Battle of Actium, Antony and Cleopatra forged a close bond and had three children together, including the