Cleopatra, the last active ruler of the Ptolemaic Kingdom of Egypt, remains one of history's most fascinating figures. Her life was marked by political intrigue, strategic alliances, and significant relationships that shaped the course of ancient history. This article explores the key relationships in Cleopatra's life, from her possible connection to Alexander the Great's sister to her famous liaisons with Julius Caesar and Mark Antony.
Bust of Cleopatra VII in the Altes Museum, Berlin.
Cleopatra of Macedonia: A Possible Ancestral Link
Cleopatra of Macedonia (c. 355/354 BC - 308 BC), also known as Cleopatra of Epirus, was an ancient Macedonian princess and later queen regent of Epirus. As the daughter of Philip II of Macedon and Olympias of Epirus, she was the only full sibling of Alexander the Great.
Cleopatra grew up in the care of her mother in Pella. Olympias nurtured the familial bond in her children, ensuring they were raised in a "consistent political, moral, and cultural education and experience." Cleopatra, Olympias, Leonidas, and Alexander's friends were Alexander's closest relationships until Alexander was sent to Mieza at 13. In 338 BC, Cleopatra stayed in Pella with her father while her mother Olympias fled to exile in Epirus with her Molossian brother Alexander I of Epirus (Cleopatra's uncle), and Cleopatra's brother Alexander fled to Illyria.
Immediately after her father's murder, Cleopatra and her husband-uncle Alexander went from Macedon back to Epirus. Cleopatra held her brother Alexander's official favor, and likely kept in close contact with him while he was on his conquest to the east. Alexander considered her and Olympias as the inner circle of his basileia.
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In 332 BC Alexander had sent booty home for both his mother and sister, as well as his close friends. In 334 BC, Cleopatra's husband crossed the Adriatic Sea to the Italian peninsula to campaign against several Italic tribes, the Lucanians and Bruttii, on behalf of the Greek colony Taras, leaving her as regent of Epirus. She was involved as recipient and sender of official shipments of grain during a widespread shortage around 334 BC. According to an inscription from Cyrene, Libya, she was the recipient of 50,000 'medimni' of grain, and shipped the surplus to Corinth.
Cleopatra ruled Epirus in the meantime. It was an Epirote custom that the woman of a family became head of household when her husband died and their son(s) were too young, unlike the rest of Greece. Notably, an embassy from Athens was dispatched to deliver condolences upon her husband's death. Cleopatra seemingly acted as the religious head of state for the people of Molossia. Her name appears on a list of Theorodokoi ("welcomers of sacred ambassadors"), in the recently established Epirote alliance. Cleopatra was significantly the only woman on the list. Her position as official welcomer would have allowed her to keep a finger on whatever was happening anywhere in Greece.
At some point in her rule, Olympias joined Cleopatra as regent, though the extent of their power is unclear. A passage in Plutarch says that Cleopatra and Olympias shared the rule, with Cleopatra ruling Macedonia and Olympias Epirus. Towards the end of her brother's life, Cleopatra may have given up the Molossian regency entirely.
After her brother's death, Cleopatra's status in relation to her mother's was tenuous. They continued to work together politically, and Olympias likely saw Cleopatra's marriage to a general and future children as a way to solidify their safety.
Cleopatra's hand was sought in marriage by several of his generals, who thought to strengthen their influence with the Macedonians by a connection with the sister of Alexander the Great. Leonnatus is first mentioned as putting forward a claim to her hand, telling Eumenes that he received a lettered promise of marriage if he came to Pella. Cleopatra had extended her hand because she knew Leonnatus had the ambition and ability to overthrow the new mentally unfit king Philip III of Macedon.
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Meanwhile Leonnatus, before he arrived for the wedding and in an attempt to enhance his claim to the throne, stopped to lift the siege from the rebellious Greeks in Lamia and rescue Antipater. Cleopatra arrived in Sardis in 322/321 BC to marry Perdiccas, but found that he had already proposed to Antipater's daughter, Nicaea. Though Eumenes reportedly promoted Perdiccas's marriage to Cleopatra, Perdiccas's brother, Alcetas, argued against this union. Still, Perdiccas planned to repudiate Nicaea to wed Cleopatra.
In around 320 BC, a frustrated Antipater publicly scolded Cleopatra for her association with Perdiccas and Eumenes. Cleopatra remained in Sardis under mysterious circumstances, through the deaths of Antipater, Olympias, Eumenes, Thessalonike's marriage, and her nephews' murders. In 308 BC, Cleopatra acceded to a proposal of marriage from Ptolemy and fled Sardis. However, before their marriage, she was captured, brought back to Sardis, and assassinated by one of her female attendants, reputedly by order of Antigonus.
The Alexander Mosaic depicts Alexander the Great in battle.
Cleopatra VII: Early Life and Ascension to the Throne
Born in Alexandria, Cleopatra VII was the daughter of Ptolemy XII Auletes, who named her his heir before his death in 51 BC. Papyri of 51 BC were dated as the "thirtieth year of Auletes which is the first year of Cleopatra". Cleopatra began her reign alongside her brother Ptolemy XIII, but a falling-out between them led to a civil war.
Cleopatra faced several pressing issues and emergencies shortly after taking the throne. Ptolemy XII died sometime before 22 March 51 BC, when Cleopatra, in her first act as queen, began her voyage to Hermonthis, near Thebes, to install a new sacred Buchis bull, worshiped as an intermediary for the god Montu in the Ancient Egyptian religion.
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Relationship with Julius Caesar
Roman statesman Pompey fled to Egypt after losing the 48 BC Battle of Pharsalus against his rival Julius Caesar, the Roman dictator, in Caesar's civil war. Pompey had been a political ally of Ptolemy XII, but Ptolemy XIII had him ambushed and killed before Caesar arrived and occupied Alexandria.
Caesar then attempted to reconcile the rival Ptolemaic siblings, but Ptolemy XIII's forces besieged Cleopatra and Caesar at the palace. Sometime between January and March of 47 BC, Caesar's reinforcements arrived, including those led by Mithridates of Pergamon and Antipater the Idumaean.
Ptolemy XIII and Arsinoe IV withdrew their forces to the Nile, where Caesar attacked them. Ptolemy XIII tried to flee by boat, but it capsized, and he drowned. Shortly after the siege was lifted by reinforcements, Ptolemy XIII died in the Battle of the Nile. Caesar declared Cleopatra and her brother Ptolemy XIV joint rulers, and maintained a private affair with Cleopatra which produced a son, Caesarion.
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Cleopatra traveled to Rome as a client queen in 46 and 44 BC, where she stayed at Caesar's villa.
Alliance and Romance with Mark Antony
In the Liberators' civil war of 43-42 BC, Cleopatra sided with the Roman Second Triumvirate formed by Caesar's heir Octavian, Mark Antony, and Marcus Aemilius Lepidus. After their meeting at Tarsos in 41 BC, the queen had an affair with Antony which produced three children.
Antony became increasingly reliant on Cleopatra for both funding and military aid during his invasions of the Parthian Empire and the Kingdom of Armenia. A denarius minted by Antony in 34 BC with his portrait on the obverse, which bears the inscription reading "ANTONI ARMENIA DEVICTA" (For Antony, Armenia having been vanquished), alluding to his Armenian campaign. The reverse features Cleopatra, with the inscription "CLEOPATR[AE] REGINAE REGVM FILIORVM REGVM" (For Cleopatra, Queen of Kings and of the children of kings).
In an event held at the gymnasium soon after the triumph, Cleopatra dressed as Isis and declared that she was the Queen of Kings with her son Caesarion, King of Kings, while Alexander Helios was declared king of Armenia, Media, and Parthia, and two-year-old Ptolemy Philadelphus was declared king of Syria and Cilicia. Cleopatra Selene II was bestowed with Crete and Cyrene. Antony and Cleopatra may have been wed during this ceremony.
Antony sent a report to Rome requesting ratification of these territorial claims, now known as the Donations of Alexandria. In a speech to the Roman Senate on the first day of his consulship on 1 January 33 BC, Octavian accused Antony of attempting to subvert Roman freedoms and territorial integrity as a slave to his Oriental queen. Before Antony and Octavian's joint imperium expired on 31 December 33 BC, Antony declared Caesarion as the true heir of Caesar in an attempt to undermine Octavian.
In 32 BC, the Antonian loyalists Gaius Sosius and Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus became consuls.
Bust of Mark Antony in the Louvre Museum.
The Downfall
The Donations of Alexandria declared their children rulers over various territories under Antony's authority. Octavian portrayed this event as an act of treason, forced Antony's allies in the Roman Senate to flee Rome in 32 BC, and declared war on Cleopatra. After defeating Antony and Cleopatra's naval fleet at the 31 BC Battle of Actium, Octavian's forces invaded Egypt in 30 BC and defeated Antony, leading to Antony's suicide.
Cleopatra in Art and Culture
Cleopatra's legacy survives in ancient and modern works of art. Cleopatra was depicted in various ancient works of art, in the Egyptian as well as Hellenistic-Greek and Roman styles. Surviving works include statues, busts, reliefs, and minted coins, as well as ancient carved cameos, such as one depicting Cleopatra and Antony in Hellenistic style, now in the Altes Museum, Berlin.
Contemporary images of Cleopatra were produced both in and outside of Ptolemaic Egypt. Her strong, almost masculine facial features in these particular coins are strikingly different from the smoother, softer, and perhaps idealized sculpted images of her in either the Egyptian or Hellenistic styles. Her masculine facial features on minted currency are similar to that of her father, Ptolemy XII Auletes, and perhaps also to those of her Ptolemaic ancestor Arsinoe II (316-260 BC) and even depictions of earlier queens such as Hatshepsut and Nefertiti.
It is likely, due to political expediency, that Antony's visage was made to conform not only to hers but also to those of her Macedonian Greek ancestors who founded the Ptolemaic dynasty, to familiarize himself to her subjects as a legitimate member of the royal house. Other possible sculpted depictions of Cleopatra include one in the British Museum, London, made of limestone, which perhaps only depicts a woman in her entourage during her trip to Rome. The woman in this portrait has facial features similar to others (including the pronounced aquiline nose), but lacks a royal diadem and sports a different hairstyle.
However, the British Museum head, once belonging to a full statue, could potentially represent Cleopatra at a different stage in her life and may also betray an effort by Cleopatra to discard the use of royal insignia (i.e. the diadem) to make herself more appealing to the citizens of Republican Rome. Duane W. The Portland Vase, a Roman cameo glass vase dated to the Augustan period and now in the British Museum, includes a possible depiction of Cleopatra with Antony. In this interpretation, Cleopatra can be seen grasping Antony and drawing him toward her while a serpent (i.e.
In Victorian Britain, Cleopatra was highly associated with many aspects of ancient Egyptian culture and her image was used to market various household products, including oil lamps, lithographs, postcards and cigarettes. Fictional novels such as H. Rider Haggard's Cleopatra (1889) and Théophile Gautier's One of Cleopatra's Nights (1838) depicted the queen as a sensual and mystic Easterner, while the Egyptologist Georg Ebers's Cleopatra (1894) was more grounded in historical accuracy.
The French dramatist Victorien Sardou and Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw produced plays about Cleopatra, while burlesque shows such as F. C. Whereas myths about Cleopatra persist in popular media, important aspects of her career go largely unnoticed, such as her command of naval forces and administrative acts. Publications on ancient Greek medicine attributed to her are, likely to be the work of a physician by the same name writing in the late first century AD.
Ingrid D. Stacy Schiff writes that Cleopatra was a Macedonian Greek with some Persian ancestry, arguing that it was rare for the Ptolemies to have an Egyptian mistress. Duane W. The family tree given below also lists Cleopatra V as a daughter of Ptolemy X Alexander I and Berenice III. This would make her a cousin of her husband, Ptolemy XII, but she could have been a daughter of Ptolemy IX Lathyros, which would have made her a sister-wife of Ptolemy XII instead.
The confused accounts in ancient primary sources have also led scholars to number Ptolemy XII's wife as either Cleopatra V or Cleopatra VI; the latter may have actually been a daughter of Ptolemy XII.
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