Few civilizations and cultures have sparked as much interest throughout history as Ancient Egypt. Within that time and that place, Few queens have covered as many pages as the queen of Egypt par excellence, Cleopatra.
She was a woman with a great sense of state, who used not only her beauty, but also her intelligence to try to save a kingdom that had long been mortally wounded. Cleopatra: The Queen of Ancient Egyptaims to publicize the figure of this impressive woman, ahead of her time and often little known.
Today we want to talk to you in depth about who Cleopatra really was. You will have seen a lot about her in movies, series or other pieces of culture. But Very few really know what this woman was like.
Who was Cleopatra
The first thing to know about Cleopatra is who she was. As owner we can affirm that She was the youngest queen of Egypt. He acceded to the throne at the age of 18, already having a broader culture and education than that of most people of his generation.
His name was Cleopatra Dilopator Nea Thea, although she is known as Cleopatra VII. “Cleopatra” means “glory of her father”, which already makes it clear that she was the right eye of her father, Ptolemy XII.
Born in Alexandria in January 69 BC She was the last queen of Ancient Egypt and also, therefore, of the Ptolemaic or Lagid dynasty to which she belonged. A dynasty founded by Ptolemy I Soter, who was a general of Alexander the Great himself.
Cleopatra VII was the third daughter, after Berenice IV and Cleopatra VI, who disappeared during the reign of Berenice IV. She was named after her great-grandmother, who was the first Cleopatra. This great-grandmother had Persian and Bactrian blood, not pure Egyptian, and she would never have imagined how far her great-granddaughter she never knew would go.
He was born at a turbulent time for Egypt. On the one hand the influence of Rome on Egypt and on the other hand the different revolts that ended with the expulsion his father’s, Ptolemy XII, in the year 58 BC This was a king very little loved by the people, unlike his daughter. This little acceptance was due to his lack of concern that he felt for the serious problems that the State suffered, showing much more interest in fun and parties.
Ptolemy remained on the throne thanks to the support of Rome, who was kept deceived with promises of future tributes that never came. Meanwhile, loans of large sums of money, by wealthy Romans, was generating a large debt in the coffers of the kingdom.
Keep in mind that this expulsion occurred when our Cleopatra was only 11 years old. This fact and all the revolution that she lived in those years in Egypt marked her life from a very young age. For this reason his education and his cultural base were very important for him to succeed on the throne A few years later.
Cleopatra Biography
With the uprising in 58 BC Ptolemy asks Rome for military help. But the king is expelled, assuming the regency his wife Cleopatra VI. Obviously she followed the same style of reign as her husband, so she never had the support of the people either.
This reign was brief, since he died a year later after taking the throne. So it was Berenice IV, older sister of Cleopatra VII, who came to rule Egypt. This reign was supported by the Alexandrians, they want longed for an agreement to smooth relations of Berenice with her father, and of this with the common people.
King Ptolemy had already gone ahead and had made a pact with Rome his return to the throne. He had achieved it with the promise of the payment of important tributes that would last over time. Thanks to this help from Rome and his armies, Ptolemy managed to recover his throne and defeat his daughter. The punishment for this was execution, which he carried out in 55 BC.
Thus he continued his reign until his death in the year 51 BC, at which time the throne is shared, on the one hand his daughter Cleopatra VII and on the other his son Ptolemy XIII. Both had to marry as required by Ptolemy’s will, at least if they wanted to reign jointly in Egypt.
These types of acts that today are considered incest were something that Egyptian law allowed in those days. We must look through the prism of the time and the society of that time and not through current lenses.
Due to the young age of the new kings 17 and 12 years, Pompey, the regent of Rome and principal creditor of the late Ptolemy XII, was appointed as tutor.
Cleopatra was much smarter than his brother, so he always managed to leave him out of the decision-making. All the brothers had been educated in the same way, prepared to reign, without distinction and in the purest Greek style, as was customary among the Ptolemaic dynasty. However, not everyone had the same abilities, and that is something that quickly became clear.
Cleopatra learned to speak the Egyptian language, Greek, Hebrew, Syrian, Aramaic, and Latin. She was a woman, as we have already said, very intelligent and ambitious. She also learned literature, music, politics, mathematics, medicine, and astronomy. Cleopatra’s manners were refined adorned by a beautiful and velvety sweet and suggestive voice. All this was preparing her to be one of the most cultured and intelligent queens of Egypt. In addition, her undoubted beauty and attractiveness made her a woman idealized by all.
But the situation in Egypt was beginning to be very serious, Between the years 50 and 49 BC, a time of bad harvests led the people to despair. Furthermore, no one in the town understands the politics of Cleopatra, who continues to reign hand in hand with the oppressive Rome. The inhabitants of Egypt see here that not only are they doing poorly economically, but that her queen does not support them and defends them against an external government that does not care about them.
Hunger, bureaucracy, and the formation of groups of outlaws who robbed and robbed triggered the rest. Cleopatra’s younger sister Arsinoe and Cleopatra’s husband Ptolemy XIII managed to expel, with the help of some generals, Cleopatra from Egypt. Thus I managed to confine it in Syria around the year 48 BC, place from where Cleopatra would try to raise an army to be able to return.
Cleopatra and Julius Caesar
At this moment in history we must look around Egypt. Rome right now was in full division of powers. This was evident in the battle of Pharsalia where Pompey and Caesar fought and in the face of Pompey’s inexperience, Caesar’s tactical ability prevailed.
Given the good relationship that Pompey had maintained with Queen Cleopatra, he decides to go to Egypt to regain strength at the home of a clear ally. The surprise would come when, as soon as they arrived in Egypt, Ptolemy XIII seizes him and has him executed.clearly taking part in Caesar’s side.
But Cleopatra knew how to wait, believing Ptolemy that with the death of Pompey he was going to win the sympathy of Rome, he had been wrong.
Caesar was a good and magnanimous soldier with his enemies and even more with Pompey who had been his son-in-law, husband of his daughter Julia. When Caesar arrives in Alexandria in search of Pompey, surely with the intention of pardoning him, he found that Pompey had been executed. They say that he wept bitterly clinging to his head. This fact meant a bad start in the relations between Ptolemy and Caesar.
After checking Caesar the terrible showdown existing and derived from the will between Cleopatra and her brother, she decides to put an end to this problem, so she summons both brothers to listen to their complaints and arguments. Ptolemy hastened to Alexandria to meet Caesar, while Cleopatra sent trusted emissaries in order to guess the interests and intentions of the Roman General.
Avoiding her brother’s spies, Cleopatra finally agreed to the meeting, At night and wrapped in a rug, she infiltrated Caesar’s private chambers. Using his intelligence and why not, his powers to seduce, he made his demands come through.
But Ptolemy, seeing Cleopatra’s cunning, revolted his supporters, giving rise to a war with two clearly differentiated sides: Caesar and Cleopatra VII on the one hand and Ptolemy XIII and Arsinoe IV on the otherwho believed himself in full dynastic right of regency.
The clear winners were Caesar and Cleopatra and to celebrate it they began a historic walk along the Nile. They traveled it in a boat full of gold, jewels, flowers and all kinds of ornaments and silks. Soon the couple would receive a new member, Ptolemy Caesar better known as Caesarion and that filled the couple with happiness.
Cleopatra’s end
After some time of an idyllic romance, Caesar had to return to Rome and from there, claimed the presence of Cleopatra and her son.
With Ptolemy dead, Cleopatra’s new husband became her 3-year-old younger brother, Ptolemy XIV. This courrió by another of the indications of the testament of the father of both, under the law of succession of Egypt at that time.
With Ptolemy XIV and Caesarion Cleopatra appeared in Rome where she was presented as a lavish, beautiful and powerful queen.
Soon the roman patricians saw Cleopatra’s influence over Caesar and they began to see her as a dangerous enemy for the Republic. They did not want a queen who belonged to a vassal state. So when a statue was erected in honor of Cleopatra-Venus, the roman people exploded.
Caesar could no longer rule the empire under the influence of Cleopatra and in 44 BCwithin the Roman Senate, Caesar was assassinated, forcing Cleopatra to flee with her son back to Egypt and thus ending their aspirations and ambitions.
After Cleopatra’s return to Egypt, everything began to become confusing and difficult in her life. She feared that her brother and current husband would try to kill her and steal his kingdom, so she went ahead and poisoned him. During her reign, Marco Antonio, a Roman soldier who sought revenge for the death of Caesar, asked her for help and finally both fell in love with her.
In this time of comings and goings between the two there were many fights for the land of Rome and Egypt, while their love was gaining strength. When Marco Antonio saw that he had lost all the battles was cheated with the supposed death of Cleopatra, which led to suicide.
Cleopatra, for her part, seeing that a hard and uncertain future awaited her, made the same determination. Before committing suicide, she asked to be buried next to her beloved, and so it was done.
Curiosities of Cleopatra
Cleopatra’s life, like that of any noble or person of the royal family at that time and place, is typical of a soap opera. Within the comings and goings of her and everything she had to live there are certain curiosities that you surely do not know:
- We are going to start with one related to the end of its history, and that is that today no one knows where Cleopatra and Mark Antony are buried.
- More than 200 plays have been written about his life.
- Despite being famous for its beauty, many historians affirm that this was not such, but that She is remembered for her excellent…