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Cleopatra (69-30 BC)

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Cleopatra VII Philopator [Κλεοπάτρα Φιλοπάτωρ]

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from here very early ages, she knew that she was royalty

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her father was King Ptolemy XII

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the latest in the line of Greek monarchs who had ruled over the Egyptians for about 260 years since the death of Alexander the Great

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even though the Ptolemy's were Greek, they very much stylized themselves as Egyptians

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fashioned themselves as pharaohs

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suggested they be worshiped as gods while they were alive

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depicted themselves in iconography in ancient Egyptian garb

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practiced Egyptian marriage customs

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included brothers and sisters marrying each other and having children

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Cleopatra's parents were most likely half-brother and half-sister, or perhaps uncle and niece

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she came from a large family

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two old sisters

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younger half-sister

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two younger half-brothers

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both of them she ended up marrying

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during her time Rome was taking over all of the Greek-ruled, Hellenistic kingdoms

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the successor states to the conquests of Alexander the Great

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mainland Greece was conquered and made into a Roman province about 80 years before Cleopatra was born

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Syria was conquered when she was about six

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the island of Cyprus was conquered when she was eleven

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her father tried in various ways to make himself friends with the Romans

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in particular to Pompey the Great with various degrees of success

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so there were probably plans by the leaders of the Romans to conquer Egypt at some point

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was the last of the Greek kingdoms waiting to be taken

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became queen of Egypt when she was 18 years old

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had been named father's successor in his will

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he actually asked the Roman's to be executors of his will

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she was required to marry who half-brother Ptolemy XIII, who at that time was ten

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they ruled jointly for awhile

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Cleopatra decided that she would be better off ruling by herself

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she had been nominated as her father's successor since at that time she had been the oldest of his children

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he older sister #1 had been poisoned by sister #2

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then sister number #2 had been executed by her own father

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so Cleopatra decided to drop her brother's name out of all the official documents

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this made the people of the court at Alexandria, the capital of Egypt, very upset because they did not like the idea of a queen ruling by herself

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so by the time Ptolemy XIII got to be about 13 years old, his courtiers led a revolution against Cleopatra and booted her out

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but no sooner had they done this, but who should show up on the banks of the Nile but Pompey the Great, who was fleeing from a battle he had just lost, with his fellow triumpher and father-in-law, Julius Caesar

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Pompey took refuse with Ptolemy XIII thinking this was the son of the man I used to help out

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unfortunately, Ptolemy XIII's henchmen killed Pompey

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Julius Ceasar then took control of Alexandria

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Cleopatra smuggled herself into her own palace

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she begged him to take pity on her and restore her as queen of Egypt

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this scene is famously narrated in Lucan's poem Pharsalia written about 100 years after the event, which Lucan calls "an infamous night together"

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a rather complicated war took place in which Ptolemy XIII got in cahoots with the other half-sister to try to defeat Cleopatra, but all went wrong, Ptolemy XIII drowned in the Nile, and Cleopatra was once again restored as Queen of Egypt, by Julius Caesar

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Cleopatra then married her other half-brother Ptolemy XIV, who was now 12

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Cleopatra then discovered she was pregnant with Julius Caesar's baby

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she gave birth to his son which they named Cesarean, or Little Caesar

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the then became Julius Caesar's mistress

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she and her half-brother/husband would visit Rome on occasion for state business

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but is was very clear to everyone that she was Julius Caesar's lover

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he adored her so much he even made a gold statue of her

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in the role of the goddess Isis

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put it up in a temple of Venus in the downtown area of Rome

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Cleopatra's being Caesar's mistress was a problem since they both were married

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Caesar's wife was not able to produce any children

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Cleopatra had met Julius Caesar when she was 21 and he was 52

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they managed to keep their relationship up for a few years until on the Ides of March in 44 BCE, Julius Caesar was murdered

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it seems that Cleopatra and her husband/half-brother were in Rome when that happened

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Cleopatra then prompted took her whole family back to Egypt, poisoned her half-brother/husband so that she could rule by herself

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a few years passed

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in the power vacuum that existed in Rome, another Triumvirate was set up

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Octavian: Julius Caesar's great niece who had adopted Octavian as his son

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not his biological son with Cleopatra

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had been given control of the Western provinces

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Marcus Antonius

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had been a commander in Julius Caesar's war against the Gauls

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had been given control of the Eastern provinces

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commanded Cleopatra to meet with him in Tarsus, in Modern Turkey to have a conversation about what role Egypt was going to have in this new world

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was it going to be an ally to Rome

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was it going to help Mark Anthony attack the Parthian Empire (274 BC - 224 AD) to the East of Egypt

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Cleopatra smartly showed up in ostentatious wealth

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throwing rose pedals

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convinced Marc Anthony to come to Alexandria

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they became lovers

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she bore him twins at the end of 40 BCE

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Alexander Helios (sun)

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Cleopatra Selene (moon)

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Mark Anthony, meanwhile, had returned to Rome and married Octavian's sister Octavia

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bore him two daughters

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36 BC went back to Egypt

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Cleopatra bore him another son

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they started parceling out the lands of the Egyptian empire to their children

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divorced Octavia and married Cleopatra with Egyptian rights

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Tiepolo's painting of Cleopatra and Alexander

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this married time of their lives which Tiepolo's painting uses as its subject

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the story of the painting with the earring

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comes from a kind of encyclopedia written by Pliny the Elder about 100 years after the event

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talks about the two largest pearls in the world

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an example of luxuria

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conscious consumption

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there has been a theory in the last 60 years that pulverized pearls were used medicinally in antiquity as an anti-acid

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one of her slaves stopped her

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it's a wonderful story

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the story of Cleopatra goes on

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Octavia was very upset about Marc Anthony's divorce

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Octavio began a campaign against Mark Anthony

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that he had been seduced by an Egyptian queen

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he had given away Roman lands to the Egyptian queen

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had written a will saying he wanted to be buried in Egypt rather than Rome

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31 BC Battle of Actium

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Cleopatra and Mark Anthony had the numbers and should have won

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but they didn't win

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they fled to Egypt

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Octavian caught up with them about a year later

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Marc Anthony and Cleopatra committed suicide

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Cleopatra famously after being captured by Octavia, smuggled in a poisonous asp and enabled it to bite her

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Romans were not very kind to Cleopatra after her death

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Horace (65-27 BCE) called her

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a fatalae monstrum

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a woman who was not submissive or humble

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Pliny the Elder (23-79 AD)

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called her a high-class prostitute

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Lucan (39-65 AD)

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described her has promiscuous

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she as actually not promiscuous or a high-class prostitute

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she loved two men in her life and gave them both children

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she was also a queen in her own right

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this is something that bothered the Romans most of all

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she was both politically active as well as sexually active

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it's one thing for heads of state to meet with each other and be friends with each other

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it's another thing for heads of state to sleep with each other and have children with each other

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especially when both heads of state are married to other people

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this was bothersome to the Romans

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what sets Cleopatra apart is her ability to combine her political agency and her sexual agency

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do we look at her as someone who was very crafty and strategic and having a sexual liaison with the right men at the right time so her country did not fall into the hands of the Romans

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the only man she couldn't conquer was Octavian who later made Egypt his own personal province after he made himself the Emperor Augustus

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on the other hand there is something magical about love and we can't attribute all that happened to Cleopatra's desires only

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it is interesting that we have Octavian to thank for keeping Cleopatra's memory alive for the Romans

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according to Pliny, he took back the other pearl that she didn't dip in the vinegar, sliced it half and put each half in the earlobes of the status of Venus in the center of Rome right next to the statue of Cleopatra himself