Origins

Cleopatra was born in Alexandria in late 69 BC, the third surviving daughter of King Ptolemy XII Auletes of Egypt. She belonged to the Ptolemaic dynasty founded by Ptolemy I Soter, the Macedonian general of Alexander the Great who had taken Egypt at Alexander’s death in 323 BC. By Cleopatra’s birth the dynasty had ruled Egypt for almost three centuries. It was the most successful and the longest-lasting of the Hellenistic kingdoms.

The Ptolemies had remained culturally Macedonian-Greek through their entire occupation of Egypt, ruling from the Greek city of Alexandria and maintaining Greek as their court language. Cleopatra was the first Ptolemy in three centuries to learn the Egyptian language; she also reportedly spoke Ethiopian, Troglodyte, Hebrew, Arabic, Syrian, Median, and Parthian — the multilingual capacity attested by Plutarch is unusual for any Hellenistic monarch.

Her father died in 51 BC, leaving Cleopatra (18) and her brother Ptolemy XIII (10) as co-rulers — the standard incestuous Ptolemaic sibling-marriage that the dynasty had practiced since Ptolemy II.

Caesar

By 48 BC Cleopatra had been forced out of Alexandria by her brother’s court faction and was preparing a civil war from the eastern Egyptian border. The Roman civil war between Julius Caesar and Pompey had simultaneously reached Egypt: Pompey had been murdered by Ptolemy XIII’s officials at Pelusium on 28 September 48 BC in the misguided expectation that this would please his pursuer Caesar; Caesar had instead been outraged and had taken residence in Alexandria with a small garrison.

Cleopatra returned to Alexandria — reportedly smuggled into Caesar’s quarters rolled inside a carpet (or, in better translations, a bedding sack) — and obtained Caesar’s support. The resulting Alexandrian War (48–47 BC) culminated in the death of Ptolemy XIII (drowned in the Nile during the final battle) and the restoration of Cleopatra as queen, now ruling with another younger brother (Ptolemy XIV).

Cleopatra and Caesar had a son, Ptolemy Caesar (called Caesarion), born in June 47 BC. Caesar acknowledged the child privately but never formally legitimized him in Roman law. Cleopatra spent 46–44 BC living in Rome at Caesar’s villa. She was in Rome when Caesar was assassinated on 15 March 44 BC.

Antony

In the civil war that followed Caesar’s death, Cleopatra’s political position was difficult. Caesar’s adopted heir Octavian was a young Roman with no Egyptian connections; Mark Antony, who controlled the eastern Roman provinces from 42 BC, was a more practical ally. Antony and Cleopatra met at Tarsus in 41 BC, began a political and personal partnership that lasted the rest of their lives, and produced twins (Alexander Helios and Cleopatra Selene II) and a third child (Ptolemy Philadelphus).

Antony’s “Donations of Alexandria” in 34 BC formally transferred large portions of the Roman east — and titular control of regions Rome did not yet rule — to Cleopatra and her children with Caesar and Antony. The donations were unpopular in Rome and were used by Octavian as evidence that Antony had become a client of a foreign queen. The breakdown into formal civil war came in 32 BC.

Actium and after

The decisive engagement was the naval Battle of Actium off the western coast of Greece on 2 September 31 BC. Cleopatra commanded one squadron of her own fleet in the battle. Octavian’s general Agrippa outmaneuvered the combined Antonian-Egyptian fleet, and Cleopatra — seeing the engagement turning — withdrew with approximately 60 ships and her treasury. Antony followed her. The remainder of their forces surrendered over the following days.

Octavian followed them to Egypt the next year. He landed at Pelusium on the eastern Egyptian frontier in late July 30 BC. Antony’s forces deserted on his arrival at Alexandria; Antony killed himself on 1 August on the (false) report of Cleopatra’s death. Cleopatra was captured but Octavian permitted her to remain at the palace under guard while he settled the political administration of newly Roman Egypt. She killed herself on 10 or 12 August 30 BC, by tradition by the bite of an Egyptian cobra (an aspis) smuggled into the palace in a basket of figs. She was 39.

Caesarion, then 17 and theoretically a rival imperial claimant as Caesar’s biological son, was executed by Octavian’s order. The three children of Antony and Cleopatra were taken to Rome and raised in Octavian’s household; Cleopatra Selene II later married the client king Juba II of Numidia and Mauretania and lived to about 50.

Egypt became a Roman imperial province under Octavian’s personal control. The Ptolemaic dynasty was over. The Hellenistic period — conventionally dated from the death of Alexander in 323 BC to the death of Cleopatra in 30 BC — was over. The eastern Mediterranean was Roman.

Legacy

Cleopatra’s posthumous reputation has fluctuated with the political needs of each era. Roman authors (Octavian’s poets Horace, Virgil, and Propertius; the historians Cassius Dio and Florus) portrayed her as a dangerous foreign seductress who had nearly subverted Rome. Medieval and Renaissance European authors (Boccaccio, Chaucer, Shakespeare in Antony and Cleopatra) treated her as a romantic tragic heroine. Modern Egyptian and African historiography has tended to recover her as the last independent African monarch before the Roman, Byzantine, Arab, and European occupations of Egypt. Her actual ethnic background was overwhelmingly Macedonian-Greek with some likely Persian or Egyptian admixture; her cultural identity was Hellenistic-Egyptian-royal.

Her tomb’s location is unknown. The fate of her mummified remains is unrecorded.