The Romans’ urge to expand meant the end of great kingdoms. Egypt, the wealthiest kingdom of the Mediterranean area for ages, had to face its ending as well. The last queen on the Egyptian throne was Cleopatra.
Ptolemaic queen Cleopatra VII (69-30 BC) lived on the verge of a new era. The enormous Roman Empire had expanded very rapidly, and was heading for Egypt. The Ptolemaic people, who were originally Greek Macedonians, had been ruling Egypt for ten generations by then. The Greek educated Cleopatra would be the last empress of the Hellenistic era, that commenced with Alexander the Great’s conquests in 323 BC. Cleopatra therefore didn’t show as many Egyptian traits as for example, Nefertiti, the other famous Egyptian queen, who lived in the fourteenth century BC.
Hidden in a laundry bag
Egypt had been an immense empire for such a long period of time that the famous sphinx had been thoroughly restored a thousand years before Cleopatra’s rule. Compared to the Egyptians, the Romans had only just begun. The Roman Empire had been up-and-coming for two centuries around the time Cleopatra was born, and its expansion was unstoppable. Cleopatra’s father Ptolemy XII Auletes had sided with the most powerful Roman at that time, Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus, so he could maintain some of Egypt’s sovereignty. Auletes was awarded the official title of ‘friend and ally of the Roman people’, in exchange for a huge amount of redemption money though.
Auletes died in 51 BC and his oldest living daughter Cleopatra succeeded him on the throne. Women weren’t allowed to rule by themselves so she married her twelve-year-old brother Ptolemy XIII. His advisors turned against Cleopatra soon after though and she was banned. In the same year, 48 BC, Caesar beat the army of his rival Pompeius. Pompeius fled, but Cleopatra’s little brother had him murdered on his escape out of the area to get into Caesar’s good books. The new Roman emperor did not appreciate this act of cowardice though and headed off to Alexandria, the city where the young Egyptian king resided.
Cleopatra realized
that Caesar was her chance to get back on the throne. She hid in a ship and secretly made her way over to Alexandria. There, Cleopatra bribed the guards of her baby brother and then her loyal court official Apollodorus of Sicily carried her, hidden in a laundry bag and without anyone noticing, into the palace. In paintings and movies the bag is often replaced by a Persian carpet.
Jean-Léon Gerȏme, Cleopatra and Caesar, 1866
Ceasar opened the laundry bag in his room and out came the twenty-one-year-old queen. There she was, in all her glory. Caesar was 52 years old at that time and had a reputation of being a playboy. He had slept with many of his senators’ wives, as well as the spouses and daughters of Gaul leaders. Caesar was a physically fit and charming dandy, who established new fashion trends in Rome and was always occupied with his looks.
Historians have often wanted us to believe that Caesar let himself be willingly seduced by Cleopatra, but he was too experienced for such a thing. Cleopatra must absolutely have used her charm and her beauty to get her power back through Caesar, but Caesar also used Cleopatra to get his way. He wanted to show the coward Egyptian king and his advisors that Rome did not need to support their regime. Both Caesar and Cleopatra kept a close eye on politics.
Two powerful lovers
Cleopatra got her way and Caesar announced that brother and sister would reign over Egypt together from then on. Young Ptolemy XIII did not approve of this and it was the start of a time of conflict. In the end, the Romans beat the royal army and while escaping, Cleopatra’s brother drowned in the river Nile. Caesar insisted that Cleopatra marry her other brother, Ptolemy XIV, to keep a man on the throne. Caesar stuck around for months after and took a long cruise on the Nile together with the queen. When he left to fight in a war in Asia Minor, Cleopatra was pregnant with his baby. Their son, Caesarion, or baby Caesar, was born at the end of the year 47 BC. During the rest of Caesar’s life Cleopatra would travel to Rome from time to time, together with their son. These were both business as well as private visits and because of her vigorous lobbying Cleopatra prevented the annexation of Egypt as a Roman province.
This is not the end of the story though: Caesar was murdered four years after he and Cleopatra met. His death meant the end of the support that Cleopatra received from the Roman Empire. She quickly found a new ally though, represented by consul Mark Anthony. He had used the power vacuum to take over control of the Roman Empire, together with Octavian and the less powerful Lepidus. Cleopatra swept Mark Anthony of his feet with her royal charm and glamor and not even a year had passed after their first encounter when she gave birth to twins. In 37 BC Anthony settled in Alexandria and had another baby boy with Cleopatra. The queen expanded her empire with the help of her partner and three years later she was called the ‘Queen of Queens’. The Roman council was not happy with this and started a war against Egypt led by Anthony’s former ally Octavian. The Roman fleet was much bigger and stronger than the Egyptian one and when Octavian reached Alexandria, Cleopatra and Anthony committed suicide.
Goodbye throne, hello heritage
Looking back, Cleopatra’s political success was remarkable in a time when her empire had no real power to speak of. She never put up any resistance to the Romans but tried to make use of their power as much as she could. In the end, under her rule, Egypt was nearly as large as it was in the times of her most successful predecessors.
Even now, the history of Cleopatra and her Roman lovers still speaks to the imagination. Shakespeare turned the story into a play, Elisabeth Taylor will forever be
remembered for her interpretation of Cleopatra, and in some of the Asterix & Obelix comics the queen plays a dominant part. On the chess board, the Romans face the Egyptians, but without Cleopatra. She was smart enough to choose sides with the strong and powerful Romans.
The Romans vs. Egyptians chess set
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