Cleopatra, (Greek: “Famous in Her Father”) in full Cleopatra VII Thea Philopator (“Cleopatra the Father-Loving Goddess”), (born 70/69 BCE—died August 30 BCE, Alexandria), Egyptian queen, famous in history and drama as the lover of Julius Caesar and later as the wife of Mark Antony. She became queen on the death of her father, Ptolemy XII, in 51 BCE and ruled successively with her two brothers Ptolemy XIII (51–47) and Ptolemy XIV (47–44) and her son Ptolemy XV Caesar (44–30). After the Roman armies of Octavian (the future emperor Augustus) defeated their combined forces, Antony and Cleopatra committed suicide, and Egypt fell under Roman domination. Cleopatra actively influenced Roman politics at a crucial period, and she came to represent, as did no other woman of antiquity, the prototype of the romantic femme fatale.
Daughter of King Ptolemy XII Auletes, Cleopatra was destined to become the last queen of the Macedonian dynasty that ruled Egypt between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BCE and its annexation by Rome in 30 BCE. The line had been founded by Alexander’s general Ptolemy, who became King Ptolemy I Soter of Egypt. Cleopatra was of Macedonian descent and had little, if any,
Egyptian blood, although the Classical author Plutarch wrote that she alone of her house took the trouble to learn Egyptian and, for political reasons, styled herself as the new Isis, a title that distinguished her from the earlier Ptolemaic queen Cleopatra III, who had also claimed to be the living embodiment of the goddess Isis. Coin portraits of Cleopatra show a countenance alive rather than beautiful,
with a sensitive mouth, firm chin, liquid eyes, broad forehead, and prominent nose. When Ptolemy XII died in 51 BCE, the throne passed to his young son, Ptolemy XIII, and daughter, Cleopatra VII. It is likely, but not proven, that the two married soon after their father’s death. The 18-year-old Cleopatra, older than her brother by about eight years, became the dominant ruler.
Evidence shows that the first decree in which Ptolemy’s name precedes Cleopatra’s was in October of 50 BCE. Soon after, Cleopatra was forced to flee Egypt for Syria, where she raised an army and in 48 BCE returned to face her brother at Pelusium, on Egypt’s eastern border. The murder of the Roman general Pompey, who had sought refuge from Ptolemy XIII at Pelusium, and the arrival of Julius Caesar brought temporary peace.
