She led a fleet in a naval battle.Ĭleopatra eventually married Mark Antony and had three children with him, but their relationship also spawned a massive scandal in Rome. One of Antony and Cleopatra’s favorite activities supposedly involved wandering the streets of Alexandria in disguise and playing pranks on its residents. living a life of leisure and excess in Egypt, and even formed their own drinking society known as the “Inimitable Livers.” The group engaged in nightly feasts and wine binges, and its members occasionally took part in elaborate games and contests. According to ancient sources, they spent the winter of 41-40 B.C. Their relationship had a political component-Cleopatra needed Antony to protect her crown and maintain Egypt’s independence, while Antony needed access to Egypt’s riches and resources-but they were also famously fond of each other’s company. Cleopatra and Mark Antony formed their own drinking club.Ĭleopatra first began her legendary love affair with the Roman general Mark Antony in 41 B.C. Her exotic hairstyle and pearl jewelry became a fashion trend, and according to the historian Joann Fletcher, “so many Roman women adopted the ‘Cleopatra look’ that their statuary has often been mistaken for Cleopatra herself.” 7. Cleopatra was forced to flee Rome after Caesar was stabbed to death in the Roman senate in 44 B.C., but by then she had made her mark on the city. Caesar didn’t hide that she was his mistress-she even came to the city with their lovechild, Caesarion, in tow-and many Romans were scandalized when he erected a gilded statue of her in the temple of Venus Genetrix. She was living in Rome at the time of Caesar’s assassination.Ĭleopatra joined Julius Caesar in Rome beginning in 46 B.C., and her presence seems to have caused quite a stir. Antony-who considered himself the embodiment of the Greek god Dionysus-was instantly enchanted. Cleopatra had been made up to look like the goddess Aphrodite, and she sat beneath a gilded canopy while attendants dressed as cupids fanned her and burned sweet-smelling incense. When summoned to meet the Roman Triumvir in Tarsus, she is said to have arrived on a golden barge adorned with purple sails and rowed by oars made of silver. Caesar was dazzled by the sight of the young queen in her royal garb, and the two soon became allies and lovers.Ĭleopatra later employed a similar bit of theater in her 41 B.C. Knowing Ptolemy’s forces would thwart her attempts to meet with the Roman general, Cleopatra had herself wrapped in a carpet-some sources say it was a linen sack-and smuggled into his personal quarters.
A famous example of her flair for the dramatic came in 48 B.C., when Julius Caesar arrived in Alexandria during her feud with her brother Ptolemy XIII.
REAL JULIUS CAESAR AND CLEOPATRA HOW TO
Cleopatra knew how to make an entrance.Ĭleopatra believed herself to be a living goddess, and she often used clever stagecraft to woo potential allies and reinforce her divine status. In 41 B.C., she also engineered the execution of her sister, Arsinoe, who she considered a rival to the throne. Following the war, Cleopatra remarried to her younger brother Ptolemy XIV, but she is believed to have had him murdered in a bid to make her son her co-ruler. Cleopatra regained the upper hand by teaming with Julius Caesar, and Ptolemy drowned in the Nile River after being defeated in battle. Her first sibling-husband, Ptolemy XIII, ran her out of Egypt after she tried to take sole possession of the throne, and the pair later faced off in a civil war. Power grabs and murder plots were as much a Ptolemaic tradition as family marriage, and Cleopatra and her brothers and sisters were no different. She had a hand in the deaths of three of her siblings. EXPLORE THE MYSTERIES OF ANCIENT EGYPT WITH HISTORY TRAVEL™.
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