User:PericlesofAthens/Draft for Cleopatra
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Cleopatra VII Philopator | |||||
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Queen of Ptolemaic Kingdom | |||||
Reign | 51 – 10 or 12 August 30 BC (21 years)[note 1] | ||||
Predecessor | Ptolemy XII Auletes | ||||
Successor | Ptolemy XV Caesarion | ||||
Co-rulers | Ptolemy XII Auletes Ptolemy XIII Theos Philopator Ptolemy XIV Ptolemy XV Caesarion | ||||
Born | 69 BC Alexandria, Ptolemaic Kingdom | ||||
Died | 10 or 12 August 30 BC (aged 39)[note 1] Alexandria, Egypt | ||||
Burial | Unknown (probably in Egypt) | ||||
Spouse | Ptolemy XIII Theos Philopator Ptolemy XIV Mark Antony | ||||
Issue | Caesarion, Ptolemy XV Philopator Philometor Caesar Alexander Helios Cleopatra Selene, Queen of Mauretania Ptolemy XVI Philadelphus | ||||
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Dynasty | Ptolemaic | ||||
Father | Ptolemy XII Auletes | ||||
Mother | Unknown, presumably Cleopatra VI Tryphaena[note 2] |
Cleopatra VII in hieroglyphs | |||||||||||||||||||
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Qlwpdrt | |||||||||||||||||||
Wr(.t)-nb(.t)-nfrw-3ḫ(t)-sḥ The great Lady of perfection, excellent in counsel | |||||||||||||||||||
Wr.t-twt-n-jt=s The great one, sacred image of her father | |||||||||||||||||||
Qlwpdrt nṯrt mr(t) jts The goddess Cleopatra who is beloved of her father | |||||||||||||||||||
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- User:PericlesofAthens/Sandbox Cleopatra
Cleopatra VII Philopator (Greek: Κλεοπάτρα Φιλοπάτωρ Cleopatra Philopator;[7] 69 – August 10 or 12, 30 BC),[note 1] known to history as Cleopatra, was a queen and last active ruler of the Ptolemaic Kingdom of Egypt, briefly survived as pharaoh by her son Caesarion. She was also a diplomat, naval commander, administrator, linguist, and possible medical author.[8] As a member of the Ptolemaic dynasty, she was a descendant of its founder Ptolemy I, a Macedonian Greek general and companion of Alexander the Great. After the death of Cleopatra, Egypt became a province of the newly-established Roman Empire, marking the end of the Hellenistic period that had lasted since the reign of Alexander.
Cleopatra was the daughter of Ptolemy XII Auletes and an unknown mother. In 58 BC Cleopatra presumably accompanied her father during his exile to Rome, after a revolt in Egypt allowed his eldest daughter Berenice IV to claim the throne. The latter was killed in 55 BC when Ptolemy XII returned to Egypt with Roman military aid, ending her short-lived rule as queen. Both Cleopatra and her younger brother Ptolemy XIII acceded to the throne as joint rulers with the death of their father in March 51 BC, but a fallout occurred between the rival siblings within months, leading to open civil war. Cleopatra briefly fled to Roman Syria in 48 BC, but returned later that year with an army to confront Ptolemy XIII. As a Roman client state, Ptolemaic Egypt was planned as a place of refuge by the Roman statesman Pompey the Great after losing the 48 BC Battle of Pharsalus in Greece against his rival Julius Caesar in Caesar's Civil War. However, Ptolemy XIII had Pompey killed when the latter landed near Pelousion in Egypt, sending his severed head to Caesar after the latter occupied the Ptolemaic royal place of Alexandria in pursuit of Pompey. With his authority as consul of the Roman Republic, Caesar attempted to reconcile Ptolemy XIII with Cleopatra. However, Ptolemy XIII's chief adviser Potheinos viewed Caesar's terms as favoring Cleopatra, so his forces, led first by Achillas and then Ganymedes under Arsinoe IV (Cleopatra's younger sister), besieged both Caesar and Cleopatra at the palace. The siege was lifted by reinforcements in early 47 BC and Ptolemy XIII died shortly thereafter in the Battle of the Nile. Arsinoe IV was eventually exiled to Ephesus and Caesar, now an elected dictator, declared Cleopatra and her younger brother Ptolemy XIV as joint rulers of Egypt. However, Caesar maintained a private affair with Cleopatra that produced a son, Caesarion (later Ptolemy XV), before he departed Alexandria for Rome. Cleopatra traveled to Rome as a client queen in 46 and 44 BC, staying at Caesar's villa. When Caesar was assassinated in 44 BC Cleopatra attempted to have Caesarion named as his heir, an attempt that was thwarted by the latter's grandnephew Octavian (known as Augustus by 27 BC, when he became the first Roman emperor). Cleopatra then had her brother Ptolemy XIV killed and elevated her son Caesarion to his position as co-ruler.
In the Liberators' civil war of 43-42 BC, Cleopatra sided with the Roman Second Triumvirate formed by Octavian, Mark Antony, and Marcus Aemilius Lepidus. With their meeting at Tarsos in 41 BC, Cleopatra developed a personal relationship with Mark Antony that would eventually produce three children: the twins Alexander Helios and Cleopatra Selene II, and Ptolemy Philadelphus. Antony used his authority as triumvir to then carry out the execution of Arsinoe IV in Ephesus at Cleopatra's request. Antony became increasingly reliant on Cleopatra for both funding and military aid during his invasions of the Parthian Empire and the Kingdom of Armenia. Although his invasion of Parthia was unsuccessful, he managed to occupy Armenia, bringing king Artavasdes II of Armenia and his royal family back to Alexandria as prisoners to be paraded in his mock Roman triumph hosted by Cleopatra in 34 BC. This was immediately followed by the Donations of Alexandria, where Alexander Helios was declared King of Armenia, Medes, and Parthia, Ptolemy Philadelphus as King of Syria and Cilicia, Cleopatra Selene as queen of Crete and Cyrene, Cleopatra as the Queen of Kings, and Caesarion as the King of Kings. This event, along with Antony's marriage to Cleopatra and eventual divorce of Octavia Minor, sister of Octavian, marked a turning point that led to the Final War of the Roman Republic. After engaging in a war of propaganda, Octavian forced Antony's allies in the Roman Senate to flee Rome in 32 BC and declared war on Cleopatra, on the grounds that she had unlawfully provided military support to Antony, now a private Roman citizen without public office. Antony and Cleopatra commanded a combined naval force at the 31 BC Battle of Actium against Octavian's general Agrippa, who won the battle after the flight of both Cleopatra and Antony to the Peloponnese and eventually Egypt, from where they sent envoys to engage in fruitless negotiations with Octavian. After wintering with his newly-won client Herod the Great in Judea, Octavian's forces invaded Egypt in 30 BC. Although Antony and Cleopatra offered military resistance, their forces were defeated by Octavian, leading to the suicide of Antony. When it became clear that Octavian planned to have Cleopatra brought to Rome as a prisoner for his triumphal procession, Cleopatra also committed suicide, the cause of death reportedly by use of poison, with the popular belief that she was bitten by an asp. Following her death, Octavian had Egypt annexed and turned into a Roman province.
Cleopatra's legacy survives in numerous works of art, both ancient and modern, and many dramatizations of incidents from her life in literature and other media. She was described in various works of Roman historiography, although the only surviving histories to cover her reign in great detail were those by Josephus, Plutarch, and Cassius Dio. She featured heavily in ancient Latin poetry, which produced a generally polemic and negative view of the queen that pervaded later Medieval and Renaissance literature, such as that of Boccaccio. A positive reassessment of the queen was established by medieval authors such as Chaucer. In the visual arts, ancient depictions of Cleopatra include Roman and Ptolemaic coinage, statues, busts, reliefs, cameo glass, cameo carvings, and paintings. She was the subject of many works in Renaissance and Baroque art, which included sculptures, paintings, poetry, theatrical dramas such as William Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra (1608) and operas such as Georg Frideric Handel's Giulio Cesare in Egitto (1724). In modern times Cleopatra has appeared in both the applied and fine arts, burlesque satire, Hollywood films such as Cleopatra (1963), and brand images for commercial products.