The Secrets Behind Cleopatra’s Rise to Power

foreign [Music] woman from ancient history a living goddess who captured the hearts of two of Rome's greatest generals and oversaw a golden age for her kingdom it's a great story of a great individual undoubtedly it's also absolutely pivotal in the history of Egypt and in the history of the ancient world from Caesar to [Music] popular as ever her name despised idolized and mythologized Cleopatra she is able to control her own destiny this is a woman who is not stupid yes there might be love in there as well but it's a story of a great politician Cleopatra rests among Antiquities Most Daring Queens but how did she rise to such a prominent position Reviving The Fortunes of her floundering Hellenistic Kingdom how did she rise to dominate the Eastern Mediterranean people always look at Cleopatra one of the questions that everybody asks is where does reality stop where does the history stop and the fiction start Cleopatra's story is one of the best and most important we have from ancient history this is the rise of Cleopatra [Applause] this government feels obliged to report this new crisis to you in fullest detail [Applause] whether Russia has been provoked what matters is that Russia has been wrong in its response [Music] with this faith we will be able to transform the dangling discords of our nation thank you guys [Music] foreign [Music] exclusive documentaries and ad-free podcasts with top historians watch on your smart TV or mobile device by downloading the history hit app Cleopatra was born in around 69 BC she was born into a dynasty that had ruled over Egypt for more than 200 years Dynasty is the name that we give to the Kings who basically have all descended for each other and call themselves Ptolemy it's at right at the end of Egypt's diagnostic age so it's right at the end of the period where Egypt is ruled by pharaohs or Kings and it's after Alexander the greatest conquered Egypt so conquers Egypt in 332 BCE he dies shortly after and one of his generals Ptolemy takes the throne Ptolemy took Egypt founded a new line and from there you get two or three centuries worth of rulers descended from Ptolemy a great number of whom have the same name Ptolemy so autonomy the first second third through to 14th hence the ptolemaic Dynasty and the ptolemaic period by the first century BC however this once dominant Kingdom found Itself dwarfed by the new hegemonic Power in the Mediterranean Rome Rome is getting stronger it's it's working towards it being sort of Imperial Rome that we recognize from the Emperor Augustus so we have Julius Caesar coming to prominence so Rome is increasingly becoming a force to be reckoned with and the Egyptians are unfortunately indebted to Rome Rome had been called upon from time to time by Egypt to help out with various issues the reason Rome would be happy to help out in Egypt's Affairs is because Egypt was a very very wealthy place and Rome relied on resource from Egypt flowing back to Rome so if there was an issue that might have prohibited materials from reaching Rome Rome would take in interest so for quite some time Rome had been called on by Egypt which meant that Rome weren't going to do this for free it meant that that Egypt was increasingly in Rome's debt and in fact by the time of Cleopatra's birth Egypt was really a client State highly dependent on Rome and subject to its will at the heart of Cleopatra's world was a city a wealthy Metropolis that at the time was a Shining Light of the Mediterranean Alexandria we're very fortunate when it comes to Alexandria that we have some quite detailed descriptions of what it was like obviously it's an Egyptian City it's in Egypt but it's not like any other Egyptian City first of all it's really new it's founded by Alexander the Great but basically built by the ptolemist this is a new city with bright new buildings it's got a library it's got the university Museum it's got a lighthouse it's a Mediterranean City it's very Greek overriding the Greek in terms of architecture and other things in fact the the architecture at this particular time wouldn't have looked that ancient Egyptian so you travel further down in the null Valley you've got very ancient Egyptian looking temples and buildings and things in Alexandria much more Greek influence at this particular time it's so strange that the Egyptians themselves got it Alexandria next to Egypt they don't just call it Alexandria because of the Native Egyptians who don't live in Alexandria they guide it as very very strange it's quite a diverse place there are three main population groups there we've got Egyptians obviously we've got Greeks obviously as well and also quite a sizable Jewish cohort too and that's putting things quite neatly into separate cohorts the diversity would have been greater than that of course Nubians people from Sudan would have been part of Egyptian Society for some time and clearly would be in Alexandria as well and they appear to have been allowed to live harmoniously along alongside one another and that undoubtedly I think probably contributed to Alexandria's success culturally and intellectually it was a very International one is tempted to say almost kind of modern international City Cleopatra belonged to No Ordinary alexandrian Family she was royalty Cleopatra has I think it's fair to say the great Misfortune to be born into a bit of a nightmare of a family [Music] well Cleopatra's a Ptolemy and the ptolemies have been on the throne for about 300 years they're a family that has the tradition of brother-sister marriages so they're quite a close family if you like but this has not necessarily been a good thing it means that they're a farmer that's got a lot of infighting as people jostle for the throne as people are quite happy to bump off their relations to get to the throne her immediate family though is quite complicated and interesting her father is ptolemyth the 12th but he wasn't born to be king of Egypt he was an illegitimate son and he was called in as king because the infighting that had gone ahead it basically wiped out most of the royal family so he was the only one left to take the throne even though he was illegitimate son living in Syria he was brought to Egypt and made king of Egypt so he'd never expected this he is married to a woman called Cleopatra you find that they use the same names over and over again Cleopatra the Fifth we call her but we don't know who she was now we could guess that maybe she was his sister because they did go in quite a lot for brother-sister marriages but not necessarily and we can't just say because she was called Cleopatra that she was a member of that family because she might have changed her name when she married so we don't know who her mother was regardless she was the eldest child of autonomy the 12th and his wife or wives and she had a couple of younger brothers as well who go on to be Ptolemy the 13th and Ptolemy the 14th so that's essentially Cleopatra's kind of core immediate family units as far as we know it it's tough with Cleopatra's early years there's nothing really recorded that said we can look at the context in which she grew up so we can acknowledge that she's growing up in Alexandria that it's this fantastic place of learning and we can look at some fantastic scholarship done by medieval Arab Scholars and the sources that they've interrogated when we look at their work suggest strongly that Cleopatra was highly literate she spoke different languages which would make sense for a States person especially living and working in that part of the world with huge diversity so I think we can start piecing together the picture of a young Cleopatra as a scholar and I don't think there's much of a problem with that I think that the activity she goes on to do shows that she's clearly a learned person so that's what we know of Cleopatra's early life in a nutshell that she seems to have really taken advantage of the Greek tuition that were available to her as a royal member of the family things would take a turn for the worse however not long after Cleopatra's 10th birthday autonomy XII Cleopatra's dad is forced into Exile and it comes back to to Rome's influence in Egypt at this particular time autonomy the 12th wasn't particular particularly popular money from the Romans so he was struggling a bit anyway he wasn't popular with the people of Alexandria What mattered in those days is what the people of Alexandria thought the people outside Egypt less so and then the Romans decided to take over Cyprus which was actually being ruled by his brother and it all ended very tragically for the brother Rome taking over Cyprus leads Tommy the 12th brother to commit suicide the real problem is Ptolemy the 12th doesn't do anything you get the impression he kind of shrugs his shoulders and oh well and the Alexandra dreams find that boring they're like this is this is no ruler that's his own blood no chance and so they send him packing and he flees off to roots such an act must have had repercussions for the young Cleopatra Cleopatra at this time is it looks like she's already proved herself a good Ally of a father a potential ruler you know someone who's smart someone is well trained some people believe that she went off with her with her father autonomy the 12th she seems to have a genius for keeping a low profile at times of Crisis which I think is a very very sensible thing to do so the really key moments in her history where you wonder what she's doing you hear nothing and she seems to have this ability to wait and see which way things turn out and then to work out accordingly how to align herself and I suspect she wouldn't have been very old at this time so maybe she was just too young to to have any say in it but I suspect also that deliberate low Keys is what she's playing Cleopatra's father Ptolemy was ultimately reinstated thanks to Rome an important moment that also affected the young Cleopatra it's at this time when Ptolemy XII gets his throne back that we start to see Cleopatra more clearly she starts to associate herself with him her mother Cleopatra the Fifth or her potential mother when we're not quite sure has vanished her elder sister has has been executed and her other sister is a younger sister and one thing we know that kings of Egypt need is a queen to support them they don't actually have to be necessarily married to that queen I'm not suggesting that she marries her Father but she seems to have supported him by performing feminine role alongside his kingship having restored his control over Egypt Ptolemy continued to rule the country until his death in 51 BC a seismic moment for the teenage Cleopatra now through this kind of period Cleopatra's clearly proved herself to to her father as a capable individual and so in his will he signals that Cleopatra the seventh his daughter should rule alongside her younger brother so the eldest of her two younger brothers and that's Ptolemy the 13th so now we've got the situation where Ptolemy XII is dead and his daughter Cleopatra VII she's around 20 years old 18 19 years old and her younger eldest younger brother Ptolemy the 13th is around 10 or 11. they're co-ruling together effectively she is in charge because he's just too young so although they are king and queen together as soon as they come to the throne together we see her her name goes forward and he's sort of pushed out of the Limelight if you like and it's as if she's ruling alone and he's there young and being supported by a group of tutors but not really able to fight against it because he's just too young really to do anything at this time but obviously we can guess that he's not particularly happy about this situation it's not the normal way normally the king's name would always go first and in this instance the king isn't even mentioned fortunately for Cleopatra she had several precedents for powerful ptolemaic Queens Cleopatra II Cleopatra the third along with a lot of these earlier ptolemaic rulers are sin away the second as well is another really big one they serve as a really nice model for Cleopatra because these people ruled Egypt as Queens of Egypt they were very powerful they were well respected their images were put on temple walls they were legitimate pharaohs of Egypt or Queens of Egypt alongside pharaohs at various times and so Cleopatra finds herself in a very similar position to that as a a woman who is rather taking the lead in the rulership of Egypt and so to a certain extent she's looking back to these ancestors and kind of molding herself in the same way they provide a nice model for someone like Cleopatra from The Limited evidence that survives [Music] aims to follow in the footsteps of her original predecessors right from the start of her reign we know from a Steeler that was discovered at Armand's a site a few kilometers to the south of the ancient city of Thebes where the cult of the Egyptians favorite God from for most of ancient Egyptian history Ammon was to be found Cleopatra was present we know from this stealer at the installation of a Bugis bull this was an important part of the religious landscape in Egypt and she according to the stealer was not just present but herself rode the boat that the bull was taken to Armand on difficult to know whether this reflects a genuine historical event in the early life of Cleopatra as a newly installed Pharaoh or whether she herself is manipulating things already here she was probably aware that in doing this and having it recorded in this way she would be seen to be playing a major part in something that the Egyptians themselves would have held very dear it's difficult I think not to imagine that already she was she had one eye on trying to make sure that she had the approval of Egyptian people and that's a theme that runs right the way through her reign for two to three years Cleopatra was essentially Egypt's Soul rumor her prominence however did not last it seems almost inevitable that having been installed as joint rulers of Egypt Cleopatra and her brother told me the 13th would fall out Cleopatra and Ptolemy the 13th fall out because they both want to rule Egypt so she has been ruling Egypt effectively and he's just been a silent partner now he's old enough he wants to take over and he doesn't particularly want to be doing it with his big bossy elder sister there so he starts to push himself forward and he is supported by a group of tutors and advisors she presumably has a group of tutors and advisors with her but we learn more about his because he's younger and they're pushing him telling him what to do all the time the impression you get through this is that Ptolemy the 13th Court is becoming kind of more and more unhappy and at the same time Cleopatra is potentially becoming a little more and more unpopular certainly amongst her brothers groupings and so that all comes to a head at one particular point and backed with his court Ptolemy the 13th kind of makes these issues known and starts to try and do the opposite and push Cleopatra out ptolemy's coup against Cleopatra worked seeing that popular support was on her brother's side Cleopatra and her supporters fled Alexandria the queen however was intent on regaining her throne so as with the pattern in the ptolemaic period of people being exiled Cleopatra finds herself having to flee Egypt because of her younger brother's intensive activity towards her he's not happy of course so she flees and she heads to Syria and Ptolemy the 13th rules alone in Egypt as the soul what's quite incredible is that somehow and we're not quite sure how Cleopatra manages to raise quite a substantial Army in Syria she has designs on on coming back to Egypt of course but it's not as straightforward as her simply sailing back to Egypt and taking the throne because something else is happening in the background with Rome we've got this kind of civil war between Pompey and Caesar these two generals and these Roman generals are hugely powerful they come on massive massive armies by August 48 BC Julius Caesar was winning the Roman civil war against Pompey having recently defeated his great rival at the climactic Battle of farsalis Pompey however survived the battle and vowed to fight on intent on Reviving his Fortunes in Egypt it was a decision that would greatly affect both Ptolemy the 13th and Cleopatra pompe has fled and he's fleeing to Egypt because he expects that he'll get support from the Ptolemy royal family because he in the past are supported Ptolemy the 12th of the father of Ptolemy the 13th and Cleopatra the seventh so he comes to Egypt expecting to be welcomed and at least given some Sanctuary Pompey set sail for Egypt and he goes to palusium and that happens to be where Ptolemy is camped waiting for his sister to arrive with her troops from Syria and Ptolemy doesn't know what to do and he calls his advisers in and they give him this different advice but basically they think the best thing to do is to try and become friendly with Julius Caesar by killing his enemy because if they help Pompey no good will come of it they will be seen as helping an enemy of Rome and it's clear that Caesar is the Victor so Caesar is the one who whose opinion matters so that's what they do they kill him and they then send allegedly the head of Pompey and his Signet ring to Julius Caesar who has landed not a paloozian but also on the Mediterranean Coast in Egypt in Alexandria so as Caesar chasing Pompey arrives in Alexandria he's presented with his head and Signet rings of his enemy now obviously if it sees that this is probably a good thing because his enemy is dead but he can't be seen to agree that it's a good thing because you can't have random foreigners killing Romans that's a really bad thing so he instantly says oh this is terrible and marches into Alexandria with the very small number of troops he has with him and occupies the palace and then he decides that he will himself sort out the problems between Ptolemy and Cleopatra so he summons them both to Alexandria to meet him and he's going to resolve this issue in Egypt will be under their rule again the exiled Cleopatra was Keen to answer the summons she was eager to meet Caesar reaching the Roman Statesman however was easier said than done she recognizes of course that Ptolemy the 13th will try to oppose this and so she needs some way of setting up a meeting without autonomy the 13th being aware of it so it wouldn't be fitting to try to do this with great Pomp and Splendor the kind of way you might normally set up a diplomatic meeting lots of show of wealth and power and lots of boats and Entourage that kind of thing instead she travels to Alexandria covertly in a small boat the accounts differ but it seems that she snuck into the Royal Palace in some sort of Disguise it depends what you read but wrapped in we think although that's been a bit translated the popular myth now is that she was wrapped in a carpet whatever it is the idea is that she's wrapped in some sort of fabric and she slung over someone's shoulder and that Caesar's in the palace and they opened the doors and saying we've got the delivery for you and then they sort of flick it and the carpet unrolls and right in the middle there is is Cleopatra unrolls at his feet and that's the introduction how true that is is hard to know doubtless these stories get kind of exasperated over time until they finally get committed to writing and then get picked up again and again and again but I think the take-home point is that we can probably believe that there was a need for Cleopatra to meet Caesar for the benefit of Egypt and for her entrance back into Egypt I think Caesar probably wanted to meet Cleopatra he wasn't a big fan of her brother because her brother told me the 13th had just killed pompin and we know that he's unhappy with that so it looks like this could be a mutually beneficial meeting and and I guess we'd have no problem in believing that Cleopatra had to be smuggled in in some way as well so the more you kind of look into it even if we don't believe the kind of theatricality of the the carpet story clearly there's some kernels of Truth persuading Caesar to support her cause was Cleopatra's plan and it worked we don't have an eyewitness accounts as to a houses reacted to all of this all we know is is what happened that one moment Ptolemy the 13th is like the person who is obviously going to rule Egypt is the popular choice and the next minute Julius Caesar is saying that Cleopatra and Ptolemy have to be together again and we'll rule it as king and queen so it seems very clear that in a very short period of time Cleopatra has been able to swayed him to her way of thinking and how she did this we don't know it's assumed that she seduced him maybe that's the case if it is the case is is that really a big deal I don't know you know does the throne at stake here but maybe they just sat down and talked we really don't know what happened but certainly we tend to interpret it as a really great love story don't we so what did Cleopatra look like contemporary depictions of her are limited One Source we do have is coinage minted by Cleopatra throughout her reign Cleopatra's coinage is quite interesting and a lot of people like to look at these coins and say this is a portrait of Cleopatra and then people get very excited because then they try and make 3D representations and start commenting on various things like noses and chins and various other things we always assume that Cleopatra coinage is is the most accurate representation that we have of her because it's contemporary to her a lot of the other images we have of her aren't contemporary to her and because we tend to assume that people do put their own image on a coin I'm not entirely sure how accurate it would be because you might for example want to depict yourself as stronger than you are or or somehow different but we tend to think that this is the most lifelike interpretation of Cleopatra and to Modern Eyes she's not particularly beautiful she's got quite a prominent nose she's got quite a prominent chin she's got sunken eyes I don't think that really matters though we're very obsessed with how beautiful Cleopatra must have been it's almost seen as a defining characteristic and yet we have people who haven't known her but have known people who've known her tell us that her real attraction is in her voice and the way she talks and the way she presents herself she's obviously very clever she doesn't necessarily I think need to be beautiful as well she could still persuade people that she's the right person to be on the throne she can still charm people even if she's not you know the most beautiful woman in the world charm Caesar Cleopatra did [Music] in late 48 BC Cleopatra was once again co-ruling Egypt alongside the young Ptolemy the 13th but this volatile Arrangement soon Came Crashing Down so Caesar stipulates that that Cleopatra VII should rule alongside Ptolemy XII as they had done before and try and kind of maintain that status quo and get it back but we know that that's problematic he reads Ptolemy the 12th's will that's Cleopatra and Tommy the 13th father's will in which it clearly states that he wishes for the two of them to rule together so Caesar is more or less saying you've got to get on with this you've got to make this work somehow but it doesn't when Ptolemy the 13th hears this he has a bit of a hissy fit and he takes off his crown and throws it down and said I'm not going along with this and and this is when the people of Alexandria start to arm their slaves and everyone gets really worried because it becomes apparent that this isn't going to happen and actually win Cleopatra re-enters Civil War erupts so the first kind of major conflict between Caesar and Cleopatra and Ptolemy the 13th and his gang is in Alexandria itself and it's during this period that Alexandria sustains quite a lot of damage as well Caesar is in quite a lot of danger because he's arrived in Alexandria not being prepared to fight a war so he has to send for more troops at one point he nearly drowns because he falls into the water he also manages or his troops manage to set fire to the Library of Alexandria but it comes to an end after three or four months of really heavy fighting with Ptolemy drowning his armor is too heavy for him to escape from the water quite convenient for Cleopatra and for seasonal because the the doors now open for Cleopatra to regain the throne in Egypt however we've got that same problem where she can't really be the sole ruler that's that's not the preferred mode of doing things at the moment she needs to cool and she does have her younger brother still so Ptolemy the 14th comes to the throne to rule alongside Cleopatra VII Cleopatra was reinstated on the Egyptian throne Caesar close by her side once telling me the 13th is out of the way and Cleopatra and Caesar in Egypt Caesar does have a lot of other Roman business to attend to elsewhere in the Empire which he eventually gets around to but before then it appears that they stay in Egypt for a period and they put on quite a display for Egypt to kind of show Egypt this new alliance between Cleopatra and between Caesar between Egypt and between Rome and kind of really show the population I suppose who's boss now and the way they do this is with a really magnificent Nile cruise we don't know if this is true or not it's possible because we know that the ptolemate royal family all had barges unsailing the dandelion was a very Egyptian thing to do traditional Egyptian kings didn't have just one Palace they would sail up and down the Nile reminding their people that they existed because it's a long thin country in Egypt and it may well be that Cleopatra just wanted to show him his new land or her new land which obviously is he's aligned with her it's basically his land he would have been aware of the great Wonders that were to be seen in Egypt but perhaps hadn't set eyes on them himself it's easy to think that he would have been very very impressed by what he saw in great centers like Memphis thieves and then in Fila as well so this was a I really I think if if this was Cleopatra's initiative really a very clever thing for her to have done it helps strengthen her position with the Egyptian people it helps strengthen her position with Julius Caesar he would also not have been unhappy about this arrangement I think as well bringing Egypt perhaps more into Rome's control also we know that he was always very interested in trying to find the source of the Nile with all this so maybe he also thoughts he could do this but he couldn't he didn't get far enough to do that [Music] Caesar left Egypt and Cleopatra in early 47 BC after his departure Cleopatra continued to strengthen her position sometime after Julie says Cleopatra has a baby who she calls Caesarean Little Caesar which is a bit of a giveaway but she never herself tells us who the father of this baby is again she's quite good at keeping silence when it's important so there's a lot of speculation as to who he may be is he Julius Caesar's child is he not I think most people think that he probably is from her point of view to have a child with Julius Caesar would be a very very sensible decision because Julius Caesar is clearly going to be the person who's effectively ruling Rome I mean he's not going to be a king because it's Rome but effectively he is so if she has a child that can unite both Rome and Egypt to great powerhouses at the time that would be a really good thing and it will guarantee her family's security but also her country's security she would have been very much hoping that Not only was cesarean going to take over from her to ensure that her favored candidate for the throne would rule into the future but also that the the balance of power with Cleopatra continuing to rule an independent Egypt Caesarean following her in that but with the backing of Rome that's the arrangement that she would have been hoping for and that's the arrangement she's going to hope will continue into the future through the birth of cesarean Cleopatra's link to Julius Caesar was clear for all to see soon reunited with the Roman Statesman not in Egypt but in Rome Cleopatra goes to Rome to be with Caesar so Caesar's been away doing various things looking after his Empire and he lands in Rome and Cleopatra goes over to Rome to meet him we don't know who she takes with her we assume she takes a brother and we assume she takes the baby but but we cannot be 100 sure of that and she seems to stay there right up to the point where Caesar is assassinated so quite a lengthy stay this is the face of it seems a very odd thing to do because she's only just got her country under control things that have taken a turn for the better she's rulings in the stable conditions but is it the best time to go away in a prolonged trip she's not particularly popular with the people of Rome I don't know whether that would have bothered her or not but we have some classical writing and sort of muttering about how unpopular she was I didn't really date to her see all of a sudden we've got this very powerful very wealthy very independent very clever woman coming in and not I think attempting to behave like a typical Roman woman but like a fair like a like a goddess on Earth so presumably she's adorned you know with all of the iconography that she's used to wearing and this I think is a source of concern to some Romans she is a queen and she expects to be treated as such one very striking Act of Caesars was to have a statue of Cleopatra commissioned in the form of the Romans goddess Venus within the Temple of Venus genetics which is in the Forum in Rome so very prominent position and an image which is at once Cleopatra his ally his consort but also at the same time a Roman goddess so he's putting Cleopatra quite literally on a pedestal and saying look you know this is somebody that you've got to support you've got to get behind but on the 15th of March 44 BC The Ides of March Caesar was assassinated an act that greatly affected Cleopatra's next moves the first thing she has to do is to return home which is what she does the next thing that she seems to do well I'll say she seems to do it I'll just say that her brother husband vanishes at this point told me the 14th happens to die and we don't really know a lot about the circumstances around his death it does present a real opportunity for Cleopatra to see a clear way forward for the rulership of Egypt with her son Caesarean as Pharaoh ruling alongside herself which means effectively she's going to be a solo ruler now for at least another 10-15 years so it makes him reshaker life but it leaves her ruling Egypt a solo ruler but without the Bucking of a powerful person to support her and whether Egypt at this point can survive like this is not entirely clear she really needs to have the backing of a Roman and she needs to try and decide which Roman is going to be the most suitable one to support her and keep her on the throne and support Egypt as well the crowning of Cleopatra's young son paved the way for Cleopatra to promote herself as a semi-divine monarch to align herself with Egypt's most famous single mother the Goddess Isis the Goddess Isis is a traditional Goddess of Egypt well established and well respected throughout Egypt she is the Queen of Egypt she's married to the king of Egypt Osiris and he is killed by his brother she is able to bring him back to life but he's not fully back to life she bandages him up she makes him into the first mummy and then he goes off to rule the Land of the Dead and her son Horus becomes eventually becomes king of Egypt so she is both married to an absent king of Egypt the king of the dead and she's the mother of the living king of Egypt and from this point onwards all dead kings of Egypt will become one with Osiris and all living Kings or the Horus king of Egypt an Isis in this is the Exemplar of of the mother goddess and by the ptolemaic period her Star had risen if anything above that of Osiris so Cleopatra was very canny in associating herself with a goddess who already was a great favorite of the Egyptians so we're told that she dresses like Isis not like the traditional ancient Egyptian Isis but the classical version of Isis who would be wearing a colored robe and a cloak over it and it's tied in a special knot and a little crown on her head maybe carrying a system a sacred rattle Queen mother and goddess Cleopatra would have her new Divine image conveyed across the kingdom for instance through the construction of temples she finishes off building projects from early autonomies including her father and she also does Selective buildings in some areas a couple of good examples are dindera Cleopatra didn't build that from scratch that predates her that's a starts in the late period in fact her father Ptolemy XII does a lot of work on dendera and as is quite normal you'd augment you'd add to Temples you'd finish them and Cleopatra pretty much finished dendera Temple now then there is an important one because that's the cult Center of Hazel very isis-like and in fact at this particular time the distinction between Isis and hathor is almost non-existent they iconographically look almost identical so this is a great Target Temple for Cleopatra to identify with and in fact on that Temple you see a wonderful relief of Cleopatra and her son Caesarean offering to to gods and and various other individuals she looks like an Egyptian queen you wouldn't be able to distinguish her from any other Egyptian queen I'm sure she didn't look like that she probably didn't dress like that but to the people who would see this at the temple this is the image that she wanted to portray and she also at a temple at our month she builds a little birth house we call it which tells the story of the birth of the god and it's very clear that the birth of the god is being equated here to the birth of Caesarean so she also ties in Divine birth the ideas of divine birth and mothers having children so by associating yourself with Isis as she does more clearly than anywhere else at our mount in in the temple release there she is showing herself to be the mother of the true rightful heir to the throne Horus embodied in this case by cesarean she's putting herself at the very center of one of Egyptians most important fundamental beliefs she's also making it very difficult theologically for the Egyptians to see anybody else as being legitimate claimants to the throne so sort of doctrinally she's making it difficult for her Rivals it was following in a long tradition of showing how the current ruler was legitimate a child of the Gods and the right person to be ruling Egypt by 42 BC Cleopatra's position as Queen of Egypt looked solid but the overshadowing presence of Rome now once again reared its ugly head another civil war Loom fought between assassins of Julius Caesar such as Marcus Brutus and Cassius longinus and former allies of Caesar Octavian and Marc Anthony [Music] Caesar's killers at large we've got Mark Anthony who was Caesar's Lieutenant he was kind of a right-hand man so in one sense a logical person to take over from where Caesar left off but we've also got Octavian who is related to Caesar so he's a liking candidate to take over as well and obviously that means that there's an issue between Mark Anthony and between Octavian so at this particular period we've got another quite disruptive era in Roman history and we've got Egypt and Cleopatra in the background too Cleopatra has to pick a sign to be on when when Rome erupts again into into Civil War because she needs a supporter and she doesn't want anyone to invade Egypt and Egypt's in quite a vulnerable position because theoretically Rome has an interest in Egypt theoretically one of the earlier ptolemies has actually left an interest in Egypt to Rome so it might be that someone might say okay we now own Egypt and we're coming to take it and she would struggle with that one so she has to pick a side but she does what she does quite often as she hesitates she she doesn't pick a side she she says she's ill she says she'll send fleets to help people but then there's bad weather so they can't set off and things she really really hesitates this reluctant to commit would have consequences Brutus and Cassius were defeated by Mark Anthony in Octavian that the battles of Philippi in October 42 BC the following year Mark Anthony summoned Cleopatra to Tarsus in southeast turkey seeking an explanation for her past inaction we know that Anthony summoned Cleopatra to Tarsus he was collecting money from vassals and he was also inquiring into people who might have helped people who weren't on the right side in the Civil War and it was suspected that by delaying and not sending help when it was asked for that Cleopatra had been one of those people who was waiting to see which way things went which I'm sure she was she might have already known Marc Anthony or she would have certainly known of him he'd been in Egypt she'd been in Rome she probably knew about his nature his character and I think she felt that she could deal with him and I think she felt that she could almost repeat what had happened with Caesar so she decided yes she would go she had no choice really but she went to meet him on her own terms and she went apparently dressed as Isis in beautiful Splendid robes she traveled to meet him on her grand boats with salomegos with a whole flotilla of other ships against a sort of floating demonstration of ptolemaic wealth and power and the luxury and everybody in the area comes down to see this spectacle you know it must have been quite something to behold you know she's displaying the wealth of her country and don't think she's a pharaoh she's a goddess on Earth so presumably it's all of that home and ceremony something to see so everybody's coming down to see apart from Mark Anthony who's invited her and of course he's trying to you know have her come off of her barge up to meet him but she refuses so she refuses to do that and she insists that Mark Anthony come down to her which eventually he does and it seems that very quickly he fell in love with her I say fell in love again I'm probably putting a modern interpretation it they certainly formed an alliance I think is the best way to put it rather than arriving back in Egypt a headless corpse Cleopatra returned to Alexandria a champion of the Diplomatic stage her new Ally and lover Mark Anthony by her side they seem to have had a great time in Alexandria very childish in many ways drinking societies playing jokes going through the streets in quite a Rowdy manner but all this seems to be an absolutely what Marc Anthony liked to do it's interesting to know how much of this is is her working out what he liked to do and using it to entrap him further and how much she's actually enjoying this herself it's sometimes we see her as two great love stories but I think we have to allow a bit more political Acumen than this I think she's chosen Marc Anthony and she's getting him on side here and she knows exactly what he likes and she's providing it Mark Anthony was soon on the move once more as he hurried across the Roman Mediterranean dealing with the political Fallout of the recent Civil War Cleopatra remained in Egypt ruling over an increasingly prosperous kingdom it's very difficult to tell how she is administering Egypt all we can say is that things are slowly turning around and getting better we do know they were low Niles we do know they were there were Financial issues because Egypt's very much tied into the broader Eastern Mediterranean and we know that Cleopatra apparently reacted to all of these in the interests of her country and when we also we do have a document [Music] we have one document that has writing on it that says Guinness though simply a word written that translates as something like let it be so so it is agreed that kind of thing and some Scholars have have suggested based on what we know of the date of this letter that this could be Cleopatra's own handwriting it would be wonderful if it was but um I don't think that we can really truthfully say it was would she even sign her own documents I don't know but it's a lovely idea that we have one document that has one word on it that she is actually written in 37 BC however Cleopatra would once again be summoned to a far away City by Mark Anthony this time to the prestigious city of Antioch for one of the most extraordinary events of Cleopatra's rise Cleopatra starts to support Mark Anthony and Marc Anthony is increasingly keen on breaking away from Octavian and establishing an Eastern Empire but in Antioch he summons Cleopatra because he's in desperate need of money and troops and support she customates him and she says yes she will give him support but in return she wants something she wants all the lands that the earlier tolerate Kings once owned in the East and he says yes she can have it so almost overnight she's restored The Lost Empire of the ptolemus in the in the East and they are now firmly put together as allies Cleopatra now ruled the dominant Kingdom in the Eastern Mediterranean and the wealthiest the once Mighty ptolemaic Kingdom that had enjoyed its height some 200 years earlier had been restored for her this is really a restoration of the family heritage if you like and I think it proves to her and proves to the people of Egypt that she is a suitable person to to rule Egypt because she's done a wonderful thing she's got this lamb back to us I think it demonstrates what a good organizer what a good Governor she's being that she's able to be in the position to demand this and that Mark Anthony has to go along with it that she actually has enough wealth now to support him so it's an interesting thing it also sets up the foundation for moving forward if they're going to be a couple and they're going to have a power base they've got a power base here it's gone from Rome to Egypt which I think is very important intent on displaying the martial and economic power of their Kingdom in 34 BC Cleopatra and Mark Anthony staged an extraordinary spectacle back in Alexandria Mark Anthony's just come back from a battle he's won a victory over the Armenians it doesn't seem to have been a massive hugely significant victory but regardless he comes back in full Triumph to Alexandria and puts on the kind of typical sort of Roman display of Triumph where you know you parade through the streets and he he seated in a really over-the-top kind of gold Throne on a silver DS and all of this kind of stuff real a real demonstration of wealth and power and ability and victory and you know you've got the captives there as well they're kind of a very typical Roman thing to do parading these cats in surrounding Triumph [Music] this kind of develops into a celebration that's known as the donations of Alexandria the donations of Alexandria is a celebration where the whole family so it's Cleopatra cesarean who is the alleged son of Julius Caesar Marc Anthony and their three children so will be Cleopatra Cellini Alexander Helios they're twins and Ptolemy Fida Delphos the baby went to the gymnasium in Alexandria dressed in inappropriate costumes Marc Anthony's dressed as Dionysus Cleopatra appears as Isis she is declared queen of Kings cesarean her son is declared King of Kings basically Mark Anthony gave a speech declaring that they were going to rule the Eastern world that Cleopatra and her son would rule Egypt that the children would have rights to various lands in the Eastern Empire and that says there and himself had a right to rule Rome as well so this is a vision of a kind of idyllic future for Cleopatra and her line in which all of her children are in control of various parts of the of the Mediterranean world but of course it's a feature that's never going to come about because in making these donations Mark Anthony was going to be making himself very unpopular in Rome and that was to lead to his downfall I would say that this is the high watermark in her story Cleopatra's story but at this point it looks like everything's going to plan they're going to take over the Eastern Empire they're going to have a foothold in Rome because cesarean will eventually inherit Rome probably her children will inherit other lands she's with Mark Anthony who's clearly Superior to Octavian and you know the world is their oyster and they're announcing it to everybody [Music] within 20 turbulent years of ascending the Throne of Egypt Cleopatra had emerged the victor of a bloody Civil War won the hearts of two of Rome's most powerful Warlords restored a golden age for her kingdom and risen to rule the most powerful Empire in the Eastern Mediterranean Cleopatra's story is so interesting because she rise from nowhere no said that she was born into the royal family but she wasn't the firstborn daughter and she made her way through all sorts of obstacles and I think she shows a lot of political good sense and she is able to control her own destiny she's born into a family where people murder each other where you've got to almost murder or be murdered and she's able to navigate her way through that and at the same time she brings Egypt along with her so as her life improves Egypt gets stronger and stronger and she turns people's opinions so people who didn't like her start to like her and I think it's just such an impressive achievement for anyone to do that and I think it's such a shame that we tend to focus on her beauty and love affairs rather than looking at a political ability and her brains I guess and really with respect her for what she did to me it's fascinating it's a great story of a of a great individual undoubtedly it's also absolutely pivotal in the history of Egypt and in the history of the ancient world and for that reason I think Cleopatra's story is one of the best and most important we have from ancient queen of Kings this was the rise of Cleopatra thanks for watching this video on the history Hit YouTube channel you can subscribe right here to make sure you don't miss any of our great films that are coming out or if you are a true history fan check out our special dedicated History Channel History hit dot TV you're gonna love it

Channel: History Hit

Views: 75,802

Keywords: history hit, history hit youtube, cleopatra documentary, julius caesar, mark antony, story of cleopatra, egyptian history, cleopatra and mark antony, cleopatra history, who was cleopatra, who was cleopatra in egypt, cleopatra and, cleopatra and julius caesar, cleopatra and caesar, cleopatra and julius caesar love story, cleopatra and mark antony love story, ptolemaic egypt, ptolemaic dynasty, ptolemaic egypt documentary, history of egypt, history of ptolemaic egypt

Id: zw84WIG8ssI

Length: 52min 19sec (3139 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 18 2023