Cleopatra

Cleopatra(69B.C.-30B.C.), queen of Egypt was once one of the greatest heroines of all her time.

Her name was used widely in the Ptolemaic family and there were many Cleopatra's before she was born.

She was the daughter of Ptolemy XI and she married at the age of 17(it was one of the family's custom's)to her brother Ptolemy XII.

The force and character of the royal pair was however concentrated in the alluring(though apparently not beautiful) ambitious queen. She led a revolt against her brother,and, obtaining the aid of Julius Caesar,she had won the kingdom,although it remained a vassal of Rome. Her young brother-husband accidentally drowned in the Nile.

Then she had married her still young brother Ptolemy XIII, but she was a mistress of Caesar and she had followed him to Rome;and there she had a son named Caesarion(later became Ptolemy XVI), who he said was to be his own. Returing to Egypt after the death had happened of Caesar and the battle of Philip, she had been visited (42B.C.) by Marc Antony, who had come to demand an account for her actions. He fell hopelessly in love, and Cleopatra, conscious of her royalty and even her claims to divinity as the Pharaoh's daughter, seems to have hoped to use Antony to reestablish the real power of the Egyptian thrones.

They were married in the year 36B.C.

Most of the Roman's had feared and hated Cleopatra, Octavian(later Augustus) had undertook the destroy the two love birds. Antony and Cleopatra were defeated off Actium in 31 B.C., and returing to Alexandria, They had tried to defend themselves in Egypt.

When they failed, Antony committed suicide by falling on his sword.

Cleoptra, faced the cold and unmoved Octavian, also killed herself. Her schemes failed, but her ambition and capability, and remarkable charm had left a great on history.