Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - Cleopatra (Encore)

Episode Date: July 25, 2024

Cleopatra VII Philopator was the last ruler of an independent Egypt and one of the most important women of the ancient world.  In addition to being a brilliant and cunning ruler in her own right, she was also famously associated with two of the most powerful men in the late Roman Republic.  Yet was her involvement with these men that ultimately led to the downfall of her and of Egypt. Learn more about the rise and fall of Queen Cleopatra on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Sponsors Available nationally, look for a bottle of Heaven Hill Bottled-in-Bond at your local store. Find out more at heavenhilldistillery.com/hh-bottled-in-bond.php Sign up today at butcherbox.com/daily and use code daily to choose your free offer and get $20 off. Visit BetterHelp.com/everywhere today to get 10% off your first month. Use the code EverythingEverywhere for a 20% discount on a subscription at Newspapers.com. Visit meminto.com and get 15% off with code EED15.  Listen to Expedition Unknown wherever you get your podcasts.  Get started with a $13 trial set for just $3 at harrys.com/EVERYTHING. Subscribe to the podcast!  https://link.chtbl.com/EverythingEverywhere?sid=ShowNotes -------------------------------- Executive Producer: Charles Daniel Associate Producers: Ben Long & Cameron Kieffer   Become a supporter on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/everythingeverywhere Update your podcast app at newpodcastapps.com Discord Server: https://discord.gg/UkRUJFh Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/everythingeverywhere/ Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/everythingeverywheredaily Twitter: https://twitter.com/everywheretrip Website: https://everything-everywhere.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The following is an encore presentation of Everything Everywhere Daily. Cleopatra the seventh Philippaeter was the last ruler of an independent Egypt and one of the most important women of the ancient world. In addition to being a brilliant and cutting ruler in her own right, she was also famously associated with two of the most powerful men in the late Roman Republic. Yet it was her involvement with these men that ultimately led to the downfall of her and of Egypt. Learn more about the rise and fall of Queen Cleopatra on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.

What if your perceptions about the past were wrong? ThruLine is a podcast that takes you back in time to uncover the parts of the story that may have gone unnoticed. It effectively turned day and tonight. And how it shaped the world now. Time travel with us every week on the ThruLine podcast from NPR. Before I get into the life of Cleopatra herself, it's necessary to understand the dynasty that

she inherited. The Ptolemaic dynasty was the 33rd and last dynasty in ancient Egypt. It began in 305 BC and lasted through the death of Cleopatra. The Ptolemaic dynasty ruled Egypt, but they were most emphatically not Egyptian. They were Greek. Egypt was conquered by Alexander the Great in 32 BC, and control was then assumed by one of his top generals, Ptolemy, in 305 BC. When I said the Ptolemy's were emphatically Greek, at no point in their almost 300 years of rule, did any of the rulers actually bother to learn Egyptian? Everyone spoke Greek, until that is Cleopatra. She was the first and only Ptolemaic ruler who ever bothered to learn the language.

Moreover, their family tree didn't branch out very much. Almost every Ptolemaic ruler married their sisters to keep the bloodline pure. Why the Ptolemy's kept their Greek identity, they were willing to go through the motions of being an Egyptian ruler. New pharaohs were crowned in Memphis by Egyptian priests, but they live and ruled in Alexandria, the city founded by Alexander the Great. They wore Egyptian dress and put on a show to keep their rule intact, but beyond that, they always remained culturally Greek. And that is the family that Cleopatra was born into. The name Cleopatra is a Greek name.

Cleopatra is Greek for Glory of the Father. And Alexander the Great Sister's name was Cleopatra. Cleopatra was born in either 69 or 70 BC. Her father was the Pharaoh Ptolemy the 12th, and her mother is technically unknown, but it's assumed that it was Cleopatra the 6th. the wife and sister of Ptolemy the 12th. She was raised in the royal palace in Alexandria

and was tutored by Philistratus of Alexandria, who was a scholar at the library of Alexandria. There is much that we don't know about Cleopatra, but what we do know is that she was highly intelligent. In addition to her native Greek, she could speak Egyptian, Syriac, Hebrew, Arabic, Ethiopian, Median, Parthian, and Latin. She also got a hard lesson in the English, politics and diplomacy growing up. Her family was extremely dysfunctional, so much so that the story

of the late Ptolemies would actually make for a great soap opera. Her father, Ptolemy the 12th, ruled Egypt as a client of Rome. Egypt wasn't a part of Rome, but Rome was constantly breathing down their necks. Egypt was incredibly important because they were the breadbasket of the Mediterranean. Rome had interfered in Egyptian affairs for decades. They approved of who would sit on the throne. and they loaned Egypt large sums of money. There had even been calls in the Roman Senate for years to annex Egypt, and the Egyptians knew this. In 58 BC, Ptolemy the 12th was deposed by his daughter and Cleopatra's older sister, Baronese IV, and he fled to Rome to live in exile. He most probably had his 11-year-old daughter Cleopatra with him while he was in Rome.

In 55 BC, Rome ordered the governor of Syria to invade Egypt to restore Ptolemy the 12th to the throne. In this expedition was a young officer by the name of Marcus Antonius, or as he was called by Shakespeare and is better known today, Mark Anthony. Ptolemy was restored to power but died in 51 BC when Cleopatra was only 18 years old. Cleopatra was named co-ruler of Egypt alongside her younger brother, Ptolemy the 13th, who at the time was only 11 years old. The two were ceremonially married. Immediately after taking power, Cleopatra faced a host of problems, one of which was flooding on the Nile that year had been poor, which resulted in a famine. Soon after taking power, Cleopatra began to act as the

sole ruler of Egypt. She's listed as the sole ruler on several communications with Rome, and her face appears on coins by herself, and quite frankly, given the age of her brother, she was the de facto ruler of Egypt. However, as her brother grew up, he became influenced by court eunuchs who didn't want to see Cleopatra as the ruler of Egypt. By 49 BC, her and her brother were openly fighting, and by early 48 BC, her brother had gained the upper hand, and she had to flee Egypt. While all of this was going on, Rome was in the middle of a huge civil war between the forces of Julius Caesar and those of the Senate led by Pompey Magnus. In August of 48 BC, the civil war ended with the Battle of Farsalis in Greece. Caesar was victorious and Pompey decided to flee

to Egypt to continue the fight and raise forces. Pompey had very good relations with the Egyptians in the past. However, when Pompey showed up in Alexandria, Ptolemy the 13th decided to kill Pompey to curry favor with Caesar. Caesar followed Pompey to Egypt and arrived in October with a small force of 4,000 troops and was presented with the embalmed head of Pompuy. Pompey. Ptolemy's plan massively backfired. Not only did he not gain favor with Caesar, Caesar was actually horrified. Pompy might have been his enemy, but he was still a great Roman and deserved better than this. Caesar ordered both Cleopatra and Ptolemy's forces to disband, but Ptolemy ignored the order and showed up to Alexandria at the head of his army. Cleopatra,

however, took a totally different approach. Without notifying her brother, she snuck into Alexandria, to meet Caesar in person. According to legend, she managed to get into the palace by hiding in a rolled-up carpet. But there isn't really anything to support this story. Caesar had a reputation of being a ladies' man, and Cleopatra used this to her advantage. She went on the charm offensive and worked on seducing Caesar to get him on her side. If she could get Rome to back her, then she could easily win the war she was having with Ptolemy. She was successful, and she began her own.

romantic affair with Caesar, which resulted in a child, Caesarian. And I should note that Caesar was 52 years old when they met, and Cleopatra was around 22. In the will of Ptolemy the 12th, Rome was to be the arbitrator in any disputes. Caesar, now the ruler of Rome, ruled that Ptolemy the 13th and Cleopatra should jointly rule. But Ptolemy didn't like this. So he and his 20,000 men laid siege to the royal palace where Caesar and Cleopatra were holed up. However, Caesar eventually had reinforcements arrived by land, and the Egyptians were no match for the Romans. Tolomey ended up drowning in the Nile while trying to flee. Caesar left Egypt in 47 BC, and on his way out named Cleopatra as the joint ruler of Egypt with her younger brother, now known as Ptolemy the 14th. And he also left behind four Roman

legions in Egypt just to watch over everything. The two met up again in Rome in late 46 BC. and Caesar was extremely open about his affair with Cleopatra. She stayed in his villa during a stay, and he flaunted his son with the queen. But in March of 44 BC, Caesar was assassinated, and Cleopatra was in Rome at the time. She hung around a bit, hoping that Caesarian would be declared Caesar's heir, but that never happened as he posthumously adopted his grand nephew, Octavian. Cleopatra left Rome, and a few months later, she poisoned her brother and co-ruler, Ptolemy the 14th. She then named her son Cesarian as her new co-ruler, even though he was just

three years old. With Caesar, her Roman benefactor dead, she now had no one in Rome who would protect herself and Egypt. Rome again fell into civil war, at first between Octavian and Caesar's right-hand man, Mark Antony, and then between Octavian and Mark Antony against Caesar's assassins. Octavian and Mark Antony win the civil war and split the empire between themselves. Octavian got the western half, including Rome itself, and Mark Antony got the much richer eastern half. In 42 BC, Mark Anthony summoned Cleopatra to his headquarters in Tarsus in what is modern-day Turkey. She refused several summons, but eventually made the trip, but only if Mark Antony would meet with her on her ships. After two days of lavish banquets on her ships,

the two hit it off, and she invited Mark Anthony to visit her in Alexandria, which he did the next year. This began a relationship that would last for over a decade. The impetus behind the relationship was similar to that of Caesar and Cleopatra. However, Mark Anthony and Cleopatra actually seemed to be in love with each other. The two were married and had three children together. The problem was, two Roman rulers wasn't a stable situation. For years, there was a passive-aggressive conflict between Mark Anthony and Octavian, and both parties knew that there would eventually be a war.

Over time, Mark Anthony and Cleopatra just got sloppy. Mark Anthony arrogantly assumed that he was too popular to lose the support of the Roman people, and if it did come to war, he could easily beat Octavian. When the couple got married, the problem there was that Mark Anthony was already married to Octavian sister, Octavia. This was highly controversial and was considered an insult both to Rome and Octavian personally. Cleopatra and Mark Anthony became hedonist. they hosted lavish parties and dressed up as Egyptian gods and goddesses.

Perhaps worst of all, Mark Antony began giving Egypt territory that was controlled by Rome, and it wasn't just a little bit of land either. It was an enormous part of what Rome controlled in the East. In 34 BC, a public event was held known as the Donations of Alexandria. There, Mark Anthony declared Caesarian to be Caesar's true heir, not Octavian, and also divided up the territories in the Roman East to Cleopatra and their children. All of this became propaganda fodder for Octavian back in Rome. Because Octavian controlled Rome, he was able to control the narrative.

He didn't portray Mark Antony as the bad guy. Rather, he focused his attention on Cleopatra, the foreign woman. Mark Anthony was just bewitched or put into a trance by Cleopatra. She was using Mark Anthony to take Roman territory and steal Roman form. funds. The constant news of outrageous behavior that was coming from Egypt eventually caused almost all of Antony's loyalists to turn on him. As everyone expected, war did eventually break out. At the Battle of Actium on September 2nd, 31 BC, Octavian's forces destroyed the forces of Antony and Cleopatra in a naval battle. Following the battle, most of the Roman forces under Anthony

defected to Octavian. As Octavian's forces marched to Alexandria, they hardly had to fight. When they arrived at the palace in Alexandria, Mark Antony mistakenly heard that Cleopatra had died. Upon hearing the news, he killed himself by running himself through with his own sword. Cleopatra, however, wasn't dead. She was holed up in her tomb, which was being built for. She began a correspondence with Octavian about a possible surrender. She had one wish, and that was not to be paraded as a trophy during a triumph. Octavian, however, made no firm promises and didn't say anything about her future.

On October 10th, 30 BC, at the age of 39, Cleopatra took her own life. According to legend, she allowed a poisonous snake to bite her, either a viper or an asp. Within two weeks, Caesarian was also killed on the Order of Octavian at the age of 17. Supposedly, Octavian said, too many Caesars is not good.

Egypt never had a pharaoh again. It became a special province of Rome administered directly by the emperor himself. Egypt literally became the personal property of the Emperor Augustus. History has painted Cleopatra as a temptress and a seductress. But was she? Honestly, I don't think she was any different from the rulers who existed centuries before and after her. She developed relationships with Caesar. and Anthony for her protection and political gain.

Rome was the 800-pound gorilla in the Mediterranean. If she in Egypt wanted to survive, she needed Rome on her side. And that's exactly what she did. Had Caesar or Anthony not been powerful men in Rome, she probably wouldn't have given them the time of day. And likewise, if she wasn't the queen of Egypt, the largest food producer in the Mediterranean, she also would not have gotten their attention.

On a related note, Cleopatra has always, been described as being incredibly beautiful throughout history. Was she? We don't have too much in the way of images of Cleopatra, but there is a bust of her in a museum in Berlin, and there are surviving coins with her image on them. To me at least, assuming the images are representative, she looks rather average. Then again, looks was probably not the reason why Caesar and Anthony got involved with her in the first place. Cleopatra holds the distinction of being the last of the Egyptian pharaoh, She also played a central role in the drama which was the destruction of the Roman Republic. Cleopatra proved to be a capable leader who managed the affairs of Egypt rather well.

Had anyone else ruled Egypt instead, it probably would have resulted in Egypt losing its independence to Rome decades sooner. The executive producer of Everything Everywhere Daily is Charles Daniel. The associate producers are Benji Long and Cameron Kiever. I want to give a big shout out to everyone who supports the show over on Patreon, including the show's producers. Your support helps me put out a show every single day. And also, Patreon is currently the only place

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