Cleopatra who is she

Historians and Egyptologists agree that Cleopatra played an important role in the history of Egypt and how it shaped out even after her death.

Yes, in fact, several. The last active ruler of the Ptolemaic Kingdom of Egypt, Cleopatra is one of the most famous figures of the ancient world, having been immortalized in Medieval and Renaissance literature, as well as being depicted in various coinage, sculptures, busts and paintings. Shakespeare has immortalised her love-affair with Mark Antony in his play Antony and Cleopatra, and in modern times, she has appeared in fine arts, burlesques, Hollywood films, and brand imagery, turning into a pop culture icon of Egyptomania, or the renewed interest of Europeans in ancient Egypt during the nineteenth century.

Films like Caesar and Cleopatra , A Queen for Caesar , Cleopatra and Antony and Cleopatra have previously tried to analyse the film from a variety of angles.

This time, Wonder Woman director Patty Jenkins has teamed up once again with Gadot for a retelling of the popular story of Cleopatra's conquests. Would this one manage to strip the exotic tale of the male gaze and show Cleopatra in a previously unseen light? Only time can tell. For example, at ceremonial events she would appear dressed as the goddess Isis: it was common for Egyptian rulers to identify themselves with an established deity.

She had Caesarion, her eldest son, represented on the temple wall at Dendera alongside her, as sharing her rule. After her death, the Roman emperor Augustus lured Caesarion back with promises of power, only to have him killed. He was aged 16 or 17, though some sources say he was as young as The twins were aged 10 and Ptolemy six when their mother died. The adult Cleopatra Selene was married to Juba, a minor king, and sent to rule with him over Mauretania. Augustus founded his reign on the defeat of Cleopatra.

When he had the chance to have a month named in his own honour, instead of choosing September — the month of his birth — he chose the eighth month, in which Cleopatra died, to create a yearly reminder of her defeat.

Augustus would have liked to lead Cleopatra as a captive through Rome, as other generals did with their prisoners, in the formal triumphs that celebrated their victories. But she killed herself to prevent that. Like Mark Antony, who killed himself because there was no longer a place of honour for him in the world, Cleopatra chose to die rather than suffer the violence of being paraded, shamed and helpless, through Rome.

Augustus had to make do with an image of her that was carried through the streets instead. But years then passed before Cleopatra was born — 12 generations, with all their love affairs and secret assignations. Cleopatra gives birth to her first child, whom she names Ptolemy Caesar — known as Caesarion. After separating from his wife Octavia sister of Octavian , Antony meets Cleopatra in Syria and the pair are said to have married. A third child, Ptolemy Philadelphus, is born the following year.

Following humiliating defeat at the Battle of Actium by Octavian later Augustus and a subsequent battle in Alexandria, Mark Antony attempts suicide. Ptolemy XIII and his advisers refused to acknowledge this arrangement and fighting broke out between them, with Cleopatra being forced to flee the royal palace.

It would be Julius Caesar who helped Cleopatra regain her throne. Caesar was about 30 years older than Cleopatra, and his arrival in Egypt was something of an accident. He had been fighting a civil war against the Roman general Pompey. After a series of defeats, Pompey fled to Egypt in 48 B. The young pharaoh decided that Pompey was more trouble than he was worth and had him executed. Cleopatra, however, managed to sneak into the palace in Alexandria and successfully plead her case to Caesar, something that surprised and enraged Ptolemy XIII.

Rushing from the palace he ripped off his diadem and, in a well-orchestrated public display of anger, the crowd surged forward, intent on mobbing the palace. Caesar had saved Cleopatra and returned her to power. The two became intimate and had a son known as Caesarion although Caesar was said to have been hesitant to acknowledge that the child was his. Cleopatra also had her sister Arsinoe IV killed.

With the assassination of Julius Caesar in 44 B. Ancient writers say that she was in Rome when the assassination occurred and she quickly returned to Egypt. After they prevailed, Octavian, renamed Augustus Caesar, ruled the western half of the empire while Antony controlled the east. Cleopatra said that she had assembled a fleet to attack the assassins but it could not reach the battlefield in time.

In the years leading up to the Battle of Actium , Antony and Cleopatra forged a close bond and had three children together, including the twins Alexander Helios and Cleopatra Selene in 40 B. Meanwhile, relations between Antony and Octavian frayed and the two gradually slid into a civil war. In 32 B.