Information and Facts about Queen Cleopatra, last Pharoah of Egypt
Over the years Hollywood has portrayed Cleopatra as a beautiful temptress and mainly focused on her famous love affairs with Julius Caesar and Mark Antony.
The fact is she was not that good looking but was a highly intelligent woman who used her amazing persuasive powers to try and prevent Egypt being taken over by the Romans.
Queen Cleopatra was the last pharaoh of Egypt. She was not an Egyptian. She was a Macedonian Greek descended from Ptolemy 1, a Greek general of Alexander the Great who became king of Egypt when Alexander died in 323BC.
She was the only pharaoh in the 300-year Ptolemaic dynasty who could actually speak Egyptian.
In fact she spoke nine languages but not, strangely, Latin -despite her close involvement with Latin men.
There were seven women named Cleopatra in the dynasty. Even one of her sisters was named Cleopatra. That's why she was officially known as Cleopatra VII.
Whether she was physically beautiful is subject to debate. Coins of the time depict a woman with a hooked nose and masculine features.
But she obviously had strong charisma and a very attractive, vibrant personality.
Her high intelligence was on a par with Julius Caesar, one of the world's great thinkers.
She also had a sense of occasion and clever presentation skills.
Her legendary first meetings with Julius Caaesar and Mark Antony are still talked about. She staged various major attractions to impress them, such as her romantic royal barge tours along the Nile River.
Both men fell in love with her and fought major wars for her that eventually cost them both their positions and their lives - such was her power of persuasion.
While she failed in her ultimate goal of preserving Egypt, she did score many major successes along the way and eventually scorched out a place in world history.
When she killed herself it was probably not because Antony had suicided. It was because she did not want to be paraded through Egyptian and Roman towns and cities in shame as a prisoner.
She was 39 years old when she died in 30BC.
She probably used an asp (an Egyptian cobra snake) for the job because Egyptian religion said death by snakebite would ensure immortality.
It certainly did for her. Who can forget Cleopatra?
