Facts About Ancient Egypt They Didn’t Teach In School

The Last Egyptian Pharaoh

All of the Ptolemaic Dynasty’s vices, intrigues, betrayals, and perversions, were present in the reign of Cleopatra VII, the Ptolemaic Dynasty’s most famous ruler. She was also the last of the dynasty who wielded actual power. Carrying on the family’s tradition of i-n-c-e-s-t, she married her younger brother, Ptolemy XIII. She carried on the family tradition some more when she fell out with him and plunged the country into a civil war. The conflict ended with the death of her brother-husband, after Julius Caesar intervened and took Cleopatra’s side in the conflict. She then married another brother, Ptolemy XIV, while carrying on an affair with Caesar. She bore the Roman dictator a son, Caesarion, the future Ptolemy XV – the dynasty’s last nominal ruler.

After Caesar’s assassination, Cleopatra took up with his chief lieutenant, Mark Antony, with whom she had one of history’s most famous love affairs. The couple were eventually defeated by Antony’s rival, Gaius Octavius, the future emperor Augustus. Antony fell on his sword, and Cleopatra famously committed suicide via snakebite in 30 BC. She was nominally succeeded by Ptolemy XV Caesarion, but Augustus had him killed when he was captured a few weeks later. The deaths of Cleopatra and Caesarion brought the Ptolemaic Dynasty to an end, and Egypt was made into a Roman province.

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