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How Cleopatra lost Egypt: Caesar, Antony and the last days of the pharaohs

4 November 2026

Ancient Egypt ended in August 30 BC, in a locked tomb in Alexandria. Cleopatra VII, the last queen of the Ptolemies, died there at 39, about ten days after her partner Mark Antony died in her arms. The Roman Octavian had taken her city. That same year Egypt became a Roman province, and no pharaoh ever ruled it again.

The 21 years before that ending are full of plots, escapes and one famous love story. Most of it comes from Greek and Roman writers who lived after her, many of them on her enemies' side.

Cleopatra had to share the throne with her little brother

Cleopatra was born in 69 BC into a Greek-speaking family that had ruled Egypt for more than 200 years, ever since Alexander the Great's general Ptolemy took the country. When her father Ptolemy XII died in 51 BC, his will left the throne to two of his children together: Cleopatra, then about 18, and her brother Ptolemy XIII, about ten. In the family's custom the pair were expected to marry.

The boy's guardian Pothinus, his general Achillas and his tutor Theodotus ran things in his name. Within two years they had pushed Cleopatra out. She fled to Syria, raised an army and by 48 BC was camped near Pelusium, on Egypt's eastern border, facing her brother's troops.

Cleopatra got to Caesar hidden in a sack

The Roman general Pompey, beaten by Julius Caesar, sailed to Egypt for help. Ptolemy's advisers had him stabbed as he came ashore. When Caesar arrived days later, Theodotus brought him Pompey's head. Plutarch says Caesar turned away from the man and wept over Pompey's ring.

Caesar summoned both rulers to the palace at Alexandria. According to Plutarch, her friend Apollodorus the Sicilian rowed her to the palace at dusk. She lay down in a bed-sack, he tied it up with a cord and carried it indoors to Caesar. Caesar was 52 and she was 21. He took her side.

The Alexandrians rose against him, and for months Caesar was trapped in the palace quarter. Her younger sister Arsinoe joined the rebels and called herself queen. Early in 47 BC Roman reinforcements arrived. Ptolemy XIII fled the battle and drowned in the Nile.

Caesar left Egypt with Cleopatra on its throne

Cleopatra now ruled with a still younger brother, Ptolemy XIV. In June 47 BC she had a son, Ptolemy Caesar, whom the people of Alexandria nicknamed Caesarion, "little Caesar". She said Caesar was his father. Caesar never admitted that.

In 46 BC she went to Rome and stayed in Caesar's house across the Tiber. Caesar put a gold statue of her in his new temple of Venus. Many Romans were furious. Cicero wrote to a friend, "I hate the queen."

On 15 March 44 BC Caesar was murdered in the Senate. Cleopatra sailed home. Soon afterwards Ptolemy XIV died. The Jewish historian Josephus, writing a century later, says she had him poisoned. From then on she ruled with her little son.

The seduction story comes mostly from her enemies

Robert Greene's The Art of Seduction (2001) makes her its model of "the Siren", and his scenes come from Plutarch, who wrote more than a century after her death.

He is also more careful than the legend. He says her beauty was "not in itself so remarkable that none could be compared with her". What won people over, he says, was her talk, her wit and her voice, which she could tune "like an instrument of many strings" to any of the many languages she spoke. She was the first of her family to learn Egyptian. Her coins show a strong nose and chin, a face Britannica calls "alive rather than beautiful".

Rome had reasons to paint her as a temptress who bewitched two Roman generals. After her death the poet Horace called her a fatale monstrum, a "deadly monster", in the same poem that praises her courage.

Pliny says she won a bet with Antony by dropping a huge pearl into vinegar and drinking it. In 1957 the scholar B. L. Ullman tried it: whole pearls take hours to dissolve.

Mark Antony met her on a golden barge

After Caesar's murder, Rome was split between his friend Mark Antony, who took the East, and Caesar's adopted heir Octavian, who held the West. In 41 BC Antony called Cleopatra to Tarsus, in today's Turkey. Plutarch describes her arrival up the river in a barge with a gilded stern, purple sails and silver oars rowing in time to flutes, Cleopatra dressed as Venus under a canopy of gold.

Antony followed her back to Alexandria for the winter. Their circle called itself the Inimitable Livers and feasted every day. Ancient writers say that at Cleopatra's request Antony had her sister Arsinoe killed at Ephesus. In 40 BC Cleopatra had twins, Alexander Helios and Cleopatra Selene. Antony had already gone back to Italy, where he made peace with Octavian by marrying Octavian's sister Octavia.

Three years later he returned to Cleopatra, and a third child, Ptolemy Philadelphus, followed. In 34 BC, at a ceremony in Alexandria, Antony gave out eastern lands to her children and named Caesarion "King of Kings" and Caesar's true son. Octavian turned Rome against the pair, and in 32 BC Rome declared war on Cleopatra alone.

The war was decided at sea off Actium

On 2 September 31 BC the fleets met off Actium, on the west coast of Greece. Octavian's admiral Agrippa had the lighter, faster ships. In the middle of the battle Cleopatra's squadron of 60 ships broke through and headed for Egypt, and Antony slipped away after her. Plutarch tells it as a man deserting his army for a woman. Some historians think the breakout was planned, to save the treasure ships.

In the summer of 30 BC Octavian reached Alexandria, and Antony's troops went over to him. Cleopatra shut herself in her tomb with her treasure and two maids, Iras and Charmion. Antony heard she was dead and fell on his sword. Still alive, he was carried to the tomb, and the three women hauled him up through a window on ropes. He died there.

Octavian turned Egypt into a Roman province

Octavian's men caught Cleopatra. He wanted to lead her through Rome in his victory parade, but she died first, around 10 August 30 BC, dressed as a queen, with both maids dying beside her. Plutarch says a snake called an asp was smuggled in under a basket of figs. He also says "the truth of the matter no one knows". Some said her arm showed two faint marks, but no snake was found in the room.

Caesarion, about 17, had been sent away toward the Red Sea. He was lured back to Alexandria and put to death. Plutarch says Octavian's adviser Arius told him, "Not a good thing were a Caesar too many." Cleopatra's three children with Antony were raised in Rome by Octavia, Antony's former wife.

Egypt was now ruled for Octavian by a governor he chose, and its grain fed Rome. In the temples, priests went on carving Roman emperors in cartouches as if they were pharaohs. On the back wall of the temple at Dendera you can still see Cleopatra and Caesarion, carved as pharaohs making offerings to the gods.

See Cleopatra's cartouche

Questions

Was Cleopatra Egyptian?

She was born in Egypt, but her family, the Ptolemies, came from Macedonia in Greece. Historians still argue over who her mother was.

Did a snake really kill Cleopatra?

Nobody knows. Plutarch also reports that some said she kept poison in a hollow comb. Roman writers liked the snake because the cobra was a sign of Egyptian royalty.

Was Cleopatra the last pharaoh of Egypt?

She was the last ruler of independent Egypt. Her son Caesarion ruled beside her as Ptolemy XV and was killed soon after her, so some lists name him last. The Roman emperors drawn as pharaohs on temple walls ruled from Rome.

Was Cleopatra rolled up in a carpet?

Plutarch says a bed-sack, a bag for carrying bedding. The carpet comes from later plays and films.

Glossary

cartouche: An oval ring drawn around a royal name, a loop of rope tied at one end. Kings wrote their two main names in cartouches.
pharaoh: The king of Egypt. The word comes from per-aa, "great house", a name for the palace that came to mean the king himself in the New Kingdom.
priest: A servant of a god in a temple, who washed, dressed and fed the god's statue each day. A high priest led the staff of a great temple.
temple: The house of a god, where priests served the god's statue. Temples for dead kings kept up their offerings after death.
tomb: A burial place: a pit, a mastaba, a pyramid or rooms cut into rock. Its chapel was where the family brought offerings.