Who Was Cleopatra?

Most of what people know about Cleopatra came from her enemies. She ruled Egypt from 51 to 30 BC and died by her own hand when it became clear Octavian would parade her through Rome as a prisoner. In the centuries since, she became one of history’s most recognized figures. Almost none of the popular version holds up to the historical record.

She was a working ruler and a serious intellectual. First in her dynasty’s 275-year history to actually learn the Egyptian language. She also spoke Ethiopian, Hebrew, Aramaic, and Arabic. Ancient writers describe someone whose influence came from her conversation and intelligence, not her looks. Cicero met her in Rome, disliked her, and commented specifically on her sharpness and personality. That’s not the description you’d write about someone whose power came from appearance.

Her alliances with Julius Caesar and Mark Antony were political calculations as much as personal ones. Egypt was the wealthiest country in the Mediterranean. Rome was its dominant military power. She had already been expelled from Egypt by her own brother before Caesar arrived. Aligning with the most powerful Romans of her era was survival strategy. She was working with the tools available to a ruler in her position.

Octavian, who became Augustus after defeating her, needed to justify a civil war to the Roman public. Portraying Antony’s Egyptian alliance as a moral failure, with Cleopatra as a foreign seductress who corrupted a Roman general, served that political purpose perfectly. He controlled the historical narrative after she died. That narrative became the version most people inherited.

Her tomb has never been found. In 2022, archaeologists in Alexandria announced a tunnel system discovered near the Temple of Taposiris Magna that some researchers believe may lead to it. Nothing confirmed yet. After two thousand years, she’s still somewhere.