8. Cleopatra wasn’t just a beautiful and skilled diplomat, she was also a ruthless autocrat, as her murder of her own brother Ptolemy XIII showed
Cleopatra is famed for her beauty. She is also widely remembered as a skillful and wily diplomat, making strategic alliances, above all with Rome, to maintain her power. At the same time, however, the Queen of the Nile was also a ruthless killer. And it wasn’t just outsiders who fell victim to her bloody ambition. Cleopatra had a direct hand in the deaths of all three of her siblings. Indeed, ‘rivalry’ seems too gentle a word to describe the relationship she had with her brother and sisters.
When the Pharaoh Ptolemy XII died in 51BC, Cleopatra – actually Cleopatra VII – came to power. Sticking to the traditions of their dynasty, Cleopatra, then 18-years-old, was supposed to marry and rule alongside her own 10-year-old-brother Ptolemy XIII. They did indeed do this for a few years. However, the young king’s advisers grew suspicious of his sister’s ambitions. Heeding their advice, Ptolemy exiled her to Alexandria, where, he believed, she would be out of harm’s way. But he hadn’t counted on her ambition, nor on her the strength of her manipulative charms.
Both brother and sister realized that, if they won the backing of Rome, they would be able to crush their sibling rival. Famously, Cleopatra got their first. Hidden in a carpet, she was smuggled inside the palace where Julius Caesar was staying. She emerged to become his lover and his ally. Caesar agreed to help the Queen of the Nile reclaim her throne. He brought in Roman troops from Syria and took the war to Ptolemy. The young king drowned whilst trying to escape, weighed down by all his treasures. Cleopatra could rule on her own at last, not even pausing for a moment to mourn the death of her young sibling.