9. The Murderous Ptolemaic Dynasty Ended With the Murder of Two Unfortunate Children
The reign of Cleopatra VII, the Ptolemaic Dynasty’s most famous ruler and the last one who wielded actual power, was rife with the Ptolemies’ typical intrigues, betrayals, and perversions. Carrying on the family’s tradition of incest, she married her younger brother, Ptolemy XIII (61 BC – 47 BC). The sibling-spouses fell out, however, and plunged Egypt into a civil war. It ended with Cleopatra’s henchmen killing her unfortunate kid brother after Julius Caesar intervened and took her side. She then married another kid brother, Ptolemy XIV, while carrying on an affair with Caesar.
Cleopatra 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 committed suicide via snakebite in 30 BC. She was nominally succeeded by Ptolemy XV Caesarion, but Augustus had the sixteen-year-old 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.