3. Cleopatra didn’t regard age an obstacle when it came to love or sex, she only did what she needed to do to win power
The ‘Queen of the Nile’ was no cliched cougar. Rather, she was an astute political operator, ready to take lovers and husbands in order to tighten her grip on power. So, while she wed Julius Caesar, despite the fact that he was, according to most accounts, 32 years her senior, she also married her younger brother for reasons of power. Age was just a number to Cleopatra and love, romantic feelings or any sense of physical attraction very much secondary considerations for her – as indeed they were to most ancient royals.
Cleopatra’s willingness to use sex and marriage to further her own interests is best displayed in her relationship with Ptolemy XIII. He was her younger brother and nowhere near as experienced or cunning as she. Nevertheless, she not only married him and took him as a co-ruler for a while (in title at least, if not in practice) but she then had him murdered by poison as soon as she gave birth to her son with Julius Caesar. In the end, however, it was her marriage to Mark Anthony, every bit her equal, that was to be Cleopatra’s last, and most tragic love.