Cleopatra History

OK- you might be here to play the Cleopatra 2 Slot, but it would be a shame not to learn some history while you were at it, wouldn't it? Especially when the subject is as fascinating as Cleopatra.

Cleopatra was the last pharaoh of Ancient Egypt, and a member of the Ptolemaic dynasty, a family of Greeks that ruled Egypt after Alexander the Great's death.

Alexandre Cabanel's "Cleopatra testing poisons on condemned prisoners" 1887

The Ptolemies before Cleopatra spoke Greek (they refused to speak Egyptian)- so we have them to thank for the fact that Greek and Egyptian were used on documents such as the Rosetta Stone.
Cleopatra, however, did speak Egyptian and portrayed herself as an Egyptian goddess, the rebirth of Isis.

Cleopatra originally ruled Egypt jointly with her father, and later with her brothers, Ptolemy XIII and Ptolemy XIV, whom she married as was the custom at the time, but with time she became sole ruler.
As the pharaoh, she consummated a relationship with Julius Caesar of Rome that cemented her power. She later promoted her son through Caesar, Caesarion, as co-ruler of Egypt.

After Caesar was murdered in 44 BC, she sided with Mark Antony against Caesar's legal heir, Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus (Augustus). She gave birth to twins (Cleopatra Selene II and Alexander Helios) through Mark Anthony, and a third son, Ptolemy Philadelphus.
After losing the Battle of Actium to Octavian's army, Antony committed suicide, and Cleopatra followed suit, killing herself by means of an asp (Egyptian cobra) bite on August 12, 30 BC.

Her son Caesarion was named pharaoh,  but was soon executed on Octavian's orders, and Egypt became a Roman province.

Cleopatra is a powerful feminine figure in Western culture. She has been the subject os much artwork and literature including, most famously, William Shakespeare's tragedy Antony and Cleopatra.
Cleopatra was a reknowned beauty, which her repeated conquests of the world's most powerful men testify to.

Cassius Dio spoke of Cleopatra's captivating beatuty: "She was a woman of surpassing beauty, and at that time, when she was in the prime of her youth, she was most striking; she also possessed a most charming voice and knowledge of how to make herself agreeable to everyone. Being brilliant to look upon and to listen to, with the power to subjugate everyone, even a love-sated man already past his prime, she thought that it would be in keeping with her role to meet Caesar, and she reposed in her beauty all her claims to the throne."