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Why Was Cleopatra And The Reason The Egyptian Empire Fell?

Decent Essays

"All strange and terrible events are welcome, but comforts are despise.
" ~Cleopatra

Was Cleopatra the reason the Egyptian Empire fell? Cleopatra's family ruled Egypt for more than one-hundred years. So maybe, her greed started way before she had a chance to choose her fate. Maybe she saw the power her father held and wanted to see what it was like to have all of the power. To be respected. To be feared. Are maybe she wasn’t the main reason the Egyptian empire fell.
Cleopatra family was a part of the Ptolemaic dynasty. A Greek family of Macedonian origin that ruled Egypt after the death of Alexander the Great. Cleopatra originally ruled with her father Ptolemy XII. She later had to rule with her brothers, Ptolemy XIII and Ptolemy …show more content…

(This was consistent with the ancient Egyptian tradition of associating royalty with divinity in order to reinforce the position of kings and queens . Cleopatra III had also claimed to be associated with Isis, and Cleopatra VII was referred to as the “New Isis.” With her infant son as co-regent, Cleopatra's hold on power in Egypt was more secure than it had ever been. Still, unreliable flooding of the Nile resulted in failing crops, leading to inflation and hunger. Meanwhile, a conflict was raging in Rome between the second triumvirate of Caesar's allies (Mark Anthony, Octavian, and Lepidus) and his assassins, Brutus and Cassius. Both sides asked for Egyptian support, and after some stalling, Cleopatra sent four Roman legions stationed in Egypt by Caesar to support the triumvirate. In 42 B.C., after defeating the forces of Brutus and Cassius in the battles of Philippi, Mark Antony and Octavian divided power between Rome .

Mark Antony soon summoned Cleopatra to the Sicilian city of Tarsus (south of modern Turkey) to explain the role she had played in the complicated aftermath of Caesar's assassination. According to the story recorded by Plutarch (and later dramatized famously by William Shakespeare), Cleopatra sailed to Tarsus in an elaborate ship, dressed in the robes of Isis. Antony, who associated himself with the Greek deity Dionysus, was seduced by

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