Cleopatra Net Worth

Background and career

Cleopatra VII Thea Philopator (Koine Greek: Κλεοπάτρα Θεά Φιλοπάτωρ, lit. 'Cleopatra father-loving goddess'; 70/69 BC – 10 or 12 August 30 BC) was Queen of the Ptolemaic Kingdom of Egypt from 51 to 30 BC, and the last active Hellenistic pharaoh. A member of the Ptolemaic dynasty, she was a descendant of its founder, Ptolemy I Soter, a Macedonian Greek general and companion of Alexander the Great. Cleopatra's first language was Koine Greek, and she is the only Ptolemaic ruler known to have learned the Egyptian language, among several others. After her death, Egypt became a province of the Roman Empire, marking the end of the Hellenistic period, which had begun with the death of Alexander in 323 BC.

Born in Alexandria, Cleopatra was the daughter of Ptolemy XII Auletes, who named her his heir before his death in 51 BC. Cleopatra began her reign alongside her brother Ptolemy XIII, but a falling-out between them led to a civil war. Roman statesman Pompey, their father's former ally, fled to Egypt after losing the 48 BC Battle of Pharsalus against his rival Julius Caesar, the Roman dictator, in Caesar's civil war. Ptolemy XIII had Pompey ambushed and killed before Caesar arrived and occupied Alexandria. Caesar then attempted to reconcile the rival Ptolemaic siblings, but Ptolemy XIII's forces besieged Cleopatra and Caesar at the palace. Shortly after reinforcements lifted the siege, Ptolemy XIII drowned in the Nile. Caesar declared Cleopatra and her brother Ptolemy XIV joint rulers, and maintained a private affair with Cleopatra which produced a son, Caesarion. Cleopatra traveled to Rome as a client queen in 46 and 44 BC, where she stayed at Caesar's villa. After Caesar's assassination, followed shortly afterwards by the sudden death of Ptolemy XIV (possibly murdered on Cleopatra's order), she named Caesarion co-ruler as Ptolemy XV.

In the Liberators' civil war of 43–42 BC, Cleopatra sided with the Roman Second Triumvirate formed by Caesar's heir Octavian, Mark Antony, and Marcus Aemilius Lepidus. After their meeting at Tarsos in 41 BC, Cleopatra and Antony had an affair which produced three children. Antony became increasingly reliant on Cleopatra for both funding and military aid during his invasions of the Parthian Empire and the Kingdom of Armenia. The Donations of Alexandria declared their children rulers over various territories under Antony's authority. Octavian portrayed this event as an act of treason, forced Antony's allies in the Roman Senate to flee Rome in 32 BC, and declared war on Cleopatra. After defeating Antony and Cleopatra's naval fleet at the 31 BC Battle of Actium, Octavian's forces invaded Egypt in 30 BC and defeated Antony, who committed suicide. After his death, Cleopatra reportedly killed herself, probably by poisoning, to avoid being publicly displayed by Octavian in a Roman triumphal procession.

Cleopatra's legacy survives in ancient and modern works of art. Roman historiography and Latin poetry produced a generally critical view of the queen that pervaded later Medieval and Renaissance literature. In the visual arts, her ancient depictions include Roman busts, paintings, sculptures, cameo carvings and glass, Ptolemaic and Roman coinage, and reliefs. In Renaissance and Baroque art, she was the subject of many works including operas, paintings, poetry, sculptures, and theatrical dramas. She has become a pop culture icon of Egyptomania since the Victorian era, and in modern times has been depicted in the applied and fine arts, burlesque satire, Hollywood films, and brand images for commercial products.

The Latinized form Cleopatra comes from the Ancient Greek Kleopátra (Κλεοπάτρα), meaning 'glory of her father', from κλέος (kléos, 'glory') and πατήρ (patḗr, 'father'). The masculine form would have been written either as Kleópatros (Κλεόπατρος) or Pátroklos (Πάτροκλος). Cleopatra was the name of the sister of Alexander the Great and the wife of Meleager in Greek mythology. Through the marriage of Ptolemy V Epiphanes and Cleopatra I Syra (a Seleucid princess), the name entered the Ptolemaic dynasty. Cleopatra's adopted title Theā́ Philopátōra (Θεᾱ́ Φιλοπάτωρα) means 'goddess who loves her father'.

Ptolemaic pharaohs were crowned by the Egyptian high priest of Ptah at Memphis, but resided in the multicultural and largely Greek city of Alexandria, established by Alexander the Great. They governed Egypt as Hellenistic Greek monarchs and refused to learn the native Egyptian language. In contrast, Cleopatra was the first Ptolemaic ruler known to have learned it and could speak multiple languages by adulthood. Plutarch implies that she also spoke Ethiopian, the language of the "Troglodytes", Hebrew (or Aramaic), Arabic, the "Syrian language" (perhaps Syriac), Median, and Parthian, and she could apparently also speak Latin; her Roman contemporaries would have preferred to speak with her in her native Koine Greek. Aside from Greek, Egyptian, and Latin, these languages reflected Cleopatra's desire to restore North African and West Asian territories that once belonged to the Ptolemaic Kingdom.

Roman interventionism in Egypt predated the reign of Cleopatra. When her grandfather Ptolemy IX Lathyros died in late 81 BC, he was succeeded by his daughter Berenice III. Some courtiers opposed the new queen as a sole reigning female monarch, so the Roman dictator Sulla arranged her marriage to her stepson, Ptolemy XI Alexander II. Ptolemy XI had his wife killed shortly after their marriage in 80 BC, and a mob lynched him soon after. Ptolemy XI willed the Ptolemaic Kingdom to Rome as collateral for loans, giving the Romans legal grounds to take over Egypt, their client state, after his assassination. The Romans chose instead to divide the Ptolemaic realm among the illegitimate sons of Ptolemy IX, bestowing Egypt on Ptolemy XII Auletes and Cyprus on Ptolemy of Cyprus.

Cleopatra VII was born in early 69 BC to Pharaoh Ptolemy XII and an uncertain mother, presumably Ptolemy XII's wife Cleopatra V Tryphaena (who may have been the same person as Cleopatra VI Tryphaena), the mother of Cleopatra's older sister, Berenice IV Epiphaneia. Cleopatra Tryphaena disappears from official records a few months after Cleopatra's birth in 69 BC. The three younger children of Ptolemy XII, Cleopatra's sister Arsinoe IV and brothers Ptolemy XIII Theos Philopator and Ptolemy XIV Philopator, were born in the absence of his wife. Cleopatra's childhood tutor was Philostratos, from whom she learned the Greek arts of oration and philosophy. During her youth Cleopatra presumably studied at the Musaeum, including the Library of Alexandria.

In 65 BC the Roman censor Marcus Licinius Crassus argued that Rome should annex Ptolemaic Egypt, but the Roman Senate rejected his proposed bill and the similar bill of tribune Servilius Rullus in 63 BC. Ptolemy XII responded to the threat of annexation by offering remuneration and lavish gifts to powerful Roman statesmen, such as Pompey during his campaign against Mithridates VI of Pontus and Julius Caesar after he became Roman consul in 59 BC. Ptolemy XII's profligate behavior bankrupted him, and he was forced to acquire loans from the Roman banker Gaius Rabirius Postumus.

In 58 BC the Romans annexed Cyprus and on accusations of piracy drove Ptolemy of Cyprus, Ptolemy XII's brother, to commit suicide instead of enduring exile to Paphos. Ptolemy XII remained publicly silent on his brother's death, damaging his credibility among subjects already enraged by his economic policies. He was then exiled from Egypt, traveling first to Rhodes, then Athens, and finally the villa of triumvir Pompey in the Alban Hills, near Praeneste, Italy.

Ptolemy XII spent up to a year there on the outskirts of Rome, ostensibly accompanied by his daughter Cleopatra, then about 11. Berenice IV sent an embassy to Rome to advocate for her rule and oppose her father's reinstatement. Ptolemy had assassins kill the leaders of the embassy, an incident that his powerful Roman supporters suppressed. When the Roman Senate denied Ptolemy XII the offer of an armed escort and provisions for a return to Egypt, he decided to leave Rome in late 57 BC and reside at the Temple of Artemis in Ephesus.

Ptolemy XII's Roman financiers remained determined to restore him to power. By offering 10,000 talents to Aulus Gabinius, the Roman governor of Syria, Pompey persuaded him to invade Egypt and restore Ptolemy XII. Gabinius invaded Egypt in the spring of 55 BC by way of Hasmonean Judea, where Hyrcanus II had Antipater the Idumaean furnish the Roman-led army with supplies. As a young cavalry officer, Mark Antony was under Gabinius's command. He distinguished himself by preventing Ptolemy XII from massacring the inhabitants of Pelousion and for rescuing the body of Berenice's husband, Archelaos, after he was killed in battle, ensuring him a proper royal burial. The 14-year-old Cleopatra would have traveled with the Roman expedition into Egypt; years later, Antony would profess that he had fallen in love with her at this time.

Gabinius was put on trial in Rome for abusing his authority, for which he was acquitted. A second trial for bribery led to his exile. Caesar recalled him from exile seven years later, in 48 BC. Crassus replaced Gabinius as governor of Syria and extended his provincial command to Egypt, but was killed by the Parthians at the Battle of Carrhae in 53 BC. Ptolemy XII executed Berenice and her wealthy supporters, seizing their properties. He allowed Gabinius's largely Germanic and Gallic Roman garrison, the Gabiniani, to harass people in the streets of Alexandria and installed his longtime Roman financier Rabirius as his chief financial officer.

Within a year, Rabirius was placed under protective custody and sent back to Rome after his life was endangered for draining Egypt of its resources. Despite these problems, Ptolemy XII created a will designating Cleopatra and Ptolemy XIII as his joint heirs, oversaw major construction projects such as the Temple of Edfu and a temple at Dendera, and stabilized the economy. On 31 May 52 BC, Ptolemy XII made Cleopatra his regent, as indicated by an inscription in the Temple of Hathor at Dendera. Before his death, Ptolemy XII had not paid Rabirius all his debt, which Cleopatra and Ptolemy XIII thus inherited. The new pharaohs owed the Roman Republic 17.5 million drachmas.

Ptolemy XII died some time before 22 March 51 BC, when Cleopatra, in her first act as queen, began her voyage to Hermonthis, near Thebes, to install a new sacred Buchis bull, worshiped as an intermediary for the god Montu in the Ancient Egyptian religion. Cleopatra faced several pressing issues and emergencies shortly after taking the throne. These included famine caused by drought and a low level of the annual flooding of the Nile, and lawless behavior instigated by the Gabiniani, the now unemployed and assimilated Roman soldiers of Aulus Gabinius.

In 50 BC, Marcus Calpurnius Bibulus, proconsul of Syria, sent his two eldest sons to Egypt, most likely to negotiate with the Gabiniani and recruit them as soldiers in the desperate defense of Syria against the Parthians; the Gabiniani tortured and murdered his sons. Cleopatra sent the culprits to Bibulus as prisoners awaiting his judgment, but he sent them back to Cleopatra and chastised her for interfering in their adjudication, which was the prerogative of the Roman Senate. Bibulus, siding with Pompey in Caesar's Civil War, failed to prevent Caesar from landing a naval fleet in Greece, allowing Caesar to reach Egypt in pursuit of Pompey.

By 29 August 51 BC, official documents started listing Cleopatra as the sole ruler, evidence that she had rejected her brother Ptolemy XIII as a co-ruler. She had probably married him, but there is no record of this. Ptolemy II and his sister Arsinoe II had introduced the Ptolemaic practice of sibling marriage, a long-held royal Egyptian practice loathed by contemporary Greeks. By Cleopatra's reign, sibling marriage was considered a normal arrangement for Ptolemaic rulers.