Cleopatra: Searchasaurus - Powered By EBSCOhost - 1 views
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In the year 48 B.C., the great Roman general Julius Caesar traveled to the city of Alexandria in Egypt. He took up residence in the Egyptian palace and demanded to have the country's rulers, 21-year-old Cleopatra VII and her younger brother, Ptolemy XIII, brought before him. Cleopatra was hesitant. She and her brother were in the midst of a long and bitter battle for power over Egypt. She thought--with good reason--that her enemies would try to kill her if she were seen approaching the palace. Still, she knew it was important to answer his demand. Caesar was extremely powerful, and Cleopatra knew he could be helpful in her struggle against her brother.
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In Cleopatra's brief life she was involved in war- and peace-making, royal intrigue, a ruthless struggle for power, violent and treacherous acts, and legendary love affairs. She ruled over--and then lost--an entire kingdom, and her name is forever linked with two of the most powerful men of the ancient world, Julius Caesar and Marc Antony. Although we know little of absolute fact about her, she lives on in our imaginations--on movie and television screens, in books and newspaper articles. Somehow Cleopatra's vivid, larger-than-life story reaches out from centuries ago and continues to enchant us today
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Cleopatra's full name was Cleopatra VII Thea Philopator. In Greek, Cleopatra means "glory of her race," and Philopator means father-loving. She was born in 69 B.C., the third daughter of Ptolemy XII, king of Egypt. Ptolemy XII, who was known by the more familiar name of Auletes ("flute player"), was a descendant in a dynasty that had begun in 323 B.C., when Ptolemy I, a native of Macedonia and a subordinate of Alexander the Great, became one of three Diadochi (successors) to gain control over portions of Alexander's massive empire. Cleopatra would ultimately become the last of the Ptolemaic dynasty to rule Egypt.
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