Cleopatra and her family

this guy was cleo's dad. he was also super unpopular bc he was a rubbish king. he also big-time allied w/rome.

in 58 bce there was almost a coup in alexandria, so he fled to rome. he was gone 3 years. during that time, his oldest daughter berenice and his wife Tryphaena. tryphaena died during that time. when auletes returned with a roman army, he got alexandria and egypt back and executed berenice. 

when he died in 51 bce, his will said that cleopatra and ptolemy xiii (siblings) should rule together. cleo probably wanted to rule alone, she was like 18. ptolemy xiii didn't care bc he was 10.

cleo kinda ruled alone. ptolemy xiii had these regency advisors- theodotus, achillas and pothinos. who told him what to do. they rlly swayed his opinions.

also, cleo + ptolemy xiii might have been married (yeah NO i know. no marrying the siblings)

in 50 bce syria (roman province) was attacked by parthinians. cleo and ptolemy 13 were asked to ask the gabinians for help. the gabinians did not help, they instead murdered the roman syria governer's sons. 

this left cleo and ptolemy 13  in a difficult position: do they upset rome by not doing anything abt the murder? or do they upset the gabinians, who kept their rule stable? the two chose to arrest the gabinians.

also the two started to have this power struggle, eventually cleo recognised ptolemy 13 as a fellow ruler but then rome declared support for ptolemy 13. she had to flee to syria and made an army against her brother. (this is the beginning of the civil war)

-so she and ptolemy 13 ruled together from 51bce

-she tried to rule independently

-then she recognised him as ruler but too late gurl

-his 3 advisors made sure cleo and ptolemy 13 never got along

-rome favours ptolemy, cleo ain't happy

-ptolemy 13 was killed in the civil war (remember the beginning of the war in the last card)

-cleo's baby sister

-when cleo and ptolemy were having a civil war, she and her tutor, escaped the palace (i'm assuming cleo kept them stuck there) and joined the forces... against caesar (and in turn against cleo)

- caesar wins, arisnoe is taken captive and put in the triumph in rome

- she gets put into custody @ the temple of artemis in ephesus

- cleo is still worried and in 41bce antony has her (arisnoe, not cleo!) executed

- cleo's second brother-husband (call it a brusband)

- caesar actually has the two married to cement power

- ptolemy 14 only ruled in name

- he died of death in 44bce

so her family was the ptolemaic dynasty- they were a macedonian family who ruled egypt since 305 bce (context: cleo was born in 70 bce)

more context: when alexander the great died, one of his generals called ptolemy, took egypt and becaume pharaoh

cleopatra had an older sister, berenice and a younger sister, arisnoe. she also had 2 younger brothers, ptolemy xiii and xiv.

basically, the ptolemies were struggling with their power and kept fighting each other prior to (and totally after) cleopatra's birth