Cleopa'tra, was daughter of the Egyptian king, Ptolemy Auletes, and was born in 69 B.C. By the will of her father, who died in 51, she should have inherited the throne along with her younger brother, Ptolemy, who was also to be her husband, in accordance with Egyptian custom. But she was expelled from the throne by young Ptolemy's guardians, Pothinus and Achillas, whereupon she retreated into Syria to raise troops, and was just about to return to reassert her rights when the great Cæsar arrived in Egypt in pursuit of Pompey. Her charms quickly touched the susceptible heart of Cæsar, who warmly espoused her cause, and, after the successful issue of the Alexandrine war, in which Ptolemy fell, placed her again upon the throne, this time with, as nominal colleague and husband, a still younger brother, of whom she soon rid herself by poison. Cleopatra bore a son to Cæsar, who was called Cæsarian (afterwards cut off by Augustus), and soon followed her lover to Rome, where she received such honours as were but ill-pleasing to the Roman populace. In the civil war after Cæsar's murder, she hesitated at first which side to take. After the battle of Philippi, Antony summoned her to appear before him at Tarsus in Cilicia, to give account of her conduct. The 'serpent of old Nile' sailed up the river Cydnus to meet him, in a gorgeous galley, arrayed as Venus rising from the sea, and accompanied with all the gorgeous and romantic splendour of the East. She was then in her twenty-eighth year, in the perfection of matured beauty, and that, from her pure descent, almost certainly of the best Greek type, spite of Shakespeare's 'gypsy's lust,' Tennyson's 'swarthy' cheeks, and Gérôme's typical Egyptian features. The splendour of her beauty and her wit so fascinated the amorous heart of Antony that he at once flung away for her sake, duty, a Roman's pride, and at last all his ambition and his life. They spent the next winter at Alexandria, where they steeped their senses in the most delirious revelries of reckless love. Antony, although in the meantime he had returned to Rome to marry Octavia, the sister of Octavianus, soon returned to the arms of Cleopatra, who met him at Laodicea, in Syria (36 B.C.), and accompanied him on his march to the Euphrates. From this time his usual residence was with her at Alexandria, and here he heaped upon her and her children the most extravagant gifts and honours. His infatuated folly cost him all his popularity at Rome, and weakened his energies for the inevitable struggle. It was at Cleopatra's instigation that Antony risked the great naval battle of Actium, and when she fled with sixty ships, he forgot everything else and flung away half the world to follow her. When the conqueror appeared before Alexandria, Cleopatra entered into private negotiations with him for her own security; while Antony, who was at first indignant at her treachery, being told that she had already killed herself, fell upon his sword. Mortally wounded, and learning that the report which he had heard was false, he had himself carried into her presence, and died in her arms. Octavianus, by artifice, now succeeded in making the queen his prisoner. Finding that she could not touch his colder heart, and too proud to endure the thought that her life was spared only to grace her conqueror's triumph at Rome, she took poison, or as it is said, killed herself by causing an asp to bite her bosom (30 B.C.). Her body was buried beside that of Antony, and the good Octavia brought up the twin children she had borne to Antony as if they had been her own.
For Cleopatra, 'age cannot wither her'—the fascination of her beauty and the rare romantic interest of her story defy the touch of time. Helen of Troy and Mary Stuart alone divide with her that sovereignty over the imaginations of men that survives across the centuries. To dramatist, to poet, and to painter, she will continue to be all that she was to Cæsar and to Antony.