The Murder of Cleopatra by Pat Brown Page A

especially its immense amount of wheat, added Egypt to its list of countries to be conquered rather than bartered with.
    In spite of the fact that women did not receive education of any significance in the Macedonian culture due to a solidly entrenched patriarchy—it was only the boys who were sent to the gymnasium to receive education—the Ptolemies loved learning and clearly provided excellent tutors for their daughters as well as their sons. Since the Cleopatra of this work is the seventh, there were a number of prior Cleopatras who ruled or coruled Egypt for number of years, as well as queens with the names of Arsinoe and Berenice, who also held power during the Ptolemaic Dynasty. All of these women no doubt had intelligence and ability in the skills of governance adequate to hold onto their positions of power even if they were overlooked by many historians because Cleopatra VII was the last one to rule and her intense relationships with Caesar and Antony as well as her death dramatically described by Plutarch caused her to remain more firmly in our memory. By the time our Cleopatra was growing up in the Alexandrian Lagide household (Lagide is another name for the Ptolemaic family descended from Ptolemy I, who also was titled Ptolemy Lagide because he was legally the son of Arsinoe and Lagus of Macedon), she had access to the museum on the grounds of the royal palace, the meeting place of world-renowned mathematicians,poets, historians, and artists. Clearly, with Plutarch and others singing the praises of her intelligence, wit, and ability with languages (even if this is highly exaggerated), she excelled as a student and her lessons prepared her well to take over as pharaoh and rule the country for almost two decades.
    Cleopatra learned many valuable lessons from her unusual ancestors. For example, a good leader doesn’t waste the family genes and encourage unnecessary strife and dissent by partnering and spawning children with leaders of lesser dominions; in fact, so concerned were the Ptolemies that their line be pure and the future royals be Egyptian Ptolemies that they introduced incestuous relationships that had not been part of Macedonian history: Ptolemy II married his own sister Arsinoe II in 274 BCE and established a precedent for future pharaohs, guaranteeing no outsiders on the throne and enhancing the claim of divinity for the royals. Early non-Macedonian pharaohs were incestuous on and off during their dynasties; it would seem that the Ptolemies embraced the concept quite avidly, and this would continue into Cleopatra’s reign. She married each of her two brothers (and most likely killed them off in order to be sure she retained the throne), and then found more suitable husbands in her pseudomarriages to Julius Caesar and Mark Antony—a brilliant and unique political strategy for a Ptolemy to marry “out” and “up”—to produce children with a dual claim to both the Egyptian throne and the Roman emperor (or emperor-to-be) who would undoubtedly co-opt Egypt in the future. Cleopatra’s unusual choice of fathers for her children was her best effort to ensure she and her Ptolemaic offspring would continue to rule in Egypt and the Mediterranean world. The Ptolemies were hardly a peaceful lot, and Cleopatra had many fine examples of using murder as a method of eliminating one’s rivals and making sure to be the first to do the family downsizing. Cleopatra’s father, Auletes, had her older sister, Berenike, murdered. Berenike had taken over the throne when her father fled Alexandria during a revolt by his people in 58 BCE. He had her killed when he returned to reclaim his position as pharaoh. Cleopatra’s other older sister, Cleopatra VI,mysteriously vanished around the same time, and nothing much has been noted about her in history. Cleopatra’s younger sister, Arsinoe IV, the remaining one whom Cleopatra always saw as a threat, was eventually killed off