8 CLEOPATRA Cleopatra was not only smart and daring but ruthless and murderous Like other rulers in the ancient world she sent countless soldiers to die in her wars She sacrificed some of her own family to her ambitions as well During Cleopatra’s lifetime 69 30 BCE Egypt was more than a fabulously wealthy country It was also the last of the nations of the Mediterranean to keep its independence from the Roman Empire Rome the seat of the Roman Empire lies in the middle of the Italian peninsula From here streamed legions of soldiers They conquered modern-day North Africa Greece the Balkans Germany France Spain and Britain One of these conquerors Julius Caesar would play a large part in Cleopatra’s life So would Caesar’s com panion a powerful Roman general named Mark Antony Antony became Cleopatra’s husband and the father to three of her children She used all her power to keep Egypt free of Rome’s greedy grasp In the end her gamble failed When Julius Caesar was murdered civil war broke out Soon after Rome declared war on Egypt Cleopatra and Mark Antony joined their navies to fight a legendary battle They lost Both ended up dying by suicide In the years since her death the memory of Cleopa tra has lived on She has been a subject of poems plays books art and films However her fascinating true story rivals the fiction
CHAPTER ONE DAUGHTER OF THE NILE I n the fourth century BCE a conqueror emerged from the rocky highlands of what is today Macedonia Alexan der the Great b 356 BCE d 323 BCE and his army of Greeks swept through the Mediterranean world They conquered land east across Asia Minor the Middle East and all the way to India To the south they defeated and ruled Egypt Alexander found ed cities along the way One of those was Alexandria on the northern coast of Egypt It sat at the mouth of the mighty Nile River Alexander died in 323 BCE without leaving a successor to his empire His four generals 9 Alexander the Great ordered a causeway to connect the island of Tyre with the mainland and sent his armies over it to con quer the city The causeway remains in place today
10 CLEOPATRA ALEXANDRIA In 332 BCE Alexander the Great came to Rhakotis a small port village near the sea He changed the town’s name to Alexandria and made plans to build a magnificent city in its place Its location near the sea allowed it to become a center of trade for goods from Arabia and India Papyrus glass metal and textiles were produced there Trade brought wealth The population grew so that it became the largest city in the Medi terranean and Alexandria became the capital of Egypt The arts flourished Schools of philos ophy sprang up Scholars of all kinds gathered there including Jewish translators who cre ated a Greek version of the Old Testament from the original Hebrew Two of Alexandria’s buildings were famous One is the great Library It housed up to 500,000 papyrus scrolls Books such as we know them were a later invention Alexan dria’s lighthouse Pharos was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World It was said to stand about 440 feet 134 meters tall Sailors could see its light up to 35 miles about 56 kilometers out at sea Over time both the lighthouse and library were destroyed In the seventh century Mus lim Arabs conquered the city In the sixteenth
DAughTER Of ThE NiLE 11 century epidemics of disease dwindled the population But by the nineteenth century Alexandria had recovered to become a major center for cotton production The city remains to this day and func tions as a popular spot for tourists In 2006 it had a population of more than four million Egypt was a small part of Alexander the Great’s empire which spread Greek culture from Macedonia all the way across the Indus River to the east
