Although Cleopatra was the last ruling Pharaoh of the Ptolemaic dynasty and, in custom with the pharaohs of that period had ruled jointly with her father and then her brothers Ptolemy XII and Ptolemy XIV whom she subsequently married, she was in fact of Hellenistic descent. The dynasty was founded by the Macedonian Greek Ptolemy I Soter or Ptolemy the Saviour and in a tradition that might seem peculiar to us now, they refused to learn Egyptian but rather kept their Greek language. While it might seem unusual that the rulers of a nation shouldn’t speak the same tongue as their subjects it is something that has proven invaluable to our understanding of the ancient Egyptian world since, without this failure to assimilate, the Rosetta Stone wouldn’t have had it’s Greek translation. The inclusion of the Greek text eventually made it possible to understand and translate the hieroglyphs that adorned almost every flat surface in the land.
Cleopatra should never have been ruler of Egypt, while she was married to her younger brother she was supposed to have held a less prominent position in the royal household yet she was never one to sit in the shade & she sent her brother south while she had his name and face removed from official documents and coinage. Ptolemy had her exiled and took the thrown alone, however events abroad were to overtake him.
Pompey, having landed in Egypt while the Roman Civil raged, in accordance with Ptolemy’s orders was promptly beheaded in front of his wife and children. Orders made in an effort to ingratiate himself with Julius Caesar. Unfortunately for Ptolemy, he had failed to take into account that although he was a political enemy Pompey had also been the widower of Caesar’s only legitimate daughter, Julia.
Cleopatra took advantage of Caesar’s distaste for Ptolemy and had herself made pharaoh once more but this time with the backing of Rome.
After Caesar’s death Mark Antony was one of the triumvirate that ruled Rome, he visited with Cleopatra and she would take him on luxury Nile cruises, but only after she had him execute her sister Arsinoe in the temple of Artemis when she became a political threat.
Cleopatra’s beauty was legendary and in order to maintain her looks she is thought to have bathed in ass’ milk. While this isn’t available in crystal cruises spa there are so many other treatments both for the body and mind you won’t miss it. The cruise offers so much for the polymath too, from cookery to art, music to photography.
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