Basic Facts:
Life: approx. 70 to 30 BCE
Reign: 51 to 30 BCE
Extremely Brief Summary: Cleopatra inherited a joint throne, but pushed first one and then a second brother out of it to rule alone. In a world where rising Roman dominance was a fact of life, she managed to maintain control of her country by negotiating (in every possible way) with both Julius Caesar and Mark Antony. Though she lost in the end, she still managed to close out 3000 years of Egyptian history on her own terms.
Most Memorable Moment: Cleopatra and Mark Antony have a genuine Romeo-and-Juliet type ending. He thought she had killed herself, so he killed himself, and then she killed herself. Possibly this is where Shakespeare got the idea?
Selected Sources and Images
Sources on Cleopatra are both plentiful and contradictory. My personal pick is Joyce Tyldesley’s Cleopatra: Last Queen of Egypt
You can read Plutarch’s version of her in his Life of Antony. Plutarch was the major source for Shakespeare’s play Antony and Cleopatra. But do bear in mind that Plutarch was neither unbiased, nor an eye-witness. He wrote about 100 years after Cleopatra’s time. If an Egyptian had written an equivalent biography, I think it would have read rather differently.
Cleopatra (or maybe one of the other Ptolemaic queens) as an Egyptian goddess in black basalt, from the 1st century BCE.
Image Source: By George Shuklin – Own work, Public Domain
This papyrus contains the Greek for “so be it” at the bottom, possibly in Cleopatra’s own handwriting. If so, it is the only words we have directly from her.
Image Source: Wikimedia Commons
Mark Antony and Cleopatra, as two sides of one denarius coin.
Image Source: Classical Numismatic Group, Inc.
Cleopatra and her son Ptolemy Caesarion at the temple of Dendera.
Image Source: Wikimedia Commons
This 1st century fresco from Herculaneum, Italy, is possibly of Cleopatra, showing her with red hair. It would have been done posthumously, so is not necessarily an accurate depiction.
Image Source: Wikimedia Commons
Cleopatra, as discovered in Via Appia, probably made during the time of her visit to Rome, now in the Alter Museum in Berlin.
Image Source: Wikimedia Commons
You can also read one historian’s view of how she really died here.
Her Half of History 
[…] mentioned in this episode include Cleopatra, Draupadi, Jnanadanandini Devi, and Indira […]
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Such an interesting story and so well told! I’m getting smarter every week!
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[…] episode is a retrospective look at Cleopatra, Wu Zetian, Elizabeth I of Russia, Catherine the Great, and Ranavalona. I discuss a three-step […]
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[…] mentioned include Athena, Artemis, Tyche, Astarte, Cleopatra, Fulvia, Octavia, Livia, Julia, Agrippina, Juno Moneta, Lakshmi, Elizabeth I, Empress Maria […]
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What a dynamic story! Cleopatra certainly had possessed many of the same qualities that we both extol and despise in our modern politicians!
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[…] fact, my sense of Elizabeth is that unlike Cleopatra and Wu Zetian, she wasn’t really cut out for absolute power. She was neither ambitious nor […]
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