70 Fun Facts About Cleopatra

Which famous object in the British Museum carries a decree of 196 BC honouring Cleopatra's ancestor Ptolemy V?

The Rosetta Stone. Priests, apparently at Memphis, had the same decree carved in three scripts, and matching the one scholars could read against the other two let Champollion announce in 1822 that he could read hieroglyphs.

The founder of Cleopatra's dynasty, Ptolemy I Soter, had been a general and companion of which conqueror?

Alexander the Great. When the king died in 323 BC, Ptolemy took Egypt as his share of the empire and even hijacked the royal corpse on its way home to Macedon, burying it in his own new kingdom.

What was Cleopatra's first language?

Koine Greek. Her dynasty were Macedonians who had run Egypt for almost three centuries, and even Roman visitors, with Latin of their own, would have addressed her in Greek.

Which French thinker wrote that the face of the world would have changed had Cleopatra's nose been shorter?

Blaise Pascal. In his Pensées he used her nose to show how a trifle can steer history: a passing attraction too slight to explain, he wrote, shakes princes, armies and the entire world.

What does the Greek name Cleopatra mean?

Her adopted title Thea Philopatora means goddess who loves her father.

Cleopatra's father, Ptolemy XII, was nicknamed Auletes for his love of playing which instrument?

The flute. Auletes means 'flute-player', and the king kept his throne only by paying Roman politicians enormous bribes for their backing, debts that his daughter inherited along with the crown.

Which Irish playwright turned Cleopatra into a frightened sixteen-year-old schooled by Julius Caesar in an 1898 play?

George Bernard Shaw. Tired of the worship of Shakespeare's doomed lovers, he wrote Caesar and Cleopatra with no romance in it at all, making her five years younger than the real queen was when the two met.

Which video game series set its 2017 instalment in the Egypt of Cleopatra's war with her brother?

Assassin's Creed. Origins casts the ousted young queen as a schemer who uses the hero to pick off her rivals, and its makers later turned the game's map into an educational tour of ancient Egypt guided by historians.

In her first recorded act as queen, Cleopatra sailed to Hermonthis to install what?

A sacred bull. The Buchis bull, white-bodied and black-faced, was revered as the living spirit of the war god Montu, and when each one died it was mummified and buried in a cemetery of its own.

Pompey fled to Egypt in 48 BC after losing which battle to Caesar?

Pharsalus. Pompey's army far outnumbered Caesar's there yet was routed, and he made for Egypt because he had been the patron of Cleopatra's father and counted on a welcome.

What did Ptolemy XIII send to Caesar after having Pompey murdered near Pelousion?

His severed, embalmed head. Ptolemy expected thanks for the gift; instead Caesar turned away from it in horror and wept over the signet ring of his old rival.

According to Plutarch, Cleopatra was smuggled into the palace to meet Caesar hidden inside what?

A bed sack. Her friend Apollodorus tied it up with a cord and carried it indoors to Caesar, who is said to have been captivated by the nerve of the trick.

How did Cleopatra's brother Ptolemy XIII die in 47 BC?

He drowned when his boat capsized. Routed by Caesar's relief army on the Nile, the young king fled aboard a vessel that went over under the crowd of soldiers scrambling onto it.

Which sister of Cleopatra was paraded in Caesar's triumph and later exiled to Ephesus?

Arsinoe IV. The sight of a princess in chains moved the Roman crowd to pity, and Caesar let her live; years later Antony had her killed at Cleopatra's urging.

Which of the Seven Wonders of the ancient world stood in Cleopatra's capital city?

The Pharos lighthouse. Her ancestors built the tower, about 100 metres high, some two centuries before she was born, and its island's name became the word for a lighthouse in French, Italian and Spanish.

By what nickname is Ptolemy XV, Cleopatra's eldest son and last co-ruler, best known?

Caesarion. The nickname means 'little Caesar': Cleopatra proclaimed him the dictator's son, yet Caesar's will passed over the boy and adopted a great-nephew as heir instead.

After his stay in Cleopatra's Egypt, Caesar took a scholar's advice and reformed what?

The Roman calendar. It had drifted about three months out of step with the seasons, so Caesar stretched 46 BC to 445 days and then began a 365-day year with a leap day every fourth.

Caesar set a golden image of Cleopatra in a Roman temple of which goddess, his family's claimed ancestor?

Venus. Caesar's clan, the Julii, claimed descent from the goddess, and the gilded Cleopatra outlasted them: the historian Appian reported it still standing beside her some two centuries later.

The orator Cicero, who wrote 'I can't stand the Queen' after meeting Cleopatra, complained that she was what?

Arrogant. Writing to his friend Atticus, Cicero said he could not recall her insolence 'without a pang', and grumbled about promises of 'learned' gifts her agent had made him.

Where was Cleopatra when Caesar was assassinated on the Ides of March, 44 BC?

In Rome. She was living as Caesar's guest in his villa across the Tiber when he was killed, and within weeks she had fled home to Alexandria with their young son.

How did Cleopatra's brother and co-ruler Ptolemy XIV allegedly die in 44 BC?

Poisoned on her orders: that is the charge the historian Josephus made over a century later, without proof. Whatever killed the teenage king, his death let her crown her own small son as co-ruler.

In 41 BC Cleopatra sailed up a river in a gilded barge to meet Antony at Tarsos, in which modern country?

Turkey. Antony had summoned her there to answer for her conduct in the civil war; she ignored several letters, made her entrance, and by winter he had followed her home to Alexandria.

When she met Antony at Tarsos, Cleopatra was dressed as which goddess?

Aphrodite. Plutarch has her reclining under a gold-spangled canopy, fanned by boys costumed as Cupids, while the crowd drained away to watch and left Antony sitting alone in the marketplace.

What were the twins born to Cleopatra and Antony in 40 BC named?

Alexander Helios and Cleopatra Selene. The surnames, Sun and Moon, came later: Antony first set eyes on the twins when they were three, at a reunion in Syria where he acknowledged them as his.

Which Roman noblewoman did Antony marry in 40 BC to seal a pact with her brother?

Octavia the Younger. Only months a widow, she needed a special decree of the Senate to remarry so soon; the wedding sealed a truce between Antony and her brother Octavian.

Which future king arrived at Cleopatra's court as a refugee in December 40 BC before going on to Rome?

Herod. Cleopatra tried to keep him with the offer of a command, but he sailed on through winter storms, and in Rome Antony had the Senate name him king of Judea.

Antony gave Cleopatra the prized balsam groves around which city near the River Jordan?

Jericho. Its groves yielded balsam, a perfume and medicine worth a fortune, so Judea's king found himself paying Cleopatra rent to farm land inside his own kingdom.

Cleopatra named her youngest son Ptolemy Philadelphus, after an ancestor whose surname means what?

Sibling-loving. Ptolemy II earned the name by marrying his own sister, and it shares its roots with Philadelphia, the city of brotherly love; Cleopatra revived it for her last child in 36 BC.

Antony's disastrous 36 BC campaign, which left him waiting on Cleopatra for supplies, was an invasion of where?

Parthia. Antony meant to avenge the Roman defeat at Carrhae, but he lost his siege engines, retreated through Armenia in the snow and sat on the Syrian coast until Cleopatra's ships came in.

In his 34 BC victory parade in Alexandria, Antony rode into the city dressed as which god?

Dionysus. Wreathed in ivy and riding the wine god's chariot, Antony paraded the captive king of Armenia in golden chains and presented him to Cleopatra on her throne.

At the Donations of Alexandria, what title did Cleopatra take for herself?

Queen of Kings. At the same ceremony Antony handed her children crowns to lands Rome did not even hold, and Octavian reported every detail to the Senate to turn opinion against him.

At the Donations ceremony, Cleopatra appeared dressed as which goddess?

Isis. She sat beside Antony on a golden throne wearing the goddess's sacred robe, was hailed as the New Isis, and wore the same costume at her other public appearances.

The ancient Egyptian obelisks now standing in London and New York are both known as Cleopatra's what?

Needle. The name flatters her: Thutmose III ordered the pair more than 1,300 years before she was born, and the Romans only moved them to Alexandria about two decades after her death.

According to Pliny the Elder, what did Cleopatra dissolve in vinegar to win a dinner-party bet?

A pearl. She had bet Antony she could spend a fortune on a single dinner, so she dropped one of her earrings into the cup and drank it; the umpire stopped her before its twin followed.

A 33 BC papyrus may carry Cleopatra's handwriting: one Greek word usually translated as what?

Ptolemaic rulers countersigned documents to prevent forgery; this one was later used to wrap a mummy.

In 32 BC, on whom did Rome formally declare war?

Cleopatra alone, not Antony. Naming him would have made enemies of every Roman at his side, so the Senate offered his men a pardon and left Antony to choose a foreign queen over his country.

From whom did Octavian illegally seize Antony's will to use in the propaganda war?

The Vestal Virgins. They refused to hand it over, so Octavian walked in and took it, then read the Senate its clause asking that Antony be buried beside Cleopatra in Alexandria.

What did Antony's allies Plancus and Titius do in 32 BC after reportedly clashing with Cleopatra?

Changed sides. Cleopatra had supplied 200 of the fleet's 800 warships, so she would not be sent home; Plutarch says she abused the two men for opposing her, and they went over to Octavian with news of Antony's will.

Actium, where Antony and Cleopatra lost at sea in 31 BC, lies in which modern country?

Greece. Actium guards the mouth of a gulf on the west coast, and Octavian marked the win by founding a whole new town on the site of his camp: Nicopolis, the City of Victory.

Who commanded Octavian's fleet at Actium?

Marcus Agrippa. Before the battle he had stormed Antony's supply ports one after another, cutting off his grain, and the fleet he finally met was underfed and short of rowers.

What was the name of Cleopatra's flagship at Actium?

Antonias. The flagship's name honoured Antony, and Plutarch reports an omen before the war: swallows nesting under its stern were driven out by other swallows, which killed their young.

When Antony fled Actium and boarded Cleopatra's ship, how was it recognisable?

By its purple sails. Once aboard he sat alone at the prow for three days with his head in his hands, until Cleopatra's women coaxed the two of them into speaking again.

After Actium, Antony retired to a seaside hut in imitation of which hater of mankind, later a Shakespeare title character?

Timon of Athens. Antony called the hut his Timoneion and said that he too had been betrayed by his friends, but before long Cleopatra had him back in the palace for a new round of banquets.

After Actium, Arabs from the region of which city burned the ships Cleopatra had readied on the Red Sea?

Petra. Its Nabataean Arabs had lost land to Cleopatra, and at the urging of Octavian's governor of Syria they burned the ships, ending her plan to sail her treasure beyond his reach.

According to Livy, what did Cleopatra declare after Octavian captured her?

"I will not be led in a triumph". Within days she had made sure of it, and when Octavian celebrated his victory in Rome the parade could show the crowd only an effigy of her.

How did Antony die in 30 BC?

He stabbed himself in the stomach on a false report that Cleopatra was dead. Still alive, he was carried to her tomb, and she and her two women hauled him up to a window on ropes.

By popular tradition, Cleopatra died from the bite of what?

An asp. Yet no snake was found in the room: the only marks were two faint pricks on her arm, and some ancient writers thought she had used a poisoned hairpin instead.

Octavian took Alexandria and Cleopatra died in the month Sextilis, later renamed what in his honour?

August. Octavian became Augustus, and the Senate's decree renaming Sextilis for him listed, among that month's strokes of good fortune, the bringing of Egypt under Roman rule.

Octavian's men found Cleopatra dead and her dying maid Charmion doing what?

Straightening her diadem. 'A fine deed, Charmion!' one of the men shouted; she answered that it was, and fitting for the descendant of so many kings, and fell dead beside the couch.

What happened to Cleopatra's eldest son after Octavian took Egypt?

He was executed. In Plutarch's telling his mother had sent him off towards India with a fortune, but a tutor lured the boy back with word that Octavian would let him reign.

Cleopatra's daughter married Juba II and ruled which kingdom at Africa's north-western tip?

Mauretania. Her son Ptolemy inherited the throne, until his cousin Caligula summoned him and had him killed, supposedly for turning every head with a splendid cloak.

Plutarch says a friend paid Octavian 2,000 talents to spare Cleopatra's what?

Statues. Antony's were torn down after his defeat, but her friend Archibius ransomed hers, so the dead queen stayed on her pedestals while he vanished from his.

Antony put Cleopatra's portrait opposite his own on which Roman silver coin, before Actium?

Denarius. The coin is no glamour shot: it gives her a sharp nose, thin lips and a pointed chin, and Plutarch wrote that her charm lay in her conversation, not her looks.

On her coins Cleopatra wears her hair drawn back in sections to a bun, a style named after which fruit?

Melon. The rows of hair run back like the lines on a melon's rind; the look had belonged to queens of her line some two centuries earlier and was long out of fashion when Cleopatra revived it.

Which 14th-century English poet included Cleopatra in The Legend of Good Women?

Geoffrey Chaucer. The poem's prologue has the god of love scold him for writing faithless women and demand tales of true ones as penance, and Cleopatra, dying for Antony, is the first he tells.

In Shakespeare's day, who played Cleopatra on stage?

A boy. Women were not allowed on the English stage in his day, and Shakespeare lets his queen dread exactly that: 'I shall see some squeaking Cleopatra boy my greatness.'

Which composer's 1724 opera Giulio Cesare in Egitto dramatised the affair of Caesar and Cleopatra?

Handel. He wrote the part of the all-conquering Caesar for the star castrato Senesino, so at the first performances Rome's great general sang in the alto range.

Which French film pioneer first put Cleopatra on screen in 1899, in a two-minute film about her mummy?

Georges Méliès. In his film a man hacks the queen's mummy to pieces and then conjures a living woman out of a smoking brazier, which makes it one of the earliest horror films.

Who played Cleopatra in the 1963 Hollywood epic?

Elizabeth Taylor. Her record $1 million fee was the least of it: the shoot became the costliest yet filmed and nearly bankrupted 20th Century Fox, even though it was the biggest hit of 1963.

Which silent-film vamp played Cleopatra in 1917?

Theda Bara. Almost nobody alive has seen her do it: the last known prints burned in vault fires in 1937 and 1958, and only brief fragments of the film survive.

Legend has Cleopatra bathing in which liquid, a habit ancient writers actually record of Nero's wife Poppaea?

Donkey's milk. Poppaea had 500 she-asses milked each day for her bath; the tale seems to have reached Cleopatra only in modern times, perhaps helped by Claudette Colbert playing both women on screen.

How many lovers is Cleopatra known for certain to have had?

Two. Julius Caesar and Mark Antony were the most powerful Romans of their day, the men best placed to keep her dynasty on its throne, so each affair was also an alliance.

In Dante's Inferno, Cleopatra is punished in the circle of Hell reserved for which sin?

Lust. Dante sets 'Cleopatra the voluptuous' in the second circle beside Helen of Troy and Dido, where the souls are whirled about for ever on a storm wind, as passion once drove them.

Antony reportedly first fell for a teenage Cleopatra in 55 BC, when he came to Egypt as what?

A cavalry officer. He rode in with the Roman army that put her exiled father back on the throne, and won local goodwill by giving the fallen leader of the other side a royal burial.

Samuel Barber's Antony and Cleopatra was written to open which Lincoln Center venue in 1966?

Metropolitan Opera House. Franco Zeffirelli filled the vast new stage with moving scenery, a giant pyramid included, and Barber went on revising the opera for years after its opening night.

Which Roman cameo-glass object in the British Museum may show Cleopatra drawing Antony toward her?

The Portland Vase. That reading is one of many and none has won agreement; the vase itself was smashed to pieces by a drunken museum visitor in 1845 and had to be glued back together.

Which Russian writer's unfinished story The Egyptian Nights revived a lurid Cleopatra tale?

Alexander Pushkin. In the story an Italian improviser is handed the theme before a Petersburg audience: Cleopatra naming death as the price of a night with her, and still finding takers.

How did Cleopatra respond when drought and a low Nile flood brought famine to Egypt?

She opened the royal granaries. Hunger came more than once: an ice-core study has linked the famine years of 43 and 42 BC to the eruption of a volcano in Alaska, on the far side of the world.

Inheriting her father's debts, what did Cleopatra do to Egypt's silver coinage?

Debased it. The early kings of her line had struck coins of pure silver; by one analysis the 'silver' pieces of Cleopatra's reform were only about one third silver.

In 42 BC, whose forces did Antony defeat at Philippi, driving them to suicide?

Cassius and Brutus. Cleopatra had put to sea with her own fleet to join the hunt for Caesar's assassins, but a storm wrecked it, and she later used the story to clear herself of aiding the other side.