What was cleopatra favorite activities

She was also multilingual — historical accounts report her speaking between 5 and 9 languages, including her native Greek, Egyptian, Arabic and Hebrew. Cleopatra was married to her brother and co-ruler Ptolemy XIII, who was 10 years old at the time she was She was 22; he was During their marriage Cleopatra continued to live with Caesar privately and act as his mistress.

She married Mark Antony in 32 BC. The legend goes that Cleopatra had an asp smuggled into her room and allowed it to bite her, poisoning and killing her. Contrary to modern portrayals from Elizabeth Taylor and Vivien Leigh, there is no evidence among ancient historians that Cleopatra was a great beauty. Contemporary visual sources show Cleopatra with a large pointed nose, narrow lips and sharp, jutting chin.

Her reputation as a dangerous and seductive temptress was in fact the creation of her enemy Octavian. Roman historians portrayed her as a harlot who used sex to bewitch powerful men into giving her power.

Cleopatra believed herself to be a living goddess and was keenly aware of the relationship between image and power. She would appear dressed as the goddess Isis at ceremonial events, and surrounded herself with luxury. Unlike her Ptolemaic forebears — who spoke Greek and observed Greek customs — Cleopatra identified as a truly Egyptian pharaoh.

Because of this, she was able to address commanders and leaders of different nations without a translator or mediator which gave her an advantage. Cleopatra was an author. She wrote a medicinal and pharmacological book called Cosmetics which included, amongst other things, remedies for male pattern baldness and dandruff. In Egypt and in royal families especially, murder plots were as common as marriage, and Cleopatra and her siblings were no exception. After becoming the pharaoh queen in 51 BC, Cleopatra set out to augment her power by seducing the Roman general Caesar on his visit to Alexandria in 48 BC, thus further increasing the tension between herself and her brother Ptolemy XIII.

She began to fight Ptolemy for royal control. With their youngest sister Arsinoe IV, Ptolemy ordered the royal residence at Alexandria to be searched and Cleopatra was caught inside with Caesar.

Despite being married to him as well, Cleopatra was still involved with Caesar. In 48 BC, after the murder of his political adversary Pompey, Julius Caesar arrived in Alexandria seeking reimbursement for the debts of Auletes. Cleopatra seized this opportunity to recapture full control of Egypt from her sibling. Historian Cassius Dio records how Cleopatra secretly captivated Caesar with her beauty and intelligence.

The historian Plutarch further embellishes the story, claiming that she had herself carried into the royal residence to meet Caesar tied in a bed sack. Whatever the truth, the outcome was that Cleopatra and Caesar established a liaison which propelled her to power in Egypt and kept her there until the death of Caesar in 44 BC. Coins with her image on them show her to be rather masculine looking with a large nose, however, a few historians point out that this was probably done deliberately to make herself look stronger.

The Romans painted Cleopatra as a political seductress with an appetite for food, wine, and sex, but this could be a misrepresentation. Marriage between brother and sister and father and daughter was a long-held practice in the Egyptian royal family. This was, firstly, because Egypt and its pleasure-loving culture were despised as decadent. But it was also because Caesar had no other sons — though he was married to Calpurnia, and had had two wives before her — and he had just made himself the most powerful man in Rome.

Elite Romans were meant to share power, but Caesar seemed to want to be supreme, like a monarch. Cleopatra took control of the way she appeared , coming across differently according to political need. For example, at ceremonial events she would appear dressed as the goddess Isis: it was common for Egyptian rulers to identify themselves with an established deity.

She had Caesarion, her eldest son, represented on the temple wall at Dendera alongside her, as sharing her rule. After her death, the Roman emperor Augustus lured Caesarion back with promises of power, only to have him killed. He was aged 16 or 17, though some sources say he was as young as The twins were aged 10 and Ptolemy six when their mother died. The adult Cleopatra Selene was married to Juba, a minor king, and sent to rule with him over Mauretania. Augustus founded his reign on the defeat of Cleopatra.

When he had the chance to have a month named in his own honour, instead of choosing September — the month of his birth — he chose the eighth month, in which Cleopatra died, to create a yearly reminder of her defeat. Augustus would have liked to lead Cleopatra as a captive through Rome, as other generals did with their prisoners, in the formal triumphs that celebrated their victories.

But she killed herself to prevent that. Like Mark Antony, who killed himself because there was no longer a place of honour for him in the world, Cleopatra chose to die rather than suffer the violence of being paraded, shamed and helpless, through Rome. Augustus had to make do with an image of her that was carried through the streets instead. But years then passed before Cleopatra was born — 12 generations, with all their love affairs and secret assignations.