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pharaohs rise and fall s01e06
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00:08Their names are etched in stone, their stories carved into the very fabric of history to live
00:14on forever. This is the true story of Egypt's greatest rulers, from their meteoric rise,
00:22to absolute power, to their ultimate downfall. This is the rise and fall of the pharaohs.
00:5151 BCE, a 17-year-old girl has just become pharaoh of Egypt. Her rule will forever change
00:59Egypt and the world. Her name is Cleopatra.
01:06Cleopatra is one of the most remarkable rulers in Egyptian history. She was strong, intelligent,
01:13cunning even, and fiercely Egyptian.
01:16But Cleopatra has inherited Egypt at a crossroads filled with many dangers
01:21and complex webs of intrigue.
01:24Cleopatra is a member of perhaps the most dysfunctional family in human history.
01:28They were willing to do anything to get power and hold on to it. Killing each other off, incest.
01:33I mean, really, somebody should make a soap opera about them.
01:36And to make matters worse, Rome is looking to carve up Egypt for itself.
01:40This is an incredibly high-stakes political game. Egypt is ultimately what's on the line.
01:47One wrong step, and this 3,000-year-old civilization could crumble.
01:58To understand the rise of Cleopatra, we must go back some 500 years in the past,
02:04when Egypt is conquered by the Persian Empire. This is an age of uncertainty,
02:10an age that challenges what it means to be pharaoh and what it means to be Egyptian.
02:16By this point, Egypt has already been ruled by different waves of rulers of foreign origin.
02:23They all style themselves as Egyptian kings in one way or another. But in 525 BCE,
02:29Cambyses, the king of Persia, conquers Egypt and executes the then pharaoh, Samtek III.
02:35I think the Persians were different from other cultural groups that ruled Egypt,
02:41because they didn't reside in Egypt. The Persians incorporated Egypt into a broad empire that was
02:47based elsewhere. They were really interested in exploiting Egypt for its material resources,
02:53and they weren't really that interested in Egyptian culture.
02:57The Egyptians were not happy under Persian rule whatsoever, and they took every opportunity
03:00they could to undermine or challenge it. The constant cycle of Egyptians throwing off
03:05Persian rule, and Persians reconquering Egypt ends when Artaxerxes III reconquers Egypt for Persia,
03:13and Nectinibo, the then pharaoh, flees. When Nectinibo II had to flee Egypt, that brought to an end
03:20indigenous rule of Egypt, and it didn't return until the advent of Gamal Abdel Nasser more than 2,000 years
03:27later.
03:28With the last of the pharaohs defeated by the Persians, the Egyptian people are in desperate need of a hero.
03:35There's rumor that a new ruler or a new warlord is making his way south, and this person is Alexander.
03:48The arrival of Alexander the Great on the Mediterranean scene is something that will affect everybody,
03:54and of course, he starts dismantling the Persian Empire.
03:59From a political perspective, Egypt was crucial for him to build the Hellenistic empire that he was always
04:06hoping for, and Egypt had the resources that he needed. In the absence of a native-born hero, Alexander could
04:15be the answer Egypt is looking for. But will Alexander come to Egypt as a bloody conqueror,
04:21or will he respect Egypt and the office of pharaoh? When Alexander the Great defeats the Persian forces,
04:28he becomes the inheritor of the rulership of Egypt. He marches into Egypt not as a conqueror,
04:35but as a liberator, and it seems from the records he was welcomed as such. It's true that Persian rule
04:41was oppressive for the Egyptians, but I think it's also important to remember that our records come
04:46from the Greek side, and so when Alexander is portrayed as a savior for the Egyptians,
04:52that's very much a Greek perspective. Whether ordinary Egyptians felt that or not, it's hard to say.
04:58Alexander immediately begins making donations to the temples, honoring and worshiping the Egyptian gods,
05:05doing things that are going to really make the Egyptians like him. He was incredibly smart. He was
05:12a strategist. But what we do also know about Alexander is that he had been fascinated by Egypt long before
05:19he arrived, and that he was very interested in many different facets of tradition, including his religion.
05:26So much of this might have also been genuine. When Alexander the Great arrives at Memphis,
05:31he pays his respects to the Apis Bull. He then makes a very determined, deliberate effort to go way out
05:39of
05:39his way to Siwa Oasis to visit the Oracle of Ammon. Earlier in his life, Alexander had been told by
05:46his
05:46own mother that his father was not Philip of Macedon, that nasty man, but was in fact the god Zeus.
05:53Now,
05:53if you asked an Egyptian priest, I'm the king of Egypt, am I the son of God? There's really only
05:59one answer.
05:59Of course you are, sir. So he may get the answer he wants. The Oracle at the Siwa Oasis declares
06:06that
06:06Alexander is indeed the son of Ammon Zeus. This means he can rule Egypt rightfully as a divine king.
06:14He was politically shrewd enough to recognize the power of the priesthood and the need to please and
06:20appease them and to have them on his side. I don't think that he could have been crowned had he
06:25not
06:26had a buy-in from the priesthood. There are reasons for doing that. They might have sensed that he
06:30really did respect Egyptian religion and he might have been committed to allowing the cults in different
06:36parts of the country to continue to operate and to provide them with the kinds of financial resources
06:43that they needed in order to keep operating. Egypt has the most powerful person on the planet as their
06:49dedicated ruler. One of the first things Alexander does is lay out plans for a new capital city.
06:56If you were in Greece, you could cut straight across the Mediterranean and land on the Libyan coast
07:02near a village called Rakotis. And that little fishing village is a very handy spot because ships can
07:09land there. It's got a pretty good harbor which can be improved and that's the place Alexander chooses
07:14to make his capital. So that little village is going to turn itself into Alexandria and he gets a whole
07:21bunch of very eager Greek generals and architects and they can plan a city from scratch. But Alexander's
07:30time in Egypt is short-lived. Egypt is important to his objectives but it's not the end. So he moves
07:39on from Egypt and he leaves Ptolemy, one of his most trusted advisors, in charge. He never returns
07:45to Egypt, not during his life. Alexander's reign comes to an end in 323 BCE when he dies of illness.
07:55With the death of Alexander, the fate of his massive empire is in the balance. We're told that on his
08:01deathbed Alexander proclaims that his empire should go to the strongest of them all. The reality is no one
08:08one can reach agreement and the empires split up. Ptolemy, his general, decides that he will have
08:15Egypt. Clever as he is, Ptolemy might have known that fertile and rich Egypt is the crown jewel in
08:23Alexander's empire. Alexander's other generals seize their own parts of his once sprawling empire.
08:30Greece to Cassander, Anatolia to Lysimachus and Persia and Central Asia to Seleucus.
08:37These successor kingdoms meld Greek and local customs, creating hybrid nations.
08:43The Hellenistic Age has begun and it is Ptolemy's Egypt that will take center stage.
08:50But before Ptolemy can rule Egypt, he needs to do what all successful pharaohs have done in the past,
08:57create legitimacy through their relationship with the gods. Or in Ptolemy's case, the former living god,
09:04Alexander the Great. The original idea was to take Alexander's body back home and have it interred
09:12with the older kings of Macedonia. But Ptolemy believed that having Alexander's body in Egypt
09:17legitimized his kingship. If he is buried in Ptolemy's own territory, then he is drawing
09:26a direct line between Alexander and himself. So as the story goes, he stole the body.
09:32As Alexander's body is being transported back, Ptolemy takes his armies and intercepts it.
09:38He brings the body of Alexander back to Egypt and inters it in Alexandria.
09:42Now in Egypt, one of the ways you get to be king is to bury the previous king. So when
09:47he buries
09:48Alexander, he is in fact saying to the Egyptians, now I am the king. On January 12, 304 BCE,
09:56Ptolemy proclaims himself pharaoh of Egypt. At first, things are going very well for the
10:02Ptolemaic dynasty. Ptolemy is a just ruler. He assimilates himself into the cultural and religious
10:08ways. He understands the different offices of the pharaoh. He doesn't learn the language,
10:13but he presents himself as an Egyptian king. Despite their Greek origins, the Ptolemies embrace
10:20Egypt's system of divine pharaonic rule. And much like pharaohs of the past, the Ptolemies understand
10:26that religion is one of the strongest pillars of any pharaoh's rule. What we have in the Hellenist
10:33period is the increasing creation of what we might call hybrid deities. For example, we find Hathor
10:41increasingly conflated with Aphrodite, both as the goddess of love. The same thing with Ra,
10:48who is the sun god in Egyptian culture. Well, he is conflated with Apollo. We have under the
10:55Ptolemies the creation of a new deity, Serapis, an Egyptian deity who looks like a Greek.
11:01So it's a new god that would offer an opportunity of unification between the Egyptian mythology and
11:09the Greek mythology and where each side could see themselves represented in.
11:14He is basically creating a religion as he has created his kingship. It's a religion that satisfies
11:22as many of the populace as possible. And like pharaohs before them, the Ptolemies leaned on the
11:28priesthood to administer Egypt. For every dynasty, having the support of the priesthood is critical.
11:36And we have to remember that their role was not simply about performing rites. I mean,
11:40these were political advisors. These were consultants. These were people, in many cases,
11:45who they brought into the administration to govern. It benefited them to keep those temple institutions
11:51and the wealth that was associated with those temple institutions happy and part of their greater
11:56administration. The next 80 years under the first three Ptolemies mark the golden age of the Ptolemaic
12:05rule. Elevated to king, Ptolemy I uses wars against Alexander's other successors to carve out an empire in the
12:14eastern Mediterranean. Through these three great Ptolemaic kings, Egypt adds large swaths of the
12:21Levantine coast, Cyprus and Cyrenaica, today's Libya. But conquest is not the greatest feat of this new
12:30energized Egypt. That prize goes to the jewel of this era, the city of Alexandria. It's established on the
12:38coast of Egypt, but it's not that far from the Nile. This means that Alexandria can be an international
12:44port city for trade with all of the rest of the Mediterranean basin. This city becomes a mecca
12:52of culture, of art, of music, of people, a melting pot, if you like, not just of Egyptian people,
13:00but from people all around the Crescent. Most of the Greeks or Macedonians who were in Egypt
13:06lived in Alexandria. So there was a concentration of the Greek population in Alexandria and its
13:10environs, but there are also Egyptians who lived there and people from other places as well.
13:16This is probably the most cosmopolitan city in the entire Mediterranean.
13:21No institution better demonstrates the glory of Alexandria than the museum and the great library.
13:28As an academic, the idea of being able to somehow go back in time
13:34and stand in the library of Alexandria. I mean...
13:39This library was said to hold at least half a million scrolls.
13:43This is in an age before the printing press, so any volume of collected material like that
13:51is pretty impressive, but that amount is staggering.
13:56Any ships coming into the Alexandrian harbor that had books, copies were taken of every book that came
14:02into Alexandria. But the Ptolemies were not just collecting books, but also great minds.
14:09The Ptolemies are like the ultimate headhunters and Alexandria becomes the capital city of academic
14:15heavyweights in the ancient world. Eratosthenes was one famous mind and he's best known for measuring the
14:21earth. Archimedes invents his waterlifting device and Aristarchus of Samos advances a theory that the sun is
14:29the center of the universe, not the earth. This is the first heliocentric model of the universe.
14:34Ptolemy II brought all these great minds to Egypt, putting them on salaries to produce and teach and
14:43create this whole aura around Alexandria. And in the process, they all had to say nice things about Ptolemy.
14:49One of the first things that Ptolemy asked was that the Egyptian scholar Manetho should write a history of the
14:56Egyptian dynasties reaching back to the unification.
15:00And it is a really important source, even today, for understanding the basic layout of Egyptian history.
15:07While the library represents the Ptolemaic lust for learning and the sciences,
15:12the great lighthouse of Pharos is a brilliant visual representation that Alexandria is the guiding light
15:19of this world. It is one of the seven ancient wonders of the world. This lighthouse had an eternal flame
15:27that used mirrors to project light into the ocean to guide the ships that were coming in to bring goods
15:32to Egypt. Nothing like the Pharos lighthouse had ever been produced before. It was the biggest lighthouse
15:38that had ever been made. And Ptolemy II wanted all the credit. Now, there was the architect Sostratus of
15:44Canaitis, and he really should have been given credit. But Ptolemy would not allow him to put his name
15:50on the monument. But he did it anyway. He carved his name into one of the stones and then covered
15:57over it
15:57with plaster. And he knew that after Ptolemy's death, eventually the plaster would deteriorate and fall off
16:04and there would be his name. But while Alexandria shines on the coast of the Mediterranean,
16:10the rest of Egypt lingers in its shadow. Generally speaking, Alexandria was for Greeks.
16:17It wasn't really for Egyptians. Anybody who is an official has to learn Greek. All dealings are done
16:23in Greek. If you were an Egyptian, you had to have a special pass just to get permission to enter
16:29the
16:29city. So there's segregation going on here. After the first three Ptolemaic pharaohs,
16:35this relationship between the native Egyptians and the Greek nobility begins to shatter. Economic
16:42tensions erupt in a revolt against Greek rule by the end of the third century BCE. It takes the boy
16:49king Ptolemy V several years to crush the rebellion. The Ptolemaic pharaohs after Ptolemy V
16:58accelerated the steep decline of the dynasty. But no other king of this dynasty represents this
17:03decline better than the repugnant Ptolemy VIII. Ptolemy VIII is a monster in the darkest of hues.
17:12They used to call him Fiscon, which means fatty. They liked to portray him as sort of a degenerate.
17:17He didn't take care of his body. They even say that later in his reign, he couldn't even walk. They
17:22had
17:22to carry him around in the litter. He didn't certainly conform to the idealized stereotype of
17:28the athletic, physically fit ruler whose physical fitness is a sign of his rule in accordance with
17:34cosmic order according to the Egyptian tradition. Ptolemy VIII is initially co-ruler with his brother,
17:40Ptolemy VI, Philometra, and their sister, Cleopatra II. However, after Philometra's death,
17:48Fiscon seizes power and his reign quickly becomes infamous for its brutality and tyranny.
17:54While he was married to his sister, Cleopatra II, they didn't get along very well at all,
18:01but they had a child together, a son. But then later, he fell in love with Cleopatra III,
18:08Cleopatra II's daughter, by another man. So he wanted to make her queen. He said,
18:13hey, how about you both get to be queen? I'll have two wives, you and your daughter.
18:17Cleopatra II didn't like this. After he had children with Cleopatra III, he promised her her children
18:24are going to be his successors. So he had to get rid of his first son. He didn't like Cleopatra
18:30II,
18:30so he had his own son killed, dismembered, and he sent the parts to Cleopatra II on her birthday.
18:39As Egypt is plunged into civil war and chaos between Fiscon and his sister, Cleopatra II,
18:46an unlikely party steps into the fray looking to broker peace, the Republic of Rome.
18:53What was going on in Egypt had come to the attention of pretty much everybody,
18:56and it's at this point that the Romans step in. Now, they're already starting to create an empire
19:01of their own, and they're relying on Egypt for food, right? They can't have this. So they basically
19:08broker a truce between Ptolemy and his wife to unite Egypt once again. After the death of Ptolemy VIII,
19:16Ptolemaic Egypt continues its slide downwards. Meanwhile, the Roman Republic is gaining more and
19:23more power within Egypt. Soon, Egypt itself is deeply indebted to Rome, and when Ptolemy XII comes
19:31to the throne in 80 BCE, it is a debt he will have to repay. To refill the royal coffers,
19:39Ptolemy XII decides
19:40to sell Cyprus to Rome. The other nobles of Alexandria take real exception to this, and they revolt. This
19:49forces Ptolemy XII into exile in Rome, and he takes with him his young daughter Cleopatra.
19:56The Cleopatra that we know from history was actually the seventh of her name. She was the first
20:02amongst the Ptolemies to learn the Egyptian language and to read and write Egyptian hieroglyphs.
20:07The fact that she learns Egyptian probably suggests that she does have an interest either personal or
20:13political in ensuring that she understands something of the people she's ruling or an interest in the
20:19traditions of Egypt. Cleopatra VII is lively, inquisitive, intelligent. She shows great promise
20:27for the future of the Ptolemaic throne and for the future of Egypt. While the young Cleopatra VII lived with
20:35her father in exile in Rome, two members of her family continue the Ptolemaic tradition of political
20:42scheming and murder, Cleopatra VI and Berenike IV. Back in Egypt, Cleopatra VI takes power, but that
20:52doesn't last long because she's fighting for power with Berenike IV, who sends agents to kill her. So
20:58now Cleopatra VI is out of the way and Berenike takes the throne herself. She marries the ruler of the
21:05Seleucid empire. It's a political marriage. Doesn't care for him that much, and she has him strangled.
21:11Then she marries Archelaus, a ruler over in Anatolia, but she doesn't let him make any decisions.
21:17She's the one calling the shots. So then her father returns to Egypt, takes power, and has her killed.
21:26When we think about what the Egyptians might have thought about all this political intrigue and scheming
21:31assassination, I mean, they must have been horrified. This is clearly not in accordance with the rule
21:36of cosmic order and ma'at that the king is supposed to uphold. Ptolemy XII reclaims his kinship and names
21:44as his co-ruler the 14-year-old Cleopatra VII. In only three years' time, Cleopatra would take her place
21:53as the sole ruler of Egypt. She's 17, her father passes away, and she has to co-rule. So she
22:02has to
22:02marry her younger brother, who is 10, for legitimacy. This is not entirely unusual that the daughter would
22:11have to marry her brother by this time. The Ptolemaic dynasty embraced the idea of intermarriage as a way of
22:20consolidating its power. So here we have Cleopatra forced to marry her brother as a way to also be
22:27on the throne. At 17, she's an adult, whereas her brother is still very young. He's only 10. And so
22:34one can understand why she might have been resentful or wanted to occupy the throne or exercise authority
22:41in her own right. While Cleopatra coming to the throne is a victory for Egypt, the nation is facing
22:49crisis after crisis that put the young queen to the test. There is debt. There's been a series of low
22:57Niles, which means that crops aren't what they should be in terms of yields, which means economic
23:03problems, which means hunger. But the Egyptians, because they developed such a sophisticated
23:09irrigation system, actually kept granaries stocked with grain. So Cleopatra had a decision to make,
23:16and she decided that opening the granaries was essential to prevent further unrest. It was a very
23:23savvy move on her part, and it was an early indication that she was capable of rule.
23:28What we see with Cleopatra is a desire to return to the pharaonic way of life in Egypt,
23:35and actually something of a rejection of the way that her family, the Ptolemies, have been running things.
23:39The Ptolemies in general did not see Egypt as their country. They saw it more as a private property
23:46that they owned that they could use however they want, and they didn't really care much about the
23:51Egyptian people. In fact, even in times of famine, when they had some food, they would end up selling
23:56the food to other countries instead of giving it to their own people who needed it because they'd rather
24:01have the money. Cleopatra's troubles continued. Within a couple of years of assuming the throne,
24:06she found her authority challenged by her brother Ptolemy XIII, who was convinced by the virus to
24:12seize the throne for himself. This led to a bitter civil war that forced Cleopatra into Palestine.
24:19And she goes there, and she's able to raise an army and convince them to come with her back to
24:25Egypt and to retake the throne that she believes is rightfully hers. This is a 19-year-old girl. She
24:31has the knowledge, the wherewithal, the connections to raise an army and fight for what she believes is
24:41her birthright. Meanwhile, in Rome, the great Roman statesmen and generals Julius Caesar and Pompey
24:52are embroiled in a massive civil war, which threatens the political situation across the Mediterranean
24:58world. Here we have two civil wars that are ongoing at the same time, one in Rome, one in Egypt.
25:06As
25:06Cleopatra marches her forces to Alexandria, fate intervenes. Papi goes to Egypt to flee Caesar because
25:14he lost a major battle with Caesar. He flees to Egypt. He's like, well, at least I have friends in
25:19Egypt.
25:20Pompey had been a close ally of Ptolemy XII during his own battles in Egypt and helped him relocate to
25:28Rome. So he expected to find a friendly reception from his son Ptolemy XIII. But Ptolemy XIII had been
25:35advised that to be friendly to Pompey would alienate Julius Caesar. And so he decided instead to have him
25:44murdered. Ptolemy XIII executes Pompey brutally and has his head put in a jar. He presents this jar to
25:52Caesar, thinking it will ingratiate him to this Roman conqueror. Caesar is horrified. Pompey was a
25:58Roman citizen, a senator. This was not how you treat a noble man of Rome. And Julius Caesar declares at
26:05that
26:05point that he is going to moderate the civil war. He's going to decide who rules Egypt. Caesar was so
26:11upset with him that he forced him out of the palace and he assumed power and began fortifying it.
26:20Cleopatra, sensing her moment, acts. She wants to get into Alexandria to talk to
26:27Caesar. She wants to show Caesar that she's capable of ruling the country.
26:30She deserves to be the sole leader. But Ptolemy XIII is not allowing her into the city. She's banned.
26:37So according to the story, there's a knock at the door where Julius Caesar is staying. He opens the door
26:42and there's a servant there with a rolled up rug. And he says, I brought to you a gift from
26:48Cleopatra.
26:49Caesar unrolls the rug and Cleopatra's inside of it. She had smuggled herself into the city.
26:55Cleopatra is adept at statecraft. When she's introduced to Julius Caesar, she knows precisely
27:02how to play him.
27:06Ptolemy XIII makes a bit of an error in that he locks Cleopatra and Caesar up in the palace and
27:15lays
27:15siege to it. Now, that's an error because that gives her plenty of time to form an alliance with
27:22Caesar and ensure that her own interests are looked after.
27:26After months of siege, Caesar and Cleopatra grow very close. Roman reinforcements arrive
27:33in Alexandria and they defeat the forces of Ptolemy XIII. In the chaos of battle, the young pharaoh
27:41drowns to death in the Nile. But the famous library burns down in this war. Anything collected there
27:47is lost. Cleopatra has won. Soon after the defeat of her brother, Cleopatra has another reason to celebrate.
27:56She is with child, the father-to-be none other than Julius Caesar.
28:02Caesar acknowledged the child as his own and acknowledged Cleopatra as the mother of that child.
28:08It puts them on an equal footing. So whereas before, Cleopatra had kind of inherited this very unequal
28:13relationship with Rome, where Egypt was subject to Roman rule, subject to Roman decrees, now she could
28:19hope for an equal voice and equal participation in deciding what Egypt's fate would be. While Caesar and
28:28Cleopatra are lovers, they cannot marry. Caesar is already married to a Roman woman, and he cannot take
28:34on a foreign wife. And as far as Cleopatra, she is married to another one of her younger brothers,
28:41Ptolemy XIV. So he's maybe 12 and she's about 21 or 22 at the time. But it's a matter of
28:49common
28:49knowledge that she's also carrying the child of Julius Caesar and that the two of them are a couple.
28:54In the summer of 47 BCE, Cleopatra gives birth to the son of Julius Caesar.
29:00The fact that he's called Caesarian ensures that everybody knows that he's Caesar's kid.
29:06This son is incredibly important for both parties because on the one hand,
29:11for Caesar, you have a male heir, which up to that point he did not have. And on the other,
29:17Cleopatra also now has an heir. And can we imagine the strength of Egypt and the strength of Rome
29:25the strength of Rome combining to become a force that would be reckoned, would have to be reckoned
29:30with in the Mediterranean. And in the wake of Caesarian's birth, Cleopatra moves to tie her young son
29:38to her own divine cult. Cleopatra clearly was politically savvy in many different ways, including
29:46in the construction of her image as a ruler. She takes on the iconography of Isis, the winged mother
29:55of creation. And that little Caesarian is Isis's child, so Horus, essentially.
30:02On coinage, she can be shown nursing the child and that makes direct parallels with the nursing of the
30:09god Horus by Isis. So she's replicating this family relationship of the gods, but also conveying
30:17that her son should be her heir. While Cleopatra is building her power base in Egypt through the old
30:24religious institutions, she still needs to make sure her relationship with Caesar is on solid ground.
30:31Caesar goes back to Rome with Cleopatra and the kid, and the Romans can't stand her.
30:38She was not welcomed by the Romans. The Romans detested her, and they called her terrible names,
30:43you know, the oriental whore. Julius Caesar's relationship with Cleopatra
30:48scandalized the people of Rome. Julius Caesar makes no pretense at hiding Cleopatra. He even goes so far
30:57as to build a golden statue in her honor in the city. Now, this is something that a lot of
31:06people
31:06considered alarming and a sign of her corrupting nature as a woman. Stoking the suspicion, Caesar
31:16begins to draft laws which will allow him to take wives outside of Rome and have legitimate children
31:22with these wives. These moves, amidst rumors Caesar might try to become sole ruler over Rome,
31:28prove too much for the envious Roman nobility. In 44 BCE, a group of Roman senators ambushed Caesar as he's
31:37making his way to the Senate floor, and he is slain by his own countrymen. With her greatest champion
31:43slain, Cleopatra is stuck in Rome with enemies surrounding her and her young son. She must act
31:51quickly to secure her safety. The assassination of Caesar was a direct blow to her authority as well,
31:59and she very quickly left Rome with her son and headed back to Egypt. Little Caesarian is potentially
32:07at the end of the sword at this point, because if he is not in the picture, then they don't
32:15have to
32:15worry about Cleopatra. She has no claim to anything without Caesarian. She was still ruling with her
32:22younger brother, but in order to consolidate her legitimacy and to eliminate the possibility of him
32:29building any kind of rival faction, she has him assassinated. And then she proclaims her son as her
32:36co-regent, because it's important that there's a male and a female component. And this has been the
32:41tradition in Ptolemaic governance for a long time. In the aftermath of Caesar's brutal assassination,
32:49Rome is plunged into yet another civil war. And once again, Cleopatra finds herself in a difficult
32:56political situation. Cleopatra keeps claiming this young boy in the palace is Julius Caesar's son.
33:02Unfortunately, back in Rome, Julius Caesar had adopted his nephew, Octavian. Octavian had been designated as
33:11Caesar's rightful heir. But there were other people who were also important at the time. One of those
33:18people was Mark Anthony, and he had been a general. He had the backing of the all-important army,
33:24and it may have been for that reason that Cleopatra identified him as somebody who could help her.
33:30During the civil wars following Caesar's death, it was apparent that all factions courted the idea of
33:37alliance with Cleopatra. She was a wealthy queen, and Egypt was an extraordinarily wealthy country.
33:44They were supplying great amounts of wheat and barley. They had great military might. They had
33:52knowledge and culture. There were so many things that Mark Antony and Caesar gained from an association
34:00with Cleopatra. Cleopatra decides to support those that represent Caesar's faction, Mark Antony and Octavian.
34:08With her help, they defeat Caesar's enemies. Octavian and Mark Antony split Rome between them. Octavian will
34:16administer the west of the empire, while Mark Antony will administer the wealthy and prosperous east.
34:23There's no doubt that Mark Antony got the better deal. The east was more heavily populated. It had more
34:29cities in it. It was richer. And having Egypt also on your side strengthens your position.
34:36But as a rather savvy politician, Octavian might have known that by administering the west,
34:42he is closer to the center of Roman power, the senate and the people of Rome. There,
34:48he might scheme to bring Mark Antony down. Mark Antony is now one of the most powerful men in Rome,
34:54making him a perfect match for Cleopatra. Antony, desiring a closer relationship with Cleopatra,
35:02writes to her, asking her to leave Egypt and come to him in Greece to discuss their potential political
35:08alliance. While Antony has a powerful army, he desperately needs funds to pay his troops.
35:15Cleopatra skillfully plays hard to get, ignoring his requests until he sends a personal messenger to Egypt.
35:22Women who had an agenda had to use the tools available to them, and seduction is one of those tools.
35:30The story goes that she staged a meeting with Antony. She presented herself to him,
35:35all decked out with flowers and, you know, gold fittings, and she was dressed up as the goddess Isis.
35:41He must have been blown away by this vision, right? He probably never seen anything like this. She was a
35:46living goddess.
35:47As Cleopatra wins over Antony, the dark side of this glamorous love affair comes to the fore.
35:54Cleopatra has a mission for Antony. She wants him to kill her sister Arsinoe, who was living in exile in
36:01Ephesus.
36:02We should look at this as Cleopatra really trying to cement her claim to the throne to ensure that there
36:09is no other rival, not just for herself, but now for her son Caesarean, who is her heir.
36:15In so doing, Cleopatra ensures Mark Antony's complete obedience. It is a binding in blood of their somewhat unholy alliance.
36:25In 41 BCE, Mark Antony visits Alexandria and stays at the palace with Cleopatra,
36:34remaining in Egypt through the winter of 41 to 40 BCE. Roman records describe his time as filled with
36:41feasting and excess, exciting the Roman elite's obsession with displays of wealth and power.
36:48Word soon spreads to Rome that Cleopatra has forged a political alliance with Antony and is pregnant with
36:54his child. Rumors fly that she has ensnared another prominent Roman man.
37:00Her old plan basically has come back. It's just she's replaced Julius Caesar with Mark Antony.
37:06I think she did love these men and she was attracted to these men for their power,
37:12their might and their ability, but I think these men were attracted to Cleopatra for the very same reason.
37:18With the birth of Cleopatra and Mark Antony's twins, Helios and Selene, things change substantially with
37:27the relationship with Rome. Octavian is definitely anxious to take up what he feels is his rightful
37:34inheritance from Julius Caesar and become the ruler of the Roman world. And Cleopatra throws a great big
37:40wrench into those plans by creating this alliance with Antony and then having children with Antony and this
37:46creates a very unfortunate dynamic for Octavian who can see power slipping away. Octavian sees this
37:54relationship between Cleopatra and Antony as a potential threat to his own power and so what do
38:01you do in that situation? You make your enemy unpopular and he does that pretty masterfully. It's not so
38:09much that these good Roman men are falling short, it's that Cleopatra has twisted their minds
38:16and ensured that they are subservient to her in some way. Octavian is very keen to bring to an
38:23end Mark Antony's influence and his relationship with Cleopatra. Octavian wants Antony to marry his sister
38:32Octavia, but I think it's sort of a trap because if Antony does marry Octavia and he isn't faithful,
38:43if he's still loyal to Cleopatra, well then that's the perfect excuse for Octavian to paint Antony in a
38:51very negative light and portray himself as obviously the opposite. Antony's a bit of an idiot. He goes ahead
38:59with the marriage and then he abandons her and goes back to Cleopatra. As Antony and Cleopatra sequester
39:06themselves in Alexandria, the Roman world is buzzing. Rumors begin to fly that Antony has made his
39:12children the heirs to Roman territories in the east and that Cleopatra and Antony are pushing the idea
39:18that Caesarian, not Octavian, is the true heir of Caesar. These tensions are coming to a boiling point.
39:27A showdown between Octavian and Antony and Cleopatra is near.
39:32Goaded by Cleopatra, Mark Antony eventually in 31 BC decides to send divorce documents to his wife
39:41Octavia. This enrages Octavian even further because of course now it's personal. According to Octavian,
39:50he goes into the Temple of the Vestal Virgins, takes Antony's will, and in it he finds out that Antony
39:57has
39:57proclaimed Caesarian the true heir of Caesar and that he intends to leave his portion of the Roman
40:04Empire to his children with Cleopatra. It seems highly unlikely that he would have raided the Temple
40:12of Vesta. It is more likely that he invented the story entirely. He was looking for an excuse to be
40:18able
40:18to move against Mark Antony and Cleopatra. But what happens here is that nobody attacks Mark Antony
40:26for this. This is his will. This is his wishes. They blame Cleopatra for this. Cleopatra is the one
40:33that led Antony astray, that ensnared him, and so he declares war against Cleopatra, kind of sparing Antony,
40:42but really making this about Cleopatra.
40:44To declare war on Mark Antony risks raising factions who might support him against Octavian. But to declare
40:53war on Cleopatra, that is something that Romans could rally behind. Cleopatra is the scapegoat in
41:01Octavian's political game. She is the one that is going to bear the fallout in order for him to ensure
41:11his own power.
41:15September 2nd, 31 BCE. Mark Antony's fleet of over 200 ships meet the smaller fleet of Octavians
41:24off the coast of the Greek town of Actium. While Antony's fleet is larger, Octavian's fleet is more
41:31experienced. Octavian's forces crush Antony and Cleopatra's fleets, a defeat that is a crippling
41:39blow for Cleopatra and Egypt.
41:46We don't really know how it would have played out if Cleopatra had won. Certainly, she would have
41:52retained control of Egypt. The Romans probably would have never accepted her as a ruler, but her
41:58children, possibly, and Mark Antony would have been. What we would have seen would have been an incredible
42:04empire, all of the might of Rome, with the backing of Egypt's wealth and grain.
42:08In 30 BC, Mark Antony does the Roman thing and falls upon his own sword.
42:14I think Cleopatra knows that her future is essentially forfeit. I don't think she expects
42:21to survive very long, but she has children to think about. And their future might be secure if she
42:29plays her cars right.
42:30And she may think for a while she can deal with Octavian, but he is a cold fish, and he
42:36is not
42:36going to fall for any of her charm, and he wants her son's life. She sends her son out of
42:41the country.
42:41She's trying to get him to India to safety. Octavian catches him and kills him. The only way to save
42:48her
42:48other children is to surrender. So she does. But meanwhile, she decides she's not hanging around.
42:55She is not going to go to Rome and be walked through the streets of Rome in chains while the
43:01citizens of Rome
43:01throw garbage at her. It's not going to happen.
43:04So she kills herself.
43:10Traditionally with an asp. An asp is a long, slow death. I strongly suspect she used a cobra.
43:16A cobra is the royal snake that the Egyptian kings and queens wear on their crown. And a cobra bite,
43:22it's a neurotoxin. You'll be dead in a minute. You'll be dead in seconds. I think she would have
43:27the brains to go for that death. Cleopatra VII put everything on the line. And she put up possibly
43:35the best fight we could have expected from a woman in her position at this point in history.
43:40This is one of the great kings of Egypt, but unfortunately had the wrong enemies.
43:47With Cleopatra dead, so died the office of pharaoh. The line of Nama that began in year 3000 BCE
43:56has finally ended. The pharaohs will never rise again. But what of Egypt? What would Egypt look like
44:05without a pharaoh? And how would it be ruled? Egypt now is unequivocally part of the Roman Empire.
44:12It belongs to Rome. Now, what does Octavian do with Egypt? He doesn't want to give it to
44:20a senator to govern. He thinks it's too rich and powerful of a place for that.
44:23So he just decides to make it his own private property. He takes on Caesar's position as head of
44:32state. He renames himself Caesar Augustus and he becomes essentially the son of a god because at this
44:44point they have raised Caesar to the form of a god. So everything that Octavian hated about the Egyptian
44:55hierarchy he is now embodying in his own life. Under Roman rule, Egypt would continue to serve
45:05as the breadbasket of Rome and an important trading node connecting the Mediterranean world with the
45:11Far East. The old gods continued to be worshipped for centuries and Egyptian gods began to spread across
45:19the Roman world. The priests of Egypt strike a deal with the occupying army and they say we will keep
45:26people quiet, we will keep production lines going, but you've got to support the temples. And under the
45:33Romans are built some of the best temples that are left. A lot of Philae, Chamombo, beautiful Edfu and
45:42Esna up at Dendera, a wonderful temple. Part of it's built by Cleopatra and her dad, but part of it
45:49you
45:49read the hieroglyphs and you think Nero? Nero built this temple? The old religion would continue to attract
45:56followers. But then a new religious movement began to appear that challenged everything. Egypt is one of
46:04the very first countries to adopt Christianity. People flee from the fall of Jerusalem into Egypt,
46:10Egypt. There's already a very large Jewish community in Egypt and synagogues,
46:13so people who are interested in the ideas of this new form of Judaism, they're already there. And what
46:20appeals to the Egyptians is the sense of justice. There will be a judgment after death, evil will be
46:26punished, and the good will be rewarded. And even if you're poor, you can go to heaven. In some ways,
46:32Egyptian culture, Egyptian religion was fertile ground for Christianity to spread because there are
46:38interesting similarities. Think about Osiris. Osiris who was murdered and sent into the next life
46:44unjustly. Well, Osiris and Jesus have a lot in common. And his mother, Mary, she looks a lot like Isis.
46:52So Christianity is going to borrow lovely ideas from Egypt, and Egypt is going to take them in.
46:59After Cleopatra's death, ancient Egypt's legacy continues to inspire future generations.
47:06Its monumental architecture showcases advanced engineering and artistic mastery,
47:12influencing Roman and later Western architecture. But for most of post-pharaonic history,
47:18Egypt remained a mystery. While the temple walls and great tombs are covered in the written stories of
47:25these glorious people, their stories went untold. Over the centuries, the knowledge of how to read
47:32hieroglyphics had been lost, a secret that would remain hidden until the beginning of the 19th century.
47:39In 1798, Napoleon Bonaparte leads an expedition to Egypt. Obviously, there are military intentions here,
47:46but he also brings along a team of artists who are in charge of essentially capturing everything they see
47:55around them. They capture the natural world and modern life, but they also really focus a lot
48:02on the monuments of Egypt. And they published this as a volume called Description de l'Egypte, or
48:07Description of Egypt.
48:08The most important of their finds is the famous Rosetta Stone.
48:13The Rosetta Stone is highly important in breaking the code of ancient Egypt.
48:20You have the same inscription in three different forms, so it enables you to decipher the hieroglyphs,
48:27because you already know what they say, because you have the other two.
48:30In addition to igniting scholarly interest, this also ignites a huge popular interest in ancient Egypt.
48:41Everybody was crazy for everything Egyptian. Ancient Egyptian motifs appeared in architecture,
48:46and jewelry, and glass, and all kinds of decorative arts.
48:50We start to see more and more people traveling leisurely to Egypt. We have the removal of almost
48:57any artifact that one can stuff in a suitcase or purchase. They were selling Egypt off to the
49:05highest bidder. That's why so many collections around the world have such rich Egyptian sections,
49:12because that all really comes out of this period. It's hard not to be fascinated by ancient Egypt,
49:19whether one is thinking about the monumental architecture, the sophistication of its artistic
49:25and literary traditions, the complexity of its urban cultures, and the richness of its lore around the Nile
49:33and religion more generally. We cannot think of modern day society without thinking of the legacy
49:41of ancient Egypt. The pharaoh's legacy persists, fueled by the relentless self-glorification that
49:48cemented their image as god-kings. Their propaganda through colossal monuments,
49:54such as the Pyramid of Khufu, to their nearly mythic narratives crafted by Ramses II after the Battle of Kadesh,
50:01have successfully fascinated us for millennia. Despite their oppressive rule, we're captivated by their grandeur,
50:09a testament to how effective their manipulation of image and power truly was. But what has also survived after all
50:17these years
50:18is the incredible lives of the everyday Egyptians, a legacy that lives on in the people of Egypt even to
50:25this day.
50:26Many of the rituals that existed at the time, or some of the words that existed at the time, they
50:32are still alive.
50:32And for us, ancient Egypt is an identity marker that reminds us of who we are and where we come
50:40from.
50:41And perhaps it's the cursor that makes us reflect on where we want to be at this present moment or
50:48even in the future.
50:49Cleopatra may have passed from this world, but her spirit endures. Twenty centuries later, her life,
50:57loves and legend continue to captivate the imagination of the world. One of the greatest legacies Cleopatra left
51:05us is the temple of Hathor she erected at Dandera. Within this temple, echoes of Egypt's origins reach back to
51:13Nama, the first king of the two lands. Here we find images of Cleopatra herself immortalized in stone,
51:21standing among the gods and pharaohs of Egypt. And like the other immortal rulers of Egypt,
51:27Nama, Khufu, Armos, Hatshepsut, Akhenaten, Ramses, Alexander, Cleopatra lives on, forever etched in the memory of humankind.
51:58Bella Martino reports.
52:09You're now a dedicated
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