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00:08Their names are etched in stone, their stories carved into the very fabric of history to
00:14live on forever.
00:16This is the true story of Egypt's greatest rulers, from their meteoric rise, to absolute
00:22power, to their ultimate downfall.
00:25This is the rise and fall of the pharaohs.
00:5051 BCE, a 17-year-old girl has just become pharaoh of Egypt.
00:56Her rule will forever change Egypt and the world.
01:01Her name is Cleopatra.
01:05Cleopatra is one of the most remarkable rulers in Egyptian history.
01:10She was strong, intelligent, cunning even, and fiercely Egyptian.
01:15But Cleopatra has inherited Egypt at a crossroads filled with many dangers and complex webs of
01:22intrigue.
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.
01:31Killing each other off, incest, I 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.
01:44Egypt 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, when Egypt
02:05is conquered by the Persian Empire.
02:07This 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.
02:27But in 525 BCE, Cambyses, 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
02:40because they didn't reside in Egypt.
02:43The Persians incorporated Egypt into a broad empire that was based elsewhere.
02:48They were really interested in exploiting Egypt for its material resources.
02:53And they weren't really that interested in Egyptian culture.
02:56The Egyptians were not happy under Persian rule whatsoever,
02:59and they took every opportunity they could to undermine or challenge it.
03:02The constant cycle of Egyptians throwing off Persian rule and Persians reconquering Egypt
03:08ends when Artaxerxes III reconquers Egypt for Persia.
03:13And Nectinibo, the then pharaoh, flees.
03:15When Nectinibo II had to flee Egypt, that brought to an end indigenous rule of Egypt.
03:22And it didn't return until the advent of Gamal Abdel Nasser more than 2,000 years later.
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.
03:44And 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 hoping for,
04:06and Egypt had the resources that he needed.
04:10In the absence of a native-born hero, Alexander could be the answer Egypt is looking for.
04:17But will Alexander come to Egypt as a bloody conqueror?
04:21Or will he respect Egypt and the office of pharaoh?
04:25When Alexander the Great defeats the Persian forces, he becomes the inheritor of the rulership of Egypt.
04:32He marches into Egypt not as a conqueror, but as a liberator.
04:36And it seems from the records he was welcomed as such.
04:39It's true that Persian rule was oppressive for the Egyptians,
04:43but I think it's also important to remember that our records come from the Greek side.
04:48And so when Alexander is portrayed as a savior for the Egyptians,
04:52that's very much a Greek perspective,
04:53whether ordinary Egyptians felt that or not, it's hard to say.
04:58Alexander immediately begins making donations to the temples,
05:03honoring and worshiping the Egyptian gods,
05:06doing things that are going to really make the Egyptians like him.
05:09He was incredibly smart. He was a strategist.
05:13But what we do also know about Alexander is that he had been fascinated by Egypt long before he arrived,
05:20and that he was very interested in many different facets of the tradition, including his religion.
05:26So much of this might have also been genuine.
05:28When Alexander the Great arrives at Memphis, he pays his respects to the Apis bull.
05:34He then makes a very determined, deliberate effort to go way out of his way to Siwa Oasis to visit
05:42the Oracle of Ammon.
05:44Earlier in his life, Alexander had been told by his own mother that his father was not Philip of Macedon,
05:50that nasty man,
05:51but was in fact the god Zeus.
05:53Now, if you asked an Egyptian priest,
05:56I'm the king of Egypt, am I the son of God?
05:58There's really only one answer.
05:59Of course you are, sir.
06:00So he may get the answer he wants.
06:03The Oracle of the Siwa Oasis declares that Alexander is indeed the son of Ammon Zeus.
06:09This means he can rule Egypt rightfully as a divine king.
06:14He was politically shrewd enough to recognize the power of the priesthood
06:19and the need to please and appease them and to have them on his side.
06:23I don't think that he could have been crowned had he not had a buy-in from the priesthood.
06:27There are reasons for doing that.
06:29They might have sensed that he really did respect Egyptian religion
06:32and he might have been committed to allowing the cults in different parts of the country
06:37to continue to operate and to provide them with the kinds of financial resources
06:43that they needed in order to keep operating.
06:45Egypt has the most powerful person on the planet as their dedicated ruler.
06:50One 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
07:00and land on the Libyan coast near a village called Rakotis.
07:04And that little fishing village is a very handy spot because ships can land there.
07:09It's got a pretty good harbor which can be improved.
07:12And that's the place Alexander chooses to make his capital.
07:16So that little village is going to turn itself into Alexandria.
07:19And he gets a whole bunch of very eager Greek generals and architects
07:24and they can plan a city from scratch.
07:29But Alexander's time in Egypt is short-lived.
07:33Egypt is important to his objectives, but it's not the end.
07:38So he moves on from Egypt and he leaves Ptolemy, one of his most trusted advisors, in charge.
07:44He never returns to Egypt, not during his life.
07:49Alexander'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.
07:59We are told that on his deathbed, Alexander proclaims that his empire should go to the strongest of them all.
08:07The reality is no one can reach agreement and the empires split up.
08:12Ptolemy, his general, decides that he will have Egypt.
08:16Clever as he is, Ptolemy might have known that fertile and rich Egypt
08:21is the crown jewel in Alexander's empire.
08:25Alexander's other generals seize their own parts of his once sprawling empire.
08:29Greece 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.
08:49But before Ptolemy can rule Egypt, he needs to do what all successful pharaohs have done in the past.
08:56Create legitimacy through their relationship with the gods.
09:00Or in Ptolemy's case, the former living god, Alexander the Great.
09:05The original idea was to take Alexander's body back home and have it interred with the older kings of Macedonia.
09:13But Ptolemy believed that having Alexander's body in Egypt legitimized his kingship.
09:19If he is buried in Ptolemy's own territory, then he is drawing a direct line between Alexander and himself.
09:29So as the story goes, he stole the body.
09:33As 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.
09:46So when he buries Alexander, he is in fact saying to the Egyptians, now I am the king.
09:52On January 12, 304 BCE, Ptolemy proclaims himself pharaoh of Egypt.
09:59At first, things are going very well for the Ptolemaic dynasty.
10:04Ptolemy is a just ruler.
10:05He assimilates himself into the cultural and religious ways.
10:09He understands the different offices of the pharaoh.
10:12He doesn't learn the language, but he presents himself as an Egyptian king.
10:16Despite their Greek origins, the Ptolemies embrace Egypt's system of divine pharaonic rule.
10:22And much like pharaohs of the past, the Ptolemies understand that religion is one of the strongest pillars of any
10:29pharaoh's rule.
10:31What we have in the Hellenist period is the increasing creation of what we might call hybrid deities.
10:39For example, we find Hathor increasingly conflated with Aphrodite, both as the goddess of love.
10:45The same thing with Ra, who is the sun god in Egyptian culture.
10:50Well, he is conflated with Apollo.
10:53We have under the Ptolemies 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 the Greek mythology
11:10and where each side could see themselves represented in.
11:14He is basically creating a religion as he has created his kingship.
11:20It's a religion that satisfies as many of the populace as possible.
11:25And like pharaohs before them, the Ptolemies leaned on the priesthood to administer Egypt.
11:30For 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.
11:40I mean, these were political advisors. These were consultants.
11:43These were people, in many cases, who they brought into the administration to govern.
11:47It benefited them to keep those temple institutions and the wealth that was associated with those temple institutions happy and
11:55part of their greater administration.
11:59The next 80 years under the first three Ptolemies mark the golden age of the Ptolemaic rule.
12:06Elevated to king, Ptolemy I uses wars against Alexander's other successors to carve out an empire in the eastern Mediterranean.
12:15Through these three great Ptolemaic kings, Egypt adds large swaths of the Levantine coast, Cyprus and Cyrenaica, today's Libya.
12:26But conquest is not the greatest feat of this new energized Egypt.
12:31That prize goes to the jewel of this era, the city of Alexandria.
12:36It's established on the coast of Egypt, but it's not that far from the Nile.
12:41This means that Alexandria can be an international port city for trade with all of the rest of the Mediterranean
12:48basin.
12:49This city becomes a mecca of culture, of art, of music, of people.
12:56A melting pot, if you like.
12:58Not just of Egyptian people, but from people all around the Crescent.
13:02Most of the Greeks or Macedonians who were in Egypt lived in Alexandria.
13:07So there was a concentration of the Greek population in Alexandria and its environs.
13:11But 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.
13:20No institution better demonstrates the glory of Alexandria than the museum and the great library.
13:27As an academic, the idea of being able to somehow go back in time and stand in the library of
13:37Alexandria, 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.
13:46So any volume of collected material like that is pretty impressive, but that amount is staggering.
13:55Any ships coming into the Alexandrian harbor that had books, copies were taken of every book that came into Alexandria.
14:03But 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 heavyweights in the ancient world.
14:16Eratosthenes was one famous mind, and he's best known for measuring the earth.
14:22Archimedes invents his water-lifting device, and Aristarchus of Samos advances a theory that the sun is the center of
14:30the universe, not the earth.
14:31This 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 create this
14:44whole aura around Alexandria.
14:46And 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.
14:59And 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, the great lighthouse of Pharos is a brilliant
15:15visual representation that Alexandria is the guiding light of this world.
15:20It is one of the seven ancient wonders of the world.
15:25This lighthouse had an eternal flame that used mirrors to project light into the ocean to guide the ships that
15:31were coming in to bring goods to Egypt.
15:33Nothing like the Pharos lighthouse had ever been produced before.
15:37It was the biggest lighthouse that had ever been made.
15:40And Ptolemy II wanted all the credit.
15:42Now, there was the architect Sostratus of Canaitis, and he really should have been given credit, but Ptolemy would not
15:47allow him to put his name on the monument.
15:51But he did it anyway.
15:53He carved his name into one of the stones and then covered over it with plaster.
15:58And he knew that after Ptolemy's death, eventually the plaster would deteriorate and fall off and there would be his
16:05name.
16:05But while Alexandria shines on the coast of the Mediterranean, the rest of Egypt lingers in its shadow.
16:13Generally speaking, Alexandria was for Greeks.
16:17It wasn't really for Egyptians.
16:20Anybody who is an official has to learn Greek.
16:22All dealings are done in Greek.
16:24If you were an Egyptian, you had to have a special pass just to get permission to enter the city.
16:29So there's segregation going on here.
16:31After the first three Ptolemaic pharaohs, this relationship between the native Egyptians and the Greek nobility begins to shatter.
16:41Economic tensions erupt in a revolt against Greek rule by the end of the third century BCE.
16:48It takes the boy king Ptolemy V several years to crush the rebellion.
16:54The Ptolemaic pharaohs after Ptolemy V accelerated the steep decline of the dynasty.
17:00But no other king of this dynasty represents this decline better than the repugnant Ptolemy VIII.
17:08Ptolemy VIII is a monster in the darkest of hues.
17:12They used to call him Fiscon, which means fatty.
17:15They liked to portray him as sort of a degenerate.
17:17He didn't take care of his body.
17:19They even say that later in his reign, he couldn't even walk.
17:22They had to carry him around in a litter.
17:23He didn't certainly conform to the idealized stereotype of the athletic, physically fit ruler, whose physical fitness is a sign
17:32of his rule in accordance with cosmic order according to the Egyptian tradition.
17:36Ptolemy VIII is initially co-ruler with his brother Ptolemy VI, Philometer, and their sister Cleopatra II.
17:45However, after Philometer's death, Fiscon seizes power and his reign quickly becomes infamous for his brutality and tyranny.
17:54While he was married to his sister, Cleopatra II, they didn't get along very well at all, but they had
18:02a child together, a son.
18:04But then later, he fell in love with Cleopatra III, Cleopatra II's daughter by another man.
18:10So he wanted to make her queen.
18:12He said, hey, how about you both get to be queen?
18:15I'll have two wives, you and your daughter.
18:17Cleopatra II didn't like this.
18:19After he had children with Cleopatra III, he promised her her children are going to be his successors, so he
18:26had to get rid of his first son.
18:28He didn't like Cleopatra II, so he had his own son killed, dismembered, and he sent the parts to Cleopatra
18:37II on her birthday.
18:39As Egypt is plunged into civil war and chaos between Fiscon and his sister Cleopatra II, an unlikely party steps
18:48into 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, and it's at this point
18:57that the Romans step in.
18:59Now, they're already starting to create an empire of their own, and they're relying on Egypt for food, right?
19:05They can't have this. So they basically broker a truce between Ptolemy and his wife to unite Egypt once again.
19:14After the death of Ptolemy VIII, Ptolemaic Egypt continues its slide downwards.
19:20Meanwhile, the Roman Republic is gaining more and more power within Egypt.
19:25Soon, Egypt itself is deeply indebted to Rome.
19:29And when Ptolemy XII comes to the throne in 80 BCE, it is a debt he will have to repay.
19:36To refill the royal coffers, Ptolemy XII decides to sell Cyprus to Rome.
19:43The other nobles of Alexandria take real exception to this, and they revolt.
19:48This forces 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.
20:00She was the first amongst 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 political,
20:14in ensuring that she understands something of the people she's ruling or an interest in the traditions of Egypt.
20:20Cleopatra VII is lively, inquisitive, intelligent.
20:25She shows great promise for the future of the Ptolemaic throne and for the future of Egypt.
20:33While the young Cleopatra VII lived with her father in exile in Rome,
20:37two members of her family continue the Ptolemaic tradition of political scheming and murder.
20:44Cleopatra VI and Berenike IV.
20:48Back in Egypt, Cleopatra VI takes power.
20:51But that doesn't last long because she's fighting for power with Berenike IV, who sends agents to kill her.
20:58So now Cleopatra VI is out of the way, and Berenike takes the throne herself.
21:02She marries the ruler of the Seleucid Empire.
21:06It's a political marriage.
21:07Doesn'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.
21:19So 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 and assassination,
21:32I mean, they must have been horrified.
21:33This is clearly not in accordance with the rule of cosmic order and ma'at that the king is supposed
21:39to uphold.
21:40Ptolemy XII reclaims his kinship and names as his co-ruler the 14-year-old Cleopatra VII.
21:48In only three years' time, Cleopatra would take her place as the sole ruler of Egypt.
21:55She's 17, her father passes away, and she has to co-rule.
22:01So she has to marry her younger brother, who is 10, for legitimacy.
22:07This is not entirely unusual that the daughter would have to marry her brother by this time.
22:15The Ptolemaic dynasty embraced the idea of intermarriage as a way of consolidating its power.
22:22So here we have Cleopatra forced to marry her brother as a way to also be on the throne.
22:28At 17, she is an adult, whereas her brother is still very young. He's only 10.
22:33And so one can understand why she might have been resentful or wanted to occupy the throne or exercise authority
22:40in her own right.
22:43While Cleopatra coming to the throne is a victory for Egypt, the nation is facing crisis after crisis that put
22:51the young queen to the test.
22:54There is debt. There's been a series of low Niles, which means that crops aren't what they should be in
23:01terms of yields,
23:02which means economic problems, which means hunger.
23:05But the Egyptians, because they developed such a sophisticated irrigation system, actually kept granaries stocked with grain.
23:13So Cleopatra had a decision to make, and she decided that opening the granaries was essential to prevent further unrest.
23:22It was a very savvy move on her part, and it was an early indication that she was capable of
23:28rule.
23:28What we see with Cleopatra is a desire to return to the pharaonic way of life in Egypt,
23:34and 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.
23:44They saw it more as a private property that they owned that they could use however they want,
23:49and they didn't really care much about the Egyptian people.
23:52In fact, even in times of famine, when they had some food, they would end up selling the food to
23:57other countries
23:58instead of giving it to their own people who needed it because they'd rather have the money.
24:02Cleopatra'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 seize the throne
24:13for himself.
24:14This 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
24:25and to retake the throne that she believes is rightfully hers.
24:28This is a 19-year-old girl. She has the knowledge, the wherewithal, the connections to raise an army
24:38and fight for what she believes is her birthright.
24:45Meanwhile, 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 world.
24:59Here we have two civil wars that are ongoing at the same time, one in Rome, one in Egypt.
25:06As Cleopatra marches her forces to Alexandria, fate intervenes.
25:11Pompey goes to Egypt to flee Caesar because he lost a major battle with Caesar.
25:16He flees to Egypt. He's like, well, at least I have friends in Egypt.
25:20Pompey had been a close ally of Ptolemy XII during his own battles in Egypt and helped him relocate to
25:28Rome.
25:28So he expected to find a friendly reception from his son Ptolemy XIII.
25:33But Ptolemy XIII had been advised that to be friendly to Pompey would alienate Julius Caesar.
25:41And so he decided instead to have him murdered.
25:44Ptolemy XIII executes Pompey brutally and has his head put in a jar.
25:50He presents this jar to Caesar, thinking it will ingratiate him to this Roman conqueror.
25:56Caesar is horrified. Pompey was a Roman citizen, a senator.
26:00This was not how you treat a noble man of Rome.
26:03And Julius Caesar declares at that point that he is going to moderate the civil war.
26:08He's going to decide who rules Egypt.
26:10Caesar was so upset with him that he forced him out of the palace and he assumed power and began
26:18fortifying it.
26:20Cleopatra, sensing her moment, acts.
26:23She wants to get into Alexandria to talk to Caesar.
26:27She wants to show Caesar that she's capable of ruling the country.
26:30She deserves to be the sole leader.
26:32But Ptolemy XIII is not allowing her into the city.
26:36She's banned.
26:37So according to the story, there's a knock at the door where Julius Caesar is staying.
26:41He opens the door and there's a servant there with a rolled up rug.
26:45And he says, I brought to you a gift from Cleopatra.
26:49Caesar unrolls the rug and Cleopatra's inside of it.
26:53She has smuggled herself into the city.
26:55Cleopatra is adept at state graft.
26:58When she's introduced to Julius Caesar, she knows precisely how to play him.
27:05Cleopatra's brother, Ptolemy XIII, makes a bit of an error in that he locks Cleopatra and Caesar up in the
27:14palace and lays siege to it.
27:17Now, that's an error because that gives her plenty of time to form an alliance with Caesar and ensure that
27:24her own interests are looked after.
27:26After months of siege, Caesar and Cleopatra grow very close.
27:31Roman reinforcements arrive in Alexandria and they defeat the forces of Ptolemy XIII.
27:38In the chaos of battle, the young pharaoh drowns to death in the Nile.
27:42But the famous library burns down in this war.
27:46Anything collected there is lost.
27:49Cleopatra has won.
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.
28:10So, whereas before, Cleopatra had kind of inherited this very unequal relationship with Rome,
28:14where Egypt was subject to Roman rule, subject to Roman decrees.
28:18Now, she could hope for an equal voice and equal participation in deciding what Egypt's fate would be.
28:27While Caesar and Cleopatra are lovers, they cannot marry.
28:31Caesar is already married to a Roman woman and he cannot take on a foreign wife.
28:36And as far as Cleopatra, she is married to another one of her younger brothers, Ptolemy XIV.
28:43So, he's maybe 12 and she's about 21 or 22 at the time.
28:47But it's a matter of common knowledge that she's also carrying the child of Julius Caesar
28:52and that the two of them are a couple.
28:53In the summer of 47 BCE, Cleopatra gives birth to the son of Julius Caesar.
29:00The fact that he's called Caesarion ensures that everybody knows that he's Caesar's kid.
29:06This son is incredibly important for both parties because on the one hand, for Caesar, you have a male heir,
29:13which up to that point he did not have.
29:16And on the other, Cleopatra also now has an heir.
29:20And can we imagine the strength of Egypt and the strength of Rome combining to become a force that would
29:28be reckoned,
29:29would have to be reckoned with in the Mediterranean.
29:32And in the wake of Caesarion's birth, Cleopatra moves to tie her young son to her own divine cult.
29:40Cleopatra clearly was politically savvy in many different ways, including in the construction of her image as a ruler.
29:49She takes on the iconography of Isis, the winged mother of creation.
29:56And that little Caesarion is Isis's child.
30:00So Horus, essentially.
30:02On coinage, she can be shown nursing the child.
30:05And that makes direct parallels with the nursing of the god Horus by Isis.
30:11So she's replicating this family relationship of the gods, but also conveying that her son should be her heir.
30:20While Cleopatra is building her power base in Egypt through the old religious institutions,
30:26she 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.
30:40The Romans detested her and they called her terrible names, you know, the oriental whore.
30:45Julius Caesar's relationship with Cleopatra scandalized the people of Rome.
30:50Julius Caesar makes no pretense at hiding Cleopatra.
30:55He even goes so far as to build a golden statue in her honor in the city.
31:02Now, this is something that a lot of people consider alarming and a sign of her corrupting nature as a
31:12woman.
31:13Stoking the suspicion, Caesar begins to draft laws which will allow him to take wives outside of Rome and have
31:21legitimate children with these wives.
31:23These moves, amidst rumors Caesar might try to become sole ruler over Rome, prove too much for the envious Roman
31:31nobility.
31:32In 44 BCE, a group of Roman senators ambushed Caesar as he's making his way to the Senate floor and
31:39he is slain by his own countrymen.
31:41With her greatest champion slain, Cleopatra is stuck in Rome with enemies surrounding her and her young son.
31:49She must act quickly to secure her safety.
31:53The 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.
32:04Little Caesar is potentially at the end of the sword at this point because if he is not in the
32:13picture, then they don't have to worry about Cleopatra.
32:17She has no claim to anything without Caesar.
32:19She was still ruling with her younger brother, but in order to consolidate her legitimacy and to eliminate the possibility
32:28of him building any kind of rival faction, she has him assassinated.
32:33And then she proclaims her son as her co-regent because it's important that there's a male and a female
32:39component.
32:40And this has been the tradition in Ptolemaic governance for a long time.
32:45In the aftermath of Caesar's brutal assassination, Rome is plunged into yet another civil war.
32:52And once again, Cleopatra finds herself in a difficult political situation.
32:57Cleopatra 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.
33:08Octavian had been designated as Caesar's rightful heir.
33:12But there were other people who were also important at the time.
33:17One of those people was Mark Anthony, and he had been a general.
33:21He 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.
33:29During the civil wars following Caesar's death, it was apparent that all factions courted the idea of alliance with Cleopatra.
33:39She was a wealthy queen, and Egypt was an extraordinarily wealthy country.
33:44They were supplying great amounts of wheat and barley.
33:47They had great military might.
33:51They had knowledge and culture.
33:53There were so many things that Mark Antony and Caesar gained from an association with Cleopatra.
34:01Cleopatra decides to support those that represent Caesar's faction, Mark Antony and Octavian.
34:08With her help, they defeat Caesar's enemies.
34:12Octavian and Mark Antony split Rome between them.
34:15Octavian will administer the west of the empire, while Mark Antony will administer the wealthy and prosperous east.
34:22There's no doubt that Mark Antony got the better deal.
34:26The east was more heavily populated.
34:28It had more cities in it.
34:30It was richer.
34:31And 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.
34:47There, he might scheme to bring Mark Antony down.
34:51Mark Antony is now one of the most powerful men in Rome, making him a perfect match for Cleopatra.
34:58Antony, desiring a closer relationship with Cleopatra, writes to her, asking her to leave Egypt and come to him in
35:05Greece to discuss their potential political alliance.
35:08While 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.
35:29The story goes that she staged a meeting with Antony.
35:33She presented herself to him all decked out with flowers and, you know, gold fittings, and she was dressed up
35:39as the goddess Isis.
35:41He must have been blown away by this vision, right?
35:43He'd probably never seen anything like this.
35:45She was a living goddess.
35:46As Cleopatra wins over Antony, the dark side of this glamorous love affair comes to the fore.
35:54Cleopatra has a mission for Antony.
35:56She wants him to kill her sister, Arsinoe, who was living in exile in Ephesus.
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,
36:10not just for herself, but now for her son, Caesarian, who is her heir.
36:15In so doing, Cleopatra ensures Mark Antony's complete obedience.
36:21It is a binding in blood of their somewhat unholy alliance.
36:26In 41 BCE, Mark Antony visits Alexandria and stays at the palace with Cleopatra, remaining in Egypt through the winter
36:35of 41 to 40 BCE.
36:38Roman records describe his time as filled with feasting and excess, exciting the Roman elite's obsession with displays of wealth
36:46and power.
36:48Word soon spreads to Rome that Cleopatra has forged a political alliance with Antony and is pregnant with his child.
36:55Rumors 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, their might and
37:12their ability.
37:13But 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 changed substantially with the relationship with Rome.
37:29Octavian is definitely anxious to take up what he feels is his rightful inheritance from Julius Caesar and become the
37:36ruler of the Roman world.
37:37And Cleopatra throws a great big wrench into those plans by creating this alliance with Antony and then having children
37:44with Antony.
37:45And this creates a very unfortunate dynamic for Octavian who can see power slipping away.
37:52Octavian sees this relationship between Cleopatra and Antony as a potential threat to his own power.
38:00And so what do you do in that situation? You make your enemy unpopular.
38:05And he does that pretty masterfully.
38:08It's not so much that these good Roman men are falling short.
38:11It's that Cleopatra has twisted their minds and ensured that they are subservient to her in some way.
38:21Octavian is very keen to bring to an end Mark Antony's influence and his relationship with Cleopatra.
38:28Octavian wants Antony to marry his sister Octavia.
38:33But I think it's sort of a trap because if Antony does marry Octavia and he isn't faithful, if he's
38:43still loyal to Cleopatra,
38:45well then that's the perfect excuse for Octavian to paint Antony in a very negative light and portray himself as
38:55obviously the opposite.
38:56Antony is a bit of an idiot. He goes ahead with the marriage and then he abandons her and goes
39:02back to Cleopatra.
39:03As Antony and Cleopatra sequester themselves in Alexandria, the Roman world is buzzing.
39:10Rumors begin to fly that Antony has made his children the heirs to Roman territories in the east.
39:15And that Cleopatra and Antony are pushing the idea that Caesarian, not Octavian, is the true heir of Caesar.
39:23These tensions are coming to a boiling point. A showdown between Octavian and Antony and Cleopatra is near.
39:31Goaded by Cleopatra, Mark Antony eventually in 31 BC decides to send divorce documents to his wife Octavia.
39:42This enrages Octavian even further because of course now it's personal.
39:47According to Octavian, he goes into the Temple of the Vestal Virgins, takes Antony's will and in it he finds
39:56out that Antony has proclaimed Caesarian the true heir of Caesar
40:00and that he intends to leave his portion of the Roman Empire to his children with Cleopatra.
40:08It seems highly unlikely that he would have raided the Temple of Vesta.
40:13It is more likely that he invented the story entirely.
40:16He was looking for an excuse to be able to move against Mark Antony and Cleopatra.
40:22But what happens here is that nobody attacks Mark Antony for this.
40:26This is his will. This is his wishes. They blame Cleopatra for this.
40:32Cleopatra is the one that led Antony astray, that ensnared him.
40:36And so he declares war against Cleopatra, kind of sparing Antony, but really making this about Cleopatra.
40:45To declare war on Mark Antony risks raising factions who might support him against Octavian.
40:53But to declare war on Cleopatra, that is something that Romans could rally behind.
40:59Cleopatra is the scapegoat in Octavian's political game.
41:05She is the one that is going to bear the fallout in order for him to ensure his own power.
41:15September 2nd, 31 BCE.
41:19Mark Antony's fleet of over 200 ships meet the smaller fleet of Octavians off the coast of the Greek town
41:26of Actium.
41:27While Antony's fleet is larger, Octavian's fleet is more experienced.
41:33Octavian's forces crush Antony and Cleopatra's fleets, a defeat that is a crippling blow for Cleopatra and Egypt.
41:46We don't really know how it would have played out if Cleopatra had won.
41:50Certainly, she would have retained control of Egypt.
41:53The Romans probably would have never accepted her as a ruler.
41:57But her children, possibly, and Mark Antony, would have been.
42:01What we would have seen would have been an incredible empire, all of the might of Rome, with the backing
42:06of Egypt's wealth and grain.
42:08In 30 BC, Mark Antony does the Roman thing and falls upon his own sword.
42:15I think Cleopatra knows that her future is essentially forfeit.
42:19I don't think she expects to survive very long, but she has children to think about.
42:25And their future might be secure if she plays her cards right.
42:30And she may think for a while she can deal with Octavian, but he is a cold fish.
42:35And he is not going to fall for any of her charm.
42:37And he wants her son's life.
42:39She sends her son out of the country.
42:42She's trying to get him to India to safety.
42:44Octavian catches him and kills him.
42:46The only way to save her other children is to surrender.
42:50So she does.
42:52But meanwhile, she decides she's not hanging around.
42:55She's not going to go to Rome and be walked through the streets of Rome in chains while the citizens
43:01of Rome throw garbage at her.
43:03It's not going to happen.
43:04So she kills herself.
43:09Traditionally with an asp.
43:11An asp is a long, slow death.
43:13I strongly suspect she used a cobra.
43:16A cobra is the royal snake that the Egyptian kings and queens wear on their crown.
43:20And a cobra bite, it's a neurotoxin.
43:23You'll be dead in a minute.
43:25You'll be dead in seconds.
43:26I think she would have the brains to go for that death.
43:31Cleopatra VII put everything on the line.
43:34And she put up possibly the best fight we could have expected from a woman in her position at this
43:39point 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.
43:51The line of Nama that began in year 3000 BCE has finally ended.
43:57The pharaohs will never rise again.
44:01But what of Egypt?
44:04What would Egypt look like without a pharaoh?
44:06And how would it be ruled?
44:08Egypt now is unequivocally part of the Roman Empire.
44:12It belongs to Rome.
44:14Now, what does Octavian do with Egypt?
44:17He doesn't want to give it to a senator to govern.
44:21He thinks it's too rich and powerful of a place for that.
44:23So he just decides to make it his own private property.
44:27He takes on Caesar's position as head of state.
44:32He renames himself Caesar Augustus.
44:36And he becomes essentially the son of a god, because at this point they have raised Caesar to the form
44:48of a god.
44:49So everything that Octavian hated about the Egyptian hierarchy, he is now embodying in his own life.
45:02Under Roman rule, Egypt would continue to serve as the breadbasket of Rome, and an important trading node connecting the
45:10Mediterranean world with the Far East.
45:12The old gods continued to be worshipped for centuries, and Egyptian gods began to spread across the Roman world.
45:20The priests of Egypt strike a deal with the occupying army.
45:25And they say, we will keep people quiet, we will keep production lines going, but you've got to support the
45:31temples.
45:31And under the Romans are built some of the best temples that are left.
45:37A lot of Philae, Homombo, beautiful Edfu and Esna.
45:43Up at Dendera, a wonderful temple.
45:46Part of it's built by Cleopatra and her dad, but part of it, you read the hieroglyphs and you think,
45:50Nero? Nero built this temple?
45:53The old religion would continue to attract followers.
45:57But then, a new religious movement began to appear that challenged everything.
46:03Egypt is one of the very first countries to adopt Christianity.
46:06People flee from the fall of Jerusalem into Egypt.
46:10There'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.
46:19And what appeals to the Egyptians is the sense of justice.
46:23There will be a judgment after death.
46:25Evil will be punished and the good will be rewarded.
46:28And even if you're poor, you can go to heaven.
46:31In some ways, Egyptian culture, Egyptian religion was fertile ground for Christianity to spread.
46:37Because there are some interesting similarities.
46:39Think about Osiris.
46:41Osiris who was murdered and sent into the next life unjustly.
46:45Well, Osiris and Jesus have a lot in common.
46:48And his mother, Mary, she looks a lot like Isis.
46:52So Christianity is going to borrow lovely ideas from Egypt.
46:56And 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.
47:15But for most of post-Pharaonic history, Egypt remained a mystery.
47:20While the temple walls and great tombs are covered in the written stories of these glorious people,
47:27their stories went untold.
47:29Over the centuries, the knowledge of how to read hieroglyphics had been lost.
47:33A secret that would remain hidden until the beginning of the 19th century.
47:38In 1798, Napoleon Bonaparte leads an expedition to Egypt.
47:43Obviously, 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 around
47:55them.
47:56They capture the natural world and modern life, but they also really focus a lot on the monuments of Egypt.
48:03And they publish this as a volume called Description de l'Egypte, or Description 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.
48:31In addition to igniting scholarly interest, this also ignites a huge popular interest in ancient Egypt.
48:40Everybody was crazy for everything Egyptian.
48:43Ancient Egyptian motifs appeared in architecture and jewelry and glass and all kinds of decorative arts.
48:50We start to see more and more people traveling leisurely to Egypt.
48:55We have the removal of almost any artifact that one can stuff in a suitcase or purchase.
49:02They were selling Egypt off to the highest bidder.
49:06That's why so many collections around the world have such rich Egyptian sections, because that all really comes out of
49:14this period.
49:15It's hard not to be fascinated by ancient Egypt, whether one is thinking about the monumental architecture,
49:23the sophistication of its artistic and literary traditions, the complexity of its urban cultures,
49:30and the richness of its lore around the Nile and religion more generally.
49:35We cannot think of modern-day society without thinking of the legacy of ancient Egypt.
49:43The pharaoh's legacy persists, fueled by the relentless self-glorification that cemented their image as god-kings.
49:51Their propaganda through colossal monuments, such as the pyramid of Khufu,
49:56to their nearly mythic narratives crafted by Ramses II after the Battle of Kadesh,
50:01have successfully fascinated us for millennia.
50:05Despite their oppressive rule, we're captivated by their grandeur,
50:09a testament to how effective their manipulation of image and power truly was.
50:14But what has also survived after all these years is the incredible lives of the everyday Egyptians,
50:21a legacy that lives on in the people of Egypt even to this day.
50:26Many of the rituals that existed at the time, or some of the words that existed at the time,
50:31they are 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.
50:54Twenty centuries later, her life, loves and legend continue to captivate the imagination of the world.
51:02One of the greatest legacies Cleopatra left us is the Temple of Hathor she erected at Dundera.
51:08Within this temple, echoes of Egypt's origins reach back to Nama, the first king of the two lands.
51:16Here we find images of Cleopatra herself immortalized in stone, standing among the gods and pharaohs of Egypt.
51:24And like the other immortal rulers of Egypt, Nama, Khufu, Armos, Hatshepsut, Akhenaten, Ramses, Alexander,
51:34Cleopatra lives on, forever etched in the memory of humankind.
51:40The End
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52:09The End
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